Kalina's inner circle of free babysitting

As the first grandchild on both sides of the family, Kalina's a pretty big deal--and has been since she was about the size of a lentil.

So much so, that one side of the family has migrated the the area to be closer to her (and, possibly for warmer weather as well, and other reasons, but these don't matter to Kalina) and the other visits regularly.

To keep it straight, we now have Grandpa Tom and Aunt Nancy in town, as well as Uncle Tom. Grandma visited recently. And Cousin Poky-Dog is here as well.

With this bolus of family comes the offer of free babysitting. And it always leaves me mystified.

What? You want to sit and play with the baby? While I go do something else? Maybe even something fun? You want to? Hmmm. Let's go over this again.

Not that I don't enjoy playing with my child--I do. But I have to like to play with her--I'm her mommy. The same mommy who will always take her side in a schoolyard dispute, even if she started it (the other kid looked at her funny) and tell her that her purple plaid pants look just adorable with her red striped shirt--because they will, Mommy says so.

And not that Kalina's not a sweet child to play with. I guess it's just that after 16 months of being held captive by my little girl, I'm not quite used to being allowed out into the real world again.

Not that I never have free time. I have it every evening, and most naptimes. When I'm not freelancing, I get to watch old videos of Kalina, stare at pictures of her, or even go shopping for her if Matt's kind enough to stay home. Or I can blog. So, I'm not exactly deprived of time to myself.

I can even understand offering to babysit while Kalina's asleep, and Matt and I have had some nice babysitting exchanges with friends that have provided us a date night or two.

Then why is it so astounding to me that family would want to babysit Kalina? Is this a sign that taking care of my child has become too much of a chore? After all, I'd be equally astounded if someone enthusiastically offered to sweep my floors or dust up my cobwebs. And I wouldn't let them: "This is my dirt--I can wrangle it myself. Now you go and enjoy yourself," I'd tell them. If I had enough energy, and if I wasn't wrangling Kalina too much to protest.

Besides, what if Kalina needed me, as she surely would? Nobody can take care of her like Mommy can. What's that? They might take care of her differently but just as well? Hogwash.

Fortunately, Kalina likes her extended family. She's not entirely relaxed around them yet, though. A hospitable little hostess, she jumps up to show them her new tricks every time they visit. "Look, I can stick out my tongue!" she exclaims proudly. "And that beep? That's the microwave! It's over here, and now we open the door to see what's inside," she happily explains.

Even better, I can occasionally leave the room, focus on something else, or, if the stars align, leave the house without the child pitter-pattering after me in hysterics (this works especially well during naptime).

But not everyone is welcomed immediately with open arms into Kalina's inner circle. It takes persistence, dedication and, in the event of Aunt Nancy, a voice that sounds comfortingly like Mommy's. Grandma, for instance, needs to be around for about a day before Kalina curls up in her lap for a story (not bad considering Kalina sees her only about 4 times a year). Aunt Nancy is cool as long as we see her every few days. Grandpa Tom is instantly popular out of doors, and fun to entertain indoors as long as he doesn't make any sudden moves to pick her up. Uncle Tom is still a bit scary for now, albeit hilarious at times. Poky Dog is greeted immediately, given the best seat in the house and as many Cheerios as Kalina can sneak away.

It may take me a while to get used to this whole free babysitting thing. And Kalina, too. Soon enough, though, I'll learn that being away for a few hours every now and then is good for my psyche, not to mention my career. Kalina, for her part, will learn that her world can stay intact even if Mommy is not sharing the same roof with her at the time. And probably, eventually, that she can get more candy out of the people not responsible for her dental bills.

Kalina by the sea

As a reward for having developed relatively mature sleep patterns and sticking with them long enough for us to feel rested, we recently decided to take Kalina on a beach vacation. Matt also considered it a reward for being smart enough to break free of the endless loop of subjectivity known as grad school, and I'm considering it a reward for raising my child thus far with no childcare whatsoever and earning a good amount of money at the same time while not completely ignoring the cleanliness of my house, the family's nutrition, friends, extended family or even my own well-being. Either way, the mood was celebratory.

We left at naptime to make the drive easier. Up until naptime, we were still remembering things we'd forgotten to pack and taking turns dashing back and forth between the car and the house until we ran out of things to remember, at least temporarily.

Our first stop was a historic site near the coast, which conveniently appeared not long after Kalina had had her nap and her snack and was getting rather bored. The site was an outdoor trail that wandered through the ruins of a town that had been established well before the American Revolution. We all liked it--I'm a history buff, Kalina enjoyed gathering handfuls of acorns and rocks and Matt found several large bugs.

We moved on, and after several mis-stops trying to find dinner, we arrived at the hotel. We couldn't wait for the big "reveal"--the moment when Kalina would see the ocean for the first time.

She spotted it, rather unromantically, through the hotel window as Matt was out unloading the car. Fortunately, she was having too much fun bouncing on the bed to do anything but occasionally stare open-mouthed, silently pointing in awe. And then start bouncing again.

We lost no time in making our way to the shoreline as sunset and bedtime were both approaching. As soon as Kalina saw the beach, she worked on flinging herself out of my arms and into it. I quickly gave in, and my child wallowed in the sand for a good 15 minutes before even looking up.

Then Matt handed her a scoop-shaped shell and off she went, scooping sand in varying degrees of wetness, just to see. Unfortunately, she occasionally scooped it into her mouth, just to taste.

We eventually pulled her away from the sand to introduce her to the waves. Kalina, who had moments before thought life couldn't get any better, no doubt viewed the ocean as one giant bathtub and now wanted nothing more than to wander into it. Daddy wouldn't let her.

And then it was back to the sand before we had to carry the girl kicking and screaming back into the hotel for a bath that that rivaled the beach itself for sandiness.

Illicit yappy dog(s) next door notwithstanding, Kalina settled to sleep fairly well. Matt and I settled into the oceanview balcony, which we greatly preferred to hanging out in the bathroom.

The next day dawned about 45 minutes after Kalina did, so we were all on the beach to see it. It was already warm, so we were already playing. Kalina seemed glad that the ocean was still there.

The girl continued to love digging in the sand with various seashells, as well as periodically handing us handfuls of sand (was she hoping we'd stow it away so she could take the beach home with her?), destroying any sand structures we made and venturing into the water. On this second day of beach adventuring, we had a few new highlights:

First, Kalina discovered seagulls, and the chase was on. However, neither being able to outrun nor outfly these birds, Kalina found the game to be a bit one-sided, even in Daddy's arms at a full sprint. Nevertheless, the girl is persistent: we spent a lot of time trotting after them, much to their annoyance and her sheer joy.

And then there was the ill-timed rainstorm. If the beach wedding we'd been watching develop for the past day had started 20 minutes sooner or later, all would've been fine--as it was, the downpour began as we were happily stomping in the waves and the bride and groom were too far into their vows to stop and begin again in their rain location. We sprinted toward the hotel as the wedding party and guests cheered (were they cheering us on or the drenched/happy couple?), but remained in their places. It was only when we were done changing into dry clothes and watching the storm from our balcony that they filed in. For the next little while we all three watched a little too contentedly as they scrambled to find missing items, hauled the equipment in and laughed at their misfortune--the bride, fortunately, laughing most of all. What fun.

And finally, there was the little crab that a fellow beachwalker found around sunset. We've noticed that everyone is nice to you when you have a cute child, and this woman was kind enough to point out a crab that we otherwise would've missed. We hurried over: Kalina loves such things. Unfortunately, so did Daddy, who reasoned that when you grab animals from behind they can't bite you. He was mistaken, however, and next thing he knew he was flinging it a good 10 feet away, I'd shrieked and Kalina was distressed and crying. She calmed down enough after a few minutes to be able to pick up a sea stick and try to poke it a little, just like Daddy does with anything creepy.

I never caught Kalina eating sand on day two of our trip, in case you were wondering. Was she just getting very sneaky at hiding her bites, or had she gotten enough on the first day?

The next day was cold and cloudy. We endured it long enough to take a nice beach walk and shiver in the indoor pool pretending to have fun before we gave up and watched a zebra show on TV while eying the ocean out the window.

I lost count of how many baths Kalina took during the trip, by the way. I wouldn't have worried so much about a little sand--in fact, I didn't worry--but Kalina loves baths, though, so I could indulge my need to have her clean. I also couldn't, personally, imagine napping well while being sandy.

And, to cap off a pretty perfect trip, Kalina slept until we were 10 minutes from home. We will be doing this again next year. Or in a week.

Biggest pumpkin, prize pig and cutest baby

We all went to the state fair this morning! What fun!

Kalina always changes her sleep patterns to celebrate new occasions, and this morning was no exception. We were pleasantly surprised to wake up to Matt's very optimistic alarm clock this morning at 6:45, as opposed to the crying we hear every other morning. To top it off, when Matt went in to get the baby at 7:00 (after all, we wanted to leave for the fair by 7:30 or so), she was neither crying nor sleeping: instead, he found her happily talking to herself in her crib. First. Time. Ever. At 15 1/2 months. Write it on your calendar.

Snacks in tow, we bundled up against the very chilly morning (a perfect day for the fair, to me) and plopped Kalina into her carseat. Not used to being in the car quite so early or eating cold canned beans out of a cup for breakfast (one of her favorites, actually), the girl didn't quite know what to think.

We were greeted by a near-empty parking lot and no lines. We strolled in, thinking we were the smartest people in the world until a woman saw fit to instruct me to put mittens on my child's hands, or else they'll get too cold. 1. Does she know how hard it really is to find a decent pair of mittens in Kalina's size around here? We've been to several stores already. 2. We're aware that it's cold and will take appropriate measures. We sighed and welcomed ourselves to rural North Carolina, where people always say what's on their minds, whether good or bad, and in southern accents, no less.

Our first stop was to point at some geese wandering around a quiet corner of the fairgrounds. Geese being inherently funny, we pointed and laughed and followed for quite a while before moving on.

This early in the morning, most of the buildings and exhibits weren't open. Fortunately, the bunny barn was. We stepped out of the cold and into the fair's cutest exhibit, and Kalina pointed her way through, laughing all the way. "Look, that one's big!" Look, that one has a wiggly nose!" "Look, that one's really fluffy!" And so forth. Bunnies are, apparently, inherently funny as well.

Next, we managed to track down the one mini-donut stand in the entire fair. It's always in the same place and always reasonably priced. Having been guilted into needing to warm my child's hands, I let Kalina hold the warm bag. She gave it a couple of good squeezes before I decided my once-a-year treat was more important than her well-being and snatched it away. I feel like I redeemed myself, however, by letting Kalina have one of the less-sugared donuts.

And then we found a barn that was open for cow showing. A gleeful Kalina pointed us through to the cow that was mooing especially loud. We also passed chicks, goats, piglets and the giant pumpkins, but I think the cows were a clear favorite. Already a decent, if not somewhat soprano, moo-er herself, she learned the word "cow" while we were there. It turns out that all moving animals, not just geese and bunnies, are inherently funny.

We then found the poultry barn, where Matt remembered they let the general public hold baby chicks and ducklings. As much as I desperately wanted a picture of Kalina holding a baby chick (or duckling), Matt reminded me what Kalina had done to the donut bag and I settled on letting Kalina touch one of the chicks while I held it. She seemed satisfied, probably because she didn't know quite what she was missing.

And then we entered an exhibit hall, where we all ogled the prize-winning cakes and cookies and accepted free samples whenever they were offered. We did not get talked into buying the Sham-Wow.

Probably due to lots of new sights, sounds and smells, poor Kalina was admittedly fairly antsy during our fair visit. She never quite decided whether she'd rather be carried or ride in the stroller, and walking, Kalina's transportation of choice, wasn't always the best option for covering large distances among crowds. Fortunately, there were more available distractions than there were struggles, for the most part, so we negotiated our way through fairly well.

Along the midway, we wondered briefly what would happen if we had Kalina play stump the guesser. Could they guess her weight within 3 pounds? Probably. Her age within a year? Definitely. Her birth month within 2 months? Likely. And so we continued on.

With Kalina's patience fading, we decided our last stop would be the petting zoo. Which was really more of a feeding frenzy, as baggies of carrot slices to feed the animals, most of which were goats, were available for merely $1. Cold, wet noses aplenty within easy reach, Kalina was in heaven. Before our entire baggie of carrots got gobbled up by one long-necked goat, she even got to feed a couple of them.

And so we made our way back to the car, still cold, covered with fair dust and all of us a bit overstimulated. Back at home, Kalina had a good laugh at the cats before heading upstairs for a good, long (hopefully) nap.