Nevergirl’s

We’re moving by March 22. I dread it but like all things scary and dreadful, I’d rather get it done the soonest that I can. I don’t believe in prolonged goodbyes, in dragging out agony. I don’t like that we’re moving but I’d rather move now than spend all my days cringing at the idea and shrinking from what needs doing.

All my mental wanderings aside, there’s really no other place I’d love to live in than Bohol. It’s not just that I spent most of my childhood there; I’ve lived in Cebu for 10 years after all, and stayed in Davao for a year and a half. I love Bohol because it’s equal small, beautiful, quiet, and kind.

Cancun hotels? Sure, I wouldn’t mind staying there for a day or so. I wouldn’t mind living in Bangkok, Tokyo, or Thessaloniki either. Egypt is up there on my list; so is Bhutan though I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do there. But I figure, all these places, they’re fine and dandy, but they’re not Bohol.

Someday, after we’ve moved around some more and after we’ve traveled abroad for a bit, we will go back to Bohol, where everything started for me, where I drew stick figures on the bark of a tree.

It’s really the bag of loose skin around my waistline that’s the matter. After my first pregnancy, I got thick around the midsection. After the second pregnancy, my tummy lost the battle with gravity. I now have full-blown saddlebags, as huge as most men’s beer bellies but uglier, wrinklier, and I hate it. It makes me look like a stick figure that had swallowed a zorb ball because my arms and legs are thin but my tummy protrudes like so.

So anyway, because I believe there is always a solution to every problem, I keep scouring the Internet for quick fixes, like quick trim celluslim. A part of me hopes there’s a cream out there that can “erase” everything that’s wrong with this problem area. The logical part of me – the one that pooh poohs at dramatic product claims – and actually reads FDA warnings is scared of trying anything new. I know there are no shortcuts to a flat tum so where does that leave me? I’d say “about to go the fit and fab route by exercising” except that I know it’s not true.

I’m a sloth and a glutton and until both change, I guess I’m stuck with this icky midsection. Honestly, it doesn’t bother me especially when I’m stuffing my face with ice cream, chips, and all sorts of gunk. But when I’m not, I start thinking there should be a statute of limitation to the period when almost everyone can ask me, “Are you pregnant?”

I’m not. I’m just, uh, lazy and stuffed.

Overnight it seems, I find myself coming home to a house where kids are everywhere. True, I only have two but sometimes, it feels like I’ve more, especially while I’m assessing the mess that surround us. There are little clubhouses of Lego blocks everywhere. Shoes – both the worn out and outgrown – look out like sentinels from underneath the yaya’s bed. Toys are strewn here and there. Pacifiers and feeding bottles vie for space on our bedside table. And, wherever I walk, I seem to stumble onto a hairless doll or two, or a mangy-furred bear with one eye missing.

Yes, time flies. My girls aren’t babies anymore. Even 14-month-old Charlie would rather drink milk from the glass – Alex’s glass. I look at them sleeping today and it hit me hard: their limbs are much longer now, their features are more defined. One day, they will have activities that do not involve me. There will be pimple-faced friends. There might be very late-night texts or whispered phone calls. There will be rooms with locked doors. There will be Saturday jaunts to the mall. Then, worst of all, there is the possibility of boyfriends.

Believe me, the husband and I don’t plan to stand in the way of the inevitable. It makes us sad that they’re growing too fast but it can’t be helped. My only plan is that this year, I get to horse around with them more. I gotta keep up, physique-wise. And, I gotta slap on more anti wrinkle cream, too!

Photo Above: Alex and Charlie sleep together, on the same bed. A few days after we started this arrangement, we worried the bigger one would end up smothering the smaller one. They both sleep helicopter-style: arms akimbo and limbs everywhere. Well, the worst did happen: Alex made a foot stool out of Charlie’s head! The baby was fine with it, though, and slept like she always does – face down and peacefully.