Not unlike Ian Astbury, Norah loves the rain¹

Today it rained all afternoon and a few times in the morning. It's quite shocking, even in the autumn and winter in Arizona. It poured this morning for about three minutes, which is pretty common, and I just figured it would do that a few times during the day and be done with it. But around noon it started raining and it's been coming down ever since - we're working on five hours of constant precipitation, which is stunning. I don't mind the rain at all, because we need it, and even when we lived in Portland, I didn't mind it. There's something very nice about a soothing rain, especially when it's not cold enough to close the windows, which it wasn't today. I kept the front door open and the storm door closed, and the back windows were open, so we got a nice breeze in the house.

Norah was fascinated as well. She hardly ever sees it rain, obviously, and I'm not sure if she remembers the last time it actually came down while she was awake and could see it. I can't remember the last time it came down while she was awake - we've gotten some rain at night recently, but not much during the day. So she stared out the front door until I said, "Let's check it out." We went out in the front of the house and I stood in the driveway for a minute telling her to come check it out. After deciding it wasn't going to kill her (she always must decide that about everything), she walked out and stood in the open. She was mesmerized! She kept saying "water," and I kept telling her the water was coming from the sky. She held her hand under the constant stream falling off the roof, then walked around a little bit, getting her hair all wet. Finally I told her to come inside because she was getting too wet and it was a little bit chilly. Of course, that was a mistake, as she now thought rain was the coolest thing EVER! I had to pick her up and take her back into the house, which pissed her off. How dare I introduce her to this wonderful sensation and then cruelly rip it away from her! Don't I know who she is?????

She recovered quickly once we got inside - bless that two-year-old attention span! - and we ate lunch before she went down for a nap. When she woke up, she was still somewhat fascinated by it, but it appears she's moved on. It will be interesting to see if she's as jazzed by rain the next time it comes down. As it's Arizona, that could be four or five months. A couple of years ago we went four months with absolutely no rain, so it's possible.

Of course, I took pictures of her enjoying the rain:


The world is a strange place for a two-year-old!

¹ The title of the post is a reference to a song by The Cult, "Rain," from their 1985 album Love. It's true - here are the lyrics!

Norah discovers something groovy

This morning Norah found out about the sheer joy of drinking milk out of the cereal bowl when all the cereal is gone. Usually she just asks for more cereal, and when she's done she scoops milk with her spoon and drinks it, but today she decided to take the more direct route! I sat next to her and watched her to make sure she wasn't spilling it, and she did a very good job. Is milk any better than when it comes from a cereal bowl after the cereal is gone? I think not!

She's also doing better with stringing four or even five words together, which is nice. Mia's speech therapist is very happy with her progress. This morning as she climbed out of bed she said, "Suckie here big girl," which is what I tell her when she gets out of bed: "Leave your suckie here because you're a big girl." Verbs continue to elude her, I suppose. But that's just one example - she's been doing others, so we're hoping she can add some action words to her vocabulary soon!

Mia says puzzling, intelligent things on consecutive days

Every morning I go in and get Mia out of bed. I say good morning, and she says good morning. She often asks "Howyoufine!" because she doesn't wait for me to answer how I am. Then I explain to her that she needs to wait for me to answer, and then I ask her how she is. I ask her if she slept okay. On Monday, we went through the routine, and then, the first thing she said after this was, "I want boobies."

I wasn't exactly sure what she meant. She and Norah often sit on Krys's lap and poke her breasts, saying "boobies" all the while. So I wasn't sure if Mia wanted to poke Mommy's boobies, or if she wanted boobies of her very own. I told her she'd have to wait for a good seven years or so (I hope!) before she has to worry about that. It was a very odd thing for her to say, because it was completely out of the blue. What did she mean????? The mind reels.

The next day I asked her if she was ready for school. When she said yes, I asked her what she did in school. She said, "Counting!" I was very proud of her for knowing what she does. Well, one of the things, at least. It was much cooler, although not as strange, as what she said on Monday.

It's very nice to hear that she's speaking a lot more with a wider range of topics. I suppose we should look forward to more bizarre pronouncements. That's okay - we'll take it!

Norah gets spruced up, among other things

Last weekend, we went shoe shopping for Norah. When Mia comes home from school, she likes to go out to the curb and greet her (when she's not napping). It's a pain to keep putting on her sandals, especially because she likes to take them off. So I told Krys we needed to get her something that she could slip on easily, "like flip-flops." I put those in quotes because that's what I said, but I didn't mean we had to buy flip-flops, just something like them. This is important because several years ago, Mia's physical therapist said that kids shouldn't wear flip-flops at all, because it messes up the development of their feet. That's what he said! Krys, who thinks Mia's doctors are quacks, treats the word of her PT as gospel, so we couldn't get flip-flops. We ended up buying Crocs, because they're easy to put on but still provide some ankle stability. Norah, of course, immediately fell in love with them, and wears them around the house. Krys put butterfly pins on the shoes, and Norah likes to walk around saying, "Fancy shoes!"

Then she got a haircut this past Wednesday. I wasn't sure how she would react, because she wasn't too happy a few months ago when I took her to get her bangs trimmed, but she kept saying "haircut" as we waited, and then sat quietly in the chair, only getting annoyed when she couldn't get her hands out from beneath the cape. She looked very cute (as always) for a while after getting her hair cut, but soon put a blanket over her head and ruined the effect the stylist had given her. (Yes, we take both of them to a stylist, where Norah's haircut cost more than the one I get.) But that's cool.

So Norah is all spiffy, as she of course is all the time. We have noticed, as has her speech therapist, that she is talking much better. Her latest thing is "I scared birds." We're not quite sure when she became "scared" of birds, because she's not scared of birds at all. She just likes saying it. She is also able to identify the chinchilla at the pet store, although she doesn't say it perfectly. We know she's helping Mia, because Mia is saying a lot more in modeling what Norah says. We know she's not doing perfectly well in repeating what we say, but she is repeating Norah, so that's kind of neat.

Norah has also taken to reading books when she should be sleeping. I have begun putting her to bed at night, because she freaks out when Krys leaves her. So I read to her and turn off the light, and usually we end up hearing her talking long after she should have been asleep. When we go in to her room, she is surrounded by books, reading them one after another. It's very funny, even though she should be sleeping. At least she's interested in books! And at least when she gets out of bed, she gets right back into bed. We don't care that much, at least not when it doesn't last very long, because she's not terribly loud and doesn't bother Mia. We just think it's cute. Much like everything else she does!

Mirror, mirror, on the wall

Norah has reached a stage in her life where she is obsessed with the mirror. She enjoys checking herself out in it - what cute kid wouldn't? When Krys puts her in her "big-girl" diapers - pull-ups - she runs into the bedroom to look at herself in the mirror. She often stands in front of it and makes goofy faces and twists and turns around, checking herself out. She also likes to start at the other end of the room and run toward the mirror, giggling all the way. It's very cute, as you might expect. It's kind of cool to see, actually, because I suppose she's starting to understand the concept of it. There's nothing wrong with her figuring out that the mirror reflects her!

Halloween pictures!

First, last night as we were putting Mia to bed, we swear that she said "Happy New Year." We swear it's true! We both heard it, and it was pretty clear, unlike a lot of what she says. What the heck?

Anyway, I keep meaning to put up Halloween pictures, and here they are! Mia was a doctor, and Norah was a cat. Simple, effective, efficient, no big wacky props and whatnot. One would think Krys's broken foot (and yes, it is broken, as explained here, and check out pictures of her foot here) would deter her from walking around the neighborhood, but she had yet to learn it was broken, and she went with us! We had a pretty good time, even though Norah got freaked out by some of the masked kids. We also think she was tired, because earlier in the night she wasn't too scared of the masks. But all in all, it was a pretty good night.

So here are the pictures we took of them. Not too many, but how many pictures can you take, really, of kids in a doctor and cat costume? We thought of taking the camera on our wanderings, but figured the kids wouldn't be in many photogenic positions. Plus, you know, it's dark out. Some of these pictures are from Mia's school, where she went on a little parade around the school, showing off.










So it was a nice night. I hope you like the pictures!