20 million questions

My dear friend, Krista, who happens to
be a photographer, took some amazing
pictures of our family!

As soon as a child can begin to form words and sentences, you finally begin get a good peek into her mind. This has been going on for more than a year with Kalina, and I've always thought every glimpse I've gotten has been fascinating. Here is creativity unbridled. Few things are more inspiring than the mind of a child. What in the world is going on in there?

Sometimes not much more than, "Kalina would like a snack," and sometimes, "Mountain Lion is spraying water, milk and juice out of his tail. And his tail is cleaning it up," in response to my educational diatribe about what happens at the post office. Either way, Kalina's at an age where she pretty much tells me everything that's running through her mind, including an ironic "Kalina does not want to talk," followed a mere 10 seconds later by: "But Elise wants to talk," followed by Kalina letting me know what Elise was thinking.

As Kalina's language skills tighten up (we're now perfecting pronouns, saying "Mommy" instead of "Mama" and beginning questions) and she becomes increasingly in control of her linguistic universe, we face new challenges. For instance, we have her keen ability to notice every single mistake I make:

Me: Are your cats going to drink their milk?
Kalina: No, Mommy, they lick milk.

Or

Aunt Nancy: Time to add oatmeal to the cookie dough!
Kalina: No, oats!

Plus every single story in which I accidentally switch a "the" for an "a" and the like. Skipping a sentence or a page by mistake usually results in tears, while for other mistakes I may have to endure minutes of chiding laughter at my ignorance.

I'm slowly pondering how I'm going to teach Kalina that some mistakes don't require a gleeful "Mommy messed up!" and that in some households, pointing out each and every little accident of speech might be considered rude, even.

But that it's okay to let Mommy know if her socks don't match or she has frosting on her nose. But only before we go out, and not once we're in public lest she draw extra attention to my foibles. It's a delicate balance.

Fortunately, Kalina doesn't use all of her linguistic talents for ill. In fact, she's been remarkably handy lately in interpreting Elise's grunts, roars and "monkey-being-attacked-by-a-hyena"-shrill screeches for me. Sometimes with the best grammar I've heard out of the girl yet (does that mean Elise will be even more of a grammarian than Kalina? Heaven help us!).

For instance, Elise's grunts in the grocery store apparently meant, through Kalina's undoubtedly exacting translation, "'I want to get out of the cart, Mommy, let me out, I want to walk, I don't want to ride!' says Elise." If Elise were uprightly mobile I might have believe Kalina, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the toddler might be making things up.

Considering Kalina herself never uses such phrases as "No, Mommy, I don't want to wear a hat!" or "No, no, no, Mommy, I don't want to take a nap!" I sometimes think that Kalina sees Elise as an evil twin, alter-ego, or merely an outlet for unpopular expressions. That is okay: she can state her true feelings via Elise and we can both have a good laugh as we get on with the day.

And then there are the questions, which are always phrased like statements. "Kalina does not know if flowers turn into leaves," or "Kalina does not know if Lamby (or Beancat, or Elise) has stuffing." There are questions about everything--from where cars come from to if there will be a truck at church to whether a friend's dog will be attending a birthday party.

The best/worst part is trying to explain complex systems in straightforward English so that Kalina can actually understand and relate to. Sometimes my explanations end up so garbled that even an adult couldn't understand, while sometimes I actually succeed in making sense of a complicated matter. Sometimes I get it completely wrong, either because I have no idea what the real answer is or I know the real answer would only scare her  ("Thunder is just clouds bumping together!"). Sometimes Matt corrects me when I get it wrong ("Thunder is the sound lightening makes as it rushes through the air to hit the ground or an object!"). It's probably both a good and a bad thing that Kalina is not yet old enough to Google things herself.

While I have had to explain a million times where Daddy is every day, I fortunately have not had to silence Kalina's queries about whether another grocery store patron is particularly rotund. Yet.

Kalina also never asks, "How's your day been, Mommy, and is there anything I can do to help?" Yet.