Mother Fonker - To fonk is human. To mother, divine.

Of course, no smiling pics from this teen

I already have a teen-ager today!
Older son is 13 years old.
And I'm still cute! hahaha ilurveet...

I can totally relate to Mrs Bear's thoughts on her daughter's birthday.
Exact same thingy on raising a fussy 1st born.

13yo bore all the brunt of my toxic younger years: the wrecklessness, my negligence, my crazy bitch fits/ possession. Tsk tsk...

Nonetheless, I'm still lucky enough to have this son, who is kooky and wise in his own child ways.

Son, no matter how old you get, I'll always be here to walk along with you (maybe behind you later on) in your life's journey.

And no matter how old you get,
for new stages in your life,
I will always take the moment to tease you

"I will come with you because it's your first day...
and you'll tell me, I'm scared, mummy.
And I'll say, don't worry anak, I'll hold your hand."
(whether in university, post-grad, new office, and more...)
Okay fine, when you're 30 years old, it's not teasing, it's harassing.

But what the hey, I won't miss the chance ;-)

i love you anak

Should've started this list long ago. I've thought up alot of snippets about this in my head through the years.

My favorite anecdote of knowing they've grown again happened last summer.
We were all (my sister, niece, me and 2 boys) watching the weekly music video countdown. The kids were very interested watching the show with mouths open, waiting for song #20 up to the number 1 song of the week. Nobody stood up and wandered around unless there were commercial breaks.

The last time the kids watched with mouths open was for the nth repeat of some disney movies. We've definitely graduated from that now.



For today, i know they've grown again because:

1. One son went to grandma, and the other stayed behind.

Used to be that, if grandma orders them to come over, both come over. Now 1 son has grown enough brains to decline.

2. Son celebrated his birthday with friends on his own.

3. When I asked son to buy soda, he bought, got glasses, poured, and gave me my own serving. And I didn't ask. What a nice kid...

We have the 1st beauty queen in our family.

Unfortunately, the queen is a boy – the freshman son. His school has a month-long celebration of United Nations activities. He signed up as escort for *gasp!* the UN pageant. Friends know my term of endearment for my boys—and for all men and women I like - fag, fairy, princess, and now queen! This makes me Queen Mother, very interesting…

Always the cocky one, freshman strutted up and down the aisle without a care in the world. The talent portion was a hoot. He didn’t do a sound check, so he and his partner wound up with a very bad talent portion, indeed.

Just when I was about to nod off to sleep, the Q&A portion came. The question to answer was “Who is the most influential person in your life and why?”
Without batting an eyelash, he said “My mom.”
Me shouting in the background SIP-SEHPPP! (Rough translation: Sucky!)

He continued, “Because bla-bla-bla”
Shouting in the background again : ALLOWANCE RAISE FOR YA!

Good thing the students were all excited and noisy so my bad manners was unnoticeable.

I nudge 8year old over the din. “If you tell him I said that (the allowance raise part), I will so deny it.” He looked at me with the usual "The old woman is nuts!" gape.

I knew freshman would answer that. It was a no-brainer. I was kind of fantasizing he would say something like -- because she sets a good example. Teaches me to be concerned about the environment, or because she encourages me to be cause-oriented or to value -ehem- world peace. Whatever. But not the bla-bla-bla.

Oh well. I always knew I have a tremendous responsibility over these boys because whether I wanted it or not, they will become Mini-MEs. I knew I had to be extra-careful because I hold their characters by the neck. Mothers have so much power that way. Dad may order the kids around,dictate what stuff they can have or not, but moms... moms dictate the contents of the soul. Scary, I know.

Plus there's this weird thingy about grown-up Filipino men and their mothers, so I have to watch out for that as we go along life as well.

While it gives me such great honor, hearing it straight from the beauty queen’s mouth gives me a renewed reminder of the seriousness of my responsibility.

You heard it straight, queen mother. So you better straighten up.

As I weighed what he said, I thought in this pageant, the essence of this woman (moi) is honor. I am required to live honorably all throughout my life because I carry in my hands the fragile souls of two unfortunate boys.

Surprisingly, freshie qualified for the finals.
Whatever, I feel like I already won the Ms. Universe crown.

Blogging teaches me a lot of things about myself.

One thing I’ve learned about myself because of blogging is how hung up I truly, madly, deeply am about my sons’ gray uniforms.

With learning, you can change. I want white uniforms but also help the environment a little. I’ve decided to drop bleach and try at least vinegar and/or baking soda at whitening my sons’ gray uniforms. If it works, I'll say goodbye forever more to the dangers of bleach to the environment and my own health.

Test for today: Vinegar to substitute for laundry bleach

So, dump in the vinegar with the laundry. This hopeless gray looks like a job for… Manual Laundry v.1.0. aka, Hand Wash!

Scrub scrub. Sing a little. What’s your laundry song? Me --> “Loving you… is easy cuz ur beautifuhhl…

I swear, VINEGAR WORKS. While the polo shirt doesn’t really look white-white, The gray brightened up a little…

… And making lohhve with youhhh, is all I wanna dooh…

Along comes 8-year old (as kids always show interest in whatever adults do) and asks

“Why does the laundry smell like food?”

Shut up. I swat him away with bubbles.

The brightened gray now looks EVEN all throughout. Ooh… Did you know that whitened laundry can bring you little pseudo orgasmic waves? If you’re as hung up with gray laundry as I am, maybe it will. Try it.

Whee. What fun. After rinsing, there's no acrid smell either.

Vinegar definitely works. Two thumbs up!!!


Postscript: I have a roof by the shower windows and hang laundry there when I want to shield laundry from the rains, etc.

I proudly hung my whitened polo shirts there.

Told 8-yo to shower. He refused. I said, Okay, you may use the bidet to shower (he likes that) so off he went. He was so happy with his bathtime, with all his imaginary buddies, I imagine.

He aimed the bidet at all his imaginary friends and everything else, INCLUDING the extremely dusty casement windows that crank upward SO ALL that hi-pressure water ran with the dust DOWN TO MY PROUDLY WHITENED POLO SHIRTS.

A requiem to my whitened laundry (thanks Bill Shakespeare):

“Farewell, my sister, fare thee well.
The elements be kind to thee, and make
Thy spirits all of comfort: fare thee well.”

Sniff.

In some previous post, I pointed out how nice it would be if you made friends with your kids’ friends. Great move for future surveillance purposes.

Now let’s talk about the converse: Let your friends be friends with your kids.

Wha??? Why?



Life Lessons behind this:

• Mang Napo is THE Papy of all time. He’s the first man I shared a crib with. He’s my father. Loved him to the max. Just a quiet man, always invisible at the periphery of my universe. This constant presence at the sides assured me of order, peace, stability. When he went away for a long vacation (ie., forever), I found out that this wonderful man was… well, EVEN MORE wonderful than I thought, based on what his friends told us about him!

How could it be possible? While it makes me happy that people regard him ever so highly, there’s a teeny part of me that makes me feel cheated. Why did I not get to meet the Napo of his friends?, this comic Napo, the Napo who cared for his work colleagues, the Napo they recognized as their leader and mentor? Traitor! Oh yeah, Mang Napo, this stuck-out tongue is definitely stuck out at ya! :-p

• Back in my nuclear-toxic days, it frustrated me that my family always saw me in the worst light. I always wished then that someday, they see me as I am outside the house. I wanted them to see that I had lots of funny anecdotes, that I can feel other emotions besides anger, that I actually knew how to … laugh. *Gasp. No!...*

• I always say to my kids “I am your mother. I am not a robot. I am human. I am not perfect. I get tired, I get hungry. I feel: I cry, I get sad, I can feel happy (really.), I want to love. I have sex (oh really… ???). I make mistakes, I suck at stuff (especially cleaning), etc etc etc… (This will entail another post)

- -

First time we lived on our own, I made the firm resolve to grab any opportunity to introduce the boys to my friends. I was all alone with two small boys. Could I ever wing it? I was surrounded by happy, caring people in the office. My officemates were not just colleagues, but felt more like family. Why should I pass it up?

And besides, it takes a village…

REASONS FOR DAMNING MY KIDS TO HELL LETTING MY FRIENDS BE FRIENDS WITH MY KIDS:

1. At the end of it all, I don’t want them to feel cheated. “How come these people knew THAT about her?” Let them be scandalized now so they can ask me about it.
2. I want them to see ME. This is the real me, kid. I’m a person, not just your slave by default. Watch me. I empathize, I care, I cuss. A lot. I may not be the best momma but I’m the only one you got.
3. I want them to learn I’m only human. Of flesh and blood I’m made. So if you boys want a sparkling clean house, go clean it yourself. Go ahead perfect mothers, scream as I exorcise you.
4. I want them to see who my friends are. So they can tell me who I are.

Bonus since it’s not all about me, unfortunately:

Builds their confidence to talk to another age group,

Mandatory to learn respect for the aging population (Yes, 30 somethings, that includes you in the eyes of my kids)

Learn empathy for the oldies as they learn by osmosis about our culture and way of thinking, etc etc etc.



And for my friends who I don’t get to see, rest assured I tell them about you. See Reason #4. Hehe, bloggey friends, you are so not exempted.

How old does it make you feel when the spawn of your loins starts studying Guns and Roses?

Freshman is a rocker dude in training. Just like everything he does, he’s great with a guitar, at least for his age. At grade 5, he just asked for a guitar. When he got one, turns out he already knew how. Learned from somewhere outside the house.

While I shed hair in my day to learn tablature (tabs were rare then here), he just breezes through tabs and just… knows.

I always tell him if he was serious about his rockistry, he might as well study his rock history and other music genres, among other things (like storytelling, poetry, history, sociology, psychology, accounting, vulcanizing… oh, I nearly forgot instruments.)


He is currently in-love with Guns n Roses’ Sweet Child of Mine.

How old does it make you feel when the spawn of your loins starts studying Guns and Roses?, and the generation gap is so thick in the air it sits on your head… laughing.

- -

Well, this generation gap is a gap in a good way, because we had a fun time looking GnR up in the net.

The mom was so alive looking up the different songs to show him that GnR is a genius in its own right.

We had fun looking up tabs, GnR on YouTube, Sheryl Crowe’s on YouTube, GnR and GnR-related sites and (OMG! I soooo lurv) Bossa n Roses.

- -

Heard Bossa n Roses in a coffee shop and wanted to ask the staff who was singing. Good thing the info was easily available on the net. Album was released in 2006, but like any GnR stuff it’s so classic anyways who cares if I just found out about them…

- -

Told my son to compare the bands in the 90s and bands now.

Bands then – stinky, icky fashion, substance deps, violent, fighty, etc etc

Bands now – (at least image-wise) smells goods, looks good, promotes peace prosperity and love for all mankind. Wussy? A lil bit, yeah.


Don’t believe me?

Which Sweet Child is sweeter?




Disabled! but here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ddAigsWSIA, or

Here's the audio anyways, with the cover that guys particularly love:




(Love the recorder? flute? on this one.)

Thanks so much to Shiela at Life's Journey for releasing her butterflies to blogs she liked and she included me! *sniff-sniff... dab sides of eyes lightly* Blogging is such a great self-absorption activity. I talk about myself, and get an award! Nice... ;-p

I am also giving butterflies to the following bloggers... Rules are : Link to the person who gave you the award, select 10 other favorite bloggers, put in their links to your site and inform them how much you appreciate their blog.

My favorite bloggers:
- Casey @ Half as Good as You
- Kia @ Good Enough Mama
- Toni @ It is Naptime
- On the Verge
- Liza @ Moms Check Nyo
- Jamie Sue @ Free Printable Fun
- Sandra @ Super Mae
- Lisa @ Work at Home Mom Revolution
- Melinda @ Lite - The Lighter Version of Life

Should I even mention I would like to give it AGAIN to my favorite Mrs Bear? Gave her an award already, and she's so bad-ass I wouldn't be surprised if she gets all awards ever invented! (I'm sure she won't mind to give a chance to others :-)

Your blogs rock! Lurv eet!

Wala - Filipino word meaning "Nothing"

Background: My family is super-conservative. We never talk about crushes. I'm not too sure if we were allowed to have one then. But right now, as a single 32-year old mom of 2 boys you bet your pwet (arse) I'M SURE I am NOT allowed to have crushes in front of my mom. Yeesh.

I'm not too sure where I stand about kids' crushes.

When son the freshman was in kindergarten he said his teacher teased the kids on whose crush was who. I cringed when I first learned of it. They were pre-school for Chrissakes. But this teacher (the headmistress actually) was a smart, warm, wonderful mom with several advanced degrees in child development... so it took a little getting used to, and I just let it be. I pinned my hopes she knew what she was doing, because I hadn't the foggiest idea how to deal with it.

I am still clueless about it, but I do know that generally I would like to teach my sons to be respectful, no matter who has a crush on who.

- -

Last week, 8year old and I talking and I mentioned the name of a girl-classmate. 8yo said “My classmates say that girl has a crush on me.”

I put on my best pokerface. Really…

But truthfully, her mom has good-humoredly told me that she’s so in-crush with my son in grade 1. Little girl talked incessantly about him over the summer break. She also wrote him a lot of pretend love-emails that time. It wasn't annoying because this little girl was modest about it, shy around him, really.

I didn’t tell my son about it because it’s… well… some girl things are sacred.

So I asked my son, What do you do when someone has a crush on you?

No answer.

What?

Still no answer. I said Wala. (translation: Nothing.) You will not do anything. You carry on as always. You will not be rude to a girl, you will always be polite. As you grow older, you will find some girls’ behavior crazy when they like you. But I expect you to do nothing, and still be polite.

Overkill? Ya, I know.

It’s just that I think crushes are the petri dish of future relationships. And they’re genetically pre-disposed to become male chauvinist pigs. Their spermdonor is a pig, their grandspermdonor was a pig, and Lord knows 1 of my grandfathers is a major porker – a rural legend with his impregnating women from every street in his small, sleepy town. With all due apologies to pigs, of course.

- -

Friday that same week…

8yo reported he was also being teased that another classmate had a crush on him. He excitedly told this to his bro over dinner.

I raised my point again, this time for the benefit of freshman bro. Freshman bro has an “active lovelife” also. Yeah, I’m a big LOZER beside these two.

Remember what we talked about when girls have a crush on you? What will both of you do when someone has a crush on you?

“Pursue the girl!” freshman kidded.

EWW! Gross! That is so gurkish (an adjective I made up to pertain to all things macho-wacho, chauvinist, icky, gross and whatnot, based on their spermdonor’s nickname)

“I was just kidding!”

Still, ick.

What? What do you do when you find out a girl is crushing you?
8 year old is quiet, lesson obviously forgotten.

What???, I pester.

“Run?” asks freshman

Clue. Starts with a letter W. 4 letters.

Both boys chorus – “Walk?”

WALA! WALA!! WALAAAAAAA!!!!! You don’t do anything!

Sigh. Should I even try at all???

Thought it might be fun to write something that Good Enough Mama started. Wonder if my kids will agree these are the worst, or that I'm worse than worst. I hope they don't file a formal objection. Or hold a rally in my face.

***BAD

#10 Months go on end that I don’t sew buttons or zippers on uniforms, etc.
Tsk tsk…

# 9 Sometimes I go for a week or two that I don’t feed them vegetables.
My saving grace is milk.


***WORSE

#8 Sometimes, I wake up late on schooldays.
Thus, the boys are late too. I have experienced waking up to the schoolbus aide knocking on our door.

#7 If I equally divide any snack between the 3 of us, and 1 gobbles everything up and asks for my share, I flat out refuse.

No way, man. I try to hide behind the noble reason of learning to adjust to what you have, but really, it’s because I’m selfish and don’t want to give away my share. :-p


***WORST

#6 I’m always late for my sons’ programs.
At least those informal ones where I’m not expected to do anything, but I just want to be there.

Last program I attended for my freshman son, with the program unclarified, found out that parents were supposed to hang medals on the honor students (my son was top3). I arrived when the 3rd years were being called.


***EVILLL

#5 Cussing is allowed in my house.
We are allowed to say shit, fuck, and goddamnit!

I figured since they are boys, they'll say bad words with their peers anyway. I'm just removing the titillating thrill of doing something forbidden.

With the following clarifications:
• They are not allowed to say so in school, in public, in front of other family,
• Only allowed to say it when 3 of us are around.
• Because they will make other people uncomfortable,
• Because they will be called in by guidance/ the principal… (scary. This reason shuts the cussing up in public)

(Numinoo-minoo-minoo...I'm not mentioning that I swear when I'm angry, I swear when I'm surprised, I swear when I'm happy.. numinoo-minoo-minoo...)

#4 They are REQUIRED to call penis a penis, a vagina a vagina, sex for sex. Or else.

If parents hit the roof when their kids say “sex” or “penis”. Me, I hit the roof when I hear “that thing” or “pee pee” and the rest. I become semi-hysterical.

I can’t help it. I used to work in a reproductive health clinic/ advocacy group and calling body parts different names causes trouble big time. So at least in my house, this is the rule.

#3 When my stronger kid gets fever, I don’t believe him.
When he was 2years old, he got really sick and was injected with several bottles of gamma globulin… He was invincible thereafter… Rarely got sick. Like Obelix in the comic book Asterix.

As the years wore on, his body was becoming less and less resistant to illness. When he says he has fever, I pooh2 him. Later the school will call to inform me he threw up because he was ill and can I please pick him up…

Slow, stubborn bitch that I am, I still forget to believe him sometimes.




***OMG!!! YOUR KIDS SHOULD BE TAKEN AWAY

The last 2 are head-to-head. The worst, the most eee-vihhhhhllll!!!… *Thunder rumbling*

I had a hard time judging which one makes me the worst mother in the whole wide universe.

#2 Their white uniforms are gray.
See "The polo shirts are always whiter over there" in this link

#1 Because I use their lives as blog fodder. Definitely without consent.

Just last night, teen son asked me, “Mom, what’s the name of your blog?” He apparently wanted to monitor it for new entries.

Without skipping a beat I said, Don’t wanna tell you.

“Why?”

Because I write about you.


Evil, I am.
Muhahaha! Muhahahah!
*Thunder rumbling*

(and so are you ;-)