ashley's first flight

like all first-time mothers, i was a bit anxious about my baby's first plane ride. but as before, i was more anxious than she was. she was so behaved, and eventually treated her carrier (which again i had borrowed from ana, who bought it when she had to bring caesura from manila to cebu as a baby) as if it were her private bedroom. (gave her a warm bath the night before, with more neighborhood kids trying to help out). you can check out the photos in my album.

                                                    

and of course, everywhere i go, she's always a conversation-starter. i had to check her into the live animals section, and a mean man at the airport was saying, "gamay pa man ni. mabuhi kaha ni?". other popular questions in transit: "may lahi ba yan?", "sigurado ka wala'y iring didto sa inyo?", "ano yan, aso?". but everyone agreed she was cute.

 

i was a little concerned that the resort might have a policy about pets. it turned out that makiling highlands at pansol in laguna was cat heaven. you could look in a corner and there would be ten cats sitting there at a time. so you can guess just how many cats there were in the whole resort. and they were huge! and there were a couple that were all white, with amazing eyes. i could have sworn they were cat angels. because there were some nursing mothers (with adorable babies a couple of months old), i was hoping one of them would adopt ashley while i was there, and also so she could play with the other babies and have some sense of family even for awhile.

 

the cats weren't friendly to me, but they kept getting near ashley, especially the giant, all-white nursing mother. unfortunately, it was my little ashley who kept hissing at them =( with teeth and claws bared, as if she were as big as them. she even sat in the middle of them all, oblivious to their stares, interested only in playing with people's feet. i guess it will be difficult convincing her she's not human.

 

most of the time i just left her to play by herself among the plants during our sessions, also as part of her toilet training. it worked out pretty well for the most part. i just had to run down every time the rain poured. as i'm starting to realize, with every trip, we get to know each other better. on this one there were some major firsts:

 

1) she learned to eat cat food from a dish by herself

2) she started to lick water from the dropper, and then eventually to lick from a dish (but she still needs to suck milk from a dropper)

3) she started eating real food from a dish by herself!

4) she got lost for a whole afternoon! left her with the other cats so i wouldn’t have to worry about her getting wet in the rain, but she disappeared, which was strange, because she always comes when called. we only heard her meowing late in the afternoon. apparently, someone had taken her and put her near some pots, and she had fallen through the wooden slats. she didn’t seem to have any trauma from the experience, though.

5) she got sick! irritability and diarrhea, plus threw up undigested cat food (still fish-shaped) and the ball of cotton and floss she swallowed from two weeks ago when i was feeding her and had to leave her a few seconds to read a text on my phone.

 

i was worried for awhile because she was so weak she couldn't walk right, and wouldn't drink the electrolyte solution i made to prevent dehydration. but after sleeping so many hours straight, she started playing again, and that's when i let her eat real food, because i was cautious about giving her milk or cat food again. she seems ok now, just a little psycho in her play. keeps meowing, wants me around all the time, and is back to biting my hands with a vengeance. must be the shock from breathing city air and walking on concrete instead of earth again.

 

good thing on the way there and at the resort, i had my officemate jun, and ninang cathy, and some other participants from luzon, who liked taking care of my baby from time to time. i also had 5-year old kyra, one of the participants' kids (turns out, a close relative of our neighbors in davao), to help me keep an eye on ashley. that helped her mom from having to keep her quiet all the time, too. the first two days of our 5-day meeting, people kept telling me how they should've brought along their puppy or their fish or whatever baby pet, too, and then told me horror stories of how their pet died when they had to go on field or on a training and had to leave their baby in someone else's care. in fact, kyra's 4-month old puppy in davao died during our meeting. it was her mom who cried buckets on the phone as she talked to the yaya.

 

jemi, whom i hadn't seen since november last year, paid a visit and also played mommy for a few hours. (funny, i was also in laguna november last year). incidentally, it was exactly the middle of the week between our birthdays so we exchanged gifts, as usual. i gave her a framed photo of her own cat, mole, who is now two years old. i took it the last time we met (and the first time i met mole) in cubao.

 

as for ashley, i think she enjoyed the fresh food and fresh air lots more than i did. she even slept through our nights of videoke. and the resort staff were very friendly to her. when we got to the airport, i was told she couldn't take the plane because there was no live animals section. so i opted to take the last flight to cebu, which they said would PROBABLY allow live animals. a ma'am anna and the man at the check-in counter at PAL made sure they didn't charge me extra for changing flights (P1,600++, because of the promo fare). actually, the last flight DIDN'T have a live animals section, but there was some space in the forward section, so thankfully, we were able to take the flight. God always takes care of his pretty cats

 

and that's it for now (now why is this starting to become a cat journal?). the photos in my album will tell the rest of it. as you'll see, ashley's grown almost double in two weeks! i’m buying cat food today for the first time, and checking out the pet store. and her color's evolving, too... ah, the joys of mommy-kitty-hood.