Summer

Lemons from our tree.



A mama bird built her nest in a lantern hanging on our porch this spring. Three baby birds hatched and we got to watch for several weeks as their mama brought them food.



A huge Zucchini from our garden!



Nora Lee and I doing yoga

Jokes

Because Nora Lee's language skills have jumped so dramatically in the last few months we started teaching her jokes. We noticed that she liked to perform and loved the idea of bowing before and after a performance. Here are the first jokes that she started telling. Its about the cutest thing you've ever seen.

Here's how it usually goes...

Joke #1

Nora: "What's a pirate's favorite letter. You say 'What'."

Person: "What"

Nora: "R!!"

Joke #2

Nora: "What's a ghost's favorite fruit. You say 'What'."

Person: "What"

Nora: "boo-berries"

We are currently working on Knock-knock jokes but she hasn't got the timing down yet. I know 2 1/2 and doesn't get comedic timing. Can you imagine?

Panties!

In the last three weeks Nora has suddenly transitioned into using the toilet during the entire day! About a year ago she expressed interest in the toilet so we bought her a little one for the bathroom. She would poop and pee on it sometimes, maybe once a month. Then she went through a patch of using it three or four times in a week, then back to not being that interested in it. We have never really paid much attention or focused on it. When she did use the toilet we expressed congratulations but didn't pressure one way or the other.

Then three weeks ago she started wearing panties and using the potty for every single poop and pee! Exciting!! She still wears a diaper at night but its exciting to have her mostly potty trained.

Funny Quotes

Funny things Nora Lee has said recently:

- "That's a good choice Mama."

- "How 'bout we play a game and then eat food. Is that a good plan?"

- Nora: "There is a really big linon (lion) in my house."

Me: "What's his name?"

Nora: "Kitty."

We were eating homemade pizza and Nora said, "Mmm, mom, you make this very well."

Nora Lee wants to know everyone's names, first and last. She remembers them even when long periods of time have elapsed. Months can go by and she will still remember their full name and their pets names. I'm envious of this ability!

We have kept Nora's hair in a short pixie cut because she never wanted for us to mess with it or put clips in it so it seemed like the easiest way to keep it out of her face. Recently she decided that she wants to have "yong" (long) hair. She is patiently growing it out now and happily lets me put clips and headbands in :) Its amazing to have her making these kinds of decisions for herself now.

Tonight

Tonight at dinner Matt and I were talking about an actress on a TV show. Here's how the conversation went:

Sara: "She's a saucy one."

Matt: "I know."

Nora Lee: "I'm a saucy one?"

Sara: "No honey, we were just talking about an actress on a TV show."

(Pause)

Nora Lee: "She's a saucy one? She's a dippy one?"

Matt and I laughed so hard because Nora Lee had never heard the term "saucy" used for anything other than sauce and she immediately thought about dip - thus the "She's a dippy one?"

Later tonight after her bath, Nora sat on her bed clean from a bath and combing the hair on her stuffed chicken. She said to me, "You a good parent." She cracks me up!

The Angry Bear

Nora Lee spends much of the day in imaginary play. From the time we wake up in the morning until the time we go to bed the whole family participates in pretend worlds. We have some regular games that we play and some that spontaneously happen in the moment. Nora Lee's language skills are incredibly good and she is intensely inquisitive. She asks many times each day, "What are you doing? Why are you doing that? Why did he say that? Why did you laugh at that?", Etc. This has been challenging for me because I try to answer her questions as best I can but some of them are complicated answers - and it just gets tiring :) As a way of lightening my mood when the questioning drives me bonkers, I begin responding with an old improv game. When she says, "What are you doing?" I respond with something like " Flying a kite, what are you doing?" and she will say "Climbing a mountain, what are you doing?" We can go back and forth like that for quite a while.

She loves for us to make up stories and in the last few days Matt told her stories about mean bears. (Nora Lee is fascinated with being "mean" and being "nice". Our household is regularly visited by both mean and nice animals. When a mean one comes, we cower in fear and pretend to cry and she protects us. When nice animals come we snuggle them.)

In Matt's recent stories about the "angry bears" he shared that angry bears are really just sad bears. This evening something made Matt angry and he calmly said "That makes me really angry." Nora Lee went up to him and said "You not angry daddy, you a bear. You not angry you just sad."

Wow.