Weekend Festivities

Now that the weather has gotten nice, we've settled into a nice routine of sorts for our weekends. We try to find a variety of outdoor activities that we think Nora will enjoy, we see which of our friends or family members are available to join us, and then all of the sudden another weekend is over.  I haven't been taking too many pictures lately because if we take our eyes off Nora for ten seconds she is off and running... but after realizing how few posts I've shared this month, I made a conscious effort to catch this weekend's outings on camera.

On Saturday, Nora and I went to the trail for a run while Billy did yard work, and when we finished, Nora danced around for a bit while two women played music at the ranger station.  In the afternoon we headed down to an outdoor craft fair near Nora's school.  We didn't find any crafts we couldn't live without, but Nora loved her first taste of a snowball.  (For non-Maryland natives, a "snowball" is like a sno-cone except bigger and more delicious because they don't skimp on the syrup.  And there are snowball stands everywhere.)  She must be a Marylander because she liked the chocolate syrup with marshmallow variety Billy favors-- but that was fine with me, because it meant I didn't have to share my cherry one.  Playing with this balloon kept her happily occupied until she spotted a "doggie" and repeatedly tried to run over to him.

This afternoon we took her to her first baseball game!  I see babies and toddler at baseball games all the time, but I have no idea how people manage this.  Are other babies and toddlers content to sit still?  Well, ours is not.  We decided we'd start by taking her to a Bowie Baysox game, but we didn't realize until today that it happened to be "Bark in the Park."  There were at least 50 dogs there, which means this outing was basically the best thing that has ever happened to Nora.  She kept shouting "doggie!" and running toward them.  This is when I find myself saying insane things like, "We say hello with our words, not with our hands."  Thankfully, all the dogs she approached were well behaved and all the dog owners were charmed by her.  After being given permission to pet what looked to me like a very tall greyhound, she reached up and hugged him right around the neck and said "awww!"  I apologized profusely for this decidedly un-gentle maneuver, but his owner just laughed, told me it was the cutest thing he had ever seen, and had his wife bring over their other tall greyhound to see she would do it again.  Her other favorite DOGGIE! was a short, stocky bulldog that let her rest her head on his back while tried (unsuccessfully) to wrap her arms around him.  (This dog had three human siblings, including a newborn, and in my conversation with his mom I learned that he is quite accustomed to rough affection.)

She did not love the Merry-Go-Round.  When it started going, she got this semi-terrified look on her face, but she let me talk her through it for a few spins before she asked to get "up up up!"  Once I picked her up she seemed to like the spinning, and when the carousel stopped she wanted to get back on the horse.  Of course.

As for the baseball, she did better than we were expecting.  The anecdotes above reveal that I had to take her out of the seating area several times to walk her around, but she did stand and watch the game for a while when we first got there, and then once we introduced milk and snacks she sat patiently on my lap for quite a while.  I loved going to baseball games with my family when I was little, so I hope that she will learn to enjoy watching the game, too.  It choked me up a little to see her there with her Daddy in her Orioles hat.  I can honestly distinctly remember the first time my dad took me to a game at Oakland coliseum, if recalling the long walk through the sloping cement concourse and the A's teddy bear Dad bought me counts as "remembering."

There was one key sign that she might be a baseball fan at heart: the clapping.  She joined in with the clapping so frequently and with such good timing that it was hard to believe she honestly has no idea what warrants a clap in baseball.

You know how in Field of Dreams, Ray's daughter Karen says "Daddy, there's a man on your lawn," and it means she can see what her dad dreams?  That is what I like to imagine is going on in this picture.

Half Birthday Girl

Yesterday was Nora's half birthday, but I can hardly believe she's already a year and a half old!  We have entered full-blown toddlerhood around here.  She may be short, but with a full head of hair and a full mouth of teeth, she looks nothing like her baby self.  She is constantly on the move!  My attempts to capture some half birthday photos all left me with one conclusion: she's much too busy for my iPhone camera these days.

Nora has so many "skills" these days that it would take me all day to try to remember and list them, but I'll try to give the nutshell version.  She's talking all the time, acquiring 1-2 new words every day.  It's easy to understand her most of the time, but she does have a few "words" she says regularly that we don't understand.  She sings parts of her favorites songs, she loves to dance, and she is thrilled by every dog she sees.  Lately she has taken up running at full speed and has the skinned knees to prove it.  She's very friendly and outgoing around people she knows but shy in new situations until she gets comfortable.  She can properly identify and point to few body parts, Elmo, and several family members and classmates in pictures and/or on screens.  She makes us laugh constantly.  She's very affectionate, and spirited, and proud of herself, and silly, and curious.  She knows some multiple word phrases, and when I say "I'm Mama," she knows to point to herself and say "I'm Nora," so she's on her way to sentences.

The other very welcome development of this week is that she has finally warmed up to the BOB stroller!  She let me kick off her half birthday with a three mile run on my favorite nearby trail, and every time we passed someone walking or running with a dog, she would call out "doggie!"  The soreness in my arms confirms she is much heavier now than she was the last time we attempted this!

Her 18 month doctor's appointment today went off without a hitch.  She only got one shot, which she didn't really mind since it was over before she was really felt it.  When I picked her up, I said "I know that hurt, but it is much better than getting Hepatitis.  I promise," to which she responded "Okay" as if she actually understood.  : )  She weighs 23 lbs 13 oz, is 30 3/14" tall, and her head circumference is 19".  Our pediatrician says these are all good improvements, mostly on pace with her previous growth, though she did move up a bit in height percentile.  She's into 18 month clothes now, although she sometimes fits better into 24 month tops because of her little buddha belly.

But maybe you'd rather see for yourself what she's up to these days.  Here is a video we shot last week to wish her Uncle Nate a happy birthday!

Name Practice

For the past few weeks, Nora's vocabulary has expanded rapidly.  She seems to start using at least one new word accurately every day.  She's also getting better at pronouncing her words, including names, and can often point to the person a name belongs to when she's looking at a picture.  Although both of these videos have been shared to various places on facebook, we are so proud of our little talker that I wanted to post them again here!


 



These days, every baby is "Everett" and every bald guy is "Nate," so it pays to have a distinctive look!

Aristotle (and Liz) on Happiness

According to the professor whose class I am TAing this semester, Aristotle wrote that "Happiness is full activity aimed at virtue," if we think of virtue as meaning general "goodness" or "righteousness." As he explained to the students, what Aristotle meant is that we are not happiest when we are "having fun"-- we are happiest when we have found something that we willingly devote our whole selves to accomplishing.  This is why, he told them, you feel exhilarated after spending an entire night finishing a project with your classmates, even though it was hard and exhausting.  He said that for a lot of people, they find this place of potential in athletics, or in music.  It is not a "release" from life, like a fun night out drinking with friends-- if you are living your life well, it is life.

Happiness is full activity aimed at virtue.  This is the simple, straightforward phrasing of a concept I have been beating a bush around on this blog for years now.

This is why I did so well on my exam, even though the preparation was hard, and I hated the time it prevented me from spending with my family.  I wasn't nervous about the outcome because I knew I'd given it all I had.

This is why, when I finished the exam, my way of "relaxing" was to start making a quilt.

This is why I stay in grad school at all, frankly.

This is why I love (and miss) distance running.

This is one of the reasons why I was able to give birth to a posterior baby without asking for an epidural.

This is one of the reasons why I survived long days at home with a colicky newborn.

When I was teaching high school, I can remember one point at which I realized most of my freshmen thought it was uncool to "try."  I made each of them write an essay about the thing they worked the hardest towards and actually achieved.  Then they made license plate shaped signs about them, they had to share with the class the story that gave them "license" to operate in my class, and we used them to decorate the walls.  That was one of my best teaching ideas and moments.  Everyone came up with something, and it made a noticeable difference in my classes from that point onward.  It was like, with one activity, we successfully banished from that classroom the mentality that "cool kids don't try."  But I can also remember standing up there at the end and telling them, "What you may not know until you're older, is that it doesn't matter if anyone else thinks what you've accomplished is cool or impressive. Once you know it in your head, and you can feel it in your heart, nobody can take it away from you.  And the people who cheated to get where you got, or even farther?  They don't have what you have."  They were all like, "Awe, Ms. C, enough with the 'life lessons'."  But maybe a few of them carried it with them.

I wish I'd had this phrasing at my disposal then.  Full activity aimed at virtue.  I'm glad I have it now, for when those moments when I need to remind myself.  And for when we need to teach Nora.

Finally a Snow Day!

Today was supposed to be my last day to get work done on my "Spring Break," and though it is officially spring, we had our first significant snow accumulation since Nora was born!  Billy still had to go into work, so Nora, Oscar, and I were on our own to play in the snow.  Today was not a good day to discover that my DSLR battery was dead, but we did the best we could with my iPhone so we could share this milestone with her family.

First we had to get her dressed in her snow gear.  She was quite thrilled by her snow pants, and I was thrilled that they were not bought in vain.  Though they are still much too long, her belly barely fit!

She was pretty intrigued by investigating the snow on our deck.  As usual, she kept a very serious expression on her face the whole time.

She had trouble standing up when she fell down into the snow, so the deck turned out to be the perfect place to play.  She could use the railings to help pull herself back up.

Once she got herself oriented, we began working on our snowman.  I decided to use mixing bowls to form the snowman's body, which turned out to be a good idea because Nora could participate.  Once I showed her how to pack the snow down she was intent on helping me each time.

She was less sure what to do with the domes when I started putting them together in the shape of the snowman.

Once the body was finished, Nora helped me put in the snowman's parts.  Again, this was serious business.  Patti gave these parts to Nora for Christmas, and each one is on a long peg that you shove into the snow.  We were so glad to have them because they were easy to use, made our snowman look professional, and were probably the only reason I thought to make a snowman in the first place!  Thanks, Gram!

I held out three hats for her to choose from, and she picked the Orioles hat-- a good fit for our man, and the only one with colors that matched his parts.  Once the hat was on, she seemed very proud of herself, and she thought the snowman was too funny!

After her mid-day nap, I went outside to slide the snowman over so his parts wouldn't fall into the neighbor's yard when he began to melt.  When I came back in, Nora was standing at the door, holding her coat, and demanding to go back outside.  Her clothes had all dried off, so we got her dressed again and tried to take Oscar for a walk.  Either he is getting old or he has already shed his winter coat, because he wanted back inside almost immediately, so he watched us from the window.  The snow was slushing up, and we discovered that Nora prefers puddle stomping over making now angels.  She was not a fan of the flakes falling in her face.

She was a fan of doing face plants into the snow.  She did it three times in a row.  She would just get this curious look on her face, put her hands in front of her, and lean forward.  The first time she kind of kneeled into it slowly.  The second two times she just flopped.  This actually made me laugh out loud.

When we came back in and got out of our snow clothes, I decided it wasn't a real snow day until everyone has some hot chocolate.  I put some in her warmed milk, and she played along long enough to pose for this picture, but after about three sips she threw her cup to the ground.  I guess she was not a fan.

Needless to say, I got much less reading done today than I had planned, but our snow day was definitely worth it.  Now I have at least one reason to look forward to next winter, but I am more than ready to say goodbye to this one.  I can't wait to have her in warm clothes again so I can see her chubby little arms and legs!

The Toddler Room: Effects on Toddler and Mama

Nora loves the toddler room.  Why wouldn't she?  Yesterday when we walked in, one of her friends said "Nono!", rushed over to her, gave her a hug, and then led her by the hand over to the play carpet.  Her "friends" in the toddler classroom are actually her friends.  She gets a snack or a meal every twoish hours.  She blows bubbles, completes art projects, reads books, sings songs, plays outside with toddler-appropriate equipment, and dances to music.  She no longer even considers crying when I leave or when I return.  Mama, that's for babies, I imagine her thinking.  She has even started regularly napping for over one hour on her cot because her teachers had the good sense to place her next to their best sleeper.  Evidently, when she wakes up, looks over and sees that he is still sleeping, she pretends she is, too.

Nora started in the toddler room at 15 months, so she would've had a considerable amount of language development since that time anyway, but we feel like she's had a language explosion.  I couldn't even begin to create a comprehensive list all the words she says regularly with increasingly better clarity.  She is a little parrot, repeating everything we say and every noise she hears.  When Billy clears his throat, she clears hers.  When I lock the car as we walk into the house, she chirps "beep!"  When she pets or kisses Oscar she tells herself "nice, nice" because we are always emphasize using "nice touches" with him.  After we sing about the people on the bus going up and down, she walks around chanting "uppydown, uppydown, uppydown."  When her Uncle Nate is on FaceTime and asks her what's on TV in the background, she says "I dunno!" with perfect inflection, like she means it. This ear for sounds and pitches comes from Billy, I am sure.  He hears background noises that I am completely oblivious to, like when we are watching a sporting event and he gets annoyed by the pep band playing the same songs too much.  "There is a pep band?" is what I am always thinking.

As a working mom, most of the guilt I had about leaving Nora with others during the day has been eradicated by her sheer excitement about being at school.  Now that she is at an age where social interaction is more beneficial for her than my one-on-one doting attention would be, day care is a good place for her to be.  This should be good for me, too, and emotionally it is.  But professionally, I am realizing that guilt is a powerful motivator.  I got so much more done every day when regret about leaving her to complete my exam reading was dripping out of my pores, when the sight of every young child out and about with its mother made me cringe, and when Nora burst into tears nearly every time I arrived to get her at the end of the day.  But Liz, you couldn't have maintained that level of productivity much longer without losing your mind, you might be thinking.  I hear you.  (If you are actually thinking, Liz, operating at that level of productivity has already caused you to lose your mind, I politely decline to hear you.) My hope is that it's just taking me a little bit longer to adjust than it's taking Nora.  Now that she has settled into school, and I have settled into teaching, and I am beginning to settle into my library job, I hope this will lead to me settling into prospectus writing.  This week we are off for Spring Break, so I have made some good progress.  Time will tell, I guess.

Did you catch the part where I mentioned that she dances now? Over the weekend we discovered that she is especially partial to "Jump in Line" by Harry Belafonte.  Whether she likes this because of its beat, its instruments, or its prominence of what she thinks is the word "Nora," who knows.  But since her other main preference is for electronic music and rap songs about thrift shops, we gladly watch her pretend she's a hurricane in all kinds of weather... on repeat.

Beautiful Weekend

This weekend we had beautiful, sunny, moderately warm weather, so we took advantage of the opportunity to get out of the house!  On Saturday, we took Nora to a local park that has a lot of play equipment and several types of farm animals.  She loved going down the slide and took watching the animals very seriously.

Last night we also got to see most of Billy's family at a party hosted by Billy's newly engaged cousin, Heather, and her fiance Jeremy.  It started after Nora's bedtime, so we had to do some schedule juggling, but she was mostly cheerful for the better part of two hours, which gave us a chance to visit with everyone.  (Though not a chance to take pictures, unfortunately, since I didn't take my phone.)  Maybe by next year she'll really be the life of the party!

Today we went down to a park along the Chesapeake Bay for a picnic and to wander around.  Nora loved running all over the place and she was tickled by how many dogs she saw there.  Each time we would happen upon another one, she would shout "HI!" and try to run over to it.  She was quite the hit in her sunglasses, and most of the dog walkers invited her to pet their dogs, so I think she found today's park visit even more fun than yesterday's.  When we took her out on the fishing pier, I was thankful it had safety cables because she did not want to be carried.  She wanted to run all around on her own!

I am so ready for spring!  Nora has been mobile for more than four months now, but since we've had to spend most of that time inside, it feels like we are just now getting to experience how much fun leisure time can be with a toddler.

... and now, back to grading papers.