Norah's art

In the middle of these lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, when I fail to post because nothing huge is happening, Norah's school had an art show. And I thought I'd show off her work right here!







You'll note that the first one is a still life of fruit, the third one is a mosaic, and the fifth one is Squidward's house from SpongeBob SquarePants. We're pretty impressed that she was able to draw it from memory (at least we think it was from memory; I doubt if the school had a model of the house lying around). You'll also notice that her fake smile needs work. She'll get better at it - she's only five!

Norah loves the farting!

Not the actual action, mind you, although that does crack her up. No, she likes the word "fart." Well, who doesn't? So Krys was reading How to Train Your Dragon to her because they saw the movie earlier this year and Krys thinks it's fun to read books that they've made into movies, because Norah pays closer attention (I guess). Apparently farting is a big part of the book. So Norah was flipping through it and she wanted Krys to tell her what one of the characters did, because apparently he breaks wind quite often. Krys knew what she wanted her to say, but she was being coy. Krys told Norah that she had read the book, so Norah should know what the character did. Finally, Norah offered up this admonition: "You're a mommy, you know what he did! Think about it!"

I've written before that I dig sassy Norah. She's not really being bad, just goofy. And it comes out sassy. She giggled when she said it, because she just wanted Krys to say "fart." Because she's, you know, five.

Norah's rough life

Poor Norah. She has such a hard life.

The other day I got my car washed. I got vanilla air freshener in it when it was detailed. When Norah got in, she said, "It smells like meatloaf!" in a very sad voice. We're not sure how she knows what meatloaf smells like, but it made her sad. Poor Norah!

Then today she revealed her homophobic side. A song was on the iPod, and Norah asked what it was. I told her and she asked if the dude was singing to his girlfriend. As the song doesn't specify to whom he is singing, I said he might be singing to a boy. She laughed and said, "He doesn't have a boyfriend!" as if it was the silliest thing ever. I said some of the boys at her school had friends who are boys, so why couldn't the guy be singing to a boy? She giggled again and said, "We have a mommy and a daddy, not two daddies!" So much hatred in her heart! Poor Norah!

She's been acting kind of weird lately. She's fine at school, but when she comes home, she gets very sullen at the smallest things. If we tell her to clean up her toys, she sulks and whines about it. If she asks us for something and we say no, she sulks and whines and even cries about it. She gets so upset if life doesn't work out exactly the way she wants it to, and while that's not surprising for a 5-year-old, the fact that she doesn't seem to be able to control it is vexing. I finally told her that I was going to start taking toys away from her if she keeps doing it, and yesterday, she kept crying when I told her she had to wait to watch television until Mia came home. So I took her new video game thing away from her (the one she got for her birthday which allows her to draw and identify colors and whatnot - it's edumacational!!!!), which really upset her. I told her if she kept behaving poorly, she might not get it back. I just want her to think about it before she flies off the handle, because that's the most annoying thing - she just goes to pieces and can't pull herself together. So I took her game away and told her she'd get it back when she behaved herself. She might get it back tomorrow if she's good. In the meantime, she's sad. Poor Norah!

Boy, her life is hard. I don't know how she stands it!