Stuck

Sorry for the lapse in blog updates. I promise I'll try to be better!!

We've had an eventful past few weeks. To explain the title:
1. Nora recently woke us up in the middle of the night because her arm had gotten stuck in the crib slats. I'm wondering how much longer she'll be in the crib. I absolutely dread moving to a big girl bed because she is so good in her crib. :(

2. I rolled Nora's fingers up in the automatic window in the car the other day as we were driving. Yeah, way to go Momma. I rolled her window up, heard her start screaming "Fingers STUCK!" turned to see what was wrong (while turning through a busy intersection!), saw her fingers smashed between the side of the window and the rubber window frame, almost crashed the car, and frantically tried to find the button to roll the window down. She cried for 30 seconds and was fine. I couldn't believe it. However, she will tell you she broke her fingers (and her wrist). My dad fell on the ice and 'shattered' his wrist the week before last, and after hearing us talk about Grandpa's broken wrist, she now talks about her broken wrist. Grandpa had surgery and is on the road to recovery, and Nora, like I said, is fine. :)

2. Some days Nora is verbally 'stuck' like a skipping record or cd player. I'm training for a 9K for Mother's Day and a 10K for Memorial Day. The other day I had to run 4 miles and I took Nora. We went to a nearby lake that has a 3.5 mile loop. The scenery is beautiful, there are cows, birds, prairie dogs, mountains, trees lots of stuff she loves, so I figured she'd be well occupied and enjoy the run. Well, she did enjoy the run, but it was anything but relaxing for me. SHE TALKED THE ENTIRE TIME. It wasn't just regular talking, she'd say the same sentence repeatedly for 1-2 minutes straight (so like, 15-20 times in a row) and then move on to the next sentence. It was brutal. Here's an excerpt:
Nora: "Want a rock?" (Repeat 20 times)
I stop to pick up a rock for her
Nora: "Drop rock in water? Drop rock in water?" (repeat 20 times)
I told her she could drop a rock in the water when we finished. Brief bout of quiet (oh, maybe 30 seconds)
A woman passes us going the other way
Nora: "That was a girl. That was a girl." (Repeat 5 times) then.. "that was like a man" (the woman had short hair and I guess Nora was saying she looked like a man. Great....)
We pass a prairie dog colony
Nora: after we've passed it "See 'nother prairie dog? See 'nother prairie dog?" Over and over and over...

I tried validating and responding to what she was saying, wondering if she thought I wasn't hearing her or listening. I tried every response I could think of "Yep" "Yup" "uh-huh" "yes" "you're right" "ok" "I heard you" Nothing worked. I know this is nothing compared to the questioning phase, which I am so looking forward to....

So moving on from the 'stuck' items... Along with her preference to dip her food in her milk (and water) Nora has inherited from Murphey an interestingly keen visual perceptual skill. Murphey often will look at someone and say "(S)he looks like so and so" and I will say "Naaah, not really" and then he will say that they have the same nose, teeth, eyebrows, whatever, and then I will see what he is talking about. Well, remember the elephant popcorn? I've now got a few new ones to add:

Nora's "horse" peanut butter and honey sandwich

Nora's "reindeer" corn tortilla
Now, while eating the corn tortilla, she took the first bite out of it, held it up and said it looked like an angel. She then made it dance around a bit. Then she took another bite or two and said "It's the moon!" Which we acknowledged and agreed with. Then she mashed it up, tore it to pieces, ate a few bites, held it up again and said "It's a reindeer!" At this point we both looked at it, I didn't really see it at all, but agreed with her. Then I moved around behind her and looked at it, and was amazed, but saw this. Maybe she'll grow up and be a fabulous artist! :)
For the Grandparents and anyone else who's interested, here's a video of her discovering her horse sandwich.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

And here's another video of Nora's newest skill, CATCHING! Woohoo!!
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Last weekend my friend Kelly from VA came to Colorado. One of her best friends, Jess, had a baby, Carson, in January and lives in Colorado Springs. Kelly and her closest friends from high school and college had a girls weekend in the Springs, and were nice enough to invite Nora and me down for the day on Thursday. It was soooo good to see her (although we missed seeing Maddie who was back home with her Daddy (hey, not a bad rhyme!)) and it was also so nice to meet her closest friends who I've heard about over the years. I think they're the nicest group of women I've ever met.
Watching Maddie on the big screen!
Baby Carson looked ready to type away on the computer. He's soooo cute!!
Nora was not such a good fit for baby Carson's toys...
Although... she did find this Ernie toy that she carried around and would have left with, had I let her... BTW, the sweater she's wearing was Murphey's when he was a toddler. So CUTE! Charlotte held onto it after all these years!!
And I'm sorry it's that this is the back end of Jess's dog Cody, but he was the sweetest dog and Nora was lovin' all over him.
And finally, here are some pics I got of Nora playing over the weekend. :) Gotta love her dress-up play!