Nora Evelyn McGowan

Nora has recently discovered that my name is `Kevin’ and she thinks this is absolutely hilarious. We’ve been trying to explain to her that she’s special and gets to call me `daddy’ and no one else in the entire world gets to do that. The unintended consequence of this is that now Nora has taken to saying “Daddy is special” which is not exactly what I was going for.

Anyway, here’s a photo of Nora in the lab with me today helping me set up the first experiment for my dissertation research.

I meant to post this over a week ago, sorry. Nora made a mask at the free grad students with kids thing. It had pink antennae, a cool blue nose, and, well, you look at it.

We took Nora to another free Rackham students with kids event this Saturday: a free morning of bouncing at the Xtreme bounce zone. It’s basically a giant warehouse with a padded floor and 6 or 7 giant bouncy things (bouncy castles, bouncy obstacle courses, bouncy slides) it was bouncy boot camp for a little bouncy army (including a special bouncy castle just for toddlers and babies). Fantastic fun and worth many times the price we paid to get in.

The best part, though, was Nora getting to see nearly every little kid she’s ever expressed an interest in (Harper, Kacie, and Samantha’s absences were duly noted): Salomé, Oda, Pei Pei, Isobel, Anja. It was really wonderful. At one point Nora saw Pei Pei just as Pei Pei saw Nora so they screamed each other’s names, ran at each other, shared a crashing hug, and then squealed and ran off to attack the bouncy obstacle course.

On Tuesday we attended a fantastic event at the University for students who are also parents. There were hordes of happy kids, a corresponding number of nerdy parents, a clown, a station for making masks, a station for making wands, an unbelievably ill-advised baby pool filled with water and ducks, and free food. What’s not to love? It was also Nora’s twenty six monthaversary and her first (known) consumption of celery that hadn’t been stir fried.

Many thanks to the fine folks at Rackham and University Unions (and whomever else was involved) for a great evening of not being in our living room.

I finally got this video to work; enjoy. At about 1:50 Nora notices the camera and the exchange is:

Nora: *curious face, shakes head* no camera, please.
Jen: what, honey?
Nora: my daddy did it.

Apparently she can tell the difference between a camera that is sitting on a chair and a camera that is sitting on a chair and recording. :)

I had no idea this was going to be what we ended up doing when I turned on the crummy video camera on the laptop. My sincere apologies to everyone whose name we forgot to say. Leave a comment and she’ll greet you next time. :)

Oh! and sorry about the terrible sound.

I fell asleep on the sofa and Nora decided I needed the bed, mattress, blanket, and tiny pillow from her dollhouse. “Daddy, bed! Daddy nap.”

Nora and I cleared the sidewalk and made a snowman this morning. I’m convinced that if midwesterners were really resourceful we’d have a tourist industry, like New England with the leaves, centered around people from warm places coming to gawk at our snow, engage in the exciting world of shoveling it, make snowmen, and drink hot cocoa. We have one guest suite available for the remainder of this season; act quickly, spaces are limited by, let’s say, overwhelming demand.

Nora helped me make some cookies to give away as presents this year. When she cuts a cookie she wants it to stay cut. Here we see Nora sporting her fancy new stripey sweater; a birthday gift from her great aunts Marge & Ginny.

Jen found a wooly bear caterpillar on the floor in the foyer.

me: Nora, do you see the caterpillar?
Nora: (waving) hi, caterpillar!
me: Do you see how he curls up in a ball when I poke his tummy?
Nora: *nods*
me: what should we name him?
Nora: outside!
me: “Outside”? that’s a funny name for a caterpillar.
Nora: (waving again) bye bye, caterpillar! bye bye!