Nora Evelyn

This park is pretty phenomenal –the wet and dry parts were each probably the best such play spaces Nora’s ever been to. All the elders in attendance were jealous that these facilities weren’t around when we were kids (of course, we got to play with actual Lawn Darts so it wasn’t all bad).

We started the day on the wet part. Played until her tiny lips were nice and blue, toweled off for climbing and swinging fun, switched back into swimsuit for more water (is anything more pleasant than putting a wet swimsuit back on? ), and then it was off to Buddy’s Pizza where Granny treated us all to dinner. All in all a pretty spectacular day and it took at least another day and a half for Nora to calm down afterwards.

Last weekend we took Nora to a nearby spray park (a normal park, no admission, with giant metal sculptures that spray water on you — you’ll see). I’m going to put up a massive post with tons of pictures later today but for now I hope you’ll enjoy this video we shot of Nora realizing why it was, exactly, that she was wearing her bathing suit.

Nora was eating cheese and crackers today while I made her lunch. She picked up one of the crackers, snapped it in half along the diagonal, and exclaimed, “daddy! 2 triangles!” and made me go look at them. I showed her the right angles and tried to explain a little bit about the lengths of the three sides. I appreciate that she doesn’t get a lot of this stuff, but knowledge is cumulative and has to start somewhere. It was pretty cool.

So later we’re eating our lunches and she gets this excited look again and says, “The top of the cup is a circle!” and showed me with her fingers by tracing a circle in the air parallel to the top of the cup. I was blown away. I explained that if you take the intersecting plane out of parallel with the table top then the slice it makes in the cup is an ellipse rather than a circle. She nodded and said, “and the cup has MILK!” and then she poured the milk all over herself.

We haven’t done an eating post in a while, so here’s a shot of Nora enjoying some macaroni and cheese and an embarrassing amount of branding. It’s like she’s a little NASCAR with all the logos and ads. [this space for rent]

Nora came to Northside school Tuesday night to help us vote and then to help us play on the playground. Respect for the integrity of the voting process prevented photography of the countless hordes inside the gym (there were 4 of us who weren’t working there if you count Nora), but here are some photos of the celebratory afterplaying.

what’s that they say about never appearing with animals or children? Jen’s got the right idea. :)

I LOVE when she imitates my confused/surprised face at 1:51. If you watch nothing else (a) skip to that point and (b) why did you come here? Did you expect free cheese or something?

It’s important to engage your children on an intellectual level. As such, we are strong believers in serious, structured, goal-oriented play. It’s essential to establish a goal for each play session and to keep to the agenda. Speaking of the agenda, it’s also of fundamental importance that one set onset and offset times for each play session and keep rigorously to the schedule. Children need structure to feel loved.