Dan wakes up with a fever and a severe headache.  We decide that he shouldn’t visit Liliana with me this morning.  I’m a little worried about what she might think, when she doesn’t see her papa show up.  She comes willingly enough, but she peers over my shoulder for a few seconds, searching for him.

Okay, drastic change from yesterday.  Today, she’s a ball of fire.

She doesn’t want to be held.  She wants to run.  She wants to explore.  I think she feels safe enough to run a short distance away, because she always looks back to make sure I’m there.  She finds three baby-sized apples on the ground and learns that if she throws them down the hill, they’ll roll a ways.  Then she runs to pick them up, to begin the cycle all over again.

When I pull out butterfly and flower stickers, she’s more enamored of the plastic sleeve it’s come in, and she spends some time, trying to figure out how to open and close it.  The sleeve is clear, so she doesn’t know at first that there’s an inside and an outside.  Fascinating to watch.

I know, I know.  You’re all laughing, saying, “That’s what kids do.”  Of course, I know this.  It’s just amazing to watch the learning process actually happen.  When teaching at the high school level, it seemed to happen at a much slower rate!

I love her curiosity.  I’ve told Dan all along that the thing that would make me the saddest about having a child is if she weren’t curious.  I would manage, but it would break my heart, in the sense that I am curious and Dan is curious, and if we had a daughter who said she was bored all the time, I would be sad that she couldn’t see how many wonderful things there were in the world.  There’s enough for many lifetimes, don’t you think?  I think my mother was the best at this–being creative with little resources (potato stamps, playdough, school projects and costumes).  I think I shall try to emulate her in that regard!

Story about curiosity.  My favorite teacher was my fifth grade teacher, Miss Cooper (she later became Mrs. Simon).  Our art projects were always so interesting and unusual.  She invited parents to come show their vacation slides.  She read to us.  Her voice was always spiced with an infectious enthusiasm that no one could resist.  I couldn’t wait to go to school the next day.

Then came parent-teacher conferences.  I couldn’t wait for my parents to meet her, to see how marvelous she was.  The next morning, at breakfast, I said, “Wasn’t she wonderful?”

My mother looked at me curiously.  “Yes, but she said you ask way too many questions.  Even about simple things.  Like instructions on how to do your homework.”

Blasphemy!  Traitor!  She didn’t like my questions?  [Now you see where the name of this blog comes from.]

I pondered this for a while (I was a serious child), and determined that I would cut down on the questions, but I was confused, too, because which questions should I stop asking?  Questions were life!

Now, having been a teacher, I understand what she was asking.  I was consuming all of her time, and she had other students to think about.  She wasn’t rejecting me; she was simply asking me to be a little more independent.

Funny, huh?

Liliana, when she walks along, gives a little gasp and points at part of a cigarette carton on the ground.  I nod; she picks it up.  She turns it over with her fingers, then she keeps walking, keeping it clasped tightly in her hand.  I think she’s plenty curious.