Nora Evelyn

This is how Nora felt about Christmas this year. I hope your solstice-proximal holiday celebrations contained this much joy and excitement for you.

Nora and I went sledding two days ago and it was great. It was great right up until she lost control of the sled, flipped, crashed face first, slid down the hill, and was hit in the back of the head by her own sled* but then I got a pretty good photo of it so even that bit was pretty good (for me). There were little streams of freezing tears on my coat when I finished carrying her home. Having dried her little face, we changed into dry pajamas, ate a nice warm lunch, and (both) took a long winter’s nap.

* don’t worry! more insult than injury.

I’m overjoyed to report that Nora has recovered. :) She spent two pretty awful nights (officially, “the longest night of the year” and “the longest night of the year 2: this time it’s personal”). After her nap today she perked up considerably. She managed to eat some toast, then more toast, a banana, and later some oatmeal. Who knows? If she’s very good we’ll feed her again tomorrow too.

The norovirus has been burning its way through Nora’s school like a fire through a dry stick and airborne particulate matter factory. Sadly, our little matchstick seems to have caught it. So we’re spending today curled up on the couch, drinking plenty of fluids, and watching Great Big Sea‘s “Courage and Patience and Grit”. Which seems about right.

Two or so hours after normal bedtime, Nora stumbles up to me looking for all the world like a drunken sailor 3 days into shore leave.
“daddy?”, she slurs at me. “daddy?”
“yes, honey?”
“daddy, are you mommy?”
“no”
“okay”
*goes back to bed, climbs in, and falls instantly asleep*

every syllable the truth.

As far as Nora could possibly know, this is what her father looks like.

[photo courtesy of Uncle Eric's droid]

Jen went up to make sure Nora was still tucked in and sleeping soundly and was surprised to find N’s bed empty and her blanket on the floor. “Kevin?”, she called down the stairs, “where is our daughter?” Seems she wasn’t in any of the normal “not in her bed” places. Not in the bathroom, not asleep anywhere on the floor, not in her story chair or under the dresser or behind the bed or like this.

Here’s a shot of Goldilocks fast asleep on her mother’s pillow.

It is increasingly the case that downloading pictures from our camera comes with some exciting and unexpected shots taken by Nora herself. Here are two selections from her recent series of portraits.

On Sunday I braved a fearsome blizzard! There I was –man against nature. With nothing but the brawn of my back and my trusty wallet I trudged some 40 or 50 yards from the warmth of my car to the main office of the Christmas tree farm about a mile from our house. In that desolate place I did savagely and strenuously purchase a snow-encrusted frasier fir. This fir having been acquired and neatly bundled by the nice man with the purpose-built tree bundling device, I boldly and with jolliness aforethought drove it back home in our little purple car. So arduous was this journey that I was forced to move the car seat, turn the heater’s blower on full, and press the rear defrost button with my own bare hands*. At one particularly harrowing turn, the car slipped a little bit before the traction control kicked in.

Here are some photos of the freshly kidnapped conifer, sappily pining for its arboreal home.

*actually, my hands were gloved.

We bought Nora a little snow shovel so she could ‘play’ with me when I ‘get to’ shovel the snow. (sucker).