My Daughter Turns 5…Then My Wife Leaves…

Well, our daughter Dana Katharine (aka Kitty) just turned 5 last March 24. Grabe, parang kahapon lang 1 year old lang siya, ngayon 5 na!

It wasn’t anything spectacular. Just my wife, my in-laws, and my wife’s relatives showed up, and I understand everyone else is busy with this or that, nothing wrong with it.

But we made sure that despite our current situation, we were going to make it a happy day for her. My wife arranged for a special kind of cake and a special kind of gift, something I told her to find because of what I’ve long noticed about Kitty.

I didn’t want to get a toy for Kitty because she can get bored with it. Ganyan naman ang mga bata, they go for this one minute, then another thing the next.

Instead, I told my wife Ana to get some art materials. But she did more: not only did she get some colored paints, she also got a portable blackboard! 🙂

Another thing we also discussed before is getting a customized cake for Kitty. As in we’d find a place that accepts a photograph, then somehow “superimposes” it onto the cake itself.

In this case, we wanted to add a cute boy character named Pocoyo. Atat na atat si Kitty kay Pocoyo, can’t say I blame her since Ana and I found Pocoyo cute din. 😀

It so happens that Red Ribbon does such. It cost us P750 for a rectangle cake, standard birthday cake size.

All we did was give a 5R pic of Pocoyo to Red Ribbon (SM Sta. Mesa branch) a few days before Kitty’s birthday. My bro-in-law picked it up on Saturday morning.

At syempre, Kitty was so happy when she finally saw the cake! And so were we, ang galing ng pagawa, I tell you.

Then we finally showed Kitty her gift. I let her tear the wrapper to shreds. 😉

Kitty was even happier when she finally saw the gift. And she promptly started acting like a teacher! 😀

Needless to say, the day went well. Everyone was happy.

Then when it was night time, Ana started packing up her things. I kept Kitty busy with her blackboard and art set so as not to bother her.

I read Kitty one of her story books, then both Ana and I kissed her goodnight. We both had our last “night chat” before we both finally hit the hay.

Then March 25, we had breakfast, did some last minute things, and we were off to the airport. My wife Ana was scheduled to leave for Abu Dhabi about 10:40AM, so she had to be there by 7AM at least.

We stuck around to make sure Ana settled any potential problems she might have had with airport security, then we said our goodbyes. I kissed and hugged my wife, then both she and Kitty kissed and hugged each other.

But the whole time, Kitty didn’t cry! That was kinda good, although okay lang sa akin if she did anyway because kids need to express their feelings somehow.

Speaking of which, she finally did express her feelings when we went back home. Come Sunday night before I read one of her story books, she said upfront she missed mama.

I told her I miss her mama din. Then I kissed and hugged her before I read her story.

Today’s the first day without Ana again. We’ll manage somehow before she returns January for a brief vacation since her work contract allows her such.

So it’s me and Kitty again in the meantime, along with my in-laws. But we’ll keep in touch with Ana once a week so we’ll both know how we’re doing respectively.

Tough choices. But sometimes we gotta do what we gotta do.


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