It’s actually 1:34 am as I write this. I wasn’t planning on writing it ’til this morning around 6:30, but Nino (because of his very weird day) is still awake and asked to come downstairs and play. Guess what he’s playing with right now: staple wire. Don’t ask me why.
So. I can’t remember how much I told you on chat, but Nino woke up this morning around 8:30 and after lounging about a few more minutes he got up and drank some water. I was in a hurry to get the day started so I volunteered to carry him downstairs. The cake was to have been first, but the sun was gorgeous and knowing that later in the day it would be past a hundred degrees I decided to take him outside. So we did, checking on the flowers and the tomatoes and still looking for that caterpillar that seems to have disappeared. Strangely, he didn’t want to do anything but cling to my neck and after a while I asked him if he just wanted to go back inside and sleep — he nodded yes. So inside we go…. 4 hours later and several switches in position and back and forth between couch and chair and me and Yena, he finally wakes up. Around 10 I had noticed that he was pale and his breathing and heartbeat were a bit weird, but he’d wake up sporadically, tell me he was fine, and go right back to sleep. After eating pancakes around noon, he was listless most of the afternoon, and then wanted to nap again around 4, and didn’t wake up again ’til ~6. But as you saw on the videochat he was back to his usual rowdy self, so I don’t really know what happened today.
Oh yeah. You noticed the hair. :/ I meant to surprise you by posting a pic but oh well. Hacked about 3 inches off, was just so tired of putting it into a pony everyday. It’s summer after all. Maybe I’ll do St. Baldrick’s sometime with Paco, except he wants to do it in the fall! UGH. Just kidding. Not Yena though, she’s serious about possibly doing St. B’s with Paco. I am absolutely horrified and happy at the same time that my 10-year-old GIRL would even consider this. One of those Oh-Lord-I-am-so-not-worthy-of-being-this-kid’s-mom moments.
Back to Paco… Yena made him a birthday card. Paco opens it and goes: “I thought you drew me getting married!” Yena had drawn him with Jesus, and of course Jesus has long hair and is wearing “a dress”, so Paco thought at first it was a girl. Bwahahaha. He’s having the time of his life at Camp Friedlander. When we went last Friday to visit camp and join the bonfire, I heard his name being called out by both younger and older scouts, all over the place. One scoutmaster approached me and told me how the kids just LOVE Paco and how they’re always yelling, “Paco, come here!” “Look at me, Paco!” Oh, and he wrote me the sweetest note about being thankful that I’m his mom and how he appreciates the food I cook, and how he understands better now why I’m always getting on their case to clean, and how he’s glad that we’ve gotten into a nice groove of not arguing/fighting with each other so much. I don’t know if this is just the calm before the storm, though, LOL. I remember thinking when you were 15, what a terrific person you are and how awesome that we had gotten over the teenage hurdle already and that it’s all smooth sailing from that point on… and then how horrible it was when you were 17/18 and going through you-know-what. 😀 I am having quite a time observing how a young man’s progress towards adulthood compares to that of a young woman.
7:10
Oh, and you’re not the only one surrounded by pro-choicers. While we were at camp one of the scout’s parents approached me babbling something about a family they know who’s having more kids than they (the woman speaking to me) thought they oughta have. I was wondering why she was telling me all this, but it was windy and Nino was also talking so I just got the gist, which was how ridiculous it was for families who already have a bunch of kids to want to have more. And then she had the gall of asking me straight out if we were going to have any more kids. I wasn’t sure how to respond (I never am) so I just pulled out the old “Oh, they’re still begging us to have more, three more in fact.” She looks at me like I’ve suddenly grown horns, and tremulously asks, “Who’s begging you?” I say “the kids” in as cool a manner as I can manage. And then she goes off about kids asking for more siblings and then not wanting to help out, blahblahblah and I proudly told her that all of you LOVE taking care of Nino, not all the time of course, but that you were all great with him. That silenced her. Sigh. People.
You should see the butterflies. I hadn’t meant to plant a butterfly garden but often now when we go out into the front porch there are six or seven of them, fluttering about from leaf to leaf, by turns the herbs, then the veggies — they look so indecisive it’s funny. I’ve tried to get a closer look but they won’t stay put for long; I was contemplating catching one for Nino so he could get a closer look, until it occurred to me that I don’t have a butterfly net, and there’s no way I would try to catch one with my bare hands. According to the folks at gardenweb butterfly garden staples are parsley, rue and dill, but I’ve only seen the one black swallowtail caterpillar on the parsley, plus I don’t have rue and don’t plan to especially after Downton Abbey 😀 . My goodness! The parsley and the greens are producing seeds like crazy; by the looks of it next year I will have rows upon rows of parsley and kale and pak choi — if I can find enough spaces for them in the sun, that is. The same is true for the other herbs — they’ve just taken over that little patch by the front door which is now an herb forest. All of them need quite a bit of pruning but I’d like to wait until all the seed heads and pods mature.
Musing on how the garden is thriving so well, I decide that I did truly inherit Mama’s green thumb. Of course we had that great garden in Texas but though it had a good start, by the time we left we hadn’t really enjoyed all the results, because I was pregnant with Migi and couldn’t do much in the garden, remember? The cucumber had turned bitter because of cross-pollination from the neighboring ampalaya and we harvested only a handful of okra. And then there was Pennsylvania and working with that confounded hill, and DEER. And then the backyard here with toxic trees. After 20+ years of successes and failures, I’ve learned to trust my instincts more, which is probably how Mama did it back then. Of course, her garden is very different from mine, hers being focused on ornamentals like cacti and bonsai and orchids. I suppose she didn’t have the need for much since vegetables are in abundance at the market, and she had the various fruit trees around the yard, which we don’t (one day soon). Working around the garden makes me wish even more that they were closer so we could swap plants and harvests. I’m sure her grapes are fruiting by now and I really really am itching to try preserving grape leaves for dolmades.
The other day I was reading a book on writing (wala lang) and the author gives a similar advice to the one I give you guys all the time — do what you love, the money will follow. He says that there’s only one person we should write for and that’s ourselves. While I agree with this in premise, for me it’s never been practical to write *unless* there’s an audience, certainly one reason I’m writing now: I know you’ll be reading. Just like in conversation when no one is paying attention it makes more sense to just be quiet, observe and learn — or bury one’s head in a good book instead of trying so hard. The reason I started food blogging many years ago was to keep a record for you kids of foods you liked/didn’t like — until the allergies were diagnosed and threw us all off-kilter. Eight years later I have not gotten back to my old rhythm and in some ways that’s good, but there’s a dissatisfaction about the whole thing, not unlike losing a voice when wanting to sing. I think it’s the half-the-family’s-allergic-to-this-half-the-family’s-not challenge that I haven’t been able to successfully overcome. It’s almost like having a split personality: one is so attuned to all the latest health studies, knows all the different kinds of foods one should avoid, develops recipes that doesn’t have this or that ingredient so as to prevent reactions; the other is just a food lover, period, who simply enjoys food and the combination elements of artistry and chemistry that come into play, allergies notwithstanding. I am still not comfortable being the one in the middle attempting to strike that balance. I know by now I should have come into some sort of synergy (and hah! why is that word not in Merriam-Webster?) about all this and in some ways I have, but there’s still the question of what to document and what will actually serve you in the long run, when you’re running your own households and I am no longer here. Meanwhile I’ll keep blogging for you. 🙂
Guess what I discovered this morning! Period Movies on FB posted a link, and you know me, I just clicked and clicked and clicked, and I’m sharing what I’ve found with you.
The Road to Avonlea pictures which made me go WHOA! Where are Gilbert and Anne? Is this a new movie?
which led me to this: The Road to Avonlea Facebook Page, but reading the posts made me go Huh? No mention of Gilbert and Anne?
so I clicked some more and got this: Road to Avonlea: The Movie
and then this: the DVD
and finally this: Road to Avonlea site.
And I am severely annoyed that Gilbert Blythe is on there, and yet Anne isn’t! But I’m also sufficiently intrigued, so the series may have to go on our must-watch list come fall, when you are home. That and Downton should keep us occupied in between classes and exams and laundry and everything else, right?
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