A/N: I warned you at the beginning that these stories could become quite random. We are about to jump back in time six years from the last tale… (From here on out I'll stick a date at the top so you don't get timeline whiplash.)

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Cats Don't Ask. Cats Take.

I only have one sister-in-law—but she makes up in ability what she lacks in number.

Before I knew I needed something—boom, there she was. When I started introducing Alexandra to baby food in jars—two (not one, two) baby food grinders arrived in the mail. Barb was obviously tracking them online, because as soon as I had signed for the box she called. "Trust me. Home cooking beats the crap in the jars any day. And while one is in the dishwasher, you can be using the other one." When Alexandra was at the middle stage—almost past a bottle but not quite at sippy cup ability—Barb stopped by the store and dropped off several cards of bottle straws. "Figure you'll need these soon." They were weird looking: a disk at the top that looked almost like a Tinkertoy wheel with a hard plastic straw that you could stick into the center hole. The disk fits into the nipple of the bottle and the straw sits squarely in the body of the bottle. Instead of the kid having to hold the bottle up and invert it (sometimes getting a bath of juice or water when the cap wasn't screwed on completely—oops), they can hold it like a regular cup with a straw. Ingenious.

Heck—before Alexandra was even born, she heard me say we planned to use "real" diapers and signed us up for diaper service ("Bad enough to haul them downstairs once, this saves you the trip to the basement.") and presented me with the coolest diaper holders. Yes, holders—fabric loincloth-type things: slip the diaper through the four cloth tabs in the corners and then Velcro the thing onto the kid. Yes, Velcro. I must have poked kids 100 times (and myself 1,000) while baby-sitting. Now? No pins. Even better than the throwaways. Now, that is a major breakthrough. And, proving that she and my brother are perfectly suited to one another, she even found one made out of hemp and tie-dyed. (Old hippies never die. They just smell that way.)

But the best thing she brought by was a baby backpack. Not a backpack for the baby—it was an aluminum frame with a canvas seat in it. It looked like the kind of backpack hikers use, had a special support for when the baby is small and still suffering from noodle neck, and would even support a kid up to toddler size. (By that point, I am not playing mama marsupial. Walk or use wheels, kiddo.) And as she grew, Alexandra got the grownups-eye-view of the world peering over my shoulder.

Occasionally it was a little disconcerting. Customers—new, old timers or those in between—would talk more to Alexandra than they would to me. It didn't bother me—I just felt like I was eavesdropping on a private conversation. Alexandra cooed and babbled right back, so they were clearly saying something to each other.

The days she got out at noon, Charlie would jet over on the Metro to spend a couple of hours with us and then go "home" to Reston where her moms would join us for dinner and then schlep her home. It was a win-win situation: she got to see her favorite (and only) niece (frequently carrying her around the store in the aforementioned backpack) and she willingly did the shelf cleanup we all hated to do. When I realized she was actually working and not just visiting, I put her on the payroll. What did she do with her first paycheck? Blow it on Alexandra.

"Merry Christmas!" She was waiting for me when I got to the store.

"Charlie! How long have you been out here? What are you doing here, for that matter! It's only eight, you should be in school!"

"Win. Ter. Break," she enunciated. "School is out of session for a fortnight. I told you Saturday morning. And I've only been here ten minutes—at the outside."

"Well…"

"And I have your trees."

"Hot damn. I mean—good, good, thank you." At three months, Alexandra wouldn't pick up my bad language, but there was no need to burn Charlie's ears.

"Four dozen peanut butter, two dozen marshmallow, two dozen chocolate almond, one dozen fudge, three dozen chocolate mint. Hungry?"

"Har, har. You know the plan, get crackin'."

As she had the year before, Charlie taped sticks to the foil-wrapped trees and arranged them in the charity tree. I paid her school PTA for the goodies, then put them out for our charity of the month. Two chairites with one hit. Last couple of months had been the Salvation Army adopt-a-family program (she had helped us wrap and deliver the gifts over the weekend); this month was the local no-kill cat shelter. Come spring, they would be inundated with unwanted kittens and needed money now. The chocolate trees were a change of pace for our usual lollipops—and, if they sold like last year, would be gone in two days.

Charlie had the tree ready a half hour before we opened and came to my office to report in. "Here." She handed me a peanut butter tree. "I made the first donation. You need to keep your strength up."

I wanted to protest—but I couldn't. One, I love Reese's peanut butter cups and the Christmas trees were almost that good. Two—Gibbs' warning in the hospital had been prophetic. Alexandra was already starting to crawl (Ducky couldn't be prouder if he were doing it himself); I was already tired and she hadn't even started to walk. "For that, we might send out for lunch." I opened it and took a nibble from the top of the tree. "Ah. Chocolate. Proof that mankind is civilized."

"Well, the Mayan civilization practiced ritual sacrifice—"

I'm used to Ducky's tangents—sometimes gruesome ones—so I didn't lose my appetite. The back door slammed and moments later Valerie stuck her head in the door. "I have lunch," she announced. "The charity that picks up leftovers from The Soup Pot is not doing pickups this week, they're doing Christmas dinner pickups every day and are shorthanded, to boot. So we have beef barley, chicken noodle cream of mushroom, minestrone, chili, muffins of every hue and chocolate chocolate chip cookies." She glanced at the tree in my hand. "Not that we need chocolate…"

"We always need chocolate," I disagreed. "Tell your brother thanks."

She shrugged. "They'd've thrown it out anywho."

For the next minutes we discussed the options for the next summer's Book Expo. Running around a convention while pregnant 'out to here' is one thing; no way in blazes was I going to do it with a stroller or even the backpack. I would either leave Alexandra with her daddy (possible, though Ducky enjoys the Expo, too) a sitter (fat chance, even if Lily, Ev or Suzy) or send someone in my stead (better option). (Of course, by then Alexandra would be nine months old and I might be ready to run away from home. I remember what her cousins were like; there were times when I babysat that I wasn't 100% sure Ray and Barb were coming back.) Valerie listened intently while I outlined my plans. Very intently. Frankly, the way she was staring at me was a little unnerving. I had a feeling the baby was making goofy faces over my shoulder to distract her. (I could tell by the shift in weight that she was leaning forward over my right shoulder—and she is such a ham.) Since Charlie was on the edge of her chair, staring just as fixedly, it was a safe bet the baby was entertaining her minions.

"The big trick is deciding—" My thought completely derailed itself. The hairs on my forearm were tickling—like when you get a small cut and don't realize it until a thin trail of blood snakes down your arm. I glanced over—

Just as I caught sight of Alexandra's face, Charlie and Valerie dissolved into whoops of laughter. "You had that tree sitting your hand, totally forgotten—" Valerie gasped.

"And she was leaning over soooooo slowly—" Charlie continued, giggling.

"And started going num, num, num on the tree—"

"And you didn't pay any notice—"

"I thought I was going to die, watching, waiting for you to say something—"

By now they were laughing so hard they had to support each other. I had been sitting in "discussion pose"—one arm across my body, hand supporting the other elbow, free hand available to gesture. Or, in this case, hold a big, fat chocolate covered peanut butter Christmas tree right within snagging range. I stared at the chocolate-covered, ecstatic face of my child, stunned; chocoholic—like mother, like daughter. Ignoring the sticky mess on the backpack, my shirt, my arm (and my desk, I belatedly noticed), I grabbed the phone. "Ducky? Ducky! Alexandra just ate her first solid food! And she stole it!"

Valerie composed herself enough to snap a picture with her cell phone and send it to Ducky. Ducky forwarded it and almost immediately heard back from the team. Tony planned to buy a share of Hershey's stock in Alexandra's name. McGee changed his screensaver to the close up view of ol' chocolate face. Ziva and Abby (Ziva being down in the lab with Abby when the email flag pinged) quickly came up with a cookie idea they planned to call Baby Chocolate Kisses. And Gibbs?

He just looked at the picture, grinned and shook his head. "That's my girl."

A/N: All four items (backpack, straws, diaper wraps and grinders) were gifts I received Way Back When. They have been mainstays of my baby shower gift list ever since.

A lot of these snippet tales have the sound of reality because they are stolen straight from family and friends. (It's not plagiarism. It's research.) This one I unabashedly claim as my own. It went on ten minutes before I finally asked my friend what was so fascinating. (She had this look of amused horror and was clearly not listening to me.) When I followed her gaze, she started laughing so hard she literally slid off the couch. Her husband and kids had been watching from the other side of the room; hubby had to all but tackle the kids to keep them from spilling the beans.

And, yes… it was a Reese's cup.