Nora Evelyn McGowan

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.

Nora pinched one of my tortilla chips (visible in her mouth) and this is the face she made when I asked if I could have it back.

On a related note, Jen’s parents are in Mexico right now. We explained this to Nora and told her they’d gone in an airplane, but she’s conflated this with the trips Jen and I have each taken in the last month or so. I had this conversation with her this afternoon:

Nora: Papa & Baba go purple house?
Me: No, sorry, sweetie. Papa & Baba are on vacation.
Nora: airplane.
Me: That’s right! They went in an airplane.
Nora: Papa & Baba Baltimore.
Me: Are Papa & Baba in Baltimore?
Nora: *earnest nod*

We hope you’re having fun in Baltimore, Papa & Baba!

Our friends Ben & Rachel stopped by today with their sweet, clever, friendly, and beautiful daughter, Harper. Nora and Harper played with Nora’s toys for a while and honed their nascent (but now very real) interpersonal skills before we all headed off to Zingerman’s for lunch.

Later, Nora taught Harper how to use the giant shape sorter thing Sylvia gave us last year and how to balance and do yoga on an icepack and, in exchange, Harper taught Nora that the pedals on her tricycle are not merely curb feelers.

Either these wonderful people live too far away or we do; either way, Wisconsin simply has to go

p.s. I also tried feeding Nora pickles again. Still, emphatically, no go.
p.p.s. Happy 50^th birthday, Uncle Brien!

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.

Being as today is both Thanksgiving (U.S.A.) and Nora’s Birthday (Universal), Nora’s Papa & Baba were gracious enough to let us turn their fabulous Thanksgiving dinner into a 2 year old’s birthday party. Many thanks to Papa & Baba Kusnir, Granny McGowan, Aunt Christine & Cousin Kacie, and Kacie’s grandparents. It was just too bad Uncle Eric couldn’t be there (but someone has to keep Thanksgiving safe).

Nora enjoyed her cake, got to open a bunch of great presents, made a good show of opening the cards and looking at them first, had great fun with her cousin Kacie, and used a grown-up potty chair for the first time. It was a big night! Everyone’s happy & exhausted.

Good night.

In preparation for our tex-mex trip to tex-mex San Antonio, we fed Nora her first tex-mex taco back on October 19th (it was a busy month, sorry) and a tex-mex quesadilla on the 20th. It went surprisingly tex-mex well.

I inadvertently created a monster this afternoon at lunch. Nora got mushed-up peas on her pants
and was kind of freaking out about it, “OH NO! OH NO! Dada, peas! oh NO!”. So, wishing to show her that a little mess on one’s pants is nothing to get worked up about, I scooped a puddle of peas off the table with my finger and smeared them all over her other leg. This did, indeed, get her to calm down because she thought it was hilarious.

She immediately started spooning peas directly onto her pants legs so she could rub them in. Then she grabbed a glob of peanut butter and rubbed that in really well too. I eventually got her to stop (gently & playfully so as not to undo the intended message) and she helped me hose off her clothes in the sink (picture tiny, shivering Nora standing on her stool in a diaper and helping Dada wash her clothes — like a little chihuahua being asked to pull a dogsled).

Was someone out there hoping for hand-me-down clothes from this person? :)

We picked up Nora from school today and had a flu shot appointment across town. So we drove straight out the the Northeast medical center. As we pulled into the parking lot she got all excited and decided we’d taken her to a restaurant.

She started happily calling out “mimi and cheese, mimi and cheese!” from the back seat in case we’d forgotten what she was going to order.

In related news: we eat out too much and Nora needs to diversify.

We were all supposed to be in Dexter at 2:00pm on Saturday, but Jen wasn’t feeling well and Nora slept until 3:00 so we didn’t go. Instead, we went to the Dexter cider mill at 11:30am on Sunday. I understand that this is generally considered “tardy” or perhaps even “absent” by American standards, but by Irish standards we were almost rudely early.

p.s. this was Nora’s second trip to the cider mill, but last year she slept through it.

We walked down to Zingerman’s tonight to get a loaf of bread for dinner. Nora insisted on the brownies (really).