It takes 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days (and a 1/4)

Once upon a time, there was a very little girl who used to be even littler but was getting even bigger. She was so big (even though very little) that she was old enough to have one candle lit with one match and one birthday crown next to one symbolic little house on top of one little table in her own little every day house (which was really an apartment on the top of a very tall and very old building).

Every day this big-little-little-big girl did ordinary extraordinary things, because that is the way it is with little girls who are big (and little).

Most of the things she did looked just like this:

And that is where this story never ends, because it is always beginning.

Happy Birthday, Nora Somerville Jorgensen! You are the dearest little-growing-ever-bigger daughter.

(many thanks to Emmy for the photos...and please find a few more here)

Coughing the cough

The first time or the 51st time, having a cold is no fun.








Okay, maybe a little fun...








...but not really.

Talking the Talk

Nora has a word.

There are several words she understands and a few she uses with vary degrees of baby ability. "Papa." She's had this down for awhile. When she first started saying it, it was but a whisper, usually spoken upon waking. Now she says it with confidence and can point Papa out in photographs. Sometimes she calls me Papa, but most often it's more like "Mapba" with the "pba" more heavily accented. I am also "Mama," but sometimes that just means she wants to nurse. "Mum" definitely means she wants to eat and most usually it means eat an avocado. She will point to your or someone else's nose if prompted with the question "Where's my nose?" She can say "bye" and wave like a champ. (A champ who wants you to leave, I suppose.) She sort of maybe sometimes says "up" when she walks up stairs. "Uh oh" makes a regular appearance.

But now she has a word that can truly be called her first.

Hat.

She first started saying it the day after Thanksgiving. This is no big surprise as she spent much of Thanksgiving playing with a rather becoming fedora belonging to Uncle Nathan. Auntie Erin heard her say it first: "hhaaaaTTTT." She really worked at that "t" sound. Then she said it a few times the past few mornings. Then she got shy about it and would look at hats if we said hat but not say it herself.

Until today.

This afternoon Nora and I were in a classroom doing some observation for one of my teaching jobs. After saying "bye" to all the kids as they left for recess, she started to say "hat" with much purpose. And pointing. Because...there was indeed a hat in the room, a good ol' cowboy hat. Clinched: can say word, knows what word means, identifies object in place other than home. She's been "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" all day long.

She tips her hat at the tip of her tongue to you all right now!

Walking the walk

As promised, video proof of Nora's first independent two-legged forward propulsion accomplishment. I don't know what that means, exactly, but she also took a bunch of steps by herself!
The first clips are at home and the rest are at Uncle Nate's girlfriend Tania's house on Thanksgiving day. How apt, I know.
A couple of notes: The 'Dumbo' comments are in reference to Dumbo's feather (i.e., he thought he couldn't fly without it) NOT to the level of my daughter's intelligence. Also, some of the videos are sideways. That's just the way it goes.
Enjoy!



UPDATE: Still photos also capture the first-step moments.

An Historic Event

It's Election Day! Finally! Each time I woke up last night I was filled with the birthday-Santa feeling of the morning to come. Now that it's here...well, I'm blogging some patriotic family photos until it's time to head to Tougo for some community rallying and nail biting.

Firstly, we all got dressed and grabbed our voter registration cards:

I'm enfranchised!

Okay, so only Nora is dressed for the day in this photo.  But lo, Basil and I followed suit (oh, ha, HA!) and headed to the polls:

What, you don't have a polling station in your backyard?  We look pretty happy here, but not pictured is how we were turned away from our actual polling place.  Yep, turned away:  our names were not listed on the precinct register.  Awhile back--and in plenty of time for it to take legal effect--Basil and I decided to remove our absentee status so that we could take Nora to the polls and physically vote.  Both of us have fond memories of joining our parents at the polls in our youth and we wanted to be able to tell Nora the story of how She Was There! at this historic election.

We got our new registration cards noting that our absentee standing had been removed...but also received absentee ballots in the mail.  Upon arriving at our polling place, we learned that we could not make our dream to vote in a booth with Nora a reality.  Luckily, we did not have to fill out provisional ballots...although we're a little bit concerned about what will happen with our absentee ballots when counting comes.  Turns out we were not the only people to whom this had happened at our precinct.

Moving on...

We'd filled out the absentee ballots just in case...all but the oval for Presidential Candidate.  So that part is still part of Nora's political history:

Ah, yes, Mama is indeed for Obama.

Dad...doesn't rhyme with Obama.  No matter!  That's not how it works!  VOTE!

Another childhood polling place memory was that "secret ballot" meant that you weren't supposed to disclose your final choices.  Later I figured out it just wasn't discussed at my house because my parents always supported opposite candidates.

These completed ballots do not cancel each other out.

Next up?  Nora and I will join the Culvers at the aforementioned Tougo.  Basil's got rehearsal with his band.  I hope you all have similar support as your election day continues, that we all find companionship, comfort and commonality in the fact that we--as active members of our democracy--voted.  Here's to continued voices heard, regardless of outcomes. Heck, embracing outcomes.  (Definition of "embrace" to be defined following results.) Here's to hope.

What Big Eyes You Have!

Eeeeek!

I, uh, didn't see you there.  Trick or treat, you say?  I'm sure Granny won't mind...

Hmmm...no, that's not quite it...well, that's better...ah, perfect!

Happy Halloween, everybody!

(With special thanks to Auntie Jesse for the cape.)

Saturday morning with dad

Nora and I took a nap together last Saturday. It worked out well for both of us.

Naps are important, don't you agree?

The Jorgensen Girls

Erin, Nora and I spent a delightful afternoon on Saturday.  Want proof?  Take a look at these photos!

Not a Farmer, Not in a Field: Still Outstanding

Today was a big day for this move, the big balance, the ultimate stand still.  Nora managed about twenty seconds, roughly twice as long as her past standing records.  All days leading up to this one have been one-shot deals or part of the 1-2-3 Stand! game I play with her (which she thinks is hilarious), but today was just hanging out all baby loiterer style.  She spent a good portion of the day leaning against objects for balance and then not.  Standing!

(In case you're curious, she's not on pins and needles about anything she's looking at here, she's just shoving seaweed into her mouth.  In case you are further curious, why yes! that is a new refrigerator in our hallway!)

In other news of physical wonderment, Nora wowed everyone at our apartment building's gathering on Sunday by performing her trick of scooting up to a table, reaching up to the tabletop and then swinging from it.  Wait, I don't think that was clear:  she holds onto the table and SWINGS from it like some sort of baby presidential fitness champion.

I have yet to locate SWINGS FROM TABLETOP on any list of milestones.

I suspect it might not exist.

Nine Months: Four Generations

Weights and measurements:  17lbs, 11oz; 29 inches

Relatives:

Nora's with my Grandpa Baker (or Grampie) and my stepgrandmother, Jannie.  This was taken on our family trip Back East (oh, that phrase evokes so much of my own childhood...like, how I used to think that Moses Lake was in Western Washington because "west" meant farm and "east" meant city) during which we spent a lovely time with Basil's family in belated celebration of Granmary's 60th birthday.  Luckily, my own grandparents live less than an hour away from Nora's so we were able to have a nice New England drive in the becoming fall foliage.

There are more photos of that trip, of course, and some videos.  This one is just for now.

Nora's Crawling Adventure

(Youth Theatre Northwest, September 2008)

Taken using our new Flip Video Mino camera (Thanks ma & pa!), edited using iMovie '08 (thanks Apple!)

Meaning "one stop"

Nora, on the monorail for the first time, imagines the future that will never be.

Affected thusly, she retreats to On the Boards and crafts her newest piece of fundable performance art:(You can tell her work is political in nature because in reality, the former was the latter and vice versa.)

With Apologies to Our Neighbors

Please find a backdated post here.

Not Quite Halloween

I was half organizing the living room, half playing with Nora this morning and picked up the scarf I used in class all last week to play the dragon's-egg-losing pirate, Lady R.  Nora used it to this effect:




I'll bring the dip if you bring the Dostoyevsky.

An Afternoon in the Life of Nora J

2pm

Nora, post bucket-swinging and interestedly watching kids running around at Volunteer Park. We'd just overheard a five-year-old boy say to a batch of other boys "Do you want to play Indians? Or Native Americans?" His query was followed with "I'm a dinobot!" and "I'm riding a dragon!"  Nora was understandably perplexed by the rules of the playground.

3:30pm

Here's our girl with something she does understand:  gears.  Or, rather, moving cool plastic things around that make other similarly cool plastic things move around.  This was in the waiting room of Children's Hospital.  (She was there to have her hearing screened; she didn't have that test at birth.)  The waiting room offered other exciting distractions such as chairs, couches, newspapers, fish (almost as awesome as dogs) and other people's shoes.

6:15pm

Oh, man.  This girl loves her some cherries.  Or, in this case, one cherry nabbed from the sample tray at Whole Foods.  Other patrons in the store could not hold to their must-shop-work-over-eat-soon demeanor once they spied her mug of destruction.

7:30pm

The marketing for these diaper wraps claims that because they fasten in the back that baby hands won't be able to find and loosen them.  Erm, except for babies who have realized that arms and hands rotate.  Mostly she just likes the sound the velcro makes, but I figure we're mere seconds away from her figuring out that the cool sound also means her behind can be diaper free.  

8:15pm

Nora and her papa, engineering bedtime.

Eight Months: TGIF (Time to Giggle, It's Friday!)

Thanks to Flickr for their new video upload tool. Take that, slow YouTube and Blogger!

Swimming and Swinging

It was still pretty hot out after Nora woke up from her afternoon nap, so we got all decked out to swim at the Volunteer Park wading pool. There are no photos of Nora in the water as that required all of my attention, but she loved it tremendously, even when I had her float on her belly in the deeper middle section--the section full of splashers, please note, even though the rules clearly stated no splashing. (The rules also clearly stated that babies must wear swim diapers...I am darn naive when it comes to my perception of whether others will follow rules in the same diligent manner as I, let me tell you. I WAS SHOCKED.)

Here's Nora, post dip and quite refreshed:

Thanks, Mama! That was totes awes!

Wait. There are still people in the water.

Uh, shouldn't that kid be wearing a diaper?

Mom. I've decided. We have to get back in.

Re-clothed, we headed over to the playground to add another first to Nora's park repertoire: bucket swings!

Why, yes, my hair does match the bark.

Speaking of bark, this is what Nora looks like whenever she sees a dog:

You're telling me!  Eyebrows!

When I Was Young in the Mountains*

Last weekend we headed over to Moses Lake for the Jorgensen Family Reunion.

That's all I'm saying. Besides, pictures are worth a thousand words. Or launch a thousand ships. But why can't I paint you?

See, I should have stopped talking. LOOK AT THE BABY!

PS Nora loves to climb stairs now.

*I know. I was young in the desert. But the former is the title of a great Cynthia Rylant picture book and the latter is just true.

Proof of Northwest Baby

Nora tries seaweed for the first time:



Other foods she has consumed (in order of yum factor): blueberries, avocado, cherries, bananas, yams, applesauce, nectarine. Photographic proof of these past delights coming up at some point when we choose blogging over playing with the little nibbling bird.

Seven Months: Babyproofing?

Not pictured: her absolute delight at the fine accomplishment of pulling herself fully upright.

(Yes, that is a case of wine...)