I’ve started organizing things at home these past few days. Knowing that there won’t be another person to help me around the house in the next few months is making me frantic when it comes to storage and organization. I want everything as organized as possible so that it would be easy to re-organize whenever Mateo decides to scatter his toys and things.

I think I passed on some of the OC-ness to Mateo. There are times when he insists on fixing things his way. Sometimes he’d even get a kick out of organizing products whenever we’re at the mall. As early as now, he knows that his shoes are supposed to be left at the door when he enters our house, that he needs to fix his bed every morning before he can go out, that his bottle has to be put inside the refrigerator after drinking. He’s still not strictly OC though. He’s still disorganized especially when he gets a bit carried away while playing with his toys. Nevertheless, I think he’s still more organized than most kids his age. So I shouldn’t have such a hard time asking him to help me out once his yaya leaves

Mateo has been sick the past few weeks. Cough, cold, and slight fever. AGAIN. His yaya got the same thing from him after four days. Ramil followed after a week while I have just started feeling a really bad headache yesterday. Now my nose is stuffy, my throat is scratchy and sore, my head feels like a balloon about to pop. Just when I have a pile of things to do….

The other day, I had a flash back of my college days. Back when life was simple and we were carefree. For a fleeting moment, it made me wish I was a student once again. Since I would be out of work starting April, I realized that I could actually study again if I want to. With the many online universities these days, it would be so easy to get a degree online. Since Ramil and I have been planning to start our own business in the far future, I also thought that it would help if one of us has a business degree. I guess it’s not so impossible anymore. It’s a step towards having our own business. Once we all get to adjust to the changes in our lives, it might be worth a try.

It seems that after making one of the biggest decisions of our lives four years ago, it has been one big decision after another for Ramil and me. I just sealed another decision with a letter I submitted earlier today. It was a decision for a better family life, a decision to live a much simpler life than what we have right now.

In two months, Mateo’s yaya will be leaving us and this time, we don’t plan on getting another one. Hopefully, the decision to stay home once again will be more beneficial to Mateo, behavior-wise and health-wise. I am already thinking of the routine we will have, the activities we will do, and the (nearby) places we will go to. Hopefully in a few weeks’ time, his use of ‘po’ and ‘opo’ will be consistent almost 100% of the time, he will almost be completely toilet-trained, he will have mastered asking for things in the proper tone of voice.

I am not saying that staying in school with us was all bad for him. In fact, there’s a lot of good in it. He has learned to be more sociable, he practices his memory by knowing the names of everyone, he learns a lot of tricks from the students and the teachers, he gets to ‘read’ a lot of books in the library, he gets to play with a lot of children, and he gets exposed to the sights and sounds of a school.

However, he has never been more sick than in the past 10 months. He gets cough and/or cold almost every month because too many people want to kiss him or cuddle him. Despite having a really good yaya for him, I realize that I will never be satisfied unless I’m the one who’s with him most of the time. He now has small habits he developed because of the amount of time spent with his yaya, like whining if he wants something or talking in a loud voice and saying ‘hoy’.

The decision to go back to staying at home full-time is not easy because I love teaching. I love it so much it brings tears to my eyes thinking that I will never walk inside a classroom again as a teacher. It pains me that Mateo’s upbringing is something I am not willing to compromise and that it means letting go of something I love doing. I know it will be worth it. The reward will not be something that will fill my pockets but I know it’s something I will never regret.