Scared

Norah has entered the "afraid of the dark" phase of life - at least, we're hoping it's a phase. So a few nights ago after explaining to her over and over that there were no monsters, and checking every nook and cranny in her room to make sure all the monsters were gone we had a special prayer that Norah would be safe and not be afraid. She feel asleep quickly and that was that. The next night after stories and our normal night time prayer, she started climbing into her crib but then paused and said, "wait! Let's say a prayer." She then quickly got on her knees and said, "Heavenly Father, please bless Noree not be afraid. Name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Turns out, we might not be such bad parents after all.

The tongue issue

I blame most of the naughty things Norah picks up on nursery. This could be totally false, but in most cases it's what makes most sense. Her current bad habit is sticking her tongue out at people. My quick fix is to slap some soap on that tongue. It seems to have made quite the impression on her and she's now very emotional about the whole tongue-sticking-out issue. In fact, yesterday morning she started to stick her tongue out at me and I gave her "the look" and she was reduced to a bucket of tears. Clayton has recently discovered his tongue so today Norah went into classic big sister mode and simultaneously started scolding him and tattling on him. And the icing on the cake? She also found a photo booth picture of Jason and me and of course I have my tongue out in one of the frames. She showed it to Jason and demanded he put soap on my tongue. Oy.

Anatomy

Today while Norah was helping me bathe Clayton, she (finally) noticed that he is, ahem, different from her in certain areas. "Uh oh mommy, what happen Clayton?" she asked, very confused. "What's wrong? What is it?" she asked as she attempted to use a washcloth to remove his boy parts. I carefully tried to explain that Clayton is a boy and is anatomically different from Norah because she is a girl. I'm not sure she understood because as I explained, she continued to try and fix her brother.

Norah is very aware that Clayton is too little to do many things, specifically, eat "big kid" foods. Her response if you pretend to feed him or ask if he wants what the rest of us are eating is, "No, Clayton's too little. Clayton eats nipple."

Six Thirty Eight

Norah's favorite number is 638. What time is it? 6:38. How much is it? $6.38. What numbers are on the scale? 638. What temperature does the thermometer say? 638. We have no idea where she first heard this obscure number or why she latched on, but the answer to any numerical question is always 638.

Sugar

Mommy: Should we go in your room and get dressed?
Norah: No, done room.
Mommy: You're done with your room?
Norah: Yes.
Mommy: Do you want to go eat?
Norah: YES!!!!!!!!!
Mommy: What do you want to eat?
Norah: Sugar.

New trick

Yesterday, Norah learned a new trick. Let me back up, so now that she's potty trained, we're working on teaching her how to actually go to the bathroom by herself. This includes taking off her own pants and climbing on the toilet. Also, we haven't worried about potty training during sleeping hours which means she sleeps with her "napping panties" aka, pull ups or a diaper. So yesterday we put her down for a nap and when she woke up she was so excited to tell us what she had done. "Off. Throw." Yes, she had taken off her pants and pull up, thrown them across the room, and slept naked. Which of course meant she had wet the bed.

Eww, hair

Yesterday Norah went to give Jason a kiss on the cheek and quickly backed away in disgust. "Eww," she told him. Apparently his facial hair grosses her out. And not just his facial hair, but any bodily hair other than the hair on our heads is disgusting. Eww, hair, yuck.

Purse, eyes

As I've mentioned before, Norah is a girly-girly girl. She loves accessories. Her latest favorites are a purse and a pair of sun glasses. She'll come up to me throughout the day, pat her arm and ask, "purse?" Or else she'll bring me her Hello Kitty sunglasses and ask me to put them on her by saying, "eyes?"

Letters

Like many parents of children Norah's age, we've been very aware of introducing her to letters. I can't say we're great at really focusing on it, but we like to point out letters when we can and try to teach her the alphabet and that kind of thing. The one thing we have put a lot of emphasis on is spelling her name, so the letters she is most familiar with are N-O-R-A-H. For one reason or another, Norah really LOVES the letter "O" and can pick it out in a heart beat. In fact, anytime she sees an "O" she'll point and say, "Oooooo." Then today she was playing with her toys and she brought me one of her wooden blocks with an "H" on it and said, "a H!" So proud.

Fancy Nancy

Our little Fancy Nancy hardly takes of her new crown given to her by her cousin Sadie for Christmas. The crown is often paired with her brown church shoes and a make-shift necklace.

Bathtime

This morning while I was busy occupying myself with a "to-do" list a million miles long, Norah was busy occupying herself with her new Christmas loot. All the sudden I hear Norah shout, "wa-er!" (water) so I peek into the bathroom where Norah is sitting - full dressed with a crown on her head - in the bathtub full of toys all ready to take a bath.

Shoes

Norah loves, nay, is obsessed with shoes. From the second she wakes up to the second she goes to bed, she insists on wearing shoes. This has presented a bit of a problem seeing as she only has two pair of shoes and she tends to misplace them. So yesterday she magically found two shoes from when she was 6 months old. Not two matching shoes, mind you, just two shoes. Luckily one was for her right foot, and the other for her left. Unluckily, they did not fit. One was a yellow polk-a-dot flip flop in which her toes and heel hung on the edges, and the other was a tiny cloth shoe for a pre-walking child. She wore this combination all day without complaint. Just goes to show, women learn early on that beauty truly is pain.

So today we decided shoes might be something we should buy our daughter. We took her to Target and walked into the shoe department. She immediately shed the shoes she was wearing and started pointing to every shoe in the isle asking, "yes? yes? yeah? yeah?" We bought three new pair.

Say my name

Now that she's almost 17 months old, Norah officially says, "mamma." Took her long enough. Here's just a small sampling of the words that came before her own mother:

Dad

Banana

Stuck

Hi

Bye

Duck

Ball

Yeah

Yes

No

Down

Broccoli

Norah loves LOVES broccoli. Tonight I made (and when I say "made" I mean I heated up a frozen pre-made meal, we're gourmet like that) macaroni and cheese with broccoli. Norah refused to eat the macaroni and cheese, but she devoured every little piece of broccoli in the entire dish.

She loves these greens so much that anytime I have the fridge open and she can see the broccoli in the vegetable crisper she points to it and says "please" repeatedly. I admit, there are worse things she could love. And frankly, there are worse things she does love. Like candy and ice cream.

To Grandma's House

Yesterday we were getting ready to go to my parents house for dinner. I asked Norah:

Do you want to go see Grandma?
Yeah.
Do you want to go see Granddaddy?
Yeah.
Do you want to see Aunty Carlie?
Nah
Do you want to see Aunty Rylie?
Nah

Girly girl

Norah is such a girl, I love it. Here are a few examples:

1. She LOVES walking around with her purse on one arm, strutting her stuff like she's all that (and really, she is all that), stopping occasionally to check the contents of the purse and add more random items such as spoons, shoes, etc.

2. She sits on my lap every morning while I do my makeup and whines until I dab a brush on her face and tell her she looks soooo pretty.

3. The girl loves shoes.

Just keep swimming

Norah loves the water, like totally loves. Bath time = best time of her day. So today when I took her swimming at my parent's house, I figured she'd be in heaven. Giant bathtub, right? It started out great, she was splashing and laughing and acting generally merry. Then Rylie dove off the diving board and went underwater. Norah freaked out. Then when I took a dunk to wet my hair, Norah was in hysterics. Apparently people disappearing underwater is traumatizing, who knew? So, to get her over this fear we're going to be spending a lot more time at the pool. Naturally.

Walk this way

Norah took her first steps on Sunday, but seems rather unmotivated to actually walk. When we do the classic "walk back-and-forth between your parents" exercise, she just sits down between us and looks up as if to say, "seriously? Why would I learn to walk when I'd much rather be carried?" Smart girl.

Communicating

Norah's constant "talking" is now starting to sound like actual words. Other than "dad," which she's been saying for a while, Norah can also say "duck" and "please." Although they sound more like "dut" and "ees," it sure is adorable. She also does the asl sign for "more" and "please" and folds her arms for prayers. Of course the arm folding lasts all of .25 seconds, but again, adorable.

Dadda?

I think it's safe to say Norah loves her dad. Today when I went to get her out of her crib after a nap, the first thing she did was look up at me, held her hands up and shrugged her shoulders in a questioning manner and asked, "dadda?"

And no, she doesn't say "mom" or any variation of mom. In fact, the only words she says are "dad" and "dadda."