Shift Change

No, unfortunately, I'm still on second shift, which means that I saw Nora for about 20 minutes today and Eric for a completely separate 30 minutes.

Aunt Tammy and Cousin Bella had to go back to Minnesota, but now Nana Thomas is here! No new pictures today (Just wait, though- Nana has a camera and knows how to use it.), so here are a few more from the wading pool with Bella.

Pool party!

Aunt Tammy and Cousin Bella came to visit and help out since I'm on evening shift this week and Eric's on call this weekend. It was hot as blazes (really, it's September!), so they got out the ol' wading pool. And I got some cute pics before I had to sequester myself in a concrete building for the rest of the day.

Quintessential Nora

This is it- the most Nora picture of all Nora pictures. She is delightedly playing by herself, while leaning casually on a 200 lb carnivore. Notice the ring stacker with the rings in ascending order by size and a dog toy on top, also sorted by size.

How I talked Eric out of actually laboring on Labor Day

Yeah. Seriously. Eric had planned to work his tail off to get our basement finished today. I appreciate his desire to have a completed abode without tools and such cluttering it. Just the other day, Nora was running through the garage, tripped over a nail gun and went sailing through the air. She skidded across the floor before screeching to a stop against the circular saw. I so wish I were kidding.

But after losing much of our precious three day weekend to this project, I had had enough. I wheedled and whined until Eric agreed to do something fun with our day. It took approximately 43 seconds of pouting. We decided to take the bikes out the the local rail trail.

For those of you who know the area, we took the Conewago Trail from Elizabethtown to Mount Gretna. For those of you who don't know the area, it's a lovely, wooded, relatively flat trail along a creek that we followed for 11.8 of the total 19 miles. In Mount Gretna, we ate lunch and ice cream at The Jigger Shop, played on the playground and took some nice pictures of a very happy child. I wonder who she belongs to.



Nora slept the whole ride back, which was both awesome and awful. We got home and she was fresh and rested from her nap, whereas I wanted nothing more than to collapse on the floor. I tried to do that, but a certain toddler kept poking me. Thus, she learned about a maneuver called "The Superman," which is very entertaining, but may be performed with the adult in the recumbent position.

Meanwhile, Eric mustered up a ridiculous amount of reserve energy and finished the basement anyway. The tools have now returned to their home in the shop. Thus, the Lauers spent one Labor Day.

Same thing we do every night, Pinky...

Have I mentioned lately how fast Nora's vocabulary is growing? Because it's fast. It's extraordinarily nice to have her ask for book, ball, water, help, more, outside, etc. And it's even nicer that she appears to think that the only way to distinguish between talking about these things and asking for them is to say "please." She even said, "more water please" the other day.

She says, "Where's the ball?" so often that I want to velcro that thing to her thorax. Did I ever think it was cute that she wanted to play ball with Suma? Perish the thought.

And of course, with the power of speech comes the power of persuasion. We just ended a director's cut of the bedtime ritual that contained many iterations of the following conversation:

Nora: Milk?

Mom: No. It's time for bed.

Nora: Water?

Mom: No. It's time for bed.

Nora: Apple?

Mom: No. It's time for bed.

Nora: Book?

Mom: Story time is over. It's time for bed.

Nora: Book, Mama. Mo' book. Pease? Pease, mo' book?

Mom: That's a nice way to ask, but no. All done with books. It's time for bed.

Then, Nora wrapped her little, stumpy arms around my neck and started snuggling and kissing my cheek and rubbing my hair. Shameless. Effective, but shameless.

Strangely enough, when I actually put her in her crib, she just stood at the edge and watched me walk to the door. Then, she laid down and cuddled with her monkey. I never heard a peep out of her. I expected a tantrum. Who knows what she's thinking? Maybe at that point, she says to herself, "It was a well-matched game against a solid opponent. I am content to lose this round."

Or maybe, she's sitting in her darkened room, right now, plotting against me.

The sense to come in out of the rain

And that's exactly what Nora doesn't have. It's been a long time since we had any rain and it was exciting to a kid who's never had a chance to play in it. And I really, really like the light on cloudy days, so I went right along with her. When I can't decide if I should allow something, I ask myself:

1. Is she safe?
2. Is she happy?

I went with 1. Yes and 2. Yes, yes, oh my god, yes.

You be the judge. Notice that both she and the camera lens get progressively wetter as time goes on.

Full Steam Ahead to Toddlertown...Ugh.

Nora's daycare, those bastions of child-rearing excellence (with their operating room shoe covers, "allergen-free" kitchen and disease that runs amok just like anywhere those Petri dishes known as toddlers roam) have requested pictures. They want recent pictures of Nora alone and Nora with her family. I suppose they figure that even though they are caring for my child through the vast majority of her waking hours and formative years, they should nod to the fact that we somehow created the kid.

Sadly, my embittered state has precluded such frivolous pursuits as recording the development of Nora as a person or us as a family. So, I broke out the old camera the other day. These are what I came up with. They'll have to do.

Eric's parents were here last week, since we were both on call for the weekend. They had a wonderful time with the Stinker. Now, Nora keeps asking for and calling for "Nanny." Particularly when she's not terribly pleased with me. As in, when I say, "Nora, it's time for bed, " she narrows her eyes at me and runs away, yelling, "Nanny?!?!" I think she's grasped the concept of a second opinion. Not that it does her any good.

Nora is thriving. She comes out with new words daily, now. She also got three time-outs today. Slapping is fun, apparently. The good with the bad, the good with the bad. I'm continually reminding myself that Nora is a toddler and that this isn't personal. Being the bad guy gets pretty old, especially when everyone who cares for her tells me what a wonderful, delightful child she is and how they have no trouble with her whatsoever. Our time together is so limited and she has to spend it testing, testing, testing. I'd never not set limits (that's how you get an out-of-control dog, I mean kid, right?), but there are times that it's tempting to just set it all aside and play. Just play. Know what I mean?