Nora Evelyn

the good part of this starts at about the 50 second mark. If you see only one half of this youtube video this year, make it the second half:

Nora’s preschool held its Christmas pageant this morning and Nora got to be an angel singing a slightly expurgated version of Silent Night (no talk of virgins in this version). Nora, it would seem, thinks that angels flap their wings:

More later!

We went to Nora’s class Thanksgiving feast today. The teachers asked each of the children about the Thanksgiving turkey: where you buy one, how you cook it, what you eat with it. They compiled the responses in books for us; here’s Nora’s recipe:

(“sticker work” means playing with stickers in Montessori speak. She’s suggesting that Miss Melissa get an adhesive-backed paper turkey for her Thanksgiving dinner)

Turkey a la Nora:

Nora: Get a turkey from the sticker work!
Miss Melissa: But what if I want a real turkey?
Nora: I don’t know where you get one because I’m a plant eater.
Miss Melissa: So what will you eat on Thanksgiving?
Nora: Macaroni.
Miss Melissa: Okay, how do you make the macaroni?
Nora: I watch my mommy and daddy make it. First get some water and wait til it’s bubbly. Then put the macaroni in. When it’s done, add cheese. Serve broccoli and that’s all. Me and mommy drink milk. Daddy drinks water. Probably candy or chocolate ice cream for dessert.

Nora’s school has started a new thing where they take pictures of the kids throughout the day and then post them to a web site for parents to enjoy. It’s fantastic!

Here is a series of shots of Nora putting on safety equipment and then using a saw to cut a paper towel tube in half (at home we’d have used a power miter saw). The teacher pictured here explained to me that Nora later innovated sawing the tube almost-but-not-quite all the way through to convert the tube from telescope to binoculars.

Friday was Nora’s last day of baby school. Right now she’s on her summer hols and, when she goes back in two weeks, she’ll be a denizen of the toddler room. We were both pretty nervous about sending our 10 month old to her first first day of school back in October, but I can’t see how it could have turned out better. Michelle, Katie, Lena and Courtney (Nora’s teachers) were all fantastic (Michelle even choked up when trying to say goodbye to Nora on Friday).

I tried not to take pictures in school because I don’t usually post pictures of other kids, but we were uncharacteristically alone in the room on Wednesday and got these.

I can’t tell if this is learned or innate behavior. There was a bug on the floor in the anteroom of Nora’s school when I picked her up today. It was an interesting bug looking like a cross between a bee and an ant. So I drew her attention to it to show her the interesting looking bug, the strange pincer-looking things on the head, the wings, the large thorax, etc. She walked over, looked thoughtfully at it for a moment and then stomped on it.

Actually, she stomped near it (her aim isn’t great) and then I snatched her up allowing the bug to make its escape.

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Nora’s school had “wacky hair day” today and she ended up with little pig tails. They don’t really work in these pictures, but they’re awfully cute in person.

You see the theory goes that you dress for the position you want and not the position you have. Nora apparently wants to be… what? A firefighting mime in Dorothy shoes? These red shoes are almost identical to a pair her Granny owns. Nora saw these shoes in the store the day after a visit to Granny’s, grabbed them, and would have none of this foolish “let’s put those back” nonsense. Here are some rare pictures of her at baby school:

On Thursday evening Nora came down with the stomach virus I gave her and was too sick to go to school. She was much, much more upset about not being able to go to school than she was about being sick. Here are some photos we took while she was getting each of us our shoes, putting on her hat, trying to get her coat down from the coat hooks, getting her lunchbag and an infant communications sheet, and generally trying to talk us into taking her.

No, I am not making this up; baby school has parent/teacher conferences. It was tremendous, actually. Nora seemed to think that having all four of her teachers to herself with no other babies in the entire building was absolutely the greatest thing that could ever possibly have happened ever in a million years ever omg ponies!!!?! Of course, Nora almost always seems to believe that whatever is happening is just about the greatest thing that could ever possibly have happened.

Here’s a pic of Nora getting pulled down the empty hallway in a sled by teachers Lena and Michelle. Word is she both had a ball and very clearly said the word “ball” when asking for a ball. The conference was great fun for us too. We adore Nora’s teacher Katie and the whole thing was basically her showing us pictures of Nora doing things we didn’t realize she could do*. We particularly enjoyed getting to see the teachers wearing things like makeup and jewelry.

*all of which seemed, from Nora’s various expressions, to be absolutely the greatest thing that ever happened to anyone ever, hahahahahaha, yay! omg ponies!?!!!1