The family reunion

In the late 1700s, Kalina's great, great, great, great (great? great? I lost track.) grandparents on her mommy's side settled in southern Virginia. They were farmers, as would be pretty much every generation after them until her grandpa's (however, rumor has it that her daddy would love to pick up the tradition someday). At least one became a prominent citizen in the area, while others moved to Nebraska.

Being a Carolina girl herself, Kalina was pleased and proud that her extended family chose to trek all the way from the Midwest and Louisiana to this relatively nearby area of Virginia recently for a family reunion. (The reunion was also celebrating her grandpa's retirement, the highlight of which was a Nebraska/VA Tech football game where the family chose to ignore their true roots and cheer wholeheartedly for Nebraska, but Kalina doesn't tune into such things.)

Kalina was thrilled to meet her great uncle Jim and great Aunt Jo, but not quite thrilled enough to show any interest in being held by them. As they temporarily headed off in a different direction, she piled back into the car with Uncle Tom, Aunt Nancy, cousin Poky (of the four-footed variety), Grandpa and Mommy to tour some of the family landmarks, on what Uncle Tom had mistakenly assured us was a 10-minute drive.

Twenty minutes later after the initial excitement revolving around "the doggy is coming?!? there's a doggy in the car with us!!!" had worn off and we were halfway there, Mommy finally brought out the really cool toys and wish she'd thought to pack more snacks. Fifteen minutes after that, Kalina was at her wit's (do they have one wit or more at this age?) end and letting us know it, and five minutes later we arrived at the cemetery that holds a dozen or so of her ancestors.

Elated to be out of the car, Kalina pretty much just wanted to run around through the grass, but I made her stand still for some pictures. Then, we piled back into the car to drive past the old fireplace foundation that is probably where our ancestors cooked and warmed their hands and yanked their toddlers away from circa 1800, and then we drove back to the hotel. Overall, a very cool little jaunt, antsy baby notwithstanding.

Soon, it was time for dinner, where my antsy baby had used up her "sitting still" capabilities for the day. My cousin and his wife, outnumbered by their four children (two of which were foster children) ages 17 months to 5, pleasantly sat and ate while their kids pleasantly sat and ate. My child was only happy if she was playing "chase" around the room with me or her Aunt Nancy. We left early, and I faced the challenge of putting Kalina to bed in a strange place.

She did better than I thought, and better yet, Daddy had finally arrived. We spent the evening in a dark hotel room trying not to make any noise whatsoever, as Kalina woke up and cried every half hour or so for a while. We gave up the grandiose idea of flipping through cable channels, found the bathroom not too comfy to hang out in, and headed to bed early.

The next day, Kalina decided she didn't like her shoes which are, admittedly a bit stinky. However, we still managed to have a good time. We visited the campground where a lot of Hanks's were staying, took a long nap, snagged a Blizzard at a nearby Dairy Queen (which Kalina refused in favor of Cheerios) and played at a huge park before having to leave Shoney's early due to the fact that Kalina wanted nothing to do with her high chair and only wanted to--you guessed it--play chase around the tables. *sigh* Even after a solid two hours of park play. Mommy skipped dinner that night, as all good mommies must every so often.

The next morning, Kalina finally tolerated the high chair a little better, for a limited time, at Grandpa's official retirement party. And then we played chase around the tables.

The rest of the family reunion was spent back on Kalina's home turf, touring around various sites, enjoying excellent barbecue in Uncle Jim and Aunt Jo's RV, and playing hostess until she was too exhausted to twirl or or cat-whap any longer.



Photos: #1: Family--Uncle Jim, Aunt Jo, Cousin Ed and wife Julie, and their four kids. #2: The very old cemetery where lots of our ancestors are buried.

Video: Kalina the cat trainer, taken about a month ago (we're finally playing catchup with some of our videos--can you tell?)

Life with an easy child

It's probably true that every child is an easy child. If they're fed, entertained, rested, healthy, comfortable, and just in a good mood. For some children this happens once a day; for others, once a year.

Either I've become an expert at catering so completely to Kalina's whims that she can't actually think of anything more she needs, or she's too old to be high-maintenance and too young to be trouble, but it seems that most days are pretty easy for Kalina and I.

This is probably why I haven't been blogging as much lately. It's true: you do need to suffer to write.

I could expand, but it'd probably just bore you. I will say that I'm rather proud of the fact that Kalina happily eats brussels sprouts, takes a long-ish nap more often than not, is increasingly willing to hold my hand in stores rather than run off, and doesn't seem to be bothered in the least by teething, which I think she's been doing lately because there seems to be a new one toward the back of her upper right gum. (Of course, all this will probably change now that I've announced it publicly.)

Kalina does have her occasional difficult moments (like a few days last week when she openly rebelled against high chairs). But at least we're both usually getting the sleep we need to deal with them.

There's not much more to say, so I'll leave you with some of Kalina's words. Most of them can be pronounced using some variation of "ba:" ball, bath, bowl, "baa" (which sheep and lambs say) and "pop" (which is what balloons do). Maybe she's just being resourceful?

At the museum

Sometimes it's nice to take Kalina to places where she doesn't have to behave. Where everything is touchable and some things are the right height. This afternoon was just such a time: tired of telling Kalina "no standing in the cart" or trying to clean with a tornado following in my path, I instead took her to the local science museum.

I would move in to this museum if I could. It's perfect. With live animals, cool things to play with and lots of room to run around, it's the ideal habitat for a toddler. What's more, the outdoor areas are mostly shaded and there's free admission for county residents on Wednesday afternoons. We're regulars.

However, Kalina and I had never gone by ourselves--we'd always had other kids and/or parents along. So I packed a snack, piled toys into the carseat, sang songs half the way up (it's a 20-minute drive--the only downside) and let Kalina take the lead.

First, like always, she greeted the large glass/plastic globe-ish balls that no doubt illustrate the coriolis effect or something else equally irrelevant to Kalina. They're clear across a gallery from each other, so we ran back and forth, squealing with joy, to pat first the blue one and then the white one, and then the blue one again. We spun them and admired their perfectly round beauty. I indulged her and made sure she was content before nudging her on.

Next, we heading into the indoor animal area, in the darkened entry of which lives a small owl (behind glass, of course). Kalina became transfixed when the owl flew from one branch to another. "Agah!" she said, looking at me expectantly ("agah" means "again"). Fortunately, the owl took pity on me and obliged the girl. We wandered through the rest of the exhibit, pointing out snakes, turtles, fish and a woodchuck.

Kalina knows the route through the museum to the play area, and as we took this path she stopped once to exclaim over a shark movie they had playing. She also wanted to sit in a red leather chair, so we did that for a while.

And finally we were at the play area, which Kalina would probably trade me for. Better yet, despite the fact that it was a free Wednesday afternoon, we had the place almost entirely to ourselves. Kalina ran directly for the various ball track toys they have and went to work rolling. Then she showed remarkable balance stacking blocks (it's like she knows the skinny ones don't balance well!), helping me pick them up when we were done. And so forth.

The girl probably could've stayed here the rest of the day, but the weather was too nice and I figured she might need some downtime in the stroller, so I ushered her out the door. We set out to see the farm animals. Kalina now knows how to "baa" at the sheep, so we did that for a little while. She giggled at the bunny, probably because it looked like the stuff it was eating was cilantro. Who knew that's what they like? Kalina was as surprised as I was.

And then we came to the dinosaurs. I don't think Kalina quite knows that they're not real--they're just life-sized statues. She enjoyed climbing on the one you can climb on (its tail was about the right height for her to straddle), but her favorite is the toothy tyrannosaurus rex. You can see it from far down the path, and Kalina always laughs as we approach it. I have to admit, if you didn't know that its teeth are pointy for a reason, you could easily think it's simply finding something uproariously funny. Kalina merely joins in. We strollered around a few others that were also amusing (she especially liked the round dinosaur egg models), stopping at the dig site where kids can try to gather fossils and sharks teeth from seashore gravel.

Kalina found a couple buckets and some big rocks and was in heaven. I even found something that might have been a shark's tooth (that got tossed into the obscurity of gravel by a little boy I gave it to, but, whatever). While Kalina sorted and dumped, I sat down to a well-deserved break and left her uninterrupted. Then I pulled her away from the dinosaurs to take her to see the butterflies.

Which were somewhat disappointing. "Look, Kalina, over here!" I'd exclaim. Twelve seconds later when she'd finally turned her head, the butterfly would be long gone and she'd be frustrated. Fortunately, toward the end we had better luck as one that was either new, or hurt, or tired or just mellow sat and flapped its wings for us for a while.

It was time to start winding our trip down, but we went through the barnyard again on the way back, where Kalina got far more excited by the toy balls the sheep had in their pen to play with than the animals. "Wow, look, Mom, there are more in the next pen, too! Wheel me over there!"

We also stopped at the sound room, where a sort of music is triggered by motion on a floor. It was rather crowded and loud, but Kalina was glued in her spot on the side of the room, like a little wallflower, smiling broadly. Huh. We stayed put a few minutes before heading back to say goodbye to Kalina's old friends, the blue and white glass/plastic balls. See you next time!

Photo: Taken a few months ago, Kalina trying to play with museum blocks that are about half her size/weight. You'll have better luck with the smaller ones, child!