Nora Evelyn

The last couple of years we went to this really terrific (free) kids event at the University of Michigan’s Pierpont Commons. It’s happening again this year and we appear to have been used as part of the advertising materials!

I love that Nora and I have the same concentration face.

http://gonorth.umich.edu/article/221

We went to Nora’s class Thanksgiving feast today. The teachers asked each of the children about the Thanksgiving turkey: where you buy one, how you cook it, what you eat with it. They compiled the responses in books for us; here’s Nora’s recipe:

(“sticker work” means playing with stickers in Montessori speak. She’s suggesting that Miss Melissa get an adhesive-backed paper turkey for her Thanksgiving dinner)

Turkey a la Nora:

Nora: Get a turkey from the sticker work!
Miss Melissa: But what if I want a real turkey?
Nora: I don’t know where you get one because I’m a plant eater.
Miss Melissa: So what will you eat on Thanksgiving?
Nora: Macaroni.
Miss Melissa: Okay, how do you make the macaroni?
Nora: I watch my mommy and daddy make it. First get some water and wait til it’s bubbly. Then put the macaroni in. When it’s done, add cheese. Serve broccoli and that’s all. Me and mommy drink milk. Daddy drinks water. Probably candy or chocolate ice cream for dessert.

Nora and I went to the store to get supplies for static palatography and bought a Ritter Sport Marzipan bar. In line she explained to everyone, individually, that chocolate is her favorite thing to eat and that her daddy would be sharing the chocolate with her.

In the car on the way home she said, “Daddy, can we eat some of the chocolate in the car?”
Me: “oh no, sorry, Nora, we’re going to eat dinner right when we get home.”
Nora: *pause* “So can we have some chocolate NOW?”
Me: “no, sorry, love, we’d spoil our dinner if we ate chocolate now.
We’ll eat dinner when we get home and then you can have some chocolate
after, okay? I promise.”
*long pause*
Nora: “but… but, Daddy,” she asks in her i’m-figuring-something-out voice, “Daddy, if we eat dinner first it will spoil our chocolate.”

I have rarely been more proud.

Here’s what Nora looks like on a roller coaster. This particular coaster was Splash Mountain in Disney’s aptly-named Adventureland. This is, I believe, Jen’s favorite ride and, while Nora loved it, she preferred the teacups and the carousel in Fantasyland.

One of the things Nora and I did while waiting out the record rainfall was head down to the pool for a swim. The water was nice and warm, we had the place pretty much to ourselves, and what does it matter that the sky is opening up above you when the whole point is that you’re playing in the water anyway? (of course there was no lightning. sheesh.)

We were very excited to learn that our Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum membership could get us into the really quite wonderful Children’s Museum of Houston. There are puzzles, climbing puzzles, a blood-sucking insect display, a recreation of a Mexican village, a large outdoor water play area, a puppet theater, and even a pretend bank where kids can pretend to be the loan officer or the head teller and a bike shop where kids can pretend to be the cashier or a wrench. I couldn’t get Nora to put on the polyester sportcoat that would have made her the loan officer but when I do I swear I’ll post it.

Teeter totter or seesaw. Call it what you want, Nora is a menace on these things. The last time she used one she ended up jettisoning her pal (and hostess) Harper a couple of feet into the air and the poor girl landed face first in the woodchips (she was fine after some 1 on 1 time with her mom). This time no one got hurt, but this was due to the industrial-grade playground equipment and not for lack of effort on Nora’s part.

You know to always click on the pictures for enlarged (and often different) versions, right?

A sad postscript: the hale balloon animal shown in photo 4 with its entire life laid out before it and, seemingly, with the world in the cup of its little, inflatable paw met an untimely demise in the car on the way to dinner. It seems Nora decided to play Ozzy Ozbourne with the poor, inanimate creature and bit its nose off. No Noras were harmed in the ensuing unraveling and deflation, but the balloon kitty quickly became, like the great dirigibles before it, nothing but a sweet memory of a simpler time.

Last Saturday we declared our first-ever official Nora Day. Nora Day is a surprise, special day that isn’t anyone’s birthday and isn’t a holiday, but is a chance to do as many of Nora’s favorite things as we can and generally celebrate our bean.

Just north of Rice University there is a lovely little park with old school playground toys (bouncy animals, actual metal slides, climbing things to fall from, climbable trees!).

Jen snapped this pic of me and Nora enjoying each other’s company, I with my iPad and she with her (Jen’s) iPod touch. It’s nature, not nurture.