GottaLoveMom

August. Summer peaks. Parks are full. Dogs and kids are stinky and happy. Ice cream is a kid’s best pal while the adults cool off with their beer, gin and tonics. And here, as life is bounces everywhere, it all comes full circle. My Aunt Priscilla Cruz Franciso, my second mother growing up, left her physical body on the 13 th of August, 2012.  She was my mother of affection. She was the first person who told me I was beautiful, spoke of features in my face which made me feel slightly elevated than what I normally feel about myself. When your mother is, for all intents and purposes, a beauty queen (cover for Liwayway, a famous magazine in the Philippines ; muse in University of the Philippines ) you cannot help but, being her daughter, feel like an ugly duckling next to her. I never liked to fall asleep knowing my Kaka (Aunt) was mad or upset at me. It made me miserable inside and out. I would crawl out of my mosquito net and snuggle next to her as she slept, slightly sn...

Let me start by saying that I am hover  mom ! My number one priority is keeping my boys safe and out of harms way.  BUT, having been raised by a hover mom myself, I realize how this limits personal growth and can foster self-doubt (for the record, I do not blame my mom for being over protective. She did the best she knew how) . So this is why, when it comes to being adventurous with my kids, I feel the fear and do it anyway.  The cool thing is I'm learning that every time I do this, I learn a valuable lesson about life. My monkeys and I on the banana boat.... During a recent vacation, I decided we should go on the banana boat. You know, the inflated banana that gets dragged around by a boat that looks like its engine is about to fall apart and they drag you  wayyy  into the deepest part of the vast ocean?  Yes, once I got my kids all excited about this I began to have "what if" doubts. What if we can’t get back on the banana and we get stranded, what...

The past month, I got in the habit of drinking lemon water. My friend told me about it awhile back, and then recently, my cousin reiterated the idea that lemon water helps with weight loss. I’m petite so I look like I don’t really have any pounds to lose. However, I couldn’t fit comfortably on any of my clothes and my sunglasses were touching my cheeks. My friend suggested a whole lemon’s juice added in a glass of water every morning. I couldn’t handle the acidity so I modified it to have 2 slices of lemon in a 16oz glass of water.  I noticed that I was drinking at least 6 glasses of lemon-water a day. (It actually stopped my diet-coke cravings!) It’s been 4 weeks and for the first time in my 48 years, I was confident wearing a 2 piece swim suit. I lost the 7 pounds that I had been trying to lose for the past 2 years!

I love to swim.  I always have.  Besides my new found love of yoga, swimming has always been the most serene form of physical activity for me (I hate to call it exercise because that word connotes torture for me).  I can swim for an hour solid and not think once "Is it over yet?". I find when I'm in the pool swimming laps, my body totally relaxes, my thoughts subside, and I just breathe.  All my worries float away and I just focus on the stroke and breathing.  I find that the 60 minutes I'm in the water is like meditation.  In fact, it is meditation for me.

"Every man dies, but not every man really lives. " -  that's one of my favorite quotes from Braveheart , words of wisdom that I use to remind myself every morning. I noticed that our roads, our path to whatever destination, are connected by our attitude and purpose. Seven years ago, I bumped into a very driven individual. Our boys (her eldest, my youngest) were in Kindergarten. It was the first day of school and the boys were in the playground. And as an "older mom", I introduced myself -- and that was the beginning of my friendship with Sonia.

“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.” William Makepeace Thackeray I was stunned when I first heard these words. Of all places, I didn’t expect to hear a profound quote from a somewhat dark movie called “The Crow”. Mind you, I fully expected to dislike this movie only to find remembering it all the time because of how dear the statement is to me. It’s so true and so simply put! My dearest friend, Jenjen , portrays an ideal of motherhood. You can tell how much she loves being a mother by all that she does and creates. This is true from her home, to her children, her newly published book “Out of Status” and finally, the tremendous work she’s been doing with our shared group at FALDEF. It takes a mother to do all that AND to do it well. Mainly, her motherly love makes all that seems impossible to be accomplished in one day, let alone in one hour, with excellent results. Certainly there are many kinds of mothers. Some are warm, hugga...