How wrong am I? Let me count the ways.

There were a few things I didn't see coming. I knew I would someday have to carry a screaming, kicking, scratching child out of the mall one day (in fact, I thought it might happen with a fair bit of frequency, but since I don't like the mall, I've been lucky). This day came, finally, last Sunday, while swimsuit shopping in Macy's. I can hardly blame Nora, as she hadn't had a nap--we are experimenting with nap-elimination, much to our dismay--and we had ice cream for lunch. Also, truth be told, swimsuit shopping is my second-to-least favorite shopping activity. I was able to try on maybe three ugly suits before Nora came completely unglued and started burying herself in every clothes rack in the store, while calling with her very best outside voice "MOMMY! You can't see me!!!" Finally, exasperated, I said "the rules are that you need to stay close and you look with your eyes, not with your hands" (HA). She proceeded to touch everything and run away from me as fast as her little legs would go. And she is a quick runner.

It took me about five minutes to get to the car with my flailing, sobbing child. Luckily, none of my students were at the mall to witness this scene. By the time we got home, Nora was her sweet, charming self, proclaiming her love to me and making me pretend coffee (which I desperately needed).

These are the types of things I expected when I became a parent.

What I did not expect was how wrong I would be all the time. About everything. "Actually mommy, that's not an airplane; that's a space shuttle." "I'm not a baby, I'm a little big kid." "You thought I was in the bathroom, but I was upstairs." "That's not pink, that's purple." "That's not my juice. That's my pretend tea." It goes on and on and on. It sounds kind of cute in the retelling, but it's "actually not." I suspect that I will be wrong for the rest of my life. Or at least until she's 25 and realizes (as I did of my own father) that I was right about most things.

Nora and I had a VERY busy couple of days (she is still asleep at 8:00 a.m., which is not all that unusual, but she is really OUT). We went to Seattle on Friday afternoon to meet up with a friend who ran the first Seattle Rock-n-Roll half-marathon on Saturday. We walked around town, ate dinner, went to the race expo, etc. We spent the night in a hotel (Nora didn't want to leave the hotel), woke up to watch part of the race and meet up with our friend, Vicki (who ran SO FAST!!!!) and then went to a birthday party at the Imagine Children's Museum in Everett, which is an amazing place. Finally, we made our way back home, relaxed for a bit, then went to a baby shower until it was time to come home and crash. It has been a gorgeous, fun-filled weekend. Last night, after Nora got out of the tub, she said "I was a really good girl today!" Yes, you were, honey!

The night before the race, we walked to the expo and back; Nora was fascinated by all the artwork on the streets.



We had a great dinner at a cheap little Asian restaurant. Our waitress' name was "Nora" and that was very exciting for us all (that's not our waitress, that's Vicki, bulking up for the race).



The Rock-n-Roll runners. This is close to the end of the half and middle of the full marathon. The music was GREAT!!! (Vicki had been finished for quite some time and we were making our way back to the hotel).


Imagine Children's Museum for Sophie Zhu Zhu's birthday. Nora LOVES all things driven, and her new request is "I want my own one of that" whenever she sees a big truck, bus, or construction vehicle.

Has it really been nearly a month?

I need to buy myself a new camera. Mine doesn't take very good pictures, and the battery is only holding its charge for about five minutes. This is my excuse for not taking more pictures.

Here is John's famous chicken. MMMMMMM.


Some cute shots of Nora and John on the hammock, eating corn on the cob. Nora loves the hammock and always asks John to go on the hammock with her.




Here is a video we made today:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy Spring

It was a crazy busy Memorial Day weekend. Nora stayed up late, slept in, ate a lot of ice cream, played with the big kids, and crashed at 7:30 on Monday night. John kayaked in the Ski-to-Sea, broken leg be damned. Nora and I greeted him as he crutched his way to the finish line, after which we hosted the annual seafood boil in our backyard. The kids played on the hammock for so long and so hard that I have to reseed the grass underneath. We are enjoying a much-deserved warm spell here in Bellingham. It has been dry, sunny, and warm. Ahhhh. We made it.

I have been amazed lately at how big Nora is getting, how much she is saying, and how much she is like us. And then again, not like us. For example, since she came home, she has had this habit of pushing her feet against me when we are sleeping together, or reading together. It's like she has to have her feet touching me when we lie together. I think she must have done that as an infant, in her crib. Also, when she's tired, she rubs the corner of her blanket...she is SO in love with her blanket, it's crazy (I have always wanted a kid who loved her blanket). She has been talking about China a lot “when I’m a baby in China, I have those shoes.” She was looking at one of her referral pictures the other day and she said “I don’t see you.” and I said “That was when you were in China, with your nannies. I wasn’t there.” Then she said, “then you and daddy come on the airplane and get me and bring me home!”

And then there are the things she says, which could be straight out of my mouth, most of the time. I don’t mean to bore everyone, but I have to keep track of this stuff somewhere.
I took Nora to the marina last week to ride her bike. An older child rode quickly past Nora and she said "he's going very fast!" I said "Someday you'll be able to go fast, too." She said "I don't like to go fast." I said "You will, someday." And Nora said "Trust me. I won't."

Today, she said “take my word for it.” I don’t even remember why. I was so stunned, I forgot what prompted her to say it.

Other things (just today):

“I promise I won’t move.” [two minutes pass] “see mom, I promise I not move, and I didn’t!”

“One ponce a time there was a naughty little girl name Goldilocks” (hee hee hee).

And some things from last week:

“You lost your voice, mom? Where your voice go? We have find it.”

“Is the sidewalk back to normal?” (we had our sidewalk repaired recently)

Nora: “I still have fever mom?” (while taking her temperature, during the black plague which invaded our house last week…and the week before).
Mom: “No, your fever is down.”
Nora: “Where? In my belly?”

She is using “might” all the time “I don’t want show you my armpit. You might tickle me!” “be careful, you might fall and break your leg.” "If you step on the balloon, it might pop!"

And, some pictures:

You are my sunshine

New favorite video:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And some cute pix:

Nora with her new Owl...there is a story behind this handmade animal. Every year the undergraduate students in our department hold an auction to raise money for the clinic. This year they raised more than $9000. One of the supervisors in the department makes these beautiful stuffed animals. Nora has three now...because I stand over the silent auction table and outbid everyone. This is the owl. We have a bear and a hedgehog as well. Really this is the primary reason I attend the auction (also to hear the students sing). I also won a scarf knitted by the same person; it is wrapped around the owl because Nora thinks it's the owl's blanket.



This is a picture of Nora running around in circles at "Dirty Dan Days", a seafood festival (YUM) that takes place a few blocks from our house.


Nora and Maia enjoying breakfast.


Nora wearing her new headband. This strategy for getting her hair out of her eyes worked for about 15 minutes.

Learning Spanish, how to spell, and where sisters come from

I took a few cute videos of Nora yesterday--she is saying the most hilarious stuff! She is learning Spanish at her preschool; here is the "buenos dias" song:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And here she is figuring out how to spell...or at least figuring out what we're spelling. This one amazes me because it only took her one day to learn this. I also love how she is now talking about things that are "missing" ("we're missing that one" "what's missing?")

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And here we are talking about days of the week--again, it took her about three days to learn this "Days of the Week" song. She learns anything if it's put to music. In the car the other day, she requested The Beach Boys, "Little Surfer Girl." The other thing that is hilarious about this video is that, at the end, she talks about wanting to "buy a sister." This came up at school the other day; they were talking about family and siblings and Nora said "I have to ask daddy to buy me a sister."

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

One of the cutest things she is doing is thanking people for gifts. She will ask "who gave this to me?" and if I say "I did" she says, "thanks, mom." Or if I said "grandma gave you that," she says "I forgot for thank grandma!"

Her latest really cool milestone is pretend play..."you be the tiger and I be the bear" then she engages in dialogue that can go on forever: "Hi! What's your name? You wanna read books? You wanna exercise? These my exercises" then she makes the tiger do situps, etc. (NOTE: This is not to say that we are at all big exercisers around here, but John and I have both been in physical therapy for several months now, with various injuries, and there are lots of those types of exercises happening).

And some pictures:

Nora wore braids for the first time yesterday. I literally had to bribe her with treats to get her to keep them in. But she looked so cute! In the second picture, she is holding the digital camera that she got for Easter. I am proud to say that, while the kids in her preschool are at that age where they turn anything into a gun, Nora pretends that everything is a camera (included things that actually look like guns). This is her new real camera, but in the Buenos Dias video above with the bubble-gun, she actually pretended that was a camera.



This might be my new favorite picture of her. I caught her completely off guard. This one really captures how totally disarming those big eyes can be! Yesterday, on our walk, we met our new neighbor. He said to me "wow. cute kid!" And Nora said "What's your name?" "Jeff." "Jeff, you can't have braids. You don't have enough hair."


Back to her goofy self.

Spring has sprung

Thank goodness!

One of our neighbors rode by on his bike the other day and said "It's the magic tree!"




Cutie Patootie:

Vancouver Aquarium

We had a really nice day at the Vancouver Acquarium last Saturday with our friend, Donna, who came out to visit us from Washington D.C. The weather here has been lousy, but last weekend we had two glorious days of sun and we tried to take advantage (yesterday, Easter Sunday, it was 45 and rainy/windy. Yuck!)

I haven't been taking tons of pictures of Nora these days, mostly because she refuses to let me do anything cute with her hair! AND she will only wear "pants with zippers, just like daddy." What is a mother to do? Especially since I donated nearly ALL zippered things to the Good Will because six months ago, she refused to wear anything with a zipper. Fortunately, for our trip to Canada, Nora agreed to wear her very cute Hannah Andersson dress with blue leggings and a jean jacket, since her "purple pants" were dirty.

Nora was only somewhat impressed with the animals. She was much more mezmerized by the wacky balloon guy.


This is "Izzy", the sea lion


Here is the mommy beluga whale...


...and her new baby!


Who doesn't love a sea otter?


Some Nora shots


Nora takes a pen and paper with her practically everywhere these days. She takes notes and draws stick people as well as some letters (mostly by accident). Donna brought Nora a bag full of treats, her favorite things being a pad of paper from Donna's hotel, and a ball point pen.


By this point, she had pulled out her hair clip, hence the funny hairdo.



Here she is, waiting for her balloon,


It's a lion, even though you'd be hard-pressed to identify it as such from this picture.