Friday, March 28, 2008

15 Months





Nora Lee is 15 months old now and is 30 inches long and 19 pounds. On Valentines Day she walked across the room for the first time and now is walking everywhere. For a while she did a combination of walking and crawling but now she doesn't even crawl anymore.

When she was six months old we started teaching her sign language but were told that she wouldn't respond until at least 10 months. We gave up around a year because nothing seemed to be happening. Then one day a few weeks ago my mom showed her a sign and she signed back! It was so exciting! We immediately began signing again and she has continued to sign back. For a while she has understood words that we speak to her but has not been able to respond, now she has a way to communicate. She knows the signs for "food, more, nursing, water, and change."

A day or so after we introduced the sign "change" she was in the living room and I could tell she was pooping. When she finished she came over to me and did the sign for "change". I was blown away and immediately went to change her diaper! Since then she only does the change sign when I ask her if she needs a change but I'm excited that she seems to be puting it all together.

Music is still a huge part of her life. She knows the words for music and dancing (when we say them) and she gets a huge smile on her face when they are said, and usually starts to dance right away.

Wild Animal Park





On Easter weekend Clay, Colleen, Nora Lee and I went to the Wild Animal Park in San Diego. I love the Wild Animal Park because the animals have so much room to run around as opposed to some zoos where the cages seem so restrictive.

By pure luck the family of lions had gathered directly on the other side of the glass so we got to see the mom nursing her cubs and the dad taking a nap.

Colleen and Clay got some nectar and we got to hold and feed a parakeet and inside the petting zoo Nora got to feed and pet the deer.

It was a sweet first experience up close with all the animals.

Easter






For Easter Nora Lee and I went to San Diego to celebrate with my family. Matt had planned on going but booked a commercial at the last minute and stayed in LA to shoot it. Our weekend was jammed packed but lots of fun. We went to the Wild Animal Park on Saturday (more on that later), to see Oklahoma! on Saturday night and then had an Easter feast and hunt Sunday.

We stayed with my brother and my sister-in-law at their house and celebrated Easter Sunday at my mom's house in Fallbrook. The feast was amazing and the hunt was really fun. All the adults searched for eggs with playing cards in them - the best poker hand at the end won. I didn't do very well but still ended up with an awesome gift, Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope". Nora spent time with her grandparents playing on the property and kicking her feet in the pond and watching the fish.

Nora Lee was the only child at the hunt and she did very well getting her eggs and putting them in the basket. By the time the hunt happened in the afternoon she had not taken a nap and was exhausted. She wasn't fussy, but had that glazed over look and sort of stumbled around like a zombie. When we drove back to LA that evening she was asleep before I got out of my mom's driveway.

It was a perfect first Easter.