Nora Evelyn

Nora is supposed to be asleep right now. She’s exhausted. She’s in bed. She’s all snuggled up with her new bunny, her pillow, and the blanket Maryann made her. She’s not sleeping. She is, however, singing over and over the mixed up lyrics:

Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?
Dormez-vous? Dormez-Vous?
Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?
Dormez-vous? Dormez-Vous?
Ding Dang Dong
Ding Dang Dong

I keep calling back “no, you’re not/no, you’re not” but apparently audience participation is unwelcome in this performance.

Jen scored some free tickets to the Toledo Zoo late yesterday so, somewhat unexpectedly, we found ourselves enjoying some lovely autumn weather in northern Ohio this morning. There are tons of good photos, but here are our favorites. As always, click for larger (or different) picture.

We all needed naps after our trip to the zoo; I think, if you’ve looked this far, you deserve one now too.

The title is, of course, an allusion to a classic of American filmmaking and not meant to be an indication that anything exciting happens in this video. :) Nora totally gets the basic objectives of the game ‘catch’ now (even if the motor routines required to support it (like suppressing giggles while the ball is coming) are not quite there yet).

She definitely could play for Michigan’s football team with the skills she demonstrates here (at least as kicker).

Nora and I made some amazingly delicious soft pretzels a couple of weeks ago (not pictured because we ate them too quickly to photograph them). Here are some shots Jen caught of the kneading and shaping part of the process.

The first step is admitting you have a problem; Nora has not taken that first step.

Jen took these pictures last week. The story is that Nora woke up from her nap, somehow got her sock basket down from the top of her dresser, put all of her hairbands on her head, took off her pants, and carried the basket downstairs. Imagine having this much fun with your socks?

There’s a risk this post will sound too much like I’m bragging. I guess maybe I am, but the real point is to put it somewhere that I (and, much more importantly, Nora) will find it again someday. Nora’s favorite question is now, “Why?”

It had to happen some time and, if her parents are any indication, we’re in for a whole lot of “why?” (much of it snarky) over the next few decades.

Many of these current “why?” questions are excruciating and unanswerable (“why is paint?”) or bizarre (“why are these my shoes?”). I thought I had her when she said, “Daddy, why are you?” and I said, “I am because I think, love.” But, without pausing, she put Descartes to shame, “why do you think?”. Drat. She’s too smart for me already. In a related question answering session she asked me, “what is the opposite of you?” and I told her, “a lawyer.”

This weekend we were at the grocery store and, in the checkout lane, she asks, “Daddy, why is there summer and winter?” I thought, “ah ha!! I know this one, I can totally do this.” So I explained that the Earth is a giant ball that spins every day. The spinning is what we call day and night, but the axis of this spinning is tilted with respect to the plane of our orbit around the Sun (demonstrates with convenient apple and stem). The result is that one part of the planet gets more sunlight, more directly, and for longer periods of time every day than other parts. Which part this is changes progressively throughout the year and this causes the seasons. I explained, for example, that this summer when it was hot and sunny here her friend Salomé was experiencing winter in Bolivia.

Now I don’t expect a nearly 3 year old to get most of this. I give full answers to questions because I like to and because I want her to feel loved and respected or some junk; she seems to eat it up and it’s crazy fun trying to explain the ecliptic to a toddler. At the end of my explanation she did the little nod that she often does, but the man in front of us in line, whom I had not noticed was listening, gave a very thoughtful and pleased “huh!” with intonation that said, “so THAT’s how that works.”

Public service accomplished. :)

On the way to school this morning Nora was exceedingly concerned about where the Sun might have gotten to lately. For some reason she was not the least bit consoled by reassurances that the Sun must still be there (or, at worst, was still there a few minutes ago) or we’d all be dead.

These pictures date from a far happier time (just a few weeks ago) when a little girl could go outside in short sleeves and a pair of froggy boots to chalk up the porch, sidewalk, and the horizontal surfaces of a nearby park.

These pictures were taken way back on September 26th. It was our 12th wedding anniversary (seriously) and Nora was exactly 2 years and 10 months old (seriously!). Here she demonstrates the kind of gentle, supportive parenting skills we’ve modelled for her by strangling her doll and then giggling uncontrollably about it.

Nora recently went on a scouting/fact-finding mission to the dentist. She didn’t have anything done; she just watched her mom (whose teeth are the stuff of legend) get a routine check-up and cleaning. She absolutely loved parts of it (like being given a sticker, ransacking the box of toys, people fawning over her, and when we let her play with the crazy powerful handheld suction tube) and other parts made her leave little shoe-shaped skid marks as she leapt from the chair and ran to the lobby. It was too dark inside to photograph with our camera anyone who moves this fast, but here’s a shot on the way back home.