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.

I am writing this as I play Lenka’s self-titled album and Lia is playing with her blocks, reading her books, all the while singing along with every single song.

I can hold entire conversations now with Lia. It’s quite amazing, the things she says and all the things she does.

This afternoon at the airport, I felt like she wasn’t just my daughter, but my friend. We had lunch at Pancake House because she said she wanted fries and Jollibee did not have any. We took turns drinking iced tea and biting off the lemon.

I had a backpack, a camera bag, a Dora play-and-sing-along book, and we had to have some of the fries and corn dogs to go as we were running out of time, and she had Tutu on her shoulders. People we were passing by couldn’t help but smile – Tutu on her shoulders like it was her on my own.

I didn’t have to carry her anymore at all. She lined up wherever we needed to, she took off her own shoes and got them back on all on her own. She was solely responsible for Tutu. She got on and off the bus all by herself, and even the plane. She left the seat belt on when it needed to be left on and read all the magazines the entire time while I napped.

I can still remember all those trips we took when she was younger. The trips to Bohol, Boracay, Palawan, Bicol, Batanes, Hong Kong, where I had to carry her everywhere in addition to having a backpack, a camera bag, a stroller for her and more often than not, a big luggage. Those were really…. quite hard times.

The plane ride took so much longer than we expected. The plane was delayed. In fact, all the planes at the airport were delayed. There was traffic on the runway and our departure was delayed for another twenty to thirty minutes. As we were approaching Naga-Pili airport, the pilot informed us that visibility was only 5 kilometers, that the airport was closed and we should be prepared for anything. That to me meant any of the following: 1. Rerouting to Legazpi City, making our travel time two hours or so longer. 2. Turning back and landing back at NAIA Terminal 3, where nobody was waiting, and I didn’t have any keys to the house in Rizal. Everyone got anxious.

All we could see were clouds and rain on the window panes. The plane looked like it was going to land after all, as the wheels were lowered right outside our window, and I looked at Lia, looking back at me, and I held her in my arms. I kept telling her, “Keep your seat belt on okay? I love you.” and Lia did not take her eyes off me the entire time, muttering softly, “Mama… mama” over and over again. Darn, I nearly cried.

The plane did land, amidst claps from almost all of the passengers. Damn it. I can only remember two instances when I felt that happy to land – the other one on that plane from Korea after a grueling four-day trip around the world. I remember being probably happier than all the OFWs on that plane combined.

When we got home, the box of shoes was all wet. Lia and I were sitting in front of the TV and Lia said, “Mama, don’t sit on the box. It’s wet.” I promptly moved off the box and onto a nearby chair and she said, “Ayaan.” I can’t believe that Lia, at two and a half, can already take care of me, somehow.

What ever it is I did wrong, whatever it is I am not doing right, I will make it right. Lia has always been my life. The decision to have her was the best decision I ever made in my damned life. I made a lot of mistakes, I made a lot of bad decisions, took a lot of wrong turns, invested a lot of time on all the wrong people and the wrong things – but as long as there is Lia, there is hope. I have been told to focus. I have been told to look at what I have and make the most and best out of it and surely, it has been staring at me in the face the entire time – holding out a puckered up lipsticked mouth, waiting for a kiss.

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!

This photo originally appears in this blog post.

I can’t say I don’t agree. Motherhood is really more fun here in the Philippines…. but I wish, I wish… I wish, I thought of this meself! Hahaha!

I can’t also help but feel sad. I miss this. This is just one of the things I miss so much ever since I handled the bar.

That was a beautiful trip out in Caramoan and Lia was especially funny being a lizard in Manlawi. I hope Lia and I will get to go out more this year. I am already looking forward to it!

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.

The teacher showed Lia a huge alphabet book and asked to identify the objects. We made it all the way to letter O before she lost interest.

Then she was asked to identify shapes – circle, square, triangle, rectangle, oval, star, heart…

She also had a paper and pen on the desk in front of her and I saw her drawing while answering the teacher’s questions. Glancing up to answer every time she was asked “What’s this?” When the teacher pointed out the circle on the book, Lia said, “Here, circle, like this,” and I looked down to see what she had been drawing, and she had been drawing flowers and a swimming fish in the middle of a pond. In my head, I was like, “WOW.”

Then she was asked to identify colors. She knows red, yellow, blue, orange, green, violet, white and pink.

And lastly, she was asked to count. Lia can count from 1 to ten all on her own and she can also identify them when she sees them. She says, “Mama, number!” then proceeds to point out the number.

I sat there and felt like a real (and old!) parent, watching my daughter, beaming with pride. The teacher said, “Mukhang naturuan na pala to ni Mama. Kaya naman pala gusto nang ipasok sa school.”

I told the teacher I’d bring her back January.

I came home and went on the internet to look up what I should be watching out for in terms of Lia’s developmental milestones. I have not done that in what seems like ages.

Though Lia speaks gibberish half the time, she talks A LOT. She uses a lot of ME, MINE, you and yours BUT still refuses to answer to the question, “What is your name?” Sometimes she answers, “Me, baby!” Pangasar, I think. Just like she refused to learn the game “Close Open” when she was younger. She’d just look at us then look away in what seemed like her version of rolling her eyes.

She not only draws vertical lines and circles, from the picture I saw her draw at the school, she was making flowers, trees, and fish on a pond!

She’s also learned big and small. Like when she’s putting on a shirt and it can’t get through her head, she says, “Mama, its small! Big me!”

She sings a lot too. She sings “Twinkle, Twinkle”, “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and “The More We Get Together” all on her own. Sometimes she makes up the lyrics but the tune is intact. When I try to sing with her, she shushes me and says, “Me sing! Me!” She sings a LOT, and dances a lot. And plays the piano a lot. I often see her holding her hand to her ear and then humming tunes. It’s really quite enough to make me roll my eyes.

There’s not a lot of things that make me happy these days. Only Lia. I guess that’s how it’s going to be for a long time.

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.

And that, goes down in history, as the day my daughter fought for me.

And I hope it would not be the last. In fact, I hope she would always do so…..

Anyway, going back to the store, it was crazzzzzy! Crazy in the way you go crazy over at Quiapo or Divisoria for all these funky cheap finds! There were cheap Christmas decorations, cheap rugs, cheap tables and cheap pretty little study tables for Lia!

At P1,600 I had soooo wanted to buy her one. *sad face goes here* because I did not have even P500. (Kahirapan for the win!)

So I led her away down aisles of cheap shirts, cheap pants, cheap bags, cheap shades, cheap trinkets, everything there was cheap! I was laughing the entire time! Then Lia got her hands on some pink and purple markers and called out to me. She then led me back to the study tables. Uh-oh, I murmured to myself.

I led her back to the counter with her markers and a Disney Princess notebook, which she gave herself to the cashier, and paid for them. She led me back to one of the pink study tables and sat down. Oh my, how I wished I could buy the cheap pretty pink study table…

I left her there to go roaming down the aisles once more and I found myself in the aisle with the kinky huge brassieres. Hahahaha! And the kinky panties! Oh la-la-la… hahaha! I thought, shall I buy some just for kicks? See, I have never been into kinky underwear. I was always the grandmother’s-underwear kind of girl, if you know what I mean. Hahahahaha! Oh my God, I was laughing like crazy the whole time!

And then, I go and check on some of the more normal-looking panties and see this!

One silly panty - design on the back

One silly panty - design in front

And I laugh like crazy because I remember the Elephanty! The panty with the elephant design, complete with a little tail at the back! Oh la-la-la-la!

And then that reminds me of this time when H and I were going through a particular Christmas bazaar in Eastwood, and there were these panties, and we were, for some reason, going through them and he had said, “Oh this looks nice!” holding one and I take one and say too, “Oh this looks nice! Except that it looks quite dirty.” Like you know, when you’re at a bazaar, people go through the stuff with their hands and all, but this particular panty, I happened to turn over and it was really dirty! Like dirty as if someone had already worn it! And we drop the panty, and hurriedly walk away, laughing like maniacs. Damn dirty panty in the Christmas bazaar! Hahaha.

Oh I wish I had taken photos of all these silly little stuff at that silly store but all of the staff were looking at me because they were already mopping, cleaning and basically closing for the night and I was there maniacally laughing at every little thing while my daughter owned the study table out in front, making drawings on her Disney princess notebook worth P10 and pink and purple markers worth P5 each.

Schooling at the silly store

I think I will make it a habit to visit this silly store just to check out what’s new. Besides, in the absence of playgrounds or long quiet streets where we can take a little stroll together, it’s a really good bonding activity for Lia and me.

Its at times like these when I love living the provincial life. Oh the simple joys! And hoorah to silly panties!

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

Gitilon Lia

Press here

Lia's own version of the Asian pose

Vogue vogue Lia

I think she wanted to do a vogue-vogue thing with her hands. I saw her doing something with both, but then I think she couldn’t help but laugh at herself – and that was what the camera caught. What a mischievous little laugh that is too.

Smile smile

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

Pouty pout

Laugh out loud

Mama, this is sooo fun!

How do I do this?

Baby you're soooo cute! Nail polish courtesy of Lias-nail-services-while-you-sleep

Lia has this habit of painting my nails while I sleep. I just wake up the next morning with pink nail polish on my toes on one foot and blue nail polish on the other. Some days she paints them all with designs, like blue dots on pink background, or swish swashes of pink and blue and black all in one. She’s quite good too, and getting better everyday! Click here for a photo. (Warning: this is a photo of my foot! )

Huggy hug a.k.a. "Mama, huggggg!"

Duck face!

Smiley smile

Smiley smile part 2

Ta daaaa!

Cozy cozy

Yeaaaah!

Yiiiiii!

And finally, a parting sweet smile.

Big smile

**This album currently has 30 likes on Facebook. LOL

August 16, 2011

It’s been some time since we took photos of Ewok. Actually, these aren’t even photos of Ewok. These are photos of Lia with Ewok. LOL

August 16, 2011

And of course, me…

August 10, 2011

***Thanks H for the photos.

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.

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.

And she pretends to be asleep, just like her Mama.

But her eyes are wide open…

…And it makes me laugh.

Kisses to the H who took these photos. Thanks love. *winks*

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.

I love it when she says goodbye to me, waving her hand at me and giving me a flying kiss.

I even love it when she won’t let me go.

I love lots and lots and lots about being a mom. It’s what makes me happy every day. It’s what keeps me going. I love lots and lots and lots about my daughter. And I’m looking forward to celebrating Mother’s Day with her and H this coming Sunday at Stonehouse Gardens. I just know it’s going to be a really fun day. Any day anywhere with Lia is fun – that’s how much I love being a mom.

We arrived Tuesday morning and slept through the better part of the day. We did manage to get in touch with H so we spent the night at his hotel in Wan Chai, The Cosmopolitan Hotel. We had an early dinner with my cousins then went to the hotel to put Lia to bed. Afterwards, we went to the nearby night market to have a look-see and ended up having hot noodles in this open air restaurant right smack in the middle of the street.

I may not be a fan of Japanese food but I absolutely love Chinese food. This was the best noodles I have had in… seven years! Haha!

The next morning found us again on the ferry from Central to Mui Wo so we can drop off our things at my cousin’s house.

H went back to Central for his meetings and conference while Lia took a nap – and I had some really nice bonding time with my cousin over coffee. Afternoon found us walking around Tai O, then taking the MTR to Central to meet up with H. Then off we went to Causeway to have a taste of what Causeway is all about – more people and more food! Never mind the shops.

Lia had loved my little strappy dress and had insisted on having one strap over her head as well.

Then we were on the ferry back to Mui Wo to spend our last night in HK. We were off to Mong Kok the next day, but not after we took photos of ourselves around Mui Wo and had lunch at the Cooked Food Market by the pier.

This above photo is my favorite photo of Lia and I in Hong Kong since she had picked that place where we posed.

The photo below is a product of Lia learning how to say, “Picture, picture!” while we were in Hong Kong. That, along with “Let’s go!”

We took the Star Ferry going from Central to Kowloon, went around Mong Kok, where we tried to shop to no avail. Lia was a disgruntled shopper. She didn’t like anything – though we did get her a yellow sweater since she needed it.

Then we were back at the Central Star Ferry pier to just hang out for a bit.

Between Lia and me, we had one stroller, one big luggage and a carry-on backpack for her bottles, milk, diapers and my camera, among other important things. Our luggage had more bottles, diapers, milk, medicine, clothes – and there was no room for an extra pair of footwear for either Lia or me. So, there goes the traveling mommy – who brings only one pair of shoes, which is exactly the one she had on when she left her house.

I have been packing our stuff little by little and moving small stuff to the new house every now and then in preparation for the big move on Saturday – May 8!

Yesterday I emptied the overhead cabinets and the linen closet, as well as packed some clothes and bags.

In the middle of it all, Lia found her luggage. We bought a set of three – a large one for Ryan, a medium one for me, and a small one for her. I guess she knows which one is hers.

I'm packed and ready to go.

I've checked it and it's good.

Let me bring it out into the hallway.

This is how they lug this thing around.

What? Are we going or not?

That is my traveler little one. She sure knows her stuff.

In her 12 months, I’ve brought her everywhere I have been.. in Bicol (May 2009, December 2009 and February 2010), La Union (July 2009), Bohol (December 2009) and Palawan (April 2010).

She had been traveling even when she was still in my womb, Bicol (August, September, October and November 2008), Negros (September 2008), Camiguin and Misamis Oriental (January 2009), Iloilo and Guimaras (February 2009) and Pangasinan (February 2009).

Lia little girl, you will sure inherit your Lola and your Mama’s wander lust. You are a certified Travel Factor baby.

..

…

Okay lang yan, masaya naman siya eh. Ansaya-saya!

No matter how much you prepare for it, parenting will blow your mind.

Your kids will challenge you, bring you to tears, crack you up, and make you forget what you urgently had to do. They’ll shatter the life you knew into a million pieces. Then they’ll put it back together, like a stained-glass window, into something infinitely more complicated and beautiful.

While every parent’s biggest surprises are different, there are common themes to the ways that kids revolutionize our lives…

This article was lifted directly from another site.

You can read the whole text in full here.

***

Fighting during the first year of the baby is, I have found out, very common. One Sunday, Father’s Day it actually was, I took off to get some refuge at my friends’ house like I always do after Ryan and I had a fight. I called my eldest sister to talk and cried on the phone with her for hours. I could not talk to my friends about my issues since none of them are married. I was one of the first ones in all my many groups of friends to get married and for a time longed the company of married women like myself for some good talk about married life; and all the more did I look for mothers after I had the baby. Now I even join online groups for moms just so I would have an outlet for the myriad of issues I come across with and, sometimes, just to know that I am not doing so bad as a mother. My sister told me there will be a lot of fights as exhaustion and stress build up. It happens. It’s normal. We’re all just humans anyway and taking care of a baby is just really hard. That was just one of the many times I am thankful that I have sisters and that they are mothers like me too; and even more that they were mothers before I was.

Though most of my friends say I look the same, I know I don’t. Some of them say I am prettier. I think only because I have gained weight and this added weight looks good on me. At 95 lbs, I am still actually 5 lbs off from my ideal weight and 10 lbs off from the standard ideal weight for my height class. I have always wanted more weight on my frame, it just was so difficult to meet the 6,000 calories per day my nutritionist-dietitian recommended. More than the added weight, my body shape is different. Aside from a fuller chest, I now have wider hips and bigger thighs. It came as a surprise to me when two months after I had the baby, I took out the box of shirts I stored last January and found that eighty percent of my shirts did not fit me anymore. My body shape is different, but I love it.

I was never a party girl and thus did not have friends who were all about partying. I had different sets of friends, some of them drink a lot, some of them drink socially and some of them don’t drink at all. I stopped drinking beer back in 2005 and only had cocktails thereafter. I stopped having cocktails too in 2007. (I still smoke though, because it really is a hard habit to break.) I still see most of my friends. We still have good times together. I try not to talk too much about babies though, only when they ask, so as to avoid making my friends uncomfortable. Most of them do not have kids and some of them do not even have boyfriends. It’s a girl thing. I am happy though that at twenty-seven, I have friends (few they may be) who are now planning to get married or are planning to have kids of their own. It means our friendship will grow stronger. I am excited for them and excited at being able to possibly help them out too.  People evolve and it is only natural that friendships do too. Friendships are still relationships and like all other relationships, it has to be nurtured. Nurturing relationships come from a common desire to maintain communications or in other words, simply not let each other go. I am very grateful that I have managed to, so far, make such wonderful friendships. My friends are one of the things I think about when I am down, and that never fails to make me smile.

I had my first Mother’s Day a month after I had the baby and though there weren’t any gifts or even a hint of a celebration, just simple text greetings on the phone, I felt every minute of it. I got teary-eyed at every Mother’s Day commercial I saw on TV. I was even crying at the opening scene of Star Trek. I have always been such a cry-baby, but now that I am a mother, I am even more so.

Surprisingly, even if they said it would, my relationship with my own mother did not change at all. My mother and I never got along and we have always had a strained relationship. She almost never goes anywhere with just me. For a long time I dreaded having a child of my own because I was so afraid of what my own relationship with my own daughter was going to turn out. When I was pregnant, I even prayed the child I was carrying inside me was not a girl. As a child, I made my mother cry one too many times, perhaps even as an adult and, perhaps even now, and that made my mother say, “You made your mother cry. Your own daughter will too.” So afraid was I of this curse my mother put on me that I was not too happy when we confirmed, a week before I gave birth, that the child I was carrying inside me was indeed a girl. Now that I think about it, my daughter’s making her mother cry, was one inevitable fact.

We will always make our mothers cry. Be it out of sorrow or joy.

I cried and cried when I left my baby on top of the pillow and found her moments later, crying face down on the bed. When I first saw her face down on the bed like that, my first thought was, “Oh God I hope she is not dead!”, but she was crying and therefore was very much alive. I cried and cried because I felt so guilty for leaving her on top of the pillow like that and because I realized that the fear of losing my child is very real. It used to be that my biggest fear in life is losing everything in a fire but now that has been undeniably and understandably surpassed by the fear of losing one’s child. Material things are just material things but people, especially one you carried inside for thirty eight weeks, went through hours of labor for and made the center of your life, are worth more than any material thing I have, ever had and will ever have.

I have only been a mother for three months and have already shed a lot of tears. I know there will be more but it’s something I am prepared to have. Only because I love. I will cry buckets if I have to, and maybe, I even want to.