I have never in my whole life felt so greatful to be blessed with a mom like mine. it is only recently that i realized that the bond i share with my mom was something different from other moms and daughters. i used to think that every girl i knew had the same relationship with their moms. i thought everyone had a supermom.
First and foremost, i salute her for bringing up two very behaved and disciplined kids. yes, that's me and my brother. no, im not implying that we're the best kids in the world. i am just so amazed at how well she managed to discipline us without being so strict. when i was growing up, my dad was always at work and that left my mom the responsibility of disciplining us. i am so proud to say that never in my life have i experienced throwing tantrums in department stores nor anywhere else, even at home.
she does everything at home, from household chores to kitchen work. you name it, she does it. she cleans the house, she does the laundry, does the dishes and most especially, cooks our meals. we never had a househelp for as long as i could remember. we never needed one, and partly because, i never wanted one. whenever the subject of hiring a yaya came up, i was always the first one to protest. why did we have to hire a stranger to work at home when my mom could do everything better? i know it sounds selfish and i know it would be beneficial for my mom to have someone help her do the chores. it's just that all my life, i have gotten used living with everything being done by my mom. for one thing, it's the food that i am most concerned about. i have grown up loving evry bit of my mom's culinary talent. she admitted that she was a virgin in the kitchen when she got married and had to forced my lola's househelp to give her a the basics on cooking, including rice. but that doesnt bother us at all because now, she can cook anything and everything we request, from what we read in magazines, what we see on tv and even what we tasted in restaurants. just give her the instructions and she can come up with something that tastes even better than the original. another thing which i really admire about her cooking is that she makes sure that everything was clean, fresh and in good quality no matter what it takes. now, having a yaya would mean that my mom would sometimes assign the task of cooking to the househelp and i wouldnt want my dinner prepared by any other person except my mom. sorry for sounding like a brat but that's just the way things go at home, and i know my dad and my brother feels the same way.
another special feature of my supermom is how she visits me and my brother in our bedrooms everynight. no, we dont live in a millitary home where bedchecks are SOP. she just does it to catch up on what weve been up to lately. i dont get to spend as much time at home as i did when i was in high school. now that im in college, i leave home at 7am and usually arrive home at 7pm just in time for dinner. there isnt much time to talk about what's been going on in my life since im usually so tired to talk and just usually go straight to my bedroom after dinner to rest. so it's my mom who reaches out and visits us in the bedroom. we usually just talk about school and other things i needed to know or she needed to know. sometimes she just comes in to tell me something funny that happened earlier that day or sometimes she simply just wants to annoy me until i reach the point of being "pikon" and we'd end up wrestling each other or chasing each other around the house. yes, that's my mom.
during school nights, my dad imposed a 7 o'clock curfew. it's quite reasonable for me since my classes usually end up at 4, but sometimes, due to schoolwork, we'd have to stay out late to work on case prsentations and ward classes. sometimes, we end up at 2 in the morning, when i get home, i'd still find my mom awake while waiting for me. she'd ask me if i had eaten already or if i wanted a midnight snack.
even in school work, my mom was always there to help. she was always willing to stay up late to help out my brother for a major presentation the next day.
between her and my dad, she was the calmer one. that is why she was the one we ran to when we had problems and if we wanted something. of course, the final decision was always my dad's, but if we told her first, she could help us convince my dad into saying yes. my dad was alwyas the disciplinarian, she was our "kakampi". whenever my dad got too mad at us, she would always tell dad that to calm down.
oftentimes, my friends and i go out after classes. we eat somewhere or just simply hang out at a friend's house until my curfew. once or twice a week, my mom would go to the grocery shop to stock up our kitchen cabinets, and when she does, she would always call me and ask me if my classes are over and if i wanted to eat before grocery shopping. i would usually say yes then i'd say goodbye to my friends then meet my mom. back then, my friend would usually tease me, saying that it wasnt really my mom whom i was meeting but some other guy that i havent introduced to them. it was funny. but as time passed by, i got the chance to introduce them to my mom, so now, whenever my mom called, they know that its really her.
when people see us together, theyd often mistake her as my older sister. i deny it most of the time, but yes, she does look like just a couple of years older than me. Even my lolo's cousin is amazed at how well she takes care of herself despite the rigorous work she does at home. i myself cannot figure out how well she keeps her skin healthy even without the help of night creams, lotions and the kind.
there are still so many things that my supermom is capable of, but it would take me all day long to write them all down. i know i might have hurt her feelings in one way or another and i know that i could never repay her for all the wondeful things she has done, let alone bring me into this world.
i would just like to tell the whole world how blessed i am to be born in this world by a supermom as great as her.
Happy Mother's Day to all moms.