He's Now Three. :)

It was supposed to be a family outing..Hamza, Raja and I with Hamza's parents and sibs, and my siblings and our nephews..we were all supposed to spend Raja's third birthday at Enchanted Kingdom in Sta. Rosa Laguna. But the stand-off at The Peninsula the day before his birthday gave me second thoughts about leaving home due to security reasons. So, we stayed home.. most of the day that is. Spoiled by his dad, Hamza quickly yielded to his only child's wishes to go to the mall to get his hair cut (go figure!). So, at five in the afternoon, we headed off to the nearest mall to get our little tyke a new 'do. It was a horrendous drive; what usually took twenty minutes to the mall lasted about more than an hour! I guess no one was afraid of coup d'etats anymore--we've all gone numb to all the hooplah going on around us. Anyway, we get him a hair cut and a toy afterwards, dinner at one of our fave haunts, stopped by a cake shop for his birthday cake and head home. It was a simple celebration once again, but a very happy one.

When he closed his eyes to sleep that night, I couldn't help but look at him and feel reminiscent of everything about him. From the day he was born (actually, four days after he was born) until that very moment. It's like, ang bilis! Time flies! You really have to try hard not to blink if you want to see everything happen before you. It was just like yesterday when all he did was cry and feed and get his diaper changed. Now he feels irked when he has a diaper on so he's stopped wearing one early on, he speaks sentences and asks "why" questions all the time, which sometimes leaves me asking those questions myself. He's like a sponge, and we really have to watch ourselves at times because he picks up on things really quickly. He's learned the alphabet and numbers, colors and shapes before he turned three years old, and knows the different kinds of vehicles, he has a keen sense of direction (he knows whether we're going to the mall or to lola's or wherever) and can determine good from bad. He now has preference for food, for tv shows, toys, the clothes he wears when we go out, playmates (he doesn't like playing with girls, except his tita Jaminah) and just about everything else! He doesn't like to sing unless it's the Spongebob theme song or Naruto (feeling Japanese) and doesn't like to dance unless I dance with him. He's still very much a part of us, but he's now starting to have his own identity which is apart from us. It's amazing seeing your own child grow before your very eyes, but it sometimes scare the hell out of me because I keep thinking if I'm doing all right as a parent to Raja or not. But knowing what I know about our son, I think I'm doing just fine.

Now that he's three, I asked him if he wanted to go to school. He said no, not yet, he still wants to stay home and play. It made my heart jump that he chose to stay home with us despite all the the nice things I said about school...I think I'll give him another year, then ask again. Maybe by then, he'll change his mind.

People keep asking if he's going to get a brother or sister anytime soon... "Buntis ka na ba?" "May kapatid na ba siya?" "Bakit hindi n'yo na sundan?" Relax. Chill. It's not like we wanted it this way, you know. Had we not lost the second, he'd have had a brother or a sister by then. And it's not like we're waiting for the right time. There's no such thing as the right time--if you're blessed by ALLAH to have that child now, tomorrow, the next month or year, then that is the right time, and say Alhamdulillah and thank you for the blessing. But if it's going to be just us three, still, Alhamdulillah and thank you for the blessing. Not everyone is blessed with a child. And to us, Raja is more than enough for now. It'll happen when it happens. But right now, it's just our Raja.

I look at the calendar and count the days until his fourth birthday swings by... it won't be long. Then I look at my kid again with his eyes closed, his matchbox still in his hand and tell myself, don't grow up just yet. happy birthday, Raja... ummi and abi love you very much.