Kalina's Thankful List

Hi everyone, this is Kalina writing. I thought that in honor of Thanksgiving I'd let you all know what I'm most thankful for now.

1. Turkey. Nothing else was really worth eating on Thanksgiving Day, despite my family's enthusiastic exclamations to the contrary. I just ended up eating a lot of turkey.

2. Family. It's nice having more people to play with, even if it's only in 2-minute spurts between time in Mommy's arms because I'm so overstimulated.

3. Shoes. Without them, Mommy says I can't go outside, and I love going outside. Good thing I have shoes.

4. Cats. It's always nice to have a cat around. In fact, "cat" is always my first word after every nap. I just like to keep track of them--know where they are at all times and what they're doing.

5. Trash. The stuff is just fascinating right now. Not sure why. I can say the word, and I know which objects generally constitute trash, whether they're tiny rocks that get dragged in from outdoors or the plethora of paper towels Mommy seems to use every time I have a meal. I like visiting our outdoor garbage cans, but can't quite understand why Mommy won't let me look in the other garbage cans on our street. Mean-spirited, if you ask me.

6. Lamby. For use as a battering ram, personal shield, best friend, pillow, napkin, sidekick, mop, personal fan club president, chair, teether, Mommy substitute, food taster, entertainer, step stool and comforter.

Photos:
1. Ready to eat! Aunt Nancy got me my own plate, fork and spoon. Not sure why no one else's plate looked like a bear.
2. Fortunately, I take after the Odegaard side and don't squint/blink in every photo. :)
3. Look, I learned how to do a shape sorter! Squares and circles are my favorites.
4. Relaxing with Mommy and Poky. We all deserved a break.

Video: My indoor slide that Daddy got out of the crawl space. Mountain Lion enjoyed it too, I'm pretty sure.

A day with Daddy

What an exciting day! With a whole day off in the middle of the week, Matt promised Kalina a day of fun. Despite the tropical storm coming through.

It started with Kalina and I sleeping in until 7:00 and Matt sleeping in until 8:00. They were out the door by 8:45, on their way to play at the mall. The diaper bag contained a diaper or two (one of them a rather wimpy cloth diaper, the other one of our very last disposables), two baggies of stale cereal and a granola bar, plus half a cup of milk. Since they were only going to be gone an hour.

[I threw in a load of laundry, tidied up and sprinted to the couch with a mug of steamy hot cocoa for a little downtime.]

Kalina's friend Edward happened to be at the mall with his mom. What fun--especially for Kalina, who loves to mooch off of Edward's awesome snacks, which this time included a delicious orange. (Thanks, Sarah!!!) Kids played, parents talked, and the H1N1 vaccine came up, as did the fact that there was a free swine flu vaccine clinic today. Even better, as the pediatrician is perpetually out! Matt called, I looked up the directions to the local Armory, and Matt and Kalina went directly on their way.

This is where our luck peaked for the day.

Several phone calls later, with Matt's cell battery running low, he found a sign on the door that said the vaccinations are in the other armory. Because every small- to mid-sized city should have two armories. Apparently, one is used for banquets. Which makes as much sense as using the other one for vaccinations, but I digress.

Without cell phone power to thoroughly discuss the fact that he was a bit low on diapers, food, drink and baby patience since naptime was approaching, Matt made the trek to the north part of the city (we live on the south part).

[I showered, tackled a cleaning/storage/organization project, worried about the diaper/food/drink/nap situation/cell phone battery situation, and accepted a freelance assignment.]

Matt was greeted at the armory by hoards, of which he was number 887. The downside (one of many) was that Matt had to wait outside in the rain with the baby for 45 minutes before even entering the building. The upside (yes, only one) was that I'd thoughtfully/thoughtlessly left an umbrella in the car after a rainy outing yesterday. Fortunately, the umbrella's feminine flowers didn't hinder its weatherproofing capabilities, and so Matt managed to remain mostly dry, if not slightly embarrassed. Kalina was cozily bundled under Matt's roomy raincoat, with only one leg left sticking out, and that only occasionally.

[I called to see how they were doing. They were not doing well. I fretted for much of the next hour and a half. About the food/diaper/milk/nap/cell phone battery/hoards/what-if-she-catches-something-worse-than-swine-flu/rain situation and about the fact that her fun day with Daddy was virtually ruined. At 12:15, it was officially the longest I'd been away from Kalina since I became pregnant more than two years ago. I accepted another freelance assignment and focused on it for a good 10 minutes.]

Once they got into the building, Kalina dozed for about half an hour while Matt moved about a step every five minutes in line. A kind soul held the diaper bag for Matt, while Matt entertained her eight-year-old and held Kalina, who wanted to be put onto the ground about as much as she wanted the vaccine.

Two and a half hours into this adventure (timed from arrival at Armory #2), Kalina received her vaccine, thus making the trip worth it. She giggled with relief when, afterward, Matt produced one of the aforementioned baggies of stale Cheerios. Poor girl, they're stale!

[After my relief at hearing the news that Kalina had her vaccine and was, in fact, okay, I decided that since the day was miserable anyway (because yes, it had been miserable for me, too, with all that worrying) the house might as well be clean, and I attacked the floors, cobwebs and bathtubs with the type of gusto that can only come from a mom's nervous energy. I told Matt where he might be able to find clean diapers throughout the car, and thanked him for the fact that I wasn't the one standing in the rain with the baby.]

Determined that Matt and Kalina should still have a nice day, I asked my dad, who lives in the vicinity of Armory #2, as well as in the vicinity of the museum Matt and Kalina were initially planning to visit in the afternoon, to feed them so they could carry on with festivities as if they hadn't waited in the rain among hoards for hours on end without much food or clean diapers only to be stuck with a needle at the end of it.

He happily obliged, and Kalina ate him out of house and home (not to mention Matt, I would imagine, but I'm not used to inquiring after his appetite). However, basically napless, the girl was giddy with overstimulation and Matt called the museum trip off. They did, however, play with the toys at Grandpa's house for quite a while before trekking back home, Kalina chattering all the way rather than dozing like she should've.

Albeit way past naptime, I decided Kalina was still a bit too giddy for her own good and experimentally put her down for a rest. This, in itself, proved how far we'd come in just a few months. I told her she could either sleep or play quietly--in the dark (bwahaha!). Fortunately, there were no shrieks: only silence as the girl, apparently, chose to sleep.

Matt poignantly remarked as we were convalescing later over dinner that Kalina didn't seem to have a rotten day. It started and ended with play, and had her being held for 2 1/2 hours straight--something she rarely tires of.

I guess he's right. Too bad Matt and I are so hard to please.

Kalina, by the way, will need a booster shot in about a month.

Photo: Matt and Kalina fishing. Where does the fish go, Kalina? Back to the lake! And so it did. Catch another one, Daddy!

Pretty in pink in the fall

On the first brisk day of fall, I put Kalina in a slightly small t-shirt, pants that I'd bought on clearance from Target months before and a jacket, the sleeves of which were 3/4 length because it was size 3-6 months (admittedly, a large 3-6 months). I squeezed her feet into 6-12-month socks. In this way, she kept fairly warm, but she was probably about as comfortable as she was fashionable.

The next day, we received a nice, warm outfit in the mail from snowy Minnesota where, fortunately, her grandparents live and have access to cold-weather clothing a good month before I do.

And so we eeked by until temperatures topped 70 degrees again.

However, my inner drive to see my child both cute and warm had been ignited, and I rushed out to see what I could find for her fall/winter/early spring wardrobe.

This season, I had only 1 or two items already in place: the rest, I'd need to buy unless I wanted to do daily loads of laundry (besides diapers, that is). I was up to the challenge, and Kalina was a good sport.

The challenge, by the way, was this: outfit Kalina for cold weather on a budget without making her look like a ragamuffin. Bonus challenge: Kalina traditionally changes sizes mid-season, so my goal was to equip her with clothing that would look only slightly large in November and only be slightly small in March, by shopping for the right brands and fits and line-drying pants so they don't shrink in the dryer and fit her tall frame for longer.

Pajamas, by the way, should come in varying degrees of warmth, and should come in pairs so that even if one set of a particular warmth level gets dirty, another one would be readily available. Because we certainly don't want the baby waking up for being cold.

My strategy was this: buy a few nice outfits on consignment. Buy everyday essentials to mix and match at big-box, value-priced retailers and buy pretty much anything that fits and is useful if it's less than $3 and in good condition. Sew her a dress. When in doubt, get pink, because it's pretty easy to match and suits her complexion, and neither of us is quite tired of it yet.

The result: Kalina only looks like a ragamuffin every other day.

Maybe the toughest part about shopping for clothes for Kalina is that I usually bring her, and/or Matt along. They have about the same level of patience for clothes shopping (it's ironic, however, that Kalina has far more patience for activities like picking up leaves by only their stems from off the ground, or reading Curious George books over and over and over, than I do). Sometimes I bring snacks for Kalina, sometimes I shoo them away to entertain each other. Whatever I do, I usually end up with about 5 minutes to scope an entire department and decide what/whether to buy, based on price, matchiness, suitability and sizing.

Adding to the fun is the fact that, like women's clothing brands, all children's clothing brands fit differently. Probably especially little girl clothing brands, to prepare them for womanhood. Despite woman's emancipation from subservient roles and mindless careers, we still can't conquer this one for ourselves. Sorry, Kalina, but maybe your generation will have to take this, the toughest challenge of them all, on.

We've admittedly had some luck with the buy-and-return game. I never wanted to be this type of shopper, but considering Kalina still gets slightly claustrophobic in dressing rooms, I don't always have much choice.

Thus, I've determined that it's not really my fault if Kalina's pinks don't always match, or that she only has one purple shirt to go with her blue-and-purple pants, so if it gets dirty she's out of luck with purple until laundry day, or that a few pants have to be cuffed and sometimes safety pinned if she wears a disposable diaper instead of a fluffy cloth one. Poor girl.

Nevertheless, Kalina's closet is now cheerfully full of clothing in multiple shades of pink, as well as a couple other colors. Many of them match. She also has plenty of fitting socks, about three pairs of which actually stay on her feet with any regularity. She has dresses and several pairs of tights, because no child of mine is going to church in pants when it's such a nice excuse to put her in a cute dress. And she has jackets of varying degrees of warmth, from the consignment sale snowsuit, coat and hooded sweatshirt to the 6-month water-resistant jacket from last year, to the free garage sale fleece jacket, which is turning out to be a really good deal.

Now, still a month and a half away from winter, Kalina is already outgrowing a couple pairs of pants. Do I start over or buy longer socks?

Photo: Notice the careful matching of pinks in this cobbled-together, early fall outfit.

Halloween 2009 picture post: The pink kitty

As it turns out, Halloween is even more fun with a pink kitty than with a flower (see last year's post). Probably because the pink kitty this year was old enough to go to costume playdates and trick-or-treat.

Good-natured Kalina didn't even seem to mind the eared hood she had to wear to complete her look, nor did the fact that Halloween was 80 degrees and humid keep her from being cheerful in her cozy fleece outfit. What a trooper.

The holiday started with a costume playdate on October 30. This was more for the moms: we wanted to get our money's worth for the costumes, and watch other toddlers we know wander around in various states of costumed-ness (costumes got dismantled as the playdate wore on). Cute overload.

On Halloween, Kalina hosted a family party and visited a few people in the neighborhood we know. (We don't feel comfortable having her visit people we don't know until she can at least say trick-or-treat--otherwise, it's far too obvious that we'll be gobbling up her candy while telling the child she can't eat it because it's made of styrofoam. True story.).

Fortunately, Kalina has learned how to knock on doors and ring doorbells. She could also politely choose one piece of candy from a bowl and place it into her pumpkin. What fun.

Of course, her treats weren't without tricks--she proudly, if not shyly, meowed and purred for our friends and neighbors, having been taught how to do so by our cats.


Photos and video: 1. Kalina. 2. Kalina and Daddy. 3. Kalina and Mommy and Daddy. 4. Kalina at the playdate as all the kids miraculously sit still (this photo took about 10-15 minutes to get. You can probably still see the tears on Kalina's and the green pea's cheeks). 5. Kalina petting the doggy (her friend Evan), in another hard-to-get shot. 6. What's a kitty without her tail? 7. Kalina and Mommy. 8. Uncle Tom "Tom Hanks," Aunt Nancy and Poky the fisherdog. Video: She meows! She purrs!