WE have nine grandchildren from four families (one eventually winds up with topics like this!). Two of their homes are in Antipolo.

When some of the kids got to college in UP or Ateneo, they either lived for a time in our QC house, or in a condo or dorm nearer their schools. Or they stayed in Antipolo and came down to sleep one or two nights in our house when there was a late-evening affair and no one to take them home.

First it was Majalya. This girl, when she was six, could invent a full-blown story all her own. Now 21, she is a responsible senior student of Journalism who involves herself in the camping activities of the Children?s International Summer Village (CISV) here and abroad. Majalya has to sleep in my bedroom (siyempre naman, not in lolo?s) because our spare room long ago got converted into a ?bodega? for books.

Believe me, she is a very pretty girl with rosebud lips and naturally curly hair that wisps all about her pillow. Sometimes, her just-as-pretty sister, Chin-Chin, who is a long-limbed, rather dramatic persona, also sleeps here. When I see them snuggled together, I think to myself, how could we have produced such beautiful creatures? But then I check myself. Maybe it was the other side, the Abuevas, who are responsible for that.

Girls are easy house guests. They do not flood the bathroom, fall off the bed or confuse the towels and the toothbrushes. They pick up their clothes and turn off the lights at a reasonable hour.

Grandson

When their cousin, Io, comes, it is an altogether different situation. Io is good-looking, too, his forte is art, but unlike the girls, he loves clothes. He can stay in a mall for three hours (leaving me stranded on some bench) searching for the right shirt or vest or jacket or tie to stun his date with. Another night he forgets to text me that he is going to sleep in my bedroom that night. There?s a soft knock on my window at 3 a.m. and I open it and there is Io startling me with a kiss. Like the girls, he is irresistible to a lola like me.

So at 3:05 we are fixing up the window bench with beddings and oh, he has forgotten to take the toothbrush that I gave him last week when he last slept here, and when his slippers gave way and I had to fetch a spare from grandpa?s room and by the way, he needed a T-shirt, too, any old one, yah, but does he have to ask for them one by one so that I have to go back and forth, back and forth unlocking and locking the room of lolo who rolls his eyes and frets, and please, lola, a pair of black socks na rin for tomorrow?s party. And by the way he is sleeping in my room tomorrow again, thanks for telling me!

It is almost dawn but Io says he is not hungry. Just the same I fix him up a chicken sandwich and a tray with a cola and a chocolate cake, all of which he wolfs down. Then he begins not to sleep forever and tells me stories.

Once, Io did not sleep for 22 hours because he made, all by himself, an outdoor stage backdrop that hung two stories high in an Ateneo building for a school concert. It was so beautiful, everyone said, and I was so proud. I am a sucker for talent.

The next time Io comes around to sleep, he forgets only one or two things. He goes to lolo to have his party tie knotted properly but lolo says he has forgotten how. So we send Io over to our son Mol?s house next door. Mol is no laggard at fashion either, so he asks Io to fetch his vest and jacket and buttoniere and things so he can dress next door and be fashion advised. Actually Mol is thrilled and gives Io a cologne, too.

Mol also tips Io on how to start a conversation with a girl and how to treat his prom date: Kiss her lightly on the cheek when the party?s ended. But Io says, I?m too old for her (he?s 19) puwede bang cheek-cheek kiss na lang? Mol says No, you must make a girl feel good. And you must never be the one to say let?s go home na, it?s her prom, let her initiate going home.

This time around what Io has forgotten is to tell his mama he needs a corsage to match the girl?s gown. And so he texts Wendy who freaks out at the lateness of the alert, and by the way, Ma, get her a box of chocolates, too, ha?

Ateneo vs UP ?sosyalan?

But Io is the only social animal in the family. Because he is in Ateneo! his brothers and cousins chorus, where there is a party going on all the time!!

Why is that? I ask Io, when in UP it?s not the case? Well, he explains, Ateneo is a much smaller school. Everyone is closer to each other because you see your classmates oftener. In First Year College there are five basic subjects and the 25 or 35 students meet all the time. If every student celebrated his birthday that would be 35 x 5 or 175 parties a year to go to (subtract yourself and it?s 170). And that?s just your classmates. It does not even count the batch mates you get to work with in the orgs. Like, if you join five orgs that?s maybe one more birthday celebration every two weeks or so. And all of these birthdays are held only on weekends, so there are really parties every week?one on Friday and one on Saturday. Plus Ateneo parents are eager to fund all their children?s celebrations.

In UP it?s not a compulsion to celebrate birthdays. Sometimes their org parties are even stag and include older people from all the batches. So you don?t get close to everyone. And so the sosyalan is not like in Ateneo.

Too young

Wang and Miguel, Mol?s sons, are still too young to go prom-ming. The only thing I will miss when they do is that they will not sleep in my bedroom because they live in our compound. Wang will not wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me that he has bought a pair of Ferragamo shoes (fake) for P500, that he has been awarded Best Dressed at a debut?information I will treasure. Miguel will not wake me up at 2 p.m. to tell me all about the prom and Wang will not create a trail of wet footprints to the sala until I fetch a pair of slippers from lolo?s room, and by the way, toothbrush, and black socks, too.

But I hope the other grandsons, Quinito and Franco and Carlo and Rafa, who do not live in the compound, will someday sleep in my bedroom, too. So that I can worry that they left at 4:30 p.m. and it?s 5 a.m. and they?re not yet home. Did they get into an accident, are they experimenting drugs, are they drinking, did they get into a brawl, did a policeman mulct them?

I am relieved to finally hear the driver on the cell phone sighing. Sus ko po, ginoo, lumipat pa sila sa ibang party. Mukhang matatagalan pa ho. Io is okay, he is just carousing. Tomorrow he will still be too sleepy to do his homework, his father will ground him, maybe two weeks, three weeks, until some other family friend they cannot refuse calls up to ask if their daughter can have Io as an escort for still another prom date.

Of course Io will sleep in my bedroom on the night of the prom and I won?t be able to sleep a wink until he?s home. It is almost like being a young mother again with its dazzlement and frazzlement and exquisite torture?interesting and delicious times to revisit in one?s sunset years.