Nora Evelyn

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

Poor Nora got sent home sick from baby school today with a 101 degree fever. It’s since come back down, she’s napped, she’s chasing the pink dragon (that is, we gave her baby tylenol), and she’s eating some brunch. Still… she’s not in what you’d call a sunny mood.

Oh, we also neglected to mention here when Nora graduated to the no-bar version of her high chair; it’s just a whirlwind of excitement and viruses around here.

Lately our little one (traditionally a champion eater) has become somewhat more difficult to feed. She starts off chowing with her inveterate enthusiasm but invariably loses interest and gets cranky. Switching to a finger food will renew her will to eat for a time –only to wane again after returning to the spoon.

The mystery seems to be that the teachers at baby school have been encouraging Nora to use her spoon to feed herself! This results in a whole new world of laundry stains (and meal times stretching to incredible durations) but an equally incredibly happy and excited eater. Amazing.

It would be easy to get sentimental and misty-eyed about dropping Nora off for her first day of baby school (and the gray, rainy weather sure doesn’t diminish that urge), but I think I’ll try to follow Nora’s lead here and just be ecstatic that she has a fun, safe place to play with a whole world of new toys and seven other babies.

These were taken when I dropped her off this morning. I put her down and she immediately scooted away to play with the cars.

I stopped by again after teaching and meeting with some students and she was joyously trying to go the wrong way up the slide on the climbing gym. That’s my girl. :)

Update: She napped! These amazing people somehow managed to convince Nora to take a nap. I’ve asked if they’re available to come spend the night.