Letters of Intent

Dear Disney/Pixar:I don't typically thank giant corporations for very much. Truly, you (all) and I know that at the end of the day it boils down to money. Don't try to pretend it doesn't. Still, I would be remiss if I neglected to thank you for Finding Nemo. Not only does it allow the grown-ups in the house a few moments of uninterrupted peace, but it taught our little girl one very valuable lesson. She constantly tells us that Nemo got lost because "he no listen to Daddy". We have taken it upon ourselves, as responsible parents, to remind her of this when she's having trouble listening. She has even extended the object lesson to include listening to all pertinent grown-ups (Mommy, Grammy, etc.). So thank you. That is at least one valuable lesson that she's gleaned from TV. And yes, it was worth the money.Love,The Mom Who Appreciates Good Listeners
Dear City Parking Attendant:It was only when I saw the orange envelope on my windshield that I remembered that my parking pass was valid January through June... and it was July 2nd. Given our current financial situation, a ticket was not high on my list of things to spend my discretionary money on. My heart started palpitating like a southern schoolgirl at cotillion (I do declare). So I was pleasantly surprised that the ticket was made out for $0.00 and listed as a warning! I am beyond elated that in this tourist town, it's not only the cars with out of state plates that catch a break from time to time. Thank you for your decency,The Lady with a Newly Current Parking Pass
Dear Monsoon Season:You're late, but we're so glad you showed up! Now, if you could just go ahead and follow through with your threats to hose this place down every afternoon, I'd be ever so grateful. The sinus pressure is killing me.Love,Extra Strength Tylenol's New BFF

Helping Grandpa Feed Annie

A Fourth of Fun

A neighboring town opted to celebrate the 4th of July on the 3rd this year, given that the 4th was a Sunday. While there was much ado (on both sides of the issue) about separation of church and state, the validity of a holiday not celebrated on the actual day and the sanctity of the Sabbath... er... Sunday, I only had one thought: Sweet! Two days of community events! So we packed up and headed over on Saturday to see what the Town Next Door had to offer.

We left the house a little late and missed the annual pet parade. Fortunately for us, this year's participants were almost all dogs. In the past there have been goats, pigs, donkeys and (I'm totally making this up but it would be awesome) chickens on leashes. We made it there just in time for the actual people parade.

Here are the highlights:

Norah waving to the parade. Our pastor's sweet daughter gave Norah a sucker. I think she was half way down the street and Norah was still yelling, "Thank you LIBERTY!!"

A local church gave out water. It was a pretty hot day - in the low 90's, which is about as hot as we get around here. I was impressed that the church anticipated the needs of the community and worked to meet them. It was kind of like they were doing what churches are meant to do... which unfortunately, is not all that common these days.

I'm pretty sure Anne (Ellie's grandma, in the front there) got a better picture than I did. Still I thought this was SO cute of the girls. I captured this just seconds before they pulled each other over and fell to the pavement in a giant red, white and blue heap of arms and legs.

Toward the end of the parade a truck with a giant water gun drove by. Norah wanted to get wet, so we went and stood behind it. The H2O output was roughly equivalent to a height-of-monsoon-season Pacific Rim light hurricane. Here, Norah is demonstrating that she got wet "all the way to her button".

This red white and blue cutie sure had fun!

Spectacular Spectacular

This Fourth of July, we were a little worried that Norah might not enjoy the fireworks as much as she did last year. Given that we are told almost daily that the train "freaks her out" we figured she might not go in for loud noises. Mark spent quite some time prepping her. He explained that fireworks were lights in the sky and they make loud "boom boom" noises, but that they can't hurt you. He also said that they're so pretty it's hard to be scared of them just because the say, "Boom boom". We brought her little bunny from the car so she could hug him if it got too loud.

The net result was a small, very verbal child sitting next her Daddy giving him a play-by-play of the action. "Oooh Daddy! Big one. Green! Little one, blue." At one point, she even remarked, "No cry Bunny Foo Foo. No scary. Piddy!" We may have done an overly thorough job explaining, but I was super excited that she was so into the fireworks. They're her daddy'sabsolute FAVORITE part of the 4th and he was thrilled to be able to bond withhis little girl over the rockets' red glare.

Here are a couple of very poorly lit photos of the occasion:

See Bunny Foo Foo between their heads? She was showing him (yes, the pink bunny is a he) how pretty the fireworks are.

Heard Around the House

It's time for another edition of Heard Around the House. This I will call the Monkey See Monkey Do Edition. Norah's vocabulary s growing so quickly that she can basically understand (at lease the gist of) almost everything we say. She also enjoys repeating what we say. We have been finding ourselves more and more limited on what we can say in her hearing. Here are a few examples:

"Nonah growin' up. Need a big girl room. With Tinkerbell. Or ladybugs."

We will probably continue the "what do you want in your big girl room?" discussion until I go ahead and decide for her.

"Whatever Mommy."

She uses the right inflection and everything. She was immediately informed that this is not a nice or appropriate thing to say to people and it most certainly is NOT cute.

"Two in August"

When you ask her how old she will be on her birthday, this is her response. We don't remember ever telling her that her birthday is in August.

"Gramma comin' Wednesday. Stay our house."

I told her this exactly once and she repeated it for a week until Grandma came yesterday.

And my favorite.....

"The train freaks me out."

Her dad had just finished telling his mom that the train does, in fact, freak her out.

Your Other Left

My mom - the 25 year veteran teacher who holds a degree in Early Childhood Development - has been citing studies for years that say that if a child still confuses his right and left sides by age 6, there is little to no chance that the child will ever be able to tell right from left without really having to think about it. She spent most of her career teaching 2nd and 3rd grade. She said that by the time kids got to her class, they either had right and left, or they just didn't.

Honestly, Mom and I don't really need a study to tell us that. Unfortunately, she and I both were (apparently) very confused six-year-olds. Don't get me wrong, we know all the tricks. We can tell right from left most of the time without thinking about it too hard. It's usually under stress that the confusion really comes out. I can't tell you how many times one of us has been sitting in the passenger seat of a car, motioning frantically to the right and yelling, "Turn left. Turn LEFT!" That would be your other left.

Until my mom read about the studies, we had a theory that it was genetic. My maternal grandfather was even worse with left vs. right than we were. Whatever side grandpa told you something was on, you could pretty safely do exactly the opposite and be correct about 95% of the time. Personally, I blame my confusion on my left-handedness. I went to school back in the days when the state of California could afford to have less than 30 kids to a class (quaint huh?). With such small classes I tended to be the only left-handed kid in class. I remember multiple times in kindergarten and first grade where the teacher would say, "Now on the right side, that's the hand that you write with - oh except you Shelly." Gee thanks. That wasn't confusing.

Anyway, alllllll that background to say, my mom has already started working with Norah on left and right. I thought she was being a little optimistic, but Norah's getting it really quick! In fact yesterday in the bath, I asked for her left arm, right leg, etc. and she got every one right. Of course, I had to ask her daddy to confirm that she'd gotten it right. Fortunately for us, it turns out it's not genetic!

Gotta Bounce

Our friends from college (Catherine & Todd) came out with their two boys for a wedding right here in our home town. Even though they live in the Boulder area, we just haven't been able to get together. I'm pretty sure that we literally haven't seen them since their wedding, so it was really great to get together and catch up. It was Catherine's brother's wedding and he was kind enough to let us crash the family welcome banquet and hang out.

This is the only picture I managed to get of all three kiddos together. Norah, Joe (behind Norah) and Luke (on the right) were so hungry that they actually sat down at the table without being asked (or told). Amazing!

We almost got the cutest picture of Norah helping little Luke. He wanted to step down off the patio and into the grass with her, so she held his hand and helped him down. But the camera took too long to turn on. So I guess you'll just have to imagine it.

The wedding was being held at a beautiful guest ranch that we'd actually never been to before. There were cows to look at, a pond to throw rocks into and plenty of grass to run and play in! Unfortunately, I got absolutely no pictures of any of those things. I was too busy counting heads. Ever notice that when there's more than one child they naturally run in opposite directions? Yeah, that happened a lot.

The easiest way to get pictures was, of course, to put our tiny tornado in a cage. Fortunately, the bride and groom had thought through the kid containment issue pretty well. They provided a bounce house!!

Needless to say, Norah was having so much fun she didn't even realize that she was caged like a circus animal.

Norah had so much fun with the boys. She keeps asking when we're going to see Yuke and Joe Joe again. Looks like we might have to take a little trip to Boulder!