All I wanted was to access my son's photoalbum located at my sister in law's site.
I have her invitation. Before logging in, I could even view the pictures. And then, I just wanted to see the comments, but the site asked me to register.
So I registered. (Twice, because somehow, my first registration got lost - argh.)
And then, now I can't even see the photoalbum, nor my sister in law's site, nothing!!!
I see nothing! This is what i get for registering.
Several years from now, when I'm talking to my son's girlfriend, I will have to have some hard facts and stats about him to properly fulfill my embarrass-my-son duties. And so, here they are, as of 27 October 2008:
Age: 3 months, 1 week and 4 days old
Height: 65 cm (above average percentile)
Weight: 7.3 Kilos (slightly above above average percentile but below the 95th percentile)
Head Circum: 45 (way,way,way above the extreme percentile)
Likes: Shiny, silver things; Mickey Mouse Club; Annie Lenox Songs; Whistling;
Dislikes: Fork on plate sounds; rattles
Looking at this list, I'm sort of worried with his rather rapid growth (the doctor is also concerned he might become obese, but thankfully, he's not yet at that stage). Especially the head circumference thingie - while it sounds good to have a big head (now, now, dirty minded people, you know what I'm talking about), and in general, we are taught that being above average in anything is also good, for a baby, I don't really know what it means.
My only consolation is that he seems healthy, and strong, and happy. And I guess, right now, that's the most I can hope for.
Yay! My story is up in Bewildering Stories in this link!
Please visit and share with me your thoughts, if you have time. :)
Now, more than ever, I find myself thinking about the intricacies of being a parent. Having been brought up by two not so patient people, I know I'm in danger of being temperamental myself to my child, expecting the best all the time and conveniently forgetting the drama I went through when I had to undergo the weight of my own parents' expectations. I hope I won't though, and I hope that I will actually listen to my more even keeled spouse when my own patience is tested, but I know the risk always loom not too far from me precisely because of my own upbringing.
One of the things I've never really thought about, however, is the concept of being "conservative".
Just today, I received an email that emphasized (underscored and highlighted), my apparent liberal nature. Here's the situation;
A teenage boy asked permission from his parents to go to a party in a hotel in Ortigas. Parents agree, and pick him up two hours after the party began. They find that the party was in a room (not a function room), with beds (god forbid), a lot of kids (mostly boys), some booze and smoke, and their son, playing truth or dare with 9 other kids in a bedroom. The mother (the apparent sender of the email), was freaking out about the entire situation, thinking it was so horrible that something like this could happen. The email then goes on to scare (yes, scare) the recipient parents with this final message:
THERE WILL BE ANOTHER PARTY IN [identity protected], AND YOUR CHILD COULD BE IN ONE OF THEM. WE HAVE TO WORK TOGETHER TO STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING!
My first reaction was, OMG, these parents are overreacting. I mean, I don't want my own child to be drinking and smoking, but I also know that you can't actually stop them or their friends (and in fact, the more you do, the more they seem to like doing it, at least that's how my own drinking and smoking friends explained it to me). But what really got to me was that the mother was so upset with her son because he was playing truth or dare (note: he wasn't even drinking or smoking, nor was he caught in a compromising situation).
My second reaction, on the other hand, was something along the lines of 'did I miss something?' Perhaps that's what responsible parents do. They freak out when their teenage son is in a hotel room with twenty other kids with loud music, and booze, and girls, even though he obviously is not drinking or smoking. Perhaps, that's the right way to bring up a child. Perhaps I'm just too liberal.
My third reaction is what's currently taking a hold of me now: a sort of surreal amusement. Especially, when I read the last line of that email.
Which isn't what a responsible parent should do, right? Times like these, I'm just glad moral issues like the ones above are still a long way off.
Several years from now, when I'm talking to my son's girlfriend, I will have to have some hard facts and stats about him to properly fulfill my embarrass-my-son duties. And so, here they are, as of 27 October 2008:
Age: 3 months, 1 week and 4 days old
Height: 65 cm (above average percentile)
Weight: 7.3 Kilos (slightly above above average percentile but below the 95th percentile)
Head Circum: 45 (way,way,way above the extreme percentile)
Likes: Shiny, silver things; Mickey Mouse Club; Annie Lenox Songs; Whistling;
Dislikes: Fork on plate sounds; rattles
Looking at this list, I'm sort of worried with his rather rapid growth (the doctor is also concerned he might become obese, but thankfully, he's not yet at that stage). Especially the head circumference thingie - while it sounds good to have a big head (now, now, dirty minded people, you know what I'm talking about), and in general, we are taught that being above average in anything is also good, for a baby, I don't really know what it means.
My only consolation is that he seems healthy, and strong, and happy. And I guess, right now, that's the most I can hope for.
After 83 days worth of maternity leave, I'm back.
And now I have two projects waiting which, I miraculously have to finish by December, plus the first act of a novel and a short story.
I miss my baby boy.
Who knew?
It was the last story that I had written with cold, calculating control (as opposed to the fevered, and often mad bursts of white heat). Every word, every thought, every unfortunate comma was thought of, deliberated then decided on. And, despite all the hard work, blood, sweat, tears, heart, soul and, ever more importantly, time, put in it, I was still unhappy with what came out.
I have never worked on a story as I did on Riverstone Heart. And I don't I will anytime in the foreseeable future as I have learned that my returns for the works I didn't work too hard on (and didn't, consequently, over think or over edit) were much higher than the ones that I've obsessed on for ages.
And yet, someone thought it was pretty good. A couple of people who I've idolized for so long, actually thought it was good enough to be cited in the Year's Best. It's a heady feeling. In fact, it's the second best news of the year, just edging out my first (hopefully not my last) Palanca (but still way behind the birth of my son for obvious reasons). I think it's because it's so unexpected. I mean, regardless of what I thought of my story submission for the Palanca, I still did something to join the contest, and come August, I'm of course hoping for the legendary Palanca letter. But this, this, was literally out of the blue. I didn't even know my idols read Serendipity mainly because it was so new there's no record if it being even in the radar. But they did. And here I am.
But perhaps the even bigger reason why I feel so good about this is that it is some form of validation; not that my idols read my work (but of course, that's part of it as well), but that there were actually people who did read my work - not just my friends, or my enemies, or people who knew me or, even more probably, knew of the people I knew. I was just someone out there, unknown, without anything or anyone to back me up or bring me down. And all that spoke for me was my story.
Perhaps that, more than an award, makes me feel like I wrote something of value. And whatever the future brings; even if I probably won't be able to replicate this wonderful year in terms of writing, I will always own this moment where I can say that, for at least one story, I was a writer.
