13

Friday the 13th. Unlucky. Eight grader. Start of the teen years. 13 playing cards in each suit. 13 diners at the Last Supper. Thirteen. Labing-tatlo. Trese. Today marks my thirteenth year of blogging and although I may not be as diligent as before I am still keeping this little space of mine in the blogosphere. ‘Coz it keeps me sane. ‘Coz I want to write. ‘Coz I can. Just because.

It was fourteen years ago when I planned a D-I-Y trip to Cebu and Bohol with some friends. It made me realize that I can do a backpacking trip with my frugal means. And it made me happy. A few months later, I dared to start my own blog even if I knew that I wasn’t a great writer or a storyteller. Traveling was an escape for many reasons. But it found me. Traveling and documenting inspired me so much that it consumed me since then.

It was the past year in 2023 when our small family started to pursue traveling after the worldwide pandemic in 2020. We often went to Nueva Ecija and Zambales which were our default provinces as these were the hometowns of our parents. We also went to Zamboanga for a quick trip during one of the major holidays while my friends and I went to Boracay for a few days making it my first-ever trip without my two boys.

We also did a 35-day backpacking trip to Surigao City, Siargao, Dinagat Islands, Malaysia, and Singapore during my annual school break. It wasn’t an easy thing to travel with a toddler though. There were times when we questioned our decisions on engaging in this kind of trip but at the end of the day, we would tell ourselves that it’s all worth it as our son was learning so much from everything, delighting all his senses.

The past year also revolved around parenting and living a life with a toddler, and it is not easy. It may be because we do not have a house help and having a full-time job and side hustles sometimes sucks the energy from our 40ish bodies. There were days when we felt like giving up but we always chose to look at the brighter side of everything. That we both have each other and we share the same principles on how we want to nurture our child.

Our son, Akira, is a strong-willed child. He wouldn’t sit down and wait until something happens, he makes things happen. He isn’t the child who would stay in a corner and linger until someone would approach him, he’s the type who would start a conversation easily with either kids or grown-ups alike. It really is a challenge to have a very extroverted child when both parents are introverts.

“Life is definitely easier if Akira has his own gadget to play with all day, eh, or maybe not?” That is my usual conversation with Christian during our Friyay beer nights as we go over our convictions of the “no-gadget rule”.

Akira once asked me why some kids have their own cell phones or tablets while he doesn’t have any, he was two years old at that time. I would explain that we want him to explore more of his surroundings and play with whatever interests him and that he’s too young to have self-control with such gadgets. He never asked me those questions again.

Last Christmas, we gave Akira his first-ever gadget, an old-school digital camera that actually works! He recently became interested in taking photos using our cellphones and thought of it as a gift for him. And he’s definitely taking photos and videos every single day.

I didn’t realize that parenting would consume Christian and me so much more than we expected. It is true when Warren Buffet said that who you marry is the most important decision you make. ‘Coz I never would imagine having any other partner in this parenting thing other than him.

Happy 13!