ibat-ibang bagay (different things)
03 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
Josiah is down for a nap.
It is raining medium hard after a rainstorm of intense arrows of water, coming from all directions. I am glad I was inside during the attack.
I made some pasta sauce the other day that made me so happy I just wanted to keep eating and eating. Really, it was a recipe for pizza sauce (and it was great on that!), but it doubles well on penne, which I’ve discovered truly is my favorite pasta. I’m a texture eater, and the way penne has that crunch-but-not-a-crunch-because-it’s-pasta…I love it. Edwin recently announced to me that he hates rice. Not really, but he’s sick of it. I think this has added to his identity crisis…Who am I, really? he seems to be asking himself all the time, I mean, a Filipino who hates rice!? He is American, but has this Filipino culture inside him, which he was never formally taught and which has strange holds on him, and yet he views the culture in the Philippines as an outsider, as a foreigner. And so he is constantly going back and forth in his own self-discovery as an American Filipino, a foreigner in his parents’ homeland. So, we’ve been eating a lot of pasta lately, and have confessed our love for it to each other. I think we should go to Italy. (Ironically, the last few meals I’ve made have included rice.)
I’ve been reading Eat, Pray, Love. It’s a great read, but it makes me so sad. A great window into the new age spirituality that reigns in the hearts and minds of so many Westerners. They think that the answer to harmony in the world is to love and accept the teachings of all religions, not realizing that those religions are at philosophical and theological odds with each other. You can’t worship one God and all gods. You can’t choose your truth, saying that others have their own truth. Truth is truth, meaning it excludes that which is not included in itself. And for goodness sake, goodness doesn’t reside intrinsically in your heart, you are not God! I call this kind of thinking “Oprah spirituality.” It is misleading, and people are dying in it. Even more, it is based on works: how can I get to God? I’ll meditate…I’ll go deeper into myself. But deeper into ourselves is deeper into sin, even if it takes you to a place of emptiness. God the Father didn’t reveal himself to have us be self-focused spiritualists. He revealed himself to get us to look at him, and live lives for him and others.
But, the first part of the book, “Eat,” is truly entertaining. The author is in Rome, and I am taken back to that intoxicating city where I spent a glorious spring break as a senior in college. I was there on a study trip, but my experiences there are in my memory as if I was experiencing it in a parallel world, an art and gelato lover breathing the romance of cobblestones and hidden chapels that held works of the masters. Anyway, I think I’ve been eating pasta in overloads because of this section of the book. My mouth waters with every mention of fresh mozzarella.
I had a sweet time of prayer with the Lord today. There is a tree outside our second story office window that has a delicate limber trunk and dime-sized yellow-green leaves that shimmer with the tiniest breeze. I love them. Apparently they’re edible, but I would hate to take them off the tree. And anyway, I don’t know how to cook them.
Josiah likes tofu. This is a wonderful discovery for me, because I haven’t been able to get him to chew meat yet. But he can smash up the soft and protein-packed tofu, which I can season in different ways to expose him (finally!) to different flavors.
A little while ago he was contentedly sipping his juice out of his big boy sippy cup while I started pumping milk for his afternoon snack (I’m trying to get him to drink my milk in his cup so he’ll be ready for weaning). As soon as he saw my breast, he threw down the cup and came crawling at breakneck speed. I thought, This is not for you now, Josiah. These are not for you. As a matter of fact, in exactly 38 days, they’ll be mine again. They’ve been yours for almost a year now, and that has been my sacrifice to you, for you, for your health (and our budget). But on your first birthday, I’m taking them back. You’ll have to make good friends with your sippy cup, because he’s your new drinking buddy. My breasts are going to rehab.
I really am looking forward to the end of breastfeeding, although I imagine there will be times I’ll miss the closeness of it. I mean, after all, it has given me cuddle time with my baby for at least 5 times a day for a solid year. But I am looking forward to my relationship with Josiah when I’m no longer a 24 hour drive thru. It will be great to sit on the floor with him and play without him pushing at my breasts or pulling down my shirt. I’m looking forward to being just mommy, not mommy and the all important meal! I even think that his “ma-ma-ma-ma” babble isn’t really referring to me, but to the mammary glands which satisfy his hunger.
It’s amazing how many cycles of stress and worry and relief I’ve been over this past year. It’s a shame that those first months when he was sleeping every 2 hours were consumed by postpartum depression. I could have done a lot with that time…but it’s ok, because I rested. Each first for Josiah was a first for me, and when it didn’t go well it came with the first-time mommy stress: “I’m a terrible mother!” And then, after a few more tries, or after putting it away and coming back to it later, we would get through the obstacle, and here we are, with Josiah eating tofu and drinking juice out of a sippy cup and waving at people. If I could only get him to hug…
that’s next.
Pasta on Josiah’s nose.
