From Dawn Till Dusk

When I learned I was tagged for this Meme, I knew there so many real life facts that I can list down about my Mom. I knew my Mom by heart and even though we don’t have a perfect relationship, I love her to death. More than just being a Mom, she’s my friend, my sister, and most importantly, she’s my best/worst critic.

So here goes, 10 Factual Facts About my Dearest Mom. (I hope my Tita/Ninang Norma doesn’t get to read this. Or else, even at miles away, she’ll find a way to tell my Mom and Mom will kill me for these!)

1. She has a very odd maiden name. And it was only through this Meme that I realized her name was in exact order (in terms of number of letters from the first name, middle name and last name). First name: FE (di ba parang chemical symbol); Middle Name: TIRATIRA (oh di ba, para naman ito yung sugar caramel candy na tig 10 cents way back in the 80s); and Last Name: SAN BUENAVENTURA (eto naman, sounds strange din because most surnames I know Buenaventura lang and no San attached to it).
2. She’s a Registered Nurse by profession and very warmth and gentle with her hospital patients when she was still practicing (she took an early retirement and tried greener pastures abroad for about three years). But I remember that when we her four children were sick and needs intravenously injected medicines, we can’t even request her to be gentle. Instead, she’ll say: “Tama na yang inarte anak, mabilis lang itong injection ko, parang kagat lang ng langgam”. Then the next thing we’d know, it’s finished and we can no longer complain.
3. Her original love was Fine Arts and Fashion Design and not Nursing as a course in College. So even when my Lolo and Lola insists that she took Nursing (and they succeeded prodding her as Mommy finished the course with flying colors), she took Fine Arts and Fashion Design on the side. The proofs? Well, I’ve seen some of her works in a hidden treasure box at home.
4. My Mom’s a control freak with us her kids. An example of this attitude of hers was back in my College years. When I told my Mom I already had a boyfriend, she freaked out and lectured me with endless litanies to be not too serious and aggressive in a relationship and that I should finish my schooling first and land on a good career before taking the BF-GF thing seriously. I was so puzzled back then how my Mom reacted to what I told her as if I wanted to say: “Hey Mom, relax OK. I’m not getting married yet”. Oh well, I began to understand why my Mom reacted that way as I was told by my Inang (my mother’s Mom) my Mom and Dad got hitched at whirlwind. And though both of them were hesitant to get married in no time and without consent of their parents, they still took the big leap at one faithful day of December 1975. They came home a week after, and wedding bands worn by them a marriage certificate shocked in greeting my Lolas and Lolos.

   

5. I used to believe that when a woman gave birth via a Caesarian Section for her first baby, that would be the precedent for her succeeding births. But my Mom, who gave birth for her third via CS, managed to still go the Normal way for her fourth baby–our bunso in the family.
6. Before giving birth, her vital statistics used to be 34-24-36. But after bringing up four terrible children in this world, she bloated to 36-36-36. But in fairness, she got back to her normal figure after sometime of being relieved from raising stressful and pasaway kids.
7. My Mom loves to shop for vegetables in the grocery store and my Dad always objects on letting her buy as the vegetables would often be stocked at home, uncooked and spoiled. But Mom would always insist to buy and as expected, the veggie stocks remained in the ref rack, untouched. She’ll just be reminded to cook the veggies when we call her attention and say: “Eh Mommy, tuyo na po yung vegetable”.
8. She loves to cook in a hurry and prepare the dinner table in no time. But when she’s hooked to a telenovela or a showbiz talk show, (I remember, Flordeluna in the 80s and Eye to Eye), she’ll end up with burned food in the kitchen. Hay, we had no other choice then but be forced to eat them.
9. She’s so addicted to shopping for clothes (mostly for ours–her children) that often, she’s scolded by my Dad for not observing a given monthly budget. So to avoid being scolded, she put the shopping bags under our bed. But later, Dad will find out about it the moment we wore the clothes.
10. She’s a breastfeeding advocate that when I gave birth, she was lecturing me religiously to at least breastfeed for a year. When I asked her if she breastfed us her children, she said she didn’t. Well, her excuse was she was mostly at graveyard shift duties in the Hospital where used to work so she was not able to breastfeed us exclusively. Hmm, palusot pa si Mommy.

For the virus fun of this Meme to propagate some more, I’m tagging the ever-dashing SexyMom and uber prolific writer AnnaManila, to tell us interesting facts about their Moms. Go, go, go you two terrific Mommies, we want to know more about your Moms as well.