Today is our finals and the last day of class for this school year. Nothing remarkable happened to me today, aside from the day to day clutters after I’m gone and home from school or work, other than that, everything was just like everyday.
Lately, changes are getting more and more evident; in my children’s anatomy and behaviours. I’m turning 35 this year, and I can’t help but look back on when they were still forming in my body, the craving times, the pains of walking down to the market and not even half-way there my feet and ankles are starting to complain. The ungodly hours, and the breastfeeding, not to mention the Malunggay pills matching with Malunggay soups my ex-husband’s grandmother cook for me. The trips to their pedia, the frantic cries of hunger and when in pain or with flu. The first steps, the first words, the first time they did something displeasing, and the times when they repeat the same mistake over and the punishment his father and I administer only to find ourselves negotiating with a toddler – which isn’t fair! There’s the parent’s excitement of bringing them to school, their first crayons and the smell of new notebooks and papers. The arguments we had which bag and color to choose, only to find out months later that the strap had broken and we need to replace spider man to hawk. The warring ponytails, the feeding bottles, the dirty diapers, the ever and tireless hunt for diaper bargains -thank God for Kimbies! These were just few of the episodes of the days of our lives, and now this book has completed and starting to fold to write a new one.
It’s not that I don’t notice my son’s change in his voice – he’s actually sounding more and more like his father. There was a time when I was talking to him and he was at the kitchen that his voice felt like I’m talking to his father. I’m not bitter about the separation, it was actually emancipation. I began to appreciate freedom more and more. Back to my son, he recently entered manhood and I just can’t help but bleed in my heart, he needed someone he can identify with, someone he can share man things, someone he can tell secrets with. I can’t blame him for feeling awkward for telling me about girls, well in a way, I should understand because I am a female, but everything else in him is now a man. People would always say that he needs a male role model, I couldn’t agree more, but I guess a more perfect model would be HIM up there. This school year he will be in Second Year and he can’t wait to start doing his spelling bee activities again. I really can’t help but become heart broken on the fact that, it’s not that I can’t buy him gadgets, but the fact that we have to prioritize and he’s so self-sacrificing. He deserves more.
One thing’s for sure, my children have grown a lot and I am thankful to the Lord for seeing them, sharing every bit of pain and victory in times when they try to overcome the past. True, that from time to time, I am vocal about my frustrations of not being able to work because I have to keep an eye on them every time. There were times when I complain to them their behaviours, yes kids will be kids, but for how long will they be children? Hebrews 5:13 For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. But now that they’re all grown up, I thank God that they developed maturity and wise understanding, knowing what’s good and bad, the right and the wrong. They are not perfect children, but they are God’s.
Now that life is bringing me to a new page of my children’s lives, I need to prepare myself because I know it’s going to be another wild roller coaster ride.
