Nora Evelyn McGowan

We’re so proud.

To our great alarm, Nora has discovered The Catcher in the Rye. It even seems to be affecting her behavior.

(note: this picture is not posed — none of them are. she dug Salinger out of the bookshelf, took off a sock, and decided to make an evening of it. I have no idea.)

Nora’s paternal granny bought her this very nice crocodile xylophone toy. It’s colorful, it’s noisy, it rolls around, it’s great, and she loves it. And I love that she loves it, but?

I have to admit that I find this toy incredibly frustrating. Before I point out what bothers me so much (it’s not the noise!), here is a picture of Nora loving it (to remind myself why it didn’t go out on the curb this morning).

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We made black and white cookies today in honor of Nora’s half & half day. As of today, Nora has been out exactly as long as she was in: 40 weeks and 3 days.

Yum!

The rocking chair has been on loan from the Baumgartners (they used to be Irish) since Nora was born. Alas, it is not quite large enough for bedtime reading and Nora has been too big to eat in it (her legs tangle with its arms) for a while. So the chair is getting moved to the basement until such time as it can find its way back to Livonia. Soon it will be replaced by the big, soft arm chair intended for bedtime stories and general cuddling. The new chair won’t rock, but it should rock anyway.

Here’s Nora bidding a fond farewell to her rocking chair:

Just last night Jen and I were trying to decide if we need to put locks on the drawers in the kitchen. This afternoon Nora registered her vote:

I humbly apologize for the verbosity of the previous post. Here’s what you’re really after: a photo of Nora contemplating whether a second referendum on the Lisbon treaty is really inevitable at this point.

And a shot of her with her knickers on her head.

I wandered away from the computer earlier and, while I was gone, Nora took the opportunity to send my good friend Markus Nee her first ever Instant Message. I asked her if I could reproduce it here and she smiled and bounced up and down; I must assume this was assent.

]=l.l[i.

I'll note only a few things about her precocious mastery of the medium:

• already she is using emoticons: ]= but I wonder what she’s sad about.
• the second emoticon is somewhat more cheery: |.| I believe this is a person cheering (arms held triumphantly above the head).
• leaving the cryptic: [i. She is somehow setting herself apart from these two previous emoticons; indicating, perhaps, that she is neither sad nor jubilant but instead exists in an offset, declarative space. suggesting a zen like calm belied by the singing and arm swinging with which this brief missive was typed.
• she has chosen to eschew upper case, even in the first person singular pronoun. A common enough decision for instant messaging, but still a striking choice for a pre-toddler.

I can only assume that she was trying to communicate to Markus that her parents have been a mixture of glum and jubilant of late. Depressed that the summer is ending and the normal grind of the school year returns but invigorated by the perennial opportunity for personal growth, meeting new students, exploring new ideas, helping to shape young minds. Meanwhile she remains aloof — undisturbed by such parental vicissitudes. Mommy and Daddy may be frantically preparing her world for the coming semester, but the bean just is.

She is, as ever, truly insightful. Also? teeth 7 and 8 are in. She might be chatting about that. One hopes Squires will offer an interpretation.

Yesterday marked the nine month anniversary of Nora’s arrival on this planet (in our atmosphere, anyway). I’m trapped in a 2 day seminar, but Jen captured the following candid shots:

This past weekend we all went to my mom’s house to mark (rather early) Uncle Brian’s 29th birthday (that number is hexadecimal; 101001 in binary; you’re on your own for the decimal). Here, at long last, is a decent picture of Uncle Jim and Nora.

Nora played hard and ate well (consuming both food-type ingestibles and, as seen here, ribbon):

And, on the way home, belle passed out asleep without letting go of the ball: