Nora got to meet her newborn cousin Briahna last Saturday when we drove out to Shannon and Uncle Brian’s house. New babies are cool, sure, but if you’re a toddler nothing tops a padded ottoman that rocks (particularly when the baby is asleep).
On Saturday morning Nora was showing off for our new friend Cameron and decided to put herself in the oven of her little kitchen. This seemed a modest proposal (and, anyway, she is half Irish) so we helped. Ruggles even got into the fun in what I can only assume is meant to be a particularly flamboyant chef’s hat.
The last time Nora attended a recruitment dinner at Sally & Rich Thomason’s house she was quite a bit smaller and rather less mobile. Now it’s two years on and she’s long since abandoned the luggable carseat bucket in favor of chinese checkers and bear riding. If you’re considering graduate school in linguistics I heartily recommend applying to Michigan if only to attend this chili dinner; it’s great fun.
I think this is a first here on rubberducky.org; a completely second-hand Nora anecdote. Jen and I went to a grown-ups dinner with the maternal family last Saturday so Nora spent the evening hanging at Granny’s house (Granny is currently pronounced [wIni] like Mr. The Pooh). It’s impossible to determine which one of them had more fun. Nora was certainly the more crazy-happy of the two when we came back to get her, but what Granny’s joy lacked for early intensity it has more than made up in longevity.
At some point during the evening’s festivities, my sister Colleen stopped by to play and relates the following story. They were sitting on the floor in Granny’s sewing room (what, you don’t have a sewing room?) sorting spools of thread on a large spool rack thing and Nora was counting them. Nora counted out 10 of them and Colleen said, “Nora, you’re only two years old. You’re not supposed to be able to count this high”. Nora paused, looked up into her eyes, and said, “eleven”.
That’s my girl! The following picture is unrelated but I love it.
Nora has recently discovered that my name is `Kevin’ and she thinks this is absolutely hilarious. We’ve been trying to explain to her that she’s special and gets to call me `daddy’ and no one else in the entire world gets to do that. The unintended consequence of this is that now Nora has taken to saying “Daddy is special” which is not exactly what I was going for.
Anyway, here’s a photo of Nora in the lab with me today helping me set up the first experiment for my dissertation research.
Here on the tropical peninsula of Michigan we don’t get quite as much snow as our friends in wintery places like Maryland or Virginia, but we do get some. Here we find Nora frolicking in the thigh-deep snow outside the purple house.
I meant to post this over a week ago, sorry. Nora made a mask at the free grad students with kids thing. It had pink antennae, a cool blue nose, and, well, you look at it.
Uncle Brian came over today to help us install (he did most of the work) a new 3-handle shower valve, taps, showerhead, etc. Goodbye leaky faucet and shower powerful enough to tear an unsuspecting guest’s skin off (sorry, Jill); hello, smooth operating taps made of modern, maintainable components (I once repaired the previous (long-since discontinued) handles by wrapping the valve stems tightly with aluminum foil and then banging the porcelain cross handles on with a rubber mallet).
Anyway, Nora was very excited to have Uncle Brian over for breakfast and when he went upstairs and she heard the shower come on she matter-of-factly announced that “uncle brian clothes off. uncle brian clothes off, mommy. uncle brian clothes off!” This, presumably, was a warning.
Amazingly, our one day home renovation project involving plumbing, minor carpentry, and tile modifications took us … one day! Honestly, the hardest part of the entire project was the decision to reuse our vintage, original tub spout.
Nora’s 5′ tall giraffe (Reginald) is now reachable from her bed so today she stole his hat and fell asleep in it. Yes, she is fast asleep in this picture.
Nora’s pronunciation of baby has moved from [didi] (sounds like deedee) to [bebi] (the standard pronunciation of baby). She puts together novel multiword sentences all the time now. Has learned to use generic references to objects (e.g. “I want this one”, “Nora want pink one”, “this one too hot, daddy”). She’s never, ever stops talking (often talking while asleep like her old man). As I type this she’s curled up in my lap singing the alphabet song, hiccuping, and explaining to me that I need to read her her snowman book or her mickey mouse book or the llama llama book. In other words, I need to stop typing and start interacting with her.
