I took my three children to the post office on January 28 all by myself.
I have been feeling invincible since then because I came out of the experience alive.
It was a Monday and I had been dying to pick up a package from China sent by my friend, Michelle Wang, all the way from Beijing. I knew it contained a Chinese painting as Michelle knows I am starting a collection of Chinese art. Michelle sent the package through China’s regular post office, which is honestly more reliable than its Philippine counterpart. I write this as a human being who lived in two of China’s biggest cities, Shanghai and Guangzhou, so I know what I am writing about.
I have very little faith on the Philippine Postal Corporation (PHLPost) as I had lost shirts, caps and books sent to me over the last 10 years. I had boxes that were opened before I picked them up. Thankfully though, the China package from Michelle came in with no signs of being forcibly opened.
I brought the children with me after lunch. They were done with school for the day and they had no exams the following day. My husband was skeptical about bringing the three children but he waved his hand in resignation to my insistence of spending time with the three mutants.
I asked a tricycle driver to bring us to the post office in barangay Jubay, Liloan from our home in barangay San Vicente. Google Maps told me the distance is only 7.2 kilometers (a 16-minute travel time). I paid Php 100 and the driver asked me if he should wait for us. I told him the children prefer their multicab ride so I thanked him and he left.
The twins, Nick and Toni, are a joy to be with now that they are five-years old. I just tell them to behave and sit down and 98% of the time, they oblige.
Jeffrey is another story.
He explores like he is a mature man who leaves without a single warning that he will go this way or that way.
He just disappears.
He also opens every cabinet and drawer he sees. If there is food, then the little boy is there.
Inside the post office, Antoinette was ecstatic.
“Can you believe it?! I am actually inside a post office!” she said this while performing her victory dance holding the package from Michelle.
Jeffrey was busy checking out cabinets and piles of boxes. Nicholas looked after his brother as I requested him to do so.
We opened the package outside of the post office. Michelle gave me a painting of a pomegranate, which symbolizes “more children, more happiness.” Michelle just gave birth to her second child so along with the painting, she sent me photos of her and the baby.
Michelle and I became friends back in 2017 when I joined a media scholarship program at the Communications University of China where she works. We are both mothers, who are both in the field of communication, so we clicked immediately and became instant friends as we studied and traveled around Beijing, Fuzhou and Xiamen.
The children were surprised to see baby pictures in the package so I explained to them about Michelle and her baby.
After properly disposing the box and making sure that the painting and pictures were safe in my backpack, the four of us waited for the multicab infront of the New Liloan Public Market.
The plan was to go straight to Gaisano Grand Liloan for halu-halo in a fast-food chain there. But Nicholas was insistent on havin? g a pizza. I told him to let me know if he finds a pizza joint on the way to Gaisano. I was pretty sure there was none.
But… as the multicab slowed down along the road to pick up a passenger, Nicholas exclaimed, “There’s pizza over there.”
I checked outside and lo and behold, what did we see? Aventino’s Pizza and Pasta in barangay Looc, Poblacion. I told the driver that we are stopping there for physical nourishment.
He laughed.
The mutants wanted ice cream before pizza that afternoon. I gave in. Seriously, I just wanted them to settle down so I can have my pizza as well.
But ice cream is messy so the next 10 minutes was all about wiping and cleaning up sticky fingers and hands.
By the time the pizza arrived, I was ready to devour the entire pan. BUT Jeffrey kept on going back to refrigerator hoping to get a bottle of juice. I probably said “No Jeffrey” more than a hundred times in a span of 1.5 hours.
We had five more pizza slices which we took home for Daddy.
It was Nick’s idea.
You should have seen me on that day with three children. I was stressed out like a mad fool. But I was smiling a lot. You cannot let your children smell your desperation to sometimes wanting them to disappear for your sanity and then feeling ever so guilty three seconds later for ever saying that.
Nobody told me that motherhood is the toughest job of all.
I still wake up in the middle of the night wrapped in a worry bubble with this thought screaming in my head: “HOW IN THE WORLD WILL I EVER MANAGE TO RAISE THREE CHILDREN AS RESPONSIBLE AND LOVING HUMAN BEINGS?”
The text is specifically written in capital letters because that is how panic gets to me when I think about the years that I have to endure from childhood to adulthood. With a lot of things going on with my life, I often times feel like a negligent, bad mother. I worry about my parenting style. I worry about not being able to spend more time with them.
How did I ever end up as a mother?
Sometimes I feel like an expert in this field; other times, I feel like a clueless teenager.
On the way home to our house, Antoinette was singing a song about “please” and “thank you” as the magic words that should be used every day.
She was singing like there were no other passengers in the multicab.
Then, she looked at me, gave me a wink and a smile and said: “Thank you for taking us to the post office and for giving us pizza and ice cream, Nanay.”
I may not be so bad in this motherhood business after all.
