First let me explain. Lola means grandma in Tagalog. Tagalog is the official language of the Philippines. The Philippines is a country in the Asian continent, where my mother is from. That makes me one half Filipino. In an attempt to make everything easier for our son, we decided that he would call his Filipino grandmother (which is my mom) Lola and his Caucasian grandmother (my hubby’s mom), grandma. Got it? Now to my story…
I have never doubted that my mother is my real mother (although I look nothing like her) until I got pregnant. I say this because I would ask her pregnancy related questions and she would never really answer them for me. And if and when she does, they would always be someone else’s pregnancy stories. I know that it’s been quite a long time for her since she was “allegedly” pregnant with me but come on! I asked if she craved for anything in particular when she was preggers and she would respond with whatever was on the table was what she ate. I asked if she threw up or disliked any food, she would say she never threw up. I asked if I was born on schedule and she would respond with they didn’t really calculate things like that in the Philippines and so babies just came out whenever they were ready. I asked if I was an active fetus and I get no response. How did you come up with my name? Did you get any stretch marks? How much weight did you gain? Did you breast-feed? If so, for how long? When did I get my first tooth? My first word? Aaahhh!. Fine. Forget about it. So when it came time for the birth of our son I became even more suspicious that I may possibly be adopted after all. Through all the different stages and many milestones my son has gone through, my mom have never said to me that I was exactly like him or the complete opposite when I was his age. The only thing she mentioned was that I was a good baby, I never cried (really?), and I was so happy and easily amused that when I peed my pants, I would play with it. That’s all I know about my infant to toddler years. The thing that really gets me is that she can recall things that my little cousin used to do when she was his age and often compare them to my son, but not me! Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying she was a bad mother because that is far from the truth. She was and is an awesome mom. I had a wonderful childhood and have never felt unloved, not even for a second. But what I’m saying is this; I can’t ever see myself forgetting the little amusing things my son does now or will do later. I would love to be able to tell my son and his kids one day on how their daddy was when he was little. But then again, in my mom’s defense, maybe I was just a horrible little creature that she decided to erase her memory from my birth til preschool in order to keep her sanity. That’s possible right?
