Indiana

It's been three months. Obviously. Life as a full-time working single-parent is a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. It has also been great, great fun for both Nora and me, and I'm so grateful to have had this time here. For those who haven't been keeping up (mostly via Facebook), Nora and I moved to Indianapolis temporarily in September so that I could spend part of my sabbatical year at Riley Research Hospital doing cool research with even cooler people. We had one rough week, with Nora's transition to her new preschool, but otherwise it has been mostly smooth sailing, thanks to the generosity of our extraordinary friends here. In two days, Nora and I will fly home to Bellingham. It is a bittersweet time for us, as we say goodbye to all of the amazing people we have met and gotten to know better in Indy, and prepare to reunite with our old friends in Bellingham.

Twenty five or more things I will miss about Indiana (in no particular order and certainly not an exhaustive list):
1. Spinning at NIFS.
2. Yats
3. Parties at Tonya's house
4. Watching The Wire obsessively while drinking red wine
5. Football and beer
6. Sharing an office with Jessica
7. Talking about research
8. Locations with names that start with "Prairie"
9. Being called "Ma'am" and "honey"
10. The hospital coffee shop
11. The Unitarian Universalist Church
12. Sarah and Ming
13. The Children's Museum of Indianapolis
14. The people mover
15. Broad Ripple Village
15a. Marigold (best clothing store in Broad Ripple Village)
16. Pisoni
17. The Center for Young Children
18. The subtle, but charming, Indiana accent
19. Bloomington
20. Henry's on East
21. Mass Avenue Toys
22. Snow
23. "You're fine"
24. The Central Library
25. Ice cream Wednesdays
26. Jessica's family in Fort Wayne
27. Hayleigh, our fabulous babysitter
28. Seeing a storm come from very far away

Things I didn't get to see/do but wished I had:

1. The Andy Warhol exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (still time for that, though...maybe I'll go today)!
2. Learn to play chess
3. The Eiteljorg Museum
4. Run along the canal
5. Eat at R-Bistro

And here are some pictures from our time here.

We spent the first week of our journey with my parents, sister, and nephew in Lee, Maine (which is WAY up near the Canadian border). Nora learned how to fish and drive a boat (for video evidence of boat-driving, see the last entry).







We arrived in Indy and found a teeny tiny studio apartment downtown. Fortunately, the apartment has a rather large closet, which we fashioned into a bedroom/cave for Nora. I'm not going to lie; the novelty of this "cozy nook" wore off in about a week, but she did suck it up and sleep there for the entire three months of our stay, without (much) complaint.


One of our first weekends here, Nora's grandparents visited with us for a few hours. That was a very special treat!


To give the weekends some structure, I decided to take Nora to church. That isn't the only reason, because I actually enjoy going to church for the most part. But when you have a lot of time on your hands on the weekends, and you live in a 400 square foot apartment, it's nice to have out-of-the-house routines. So, every Sunday, we went to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Indianapolis. The UUs are very good people. They are big into saving the earth and singing. Since these are two things I love as well, this type of church is a good fit for me. We had the great fortune of meeting Ming and her family on our first Sunday. Ming was adopted from China as well, and the girls were born just 6 days apart. Here's how it happened:

Me: Nora, I think you and Ming might have something in common
Ming: I was born in China, in Henan Province. Where are you from?
Me: Nora is from Chongqing
Nora: Mom, I'm going to play with Ming for a little while. You can come back and get me later.

They quickly became thick as theives and we have spent quite a bit of time with their family over the past three months. Luckily, for the girls, Ming and her family are moving to Seattle in June :-) So we'll get to see them again back home, which is good, because I almost can't bear the thought of leaving Ming and her family.







The other thing we like to do on the weekends is visit the Children's Museum. It is the biggest children's museum in the world (I think it's something like 20,000 square feet)!!!! Nora's favorite exhibit (mine too) is the "Egypt" exhibit. The Barbie exhibit is pretty cool as well, much as I hate to admit it. Not nearly as fabulous as Egypt, though.





One of Nora's "crib mates" from China lives pretty close by, so we met up with them one weekend for some swimming and general merriment.


We had one unfortunate incident while in Indy. Our car was broken into on the street in front of our apartment. It was totally my fault, but my iPod was stolen and my window got broken. To cheer ourselves up (a bit), after giving our report to the police officer, Nora and went to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame. The kid loves cars, and the faster, the better.




Here is a cute picture of Nora and one of her friends from The CYC.


And one of my favorite pictures from our time here: Nora and Derek at the Oregon Ducks game. Football became a staple of our existence in Indy (who would have thought?). And Derek was truly a good sport about keeping Nora and me occupied and entertained on the weekends (which were challenging in various ways). He also took us to our first professional football game! The Colts vs. The Cowboys. The Colts lost, but they did so in overtime, so that was exciting.


Goodbye, Indiana! We will miss you...

Nora driving grandpa's boat

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I have no excuse

At all. It's been a crazy summer...er...and spring.

Nora is getting really tall--at her last doctor's appointment, she was in the 75th percentile for height! They measured her twice they were so shocked. She does eat quite a bit, it's true. She is still a talker and is really disappointed that she can't read yet. She asks me every night to teach her, and she has a few books memorized. She is a really fast runner! Last week we went to our first "all comers" track meet in town and Nora won two blue ribbons (first place) and a red (second place--but she was robbed). To be fair, she is one of the older kids in her age group, but she won the 50 meter hurdle by about 25 meters. In a few of the below pictures you will notice her very long legs. Fast Fast Fast girl.

Otherwise, we're spending a lot of time on the boat and in the garden while getting ready for our big Indianapolis adventure (scheduled to begin in exactly two weeks!). The single, working parent thing ought to be exciting, at the very least.

So, on to the pics!

Here is Nora posing next to her painting of a cherry blossom tree at the preschool art show.


Here is Nora at the Skagit tulip festival...in APRIL. Oops!



Nora's first 5K (which was kind of a bust, as she skinned her knee before the race even started and then only wanted to walk--which was totally fine. But LOOONNNNNG).


"Helping" me make ravioli--she LOVES to help in the kitchen.





A trip to Hovander Park:





Random cute shots:

Her teacher took this one. The kids were studying impressionism (Nora is very into Monet...who painted "blurry" pictures) and this was taken on the nature walk the kids took before painting.




That's the Alaska Ferry in the background. We had a picnic on the boat and watched the ferry set sail.


That is 16 pounds of strawberries. Which we picked ourselves, froze, and then ate in about one week.






Trip to the Public Market in Seattle:

Nora learning to ride her bike at OneTrueMedia.com

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Next stop: the mall?

Let's just say that I'm not stylish. On the days when I don't have to work (and some of the days when I do), I sit around the house in jeans or gym clothes (or worse yet, flannel pajamas) and the shirt I woke up in. I haven't purchased make-up in...well never. I was recently invited to dinner by a friend and, to kill some time before leaving the house (she eats late, when the untethered eat) I straightened my hair and put on oversized hoop earrings (I found them in the sand in Hawaii. I didn't even have the good taste to buy them for myself) and some clean clothes. My friend literally didn't recognize me when I walked into the restaurant. I'm just not that hip. Once, an outfit that I was wearing was featured on "What Not to Wear." I believe the host said "This outfit just screams Miami Beach teeny-bopper! What were you thinking?!" as he threw the outfit in the trash.

So how I ended up with this child, I don't know.

(And what you can't see in this picture is the pink paisley Converse all-stars).

Mostly, Nora is a classic tomboy--in fact, right after she put on this flowery, winged, Disney number, she announced "It's time for Tinkerbell to do her pull-ups!"--but once or twice a day, my train-building, car-pushing, baseball-playing, bike-riding, bug-inspecting, short-sleeve-shirt-just-like-daddy-wearing toddler goes all "Pinkalicious" on me.

And I fear this could be just the beginning.

I remember once sitting next to a 13-ish-year-old girl on an airplane (back when I didn't view spending 6 hours on an airplane alone as the equivalent of a "spa day") who was wearing overly-tight, acid-washed jeans and toting a box of make-up that nowadays would barely escape the scrutiny of the gate agent. She was cracking her bubblegum and flipping through the pages of 'N Sync Magazine, periodically sighing with teenage longing at pictures of Justin Timberlake and...those other boys who have since faded into obscurity. Upon arriving at my destination I announced with absolute certainty that I would never have a daughter, at least not one between the ages of 12 and 17. Ever. I could not imagine living with a person who had more make-up than common sense.

Yet, here I am. With my girl. My girl who, last night, right before getting ready for bed, grabbed her silver-glittered purse, her brand-new, heart-covered, "lighting up shoes", and her "credit card" and said, "I just need a little bit of lipstick. I'm going to Costco and I want to look beautiful." (For the record, this is proof-positive that children do NOT acquire language through imitation). And I realize, believe me, that I'm not going to hit full-on "mom-you-just-don't-understand-anything-and-you-are-SO-not-hip" for at least 9 more years. But the glimpses I have been getting recently are disquieting. For example, Nora said to me yesterday while I was trying on new glasses, "those aren't very beautiful or cool. I like the purple ones with the hearts." My four-year-old already knows that I'm not cool! Eek! Tonight, we had a "little fight" (her words, not mine) and Nora said "I really want to try a different mommy." Geez. Talk about ripping the heart right out of a person's chest.

We still have our lovely moments, the kind I always imagined I would have with my kids. A couple of times a week, she wraps her entire self around me and proclaims, "I love you more than anyone. You are the best mommy ever. I love you so much, I don't even know why! I just do." I haven't been able to get these things on tape, but I plan to. I suspect I will need this stuff, just to get (myself) through middle school. Don't get me wrong, when we adopted Nora, I dreamed of all the Hannah Andersson and Nartjie dresses I would buy for her. Some may remember the hours I spent on Ebay in the months before we traveled to China, getting the best deals possible on all things girl. I hoped that she would love to get dressed up, that her favorite shoes would be patent leather mary janes, that she would be the cutest, best-dressed toddler at every single birthday party. In Homer, Alaska, way back in 2001, I saw a kid-sized tie-dye sundress and dreamed of the daughter who would wear it. How shallow I was to think that the very best thing about raising a girl would be all the cute clothes! As recently as Wednesday I nearly begged her to try on a yellow flowery ruffly Gap summer dress--on sale no less! And perfect for me...I mean her. And yet the "good mom" in me loves that Nora would rather ride bikes or go skiing than play dress-up or wear tights. I love that she isn't afraid of snakes (she rather likes them, actually), and that one of her favorite things to do is dig up worms and pill bugs in the garden ("they are good bugs, mommy. They make compost").

Who knows. Perhaps this "pretty in pink" phase will be fleeting, and Nora will be just like her dad--quiet, outdoorsy and nerdy. Maybe she won't care at all what anyone thinks. Maybe it won't occur to her to wear make-up or even notice that her hair isn't curly or blonde or whatever is on the other side of the proverbial fence. Maybe she will take to rock-climbing and spend most of her time at the tide pools rather than at the mall. Just maybe I'll get lucky.

Turning four and other wonderful stuff

Nora turned four last month (I know, I know. I'm pathetic--this posting is for Anne :-). We had a little party and the children's museum and it was great fun. The pictures came out terrible...so I don't have any to post. A few other people took some great pictures; hopefully I'll get those eventually.

What else are we up to these days? Nora is growing like a weed and continues to be a joyful, sweet, and lovely little girl (and a pistol). She is in love with us lately and tells us regularly ("mom, I love you SO much. I don't even know why. I just do!"). She is learning to do so many new things and is practically an expert skier after only three days on the mountain. She literally goes down the blue runs without a tether at high speed. I haven't witnessed this (probably a very good thing), but John says she is skiing down runs that I would never try. She says "you don't need to be scared mom. It's fun. If you get scared you can just fall down." Words to live by, for sure.

In the fall, Nora and I will be moving to Indiana ("oh Sushanna") for a few months for my sabbatical. It will be pretty exciting. We will be living with a friend and her 3 1/2 year old son! Nora will be thrilled, as she has been asking for a little brother lately (although I don't think she understands how much sharing that would entail). I'm with her, personally! I am ready for a second, although I don't see that in our future (so everyone can stop getting their hopes up)!

Nora continues to be hilarious. She got into the hottub with John a few weeks back and said "Ahhhhh. Now that's what I'm talkin' about!" And just this morning, I put her in the car to go to a birthday party, and I said "Nora, you are something else." And she said "something else on a stick." very funny. She uses a lot of the expressions that John uses. It's super cute. She told John a few days ago that we were old, but that she is brand new.

Today, we went to a really fun birthday party at a gymnastics center. Nora is (of course) a natural with flipping and jumping. She loved it, and on the way home told me how she was the only one who wasn't afraid of hanging upsidedown and flipping off the bar. She asked "are you proud of me, mom?" It just about broke my heart. The thing that got John was Nora saying that she wants to be in the Olympics for skiing. She said we could come...she would get us tickets.

She is also starting to process much more about her adoption. Those conversations are, of course, very hard. But she is very matter-of-fact and open-hearted, which has made things easier.

Here we are in Vancouver, enjoying the Olympic mayhem. Nora and I weren't able to go to any events, but John saw a hockey game!



Princess of cuteness.