The Anaconda in My Tummy

I was hanging out with Ches' PMS gang the other night. We were in Chocolate Kiss, and I've finished off my adobo flakes, plus my share of Ches' fish kiev, some of Robby's chicken fingers and Regina's potato wedges, not to mention four or so glasses of the yummy bottomless iced tea. I bought desserts for everyone as has been my habit when I'm with these kids who treat me like I'm their demented elder sister or pseudo mom (as Robby likes to call me).

As I dig into the brownie a la mode Eycee stares at me in amazement and breaks into wild applause. Eycee is one of those perfect girls who are pretty and cool and smart and good-hearted too, and I love her dearly, but later in the car I would go into a long tirade with Ches on how severely distressed I was at her actuations. What was I, a freak in some circus show that would make her clap like that? All bcoz I can eat a lot?

Eycee would later on explain that what really amazed her was my enthusiasm in going at the desserts as tho they were my first meals for the night when in fact I've been stuffing myself for the past hour or so. She said she knows other people who can also eat and eat, but after a while they also slow down and give up, while I on the other hand consistently show the same hearty appetite throughout my long and heavy meal. (And this little girl expects such an explanation to get her off the hook? What she managed to actually do is to get herself into deeper trouble with the way she was rubbing it in that I'm this lean, mean eating machine. Grrr.)

The following night I go to a dinner with my MWC friends. I stuff myself with kimchi and bulgogi and japchae and stuff, and text Ches: It's so refreshing to be out with my old friends who are used to my eating habits and do not break into wild applause when they see me gobble down food. Hahaha. These same MWC friends prepared an AVP for my despedida party when I resigned, and the first few slides had texts like, "Before Jewel came, Judith was the most matakaw girl in all of MWC ..." Ate Judith is about 10 years older than me and easily double my heft, so it wasn't exactly flattering to be called more matakaw than her, much less the most matakaw girl in all of MWC. Groan.

Even before MWC, in the law office, I was already notorious for my huge appetite. I recall one Christmas party in Mandarin and I got three or so plates heaped with tempura and pasta and salads and pastries, among many other stuff. Even my batchmates who were my daily lunchmates were amazed and I tried to defend myself by saying it was all the breastfeeding and pumping milk for Yoshi that was making me so ravenous. Rhoel's reply: Sigurado kang nagpapasuso ka lang ng bata at hindi ka nagpapalaki ng anaconda diyan sa tiyan mo? Hahaha. Classic Rhoel.

Andrea used to say I'm one of those girls who eat and eat and never get fat. She has other friends like this, and she said she believes our kind do not really eat anything at all when nobody is watching, it's only when there are people around that we binge, just for show, just to be smug that we can eat anything and not gain a pound. Hahaha.

My food philosophy is pretty simple, actually. As long as I still fit in my clothes and do not have to buy an entire new wardrobe to accommodate my burgeoning waistline, then I'm happy and will continue to enjoy my chocolates and chicharon and pork chops and potato chips and all these other bad stuff I'm perennially craving for.

And if I no longer fit into my clothes, then that gives me a perfectly legitimate excuse to go shopping, doesn't it? Besides, I can always blame the anaconda in my tummy.

My Voodoo Dolls

Ate came home the other night. She brings Christmas with her whenever she comes home. She brings us all these gifts, takes us to restos almost every night, and pays for our out-of-town vacations. I have serious doubts whether I'm going to be that generous if and when I ever get that rich. Hahaha.

On top of Yoshi's PSP and the Batman and Cookie Monster and Play Doh and 60 million other toys of the boys, plus Ches' gigantic Reese's box, I got the usual lovely Hello Kitty stuff, VS lingerie, make-up, bag, slippers, year-long supply of chocolate, toiletries and canned goods. The run-away winner this year for me tho is my Disney Princess dolls.

There are seven of them – Ariel, Mulan, Princess Jasmine, Snow White, Belle, Cinderella and Princess Aurora – and each is exquisitely made, with their sparkling hair and eyes, satiny dresses, delicate shoes. (Ironically, tho, Cinderella's right glass slipper doesn't seem to fit and keeps falling off.) They're the size of Barbie, and I love that they're not all the same height, that the non-Caucasians Mulan and Princess Jasmine are shorter and more petite in their built. Ariel is the smallest tho, in height and features. Princess Aurora is disturbingly tall, and her face is also much bigger than the other girls'. So I text my sis: Princess Aurora is so tall and big, she looks like a bakulaw next to the other princesses. Her reply: Maybe she's a transvestite! Hahaha.

I put them up beside my Ashton Drake ballerina and bride. I report to Randy that I finally have my long-awaited Disney Princesses and they're every bit as beautiful as we imagined them to be. I told him about the dolls around the time we were fixing up the house, and he knew instantly that they were going to be so special that even then he was already thinking of where we could put them. (This is why Randy is one of my best friends ever. He knows the deepest, darkest recesses of my heart. He's the same guy who let me keep my old, old Barbie dolls, even when Mom herself was badgering him to make me throw them out already.)

I do realize I am too old for this kind of thing, and not to mention, I am more the villain Ursula/Cruella/Maleficent type rather than the heroine/princess type. It would be so much more consistent with my character if I collected voodoo dolls instead. But how can anyone resist a thing of beauty like the Disney Princesses? How can anyone ever outgrow them? (Which brings to mind that time when this mommy in the office saw my Hello Kitty purse, and she told me her daughters also went thru a Hello Kitty phase but that they have outgrown it. I asked her how old her daughters were, and she said 6 and 8. Groan. I should've known not to ask. In fact, I should just shut up for the rest of my life.)

These dolls are proof that I am loved. It's like when someone's really evil and everybody hates her, but then you find out she has this nice bag or something that was given to her by a cousin or whoever, and you realize that, for somebody to love her that much to get her something really nice, she might not be such a bad person, after all, and she might have some saving grace left in her yet. So then you think twice before dismissing this person as a total loser. And this is exactly what the dolls are going to do for me – show off to everybody that I am loved and may not be all that bad. (And I love you back, Ate! I love you forever. And not only because of the dolls =)

I read that we should get rid of anything that is not useful, joyful or beautiful. For useful, I have my family and friends (hahaha). For joyful, I have my three boys. For beautiful, I have my Disney Princess dolls.

The Tale of the Non-Pregnant Waitress

Regina and I had lunch in Serendra the other day. I noticed that our waitress was pregnant, and was happy that Regina left a generous tip. To my credit, I did ask him whether the waitress was in fact pregnant, and he confirmed it. (Yes, Regina is male. He's Ches' best buddy in his former office. I call him Regina bcoz he can be such a girl sometimes. Long story.)

On our way out of the resto, the waitress stood by the doorway with a big smile. And me, I try to be friendly with everybody as usual, so I rub her distended belly and say, “For good luck”. She looked at me all confused and kind of ... violated.

Three steps away from the resto:

R: “Wtf?! That wasn't the pregnant waitress!”
Me: “Yes, she was! She had a big tummy!”
R: “She was just fat! The pregnant waitress was inside!”

Groan. It was one of those times where your only glimmer of hope of saving yourself from further embarrassment is for the ground to open up and swallow you whole.

It's not like this is my first pregnancy-related blooper. To be completely honest, this is not even just the second.

The first time was at Rhoel's passing-the-Bar blow-out party, where Ches and I were one of the first guests to arrive and I was forced to make small talk with this girl from law school who's been married a long time and who looked to me like she got pregnant since the last time I saw her. I asked her not only once, not only twice, but a grand total of three times whether she was pregnant. And by the third time she had gotten so pissed off at me that she ended up shouting at the top of her lungs: “HINDI. AKO. BUNTIS!!!” (Check out my Blooper Girls blog in 2005 for further details.)

Groan. That remains as one of the scariest moments of my life.

The second blooper involved another UP familiar fixture who was pregnant the last time I saw her. She still had a big tummy when I saw her again, so me, ever the ditzy girl, I asked her: “Kelan ka manganganak?” And she replied, with nary a smile on her (still chubby) face: “Nanganak na ko three months ago.”

Groan. I suicide (as Regina and his gang like to say).

Regina, Ches and I cannot stop laughing whenever we talk about this latest tale of the non-pregnant waitress. I accuse Ches of falling in love with me all over again because of this. He calls it another Jewel classic. He shakes his head and says: Only you, Jo. This could've happened only to you.

Packing in the Palace

It just so happened that Ches works in the palace and his office was tasked to oversee the relief operations for typhoon Ondoy victims. So I tagged along and did what I could.

The first time, it was putting noodles, sardines, crackers and water purifier into bags filled with rice. I didn't even know until then that there was such a thing as water purifier. Not all bags got all of the items. Some had only rice, water and sardines, others had rice, 2 packs of noodles, 2 packs of crackers, depending on what was still available from the boxes of relief goods the Army and DSWD guys were guarding outside Kalayaan Hall. It was sad thinking of the calamity victims who would get less items in their bags.

The president's daughter was there that first night, together with one of the daughters-in-law. One of Ches' friends (who shall not be named for his own safety and well-being) called the event packing in the palace with the president's daughter. Hahaha.

Another time it was packing rice with wives of the presidential security group. They were loud and wild, that group. Somebody was shamelessly flirting with one of the hunky cops carrying the sacks of rice. Another was giving a blow-by-blow account of the time she joined Wowowee, back when the game was still Pera o Bayong. She remembered every single detail – from the date to the multiple choices to the colors of the multiple choices. She chose green, letter C, and was booted out.

Every so often someone would worry about how they were all going to get home, considering it was already late at night and they had no ride from the palace. But then when one woman called their barangay leader or something to send them a ride, everyone protested bcoz it was only 9 PM and they should stay and pack until at least midnight. Someone even suggested they should stay until 4 AM, so when they get home it will be time to cook breakfast for the family already.

I'm so not worthy.

Another time I quietly packed sardines (two green and two red cans per pack) in Heroes' Hall with two nuns who were nice to me and amirably did not comment on my halter top. (Isn't that so me - the one time I show up in a non-corporate, not exactly decent attire, and it had to be the time when I get to work with the religious sect. Groan.) They have been there the whole day, and promised to come back the following day, assuming they could still stand up. (Hahaha. I love religious people with a sense of humor.) When they left, I was joined by the usual students from CEU, San Beda, PUP, UST, etc.

Oh, it's not all the good deeds it is hyped up to be. Relief bags are labeled either regular or premium. The premium bags contain more stuff - more rice, more canned goods, with mats and blankets to boot. These are the bags that would go with her who-shall-not-be-named when she visits the evacuations centers and personally distributes the relief goods. How seriously sick was the person who thought of squeezing media and voter mileage out of an exercise that is supposed to be all pure and noble. Tsk tsk tsk.

On the bright side, it was heartening to see that one week after the whole relief operations started in the palace, the boxes of goods were ever taller, and volunteers - mostly students - continued to swarm the place even after the schools re-opened. And I always got my kicks out of watching serious-looking military types carrying sacks of rice on their heads or backs or shoulders with no hands.

My back hurts and I still can't sit properly on my butt and I have blisters on my hands from tying up 60 million plastic bags and I got allergies from the rice mites or whatever they are. But gosh, it was the least I could have done and I did so little in the grand scheme of things.

The Serendipity House

So we've moved to the house and have invited friends and relatives over on the occasion of Yoshi's 6th birthday. Some like the house, a few gush about it, others couldn't care less (hahaha).

The latter are notably Ches' youngish office friends whose immediate plans do not yet include settling down. (They're that young.) My friends from MWC on the other hand who have been to our old, small house several times before could hardly contain their surprise at how the place has been transformed into something livable (hahaha). Dex and Allan, for example, went to the extent of examining everything from the cove lights to the window grills to stuff like structural safety or whatever it's called. (Crazy guys.) I was bragging to them about how I would take at least one whole day every month to obsessively clean every nook and cranny (the ones the maids conveniently forget all about), and they said they'd do the same too if their house was also as nice (hahaha).

It was heartening to hear comments like how the house looks warm and cozy and not like a museum or something out of a magazine. But Yoshi sums up how our family feels when he announced on our second day that he was just happy that all his toys are out of the boxes and he can play with them again. That' exactly it. I feel happy for Boots that he now has a bigger playground to run around and play basketball in. (The boys have also become quite the experts on climbing stairs notwithstanding their lack of experience in this field.) And I'm happy for myself that all my stuff are in their own especially designated places and not all smushed in some dark and dingy corner of the closet. My plates, my teapot collection, my Ashton Drake dolls, my hurricane lamps, my shoes (which found a new home in the small cabinet under the window seat), my Hello Kitty suitcases (all three of which fit perfectly in this space above my corporate wardrobe – happy!), and my Readers' Digests and coffee table books.

And all our books! My gosh! They're all out in the bookshelf now under the attic stairs, but they fit only bcoz I gave away easily a hundred of them before we moved out, and again another hundred before I fixed the bookshelf (which discarded books Randy dressed up and magically transformed into faux platforms for my Barbies and Kittys). Even Randy who is himself a book lover was shocked at the sheer number of books my family had. I told him, if we didn't own that many books, we also wouldn't owe the bank that much money. Groan. (There's just no way to explain my passionate love affair with books. If I read one I truly like, I want to buy it everytime I see it in the bookstore, never mind if I already have my own copy which I've read only for 5 times or so. Which explains why I have both hardbound and paperback copies of stuff like Midwives and I Know This Much is True and all the Judy Blume classics. Gosh. I will so regret all this craziness when I can no longer pay my monthly dues with the bank, I just know it.)

I'm also happy that the house turned out to be so us. At the start all the bidding contractors we're suggesting Mediterranean, Zen, modern Asian and same such stuff which are all the rage now in home design, but somehow these things didn't fit us and felt forced and phony if we had them just to join the faddist bandwagon. We're not the type, for example, to post our credentials on the wall, hence we don't have framed diplomas or heavily re-touched graduation pix making up an ego wall. (Gosh, I don't even know where our diplomas are. I found my oh-so-formal-looking certificate of admission to the bar with the golden Supreme Court seal and everything all crumpled up and barely recognizable in one of my old bags when I was unpacking. Dang. There goes my lone proof of lawyerhood.)

We'd also rather decorate the house with Yoshi's drawings of superheroes and monsters and other creepy crawly boy stuff in lieu of fancy schmanzy paintings or other obscenely priced artwork. We're also not the kind of people who covet the latest gadgets and techie stuff. (My celphone is whatever Globe or the office gives me for free. As long as it texts and calls, it's good enough for me. My camera is this cutie pink point and shoot Cybershot from Ate that I keep in a Hello Kitty suede case. Beat that.) No kick-ass plasmas or anything for us. I was telling Ches, if we got robbed, they would be so disappointed bcoz all we have that might be worth carting away for them would be our five-year-old appliances - small TV, small ref, small CD player, small DVD player. That's it. Emphasis on small.

So country style it is for us. I've always been a consistent country girl, anyway. Even in high school I would splurge what meager savings I had from my allowance in stores that sold country stuff like Papemelroti and Traditions and The Crafts Store. And I enjoyed watching the shabby chic shows in Lifestyle Network. (I'd like to think our house is the chic end of shabby hahaha.) For his part, Ches gave me free rein on all the design aspect and cared only about boring safety and security stuff like making sure there are fire exits and rainwater will not leak and robbers won't be able to climb the fence, the whole works. (There, it's out - the secret to our blissful marriage: he's practical and I'm shallow. We are so MFEO. Hahaha.)

Randy calls it The Serendipity House. He defines serendipity as finding the usual pleasure in an unexpected place. He says this bcoz you wouldn't expect to find a country-style house in our small, quiet corner of Diliman, but there it is. I thought he was just being generous as he naturally is, but then we also heard similar comments from other people, like Don and Mon, who said they loved the whole Tagaytay and Baguio log cabin feel of our house.

Randy says he loves being in our home, how it's so like us, warm and unpretentious but still managing to be kick-ass. (Hahaha.) He said even our yayas are nice. He has this interesting theory that if a project falls apart, maybe it's also bcoz the owners are assholes, bcoz maybe they're not happy in their sex lives or something. And I told him, I agree, but it's not necessarily true in my case, coz I could be perfectly happy in the sex department, but I still wake up maldita as ever every morning anyway. Hahaha. TMI.

Randy also said something that made me cry and cry. He said, when our house was finally turned over to us by the group of Melody, that it makes him believe there's still good in the world, when good things happen to good people. It's cheesy, but Randy always manages to break my heart big time, all the time. It was exactly what Rhoel also said when I found out I was pregnant after Ches and I have been trying a couple of months: that it makes him believe there's still good in this world. (Aww, you guys...)

It was Randy who found the perfect place for everything. My Georgia O'Keefe drawing (a gift from Greg from Chicago, payback for all his environmental law work that he dumped on me when he went on a long vacation) is on the wall going up the second floor. My big Eheads reunion concert poster is on the 2nd floor landing. (Randy was just happy that this poster turned out to be 'unobtrusive'. Hahaha. I lined up for hours and hours just to get the darned thing and that's the best adjective he can come up with.) My Anne Geddes pix make up a gallery of sorts in the attic. (When we were putting them up I worried that it might look a bit like an abortion clinic with all these wrinkled newborn babies. Randy laughs and observes that I have a dark side to me. Ches comments, that is the understatement of the year. Hahaha.)

It was also Randy who patiently discussed with Manong Elpy the total look and exact sizes of the pine furniture we needed; who decorated our oddly shaped cabinet in the living room as well as the long credenza by the dining table; who figured out a magical way to fix my dolls in the cabinet so they don't look like they're trapped in some glass case (which was exactly how they ended up looking after I fixed them); who came up with our brick wall and back splash for the kitchen and grooves for the bedroom closet and the two-toned paint colors and chocolate stripes for the gate that everybody digs coz it's so unique; who spiced up the oh-so-serious long study table with a little teddy bear corner; who found a place for my old narra console and mirror from Lola and who insisted that I recycle stuff I was raring to dispose of. My gosh, only Randy could have done all these. Our home would never have ended up looking the way it did if not for Randy. I have two words for all of you who think you don't need an interior designer because you already have good taste or are stylish or whatever: think again.

For my part, I was happy to figure out where I could put my collection of small picture books: on a long ledge in the powder room, with a complicated trellis thing that Randy designed and Manong Elpy almost declined to do. Hahaha. (Vada smartly figured out we have a lot of books in that room so our guests can read while going in the toilet.) Randy is also happy that on the wall in the living room where traditionally you would put a painting, I assembled our wedding pictures in this lovely big frame from Dimensione. I also derive joy out of the little things I've put together: the sign on our bathroom mirror that reads 'Happiness is being married to your best friend' (to remind Ches every morning in case he forgets hahaha), the little Dora and Boots water toys (gifts from Tito Regie) in the boys' bathroom, the red butterfly chimes to go with our red room, the cross-stitched Welcome sign with sunflowers from Jen that fit perfectly above the main door, the old Williams Sonoma chocolate jar from Didoy that blends with my teapots, Jack's drawing of prehistoric creatures that I framed and put up on the bookshelf.

Yoshi also had a major contribution to the house. We asked him what color he wanted for his room. He likes both green and blue violet and will not make a choice between the two. He's pretty consistent about this. So one of the boys' rooms was painted green, and the other blue violet. (Poor Boots is too young to literally have his say on the color scheme.) He also wanted these stripes on the walls that he saw in one of my magazines, and Alex ably pulled off the stripes for the boys. It's one of the things guests like on the second floor. Even the eminent stylist Randy just let the pastels and stripes be and did not put up a fight even if they hardly go with the whole country concept. Hence, I like to joke that our house is country, and the boys' rooms are another country. (Hahaha.)

Most everyone also notice and like the flowers on the attic floor. We chose the tiles even before the whole project started, and I so fell in love with it I threatened not to pay our contractors unless they used the exact, same tiles. Hahaha. That's another thing Ches and I are truly grateful for – that our contractors did turn out to be a good choice in terms of the quality of their work, their flexibility about our demands (or when our bank loans were coming in late, for that matter), and over-all how they did not rip us off. Randy is pleased that Buddy had good taste and used HCG for the bathroom fixtures when he could have gotten something low-end and pocketed more money. I also saw the packages of the door locks they used, and one cost close to P5,000, and I was like, why does a stupid, boring lock cost more than a kick-ass pair of shoes on sale? Duh.

When we started brainstorming with Phoebe in January and the construction began in March and even when I was already unpacking the 60 million boxes of our stuff after we moved in, I had this overwhelming feeling that the whole project would never, ever end. And finally, finally, it's all over and we've settled down to our new home. Sigh. Thank you, Lord.

So now we move on to the challenging part: paying off our bank loans. Hmmm.

What's New in MoA

1.Chicago Popcorn Shops. I'm a big popcorn fan. At any given day you will see me munching out of a huge Popperoo tub while malling. I'm also perfectly happy with Cousin Willie's microwavable version (much tastier than Act II or the others). When Holy Kettle Corn first came out, we so loved it we even started a mini-business selling it in MWC. (Well, Thom and Didoy bought and re-sold it and did all the work; us girls just shared in the profits haha.) So it was such happiness for me to discover Chicago Popcorn Shops near Team Manila. Their specialty is Chicago Mix, a mix of cheese and caramel flavored popcorn, but I prefer just the caramel or just the cheese. This is a perfect example of a principle I've discovered, that I'm willing to shell out a little bit more for something that truly works, as opposed to paying a low price for something that's just so-so and will not really make me a happier person over-all.



2.Dimsum promo in China Palace. Highlands China Palace is one of those uber formal and pricey restos that I normally go to only if I'm with my boss and he or she is paying. (Hahaha.) But lately I've been frequenting the place with my usual SM gang bcoz they have this anniversary promo where dimsum goes for only P50, apparently the price 15 years ago. So you can eat as much as you want and the tab will come up to only around the price of one regular dish in the place. The siomai is the best, but I also like the dimsum made of spinach, radish cake, and this ground pork dish wrapped in something that tastes like tikoy. Siopao is also included in the promo, but siopao is one of the few things I don't eat (I don't know why). Offer good till the end of the year, I think, so enough time for everyone to go and grab some. Me, I keep going back with anyone and stuff myself and everytime I go in I imagine the thought balloons of the waiters to be: here she comes again, the cheapskate who orders nothing but the P50 dimsum. Hahaha.



3.Filipiniana dance number. I thought I've seen it all, but then one lunch time I saw the sales girls and boys of Kultura Filipino lined up all around the store and enthusiastically dancing to Mamang Sorbetero and Saranggola ni Pepe. (I happen to like these kinds of songs, the way they take us back to a gentler, more innocent time.) Balikbayan types watched with glee, but me I was thinking: first, the “happy to serve!” claps in the grocery, now the dancing couples in Kultura. Could maybe moonwalking/Thriller-choreographed guards be far behind? Hahaha.



4.Second chance. Team Manila came up with a second batch of the Eheads shirts sometime in July. It's one of those things that would convince you, if there was ever any doubt in your mind, that there is a God. I've been hoping to get another Team Manila Eheads shirt after they came up with the first set in March, since I got only one for myself plus one each for five or so guy friends. And it's not even something one can pray for bcoz, hello, it's just so silly in the grand scheme of things. But then one day you wake up and it's just there for the taking, all the Eheads shirt your little heart could ever want. Thank you, Lord.



5.Photo Ops. One of the best free mall shows Ches and I have seen this year is the World Press Photo 09, right in the center lobby of Mall of Asia. We got to see side by side photos of Olympians in such unflattering grimaces you can practically hear them grunt, victims of the Sichuan quake floating around in water, Kenyan tribes at war with bows and arrows (in this time and age!) You even learn a lot if you take the time to read the captions. I learned, for example, that Romanians spend on colorfol, lavish houses in preparation for marrying their children off, and that there's an albino minority in some African country. I think the most famous of the pix was the one of Michelle sleeping on Barack's shoulders while he pores over some important-looking papers, and I have to admit it looks so sweet. The most affecting pix for me however is the one from Rio de Janeiro with a bunch of kids in a school bus looking out of the window at a dead body on the road, their classmate's mom who was killed in a drug-related shooting. How tragic is that.

6.Like a comfy old pair of shoes. Working beside a big mall has given me the chance to try all the latest restos and shops. But then after a while I found I have to go back to the old stuff that I've tried and proven and have never let me down. There's UFO and Milkyway in Breadtalk that I can eat everyday (or even three times a day hahaha), the Mary Grace lemon bars, the Delifrance macaroons, the Matahari version of our cornick (Ches got me hooked on this), and Lapid's chicaron with laman dipped in spicy vinegar. So yum.

7.Coming soon. There's another photo exhibit coming up, the one of Cory Aquino, by local and international photographers. Something to look forward to, and another freebie to boot. I'm also counting down the days to the opening of this new dessert store called Cold Comfort and with pictures of ice cream cakes and same such goodie stuff. Whenever we pass by the place, my SM friends would say, this store is so you, Jewel. Hahaha. They know me already.

Poopoo Pie

Boots is 21 months old tomorrow. He's at that stage where everything he does and says is cute. I was telling Ches, I'd have babies every year if they came out the way Boots is now – walking and blabbering, eating anything you offer him, capable of following simple orders like dance and hug and kiss. If only they could bypass the newborn stage altogether, when they're so fragile and colicky and semi-permanently latched on to my breasts. (Altho newborns also have all these special charms ... )

We used to call Boots the one-trick wonder bcoz all he knew how to do till his first birthday or so was to clap his hands. Hahaha. I guess, if I were in the same position as him, if I too had a yummy face, I'd also just let my looks do the work and not even bother with stupid tricks.

And then he learned to talk and Yoshi had fun teaching him jokes. Yoshi taught him, for example, to say 'bukas' if you ask him to say 'open', and 'bukas' again if you ask him to say 'tomorrow'. It's all correct Filipino translation, alright, but what's disconcerting was the joy Yoshi derived out of teaching his little brother to be naughty early on, and Bootsie's all too eager willingness to follow kuya's lead instead of his parents'. (I am hoping this is not in any way a portent of things to come.)

Boots also likes to say 'bele' when he wants to buy something to eat. So then Yosh taught him to say 'bele button' and when he says it we don't really know whether he's talking about his belly button or wants some food.

Oh but Boots is also funny on his own and does not need kuya's help at all. He likes putting his own twist to words - 'Cory' is 'Corywow' and 'sarap' is 'sarapapin' (don't ask me why). He calls Spongebob 'Bopbop', Garci 'Gaki', Tito Randy 'Tutu Dandi', and his beloved blue Hello Kitty pillow will I think forever be 'Tiki'. More often he's not even trying to be funny – you can see his genuine effort to mimic how we pronounce words, but they come out sounding hysterical anyway. 'Alcohol' is 'alcololol', chocolate is 'cocolelet', 'chicharon' is 'chacharon', 'cashew' is 'kaku', 'pajama' is 'jamama', 'vitamins' is 'tamimins'.

For some reason, 'SM' and 'airplane' come out the same - 'emen', which sounds more like 'amen'. Boots also loves to sing 'Heyjaybugbugka', his abbreviated version of 'Hey, Jay, nabugbog ka na naman daw kahapon...' (Yes, he is also an Eraserkid. He also sings Shirley and Ligaya.) Oh but he has no problems at all pronouncing 'Coke Zero', as well as shouting 'Surprise!', 'Saturday!' and 'Darna!'. (Groan. My kids are so jologs. I remember when Yosh was maybe 3 years old and I brought him to my former office in Balara, and he was barging into everything including the President's room. His assistant who was my friend blocked him and told him Sir Tony was inside. Yoshi asked, “Si Toni Gonzaga?” Aaargh! There I was spending my meager salary on Theme suits and Nine West bags, and just like that Yoshi quashes whatever air of elegance I try to project in the office, and exposes our family for how jologs it really is. Groan.)

Kids also have their own funny way of naming things. Yoshi used to call his milk 'notnot' – we'll never know where he came up with that. Boots on the other hand uses entirely different names to call things – a certain blue curtain rod is 'Nash' (the name of the baby next door), while Yoshi's Superman basketball ring is 'idea'. Crazy boys.

Boots is also now capable of stringing two words together. He likes to say 'drink water', 'ride bike', 'ugly thumb' (his right thumb that has gone all deformed from his perennial sucking), 'ligo tub' (his favorite part of the day is a good, warm bath in the tub) and 'attic flowers' (referring to the flowers on the attic floor that he's petrified of for some reason but which he can't resist climbing up to). Last Saturday he woke up babbling something that sounded a lot like 'avid curse' and no one in the household could figure out what he meant. When a misundertanding like this happens he gets all frustrated and cries and hits his tummy over and over. (Yosh also went thru this masochistic stage.) It took the following Monday when Yosh was picked up by his school bus for kuya to figure out that Boots actually meant 'happy girls', referring to the three little girls in kuya's school bus who are always giggling and hiding behind the seats when kuya gets on board. But then a few days after Yoshi changed his mind and decided 'avid curse' was actually the Icebreakers mints in Daddy's car. And when he made that connection, Ches and I finally saw the light and had to agree. Avid curse-Icebreakers mystery solved.

By far the funniest word to come out of Bootsie's mouth is 'poopoo pie', which is how he pronounces 'buko pie'. He likes it so much he uses the same word when he sees pizza pie, pineapple pie, pecan walnut pie, banoffee pie – any other pie, everything is poopoo pie for Bootsie. Oh naturally Yoshi l-o-v-e-s the word poopoo pie, the way all little naughty boys love anything that connotes gross, icky and eeooww.

One of Bootsie's first words was 'i nee' which was how he said 'ice cream', his absolute favorite food. Sometimes he went around the whole day urgently chanting 'i nee! i nee!' you'd think all the ice cream shops were closing down and it was the absolute last day in the whole world to eat ice cream. But then one day a couple of weeks back he suddenly said 'i cream' which sounded a lot like 'ice cream' already and no longer the 'i nee' we had grown to love. And I felt sad bcoz it signaled the end of our 'i nee' days. It meant that Boots has grown up again a teeny bit and he'll never go back to being that baby who chanted 'i nee', which is now buried in the family dictionary along with Yoshi's 'notnot', 'insidemada' and 'pomorrow'. The heartbeaking thing about your kids is, once they outgrow a certain phase, somehow they don't ever go back to it anymore. Sigh.

So for now we're just savoring Bootsie's poopoo pie while it's still around.