The end of the summer had Nora
saying a few words (I declared her first word “ball” on July 16th,
but she didn’t say it again for a long time). Toby was enjoying pounding trees
with his plastic hammer and digging dirt in the front yard – sometimes building
“ant traps,” sometimes excavating fossils. We gradually noticed that he was
less frustrated than he used to be – still pushing boundaries, but recovering
from disappointment faster. Also quickly reading and writing more and more.
He went through a brief but
passionate stint of devotion to the PBS show “Daniel Tiger,” based on the Mr.
Rogers character. We loved it; the little tiger has SO MANY characteristics
that were shockingly Toby-like, I had to conclude much of the behavior I thought
strange or funny is actually classic 4-year-old stuff. There was also a phase
of devotion to “Super Why,” a cool show about reading, during the fall – just a
few months. I think he dropped it because his reading level just zoomed ahead.
The last weekend in August, Nora’s
walking really took off. That was the same weekend we went to the annual
Institute for Applied Ecology Invasive Species Cookoff (featuring such
delectables as bullfrog legs and bbq nutria, along with lots of Himalayan
blackberry). I dressed Nora in my favorite dress, and she and Toby danced with
MommaSue to the live bluegrass.
I took her in to work with me that
weekend to water some baby Joshua trees.
By September, lovely fall weather
was in full swing. We enjoyed a play date with one of our favorite families,
the Flatz-Leake clan. Charlie is between Nora and Toby’s age, and Milo is about
a year younger than Nora. From a photo perspective, it was mostly an occasion
for Nora to show off how killer cute her corduroy pants were.
Another fun outing with the
Flatz-Leakes was to an amazing local attraction, the steam power museum. All
three of the older kids were entranced, and I’ll admit I was too. I never
understood the allure of oil, steam, and pistons before. Clanking,
hot-forge-smelling, ponderous wheeled beasts! We’re totally in love. (And there
were some more modern machines to enjoy, too).
Fortuitously, Matt’s car got a flat
tire the next day. He had two enthusiastic helpers to solve this mechanical
problem.
In October, we gave up on my old
Toyota and bought a new Toyota – a Prius! We were excited to finally join the
Royer hybrid bandwagon. Even though both Matt and I are horrible at car
shopping and bargaining.
To go with the new car, the
growing baby got a new car seat! She had fun playing in her old one until we
gave it to a friend who was expecting.
Hard to believe she used to look tiny sitting in the infant seat.
Nora made more amazing
developmental leaps, of course. She started coloring with markers by the end of
the summer, something we didn’t even consider offering Toby until later. (One
of the advantages of being a younger sibling, I guess.) On September 1st,
she said “Mama” for the first time; by then, her other regular words were
Daddy, ditty (kitty), and uh-oh (which was always used appropriately, and
always extremely cute). Later that month she started saying “dat” and pointing
to learn the names of all the other interesting things in her life. Parts of
the face and articles of clothing were favorites. With walking comes shoes,
too, of course; I had a little brown and pink pair all ready, but was
unprepared for how much she would love them. Once on, we weren’t allowed to
take them off! This quickly turned into a general enthusiasm for shoes. Luckily
she has her brother’s stash as well as an abundance of hand-me-downs to play
with (below, in August and October).
She also continued to enjoy
exploring various foods, sometimes creatively.
Luckily, she also really enjoys
cleaning up!
On September 20th, she
climbed on the table for the first time and SCREAMED with joy. She takes so
much pleasure in her abilities, it’s a lot of fun to watch. (Although
exhausting to keep track of – Toby wasn’t nearly so much of a climber.) With
all of this adventuring come accidents, too. Nora likes to re-enact them
emphatically, e.g. getting down on her hands and knees in the kitchen and
gently touching her head to the floor where she bumped it.
Here she is sitting in the grownup
rocking chair, which she can climb in alone and rock herself. (She loves the
child-sized rocker too). Please note the awesome radish shirt, which I put on
her as much as I could as a tribute to my dissertation.
Toby continued to be Nora’s
biggest fan. One favorite quote: “Nora is so smelly good. She smells like bread
and butter and jelly jam.” (That’s one of his favorite snacks.) As she started
running in October, chasing games became more common. Lots of happy screaming
and giggling every day, at least until Nora got knocked over one too many
times. Then the screaming got frustrated. I have a feeling this pattern will go
on for years.
Here’s a picture he took of her,
showing the true spirit of the relationship – these two are crazy about each
other.
In addition to being interested in
Nora, he was (and is) still very into Star Wars. He’s been taking yoga since the summer,
and finds some of the poses very useful when he’s being a Jedi.
Toby’s social development has been
exciting as well. He started talking about a best friend, Sofia, in the summer
– he said he would miss her when we were on vacation, and had new stories
almost every day. I wanted to see this in person, so we set up a play date. It
was fantastic! He was SO excited; I could really see the difference between a
kid he knows and is happy to play with, and a real friend.
Another fun development in October
was that Nora started getting out of bed by herself –in the early morning as
well as after naps. There may not be anything sweeter than a
sleepy, frowsy-headed toddler wandering out to find you after a nap, dragging a
stuffed animal, still snuggly and warm. I usually scoop her up and hold her on
the couch for a few minutes until she’s ready to get up and run some more. (I
admit it’s less fun in the morning, when the sun isn’t up and I want 3 more
hours of sleep but there is no containing her.) Her language skills continued
to increase exponentially, with the addition of “more” as a daily staple, lots
of new kinds of sounds, and the increasing inclusion of other less common words
(ear, hair, etc.).
She also finally got excited about
books! Hooray!
Another Nora milestone, about the
same time, was the first pigtails. Only the ladies at the YMCA could do this;
it was months before I achieved it myself.
The end of October saw lots of
excitement. This video of the kids playing the pots together is one of my
favorite moments so far.
Here’s Nora showing how she can
sit and eat in a big-girl chair (note that at publishing she’s two and still
prefers the high chair)…
… and also how great she was at
drawing already.
She even started thinking about
using the potty (but don’t get too excited, this didn’t develop into anything
but cute photos).
But of course, the REAL excitement
at the end of October was Halloween! We hosted the second annual pumpkin-carving party on our deck. Nora really got into it
this year.
I didn’t do a great job of
documenting the other attendees, but there were other toddlers, preschoolers,
and even a couple of preteens (resulting in a nice Pokemon pumpkin). It was
great. Here are our productions on Halloween itself (Toby drew the ones on the
ends – a kitty on the right- and I used a pattern for the middle pumpkin)
Toby was devoted to being a storm
trooper for Halloween (albeit one with a light “saver”). He wore the costume
for weeks before the event – in fact, it still makes appearances even now. I
didn’t ask Nora’s permission before stuffing her in the cute bear costume Toby
wore at the same age. It turns out to be extra cute when the hat fits, and 10x
cuter from the back when the waddling toddler MAKES THE TAIL WAG!!!! Just
imagine it, and then at least double the greatest cuteness you can imagine. I
couldn’t get a video.
For Halloween itself, we went out
with another temporary faculty member at Willamette, Scott, and his family.
Their boys matched our kids in age and enthusiasm – we made it about 7 blocks.
We enjoyed watching the older two run up to houses (sometimes up narrow winding
steps), knock, and practice asking for candy.
Afterwards, the kids enjoyed the
loot inventory and a small sample.
Then our two crashed out together
in our bed. Which melted my heart.
After Halloween there was a
disastrous election. Toby was old enough to know what was going on a bit, so we
celebrated election day with dressing up.
Afterwards we had some heartfelt
discussions with him about how democracy works, why this particular election
was so hard for some members of his family and community (including a beloved
newlywed teacher on DACA), and why we’re optimistic. Then the grownups
pretended we weren’t losing sleep, and distracted ourselves as best we could by
doing fun family stuff. Matt was inspired to take the kids to an indoor
trampoline park, which was a huge hit.
And we just keep moving forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment