You know you have a toddler when...

The first question you ask your undergraduate students is "did anyone see Sesame Street this morning?"

Here is my new favorite YouTube video

And I love this one too, called "Sprite Love"

I have many, many Nora stories these days. The first, and cutest, I refer to as the "cheese orphanage" story. At breakfast yesterday, I gave Nora a slice of cheese, broken into little rectangles (so she wouldn't shove the whole thing in her mouth at once...although that doesn't usually stop her, but that's neither here nor there). While I was otherwise occupied, she lined up the little cheese rectangles, and then broke one piece of cheese into smaller pieces which she then placed on all the bigger rectangles--following me so far? There were a bunch of cheese rectangles with little pieces of cheese on them. Then she said, "Mama!" pointed to her montage and said "night night!" It was a little row of cheese beds holding baby cheeses! I almost fell off my chair laughing, and of course failed to take a picture. I've been trying to get her to do it again, but she's been too hungry.

She had an evaluation for early intervention services last week. She didn't qualify for anything, which was great news, although I'm still not convinced that she couldn't benefit from a little bit of occupational therapy for some of her sensory stuff (like her irrational fear of zippers).

Off to bed. I'll try to post the beach pictures tomorrow.

Move over Spielberg

Somehow my smart little girl got a hold of my camera and decided to make a short home movie of her own. I call this one "Self Portrait Meets Dada's Knees."

Stay tuned for pictures from our day at the beach and Nora's impressionist creation in the sand..."Stickhenge"

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

My little gardener!

The first step in kicking a bad habit is admitting that you have a problem. Today I tried, to no avail, to fit Nora's spring wardrobe into her closet, 4 drawer chest, and third drawer of my dresser...which I had to clean out to accomodate her, shall we call it, "overflow."

I am admitting that I have a problem. I love cute baby clothes. Somehow I don't think this will help me quit. The real impetus will be lack of space. I guess we could always move into a bigger house, or rent a storage unit.

Today Nora and I spent some time in the garden. She loves watering. She loves water. She literally runs to the spigot when the watering can is empty. At one point (picture four) she gently held some flowers in her hand and said "wow", very, very softly. It was sweet.

Some people may remember the "therapy wall", which we had built by Josh, the most diligent landscaper in the county. The wall was my diversion while we waited for our referral, or maybe it was when we were waiting for our LOA (funny how the details that kept me up nights 12 months ago are now completely fuzzy). Anyway, I love watching Nora work on the wall. She loves to admire the flowers and pull little weeds (and an occassional flower; what can you do). She waves to all the passers-by. Today she waved to some people on a motorcycle; she really likes motorcycles.

Oh, that reminds me! Today, she started saying "like it" and "don't like it." This came up while we were accidentally listening to opera on NPR. She brought me the channel changer, made this really "squishy" face, and shook her head while saying "like it" (she doesn't actually use negative terms yet; she just shakes her head, squishes her nose, and says something that she means to be understood as the opposite). She also pointed to a picture of a bear, shook her head and said "like it" and made me put the book away. She is one smart cookie! She pretends everything is a camera. She makes John and I stand somewhere, says "stay" and then holds up her camera (today it was actually a butter knife) and makes clicking noises. It's a hoot. I wonder why she's so obsessed with cameras...hmmm...

Other new words/phrases: mine, I love you, kitchen (while cooking food for daddy), home, work (the two places where everyone not immediately present might be), good girl, elephant, boom boom. There are more every day. It's wild to watch her soak it all in!

Here is the "garden series"

We're out of water again!


I'm very busy taking care of my garden. Can you not see that?



Wow!

Puppy Love

Here is a cute clip of Nora loving her dog.

 

Nora is doing the funniest thing now. Whenever I ask her where something is, she calls to it and then says "are you?" (for "where are you?"). Yesterday, she was looking for her shoe calling "shoe! are you?" It was hilarious. I counted least 156 words that she understands today! It's amazing how quickly she learns. Like today, she and John went to pick up her new bike (pictures forthcoming) and she said "bike" as they were pulling up to the store (where they had been three days before). She ran right to where she got her helmet and said "Nora!" She LOVES her new pink helmet and knows that she needs it when she rides her bike. 

 

Oh! And she is very into the word "later:"

Mom: We're going to see Alexis (babysitter)

Nora: No, no! Later.

 

Elmo (A.K.A. baby crack) has turned out to be very useful as well, as a means of teaching Nora about early narratives:

 

Mom: first...

Nora: Diaper!

Mom: then...

Nora: Elmo!

 

We are in love at this house. Head over heels.

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I did it! I did it!!!!

Yippee! Here is the trick: email the video to your blog. :-)

 

Anyway, here is the famous dancing to iTunes clip. How cute is she?!

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Some mommies are addicted...

...to Hanna Andersson.

Too bad Nora doesn't like zippers, because I LOVE this little pink Hanna jacket. What would a girl do without Ebay?

And here are Nora and Daddy getting ready to go for a walk. We love our Kelty Kids backpack.



The most important news is that a few moms with babies adopted from Wanzhou (where Nora is from) are trying to raise money to buy outdoor equipment for the kids who remain at the Wanzhou SWI. The kids literally have nothing to play with outside; there is just a cememt play area with no grass and no toys. We are about $400 short of our goal of $1200.00, so if you feel you can contribute anything at all, please go to the Love Without Boundaries website, click on "Special Projects", then "What's New" and then "Orphanage Assistance." Make a note in the box that this is for outdoor equipment at Wanzhou SWI. Thank you in advance for anything you can do!

Things that help babies sleep.

1. "Rain" machine in the bedroom.
2. Bob Marley Rockabye Baby CD ("Nirvana" Rockabye CD, not so much).
3. Soothing bath before bed.
4. Dry diaper.
5. Soft yellow blanket that goes everywhere.
6. Holding mommy's finger through the bars of the crib.
7. An early nap.
8. No TV after 8:00 a.m. (i.e. after Elmo).
9. Cool, loose, cotton P.J.'s. No socks.
10.Cool bedroom.
11.Sticking to the schedule.

Honestly, I don't know if these things really help babies sleep, but they sure do make me drowsy! I'm out like a light at 8:30, with one hand in the crib.

Nora is sleeping so much better now that the surgery is far behind her. She still fusses (sometimes loudly) when her blanket isn't exactly right, but I just let her figure it out, which works a lot better and faster than waking her up, as it turns out. We haven't had anything even approaching a night terror in 7 nights. :-) She's going to bed nicely, sleeping soundly (in her crib), and waking up in a generally good mood--so long as there are cheerios waiting for her. And I feel like an expert on sleep disturbances in toddlers...at least as expert as one can get via Google.

Soon, though, there will be something else to drive me batty and make me feel like an inadequate mother. It's simply a matter of time.

I wish I could get a tape of Nora's latest language milestone (in case everyone hasn't figured this out already, I work with kids, so I'm obsessed with Nora's language development). Anyway, she is doing this really, really cute thing and the best part about it is that she knows that I think it's really, really cute, so she does it a lot, often to delay unpleasantries--like bed time. She is using "jargon," which essentially means, she is trying to use sentences, even though she doesn't know all the words she needs to form a sentence (she has well over 150 words at this point, just not the specific ones she needs at any given time). She kind of babbles--a lot of "blah blah blah blah" with sentence-like cadence and pattern and an actual word thrown in here and there. Tonight was all about grandma and grandpa, who were visiting this week: "blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah, Nana?" It really sounds like she is saying sentences, and her eyes get super-wide (like that will help me discern her meaning) and she points and gestures and is very emphatic sometimes. Oh it's so cute. I can't stand it.

It's a good thing I decided not to go to my conference this week or I might have missed this! That would have been terrible.

Okay, okay! I know I'm behind.

I have been composing a "three month update" in my head for days (while doing about a million other things...like going back to work, revising a paper, tending to a sick baby). Anyway, I have a lot that I want to reflect on, but I know that most people reading the blog are skipping past my boring reflections so they can get to the pictures. And Nora has been especially cute these days, so I feel really terrible that everyone (but me) is missing out.

A few quick notes, though, for the curious:

1. Not sensory issues but, alas, sleep issues. Indeed Nora is having night terrors, although we've made several recent changes that have resulted in significant improvement and for the past five nights have slept peacefully.
2. Second two-word utterance: "bye-bye worm" or "night-night worm" (usually said while covering worm with a leaf). Need I say more?
3. Today, she walked around the house with a cell phone in one hand and a cup of "coffee" in the other, yelling and moving her hands around a lot. Then she said "one!" and got herself a refill at her play kitchen. This provided my inlaws, who are visiting, with certainly minutes of entertainment as well as insight into what all has been going on while I've been home on family leave.
4. Favorite songs: "Open shut them" and "Where is pinky finger?" (composed by daddy and probably the least well known of the "digit songs"--you all may be familiar with "where is thumbkin," which was last week's favorite song).
5. Favorite book of the week: "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom": combines letters with high drama. What could be better?

Now, for the pictures of "her cuteness":

She LOVES to be outside, "helping" in the garden. This mostly entails looking for worms and being "nice" to them, then putting them to sleep or dropping them in a hole. Anyway, it's a good thing she likes dirt, because we have a lot of it. Lately we've been busy getting the vegetable garden planted.


Worm!


Here is a fun series of her just being cute:




This might be one of my favorites:


Fake smile:


Real smile:


On Monday, the tape comes off and we are done with cleft stuff for a while, hopefully!