This Is The Life

It’s one of your favorite things to say. Usually uttered when you’re lying on your favorite chair, with your feet dangling on one side, and sucking on your thumb while tuned in to Tuff Puppy or some other crazy Nickelodeon show. Or when you’re pigging out on fried rice and some crispy fried fish. Or when we watch videos of your favorite songs on Youtube. It is The Life, indeed.

You also like to say, I’m stressed! And even, I need space! These you say normally when we’re all together in the room or downstairs, and all of us are talking at the same time or looking for some small thing for which we have to turn the place upside down. You would suddenly stand up, cover your ears with your hands, and shout at the top of your lungs: Quiet, you guys! I’m stressed! I need space!

One time I even caught you in the middle of delivering a lecture to Ate Coleen when she was sulking after we scolded her. You were saying: Everyone makes mistakes, Ate. Even I make mistakes. Yes, all articulate and sensible like that! Spoken like you’re The Wisest Three Year Old Ever (not). Or you tease her when we’re studying while you’re free to just play all day.

You’re A Character, no doubt.

You know all these Big Words, but you’re still a baby thru and thru. I pick you up and carry you all around every time you let me. I’m taking advantage while you’re still at a weight I can carry. I know that by next year or so, you’ll be too heavy for me and that will be The End of My Baby-Lugging Years. (Or at least until the next baby comes along.)

Already we miss how you used to say ‘inee’ for ‘ice cream’, ‘poopoo pie’ for ‘buko pie’, and ‘idea’ for curtain rod (what’s this one all about, Clara?). You have gone so fast from being a baby to a pre-schooler, with all your new songs tatay taught you, all your stories about Aidan, LJ, Yuri, Ishi, Marthina, learning your alphabet and numbers, writing your name. We immensely enjoy all of your new tricks – your action songs that you are always willing to perform for everyone without even the shadow of a bribe, your Invisible Hula Hoop.

You only know one prayer so far. So when I asked you to pray bcoz there was a typhoon, you readily recited: God is good, God is great. Thank you, Lord, for our food today. Amen. You said the same prayer when I got sick after our Bora trip. Or when we went to the Italian embassy. Haha.

You love being tickled. You don’t even pretend to not like it. You love watching - yes, just watching - this guy you call Bob Taba in Tekken in PSP. You are so easy to please and a love whore like me –the two of us so easily LOVE EVERYTHING. One time you woke up on the right side of the bed and declared, I looove this Thomas pillow! And the rest of the morning was all about how you looove that silly pillow. Another time I was dusting off my little teapot set from Vietnam, and we decided to play with it and you kept saying, I looove this teapot toy! Even the funny names that we invent –  Tamadoodles for me – never fail to make you dissolve into giggles, no matter how many times we’ve said them, no matter how old they get. (We so need to up our standards and threshold for amazement and joy, Clara, lest we betray our real social status. Being picky and hard to please are apparently marks of The Truly Rich.)


You are also infamous for throwing The Mother of All Tantrums. At the most perfect times like when we’re fielding questions from the American consul guy during our US visa interview. Plus pooping 9 out of 10 times when we're out of the house.

For the most part we just let you be, bcoz you’re only three, after all, and still in that level of cuteness that makes everything you do forgiveable. (When you’re a little bit older and no longer as cute, then we can send you to jail. Haha.) And in the end, it’s all these little things – your adult statements, song and dance routines, fierce independence, the hair that just refuses to be combed down, your 60 million unanswerable questions – that make you so perfect everyday.

Thank you, Clara, for loving me the way only you know how – loyally, fiercely, without judgment or question. I love you, too. I'm absolutely, insanely, boundlessly in love with you. be my baby for a little bit longer. Please.