moondane thoughts

one of the things i dread the most is when my three year old daughter is looking for something - a toy, a drawing, an object - whose specific name or exact description she can't remember at the moment, so she has to go through the daunting task of describing it to me, an adult.

i brace myself as the little patience she can muster slowly ebbs away the minute i say, "no, i don't know where it is" or "no, i haven't seen it." then she will exasperatingly start describing it to me, in slowly rising decibels, starting with it's color. ok color is good. i name a toy. that's not it. feet will start to shuffle now as she follows me with a rain of descriptions that never quite go beyond, "yung ano", "yung ganito", which she matches with movements to demonstrate what she does with it or mimicking what sound it makes like "pffft" "shrrum" "brrrm". i am lost and to my daughter, completely ignorant and useless.

these episodes usually end with a tantrum and a desperate attempt on my part to hand over anything remotely close to her "pffft yellow thing." until finally we find the darn thing. and it turns out to be: a green hair clip.