Little Big Girl

The other day, I bought some size 4T shirts for Kalina. They are to last the entire summer, and hopefully even to next spring. The girl is tall, and especially in her torso, which means that she grows out of the lengths by the end of the season (and fortunately, usually not right in the middle). But the point remains: I bought some size 4T shirts. Next we'll be out of the toddler section, and cat shirts will be even fewer and farther between. Whatever will she wear?

Our little Kalina is growing up, and she and I remind each other of this fact on a daily basis.

"You're a big girl, you can clean up your own mess," I let Kalina know in no uncertain terms as she happily scatters dried beans far and wide across our living room floor.

And on the other hand, "Kalina is big, so Kalina can sit on the coffee table," she informs me as she happily climbs up. She's right: I believe that as you gain big girl responsibilities, you should also get some big girl privileges and it just so happened that climbing on the coffee table made for a really good one when I was particularly desperate. So now, she may.

Truth be told, Kalina amazes me on a daily basis--not only with her rather perfect grammar constructions ("Kalina got a book for Kalina's self" is one of my favorites), but also with her practical knowledge.

For instance, I'm pretty sure Kalina will be ready for her own apartment by age 12, judging from the way she already knows what goes into running a household thanks to maintaining extremely close proximity to me pretty much since birth, and lots of practice doing household tasks by helping with chores.

Kalina's chores at this age, by the way, are:

1. Emptying the silverware from the dishwasher and putting it away.

2. Feeding the cat.

3. Starting the dishwasher.
4. Cleaning up her toys when we ask her to.

5. Wiping up her own messes.

We help her, but these are things she can do mostly on her own, and we expect her to.

She also happily (sometimes weirdly happily) helps out with sweeping (she can form her own piles and step over them without tracking them around the house!), spraying any spray bottles I need sprayed, almost any kind of baking and cooking (she's especially good at convincing Mommy to give her tastes), starting laundry and transferring it to the dryer, dusting furniture and gleefully throwing any laundry we're folding off whatever surface we're using to fold it (okay, so she's not perfect).

But Kalina's personal growth goes far beyond chores. For instance, until very recently she's never been a "me do it!" kind of kid, preferring instead to have her requests fulfilled by her own personal maid (Mommy). But in the past few months she's been showing a bit more interest in such things as taking off her shoes and washing her own hands. She can even brush her teeth rather well, and spit out the toothpaste, although not at the same time.

Her play has gotten increasingly elaborate, and I occasionally overhear whispered conversations between Kalina's various animal friends that have to do with catching ice cream that falls from the light fixtures or searching for the ever-missing slice of toast and whatnot. It's cute. She can also now draw real pictures, and write real words, which are represented by lines on paper. But at least she knows they're there.

Speaking of words, although Kalina certainly isn't reading, she can tell you which letter some words start with, providing the words start with S, B, D or P. Her enunciation is improving, as well as her ability to toss around phrases such as "last but not least" and "eat up every last bit of grapefruit."

And of course, Kalina's propensity for mischief has grown as well. For the first time pretty much ever, I've been required to grow eyes in the back of my head to keep an eye on a very real person who has not yet developed a sense for "laundry soap is not for playing in" or "Mommy really, really doesn't want paint her nice placemats painted."

I appreciate the little things, too. I recently witnessed Kalina successfully keep a large blob of grape jam from landing on her lap while painstakingly eating a peanut butter sandwich, a feat of which I'm not only exceedingly proud, but exceedingly grateful.

After a recent conversation about the fact that Kalina can have ice cream because she's big but Elise can't because she's little, I asked her what she'd like to do when she's as big as Mommy. I didn't let her know that her options could include eating an entire pan of brownies or watching TV all day in her jammies. And so, Kalina simply replied that she'd like to take care of her friends. Maybe someday my little girl will dream bigger, but for now, I think her idea sounds just perfect.

Photo: We'll add cake decorating to Kalina's list of skills