Actually, That's Just the Way The World Works

Lola continues to be an incredibly rewarding and amazing little girl who never ceases to surprise us.  

We have discovered in the past 6 months or so that she is somehow pretty much fluent in Tagalog and Ilocano (the dialect that our helpers speak).  She knows a lot of their songs, understands their conversations and can and will say some phrases to other aunties or helpers.  We are told she speaks without any accent whatsoever, and that her tones are spot-on. 

Lola is also constantly getting stopped or remarked on in public because she speaks English quickly and fluently, stringing along sentences together like a little chatterbox.  What's amazing is that up until very recently, that was not even her better language.  She speaks Mandarin like an adult, and has all kinds of figures of speech that never cease to draw an amazed or amused second glance in public.  Now that Michael has been putting her to sleep and my parents have left, the pendulum has swung the other way and Lola's English has taken off.  

The other morning she told me over breakfast, "it's just how it is" and then, shortly thereafter, "that's just the way the world works."  When she was taking a bath the other day, she put both hands up and said to Michael, "Look," before launching into a long explanation.  And then a couple of days ago she dragged out the word, "Actually..." with a dramatic flourish as she held us all suspended in anticipation for whatever persuasive argument she had rolled up her sleeve.  Lola also loves to preface what she's saying with phrases along the lines of "I was confused because" and "It figures that."  Where does she get this stuff?!

It's hard not to break down and just laugh, outgunned, sometimes.  You just have to repeat something in front of her once and she snaps it up into her little steel trap.  She processes the information and then saves it for later, when she can use it to negotiate her way into or out of something.  In my never-ending quest to get her to accept her brothers, I keep trying to encourage that she shares her toys, books and the general play area with her brothers.  She keeps me on my toes with her very creative rebuttals.  One time it was because her play area was "full of people who are sick" and so the brothers could not enter for fear of contracting Covid-19.  (Oh yeah, she also knows the words coronavirus and Covid-19.  Not exactly words I would have wished into her vocabulary.)  Then today she told me Al and Teo had to stop playing with the piano and the work bench because actually, we were in an art museum, and you're not allowed to touch exhibits in an art museum. 

We went to Toys R Us a couple of times recently and she immediately zeroed in on a dollhouse, which, despite the astronomical sum that it was for a plastic box with no accessories, we ended up purchasing for her.  We then asked her to pick out one toy each for Al and Teo.  She immediately suggested toys that she would have been more interested in.  She tried to convince me that Teo would really love a toy microwave, for example...

Michael and I are constantly marveling at the amazing conversations we have with her where we can almost see the wheels in her big brain turning. Unsurprisingly, her favorite question right now is probably "Why?"  She started this a couple of months ago, the constant why-why-why refrain.  At some point we've given up on simplifying the answers and try to answer these with a straight face and as seriously as possible.  It turns out when you answer any why question enough times, it always boils down to some philosophical exposition on the meaning of life.  Perhaps that's where Lola got the catchphrase for this blog title - I said it in a moment of helplessness after answering too many why questions and having no more answers!

Given how fascinated she has been by the universe (particularly the sun, the earth and the moon) I was reading an Oliver Jeffries picture book to Lola a while back (probably a month or so now) where she saw an illustration of the solar system suspended on a black backdrop.  She asked me, "How come the sun is there when it's dark?" which was a very good question because I've always explained to her that the sun rises in the morning and sets at night when the sky gets dark.  And when I explained to her the difference between land and sea, she thought about it for a little while, and then asked me, "but what about the swimming pool, which is on land but is wet?"  And when I explained to her that an iceberg is like a really, really big ice cube in the ocean, she asked me, "but how come swimming pools don't have ice cubes?"  She really absorbs stuff we tell her though, which is what's so rewarding.  Apropos of nothing this morning, she told me that the earth revolves around the sun, and then before her afternoon nap, that thunder chases lightning because lightning is faster.

Lola is also going through about a two week obsession with Curious George where I've been reading those books nonstop during lunch time and dinner time.  She loves that he's so curious which happens to lead him to all kinds of trouble.  Probably less than a week in, we were floored to discover that she knew them all by heart.  I could pretty much stop anywhere along the stories and she could fill in the next word.  It was astonishing because we'd been reading 7 different Curious George books and it hadn't been that long. I envy that kind of recall! But she noticed that a farmer in one of the books is wearing a yellow hat.  And she turned to me and asked, "But why is HE not the man in the yellow hat?" 

She asks very good questions. 

Michael has been teaching Lola directions and geography (we got her a globe), and I have been trying to teach her the lower case alphabet and how to tell time.  She starts her K1 classes through Zoom in September (she has three days of orientation, also over Zoom, next week) and she is so excited for her new school that it is heartbreaking that she cannot attend in person.  We've driven there a few times just to walk up to the gate to look inside (you really can't see much) and just yesterday she told me that she likes school sooooo much.  

 She also told me at breakfast today that mommy is her favorite person ever, over eeeeeeveryone else.  I just clutched that to my heart and savored it.  I mean, what are you supposed to do with this much charm and sweetness and love?  How did I get so lucky to have such an amazing, spirited, bright daughter?  No matter how bad things may seem with all of us being homebound, or how hard and stressful things get with work, I just need to pull up any one of these stories in my mind to brighten my spirits.

She is also so playful and mischievous and full of teasing.  I love when she cackles uncontrollably because she is so thrilled at some pun or funny joke that she made up.  She gets this glint in her eye that is really infectious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was fortunate enough to be able to take Lola with me on a special lunch date, just the two of us, last week.  I took her to the Forty Niner at the American Club where we shared a bean burger and french fries and a lemonade (girl takes after my own heart with her love of the tart and sour). She was so excited and that spirit was infectious.  We were on an adventure!  On a beautiful day, in a very comfortable spot, with beautiful views!

This next series of pictures were taken when we all went out to one of our favorite parks last week.  Lola put on sunglasses, got the brothers' muslin blanket draped around her, then promptly announced that it was her wedding gown and she was off to get married?!  This girl.  Is she like a 22.5 year old in a 2.5 year old body or what?