“Office ni Nanay” (Mother’s Office)

This morning, even though it was a weekend, I had a workshop to document. I was tired, coming from another grueling workshop for the past three days. I would have just wanted to linger in bed. But work is work and in truth, I’m actually excited to be a part of that particular project. It concerns the family and business – the former, being my foremost passion for the moment and the latter, something I’ve been contemplating about getting into more seriously, one of these days. When I have the time that is hehe It’s going to be an engagement, spread out for the next two months. It’s going to take away my weekends for that long but I am certainly looking forward to learning as much as I can from it.

So anyway while I was getting ready, Baby woke up and immediately looked for his Tatay. I told him Tatay is getting the car ready since he’s taking me to work. He immediately got teary-eyed and told me it’s okay for him if I work but that Tatay should stay at home with him. I told him Tatay would have to take me to work but would be right back. That was not good enough for him though. In the end, we had to take him along with us. There is nothing new about that. Being without a nanny for a long time now, we had to constantly tag him along wherever we go. If I had to go to the gym, Tatay had to go some other time since he had to watch over Baby and vice-versa.

So anyway, it did not dawn on me that Baby has been taking note of the places we’re going to and have certain associations for them. Until this morning. The workshop was at a downtown hotel which is a common venue for training and workshops. And it wasn’t the first time they’ve taken or fetched me from there. Just as we were about to turn the corner where the hotel was, Baby suddenly exclaimed, “Oh! There! Office ni Nanay! Yehey! Ayan na office ni Nanay.” (Oh! There it is, Mother’s office!) I was so surprised but at the same time, was also greatly amused. Office indeed! Hehe!

So true, even when I was still working full time or now that I’m doing free-lance work, my world revolves mostly in hotels and training venues. And Baby had grown up spending time in hotels as well especially when the training would be “live-in” and would run for several days. When he was a mere six-month old baby, I had dragged him all the way to Legazpi because I had to be there for five days and I was breastfeeding him. A few months after that, I had to drag him again to Cebu and then Baguio.

It’s just funny how Baby readily associates the hotels as my office. He’d been to my previous office several times and yes, he would readily exclaim as we would drive towards it that there is Nanay’s office. It’s really funny how he thought of the hotels as my office as well just because I’d tell him I’m off to work every time they take me there.

The whole experience drove home the point to me that Baby is really at the stage now that he is taking everything in and associating situations and events with different things. He is really at such a vulnerable age wherein he is starting to define things based on his own experiences from it. Like love. Everything that he is experiencing with us as parents would be something he’d associate with love and how relationships should be. And that whole thing has a lot of bearing on his self-confidence, how he regards himself, and us as his parents. Imagine that. The realization is humbling and puts a lot of pressure on me. I am not perfect and I am afraid I have committed things and may still do things that could harm Baby for the rest of his life.

In one of the sessions this morning, the resource person gave emphasis on the point that a family is a very powerful force that can help build the individual and at the same time, could also be responsible for hampering his/her growth. And I think that “powerful force” is something that is completely in the parents’ hands. Well, at least when the children are still small. How that power is yielded depends solely on them and how they in turn were brought up as kids.

I look at Tatay and his dysfunctional family and I am very much worried indeed. And of course, there is also my own imperfection. But no, I refuse to dwell much on that. That is out of my hands already. It’s been done and there is nothing I can do about it now. However, Baby’s present and future is something that is now my sole responsibility. Definitely, there is something I can do about THAT. And of course there is God, who is the source of all my strength. I may be weak by I am comforted with the thought that He too has a plan where the life of son is concerned. I am not alone in this.

These days, realizing my role as a parent, I find plenty of reasons to be on my knees just to implore Him to make things right for my son and to protect Baby from my own mistakes and distorted take on some things. He had never failed me where providing for our financial needs is concerned. I am counting on the belief that He also would not fail to guide Tatay and I to make the right decisions for our son and to bring him up in the way that he should go. For that particular prayer alone, I put my whole heart and being into it. It is that important to me.

There’s this particular song I particularly liked because it serves as a prayer to me where being a parent is concerned. I have already posted it here but I'll post it again here soon.