Daddy home?

While the big girls were at
camp, Naomi and I played
peekaboo behind a tree!

 "Daddy home?"
Spend any amount of time lately with Naomi, and you'll hear these words.
"Daddy home? Soon?"

What a cute little questioning voice, raising slightly at the end to indicate a question (she's not quite a grammarian yet, and must rely on tonal inflections). What a sweet sentiment! The 1-year-old misses her daddy.

It begins shortly after he walks out the door for work in the morning.

"Daddy home?" Naomi queries, looking at the rest of us through sparkling eyes to see if we laugh because she means it as a joke this time. She hasn't always meant it as a joke, though--and in fact, at first it was nothing short of a tragedy if the answer was "no." I tell her that she's silly, and that of course Daddy isn't home, he left for work! We have a good chuckle, and then continue with breakfast.

After breakfast the inevitable happens. Naomi gets a little bit hurt. She's crying, and through her tears wonders:

And why do they want Daddy home so
much? Look what he let them do!

"Daddy home?" It's not quite so cute and high-pitched this time--more of a sob, of course. The poor girl is hurting, physically or emotionally, or both, and apparently only a hug from Daddy can soothe the affliction. Naomi is not happy with the negative answer, but soon is demanding a consolation prize in her distressed state: "'lise hug! Nini hug!" and her sisters are happy to oblige. Naomi cheers up.

"Daddy home?" She asks again a little while later and looks around expectantly. We're in the middle of getting dressed, frustratingly not much closer to her beloved parent's already much-anticipated arrival than we were last time. When I remind her that he's not, she wonders if it'll be "Soon?" I let her down as easy as I can: "He'll be home at supper."

Kalina composed her own
music!

The toddler is blessedly distracted for a while by dropping off the bigs at their summer camps. While they learn circus skills (Elise) and craft with fabric (Kalina), Naomi and I are enjoying "Mommy camp," in which we take advantage of all the sweet little toddler play places that Kalina and Elise are mostly too old for. I get to revel in precious and innocent young toddlerdom, and Naomi gets some brand-new experiences because sadly, she has never gotten to attend baby storytime at the library even though she's now almost aged out of it. She is a pro at baby storytime, by the way, and was joining in the fingerplays and sharing toys like she's been doing it her whole life (but maybe she has?).

"Daddy home?" Naomi brings up the topic again as we're on our way to collect her big sisters. Fortunately, since we're not home either, I know she can't get too upset and she's simply making conversation in the car. "No, Sweetie," I remind her again. "Where's Daddy?" "Work!" she proclaims. "When will he be home?" She really does know the answer, now if only she had an actual concept of time: "Supper." But she goes on--after all, we're stuck in the car so we might as well chat. "Nini home?" "Kalina's at camp." "'lise home?" "Elise is at camp, too!" And now she gets silly: "Mommy home?" the girl says with a smile in her voice. "Silly Naomi! Mommy's in the car with you!" Sometimes she goes on asking about various family members, including Poky (especially Poky), or sometimes she loops back to Daddy again. But no amount of asking will bring him home. Fortunately, we soon arrive at camp, and we can bring the big girls home with us, and a certain level of order is restored in the sweet toddler's mind.

Elise found Ice Cream Sundae
at a garage sale for 25 cents.
I paid because I knew there
would have to be sharing, and
because we clearly couldn't
leave her behind--not with the
smile on Elise's face, anyway.

"Daddy home?" Groggily, just waking up from her nap, Naomi remembers her question before her head has left the tummy of Pink Puppy. It's often the first thing she says when she wakes up. If it's a Friday in the summer and Daddy isn't running errands, I might be able to triumphantly answer, "Yes, he is!" but that is not usually the case. But she's usually happy enough to cuddle with me a few minutes before we head downstairs for the afternoon's activity.

"Daddy home?" The poor girl is frustrated: her sister is playing with a toy she'd like to be playing with. "Daddy home" is more of a demand this time: "Either I want the blue and pink car to ride on, or I want Daddy!" But we must all learn to take turns, whether we're sharing a car with a sister or Daddy with his job. Naomi usually figures out that when she asks nicely for a turn ("Turn please?") and waits until the sister hops off, she can at least secure the car; Daddy takes a little more patience, but at least doesn't require a "please."

"Daddy home?" We're heading home from the library, and Naomi is just wondering. Maybe she can sense that the glorious time is getting close. "Sorry, Sweetie, not quite yet." "Aw. Soon?" "Yes, soon! At supper time!"

Naomi has company
watching for Daddy.

"Daddy home?" We've walked in the door, and Naomi is hopeful. "No, but soon!" Unfortunately, Naomi takes "soon" to mean "his car is pulling in the driveway as we speak!" She dashes off to the door. I open it so she can look through the screen door, and she's content to stand there a bit and watch other cars drive past, knowing that soon one will turn into the driveway, and it'll be the right car.

"Daddy home?" Naomi has been watching for a full five minutes, it's been too long without Daddy, and she's bored. She can't handle another "no" answer, but she has to. Naomi starts to fall to pieces. We put her back together, and she wanders off to read library books on the recliner ("The end! Yay!") or cook dinner for Pink Puppy, momentarily distracted.

Until the moment when we hear the front door open...

"Daddy home!!!" And then there's the pitter patter of at least one pair of little feet, and sometimes an entire stampede, as Daddy is welcomed home probably more enthusiastically than is always enjoyable, but he takes it all in stride.

Mother's Day!

All is well in the house. Daddy is home, as is the rest of the family. And while you'd expect Naomi to glue herself to him the rest of the evening, she doesn't, actually. Sometimes, she's even a mommy's girl.

The Elk Park adventure

Those of us who have been to Lone Elk Park with us will appreciate this video, which Matt put together from the footage from last Sunday's visit. The rest of you might think it's pretty cool, too!

Uh-oh. Trash fell down. Fountain broke.

Most toddlers would agree that riding in the car is no fun, and Kalina would certainly agree. Fortunately, with the advent of two-way communication that does not necessarily include crying (for either of us), car trips have become more bearable as Kalina gains more experience with the English language.

For one, I can incentivise almost every trip, whether it's a jaunt to the park (easy) an expedition to the grocery store (trickier: "Will you help me find eggs? And bananas? And milk?" Three of her favorite things to find), or a visit to the doctor (nearly impossible if I didn't plan a visit to Aunt Nancy or a park or even the grocery store afterward, if at all possible).

But mostly, it helps that we're able to converse as we go. I find our conversations cute, if redundant, and Kalina finds them vastly useful in conveying to me the vital knowledge that a green bus is in our vicinity, and that she would like to see another green bus as soon as possible.

To which I reply, "We'll look for another green bus, will you help me find one?" and bank on her being content in anticipation until she forgets the search 45 seconds later on her discovery of a dump truck, at which point we'll begin looking for another dump truck. And so on.

It should be noted that Lamby, or Cow, or White Doggie, or Mountain Lion, or White Cat, or whichever companion she's chosen for the trip will generally aid our search by being held up by the neck to be able to see out the front window (and also directly into my rearview mirror) better. Cute, cute, cute.

Over a month ago, while we were driving to the grocery store on trash day, Kalina noticed that one of the blue trash cans along our route had tipped over.

"Uh-oh, trash fell down!" she worriedly informed me.
"You're right, the trash can did fall down!"
"Uh-oh, trash fell down!" she said more emphatically, frowning and tearing up a little.
"That's okay, someone will pick it up again!" I brightly reassured her. The girl was clearly distressed and I was hoping to smooth it over.
"Uh-oh!" She reaffirmed.

And with a combination of sympathy and a positive outlook for the future of the garbage can, we repeated this exchange several times until we got to the store. And on the way back (despite the fact that I clearly noted that someone must have picked it up, because there were no fallen trash cans anywhere). And then every time we took that route. And now about 5 times a day.

Not only that, we've added a broken fountain to the conversation. It used to spew water. Now it doesn't, so it's broken.

Poor Kalina. She does worry about things, and so her sweet little mind needed to figure out a solution. Which she did, without any prompting from me. Now the conversation goes something like this:

"Uh-oh. Trash fell down. Fountain broke."
"Yes, Sweetie, that's right."
"Uh-oh. Trash fell down. Fountain broke."
"Yes, but someone will take care of them!"
"Di-dah" (this means Daddy. She reverses the syllables because it's cuter that way.)
"Sure, Sweetie, Daddy will take care of them!"
Smiles.

And we still have the conversation several times a day. Daddy must be busy!

We told Matt that his official job now is trash-can-picker-upper and fountain-fixer, and so he mounted a re-branding effort to teach Kalina that really, he's a Scientist. Here's how that went:

"Kalina, Daddy's job is a Scientist!"
"Scientist."
"That's right! What does Daddy do?"
"Trash fell down! Fountain broke!" Triumphantly.

Photo: Kalina in her car.

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!