Nora Evelyn McGowan

Last week we went in for Nora’s 2 year Dr’s appointment. She’s in great health, a crazy rambunctious 2 year old, and still unable to break the elusive 10th percentile weight barrier. You know how your broken car always works when you take it to the shop and kids never do cool new things when you’re telling friends about it? While we were explaining to the Dr that Nora’s current favorite trick is tearing off all of her clothes, tearing off her diaper, and running around with her arms in the air she … tore off all of her clothes, tore off her diaper, yelled “I did it!” and started running around the room laughing and waving her arms wildly above her head. Laughing only encourages her, but how can you not?

Here’s how this picture looked just 20 months ago. We have a nicer camera now but everything else is basically unchanged, eh? ;)

The thing she’s touching in the first picture has a big label: ‘DANGER! HOT, DO NOT TOUCH’ This, of course, is a very helpful sign for a toddler as the bright, red color shows them which thing they’re most especially supposed to play with.

We took Nora in for her 15 month checkup and oil change on Wednesday. She’s tracking just on the positive side of the median for height, scraping the bottom of the 10% line for weight again (up from a low of 2%), and also had her head size measured. Before any of this could happen, though, we changed her into her spiffy hospital gown, left the door open, and left her shoes on. Naturally, she made a run for it.

bonus video: dancing

Ever since she saw her granny do it last week, Nora’s been trying to dance. Here’s a video I caught with our digital camera of her dancing. You should be able to hear her tapping her feet just as the dr walks in. Then (and this is my favorite part) she tries to scurry away to hide from the doctor behind mom’s legs but she gets distracted by the cabinets on the way and literally can’t resist their siren song.

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nora: *tap tap tap tap tap*
jen: you need a video camera for that one.
me: that’s what I’m doing.
jen: (to nora) dance?
dr krieger: she is just too cute.

(we totally agree but now we have an official medical opinion on the subject. happily, there are no prescriptions for a serious case of “too cute”).

So it turns out I’ve never had the chicken pox. Two days ago Nora got her chicken pox vaccination which apparently means there’s a high probability she’ll be contagious in a few weeks. I mentioned to the dr my suspicion that I’d never had this particular ailment and she sent me off to the lab for blood work. Let’s pretend I was very brave about the blood work and keep moving. The lab tested my blood and, indeed, I lack immunity to the bawk bawk pox. They (the lab) called me back, ordered me to come in and get the dr-prescribed inoculation, and even set up the appointment for me. This was all going extremely well until Nora and I showed up to get my shot and the nurse mistook me for some kind of bizzaro vaccine junky! She hadn’t (I later got out of her) bothered to look at my lab reports, she hadn’t talked to either of the two drs who had sent me to the lab, and she, I don’t know, thought she’d unearthed a new trend of recreational immunization among 30-something males? She was genuinely mad at me and confused about why she was giving a shot she described as “for the children” to an adult-type person. I felt like I’d wandered onto the set of a bad reality tv hospital comedy show: Punked & Poked.

Nora hugged me during the shot. I was nearly as brave as she always is and I have the Road Runner band-aid to show for it.

Speaking of shots, here’s one of Nora. She surprised her mother and me by volunteering to go into her pack and play (read: she climbed up onto Jen’s couch, scaled the arm, leaned over the edge, and threw herself* into her pack and play). Sudden urge for the comfort and reassurance of confinement? A new-found desire to allay her parents fears by spending quiet time in a safe place for a little while? Perhaps a poetic longing to relive treasured moments from the past –the halcyon days of her pre-toddlerhood? No! She’d figured out that climbing into the playpen would allow her access to the forbidden CD shelf. Here she has selected the 1990 compilation album Bona Drag by British pop “star” Morrissey. Even from this oblique angle you can see how insanely proud of herself she was. :)

* it was a parentally-controlled fall; no babies were harmed in the creation of this blog post.

Some firsts we could definitely do without. I think everyone at Ruggles End would be happier if Nora had 2 fewer ear infections and if I could get healthy even for a minute. I swear someone is going to nail a quarantine sign to the door if Jen gets sick again.

You may not be able to tell from this picture, but Nora’s a little under the weather. So under, in fact, that we took her to the Dr. today to make sure she doesn’t have an ear infection. In addition to coughing, sneezing, and being grumpy she’s also been hanging onto her ear.

Turns out she’s just got a cold and has discovered that she has ears (and wants to hold them — what would you do with them?). Probably she’s also experiencing some ill effects from what appear to be (I’m not making this up) teeth numbers 5 and 6.

• 26 1/₂ inches
• 15 pounds 2.6 ounces
• didn’t cry at all about shots
• we’ll keep her

We learned many things at Nora’s 4 month check-up today but the two that stand out most clearly from the growing body of photographic evidence are:

1. Nora can never resist staring at herself in a mirror.
2. I apparently always wear the same shirt to the dr’s office.

Sorry we didn’t post anything on her actual 4 month birthday (yesterday). Grad school is hard.

We took our poor little girl to the doctor today for her two month checkup and pin-cushion practice. She got her first round of immunizations and, judging by the amplitude and fury of her reaction she did not approve. Here’s a picture from a happier, more innocent time, taken just moments before the subdermal unpleasantness.