BLOODY TUESDAYS, AND THEN SOME

My husband and I were "baptized" into the world of toddler injuries last night when Nico lunged headfirst unto our rock-solid bedroom wall. We have been blessed to have made it through almost two years without any injury of this magnitude, but no length of time could have prepared us for a bloody (and teary) little nose.

With sheer adrenaline, I had managed to chunk-off a stalactite from the freezer (i.e., the kind that forms along the freezer walls when you don't de-frost for a looooong time... hehehe) to keep the swelling down. The way it was last night, my husband could have done well rushing ME to the hospital, as I was going through fits of hysteria. He kept telling me that it was going to be fine and that he had seen boxers on TV bleed all the time when they get punched in the nose. Ofcourse, I could have given him a nasty left-hook myself for his preposterous analogy, seeing as it was that my boy's pert little nose was a far-match from the broken-in facial muscles of the these bantamweights.

When Nico started crumpling his nose and wiping off bloodstains and teardrops from his face (very Gladiator-like, mind you), we were relieved that his nose wasn't broken. And while we recognize that last night wasn't going to be the last of the injuries in our lifetime, at least we would not be such neophytes the next time it happens (though I pray it never does).

*****

I got to spend some time with two of my law school blocies Cezanne and Happy last night before leaving Arel. I dropped the invites for Dyan's baby shower (which I'm spearheading with another chummy blocmate, Shine) and we got to catch up on the latest buzz. Twas really refreshing being with them, especially since there are precious little of us left (read:survivors) from the original bloc of 30+ freshies. We realized how far we've come from the perky newbies that we were four years ago. Our issues are far more profound now ---from marital crisis to unmentionable infections, we've sure gone a long way from the petty fights we used to have. And to think we've yet to take the bar.

More than anything, I hope we keep the friendship even after we graduate and become lawyers. After all, the best of relations are always those which rise above adversitites.


*****

America etched another man's name in history yesterday when they swore in their 44th president Barack Obama. Apart from wanting to see whether the inauguration-hype did pay off, I watched to hear if his speech would spawn a power line that would go down in the books of famous quotes. I had wanted to see if Obama would come up with one with the intensity of JFK's legendary "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." and Reagan's "At this time of crisis, government is not the solution to our problem ---government is the problem." And while last night's speech fell short of the overwhelmingly moving type that Obama was known for during the stretch of his campaign, he did come up with a line that Asian governments would do well to mull over:


"To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you can destroy."