Nora had been to the dentist before, back in Ann Arbor, but that was mostly just sitting with mommy while mommy got her teeth cleaned. This was Nora’s first real trip to the dentist, and it was a special kids dentist where everything was just the right size for a Nora and where there were fishies and books and toys and prizes.
Nora recently went on a scouting/fact-finding mission to the dentist. She didn’t have anything done; she just watched her mom (whose teeth are the stuff of legend) get a routine check-up and cleaning. She absolutely loved parts of it (like being given a sticker, ransacking the box of toys, people fawning over her, and when we let her play with the crazy powerful handheld suction tube) and other parts made her leave little shoe-shaped skid marks as she leapt from the chair and ran to the lobby. It was too dark inside to photograph with our camera anyone who moves this fast, but here’s a shot on the way back home.
I can’t believe we’ve never posted a picture of Nora brushing her (hard-won) teeth before! She’s been doing it (progressively more on her own) for about a year now. Here she’s doing the bedtime routine with her trusty Mickey Mouse toothbrush.
pity there isn’t a leaf fairy who brings us $1.00 for each leaf a tree drops (but think of the inflation!).
Here’s a video Jennie shot back in mid-December that I’ve never figured out what to do with. Witness the incipient lip rounding! Rejoice at the triumphant glottal stop! Survive the attack of the 3D baby*!!
[flv:http://km21.web.rice.edu/nora/vowels.flv poster 480 270]
* Endure the annoying father. :)
For once the lack of blog posting is not due to graduate school being hard. Nora’s been fairly ill since Wednesday night when she produced irrefutable evidence of her first, shall we say, malady of the tummy. This we nursed delicately through Thursday and, thinking her recovered, wrapped up in a snowsuit and trundled off to baby school on Friday.
Her malady reasserted itself during lunch at baby school and several times thereafter back at the purple house. Jen and I then paid Nora the tremendous disservice of raining on her glorious “first malady of the tummy” parade by demonstrating that we too could, even at our relatively advanced ages, still pick up a new trick or two from the toddler set.
Saturday morning found us all (once again) at the ignoble Saturday morning clinic where we had the enormous good fortune of seeing our very own pediatrician. Apparently this is a particularly nasty bug this year, it tends to linger, keep up the fluids, etc., etc..
Apart from Nora coming down with a nasty, nasty head cold, Sunday passed rather uneventfully. Far too uneventfully, actually, as our normally boisterous bean has become lethargic and clingy. Her eyes are dim, her shoulders are sloped, her expression is hang-dog. She wouldn’t knock over her buckets, wouldn’t move her wagon, had no interest in my cell phone, left a water glass unspilled on the living room floor, and cried in the bath*.
Jen graciously let me sleep Saturday night (while she got up hourly with our distressed toddler) and my health is consequently more fully returned. This leaves Jen and Nora home sick together and me homesick at work.
Did I mention that Nora has just erupted two new molars and appears to be working on a lateral incisor?
We’re renaming her Job.
* this was entirely my fault. I thought she’d find it hilarious if I put on my bathing suit and climbed in the bath with her. She was quite reasonably horrified by this, however, and, in retrospect, who wouldn’t be?
We noticed this afternoon that Nora’s upper pair of first molars have erupted! This brings the grand total (so far) to 10. 10 beautiful teeth! bwah ha ha ha!
These teeth are insanely difficult to photograph so, instead, here’s a picture of Nora humiliating our poor bear. This is nothing compared to the phenomenon of bear surfing: Nora puts Ruggles on the floor and then kind of dives onto him. It’s half cuddle and half big time wrestling move (and 100% adorable (unless you’re the bear)).
To our great alarm, Nora has discovered The Catcher in the Rye. It even seems to be affecting her behavior.
(note: this picture is not posed — none of them are. she dug Salinger out of the bookshelf, took off a sock, and decided to make an evening of it. I have no idea.)
I wandered away from the computer earlier and, while I was gone, Nora took the opportunity to send my good friend Markus Nee her first ever Instant Message. I asked her if I could reproduce it here and she smiled and bounced up and down; I must assume this was assent.
]=l.l[i.
I'll note only a few things about her precocious mastery of the medium:
I can only assume that she was trying to communicate to Markus that her parents have been a mixture of glum and jubilant of late. Depressed that the summer is ending and the normal grind of the school year returns but invigorated by the perennial opportunity for personal growth, meeting new students, exploring new ideas, helping to shape young minds. Meanwhile she remains aloof — undisturbed by such parental vicissitudes. Mommy and Daddy may be frantically preparing her world for the coming semester, but the bean just is.
She is, as ever, truly insightful. Also? teeth 7 and 8 are in. She might be chatting about that. One hopes Squires will offer an interpretation.
The big news here at Ruggles End is the cresting this morning of tooth number three! Acquiring deciduous dentition is hard on everyone involved, but Nora has once again proved herself to be quite a trouper. Here she is celebrating the dual victories of her tooth and the Detroit Red Wings:
In other news, there is some circumstantial evidence that our lil’ kiddo waved at us on Wednesday. Further research is required, results are inconclusive at this time, but the PI and her two research assistants are quite hopeful. More on this later.
Nora now has not one (as of Thursday) but TWO (as of this morning) new teeth (N.B. teeth not pictured). We’re going to miss that big, gummy grin, but life rolls on, eh?
*sigh*