Nora-isms

A while back, I did a post compiling recent “Nora-isms” as a way to share the funny, but mostly just document, things that Nora says and does. I’ve been working on this one for a while, adding things over time. Seems like it’s about time I actually hit “publish”! :)

After we got home from work/daycare one night, Michael ran upstairs to shower. Nora kept asking me where he was, so I told her that he was in the shower because he was dirty and smelly. Nora was sitting at the table doing puzzles or coloring or something when Michael came down from shower. When she saw him, she said, “Daddy, are you nice and clean now?”

It was raining as we left the house one morning. Standing in the garage, Nora said, “Oh no, it’s raining!” I said, “I know, what do we say to the rain?” As we ran out to the car, her little voice started singing (and I chimed in), “Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.” Nora paused for a beat and then, as I was loading her into her car seat, said, “It’s not working!”

We often talk to Nora about her day at daycare, what she did, and we ask what the other kids do, too. Her answers will vary by the day for most of the kids, but there is one child—the only boy—for whom her answer is ALWAYS the same. We ask her, “Nora, what does Liam do at Mary’s?” Her answer, without fail, is always “Play cars.” If we ask her “Does he play with blocks?” or “Do you play with him?” the answer is always “No.” One day, we changed the follow-up question to “What else does Liam do?” Nora’s answer: “Nothing.” Totally cracked us up. I texted Liam’s mom—a friend of mine from way back in 1st grade, actually—and she died laughing, too! I guess it sounded pretty accurate.

Browsing a picture book about animals, Nora was telling me about the animals she was seeing. She pointed, “Baby chicks!” And then, her attention was drawn to a little brown spot on the back of a baby chick… “Went poo poo,” she added. Allllllriiiighty then. :)

Sitting next to Tessa on the couch one morning, Nora was taking Tessa’s front paw and putting it into her own palm. “Tessie high fives!” she exclaimed.

As usual, Michael was singing to Nora. And as usual, she wasn’t having it. But her response was new! Suddenly, “Stop singing! My ears hurt.”

Nora and I were sitting on the couch one morning reading books. Michael came downstairs in his boxer briefs and T-shirt to grab his shorts out of the dryer. But before doing so, he decided to mess with Nora. He came into the family room where we were and asked, “Nora, how do I look?” Her first reaction was, “Good!” But then I said, “What about his shorts?” Nora glanced down at Michael’s legs and then got this incredulous look on her face. “Daaadddddyyy…” she said. Then, unexpectedly, “TOO TIGHT!” Michael and I just about died.

On yet another rainy morning, Nora was in her rain coat. At a stop light, I look back and she was pointing to the Oshkosh logo embroidered on her sleeve. Out of the blue, she said, “Mommy, coat says, NO MORE RAIN!”

At the dinner table on my mom’s birthday, we asked Nora if she could wink. We showed her how to do it, and of course, as she attempted for herself, she closed both eyes (with great exaggerated movements) instead of just one. When she caught on that she was closing both, she took her hand and attempted to pry open/hold open one of her eyes while “blinking” with the other! What a goof.

While we were eating dinner one night, Tessa was misbehaving by being a “shark” around Nora’s chair. Jumping up onto Nora’s chair to grab any little morsel of food, and just generally being annoying. Michael finally got fed up and grabbed her and took her to her crate in the other room. As soon as Nora heard the door to the crate close, she started crying. “What did Tessie do?” she asked. She proceeded to go on a several-minutes-long schpeel about how “Daddy no tease Tessa” and “Be NICE to her!” and “Tessie in crate make me MAD!” and more. It honestly made me tear up a little bit because it was the first time I had seen her really, truly feel emotions for someone else besides herself. Yes, it was the dog, but she was so upset that Tessa was being punished—it was too sweet. AND I was so tremendously proud of her because she expressed her feelings so well using words! It wasn’t a tantrum, it wasn’t a bratty demand. It was seriously a conversation with Michael about how she felt, why she felt that way, and what she wanted him to do to help fix it. So big!