Nora Takes the Cake

Ah, Nora.  We can understand what you're saying about 67% of the time now.  After six months, you've finally stopped performing that trick where we drop you off at the nursery and you cry for two hours.  You play pretend with Lucy and ride piggy-back on whoever will carry you.  You're not small.  You're something other than small.  This must be celebrated with festoonery, masks and sugar.



Welcome to two, Little Nor.  You are no longer a baby.  Oh no.  You are a lady.

Nora's Corner: Boing Boing

Nora has been something of a pill these past few weeks--getting an early start on her terrible twos in the fine family tradition.  Still, there are also days like this:

Keep turning on the charm, kiddo.  Maybe we'll keep you for a few more months.

Nora's Corner: 365 Days Old

Pity the fourth child. All Mom and Dad's good intentions have been beaten out of them by three other children. Friends and family have expended a decent portion of their interest and enthusiasm on their predecessors. From the moment they get here, the space they inhabit has to be rented from someone else. Sorry kid--somebody got here before you.

Nora has borne it all admirably well. Though clingy and given to an aggressive shriek now and then, I think I would describe her general personality as "unassuming." Quickly and quietly she has found her niche in the family dynamic, sliding into place so effortlessly that now, after a year, it's difficult to remember what life was like without her gimping around the house. Ian, Sage, and Lucy fight amongst themselves, but they don't fight with Nora or fight about her. She has a fresh, open countenance that brings out the caring side in all of us. Now that she has started to take her first steps, who knows what other aspects of her character will be revealed--Lucy did not show her true colors until she was able to sprint--but I would be surprised if Nora did not live up the the promise of her first year. Happy Birthday, little Nora Bean. You're sweet and we love you.

Nora Loves Mush

Nora has started eating things other than Mom. She loves it. Really, REALLY loves it:
P.S. Tiff and Kyle--we posted this one through Youtube, so hopefully you can watch it.

Nora's Corner: It's the Great Pumpkin

This was Nora about a month ago:

She's growing right before our eyes.

My Time of Day

My time of day is the dark time
A couple of deals before dawn
When the street belongs to the cop
And the janitor with the mop
And the grocery clerks are all gone.

When the smell of the rainwashed pavement
Comes up clean, and fresh, and cold
And the streetlight lamp
Fills the gutter with gold

That's my time of day
My time of day
Any you're the only doll I've ever wanted to share it with me.

-Frank Loesser, Guys and Dolls

Since she was born, Nora and I have been taking quite a few walks in the moonlight, especially during that liminal period--not quite midnight, not quite dawn--when both the human and animal worlds are operating on a skeleton crew. At first I was too foggy-headed to do anything but count the lights in buildings throughout our apartment complex. More often than not, the same rooms would be lit up every night, some of them with the familiar blue-white flicker denoting misspent youth. After I got tired of feeling morally superior to couch potatoes, I started to venture out to the main road to listen to the low roar of distant traffic. It reminded me of the summer between college semesters when I worked the dish pit at Red Robin. Sauntering home at two in the morning, still smelling of grease and bleach, I got a childish delight in walking the dividing line between lanes, all the motorists snug in their beds for another three or four hours.

You keep strange, sparse company when you walk around after midnight. This morning, at around 3am, a man pulled up in a truck and asked me where he could find a convenience store that was still open. I really had no idea. If New York is "the city that never sleeps," Elsewhere could be called "the city that sleeps"--at 8pm even downtown is barren and ghostly. Out here in the country, I've spotted the occasional black flap of a bat or pale hop of a wild hare, but to be honest I've had more close encounters in broad daylight. In the wooded railroad tracks behind our apartment I've startled hidden deer and stared down baby raccoons, but always in the bright contrast of mid-afternoon. Now, in the early hours of morning I hear the incessant twittering of nocturnal romantics, but it wasn't until yesterday that Nora and I met a frog the size of a plum, who moved only after I brushed his hind leg with a twig.

Your thoughts can be surprisingly clear when you walk in familiar surroundings removed of people. You see the same buildings and streets uncomplicated by their daily purposes--things temporarily without motive, things as they can only be at rest. I haven't had any life-changing epiphanies, but my thoughts flow without interruption and I sing softly in the open air. Years ago, when Ian was a baby, I walked him around the church across the street, belting out the wrong words to "Danny Boy." You don't have license to do these things without a fussy baby on your shoulder. Last week I was shuffling Nora around a strip mall when we crossed paths with a street sweeper and its driver. It was an hour before sunrise, light enough to see my pajamas and disheveled hair, but the question on the driver's lips faded when he saw little Nora in my arms. I wouldn't be up this early without a newborn to coddle. Thanks, doll.

A Little More a' Nora

"A Lullaby for Nora"
Come to sleep, my dear little baby
Come to sleep, in the dark of the night
Come to sleep, for I am right with you
For this is home.
--By Ian

Introducing Little Baby Nora

Late Thursday afternoon, K. thought she might be having contractions. By the time the kids went to bed at 8:30, she was sure. At 9 we put on Emma, and by 11 we were driving to the birth center. Along the way we saw an opossum, looking for a safe way across the road. I'd never seen a live opossum before, so we took this as a lucky sign.

At 1:04am little Nora was born. (On her uncle Bryce's birthday, no less. Happy Birthday, Bryce! Have a niece.) She knew mom was dreading a long labor, and made haste in a very obliging manner. This is a picture of her just a few minutes after she was born.As with the other kids, we bounced names off of her until Nora stuck. Her middle name is Christine, kinda sorta halfway between the names of her mother and aunt.

This is a picture of Nora's happy, bleary-eyed mom before a decent rest.
And this is a picture of her dad, obviously after one.
Nora's sisters have been very excited to hold her. Even the deposed Princess Lucy has been eager to nurture "baby No-wa".
Proud big brother Ian immediately wrote Nora a lullaby (lyrics to follow in another post).
We got to liking the name Nora after we heard it attached to Norah Jones, and little Nora has taken it upon herself to wail a bit in honor of the bluesy singer.Her voice doesn't precisely convey the "honey and smoke" of Miss Jones, but it's sweet nonetheless.

Here's Nora and her mother, sharing a moment. We can't believe she's finally here!

PS: 8 lbs, 1 oz, 20 and 1/2 inches. Dark hair, obviously.