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.
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]
We bought Nora a little snow shovel so she could ‘play’ with me when I ‘get to’ shovel the snow. (sucker).
This past Saturday Jen was in sunny, warm San Antonio, Texas. Nora and I muddled through by: making waffles from scratch for breakfast, visiting the hands on museum, visiting the dinosaur museum (aka the exhibit museum of natural history), having lunch at panera, taking a lovely nap (both of us), going to the library, buying a bottle of muriatic acid, grocery shopping, sharing a lovely dinner at home, reading, singing, bathtime, lots of cuddling, and finally collapsing into a deep, deep sleep (that lasted ALL. NIGHT. LONG.).
A great day and some okay photos to show for it (as always, click for larger (and sometimes different) picture).
Here is a pair of lost videos from Greenfield Village of Nora riding on things. The first is a very short video of Nora, mommy and grandma on the carousel. The second video is much, much longer and shows Nora being happy about riding on the old steam locomotive.
Way back on September 23rd when Nora was only2 and was but a mere toddler, her grandparents took us all to Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI. Somewhat ironically, the task of recording this trip for posterity fell through the cracks and the photos and video taken that day have gone unseen… until now!!! [as always, click for larger image and captions.]
Not only did we enjoy the company of great friends and a Great Lake in Evanston but Nora’s Great Aunts came up from Indiana to spend the evening with us on Halloween. We had a lovely stroll, an enjoyable dinner, and then the playful acrobatic performance of one Nora E. McGowan to warm us on what was otherwise a somewhat chilly evening. Thanks for joining us, Marge and Ginny, and we’ll see you this weekend for Thanksgiving. :)
I needed to go to Chicago for a conference last weekend so we made it into a mini family vacation (actually, we made it into a family trip and Jill & Fred made it into a wonderful little vacation but there will be more about this later). Even given that some rude jerk who wasn’t paying attention crushed and lacerated Nora’s foot with his wheelie bag while she was sound asleep, she was a dream on the train (in both directions). She was sweet, playful, took naps, ate really well, entertained herself with books and ipod, etc. We’re very, very lucky parents.
Here’s Nora sitting on my lap on the train.
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.