of weddings and baby-sitting cousins

"HE'S just a baby," I muttered to my husband, Ned,  as we zoomed in on my

cousin Pocholo who was  standing in front of the church altar waiting

for his bride, Suzette.

Well, that "baby" is in his early twenties and certainly old enough

to get married. But you know how Ates (older cousins) can get about

their younger cousins, specially the ones they looked after as babies.

 "Remember how bloated Pocholo's tummy was when we kept giving him his

bottle?" my cousin Ann and I giggled to each other during the

ceremony.

 Flashback:

Pocholo's parents -- Uncle Rhollie and Auntie Baby had gone out to a party that

night and we were tasked to look after their chubby baby boy. Now,

Pocholo was a very sweet baby -- super quiet, certainly not one to

cry his lungs out -- but something must have upset him that night and

triggered a crying bout. Cool as a cucumber, Ann and I gave him his

bottle of milk. He drank and finished it all up. Great! For the next

twenty minutes or so he was content and closed his eyes. Tiptoeing out of the room, Ann

and I screeched to a halt when Pocholo let out a wail.

  "What do we do?" we looked at each other anxiously.

 "How about another bottle?" I suggested. "Water naman." We did exactly that and

our baby cousin stopped crying. That was the scenario for the next

number of hours: cry, bottle, sleep, cry, bottle, sleep, cry........until our aunt and uncle came home to find their little bundle of joy

sleeping soundly. Ann and I heaved a sigh of relief and hurriedly

prepared to go to bed. 

We'd just reached the door when we heard our Auntie Baby shout, 

"Bat ang laki

ng tyan ni Pocholo!"

       

You can be sure we never gave him another bottle of water that night, or any other night of his baby years.

I wonder though if he'll let us take care of his baby this time

around.....

       

Weddings are a great way to reminisce and I think I'll be doing a lot

of that as my younger cousins (I'm old! I'm old! I'm really old!)

start trekking down the aisle one by one.

* * * * * * 

Pocholo is now in his 30s and has two beautiful not-so-baby-anymore boys. And though we haven't stayed long enough to baby-sit, he lets us have unlimited access to them. May takot pa rin sa mga Ate.

And, oh, it's not my cousins who are getting married this time around but our pamangkins (Lara & Jon; Benin & Cha). No wonder my white hair won't stay hidden anymore.