Nora Evelyn » language

Creaky Voice

clunis — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:28:14 +0000

Nora McGowan, budding phonetician

clunis — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 20:08:38 +0000

So a few weeks ago (before we’d unpacked, even) I was practicing speech sounds in our living room in preparation for one of my classes. One class of speech sounds involves using your tongue, rather than your lungs, to move the air necessary to make speech. I complained to Jen that my vocal tract (throat, tongue, epiglottis, larynx, etc.) hurt because I’d tired myself out. Out of nowhere, Nora took it upon herself to teach me how to teach my students to produce these sounds. Unfortunately, the camera wasn’t rolling for the best part of the lesson (one hand on her hip, finger wagging in the air), but you get the gist from this, I think.

a song

clunis — Mon, 09 May 2011 12:17:40 +0000

On the way to school this morning, Nora wrote and performed the following song:

I love you
I love you
You love me and
I love you
We are daughters and
Mommy loves us
and we are nice to other people
and we are nice to other people

then the song was called on account of rain (simulated).

more typing

clunis — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 20:32:27 +0000

Here’s some more typing Nora did last night and this morning. She doesn’t need help with ‘Jisoo’, ‘Nokina’ (friends from school) or ‘Nora’ anymore. Other words she says to us and we tell her the letters which she then finds and presses.

jisoo nora kevin daddy ruggles tigger pooh bear no f nv n nbnor nora nokina 1234567890 mommy qwertyuiop fish cow cookie vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv luca snuffleupagus avanti nokina

typing

clunis — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 16:28:55 +0000

Nora had some words she wanted to type. She does this a lot lately. She climbs up in one of our laps, asks to type, and then tells us the word. We tell her what letter to type (except for Nora, she knows those letters on her own) she finds it, presses it, celebrates, and moves on. It’s incredibly fun (and she types slightly faster than one of my friends who is a professor).

jisoo
nora
daddy
nokina
nora
nokina
bike
book
mouse
mason
measuring tape

Jisoo, Nokina and Mason are friends from school. My poor measuring tape is one of her favorite toys.

bilingual irony

clunis — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 18:06:09 +0000

Nora is supposed to be asleep right now. She’s exhausted. She’s in bed. She’s all snuggled up with her new bunny, her pillow, and the blanket Maryann made her. She’s not sleeping. She is, however, singing over and over the mixed up lyrics:

Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?
Dormez-vous? Dormez-Vous?
Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?
Dormez-vous? Dormez-Vous?
Ding Dang Dong
Ding Dang Dong

I keep calling back “no, you’re not/no, you’re not” but apparently audience participation is unwelcome in this performance.

Why?

clunis — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:00:32 +0000

There’s a risk this post will sound too much like I’m bragging. I guess maybe I am, but the real point is to put it somewhere that I (and, much more importantly, Nora) will find it again someday. Nora’s favorite question is now, “Why?”

It had to happen some time and, if her parents are any indication, we’re in for a whole lot of “why?” (much of it snarky) over the next few decades.

Many of these current “why?” questions are excruciating and unanswerable (“why is paint?”) or bizarre (“why are these my shoes?”). I thought I had her when she said, “Daddy, why are you?” and I said, “I am because I think, love.” But, without pausing, she put Descartes to shame, “why do you think?”. Drat. She’s too smart for me already. In a related question answering session she asked me, “what is the opposite of you?” and I told her, “a lawyer.”

This weekend we were at the grocery store and, in the checkout lane, she asks, “Daddy, why is there summer and winter?” I thought, “ah ha!! I know this one, I can totally do this.” So I explained that the Earth is a giant ball that spins every day. The spinning is what we call day and night, but the axis of this spinning is tilted with respect to the plane of our orbit around the Sun (demonstrates with convenient apple and stem). The result is that one part of the planet gets more sunlight, more directly, and for longer periods of time every day than other parts. Which part this is changes progressively throughout the year and this causes the seasons. I explained, for example, that this summer when it was hot and sunny here her friend Salomé was experiencing winter in Bolivia.

Now I don’t expect a nearly 3 year old to get most of this. I give full answers to questions because I like to and because I want her to feel loved and respected or some junk; she seems to eat it up and it’s crazy fun trying to explain the ecliptic to a toddler. At the end of my explanation she did the little nod that she often does, but the man in front of us in line, whom I had not noticed was listening, gave a very thoughtful and pleased “huh!” with intonation that said, “so THAT’s how that works.”

Public service accomplished. :)

know thyself

clunis — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 14:16:44 +0000

A few days ago Nora and I were playing in the living room (she was reading herself a book and I was playing video games* because I’m an awesome parent). At some point she came over to me, climbed up into my lap, looked into my face and whispered very seriously, “Daddy, my eyes make noises.” She then proceeded to make wildly roving bug eyes at me for about 20 seconds so I could lean in and listen. She sat back with a look on her face like, “see!?”

I said, “Do my eyes make noises?” and she leaned her ear close to my face so I could make wildly roving bug eyes for a while (I had to take off my glasses, she was that close). I finished. She sat back, considered deeply for a moment, and shook her head, “no.”

“Oh good!”, I said. “Let me know if your eyes make noises again, okay?” She agreed and we went back to playing.

About half an hour later she came back, stood at my feet, and we had the following exchange:

Nora: Daddy, can I lick my tongue?
Me: I don’t know, love, what happened when you tried it?
Nora: *works tongue furiously for a while, eyebrows furrowed*
Me: so?
Nora: Yes. I can.
Me: Oh good! What did it taste like?
Nora: *grabs tongue and, tongue in hand* like THIS one.

So there you have it. Nora’s eyes make noises and her tongue is (A) flexible enough to lick itself and (B) tongue flavored.

We’re looking for the appropriate journal to publish these findings.

* Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess

yesterday

clunis — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:44:40 +0000

These cupcake pictures (surely by now you know you need to click, yes?) are from yesterday (July 10^th) but never got posted. Nora’s doing a cool thing lately with references to time. She’ll say “yesterday” to mean any time prior to today and “last night” apparently means any time prior to today but I remember that it was at night. This morning she told me that “yesterday” she and her mommy went to meet Farmer Jeff to get vegetables (this happened 2 weeks ago) and yesterday (earlier this week) she told us that “last night” she’d seen a friend of ours eating dinner at a restaurant (friend has been on another continent for months).

Sadly, as she’s half Irish this may be as far as her conceptualization of the passage of time ever advances. ;)

dinner conversation

clunis — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 23:07:15 +0000

me: Nora, want another piece of pizza?
Nora: *shakes head* I already have one.
me: okay.
Nora: you cook my pizza.
me: yes, I did.
Nora: you cook my pizza Nora!
me: yes, I cooked the pizza for Nora.
Nora: thank you! thank you, daddy!