Norah in April

Its incredible to me that I still notice definite changes in Norah each month. I think this month Norah has been more cooperative – more willing to put on her shoes and and brush her teeth – things like that. She takes initiative in ways she never has before like “I’ll get the water bottle” or “I’ll help carry the bag.” Her little offers of help surprise me and replenish my patience tremendously. With all this growth of maturity has come a minor set back: She’s gotten into the habit of telling me she doesn’t want to go to preschool on preschool days and having a little fit. By the time we arrive she’s bounding happily into her classroom without a backwards glance and she’s always happy when I pick her up so I’m not sure what the deal is – I’m just waiting for it to pass. It is strange though when she seems to be having fewer tantrums in general. It’s like she feels the need to start the day off right by checking off her tantrum box and then moving on to be being cooperative.

Speaking of preschool – I had a parent teacher conference last week and her teacher gushed about how much she’s improved. She was marked as “mastered” in nearly every category on her report card and her teacher said she never gets timeouts. At her fall PTC she was a noted behavior problem and her teacher seemed exacerbated with Norah. Norah wasn’t saying anything in Spanish or following any directions. I assured her teacher that Norah didn’t follow directions in English either and that Bryan and I were so pleased she was coloring that we didn’t care if she learned any Spanish. I think her teacher was partly worried we would blame her for Norah’s lack of progress and that was contributing to her frustration. I actually considered pulling her out because I thought maybe her strained relationship with her teacher couldn’t be salvaged but I’m glad I didn’t because Norah really blossomed the second semester. She could hardly hold a crayon when she started school and now is writing words and drawing. She knows her letters and can count to 20 in Spanish, she understands her teachers and is speaking to them using 3-4 words at a time. Her teacher seemed to be as thrilled with Norah’s progress at this meeting as she was frustrated in the fall. We are so happy she’s thriving at school.

This is Norah in a new dress our next door neighbor Paula made her. Norah calls it her “ice cream” dress – she loves it. Notice that her shoes are on the wrong feet – you’d think this might happen up to 50% of the time but some how it is more like 90%. I took this at the zoo today. We were looking at the lemurs and Norah was trying to imitate them.Norah has a great sense of humor. A few weeks ago we were walking on a narrow path at the zoo with tall trees on either side so you couldn’t really see up ahead. We turned a corner and there was a crocodile sculpture that looked real to me and startled me. I think I might have even screamed a little. Norah was cracking up that this scared me and to tease me she climbed into the crocodile’s mouth and said “look mom the crocodile’s eating me ha ha ha” Norah has also started telling jokes – variations of one joke in particular:“How did the Chicken pass the playground? To get to the other slide!” Ba ha ha. This makes her laugh so hard she smacks her her knee.