Nurturing the inner and real child

Family portrait by Mario's Christmas tree on the 23rd of December this year. From left: Babeth, Rolly, Kai, now seven, and Kimi Fernandez

Being a full-time granny nanny has become the greatest source of fulfillment in my life. It even beats writing, drawing and painting any day. I've suddenly become conscious of that cliche about passing on the torch to a new generation.

I have two daughters, but I was too busy with my job, whether as an employed journalist or as a freelancer, that in many ways they managed to thrive despite my benign neglect.

When, for five years, I became a full-time homemaker in Baguio, I was there to bring them to their piano or ballet lessons, fetch them afterwards, then go to a cafe with a pastry corner for a snack. I was there for the quarterly distribution of report cards and other milestones.

But I didn't deliberately pass on any skills to them the way I'm doing now with Kai Mykonos. Whatever my daughters are today, it is largely through their persistence in academic and extra-curricular work.

Kai's first Christmas in Baguio in 2011

Kai and I like to scour Pinterest.com for kawaii drawings which we copy and transfer to our respective diaries. She has acquired my knack for lying on the bed, belly down, while scribbling or doodling on the pages of her notebooks. That is also my preferred position for writing a la Odalisque!

Because friend Joseph Uy gave her a child's fountain pen on one of his trips to Baguio she has ignored the many ballpoint pens in the pencil mug in favor of something more sophisticated. She finds that the doodles tend to run more smoothly with the aid of a pen.

But we guard against her turning into a Mini Me. Her mother sees to that so she's allowed a few cartoons and YouTube videos a day under adult supervision. She's facile with using the Viber app of the family's iPad and shooting videos of herself to send to family members in the lowland. The goofy videos--that's all Kai, not me.

So on holy innocents' day, my wish is for everyone to find both the inner and real child in them and nurture it.

Toddler joys

"A joyful heart is good medicine." - Proverbs 17:22

And that's what The Wee One is gifted with, a joyful heart that has somehow kept her immune system up and strong despite Baguio's below 20-degree temperature.

She recently told her Manila-bound mother that she really didn't care for toys as pasalubong on the latter's return. It's a roundabout way of telling Kimi to hurry back!

My being a stay-home granny during the recent Christmas holidays allowed me to take stolen shots of Kai. It's becoming harder to coax her to pose, and it all depends on her mood at the moment. Most times, she'd cover her face or pretend she's asleep or turn her back so she can focus on playing by her lonesome which she doesn't seem to mind. She puts her heart into group play, too, and isn't shy anymore when faced with other kids as wee as her.

No, she won't budge for a photo beside the Christmas tree at Mario's Restaurant on Christmas. Later, she concedes but a lot of combination bribes and threats had to done to get her to pose for a family portrait. Photos by Booboo Babeth

What I like is when she quietly does her own thing. Her mother thinks that Kai's preferred form of play--classifying colors and arranging her toys neatly according to colors--is already bordering on obsessive-compulsive behavior.

Look at what she did with these beads. Having mastered stringing them into necklaces, she arranges them in precise order with such concentration.

The OC in The Wee One at work

Sumptuous lunch for a time in our lives

I sometimes ask myself if I have a real life at all, if it's being lived, or if I've found myself mired in simply documenting that life and those lives around me. I really don't mind taking the souvenir shots for a Sunday family lunch at Mario's on Upper Session Road. It is our times-of-our-lives place. It has seen us celebrating graduations, birthdays, anniversaries, Christmases. And today's Mothers' Day.

We reserved our table by phone yesterday but were told we had to be there on time; they could only hold the table for 15 minutes. So you can imagine the beeline to the shower room before departure from home.

My favorite sections of the restaurant's Sunday buffet are those set aside for the appetizers and for the desserts. Today I didn't depart from my routine of waltzing to the appetizer table: two generous helpings of the pritson (fried slivers of lechon and veggies encased in crepe-like wrapping), samosas with a dip of mint and tamarind sauce and the oysters Rockefeller. Then I was ready for the reliable staples of paella, callos Madrileña, the cochinillo with liver sauce.

Those deadly starters had to be offset. So my dessert plate had some greens. It
was repeatedly replenished with squares of orange chiffon cake whose icing reminded me of those heavenly caramel cakes from Estrel's in Quezon City. I sampled the mango cheesecake, warm bread pudding and chocolate fondue. But the orange chiffon was top of the class.

My dietary offsetting consisted of one helping of sayote tops sauteed with plenty of garlic. Call it guilt eating. My partner liked how the vegetable dish was simply prepared. He took note of the components and said we'd have it done at home one of these days.

It's Mothers' Day. People like me who like to observe and live life fully now and then through Sunday buffets are entitled to guiltless treats.

Food photos by Babeth Lolarga

Brookside bibi & famille say thanks for the follow

"To be strong yet vulnerable--this is how we live on this earth. A big embrace."--New Year SMS from poet Marj Evasco 

Blood was no typo on your part
For in your words I recognize a life force
Where I find
The solace
That these days collect
Like impossible raindrops
In the frozen snow
Outside the window of this
My winter's discontent.

--Jorge V. Ledesma, writing from his Colorado isolation

With a bib tucked in her shirt, the blogger is ready for another Yuletide repast.

On our favorite couch by the Christmas tree at Mario's

Blurry photo of Lolarga-Fernandez family with house guests Sinag de Leon and Raya Amado. Sinag's son Dakila couldn't keep still and decided to play with Kai's toy car.

At the beginning of this year, I must say that our happily dysfunctional family has managed to stay intact through the decades. 

 

Has it been that long since Rolly and I decided to hitch our lives to a star and gamble (it does seem like a roll of the dice), take a chance on what Simone de Beauvoir called "an obscene institution"?  This year just past, I learned something new--that your chances of coming out a winner from a casino range from 30 to 40 per cent.

Ida Fernandez with her Tatay and her niece Kai holding the figurine of a lighted angel

Chit Roces and Vergel Santos, colleagues in writing and journalism, drop by for coffee and chat.

Hmmm. Call us Mr. and Mrs. Lucky Us then! And many a time it was our kids, Kimi and Ida, and now our granddaughter, who have helped keep the union intact. Add to that, the fellowship of friends and an extended family of children and grandchildren of our own co-parents.

In a country where Christmas is celebrated the longest, the Lolarga and Fernandez families wish to thank those who've stayed with us. The blogger, channeling Meryl Streep, also thanks her 21 ++ followers who saw her through her ups and downs, enjoyed the roller-coaster of life with her and screamed along with her, with arms and hands held high, as the ride swooped down.

Here's to more and more of the same!

Shall we dance after this meal at that Baguio classic, Cafe by the Ruins?

Source of topmost photo: "Here's the Thing," an online column by Ben Patterson

Photos taken by Suzy and Babeth Lolarga, Rolly Fernandez and an anonymous waiter 

A very late Sunday lunch

That is what a family like ours can expect when we begin the day with an unusual breakfast of spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread. And Gatorade to replace my pick-me-upper coffee.

Since my daughter Kimi and I caught a tummy bug, we've been indoors all week, except for a morning when I visited a friend who was weaker than me.

So Sunday, our boss Rolly said it was gonna be his treat again. We didn't leave the house until past 2 p.m., but we weren't feeling particularly ravenous because we snacked on Marie's beautiful chocolate cake and pastillas-flavored florettes.

By the time we parked at Mario's, the Sunday lunchtime buffet crowd was gone, and we went a la carte: parmesan chicken and pasta for the younger girls, split USDA steak, well done, and mashed potatoes with side veggies of okra (my fave!) for the oldies. I can't believe I'm in the latter category, but at 57 who can deny that?

Here we are before and after our meals. Satisfied customers, as usual.

There's something about a red and white checkered tablecloth that stirs the appetite.

Here's Butones doing her version of "Bow Bow Belinda" in front of the menu board.

This girl loves warm and plain dinner rolls.

We love this area by the main entrance. It has a super-cushy couch and that elegant stone arc dividing it from the bar. We've had our Christmas photos taken here in the past.

And that's our squeeze doll on the left.

We are family, except for Butones's Tita Ida whom we miss on occasions like this. 

Photos by Kimi Fernandez and Babeth Lolarga