be cool

You are now 23 weeks.  The book “Pregnancy From Preconception to Birth” says that your hearing is now well established and that you’re getting used to all kinds of sounds.  You can make out a distorted version of Mommy’s voice, the beating of her heart, and her stomach rumblings. You now weigh a little more than one pound and measure about 11.5 inches.

Mommy took you to her doctor two days ago to check how you are.  The doctor gave both you and Mommy the thumbs up. You are growing fine, our little man, and we’re expecting you somewhere between the 12^th and 17^th of September.  Daddy will be flying to Manila around the 10^th of September so that he will be the first person you’ll see when you come into this world.

Now that you can hear Mommy’s voice, she has to be extra careful with what she says.  Take for example early this week. Mommy’s parking slot at home has been transferred without giving her notice.  Apparently, they needed to fix something around the area where Mommy’s parking slot is located.

Little pebble, if this happened before you came along, Mommy would have barged into the building administrator’s office and given him a long lecture, so long that he’d feel he was walking the entire length of the Great Wall of China.  Since you are in Mommy’s tummy however, she has to show you that she is a civilized citizen of the universe. 

So what she did tonight, was to tell the guard assigned to the parking area that he convey to the building administrator that he was an incompetent person because (1) he didn’t observe procedural due process when he shifted Mommy’s parking slot; (2) Mommy has manifested that the temporary slot assigned to her was difficult to manoeuvre given her present condition and that her request was just ignored; and (3) the length of time to repair the area is unreasonable (she wanted to asked if they’re putting up a skyway in the middle of the parking area but she refrained from doing so).

Daddy is quite proud of Mommy.  He knows that Mommy has about 50 other words for “incompetent” (some of these downright nasty) but that she did not use them, in deference to you.

So you see little one, you and Daddy are teaching Mommy a lesson or two on how to be cool; how not to sweat the small stuff, and above all, to choose to be kind rather than right.

PS: “Procedural due process” is a mouthful of words so Mommy has to explain this to you. It means little pebble that a person has to be given an opportunity to explain and defend himself before the appropriate action can be taken against him.  For example, Mommy comes home one day and all the walls have your crayon art works on them.  Mommy can’t say, “Young man, no play time tonight.” She’s got to say, “Young man, explain why there are crayon art works on the wall when you’re supposed to do them on your notebook.”  Then little pebble, you’ve got to give a good explanation why. A really very good explanation.