New Tricks

Nora is saying lots of new stuff these days, and I wanted to make sure I wrote it all down, so that I wouldn't forget...

First of all, almost everything is a two-word utterance:

"Yay mommy! Yay Nora! Yay Daddy!" She walks down the street chanting this. We are big affirmers in our house, apparently. Also we apparently yell at dogs a lot as evidenced by the following: "Murphy come!" "Down Daly!" "No Daly!" "Murphy quiet!" But we also hear "Good girl Maia" a fair number of times as well (hmmm who are the bad dogs, I wonder?).

A few days ago, Nora and I were "jogging" (for lack of a verb that connotes slightly faster than walking and significantly slower than running) and we were going up a short hill. She was saying "up. up. uuuuup. uuuuuuuuuuuup!" and just as we got to the top she shouted "Yay mommy! Yay Nora!" It was enough to make me want to do it again. Someday.

She says a really, really cute version of "I love you" and once even said "I love you mommy" (she has no idea what she is saying. Two days ago, at the end of Elmo when Elmo said "Elmo Loves You!" Nora gleefully exclaimed "Emmo ya you! Emmo ya you!"). Her voice is so sweet!

She uses "ing" endings on verbs, as in "Nora, what is daddy doing?" "daddy sleeping." She also occassionally puts a sound on the end of word to mark possession, for example, "daddy's" when pointing to a can of Coke Zero and "mommy's" when pointing to a cup of coffee. In fact, the other day, when I was drinking a Coke Zero and John was drinking a cup of coffee, she was very confused and directed us to give the drinks back to their rightful owners.

She says "yeah" all the time, as another affirmation. "Nora, do you want ice cream?" "Ice cream. Yeah!" Sometimes she says it to confirm that she has named something correctly or found something's rightful owner. She says, for example, "mommy's. Yeah!" The other day I asked her, "Nora, do you know where my cell phone is?" And she said "yeah" and pulled it out from under her pillow! I think it's the "yeah" plus the big expressive eyes that melt me.

When she says "apple juice" (ahpah dus) it just makes my heart sing it's so stinkin' adorable!

Okay. Pictures.

Here is the cutest picture yet:


Nora on the hammock (which we haven't used in DAYS since we've had a sudden return of winter in the Pacific Northwest):


More fun with play doh:


More fun with crayons:


Being a big ham:


Mommy's garden in June :-) Life is good.