After two weeks of chaos, the kids are back in school.
There is calmness in the house.
We spent our new year in Tagaytay like we used to in the past eight years.
Except that our activities were limited by the rains. Too wet and foggy.Poor visibility.Our New Year mass at the chapel.Then dinner at the Winter Garden.Dinner was over by 8pm.
We took home some food for midnight snack, but I fell asleep. There was no loud firecrackers to nudge me from slumber… so opposite from the city.
On January 2, we had the Gutierrez family reunion in Bulacan.
It’s nice to have a big family.
My Daddy has seven brothers (no sister) and all of them are married and contributed children to the third generation. There are 23 of us first cousins in my Daddy’s side.
Two of my Daddy’s brothers entered the military, a colonel and a general. Tito S is the latter. My grandfather himself was a retired colonel — to Riel’s dismay for he underwent intensive scrutiny.
This is Tito E, my ninong at baptism.
Each kid has a video game. During my time, we only had one which we had to share with our siblings, a Nintendo Game and Watch. My Dad got us the “Octopus” game. Then we would trade it for a day for our cousins’ Chef and Popeye games.
Cousin M never fails to amuse the kids with his stories and tricks.Cousin H has a cool digital camera. It can shoot under water. He was demonstrating it to us.Ngek!… our heads came out distorted because of the water ripples.They passed the image around and everyone had a good laugh. Liezl, afraid that the photo might reach her fiance, deleted it a few minutes later. Liezl wouldn’t just give up. She played with the camera again. Swimming wasn’t part of the agenda, but cousin G willingly cleaned the pool.So into the water the kids went as Tita E watched.A few minutes later, I spotted trouble. Raf scraped his big toe in a broken tile.There was a lot of blood; I almost fainted. But I had to put a brave face in front of my son.Cousin I, a pre-med student, got some bandages and antiseptic.So Raf just stayed at the side of the pool and watched his brothers and cousins swim.The cold December water was not an issue to the kids.This is my brother D, who took most of the photos above. Thank you, I’m in the picture for a change.It’s complicated! (That’s what his Friendster status says)
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KQOTD. While the kids were watching a National Geographic documentary on twins in the womb, Marco confusely asked me: Mommy, how can the baby get inside the tummy? Do you eat the baby and let it grow inside? Before I can answer, Raf confidently said: God made it happen!
