Twelve months of Norah!

Happy Birthday to Norah! Twelve months ago today Krys pushed her out (she really wanted to get out!) and we had our second daughter. After the trials with our first one and the problems with another pregnancy (a post for another day), we were overjoyed to welcome Norah into the world. It has been quite the year, let me tell you. Norah is really like our first child, because after the seven-month mark, we really didn't know what to expect. We're having a great deal of fun watching her grow and start to figure things out, but as I've mentioned before, it always comes with a bit of sadness that Mia can't join in. But today is about celebrating Norah's birthday! Yay, Norah!

I should probably write more about both our daughters, but raising them does take up a lot of time, so this blog often gets left behind while I rant about life in general and comics in specifics at my two other blogs. But I do try to keep everyone updated about their progress! To those of you that have kids, I hope this blog is comforting because you know you're not alone (which is why I enjoy reading other blogs by parents), and for those of you who don't have kids, I hope you have been warned away from them by this blog!

In case you're wondering about all the Norah-related writing I have done in the past year, here are some highlights: this is the post about her birth, which might be the best one I've done on this blog; some early pictures of Norah; a day in the life of a five-week-old; her first smiles, which have gotten cuter and cuter (see below); some of her achievements after almost three months of life; the time she got way sick (which turned out to be my fault, although we didn't realize it at the time); more fun pictures; her diabolical plot to drive Daddy insane (she's doing well at that, by the way); more excellent pictures; the time she fell off the changing table (another thing that was my fault); her phantom toy (we still haven't figured it out); yet more cool photographs; the power struggle; her attempts to break out of the crib; her joy of crawling; hanging out in her crawl tube (which she has already outgrown); her initial attempts at standing; and her movements around the house. Phew!

I also like to take pictures of both Mia and Norah in the same chair every month on the day they were born. I have been doing this with Mia since she was born, but I think I'm going to scale it back to every six months. When you're less than a year, however, the changes are fun to watch. Mia's first twelve months are on the wall in our family room, and we have to figure out where to put Norah's. I put them below, and you may notice there are only ten of them. I don't know where the October and November 2005 pictures are. I could have sworn I took them, but I can't find them. Consarnit! Anyway, I like to watch the growth from a kid who could barely sit up to the grinning eager-to-crawl kid in the latest picture, which I took earlier today.






Finally, some random pictures I never posted for some inexplicable reason. Here's Norah with Mommy:


And here's all three of my girls. Along with this picture, these are two of my favorites.


So Norah has a year in the books. It's been groovy. I hope you enjoy reading about her (and Mia, of course) as much as I like writing about them.