Santa FAIL (Part One)

Every year our local fire department has a holiday event where they open the station up to kids, bring in a Santa, and collect toys for Toys for Tots. Norah loves fire trucks and we support Toys for Tots every year, so heading over seemed to be a no brainer.

She was really into the truck and kept trying to pull down the hose.

They had the kids line up to first get in the truck and then to see Santa. This is how she felt about waiting in line:


Like the festive outfit?


She was totally into the truck, but was totally not into climbing in it by herself and having the door shut.


She was very taken by the Christmas tree, but was not excited to see Santa one bit.

In fact, she was having no part of going anywhere near Santa. She didn't cry (she isn't a big crier, really, unless it is 3:00 am), but she wrapped those little arms around BVZ's neck for dear life and wouldn't let go. She wouldn't even LOOK at Santa.

She didn't let up until we took her to another room (and let her have a bite of a mini powdered donut), and Santa was out of sight.


I don't blame her, really. Santa IS pretty creepy looking, and I am relieved she doesn't willingly go to strange men offering candy.

Thanksgiving 2009

This is literally the only picture I took. At least Norah is wearing a cute dress.

Fatty Pants

Good news. Norah is so fat that I had to loosen the straps on her high chair this morning. I don't know exactly how much she weighs because my friends made me put the infant scale away (thanks, guys), and I have banned grown-up scales from the house, but she definitely feels heavier and has a nice layer of chub on her cute legs. I attribute the fattening to 1) her freaking molars finally coming in, and 2) her sophisticated tastes (mac and cheese and scrambled eggs be damned, this kid demands gnocchi with gorgonzola cream sauce and asparagus risotto--thank goodness for Trader Joe's).

In other good news, BVZ's sciatica is improved enough that he has been able to start working out again. Norah destroys her playroom while he does the elliptical machine and then he drinks water while she jams all the buttons on his ipod.

Wedding Shoes and Dinosaurs

I had a hard time finding appropriate shoes for my wedding. My dress was an off-ivory color and I am cheap, so I refused to spend much on a pair of shoes I knew I would only wear once. So, I was pretty limited in my options. I finally settled on a pair that met my criteria, but they were so uncomfortable that I took them off 15 seconds after the ceremony and wore sparkly flip flops the rest of the time. See:

Don't we look relaxed! And thin! And BVZ has way more hair!

Anyway, a few days ago Norah found my wedding shoes in the back of my closet and has been wearing them around. I got this video of her trying them on, but there are two unexpected bonuses: 1) she throws a fit when I take them away, and 2) she does her dinosaur routine. (A friend gave us a DVD of the Laurie Berkner band and Norah and Ruby love to act out the song like the kids in the video. The DVD came with a CD, and it gets a lot of play around dinnertime. A lot of marching is involved. Pay close attention to 'we stop and eat our food' and 'we stop and take a rest.' Oh, and don't miss the roar at the end. It's the best part).

Playing Catch Up

I am not sure where to start. The past month or so has been, well. Hectic. I was a big part of a big project at work, which required logging many, many hours at the office. But I am happy to say that it is done, it is awesome, and if the universe works the way it should, it just may save someone's life.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Grandpa VZ but I don't have a single picture to show for it. That's because I was insanely busy and Norah was insanely sick. She ended up not having H1N1, thank goodness, but an acute case of roseola. This was a diagnosis based on the mad skillz of Dr. Google and Grammy, who flew out from Texas at the last minute to help out (ie, save our asses). I am currently in negotiations to get our $40 worth of co-pays back from urgent care, who never even suggested that the second most common childhood illness might be the cause of her high fever.

Anyway. Lots of other stuff happened in the interim and Norah learned all kinds of new words, including but not limited to: zebra, water, cold, light, goat, and cocococococo (rooster). She also spoke her first sentences: 'I see wet' (when spilling my giant cup of water across the rug) and 'Mom eye' (when jabbing her sticky finger into my right eye).

Aunt Amy was here this past weekend, and again I didn't take a single picture. Aunt Amy did, though, and so as soon as she shares I will post the best ones. We had fun adventures at such landmarks as the California Academy of Arts and Sciences and Trader Joe's. Aunt Amy brought a suitcase full of dress up clothes from cousin Megan, and Norah experienced for the first time the pure joy of a tiara, high heels, and a feather boa.

Here are a handful of cute pictures from the last month or so (taken with my phone, so not the best quality--but you get the idea):

Norah is petite enough that I can still use her 9 month dresses as shirts.

She and Ruby are always stoked to see each other and share a hug and a kiss. We think Ruby is saying 'NaNaNaNa' and Norah says something that sounds like 'Ewee, Ewee' which I think is Ruby.


Norah got to wear wings for the first time at her friend Ava's house.

Norah has started to express a preference for certain clothes, so one morning I let her go wild and choose her own outfit. She picked out red sweat pants and her glow in the dark pirate shirt. I topped it off with her awesome strawberry hat (courtesy of Pam), and I thought she couldn't possibly get any cuter.

But then she started dusting. FINALLY earning her keep!

Norah's Christmas presents are in boxes in the living room. All she knows is that there are some cool boxes, perfect for climbing. I have a feeling this will be the last year we can pull this off.

This was in Aunt Amy's bag of tricks from Texas. After she finished with this outfit, we read from the Feminine Mystique.

She is obsessed (and I mean REALLY obsessed) with wearing adult shoes. During playdates, she puts on my friends' shoes and is constantly raiding my closet. Today she was walking around in my highest pair of heels and kissing herself in the mirror. If the child wasn't also obsessed with dinosaurs and garbage trucks, I would be worried.

I hope we'll be back in regular posting mode soon!

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

It is 10:00 pm on a Saturday night and I am at work. In fact, with few exceptions, I have been at work for approximately 14 to 16 hours a day for the past 2 weeks (don't worry, I am doing something really important). Even so, it has been really difficult to be away from Norah so much, and I realized tonight when I was looking at pictures of her on my phone, that a snap I took this morning is the only one I have taken in weeks.

I am head over heels in love with this cute kid and that sweater (that I got for $1). More soon, I promise.

Oink

Norah might have.... wait for it, wait for it...

Dun, dun, dun.....

Swine flu.

She has had a crazy high fever (103 to 104 unmedicated, and 100 to 101 medicated), and so we took her back to the doctor tonight. This is their logic: she has no other sign of infection so it must be viral, if it is viral and lasts longer than 48 hours it is probably the flu, if it is the flu right now, it is probably H1N1. They don't even test for it. There's not a damn thing they do for it. Some pandemic.

Other than the fever and a slightly red throat her symptoms include: enough green snot to fill a swimming pool, a refusal to eat anything other than popsicles and vanilla milkshakes, demanding to wear her pj's and watch Sesame Street all day, and screaming for 4.5 hours directly into my ear (starting at 2 am).

All kidding aside, it is really tough to see my sweet kiddo feel so crappy. Her lungs and chest are completely clear, so just cross your fingers that this is some freak viral thing that will leave quietly without infecting BVZ or myself (although considering the fact that she shoves her hand in my mouth 73 times a day, cross-contamination is likely).

BVZ and I have been tag-teaming staying home from work. When he was home this morning they mopped the kitchen floor (there was an unfortunate puking incident this morning) and did laundry. When I was home this afternoon, she watched Sesame Street with her friends.

Those are her favorite pj's. Or should I say, they are BVZ's favorite pj's. I got them at a used clothing sale for a dollar and they are like 3 sizes too big. That doesn't stop him from putting her in them every chance he gets. There is like 6 inches of leg room not being used. This morning Norah was trying to carry my work bag and was dismayed to find that it was way too heavy for her. I kept telling her to leave it alone, but she didn't listen and soon enough she was trapped by my work load and BVZ's questionable dressing skills. Ironic, doncha think?

Sicky McSickerson

Norah Bear is sick. She has had a moderately high fever for two days now with a gross snotty nose. She took five naps today and only ate pumpkin ice cream. We took her to urgent care last night and she doesn't have an ear infection, sores in her throat, or fluid in her lungs (all good things). According to our $20 co-pay, "it's probably just viral." She screamed her head off for most of the night last night but is currently sleeping. I can tell she feels like crap and has about 10% of her usual Norah energy. She didn't want to drink anything earlier tonight, so I pretended that her bear stole her sippy cup and was drinking all of her milk. She thought that was hilarious, so at least she hasn't lost her sense of humor.

This is Norah at pediatric urgent care last night, when she discovered that there was a tv that played some kind of kid's movie. She loved it. Isn't her hat fabulous?

Monday Evening

Norah has known basic body parts for months now, and I imagine she is sick to death of me quizzing her on them. I think next week we'll move on to harder ones like ring finger. And appendix.



I know, I know, I said I wasn't posting for a while. But I was up late working anyway and she's soooooo cute. Right?

Monday was a day of a lot of firsts:

• First time Norah came home from Ruby's house without any left over food (all of a sudden she's decided to eat like a teenage boy).
• First time she said 'Achoo!' when I sneezed.
• First time she tried to give her bear a bath.
• First time she signed 'thank you' unsolicited (usually I have to say, 'say thank you').
• First time she washed her own face in the bath.
  
• First time she tooted so loud after dinner that she scared the cat.

ETA: Sorry for the terrible film quality. I tried to compress the file so that it wouldn't take 3 weeks to load, but clearly I sacrificed quality.

Soccer

BVZ is really into teaching Norah how to play soccer. As evidenced from the video below, it is going to be a long road.

How She Rolls

Mornings at the GVZ house are a bit challenging. I have to: get myself ready for work, feed Norah breakfast, make her lunch for the day, get her dressed, clean up the kitchen, read 9,456 books, and hold Norah up while she turns the light switch in the hallway on and off 3,456 times. BVZ has to get himself ready for work and feed the cat. Norah helps out a ton by putting on her own hat and walking around the house collecting crap in her cart.

As a funny aside, we went out for pasta last night and the entire time at dinner there was a cute little boy (probably about three) across the restaurant who waved and smiled and made googly eyes at Norah the entire time. She was so not interested because there were kalamata olives on the table and all her attention was focused on sucking them down. We made the tragic mistake of giving her a bit of cannoli for dessert and that little bit of sugar sent her into outer space (in a good, hilarious way). I paid the bill while BVZ took her outside to tear up and down the sidewalk. We let her run down the block one way and as we walked back the other we ran into the family with the little boy. He had two older sisters who teased and taunted him and said 'ooooh, Sammy, there she is... you better kiss her... oooooh, Sammy' while poor Sammy looked humiliated. The dad said, 'your little girl is so cute, we've been calling her Sammy's girlfriend all dinner, hope that was okay.' HA. Norah wanted NOTHING to do with Sammy. Instead she wanted to collect rocks. She's a heart breaker, that one.

As a not so funny aside, work is insane for the next few weeks, so don't expect any updates until December. Bah Humbug.

This is what....

...the end of a successful playdate looks like (for the record she isn't sleeping, she's just 'resting').

Flashback

Last Halloween. Ha.

Halloween Part III

We had an excellent Halloween. Every year we get a few more decorations for the yard--hopefully in 5 years or so we will have a full graveyard. The pictures when it got dark didn't turn out very well, so you'll have to settle for the (non-scary) daylight ones. We also had a smoke machine (ha!) and scary music playing.

This was my favorite purchase of the year. This is the scary lady in the pear tree. When you touch her face, her eyes light up and she screams. It was the biggest hit of the night. Norah loves her too. She's been up in the tree for a little over a week and every time Norah walks past she wants to kiss scary lady.

The zombie head and arm (and bones) light up and the heart he is holding glows and pulsates.


We have several neighbors who have become very fond of Norah, so we decided to let her 'trick or treat' to their houses. She was stoked to walk up and knock on the door.









She was even more stoked to get a piece of chocolate (and pretty pissed when I wouldn't let her eat it).

Norah can be a little shy around strangers sometimes, so I was shocked that as we walked up the block she proceeded to walk up to several more houses.

The neighborhood was completely decked out and we got a lot of good ideas for next year.





This is the haunted house that Grammy gave Norah last year. Each Halloween it will go in the front window.

Norah had dinner and got in her pj's and then helped BVZ hand out candy. I think that was her favorite part of the night.



She kept trying to escape to go out and be a part of the action.


Our city is very, very hilly and most parts are not conducive at all to trick or treaters. We live on the flat part though, and so we get all of the foot traffic (our street gets blocked off to traffic and everyone gets to walk in the street). Also, the house up and across the street from us does a very popular and very hard-core haunted house. People come from all over to experience it. BVZ and I left Grammy to man the candy bowl and we went over to check it out. We waited in line at least 20 minutes and it was the worst mistake I ever made. It was terrifying! It was a professional grade haunted house and really, really scary. By 9:00 pm, our street had been transformed into an old school block party. Hundreds of people hanging out with their kids, showing off their costumes and having a great time. We gave out just about 1,000 pieces of candy (2 to each kid), hung out with the neighbors, and really enjoyed a sense of community and commraderie.

Who would have thought it would only take some fake severed heads to bring us all together?