So Far So Good

This morning Norah and I went to her school to meet her teacher, get her acclimated to the room, and fill out paperwork (oh yeah, and pay her tuition. Preschool is highway robbery around here, but that's a rant for another day). We were both pretty nervous and neither of us slept well last night. After waking up she asked to cuddle in "the big bed" for a bit and then wanted to hold Louis. I took my new favorite picture.

We got to school at 9:00 and after checking out her classroom with her cubby, Norah was introduced to her teacher (Renna) and met a few of the kids in her class (there are only 7 of them this summer, but there are 12 once the school year starts). As predicted, she was very quiet and shy and held on to both me and Bear as though her life depended on it. Renna was very gentle and kind and within just a few minutes had Norah exploring the outside play structure and making castles in the sandbox. I left her in the sand to go deal with the business side of things and although she had big eyes for a minute there, it was no big deal when I left.

I came back about a half hour later and she was still happily playing in the sand. She told me she didn't want to leave, but when I told her we needed to get to Ruby's she jumped up and said, "let's go, let's go." We will see if she is as confident when she knows I am actually leaving her there on Monday. I am grateful she felt as comfortable as she seemed to be, and I hope this confidence continues. We shall see.

A New Chapter

Tomorrow is Norah's last day with Pam and Ruby. On Monday she starts preschool. She is thrilled and excited (and in her words, "just a little tiny bit nervous.") I am the one who is all worked up about it and not sleeping at night. (I mean, what if none of the kids talk to her, what if she gets shy and won't tell the teacher she has to potty, what if someone is mean to her, what if she realizes neither Pam or Ruby are there and gets really, really sad??)

We are so fortunate to have had our child care situation these past 2 years. It was tough for me to leave Norah when I went back to work (even though I was SO ready to go back and never regretted it for a single second). It was the best of both worlds. She got a caregiver who could focus almost exclusively on her needs, while getting the benefit of having another kid to play and interact with. A kid, who in Norah's words, "is my very, very best friend."

Pam was an ideal caregiver. We couldn't have dreamed up someone better to take care of our girl. I have been weepy about it for days, but I know that we will still see Ruby at least once a week at our standing play date and we will see Pam often as well. She and Norah have a very special bond and I know she will be someone tremendously important to Norah for years to come. We were eating breakfast a few weeks ago and Norah was talking about all the people in her family (she likes to put relationships together, ie, identify "Aunt Amy is married to Uncle Mark" or "Aunt Vanessa is Daddy's sister"). At one point she asked, "are Pamma and Ruby my family too?" I started to tell her that no, they are very, very good friends, but then I thought better of it and told her yes. That you don't have to be related to someone for them to be family and Pamma and Ruby are most definitely her family.

Here they are shortly before Pam started taking care of them both:

and here they are just a few weeks ago:

Little babies became great, big, awesome kids. We couldn't have asked for anything more.

Smart Cookie

Norah is a really, really smart kid. I feel like I can say this without fear of retribution because I try to be honest with her struggles (like how she kind of sucks at basic life functions, such as eating and sleeping). I am constantly taken aback by the things she says and thinks about. For instance, on Sunday she and I were running errands and chatting about something silly (probably having to do with The Little Mermaid...she likes to announce to anyone interested that a mermaid is a girl who has a girl for the top and a fish for the butt), and out of nowhere she said, "People are alive because they move and breathe. But cars are not alive because they just move, and they don't breathe."

She has also been asking a lot of questions about how babies get born. She isn't satisfied with "mom and dad went to the hospital and that's where we got Louis." She knew he was in my body at some point and she wanted to know how he got OUT. Continuing in my quest for honesty with her I told her that babies are born one of two ways, either 1) they come out the mom's body through her vagina, or 2) the doctor makes a cut in the mom's belly and the baby is pulled out that way. She asked how she was born and I told her it was the second way. She asked how Louis was born and I told her he was born the same way. She was pleased with my answer and told me, "Louie didn't get scared because I showed him the way out."

In unrelated news, she now has a princess nightgown. Which I bought her. Of my own free will.

Pigs have now flown.

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

I remember reading some article years and years ago that said if you wanted to know how your kids perceive you, just listen to how they play with their toys. Norah plays independently really well and one of her favorite things to do is to be the 'mom.' Lately I have found myself spying on her in order to see and hear how she interacts with her dolls and animals.

To my great relief, she consistently showers them with affection and accolades and calls them sweetheart, honey, pumpkin, etc. She will say things like, 'don't worry sweetheart, that was an accident and accidents happen' and 'you won't know if you like it if you don't try it!' She reminds them to be kind and to say please and thank you. She tells them she loves them.

She also says (quite frequently), 'you are driving me bananas' and yesterday I overheard her say, 'honey, you better check it before you wreck it.' Hey, at least she's keeping it real.

The kid has an amazing vocabulary. Just today she said (in the correct context, no less): unfortunate, rotten, persevere, generous, and hurricane. I attribute this to the fact that she has a memory like a steel trap, we read hundreds a books a week, and television. Lots and lots and lots of television.

She starts school the week after next and is very nervous about making friends. We've been talking a lot about being confident and kind and introducing herself when she meets someone new. Today at the library, without any prompting from me, she went up to a girl and introduced herself. The girl didn't say anything. Norah asked the girl her name. The girl didn't say anything. Norah told her that she liked her shirt (Tinkerbell). The girl didn't say anything. Norah told her that she had beautiful hair. The girl didn't say anything. Norah then said, 'don't you know you are supposed to say thank you when someone gives you a compliment?' Then the girl asked Norah to go in the boat with her and Norah was beyond thrilled that she had made a new friend.

(This is Norah's new 'princess' dress courtesy of Megan and her new 'comfy Belle doll' also courtesy of Megan. I think she has worn the dress the past 72 hours straight).

Best Weekend Ever

(**Every single picture in this post was taken by Stephanie. If you read her blog they will seem very familiar to you. Her pictures are always much better than mine, so I don't think I took my camera out even once while they were here.**)

Steph, Megan and Trevor came to California to meet Louis and hang out with the rest of us. Norah has been anticipating their visit for months. Every morning we had to look at the calendar and count how many more days until their visit. You can only imagine the excitement level on the morning (Saturday) that we picked them up. Norah immediately hurled herself at all three of them and this is basically where I found her for the next 4 days. Glued to Megan.

We went back to our house so they could meet Lou and then we took a nice long walk up to Baskin Robbins and the grocery store to get stuff for dinner. When I say nice long walk, I mean that the walk takes me 7 minutes by myself (and I don't walk that fast). When Norah is involved it is about a 45 minute walk. Check out the red dress. It is an old tap dance costume of Megan's, but Norah insists it is her Cinderella dress. Suspension of disbelief, I suppose.


Lou was mesmerized by Trevor. Anytime Trevor was in the room Lou would stop everything and stare at him. Trevor could get the biggest smiles out of him too. He has generously offered to talk to Lou via Skype whenever Lou gets fussy. Trevor is cool like that.


About a month ago our neighbor gave Norah a giant story book that has the stories of Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Snow White. She loves it and wants to read it constantly. She has the Beauty and the Beast movie and we checked out Snow White from the library not too long ago, but The Little Mermaid and Cinderella are no where to be found (Disney does this sly marketing ploy called 'The Vault' and their movies are released only every 7 years, or something crazy like that). Anyway, Megan has both TLM and Cinderella and generously brought them for Norah to watch. She then left them here for Norah to borrow 'long term' because she's awesome like that. The big kids were so great about watching both with Norah many, many times. Trevor never complained once because again, he's awesome like that.

(As an aside, my biggest complaints with the majority of the Princess stories are that 1) the girl always needs rescuing from her dire situation, and 2) they fall in love without getting to know each other, or sometimes even TALKING to each other. I mean, Ariel is willing to sacrifice everything for a dude she hasn't even met! What if he was the world's biggest asshole?? Anyway, I try not to rain on Norah's parade too much because she really is enamored by the stories, but I can't help myself and I add a little epilogue on the end when we read her book. Belle gets her PhD and becomes a professor, Cinderella goes to medical school and becomes a doctor, Ariel goes back to school and becomes a marine biologist, and Snow White becomes a veterinarian. Norah was a bit confused because the movies don't show the girls going to school. Megan was a good sport and assured her that they did, the movie just didn't show it).

The next morning we ditched Louis and BVZ and drove into the city. The weather wasn't great, but it wasn't as horrible as predicted, so we decided to go down to Pier 39/Fisherman's Wharf. Yes, it's touristy, but totally fun and the kids loved it. We took them to the Aquarium by the Bay, which was a big hit. You have to walk through the gift shop to get to the entrance (imagine that), and Norah was happy to indulge her cousins and try on all of the paraphernalia.

Megan was a sport and lifted Norah up 9,000 times to see all the exhibits.

Jellyfish are always my favorite.

The whole place is pretty small, but perfect for kids. There are two long tunnels, one with shallow water animals and one for deeper water critters.

Shallow water had giant sea bass and tons of starfish.

Deeper water had sting rays and sharks.

On the level above the tunnels is a room with several tide pools. Megan and Trevor literally have no fear and were all about touching the sting rays and sharks. There was no way Norah was going to touch them. Hell, there was no way I was going to touch them. We're chickens.

There was a short demonstration on the effects of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the planet.

There was a large tide pool with all kinds of star fish and other sea creatures.

I tried for about 10 minutes to get Norah to touch a star fish. No dice. Megan said, 'Norah, why don't you touch a star fish?' and she did it in about 12 seconds.

She then screamed into some port-holes with tadpoles, 'Hi tadpoles! It's me, Norah!'

We walked around the pier and let the kids share a giant crepe. Of course no visit is complete without checking out the sea lions.






These two are connected in a way that I had only hoped was possible. They are soul mates.

We walked by a guy advertising $10 boat rides. Unfortunately, the next boat wasn't leaving for over an hour. We were kind of on the fence about whether or not to wait around, it was kind of getting late and everyone was getting tired, but we decided to let the kids decide. Megan voted to head home but Norah voted to 'ride a $10 boat!' Trevor had to be the tie breaker and he decided to pack it in and go home.


On the way out we stopped and loaded up on some fruit.

Trevor declared that his peach was the best peach he had ever had in his whole life, and if given the choice between that peach and chocolate, he would choose the peach every time.


Monday morning we took BVZ to work and went to the beach. We started getting all the kids ready at 9:15 and I think we actually left the house at 10:45. Lou did what Lou does best and napped one off.

I had told the kids that the beach was awesome, but the water was way too cold to swim in. We go to this beach all of the time, but never get more than our toes in the water. It's COLD. And it's cold outside. Like, you almost always need a jacket.

Megan and Trevor dipped their toys in the water.

Then their ankles.


About 15 minutes later they were full on swimming in their clothes. They have no fear (and thankfully, no hypothermia).

Norah stayed dry but had a fabulous time digging in the dirt, collecting sea shells, and burying her feet in the sand.



It was such a great day. We had to hose the kids and their clothes off with the backyard hose before they were allowed in the house. They got scrubbed down, thrown into pajamas, and fed pizza for dinner. They were in heaven.

The next day we took it easy and just let the kids enjoy each others' company.


Trevor brought Norah his old Wizard hat. She decided she was Merlin (from her latest fave movie, Sword in the Stone).

We went to a small recreation area at Coyote Point (about 15 minutes away), and checked out the children's discovery museum and zoo.

It was itty bitty, but the kids seemed to really enjoy it (I mean, who doesn't like seeing otters eat fish?)








I had to park it and give Louis a bottle and so the rest of the crew went to check out the gift shop. They came back and Norah had this fabulous flamingo. Turns out, Megan used her own money to buy Norah a special souvenier. Norah is obsessed with it.

Back at the house we made Stephanie a birthday cake (her birthday is in a few days). Megan picked out the candle.



It was a jam-packed couple of days that absolutely flew by. The house was total chaos the entire time and I loved every second of it. We were all so tremendously sad when they left. All the kids slept on a futon mattress on Norah's bedroom floor and on Wednesday when BVZ tried to put it away Norah wouldn't let him 'just in case they come back.' She tells me every once in a while that her 'eyes are all wet because my cousins went home.'

So much love. It sucks that they are gone.