Upcat second time around for this mom

TRAFFIC builds up on campus

In all my almost 50 years, I’ve gotten up at 4 a.m. only twice. Both instances involved my children.

No, it wasn’t when I delivered them. It was because I had to bring them to the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman to take the college admission test, aka the Upcat.

It seems like only yesterday when child number one took the Upcat back in 2008. Today I realized how quickly those six years passed, how much in my life has changed and how different I am today.

Back then, the wistfulness of watching my daughter enter the UP Institute of Mathematics for her Upcat stemmed from wondering where all the years had gone.

In my head, I could hear, “Is this the little girl I carried?” As she gave me one last glance before joining the throng of examinees, I saw not the 17-year-old on the threshold of a new chapter but my little 5-year-old in her floral Poveda uniform on the first day of kindergarten.

Six years later, that 17-year-old entered the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health as a first year medical student and guess who was there to witness the day, smiling from ear to ear and giddy with joy.

And now it was my youngest son’s turn to take the Upcat. This time there were no tears. I was instead filled with motherly pride at how confident he had grown and how far he had come from the bullied little 7-year-old boy he once was.

Striding into the College of Arts and Letters that Saturday morning, it seemed like he was good and ready to take on this brave new world. I could not have been happier for him.

To prepare for the Upcat, my son started to get together with six other young girls and boys at a private home in San Juan for college prep tutorials. It was the same routine for his sister, six years earlier.

Eager to learn

Every Saturday afternoon from mid-May to late July was devoted to four-hour stretches of reviewing subjects such as English, math, science and essay writing. No one complained. Everyone in the group was eager to learn.

One of the mothers offered her home for the tutorials and the three others took turns providing merienda.

Upcat hopefuls waiting to enter the exam room

The day before the Upcat, my son went over all his reviewers, ate all his favorite food and slept earlier than his usual bedtime. His sister and I put together an Upcat care package made up of Mongol No. 2 pencils, a huge eraser, a couple of sandwiches (bacon-chicken, ham-cheese and tomato, as requested by the examinee), a can of soda, gummy bears and bottled water.

On the road by 5 a.m., we got to his testing center at 5:30 a.m. Thankfully, traffic going to UP at that time was bearable. We leapt from the car, walked a few meters, said our good-byes and God bless you’s and off he joined the huge throng of students forming lines on the building’s ground floor.

Stage mother that I can be sometimes, I snapped photos and took videos for Instagram and Facebook. From afar, I could see my son slightly groaning but still indulging his mother.

Saving memories

This was the last child I would have to do this for and I wanted to capture every memory, just like the thousands of other parents who had brought their sons and daughters to UP that morning.

Four and a half hours later, after killing time by having breakfast with a friend, I returned to UP eager to greet my son. He came out looking slightly dazed but grinning.

ANXIOUS parents and guardians wait for examinees.

“I was in the coldest part of the room,” he said.

Although he had on a sweater, he said he was shivering and had to do everything in his power not to let his brain freeze.

I asked him if the test was difficult. He said some portions were more difficult than others. Was it stressful? To this he replied, “I think I sprouted two pimples from the stress.”

Exams over, he wanted a steaming bowl of ramen and a couple of comic books to de- stress. Of course, I indulged him, as any mother would. He had just come from the battle that was the Upcat.

“They have a nice building, Mom,” he said, as he ate his ramen. “They have a huge mural of Andres Bonifacio leading the Katipuneros to battle.”

I realize now that my time with both my children is limited. In about six years they will both be done with school and will probably begin living on their own.

Such is the paradox of parenting—you care for them until you are sure that their wings are sturdy enough to let them soar. But, like any parent, you also wish that every now and then they will return to the nest in which their life began.

We build memories today and fill their hearts and emotional tanks with love to make them strong and brave enough to face a world that isn’t always kind.

Mothers are forever cheerleaders because every defeat and every victory each child experiences are ours, too.