Nora Evelyn McGowan

We’re not sure what she’s plotting here, but Nora sure does a good Mr Burns impression.

In this video we see Nora smiling, laughing, spitting-up, and weeping. It’s all in a day’s work, really.
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Nora’s been kicking around this old planet for exactly one month now. I admit that her bacon has been saved a few times by e-bay’s “no babies for sale” policy but all-in-all I think we’ll keep her (there’s a 90 day return policy on these, right?).

To celebrate her one-month-a-versary she gave us a surprisingly restful night last night and then, stunning everyone, is suddenly able to fit (more or less) into the nice cloth diapers we bought. We still have a few newborn disposables left — hopefully just enough for all three of us to learn how real diapers work.

This is also the first of what will end up being a series of Christmas-related posts. Shown here are Nora sporting the amusing onesie* given us by Sylvia in the Linguistics department main office and the three of us together at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Both of the genuinely clever people in our family are still in their pajamas.

*Honestly, my first thought was “huh, when did that proper noun get uncapitalized?” My second thought was “ooh, is there a hidden message spelled out by the different colored letters? no? perhaps it’s scrambled? no. they wouldn’t actually encrypt something within the text of an infant’s onesie, would they?” My third thought was “oh, I see, because she wakes us up a lot. quite amusing.”

Yesterday was Kusnir-McGowan CookieFest ‘07 and Nora’s first experience with festive baking (and her first trip to Livonia). Here we see her calmly helping mommy decorate cookies. The blur in the background is a furiously cookie-cutting grandma.

and here we find her terribly excited about something we don’t know what it is.

Nora had a pretty rough day today but after a big visit to the doctor we came home and were reminded of the tremendous kindness of our friends and family. In this picture we have little Nora (of course) held by mommy and sporting the latest in polka dot fashion courtesy of Gabi. She’s seated on the proofs of our new nursery wall art courtesy of the amazingly talented Chris Drummonds (hand delivered by his S.O. Jeff after a long day at work). In the background you can see a pair of gently used shoes from our friend Zara (courtesy of her folks Wes & Jo).

And, of course, I was only present to take this picture due to a set of professors and a pair of advisors who are incredibly cool and understanding.  I’m an unbelievably lucky man.

Thanks again, everyone.

It’s this kind of party-in-your-pajamas-till-you-drop lifestyle that has helped little Nora return to her birth weight just a week after birth. Happy 1 week birthday, Nora!