And our little Kolai is not so little anymore.
When she was born about six years ago, I couldn’t quite know what to feel. Sure, I was a little excited, but that was just it, only “a little.” You see, I was – still am – not wild about babies, and she was the first baby in the family. Later on, though, she grew on me. And before I knew it, she has become one of the most important persons in my life. She was precocious even as a baby. For some reasons, we thought that she would have her father’s and uncle’s (my other brother) intellect and her uncle’s temperament. She did not disappoint us. She has a smart head on her shoulder, and she has quite a volatile temper. When she was four, she got quite angry at her teacher, whom she claimed to really like, when the later marked one answer in her testpaper wrong. Kolai was in the right. I know because I saw her paper. The item asked the kids to connect the ends of two parallel lines to form a square. But one pair was quite long that when you connect them, it would be a rectangle you get. Kolai followed the instructions, and indeed she got a rectangle. When the teacher marked it wrong and asked her to change her answer, her temper got away from her. She took the paper from the teacher, erased her answer, returned the paper, and returned to her seat where she cried. We were aghast of course that she acted that way. She was never brought up to act like that. But what could we say? She was still a baby, and it was the only way she knew to show how she felt about what happened. But I really wanted to smile when I was told about it. For one so young, she already showed us she is not one to willingly turn the other cheek.
She’d turn six on April Fools’ Day.
At her age, she already shows signs of being bossy (although I’m not saying she’s spoiled). Sometimes, she would act like she was the parent rather than the child, the one with more maturity than the other way around. With her playmates, she would assume the role of the leader (although she is the youngest among them). She also shows a knack for understanding concepts most kids her age still don’t have a grasp of, like saving or earning money to buy something. But more than that, she already shows interests in my clothes and books, and in some things I do. When she was about two and still too small to wear my clothes, she would make do with wearing my high-heeled sandals and carrying my bag. Later, she had taken to wearing my scents, lipgloss and, sometimes, eyeliner. She also liked to have her nails colored whenever I did mine. She then progressed to wearing my shirts. All my smallest ones are now with her. Not that I mind – they fit her and look good on her than on me anyway. And I don’t mind sharing my books with her. I’m even impatient for the time she can already read long sentences and understand what they say. I am hoping she would share my passion for books and reading.
I cannot wait for her to grow up.
But I already miss the times when we would lay on the bed and laugh over something silly and sometimes over nothing at all. Just her and me. (Her mother, my sister-in-law, is kind enough to understand that we want to be close to her and to share her with us.) I miss it when I could still carry her in my arms. She’s now too big for me to do that. Even her parents look awkward carrying her. And I suspect she feels she’s already too old (she even have crushes now!) to be carried around and made to sit on laps. I miss, too, the way she used to run to us for comfort whenever her parents raised their voices at her or something. But things have to change, time makes sure of that. I’m just thankful we had those precious moments together. I’m sure we still have plenty to share with each other. And though she is no longer a baby, in our hearts she will always be that.
fleeting passions 