Lola, Playing

I can't believe our Lola is nearly one years old, wow, 12 months go by quickly!  Never has that been more clear than this year, which on the one hand was easy to track because we were so focused on each of Lola's milestones and developments, and on the other hand flew by even faster as a result.  Here are some pictures of her engaged diligently in playtime at her playgroup.

 

 

Lola went to a "sports day" with her playgroup at her beloved park two Fridays ago.  As you can see, she is very steady on her feet, and can stand for long periods of time.  But she is scared of walking (even though she can do it) and to date has taken at most 10 steps (very quickly) at one time.  I joked that Lola is very much about incentives - she learned to pull herself forward for apple, to crawl for a fake iPhone, and now to walk... for bubbles?  The record before this past Sunday was only four steps though, so she is definitely improving.

 

I was pretty amused when I saw this picture of her trying to put the bucket on her head, ha!  

I think there is very much an impression here, especially among some of the more local set, that playgroups are a waste of money if the babies are all just playing (instead of, I guess, "learning").  My nanny has said to me a few times that she doesn't think the current playgroup that Lola is in is that "worth it" because "they don't do anything" except a bit of story time and messy play (with food).  The rest of the time are songs and music and toys.  I think it's really hard, especially in this hyper-competitive and intense environment, to find value in the freedom of expression and learning through playing.  It's also just traditionally not something that the Chinese culture values.  

I do believe that playing is the best way for Lola to learn and engage with the world now, and I am hopeful this is the foundation on which she will build a lifelong curiosity and love for acquisition of new facts and knowledge. I am pretty comfortable with the idea that while it may seem like nothing "concrete"  immediately comes out of these playgroups, over time, we really do see a lot of changes in Lola's development.  For example, Lola is significantly less intimidated when she enters a new space with a lot of strangers, she knows the words to songs and can pantomime, she is willing to try new things, and she is completely fearless when it comes to many things (trying to launch herself off our bed, grabbing the head of a turtle in her art class, etc).  And this isn't even touching upon all of the other things that we can't yet see.

All of that said, I am still preparing to change her playgroups, but that's just because as Lola gets older I want to ensure that we are getting her exposure to a well-rounded experience.  I'm also not certain that we have found yet the best teaching style and school environment.  While it's still relatively easy to pull her in and out of these various playgroups, I don't mind experimenting.

The weather has been pretty bad yesterday and today, and to fight the cold, wet and gray skies, I decided to take Lola shoe shopping (ohh, can I claim that as my first mother daughter shopping excursion?) on Sunday afternoon.  We got Lola some really adorable kicks - pink suede (suede-ish?) boots with white pom poms, and light purple high tops with floral patterned bottoms.  Her shoes look doubly adorable given they are so miniature. In an effort to convince her that she can and should wear shoes (to date she has always pulled or kicked them off) we are having her wear them whenever she goes out and also a little bit at home to practice.

 

 

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