Nora the Explorer

I like all the -ora names: Nora, Dora, Cora, Maura, etc.  I like Nora the best, obviously, but I could definitely imagine myself with a little Dora, too.  But because one of today's most popular cartoon characters is named Dora the Explorer, and because our daughter seemed likely to end up looking a lot like her, we didn't give "Dora" much consideration.  Given Billy's natural curiosity and my determination, though, perhaps we should have known that our daughter would develop into quite an explorer in her own right.  I continue to be amazed at how mobile she is despite her inability to crawl.  I wonder, actually, if her ability to get herself where she wants to go by scooting and barrel rolling might be slowing down her crawling progress; she seems perfectly happy to take a very circuitous route to any object she wants to grab.  I thought I'd share a few pictures I've taken recently of our little explorer investigating the world around her.

Lately she seems to like being underneath her jumperoo as much as she likes being in it.  Initially I was hesitant to let her roll around on the hardwood, but she learned pretty quickly that she has to roll gently to avoid bumping her head, and it's easier for her to get scooting traction on the wood than on the carpet.  Once she gets to the jumper, she grabs all over the poles with her hands and feet and pushes the seat every which way with her hands.

The under side of our ottoman also seems to be quite interesting.

Last week we had some time to kill between appointments, but it was too hot to walk around outside, so I got into the back seat with her to wait.  Little did I know that this would be an ideal jungle gym for a 26" semi-mobile baby.

Her explorations make her kind of harder and kind of easier to watch.  On the one hand, I can sit on the floor or couch and watch her go without having to constantly interact with her to keep her content.   On the other hand, I can no longer take a quick trip upstairs and trust that she'll be in the same spot when I get back down, like I could when I used to set her on her play mat.  And you should see the baby wrangling that goes on in the bathtub-- she would like nothing more than to pull herself out of her baby tub to grab the temptingly shiny fixtures in front of her!