Springtime in Paris

There's a saying up this way that Duluth is the Paris of the North. If you ask me, it's probably because the weather in both places is worse than you expect it to be. This spring has certainly put the lie to that. It hasn't snowed in months, the weather has hit the sixties a couple of times and my neighbor even has crocuses in his yard. He waxed philosophical over wine this weekend that he hasn't actually gotten to see crocuses for many years. Usually, the deer eat them the first day they bloom. This spring, there's more food, so the crocuses got a call from the governor.

I'm starting to see the provinciality of the area. It has been made clear to me that I'll never be "from here." For example, before the winter, everyone I met would say, "Oh, you like it here? Well, you haven't been through the winter yet." Now, that line has been taken away and replaced with, "Oh, you like it here? Well, you haven't been through a REAL winter yet."

Sigh.

Nora is enjoying the warmer weather. We've been logging a lot of time on her tricycle, walking and playing at parks. This weekend, I asked her what she wanted to do. She thought for a minute and answered "I want to go to the pond and feed the ducks. Then, I want to go to the other pond and feed the ducks. Then, I want to go to the Big Lake and look at boats." So, we did.

It turns out that there are only two ducks that have returned so far this spring. When they got tired of being harassed and flew away from the first pond, we went to the second pond. I'm pretty sure that the two ducks we found there were the same two. And they were really tired of stale hamburger buns.

What has returned are the "salties." That's what they call the massive ocean-going tankers that ship iron ore from our harbor through the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. We got to see one of these maneuver through the canal, under the aerial lift bridge and into the harbor. This thing was about three stories tall and actually longer than the length of the canal. We were right on the edge of the canal when it came through and a woman from the Visitor Center was on the loud speaker giving information about the ship, cargo, captain, etc. Eric said it was the coolest thing he had seen for a long time. Nora was beside herself.

Here is an incredibly tiny picture of what we saw from the Army Corps of Engineers website. (Sorry. My options were apparently tiny or enormous.) I have to say that I would highly recommend that outing to anyone with, say, pre-school or school-age children interested in fun mechanical things. Not that I'm hinting that people should come visit us in Duluth. Not at all.

But we do have a very nice guest bedroom.

Nora's Big Birthday

Where did my baby go? The big girl running around our house these days bears little resemblance to the lump of passive baby flesh that she was three years ago. In fact, she now has Opinions.

Recently, we had a birthday party for Nora which in her words was "awesome."
We asked her what she wanted on her cake. I personally expected her to say either Elmo or Cookie Monster. Maybe, if she was feeling kicky, Big Bird. Instead, she thought for a while and then said, "Cows."

Nanna Lauer, being a good sport, managed to find Nora a farm-themed cake. Nanna Lauer, being Nanna Lauer, decided it wasn't bovine enough and managed to really cow it up post-production. None of those generic cow cakes for us! No, sirree.

If you have any doubt whether this made Nora's day, week or potentially year, take a look at her reaction to the thoroughly Holstein-ed confection.

I think we can safely call that a win for Nanna.

Nora thought that opening presents was pretty much the best thing since, well, cow-themed cake. A particular favorite was this little girl, shown here being dressed in clothes made for her Cabbage Patch Kid.



Nana MJ and Nana Tina hit the bull's eye on this, apparently. After the party, I asked Nora about her new doll. She told me that she likes her because she's a big girl, like Nora. The doll also just turned three and her name (I kid you not) is Big Lilly Two. And woe betide you if you don't say the whole name every time. Because then, you might mistake her for her friend, whose name is now Real Lilly in Pennsylvania. It has become very difficult to keep a straight face at our house.

Unless, of course, you are Nora. Then, everything is serious, serious work. Especially her new maracas. Those are serious maracas. You can tell by the pink paint.

This is why we teach them to talk.

This is the conversation that transpired while we were washing dishes tonight.

Nora: What are those?

Mommy: Those are hemostats. They're Daddy's. Don't touch them.

Nora: Those are Daddy's peni-sacks?

Mommy: Hemostats.

Nora: Peni-sacks.

Mommy: Hemostats.

Nora: Peni-sacks?

Mommy: Hemostats.

Nora: Peni-stacks? Are they scissors?

Mommy: Yes. Yes, they are scissors.

Nora's First (Real) Christmas

This was the year. The year that Nora finally got what Christmas was all about. We read "Charlie Brown's Christmas" and sang carols and watched "Christmas Eve on Sesame Street." We ate and laughed with friends and family. We endured 24 inches of snow that were incredibly timely. Nora snowshoed through our backyard and the woods of Two Harbors. She made a snow fort with the neighbors. She set up "tea parties" for anyone who would sit still long enough and then offered them beer and hot dogs. Errrrrr...maybe we need to work on the TEA part of the tea party. (I have a video of this that I've been trying to upload for about a week to no avail.)

All in all, it was a wonderful holiday. Being stranded in the snow meant that we were helping shovel our neighbors out of their driveways instead of staying warm by the fire. It also meant that we had unplanned dinner parties and extra people around, just because it felt right to be together.

I'd like to think that Nora learned a little bit about "community" this Christmas. I've felt fairly rudderless since moving here- part of why I haven't been posting much, I'm sure. However, we chose this town and this neighborhood and this house because it felt like we could become a part of it all. The last week has made Duluth feel a little more like home.

Is it Christmas today?

That is the question that wakes me up every morning these days. Nora is super-excited about this whole Christmas thing, And why not? I'm more in the Christmas spirit than I've been for many years.

The lights! The snow! the tree! Company! Egg nog! Baking cookies!

It is pretty wonderful.

I think what has Nora so excited is the large red box next to the Christmas tree. It contains (shhhh- don't tell her!) a wooden play kitchen made by her Grandpa Dan. I don't think I've ever been so excited about a gift that I was neither giving nor receiving. I just can't wait to see her face when she opens it!

I hope it looks something like this:

Still processing

On Saturday morning I had the pleasure of helping to field dress, drag and hang a buck that our friend Cindy shot. I was hunting on her land, and I'd been sitting in a stand for a little over 2 hours, basically just freezing my tail off. She got home after an overnight shift, saw the buck grazing in her back yard, grabbed her bow, walked right up to it and shot him from 10 yards away. Then she texted me to come help.


Life is not fair. Doesn't she look happy, though?

In any case, Kat and I thought this would be a good chance to learn how to process deer. So we went over Sunday afternoon and processed it with Carl & Cindy. It was an all night afair (we didn't get home until after 11:00). But we did have fun, and we learned a lot.

We decided to go ahead and bring Nora with. We figured it would be a good chance for her to learn where our food comes from. We don't want to scare her or make her a vegetarian, but we do want her to understand that the meat we eat comes from a living creature and that it should be respected.

Whatever our intentions, this is the picture that will be forever singed into my brain when I think about the whole experience.

We're either really good parents, or really, really, truly awful parents. The jury is still out.

Milestones

Nora's growing up (she said with a mix of delight and dismay). She has kept me busy and guessing the last week or so. Just when I think that I know what to expect, she goes and poops on the potty. Then, of course, she refuses to even try for the next week. It's toddlerdom at it's finest.

She did an aboutface on the whole water issue, too. I was beginning to think that she had seen "The Wizard of Oz" when I wasn't around and had a phobia of being melted by a sacchriny girl from Kansas. Now, suddenly, we're in for a tantrum if she doesn't get her bath. She likes to dnk her head, put her whole face in the water, splash, blow bubbles....I attribute this to that one page at the end of "Green Eggs and Ham" where Sam-I-Am and the unnamed guy are submerged.

Water and pooping are fine now and then, but Nora's new all-around obsession is letters. She likes picking them out of books, finding them on stop signs and attempting to draw them. "O" is clearly superior- and I'm sure that has nothing to do with how easy it is to draw....She has these Eric Carle cards with letters on one side and animals on the back. She likes to point to each letter and "spell" what the animal is. Most entertaining for me as a mother are "U" (which is known exclusively as "umbrella"- as in "o-c-t-o-p-umbrella-s") and "Q" (known as "O-with-a-tail").

Oops! The toddler in question is home. Back to parenting, while it lasts.