Hey, chickie!

Duluth is a cool city. I know I've mentioned this before, but seriously, how many U.S. towns do you know that have specifically made a point to write legislation allowing up to five chickens on any given residential city lot? So, a lot of my friends have chickens. My friend Tracy does not live within city limits, so doesn't have to abide by the five hen rule. A couple of weeks ago, she accepted delivery of 32 baby chicks. That's right. Thirty two fuzzy adorable balls of peeping fluff. How do you not take your kid to see that?

She did get to hold and pet the chicks. And we had to work hard on being gentle. No, gentle! Gentle!

She also got to collect eggs and bring them home and eat them. We've been eating a lot of eggs since then. I haven't had the heart to tell her that the eggs she collected were gone the first morning.

And then there is this.

Karist

Last August, Nora and her daddy went to the Minnesota State Fair. For $6, they bought a caterpillar in a plastic house. They were told that it would spin a cocoon and then overwinter before hatching. It did spin its cocoon and Nora talked about the sleeping caterpillar all winter.

When April rolled around, I began to have my doubts as to whether it would ever actually become the luna moth that had been predicted. I brought a lot of cocoons inside as a kid, none of which ever amounted to anything (probably because I had found them on the ground...).

Eric and Nora never lost faith and moved the moth house into our kitchen so that they wouldn't miss seeing their friend emerge. This morning, I heard a shriek from the kitchen and, you guessed it, the moth had hatched. We watched him hang upside down in his house, drying off his wings for about 45 minutes. Then, Eric moved him outside to acclimate.

A few hours later, we released him. But not before checking him out thoroughly. Nora decided that his name is Karist and that he is her new friend.

Here she is getting a closer look.

Guess what she thinks of her dad for orchestrating this whole experience.
Yeah, we'll do that again next winter.

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: