15 Jan 2012
by angkuletin MOMents Tags: friendship, Lia, MOMents
Lia is making me very emotional tonight.
To answer the question, “Where is Papa?” I had to say, “Papa is not here. You know he doesn’t live in Lolo’s house. Papa lives in Papa’s house.”
While hanging out in the balcony, where she chose to join me after seeing me sitting in the dark on a little step and after putting on her favorite pair of shoes from the shoe rack that now holds almost all of her shoes and almost ALL of mine, she looked up at the sky, held her arms over her head and said, “It’s raining on a starry night.”
Looking at her shoes, and remembering mine, I am reminded of what her Papa said this morning, as he was packing my shoes in a big box, “You’re bringing all of these shoes? Now, you don’t have any shoes here.” I said I still have about six to eight pairs of footwear in the shoe rack. He said, “But these are the shoes that you don’t wear anymore.”
Lia went up to me, holding a little doll dressed in pink that she found in my sister’s bedroom’s display cabinet and that she fondly calls Princess, asking me, “Where are her shoes?” I said, “I don’t know. She doesn’t have any shoes.” Then she picked up another doll, a doll from my childhood, a United Nations costume doll from Denmark, and looked at its feet. Seeing that the Danish doll is also barefoot, she told me, “Her shoes are also missing.”
A few minutes later, she came back to me, holding a little black piece of something that upon closer inspection was revealed to be a tiny shoe. “Look mama, it’s a shoe.” And she tried to fit it onto the Danish doll’s foot and lo and behold, it fit! I heard her exclaim, “Yaaan!”
Coming back to Princess and her bare feet, Lia held it up and said, “Her shoes are missing. I’ll go and find it?” To which I could only nod. Speechless.
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11 Jan 2012
by angkuletin MOMents Tags: Bicol, Camarines Sur, Caramoan, Manlawi, MOMents, more fun in the Philippines, travel
So I was busy being a mother and doing my “home-based business” in call center mode today when I check in to my Facebook and voila!
My friend and STS (Science, Technology and Society) favorite seat mate Miapurple tagged me in a post, saying, “See what I found circulating on facebook! This looks very familiar”
And lo and behold!
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29 Nov 2011
by angkuletin MOMents Tags: Lia, milestones, MOMents, pre-school
At least once a week, Lia and I go out for a day – just the two of us. We’d take public transportation and just enjoy ourselves. She loves pedicabs and tricycles. She loves looking out of the bus window, with her hair blowing in her face. She also loves to take off her footwear and get on an utterly “relaxing” ride.
We usually hang out at various stores. The local department stores are so fun. They have a lot of cheap stuff that Lia and I just adore. We go home with either nothing or just about the weirdest stuff, like a big orange strainer that she insisted on putting on my head, like a hat, and a salt shaker.
We’d walk down the streets hand in hand, buying little trinkets and munching on fruits and other food bought from sidewalk vendors. Sometimes its maruya or puto bucayo and sometimes its lollipop or gummy bears or popsicles.
Yesterday we went for a little walk in Naga and passed by a preschool. I have long thought about taking Lia to school but could not find one that accepted toddlers her age. She saw the slide and see-saw and insisted on coming in. I grabbed the opportunity to inquire at the office since we were already there. Lia would be spending half her time in Manila and half her time in the province so I needed to know the possible arrangements, and of course, costs.
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03 Sep 2011
by angkuletin MOMents, Musings Tags: elephanty, MOMents, plastic flowers, silly panty, silly stuff
After a long day of going everywhere with Myx – local high schools, the Pili Municipal Hall, my friend’s house, the airport, the Cam. Sur Water Sports Complex, Ateneo de Naga University and San Miguel Corporation office, the last thing I wanted to do was go back to Wharf, even if I have been missing Tanikala Tribe for a while now. I made it home in time to take Lia out for a little trip outside!
We took a pedicab to we didn’t know where…. until I had this funtastic idea!
“Is that store in the old Benjie cinema still open at this time?” I asked the pedicab driver. He said it closed at eight.
When we got there, the guard was already closing some of the display windows. Apparently, they close at seven thirty, and Lia and I barely made it!
We walked in and Lia and I went silly crazy! Coz we’re silly crazy like that!
By the entrance was a row of colorful plastic flowers! Lia loves flowers. Actually, she only loves them because she loves giving them to me. Flashback to that fight she and her cousin Marielle had over these plastic flowers on a vase at my dad’s house. Lia has made a habit out of taking the flowers out of the vase and giving them to me. She wants to see me holding them with my hands, and preferably near my chest, if not on top of it when I am lying down.
So on this one afternoon when my eldest sister and her daughter were at my dad’s house, Lia took the flowers and gave them to me. Her cousin took the flowers, which were lying on top of my chest, and says, “This is mine!” Lia ran to her and tried to take the flowers back saying, “This is my Mama’s flowers! My Mama’s flowerrrrsssss!” and thus began a screaming, crying match with a tug-of-war for the beloved plastic flowers. I looked at my daughter’s eyes, her face streaming with tears and saw the struggle for “her Mama’s flowers” and I didn’t know whether to laugh or stay mum. Half of me wanted to just take the flowers away from my niece and tell her, “Yes this is MY flowers!” but I’d like to believe I’m the kind of mother that lets my daughter fight her own fights.
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02 Sep 2011
by angkuletin Family, MOMents Tags: family, Lia, photo booth
I got tired with doing the photo booth shat endlessly so I got up to leave, Lia, on the other hand had become addicted to it and would tell me, “Mama, smore! smore! Yeah, it’s not the marshmallows she’s talking about but go figure. Though I think she is saying “More” but is misled into believing she should say “There’s more!” Like she thinks the right word for “milk” is teem. Anyway, the following series is just too cute.
I love looking at these photos over and over and over again. She does NOT look like me. Bummer. Hahaha. Though that fact I have known since day 1. She would, sometimes, tend to look like me, but well, that’s just a direct result of my putting my face right next to hers every single day and night. 
In your face Lia
Lia with her Papa face and Papa stare
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01 Sep 2011
by angkuletin MOMents Tags: fun, Lia, MOMents, photo booth
On the night that we’re supposed to go back to Manila, Lia and I stayed home and guarded the door. Yes, that was actually what we we’re doing. Some person’s phone in the house kept ringing and some woman kept looking for someone, and this someone kept saying ‘the daughter and her child’ were still home. I decided that for this night, no one is getting past that door.
Lia and I amused each other, dancing to MTV, singing along to Disney Junior shows, and then, I had this brilliant idea of using an application on my mac that I have never used before – the Photo Booth.
These are what Lia and I came up with:
Kissy kissy
Tonguey tongue out
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27 Aug 2011
by angkuletin Family, MOMents Tags: Ewok, family, home, Lia
A lazy evening at home with the three girls in the family…
August 16, 2011
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20 Jul 2011
by angkuletin MOMents, Musings Tags: home, musings
I’m back home now, where I fell asleep on the sofa earlier this morning after having about an hour and a half of good chat over chocolate milk with H. Lia watched her favorite morning shows on the telly while she laid in my arms as I slept.
As of this writing, I am sitting on Lia’s orange little chair while the electric fan blows our way, fanning me and my little one who is fast asleep on the sofa. She was stacking cans of soft drinks on the table in front of the television set when she turned around and slipped on her milk bottle. An accident that left her sprawled on the floor, with a bleeding lower lip and screaming for her Mama. I picked her up and cradled her in my arms, wiped the blood, the sweat, whispering in her ear words of comfort, until she fell asleep. She fell asleep with a frown on her face, while I had a smile on mine. I have missed this so badly. This. This baby in my arms. The past nights were spent pining away for her, as I could not sleep in my hotel room, in a bed that in the past I have always shared with her, missing her hands entwined with mine.
The past weekend had been very difficult. In so many ways.
But yesterday as I was leaving, I hugged my father tightly while he was cooking his dinner, asking him if he was going to be okay all by himself. I went home to get a blanket, and so that I could sit on the rocking chair in the balcony and spend some time with my father. A little chit chat. We had cried ourselves away last Saturday, quietly, as discreetly as possible.
Today, I am thinking of going to the hospital or a doctor to have my back checked, maybe have an x-ray done. Maybe I might also have some time to go to the dentist. Dulaang U.P.’s Rizal X is opening tonight so maybe, finally, after so many months, I can shoot again. Then it seems that my Travel Factor friends are all in town so maybe we can get together for our usual midweek get together. Maybe, just maybe.
This blog has been through a lot. About 50% of the original content is missing. The backlinks don’t work half of the time. My list of favorite links on the right navigation panel need to be set up again. I need to bring back the categories and the top navigation drop-down menu. All of my about 4,000 tags were totally erased. Ah, a lot needs to be done.
Tomorrow it’s all back to work again. I’m not looking forward to the operational meeting as I believe we will be looking at “Not Done” tasks again, and no one will be happy about it. But for today, let me lounge around in my own home, while my baby sleeps, comforted by the fact that in her dreams and in her reality, her mama is back.
05 Jun 2011
by angkuletin MOMents
It’s been some time since we had another one of those lazy Sundays, an entire day spent just laying in bed. Last Sunday, we were supposed to go on an early morning flight to Dumaguete, for some family time and some much-needed rest and relaxation or more like some much-needed time by the beach, maybe do a lot of swimming and snorkeling in Apo Island, or spend some time in the shade of an umbrella or beach hut where its bright and sunny and oh-so-freakin hot, but as it is, H said if we went on that supposed 4 day-3 night trip, that would only leave him with three days of leave for the entire year, all the way up to December. (I could go on about this and that and this and that and why we’ve not been on any trip since January this year blah blah blah but I’m just gonna go back to these photos and say, ahhh, this is still rest and relaxation. *smiles*) In fact, it is! No packing, no going to the airport, or running after public modes of transportation such as buses and the likes – only, simply, laying in bed all day with my little me.
My body clock has been used to bar hours so I tend to sleep the morning away – and that is how I ended having photos like these. Oh Lia, you are one LOVE-ly little girl.
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06 May 2011
by angkuletin MOMents
I love it when Lia looks for my hand saying “hands, hands, hands” while taking my hand to wrap it around her when we are laying in bed about to sleep. I love it when we hold hands as we sleep.
I love it when we stand by the side of the road waiting for transportation and she hails all the trikes and jeeps passing by.
I love it when we take public transportation and we sit side by side, looking out the window.
I love it when we eat together, and she hands me the food she loves and feeds me too. “Mama, you’re too skinny. Eat this, it’s delicious.”
I love it when we read books together, or watch TV together or do things together. When she says to me, “Sit down, down, down!” patting the space next to her on the chair.
I love it when every time she sees a body of water she cries out, “Fish! fish! fish!”
I love it when she treats Tutu as her alter-ego.
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