remember magic

because staying at home has somehow made me even worse at blogging, here is yet another scattered update post.

Birdy First
Everyone comments on what a happy baby Birdy is. She really is a joy. She gives the most delicious hugs and giggles easily. Most of the time she is smiling and babbling and even when she’s not, you can easily remedy her problem and return her to her happy self quickly. She has almost five teeth that have cut through now – three bottom and two top. Her first tooth came in May 21 – correction, her first TWO teeth came in that day. Before that, she had been waking 3 – 4 times a night. Since then, she has cut one more through and ALMOST has another one. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to capture a picture of her three little bottom teeth, but so far, not so good. Gone is her gummy smile. She still has Physical Therapy once a week because she is not yet sitting up on her own (it actually started when she wasn’t rolling ‘on time’). I’d like to cancel it because I feel that she’s progressing just fine but they act like it’s really something. Truth be told, I suppose it’s not a bad thing to have another set of eyes observing her progress; especially when I’d be happy to keep her an infant forever.  {UPDATE: Birdy sits with the pros now but still doesn't crawl.  They have continued her therapy biweekly until she crawls.  Which will be any day now.}  Since allergy season started strong, she has been waking 3 – 4 times a night. Once the allergies cleared, she was teething, and now? Who knows? All I know is that she was much closer to sleeping through the night at 3 months than she is at 7 months.

Despite her 'need' for therapy, she wiggles and kicks constantly. Her squirmy acrobatics are constant - she even holds her bare foot while she nurses.  I call her my monkey girl because if I move her little hands away from something I don't want her to have, she tries immediately to get it with one of her feet!

And Now Some Nora

Nora started swimming lessons this week {6 weeks ago} at the Y. She absolutely rocked the first lesson – when they asked if any of the preschoolers could already swim, up went her hand (she can’t). Same thing for floating. I love that bravado. She’ll continue to go twice a week for the majority of the summer. I took the opportunity to check the Y out – do any of you belong? The free childcare while working out is appealing, but I’m not sure the cost of family membership will be worth it for us.

Nora has been absolutely amazing lately. Here are some things that she can do: 1)Get the cereal out of one of the top cabinets, get the milk off the top shelf, get a bowl and spoon, pour everything without spilling AND put it all away; 2)Play so kindly with her baby sister. I am regularly awash with love and gratitude when watching them together; 3)Dig in the garden and weed; 4)Tell elaborate and funny stories; 5)Plays with her dollhouse everyday. Elaborate set ups of dollhouse people, Fisher Price people (about 1/3 the size of the others), animals, Matchbox cars, and Happy Meal toys litter the play area. I love it. 6)I’m awash with love for her all the all the all the time. 7)Goes in and out of the house playing so happily. I love looking out the window to see her swinging with a drum hanging around her neck and her pretend phone to her ear. 8)Wears awesome, self-selected outfits. I love seeing the pride in her choices. 9) Expresses such exuberant “THANK you”’s for just about anything. For some reason, she is now saying something like “swank you”. I love it even more. 10)The other day, she caught a caterpillar and had it in her little bug house. I explained to her that she could take it in for a while, but that in the evening, she would need to let it go because it would need to go home and eat and sleep or it might be sick or die. The next thing I heard was her on the porch saying, “I sowwy, caterpiwwar. You not be sick I take you home now.” I think the universe thanked her the next week when her friends caught another one and put him in the bug house. When we went to let him go, we found him building a cocoon. We’re waiting to see what it does next.

06/25 text to Joe:  Nora came out of the bathroom and I asked her if she had washed her hands.  Something about the way she said, "Yes" made me wonder...  So I asked if she was sure.  She said, "Yes!  You wanna feel dem?"  I did and exclaimed that they were dry!  She licked them and said, "Here!  Twy again!"

Copied from Facebook status 06/26: Joe: Nora, your cup is laying on my bed. If you do that, it could spill and I don't want a wet bed. If it happens again, you will have to go into time out. I hope it doesn't happen again.  Nora: I hope you're not home next time.

The other day I called Nora ‘baby.’ She told me to only call her ‘Nora’ or ‘big girl.’ I told her that she was very special to me and would always be my baby in my heart – after all, she had made me a mommy. She looked at me and said, “Siwwy Mama! God made you a mommy! Remember his magic?”