16 Months

Nora is modeling the shirt my friend and fellow blogger Jo made for her.

Valentine's day also marked Nora's 16th monthday, which means she is 1 1/3 years old!  The biggest difference I've noticed in her second year is that most of her developments are cognitive, whereas the biggest developments throughout year one were physical.  These days it is hard to remember what life was like before she could walk, but we are amazed every day by the things her little mind can do.  Today, for example, I was on trying on shoes at Nordstrom Rack while Billy watched her wander around.  She noticed a shoe on the floor and put it back into the correct box with its partner.  The other day, when I was unloading the groceries, she came over and started reaching into the bags to grab the items and hand them up to me so I could put them in the cupboard.  She was using one hand, but when she got to a heavy can that was hard to grab, she grew very determined and finally figured out how to carefully grab it with two hands and lift it out.  It's fun to see her brain making connections, like how she know to respond to "See you tomorrow!" by waving and saying "buhbye!" We love feeling like we can see the wheels turning in her head.

She also never stops talking.  Her babbling is more frequent and includes more syllabic variation all the time.  Her words are also getting more clear and more reliable.  Words she uses regularly with an accurate understanding of what they mean include:
-hi
-bye, buh-bye
-yeah!
-no, NOOO!
-thank you
-night night
-Dad/daddy
-Mama
-nahnah (this is her own word, which basically means "I want that," whether "that" at any given moment is to nurse, to be given more food, to be handed something she can't reach, etc)
-more please (sounds more like "mopee" but is sometimes accompanied by the sign for more please)
-Oscar, which she is getting better at pronouncing all the time.  Every dog or picture of a dog is Oscar.
-UP! (in her most demanding tone)
-get down (to Oscar)
-Elmo
-baby
There are quite a few other words that she reliably repeats after us, as well.

In terms of physical abilities, she is getting better control of her body all the time.  Since her brain seems to be going going going all the time, the ideas she gets about what to do with her body are also expanding.  I snapped the photos above when she realized she could sit down on her walking toy as if it were a chair and use her feet to push herself backwards across the room.  She was so tickled with herself.  She walks forward, backwards, on tiptoes.  She hides herself in any corner she can find.  She hides other things, too.  She picks up Oscar's bone, calls his name, and walks over to give it to him, though she sometimes decides she will take it right back.  She peers into the two inches of cupboard opening allowed by the baby locks and reaches around to grab what she can behind them.  She tries to put hats on her head and helps us a lot more when we are dressing and undressing her.  When she is carrying around one of her balls, she sometimes decides to throw or kick it.  She gives real kisses and real hugs with both arms wrapped tightly around your waist or neck.  She knows hugs and kisses are cute because she usually follows them up by saying "awwwww."  She alternates between pestering Oscar and trying to kiss him.  She pulls out her hair clips and rubber bands constantly.  She is getting better and better at eating with utensils, but when the food falls off the spoon, boy does she get mad.

These days, she is fun about 95% of the time, and the other 5% of the time just reminds me how good we have it.  We love being her parents, we are so lucky to have such a delightful little person in our house every day, and we love watching her explore her world.

Valentine's Day

This year was the 10th time Billy and I celebrated Valentine's Day together-- whoa!  We are not big celebrators of the holiday, but we do usually find small but personal ways to acknowledge the holiday.  This year he ordered me some delicious chocolate covered strawberries and I brought some tiramisu home for him.  The "sweetest" part of the holiday for us, though, was sharing it with Nora!

Last week, we were notified by her teachers that they would be having a Valentine's day party with the kids, so they gave us a list of names so Nora could give everyone Valentines.  Now that she is scribbling, and since I have no shortage of cardstock in my craft drawer, I thought it would be fun if we made her Valentines ourselves.  I was doing this mostly for myself, since I enjoy crafts, but I was excited to see how much she enjoyed making them, too.  She loved squishing her fingers around in the paint, and she was much more cooperative with making the handprints than she has been in the past.  I was expecting her to mess a lot of them up, but since she made such nice prints, we decided to keep going and make some Valentines for family and friends who are not in her class.

Once the paint was dry and I had cut the handprints out, I gave her a silver marker and helped her to draw some scribbles over the top of each one.  She took this very seriously!  After the first time I took one handprint away and handed her the next one, she began deciding when each print was "done" by setting it aside and grabbing another one.  I could not believe it.  Some of the prints got a lot of scribbles, and some only got a few, but she worked her way through them just about one at a time.

Then she left it up to me to assemble the different parts.  We were pretty pleased with how they turned out!

I tried to get her to model the one I made for us to keep, but she didn't quite understand what I was asking her to do.  She pressed it up against her belly and walked around holding it there securely.

We worked on these over the weekend, but while Dad was at work on Monday, we made him a special card.  This time I let her handle the paintbrush, and she thought this was amazing!  I am not sure what types of art projects they've been doing at school lately, but she seems to specialize in pointilism... both with her marker and her paintbrush.  We snuck the card into Dad's laptop bag, so he saw it when he arrived at work on Valentine's day and took this picture.

On Thursday morning, we took her valentines to school and all of the teachers in the toddler classrooms gathered around to gush over them.  They complimented her on how perfect the handprints were, asked me how I got the heart spaces in the prints, and one of them even said "I've never even seen that on Pinterest!"  Nope-- that idea either came out of my imagination, probably thanks to  of the Childraft Make and Do book.  As a child, I made and did every craft in that book that didn't require paper mache (which I found messy, gross, and too much work to clean up).  I loved making the Valentines with Nora so much that I hope this will become a yearly tradition for us.  I have never considered myself an "artist," but Mom always encouraged my crafty side, so I hope I can pass the enjoyment of it along to Nora, too.  I loved how much she participated in the process this year, and I'm sure it will be even more fun when she starts coming up with ideas for crafts on her own!  Plus, if she makes her own Valentines, she'll never have to give a boy who irritates her a card that says "Be Mine."  Maybe it was the early stages of my type A personality talking, but as a child I was always frustrated that the packs of Valentines didn't come with more that just said "Happy Valentine's Day." I was mortified that a boy might think I liked him just because I had to save the really generic ones for the boys I really couldn't stand.

When I picked Nora up, their Valentine's day party was winding down.  She was wearing the crown her teachers had made her and helped her cover with heart stickers, and she was taking the final bites of a cookie.  By the looks of her face, she made quick work of her mini cupcake.  This was the first time I let her have juice, so I thought she'd gulp that down, too, but apparently she was more interested in the sweets.

When we got home, we pulled her box of valentines out and went through them.  One of them was attached to a baggy of goldfish crackers, so you can guess which one she liked the best.  Her teachers helped her put her handprints on a Valentine for me and Billy, too, which was cute.

Everything is better with Nora included, but that was definitely the case with Valentine's day this year!  She received some valentines of her own in the mail, as well.  I'll leave you with a video of her showing off the one she got from my mom.  We hope all of you celebrated Valentine's day in your own special ways, too!

Sisters' Night Out

Last week, Vickie and I went to see Mat Kearney in DC.  I only started listening to his music when Nate used "Hey Mama" as the backing track for the video he made with footage from his first visit to meet Nora, but Vickie has been a fan since high school and has gone to several of his shows.  I saw that he was going to be in town, so I thought it would be the perfect chance for a sisters' night out.  She made reservations for us to eat at Founding Farmers beforehand, and after our drinks arrived, I looked over her shoulder to discover that Mat Kearney was a few tables away!  I told her I was going to go say hello to him, and she first told me I was NOT allowed to do that.  When she said that her meeting him would be like me meeting Andy Roddick, however, my obligation as her older sister trumped anything she might say or do to keep me from bothering him. Obviously it was my responsibility to get a picture of the two of them.  He and his friends (who turned out to be his musicians) didn't have any food, so I just went up to him, explained that we were looking forward to his show, and asked if he would mind taking a picture with my sister.  She was really funny and I could tell she was freaking out a little, but I don't think he noticed.  He was really cool, chatted with us for several minutes, and seemed pleased to have the chance to meet some fans.  He also insisted that I pose in the picture, got his bassist to take it, re-arranged us so he would be in the middle, and requested we take a second picture with flash because it "is more flattering-- trust me."  Obviously I am totally awesome at meeting celebrities and don't make them feel awkward at all (in case you're reading, Andy Roddick.)

(Yes, we are wearing Oregon gear on purpose.  Mat is a fellow Oregon native.  Make fun of us all you want-- he complimented our attire.)

The show was awesome.  We were in the 10th row, right on the side aisle, so we could see and hear everything perfectly.  We had assigned seats and were home around 11, so it didn't even remind me that I am past my partying prime.  I had been listening to all of his CDs on repeat for a few weeks prior, so I knew all the songs, and he played all my favorite ones.  But best of all, it was so much fun to go with Vickie.  It made me realize that one of the things I've missed the most since Nora was born is adult conversation.  I love spending so much time with Nora, and I'm happy that people ask about her constantly because I like talking about her and telling people how she's doing.  But when she's with me, I have to keep at least half of my attention on her at all times, so that limits the types of conversations I can have with my friends and family members. Over the past year, Billy and I have gone on a few dates, but I've spent the rest of my time away from Nora trying to maximize the amount of work I could get done.  Getting the chance to do something with Vickie that she really enjoyed, and having the chance to give the conversation my full attention while we sat and talked, were definitely the best parts of the night (sorry, Mat).

So big thank yous are in order.  For Mat Kearney, who gave us a reason to go out and helped make the night memorable for both of us-- if you ever get the chance to see him live, you should definitely go.   But especially for Billy, who stayed home with Nora so that I could enjoy a completely worry-free night away.  As we headed from dinner to the show, I realized that I hadn't even felt the need to text Billy to make sure Nora had gone to bed okay.  She had, of course.  But this must be some major milestone, right?

Quilting

Over winter break, I took up quilting.  Mom taught me how to sew when I was young, and I had an operating sewing machine until I burned it up sewing a new ceiling for the SGA Homecoming dance in 2007.  With several babies close to my heart set to arrive this winter, I thought it would be fun to try to make them some baby quilts.  I asked Billy to get me a new sewing machine as my (early) Christmas gift, so once I passed my exam, I began working.  I had a lot of fun figuring out how to make the designs I dreamed up in my head, searching etsy for patterns, and cruising the craft stores to find fabrics and figure out which tools would help me most.  It is always hard for me to transition from hyper-efficient academic mode into the more relaxed pace of semester breaks, so having the crafts to work on also gave me something to do in the evenings that was less stressful than schoolwork.

The first thing I set out to make was a baby quilt for my friend Anne-Marie, whose shower was in mid December and whose baby is due any day now!  She loves William Carlos Williams, so I found an excerpt from a WCW poem that reminded me of what it felt like to fall more in love with Nora as I watched her take in the world.  I had fun embroidering the words onto the fabric, piecing the quilt together, and learning that binding the quilt is definitely the most time consuming part.  Overall, I was pleased with how the quilt turned out, though when I took this picture I realized that the lettering was much harder to read than I thought.

Once I finished that quilt, I began making a play mat for Everett.  I found this pattern on etsy for a play mat with a drawstring around the outside that turns it into a bag.  The idea is to throw the toys in the middle, cinch up the straps, and carry it as a bag when you're taking the baby somewhere outside the house where you plan to set them on the floor.  I knew that if I had ever shown up to new mom's support group with this dual-purpose blanket, I would have been the envy of everyone, so I hoped Ashley would find it useful for Everett.

It's tough to be an inexperienced quilter and a perfectionist, I learned.  I managed to get the corners to line up perfectly on Anne-Marie's quilt, but I just had to let go of my irritation about the strips not lining up on Everett's play mat.  Maybe if I make this again for someone else I'll do a better job.  I did award myself bonus points, however, for choosing an animal print backing that makes it look pretty trendy when it is in bag-mode.

Ashley is really good about sharing photos of Everett with us, so here is one in which he is doing a VERY careful inspection of the ribbons I sewed into the seams.  If he shares his cousin Nora's love of tags, he will be even more fascinated by these when he gains the use of his arms and fingers.

I also made a birth stats wall quilt for Everett, but I forgot to take a picture of it.  Thankfully, I learned my lesson about low-contrast lettering before making something that my colorblind brother would want to read.  Instead of stitching the birth stats into the fabric, I used felt lettering.  I also made some fabric headbands in cute patterns for Vickie, since she now has to wear plain navy blue scrubs to work every day.

My newly acquired quilting skills are back on hiatus during the semester, but when I have time again, I'm planning to begin working on a twin sized literary-inspired quilt for Nora.  And if I can get my emotions together someday I would like to do something with the bags of Dad's t-shirts I have stored away.

Goodbye January// Go Ravens!

I have several blog posts in my mental queue that may never get written because we've had some very frequent but unwelcome visitors in our house during the month of January: germs.  Nothing knocks you completely out of the orbit of your regular routine like a sick baby or a sick mama, and it seemed like neither of us could really get well last month.  Nora recovered from a nasty cold just in time to travel to Oregon, where she caught the stomach virus that was in heavy rotation out there.  She handled it like a champ but passed it on to me just in time to miss our scheduled flight back home.  Billy came down with it literally minutes after arriving back home.  We were all feeling better in time for Nora to return to day care, where she promptly caught the stomach virus that has been going around our area, which featured the added bonus of a nasty fever!  Then she shared this one with me, as well.  As a result, it feels to me like the picture that best sums up our January is this one:

When you feel miserable and can't afford to venture more than 30 steps from your bathroom, it's easy to get caught up in negative thoughts.  I'm certainly guilty of feeling pretty sorry for myself this month, but in the midst of it all, I never lost sight of two things: 1) My dad felt like this for a good percentage of 5 years, and he got up every day and tried again, and 2) I am fortunate to have an excellent safety net that helps my family can recover quickly and fully.  So now that I can eat again, I'm feeling much more optimistic about the world, so I'd like to take a minute to focus on the positive and say how thankful I am for all of the following:
-a chubby baby whose health and attitude recover quickly
-a husband who does everything he can think of to step up, help out, and support us,
-a mom who happily took Nora off my hands for a whole day, took me to the hospital in the middle of the night, and helped get us on the plane,
-a sister, RN who responds to TMI texts with expert advice and offers of help at all hours of the day,
-the excellent health benefits we have through my husband's employer,
-IV fluids, anti-nausea medication, and kind ED staff members,
-in-laws who offer help and wish us speedy recoveries,
-an understanding professor and fellow-TA,
-day care teachers who helped Nora make a fairly smooth transition in the midst of all of it, and
-everyone else who sent me notes of various kinds to wish me well and see if there was anything they could do.

I can't say it enough: we are the luckiest.  As a small token of thanks, I wanted to share a few pictures I've been taking over the course of this week to catalogue Nora's pre-Super Bowl Ravens spirit.

Here's to a Ravens win tonight and a better February!