Friday, July 16, 2004

I am an evil tiger

A few days ago Miguel woke up and greeted me with a very sweet "Mom---my!" Yesterday his opening line was, "What time will you be home (tonight)?" The other day he got up on the wrong side of the bed, fussing "I don't want to go to school!" Most of the time he just says "Good morning" or "I love you." And almost always he gives me a hug and a kiss, over and over again. My daily dose, I call it.
 
But this morning, he told me that I was an evil tiger.

No, I haven't grown stripes or fangs. He was still asleep when I went down for breakfast, and by the time I went back to the room he was up and about, and had converted our bed into a "castle," complete with courtyard and -
get this - a "weapons shop." A blanket formed a canopy over some precariously balanced pillows, creating the main hall where he was holding court. I approached him for my daily dose, but he proceeded to demolish the castle - full of boyish exuberance - declaring that the "evil tiger" (that's me) was destroying it.

No amount of cajoling could make him give me a hug. Not even when I said that a kiss would turn me into a singing bird. And therein lies my frustration. I needed something so that I could get into the car and brave the Makati traffic and spend another useless day in an office where nothing of interest is going on. I was going to be late - heck, I already was late. I needed a hug - a tight one with two arms that lasted more than 5 seconds, one that preferably came with an "I love you mommy!"

Instead the "soccer-playing king in outer space with a mustache" was going full tilt into his Camelot routine, and I was the evil tiger. Sigh. I managed to squeeze the little rascal, and even managed to get an "I love you" out of him, but I definitely did NOT get my fix for the day. Well, at least he was one happy camper, hard at play. And it really was time that I left for work. So off I went. But I just have to tell you, nothing beats being there the moment your child wakes up.


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