A Conversation I Did Not Want, But Actually Needed

This past week has been a tough one. What started as a cough for one twin quickly escalated to pneumonia for both of them. I kept getting jarred by one development after another. First was the worry at having to be admitted to the hospital at all, then the shock at finding out from xray results that both twins had pneumonia. Then, as one twin started getting better, the other one who didn’t seem much affected at first and was not even put on IV started getting worse! So what happened was the first one who got sick was also the first one to be discharged, while the other one had to stay longer for added treatment and observation. Every day I would be hoping to be sent home, wishing it would only be a couple of days, but we ended up spending five days in the hospital. Every day I would nervously think about the twins’ progress, the work that I was not able to do, the medical expenses that were piling up, the logistical difficulties of taking care of the twins and shuttling from home to hospital to pick up supplies and needed paperwork. It also didn’t help that Don was on travel and we were less one person in the rotation.

So last night, when I was finally able to sleep in my own bed, I could only be grateful.

Grateful, and a little bit chastened—because of a few minutes of conversation with a hospital staff who was then doing chest physiotherapy on Dahon while I was holding her in my arms.

Words that hurt

I’ve mentioned in a couple of previous posts that at some point we were concerned that the twins weren’t in hurry to talk—they didn’t even start saying “Mommy” until they’re about a year and a half.

Now, though, words come out of them out of the blue. The other day, when Ulap saw me coming down the stairs dressed up to go to a meeting, she said, “Alis.” I was holding my dirty coffee mug and cereal bowl, so she led the way to the kitchen, saying “Hugas.” By that time Dahon has already appeared, and as I was washing the mug and bowl at the sink, she clung to my leg and said “Sama.” That’s the first time I heard those words from them!

I explained to Dahon that I couldn’t let her come with me, but of course she was still insisting. So the yaya distracted her with some flash cards, and I sneaked out as they were busily hunting up letters. I wanted to avoid a dramatic farewell scene. I waited so long to hear them talk, but I was not prepared to hear “sama” wailed repeatedly.

I wonder if I will ever be.

A Lesson in Patience, Yet Again

I was going through my phone’s voice memos this morning. There are only three voice clips, all featuring the twins, of course. One was a recording of me and Baby D which went something like this:

Me: Say “Mom-my!”
D: Pa-pa!
Me: Mom—
D: Pa-pa!
Me: Hey, Mommy naman. Mom-my! Mommy!
D: *giggles*
Me: (still insisting) Mommy!
D: Papa!

You get the drift.