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Preparing

We leave tomorrow to go and see Nora's Nana and Grampa in Alexandria. Nora loves airplanes - and of course she loves Nana and "yampa" too - so it is sure to be another tiring and exciting day for all of us. We get to have a whole other Christmas. And Nora gets to wear her whole Christmas outfit again! She now knows how to say that it is a "pity dess nana made it."

Traveling with a toddler takes so much preparation. Ken has multiple lists going to make sure we don't forget anything. I even packed Nora her own backpack this time. We have a new sticker book and some of her new Christmas books, her baby and many many cheerios. And of course a change of clothes ready to go (for me too!).

I've had nightmares about being "that mom" with "that kid," the one screaming and suddenly asked to leave the plane. I hope Nora's usual sunny disposition prevails. It could be a long flight...

More on Christmas

Now that I've caught caught up a bit more on sleep I can better reflect on our Christmas.

Christmas Eve morning began with a trip to the mall to see Santa. Mimi and Papa accompanied us. The mall is close and their Santa is actually pretty good. A friend gave me the tip last year that if you go to the mall first thing on Christmas Eve the lines are much more reasonable. That has been true for two years in a row now. As I drove to the mall I pondered the whole Santa experience, which is still clearly more for me than for Nora. While last year I could put her on his lap and think it was cute and funny that she was crying, this year it felt much more mean. I guess that's because now I know she understands things and can communicate her hurt to me. So we asked Santa to stand behind us and Mimi and I sat with Nora on Santa's chair. It was much more pleasant.

Christmas Eve dinner Ken cooked pinwheel steaks, sweet potato fries and salad. It was low key and easy (especially for me since I didn't even help. I had Christmas Hand, Foot and Mouth disease - Nora's own special present for me).

Really Nora's Christmas was defined by three gifts. The first, lucky for us, was her table. She has spent considerable time already sitting and coloring there. She knows it is her table - saying "MY table" pretty often, and sitting with her knees tucked under as she concentrates on coloring whatever picture she is currently creating.

The second gift was the tent - the igloo - that Mimi and Papa gave her. She was a bit hesitant at first, but once she got in she loved it. If Nora was missing, she was in her igloo. She ate, played and read in her igloo all evening. And she convinced everyone to get in with her at some point.

And the real winner was the cheerio book from Betty - "Betty Dallas" as Nora calls her. The book asked the reader to fill in certain pictures with cheerios. Nora liked that idea, and she liked the idea to eat the cheerios a whole lot more. She ate her weight in cheerios and more. She would "read" the book and eat the cheerios at the same time. Over and over and over again. She wouldn't eat any dinner.

Christmas has never been my favorite holiday - I'm not a scrooge, but I'm not Fezziwig either. But watching Nora and seeing how much she makes everyone around her smile and laugh may make more of a "believer" out of me after all.

Christmas

All I can really say is that I am exhausted. Which must mean Nora had a fantastic 2nd Christmas. Thanks Mimi, Papa, Unlce Andrew and Glenda (Nora's biggest fan) for spending a great day with us.

It is 8 o'clock and I think I'm off to bed.

Personal Day

Nora slept until 7:15 today. I can write that because I am sure it was a fluke and will never happen again even if I do put it out to the universe. But it was amazing. Amazing. A great beginning to my day dedicated to me.

I had planned a few weeks ago to take a "personal day" today - on my first day of my two week school break. I had determined that I would put all my mom guilt about daycare aside for a day and just think about me. I would send her to daycare and I would stay home. Alone.

Ever since I started sending Nora to daycare last year I have had this horrible nagging guilty feeling from the second the bell rings at the end of school to the time 10 minutes later when I pull into the church parking lot to pick Nora up. If I am not in school I should be with her. Now. Even being 2 minutes later than normal makes my heart race. It is irrational, I know, but I can't stop it.

Or, I couldn't stop it. Sometime in the last three weeks, as Nora's health returned to normal, I realized that I was tired. That I hadn't really had a guilt-free gone-from-Nora moment in two years. That I needed to kick that awful guilty feeling to the curb and relax on the couch. Take a day for me.

I prepared myself for this for a while. I confessed to Miss Laura this morning when I dropped her off that I was taking time for myself. I felt that guilt rise up. But I kissed Nora goodbye and went out the door to begin my day for me.

I had pictured myself reading a whole book wrapped in the covers of my bed. Or watching trash TV on the couch all day. Or napping all day long to catch up for two years of sleep deprivation. I warned Ken that I was not to be bothered about chores on my day to myself. He complied.

None of my super-relaxing scenarios turned into reality. I didn't have a book to read. Trash TV got boring really fast. And I did nap, but after sleeping to 7 am today I didn't feel as wiped as I sometimes do. I left daycare, went to the post office to mail my Christmas cards, came home and did the dishes, watched some Ellen, surfed the Internet. Ken and I went to Ikea to get Nora's Christmas gift. And then I did nap for an hour or so after we got home. Then I went to get Nora. And we went to the park.

I did enjoy being in the house without Nora around for a bit. But it got quiet. And all the little reminders of her - including the ornaments she hung on all the knobs around the house before she left this morning - made me miss her at the same time I was relishing my silence. The nagging guilt left me alone today, as I had hoped it would. And now, after taking time for me, I am more than ready to spend my two weeks with little "me" time and lots of "us" time.

Jingle Bells

Nora is in love with the Christmas tree. Upon waking in the morning, she has changed from her usual routine of stopping at the fridge for milk to walking to the tree and turning the lights on. She says "bye bye sismas tee" when we leave the house and she turns the lights off and says goodnight before she goes to bed. She has fallen in love with some of the ornaments as well. The pink sequin star and two "jingle" bells no longer reside on the tree, but in her Santa purse. And each day last week when we got home she would take some ornaments from the tree, put them around her wrists and walk around the house as if she were a Christmas tree herself.

I can already picture the tantrum that will occur when the tree must depart.

Toddler Crush

Today at the Christmas party at daycare, I met the mom of the boy who took his shirt off for Nora at daycare a few weeks ago. The one who she walked into a table for instead of letting go of his hand. The mom told me that he loves Nora so much. That when she talks about school in the morning, he just talks about Nora. That when he sings his ABCs he sings, "A, B, C, Nora, Nora, D..."

He might be the craziest one in daycare in terms of his enegry. But he must be the smartest one in terms of his taste in girls.

Presents, Hairbows and Helping

I'm afraid of presents. Last year, I was excited to get Nora a Christmas gift and a birthday gift. I hid them both in plain sight and she never noticed. She wasn't quite one yet.

This year is different. Nora knows somehow what a present is. She knows how to spot things I'm hiding from a mile away. She knows who Santa is (she said "Santa. Ho, Ho, Ho" to the bearded butcher in Central Market tonight. He wasn't so thrilled). She has already gotten a few presents for Christmas and her birthday, which are woefully close together. Last night, after she opened two gifts she asked for more. That's when I got scared. I think maybe I should just call off her birthday until she knows better. Too many presents. Too overwhelming. Too much stuff. Ugh.

But enough about presents - on to hairbows. I have been agonizing about Nora's hair for a month now. Do I cut it? Should she have bangs? Does it look too much like a mullet? And for all my thinking about it, nothing has happened. She still has wispy wavy hair that goes into her face too often. But she is so close to not having bangs, to being able to tuck it behind her ear. She refuses to wear anything in her hair. She likes to say "hairbow" but that is about it. But somehow, Miss Laura conned her into wearing a Pebbles-looking hairstyle today for her Christmas party. And when we got home I somehow conned her into a ponytail. And when I looked at her with the hairbow in - especially the ponytail - I couldn't deny it anymore. My baby is a little girl. She looked so big and grown up with her hair all "done." Maybe that is why I haven't cut her hair. Maybe I am already - at 23 months - trying to keep Nora as my little baby.

And helping. Nora is such a helper. She loads the dishwasher, turns on her nebulizer, brings her dishes to the sink. She cleans her books and shelves with diaper wipes, puts her coat away, turns the Christmas Tree lights on and off. And the other night she even helped Uncle Andrew with his laundry. He was so patient as she took each piece out of the dryer and put it in his basket. Then he handed her each piece from the washer and she put it enthusiastically in the dryer. She loves to help. And most times, when she's done, she'll look at me and say, "Yeah, Nora!"

My little growing helper will get lots of love, attention and presents this Christmas and birthday season. And my best present will be to have time away from work to spend with her.

Hot Fire

Ken should really be writing this. But he won't.

Before bed most nights Nora and Ken read Goodnight Moon. For those of you who know the book well, you can picture the green room with the fireplace in the background. Nora has apparently taken to this fire and wished the author had included it in the list of inanimate objects that the bunny says goodnight to before bed.

Nora, as Ken reports, sucks her thumb like Maggie from the Simpsons sucks her pacifier, as he reads, but each time he turns the page she removes the thumb long enough to point and say, "hot fire!" Then she replaces her thumb and waits for the fire to reappear on the next page so she can repeat her pointing and stating "hot fire!"

Tonight Nora was asking for me to put her to sleep (which I don't do because it takes 40 minutes) and she was crying after I left her with Ken in the rocker. He started reading Goodnight Moon and she kept crying. That is, until he pointed to the hot fire. She repeated and pointed. And apparently at the end of the book she said, "night night hot fire."

Too funny.

Nora's First Christmas Tree

With each ornament I took out of the box, Nora oohed and aaahed. To the white and silver heart, she said "mine" and laid it on her chest just where her heart is. To the giant silver snowflake ornament, she said, "so pretty!" And when I took out the star ornaments she started singing "Twinkle Twinkle." (We recently realized she knows the words to most of her songs - and sings along when she doesn't want to nap...)

Nora loved putting every ornament on the tree. And they when we were done she wanted to take them all off and do it again. She took the ones off the bottom two or three times and redecorated. Each time she successfully replaced an ornament she said, "Yeah, Nora!" and clapped for herself.

She even said "night night, Christmas tree," as we went off for bedtime.

Her nose is running - maybe a cold, maybe an allergy, maybe molars - but she is happy as can be.

It was the most fun I've had decorating a Christmas tree.

Ahhhh...A breath of fresh cuteness

Now that the sickness has fled Nora's body for the time being. she is back to her too cute self. In comparison to her moaning, whiny sick self, her abundant energy and talkativeness has Ken and I constantly amused. Here is the new Nora cute list - since it's been a while since I made one.

OTay: Nora's new word of the day - everything today was "O-Tay." Lots of her words are cute: her excited breathless "yeah" in response almost everything, including Ken's asking her if she wants a sister or brother, "bless you, Dada," every time Ken sneezes or coughs, "books a bed" every time she wants to read in bed, which is often, and her labeling of all the colors of everything she sees and does.

Picture Books: Now Nora reads to us instead of us always reading to her. She knows all the pictures in her picture books and says the words enthusiastically and shuts the book and pronounces "the end."

Silly kisses: Nora sometimes, if you're really lucky, will give you silly kisses - which means she kisses you numerous times on the cheeks, nose and sometimes the mouth. And she doesn't stop because it always makes us laugh.

Airplanes: Nora LOVES airplanes. Every time she hears an airplane, even when we're in the house, she stops what she's doing, looks up and says "aplane." She also tries to say helicopter, which is really cute.

Drawing: Nora loves to draw, especially with the many colored pens she finds in my school bag. Tonight she drew many colored Os. I took a picture since amazingly it did look like she was drawing Os. She colors so intently and makes straight lines on the floor with her pens or crayons, organizing her materials.

Cleaning: She certainly doesn't take after me, but at least once a day Nora asks for a few diaper wipes to "cean" her books and toys. Sometimes she insists I help. Maybe she is trying to send me a message about my own cleaning skills.

And the nebulizer: While I wish this wasn't even in her life, she is SO good about doing her nebulizer so far. When I tell her it's time for her mask she runs to open the door for the apple tv, asks for Yo Gabba Gabba or the Backyardigans and then turns on the machine and jumps up on my lap for a relaxing ten minutes of tv and breathing pulmicort. I have a feeling this arrangement is too good to last.

There are so many cute things that Nora does it's actually hard to list. She is just so enthusiastic about life right now. At the same time, she's asserting her independence, trying to do everything from putting on her socks and pants, to feeding herself, to serving her own cheerios.

Oh please stay around, healthy Nora. I missed you!

The New Noramal

With each progressive sickness, beginning when Nora was 9 months old, I knew my odds of one day having the doctor tell me that Nora has asthma were increasing. I would worry about it, cry about it, but all of that was unproductive - the kind of asthma Nora would have would be genetic, ironically totally out of my control even though it was my genetics that could bestow that gift. Ken would tell me to stop worrying, but I couldn't help it. That's what moms do.

Wednesday morning I sat in the doctor's office and she said, "I'm thinking Nora has a mild form of asthma..." She explained that looking at the X-Rays she noticed that all four of Nora's big infections have been in the same spot in her lungs and that she assumes there is a tightness there that is allowing bacteria to grow in the mucous her tightened lungs are producing.

I thought I would cry, that I would be scared and maybe angry. But I actually felt relief when the doctor said it. Finally I could stop worrying about it maybe being true and concentrate on helping her get through it. And, most of all, if this is what will help us keep her well, then I am happy to know the cause. Even if it is that dreaded word.

And maybe I wasn't so upset because it is my genetics. Because I know that I have lived a happy life with asthma. Because I know it is something I can potentially control more so than those other bugs that keep getting the best of my poor baby.

So our new normal includes twice daily nebulizer treatments. She is on Pulmicort, a steroid that will strengthen the weak spot in her lungs. So far, Nora hasn't minded the treatments. She gets a bit antsy. She wants to suck her thumb when she can't. But she hasn't fought it (maybe because it means she gets more TV) and she actually likes to hold the duck shaped mask herself sometimes.

I didn't get weepy about any of this until I took the photo of her with her mask. That new normal may be a relief, but it still is hard to see that your baby is going to have potentially permanent sturggles. But if the first vomit-free day in a week is any indication, maybe this is a turning point towards better health. At least I hope so.

Back to Noramal

As the week to forget carries over into week two, Nora is slowly getting back to normal. In our attempt to get her to eat something, anything, we may have started some less desirable habits - namely eating in the living room. But when your kid doesn't eat for 5 days, those "bad habits" aren't really what you are thinking of at the time.

So today, still home from daycare, Nora got to spend the day with Ken. At around 1 he texted me at school: "She is great but threw up after yoyoke and we had a disagreement about where lunch would be served. See email."

And here for all to view is the contents of that email:

(On another note, every child mispronounces things in cute ways that cause the whole family to use that new pronunciation. Nora's version of yogurt is yoyoke. So that's what Ken and I call it - now and maybe forever.)

The Week To Not Remember

After recording this here, I am going to try to forget it all. I will have it here for proof that we did survive.

This week, Ken got hit by a car, Nora got really sick yet again and Ken caught her bug again. More coughing, fights over medicine, trips to the doctor, blood draws and chest X-rays, and countless lost hours of sleep. And I had to work all day Saturday.

She's not even two and she knows how to hold her own barf bowl.

Life isn't fair. But I guess I knew that already...

I Prefer Sidelines, I Think...

The daycare used to tell me that Nora didn't talk, that she just sucked her thumb, that she was quiet and calm all day. And I worried. As I wrote before, I worried that all of that observing and "playing" on the sidelines meant she was unhappy at daycare.

Well, as I knew deep down would happen, Nora has broken out of her shell. She talks much more (at home and at daycare) and she also is more interactive. Today I dropped Nora off and Miss Laura told me that Nora has been "lovin' on" all the boys, holding hands and kissing them. On Monday I had to sign an accident report since she had walked into the corner of a table and scratched her nose while holding tightly onto one of the boys' hands. Today that same boy screamed for joy when Nora arrived, "NORA!" And then he proceeded to take his shirt off.

It just so happens that this boy is notorious for his energy and crazy dancing. Miss Laura said that if this is the kind of boy Nora is going to go for, we better start worrying now.

As Nora like to say, "uh-oh."

Oh - and all this kissing has led to yet another sickness for Nora. She came home with a fever today.

Great. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

Sunglasses or Tales of a Budding Drama Queen

With the time change came solar glare. With the solar glare came Nora complaining in the car about the sun (understandably). With the complaints came Ken and I suggesting (on separate occasions when we were not all in the car together) that Nora needed sunglasses. With that suggestion came Nora's asking for a week for "suglasses" (apparently the child has a good memory).

After traveling to three stores and being told that sunglasses were "seasonal" (are you kidding? We live in Texas? And even so, has anyone at Babies 'R Us ever been blinded by solar glare off snow?), we finally hit the jackpot of sunglasses at Target. Nora tried on at least 15 pair and I settled on two (what if one breaks?), a Dora pink pair with flexi sides and some more fashionable Hello Kitty glasses. Since finding the glasses, Nora hasn't traveled anywhere without them. She wears them in the car, taking them off only to look for the sun she is shielding herself from. This morning she put them on, took them off, looked ahead and said, "Sun. There it is!" and promptly put the glasses back on her face.

She has the dramatic way of sitting, arms relaxed over the sides of the carseat, mouth relaxed into a pout, that just cracks me up every time I look at her with the glasses on. And I can't imagine a day when it won't make me smile.

Maybe He's Not So Crazy?

I've written before about Nora's skepticism towards Uncle Ian. On Halloween when he came over to visit she began the evening in the usual fashion - hiding her eyes, clinging to me, etc. But what we've realized lately with both her uncles is that she really is just being coy. She certainly tends towards the dramatic (when Ken took her to the doctor today for her follow-up and dose one of the H1N1 shot, she talked about her booboo from the doctor all the way to daycare and then they told us she talked about it all day long. And she says it in this dramatic little fake voice).

When we finally convinced Nora that if she wanted to go outside on Halloween she had to wear her panda costume so finely crafted by her Nana, she surprisingly brought it to Uncle Ian. What ensued was quite comical.

Due to some technical difficulties, the videos below are in reverse order...

Girly Girl

“One purse. Two purse. That purse. This purse.”
“One, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, nine shoes.”
“No. Pink cup!”

Nora is a girl. A girly girl. At work today someone asked me why I thought she was girly, whether it was our training or her natural preference for handbags, shoes and all things pink. I’ve been reading about this question a lot on other mom blogs. In the Times Motherlode blog there was a report questioning whether we push our kids too much into a gender role and “predict” their sexual future for them. There was even an article about a Dutch family who is keeping the gender of their child a secret to everyone, including the child, to see what happens.

I never gave the whole gender role question much thought, honestly. Nora has lots of pink things. She also has lots of blue things. Her room is green, with a touch of pink. She has blocks, cars, fisher price toys that surely are gender neutral. When she first picked up a purse it was pretty accidental. Last Christmas she found one of my small red purses and she loved it. As she learned to walk it dangled from her arm constantly. I didn’t give her the purse in the first place, but I surely encouraged her to keep playing with it. It was cute.

I’m not really sure it matters if kids like what they are “supposed” to like. I doubt it really has much to do with what their future preferences are. But for now Nora is a girly girl. And I guess I like it that way.

Sick

One of the worst things as a parent is when you feel helpless. For me, Nora being sick makes me feel that way. All I want to do is help her get better, feel better, avoid future sicknesses. In most of those arenas, I am powerless. I can soothe her, rock her, cuddle her, but I can’t make the pain go away; I can’t wave a magic medicine wand; I can’t promise her that I’ll quit my job and never send her back to germy daycare again. That’s the big one. That’s the mom guilt I can’t seem to shake.

Nora was sick this week. Really sick. I’ve blocked out bout number one with pneumonia, but I’d venture to say that she was sicker than she’d ever been before. It started with a virus – one that did not test positive for swine flu. It progressed into croup, which progressed into pneumonia. Horrible. She was crying in pathetic hoarse voice that even the hardest of hearts would have melted at – I’m sure of it. She wouldn’t eat – sometimes she wouldn’t even swallow. And she wouldn’t sleep. Who can blame her really.

When Nora is sick I get teary. I know it annoys Ken – that when she cries I most of the time do too. And I don’t mean to. I would stop doing it if I knew how. But I just want to help my poor sick baby. I know he does too. His brain gets more focused. Mine gets more fuzzy. I lose my focus on anything other than her. The house gets more messy. I forget everything when I leave for work. I just can think about Nora and what I need to do to make her better. Thankfully Ken thinks effectively about everything else and the whole house doesn’t fall apart. But this time Ken was sick too.

I have to send Nora back to daycare tomorrow. She was a big strong Panda for Halloween last night. I hope she can use some of her fierce roar to ward off future illnesses.

"Poop!"

Apparently there’s a bath monster in our house now as well. A very unexpected monster, I must say, since ever since Nora grew out of the newborn phase, she has been a huge bath fan.

Last Saturday when my parents were babysitting, Nora pooped in the bath. This wasn’t a first. She had done it to Ken and I at least a few times; she did it to her Nana in DC in July; she had actually done it just a week earlier when my parents were giving her a bath. Like the vomit, the poop in the tub isn’t a family favorite, and so when Nora looked a bit like she was readying herself for poop the next night, Sunday, I told Ken I thought she was going to poop, we whisked her out of the tub and sat her promptly on her new toilet seat. I guess that wasn’t the smartest parental move, since now apparently there’s a monster called “poop” in that tub.

I had just gotten Nora a new training toilet seat last weekend. She has started to tell one of us every time she poops or pees and then takes us to change her diaper. This, to me, seemed like a sign that we should at least start trying to introduce the idea of the potty. And when I brought the new seat home, Nora was eager to jump on, clothed, and even grabbed toilet paper and wiped herself in all the correct places. (I guess my lack of privacy in the bathroom has taught her something at least…)

Back to the bath – every night since last Sunday – so a whole week now – Nora has cried at even the mention of it being bath-time. She used to take off running to be caught – part of an elaborate entertaining routine that used to encompass bath-time. Once forced into the water, she now whimpers, but ismostly ok while the water is running. She used to play and laugh and sing. And she was starting to do this adorable thing where she had Ken hold her while she floated on her back, super relaxed and happy. Now, the second the bath water stops flowing, she starts crying to get out and says, “Poop! Poop!” over and over. We try to tell her it’s ok, that if she poops it’s not a big deal, she can pee if she needs to (which she usually does). But nothing works and we end up just taking her out and having to calm her down before she’ll settle for bed. She clearly is afraid of pooping in the tub.

Tonight we tried giving her a bath in our bathroom, trying to divert attention away from any incidental memory she has of the poop and the training toilet. She wasn’t easily tricked. We kept asking her to sit down (she hasn’t sat in the tub for a week now) and telling her she was in the “special tub.” And I distracted her with the top of my mousse container and travel size shampoo bottles. She was so distracted that when she reached down to get the shampoo, her butt touched the water, and down she sat. And then she looked at us and said, “Uh oh, Nora.”

But then we had to suggest it was time to get out, she wanted to stay in and keep playing. So maybe the monster’s moving out?