My parents gave me a beautiful locket for my birthday. I just got around to putting photos in it. I’d been stuck in an internal debate. The locket came with four photo slots – two larger, two smaller. Are my parents subtly trying to hint at a fourth grandchild? One spot could go to Mike, but I felt there would not be a fair way to divvy up the locket locales as then two kiddos would get a bigger spot while the third child would get a smaller one or two kids get smaller spots and one gets the bigger….I decided (upon the realization that this was not, in fact, an issue for the UN to debate but just about my own silly – yet beautiful and special – locket) to let the kids pick their own spots. Both boys agreed that they wanted a bigger place but Kayliana should get two photos of herself since her spots were smaller. (Sorry, Mike.) Phew! World disaster averted!

And as Matthew put it, “Kayli is way cuter than me and Zach, so she should have two pictures. She’s a baby and cuter than humans.” Um….OK. .

Unfortunately, Kayliana is not currently happy with humanity in general. We’re in a bit of a transition stage and it’s gotten a tad ugly at times. Kayli has learned to pull herself up to standing. She is starting to hold on to furniture and take a few steps (“cruising”). She is only eight months old. Now, I’m not really ready to have a WALKING baby, but then again I wasn’t really ready to have a crawling six-month old either. So, at this point, since she’s already mobile, I’d rather have her walking and off the floor which is the perfect level for head-bonking all low items. With her new found standing-talent, Kayli finds herself constantly in a bit of a pickle. She’d rather be standing than sitting (yet she can’t do this on her own and sometimes plops down in a violent fashion if not monitored), and she’d rather be walking (holding on to someone’s fingers) than pretty much any other activity in the universe. Kayliana – walking and holding on to someone’s fingers – elicits the happiest squeals and shrieks of baby delight. We all enjoy it. We all wish we could do this activity all the time. However, this is tricky as I currently have a cold and occasionally have to leave her (SITTING on the floor) to go participate in the completely self-absorbed act of blowing my nose. Kayli takes my departure as a personal attack. The crib has also become a place of baby jail where the novelty of standing has given way to the torture of standing-and-not-being-able-to-sit-back-down-gracefully. So, basically, life as a baby just all around sucks right now.

It’s not always torture though. We had some sunny hot days last week (or maybe it was the week before). The boys did the slip’n slide while Kayliana and I basked in…the shade on a blanket. One of our neighbors came over to say hello (a 20-something guy who is awesome and, sadly, just put his house on the market). He looked at Kayli (clad in warm-outfit appropriate tank top-romper outfit-thing) and said, “Wow! Looks like someone’s gotten a really good tan.” Now, Mitch knows that Kayli is adopted but this comment kind of just cracked me up. Yes, I take my baby tanning. She wears a bikini and little goggle-glasses and goes weekly to a tanning salon for her fix of spray-tan or tanning-bed goodness (see, I don’t even know how these things work).

“No,” I responded, “She hasn’t had any sun. That’s just her beautiful natural tan. She’s got a better perma-tan than I will ever have on my very best day.” (Seeing as my tan comes in two hues: less-blinding white/cream or lobster red).

Kayli got to work her tan when all of us attended a wedding last weekend! My high school classmate, Anne, married a college friend of ours, Kyle. Small world! I was friends with both of them on facebook and all of a sudden they were engaged. I sent them both a message saying, “So, uh, I take it you two know each other?!” They did. They do. And they said, “I do!” on Saturday!

Anne and Kyle have lots of nieces and nephews and had graciously encouraged us to bring our kiddos as it would be a family-friendly affair. We were very excited about the boys (and Kayliana, obviously) attending their first wedding. We may have gotten everyone a little too pumped. It’s likely all that Engaged Encounter influence, but we probably went on a bit too much about how it was a very exciting, special day and ‘how thrilling’ that the kids got to come, etc. I’m pretty sure after setting the expectations so high the kids were expecting the wedding to be something kind of close to the joy of Disneyland. I shouldn’t have been that surprised when one of the couples at our reception table commented on how well-behaved the boys were. I looked over at them and they were both slumped in their chairs, paralyzed by a boredom coma. The boys later agreed their favorite part of the whole event was the cake. I don’t think that Matthew and Zachary will be clearing their agendas for weddings any time soon.