Erik's Blog

This morning the clouds parted, the sun came out, and it was actually rather pleasant out. Not as nice as the t-shirt weather we had before the snowfall last week, but very agreeable despite the chill wind. I had taken my camera with me – something I rarely do anymore – so I was particularly attuned to the appearance of flowers around town. Spring brings so much hope for good times ahead. Below are a few photos I took along with a dash of random content thrown in for good measure.
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Well, Nora, here we are, less than ten days until your first birthday, and I must say that you’re a little on the slow side. Other kids that were born with you in March (or even April and May!) are pulling themselves up to a standing position, and some have a smattering of vocabulary. And you, my dear, can’t even crawl!

This is nothing new. Over the past year, you’ve shown nothing if not a chronic, systematic laziness that makes sloths look hyperactive by comparison. Pretty much ever since I cut your umbilical cord on that cool March morning, you’ve been annoyed that the world has had nothing but expectations of you to do stuff. You refused to breast feed, instead preferring to have the milk dropped into your gaping mouth requiring you only to swallow. The only thing you learned faster than your contemporaries was to turn yourself over onto your back, thus requiring less effort in the long run. Your future looks bright as a welfare mooch.
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Today during bathtime, I was trying to teach my daughter to say “hola“. I’ve decided that “hello” is more complicated because of the H sound, and a Spanish salutation is going to be more useful around town, so we’re starting with Spanish. Her big problem is that the O vowel sound still eludes her, so I make a special effort to exaggerate the O, showing the shape of my mouth when I say it. OOOOO-la!

I was repeating, “Hola. Hola. Hola. Hola. Hola. Hola…”

Rather than repeat after me, she made a big movement, pushing her body out of the water and letting it fall back, sending waves up over the edge of the tub.

“Not that kind of ola,” I said.

For, you see, the word for a wave in water is “ola“, which sounds just like the greeting with the silent H, “hola“.

Well, Nora, yesterday was your last cumplemes that we’re going to celebrate. From now on, it’s just once a year. We weren’t going to do much of a party this time, but in the morning your Aunt Belén called and informed me that she was bringing your grandmother and great-grandfather to see you for your 11 month birthday…and that they expected there to be hamburgers!
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This morning Nora was looking particularly cute, and I was itching to put the flash back on my camera and take some photos. The result was a little impromptu portraiture session starring a little blond-haired blue-eyed lass sitting lazily on the sofa.
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Sometime in the past few weeks, Nora has left her “I must put everything I can touch into my mouth!” phase, and is now often content to hold objects in her hands, passing them from one hand to the other. This shift has coincided, unfortunately, with the introduction of self feeding, whereby she is given a small piece of cookie to pick up and eat. The first few times, she didn’t understand what the cookie was for at all, and she picked it up and dropped it, picked it up and dropped it, just like she does with most things. Eventually she figured out that it was for eating and put it in her mouth…but she didn’t understand that she needed to let go of the cookie once it was in her mouth, so she was just sucking on it with it pinched between her fingers. We’ll keep working with her on this.
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Now more interactive than ever, Nora is about at the stage of awareness of a pet dog…who can be taught to do tricks. Her current tricks include clapping and spitting. Also demonstrated in the video is her current fascination with zippers. Zippers are fun because they have the little handle that jingles a bit, and they vibrate a little in your hand when you move them up and down the track. I have a hard time keeping her attention on my face when I wear a jacket with a zipper down the front.

I love the sun, but there’s nothing like a sunbeam coming through the window to make you feel like you live in a big dust cloud. At first I didn’t like the fact that I shot the video through a sun beam, but it does help demonstrate that she’s actually spitting (for extra spittle, try viewing in HD!).
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Yesterday morning, Nora was exceptionally well behaved. After breakfast (she’s most docile after a meal) I set her on the floor in the living room and did my “toss a toy to the other side of her and leave the room before she notices” Batman exit. She remained there playing alone without complaint for 45 minutes (and she’s doing it again today as I type) while I trimmed my RSS feed and got some stuff done around the house. When she couldn’t take it anymore, I put her in the walker and wheeled her into the kitchen so she could watch me do the dishes. As I was scrubbing dishes, I was thinking about how wonderful her behavior was that morning, and how she wasn’t even complaining that I was ignoring her with the dishes. About that time my “maybe it’s too quiet” mammalian neurons fired and I spun around to see what she was up to. She had vanished!!
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The other day, I put Nora in her little red chair. She was playing with an empty bag of wet wipes. Garbage, it turns out, makes the best toys. She loves playing with an empty plastic bottle. Anyway, where was I… Oh, right. She dropped it and it went a few feet in front of her, so she stood up!!! I was caught off guard, but was able to put my hand on her belly to stop her forward momentum, and she stood there for a few seconds.

What you’re about to see is a reenactment of the event.
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Yesterday, I was informed that Nora was expected to be at daycare at 9:00 this morning, dressed all in white, and with moisturizing cream applied to her face so that her face could be painted and she could be dressed as a snowball and paraded around the streets of town. It’s the annual Carnival parade, the time of year when Spanish kids, who have never had the Halloween costume tradition that American kids enjoy, get to dress up as various adorable things and parade around looking cute. Since I’m always a good sport about trying out traditions of my adopted country, I was there at 9:05 sharp with Nora dressed all in white, and my camera and video camera with empty memory cards and full batteries.
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