1.7.14 ~ A Whole lot of Pictures From a Very Busy Christmas

12.18.13 ~ Gingerbread Houses

12.18.13 ~ Cookie Baking

12.18.13 ~ Nora and Language

Recently I bit the bullet and finally scheduled an assessment for sweet little not-talking-much Nora. This sort of service is free because we live in Howard County now, where people are socialists. Haha. Anyway, I had done my homework and knew Nora was saying significantly less words than would be expected for a child her age. So, because the local government is impressively well funded and the socialists have their shit together, I called to schedule and less than two weeks later we had an assessor at the door. She asked some questions about our family background and we immediately discovered that she and I had both attended Columbia. Nora sat in my lap for the first few minutes of the interview and gave the lady a deep, serious stare down. But as the woman started asking what Nora can and can't do, Nora warmed up and started performing. She wanted to play with the lady's papers, she took her pen, she drew, she laughed, she brought toys over, and she tried to share her snack. The real kicker is that as I was trying to discuss my concerns about her language, Nora was literally using every word in her vocabulary plus at least three new ones I had never heard her say before. After about 15 minutes of this, the lady recommended not proceeding with the assessment. She also told me I should return to Columbia and crack a child development book. She did say that by Nora's age one normally expects a larger vocabulary. However, she said Nora's receptive language, her nonverbal communication, and her willingness to repeat words and sounds are all signs of normal development and that she was unlikely to qualify for services for these reasons. So, there you have it. She's fine. But my PhD has been discredited. So, if you're looking for me, I'll be over there studying my child development book.

12.18.13 ~ Liam and God

Liam has been going to Sunday school with Carol and Tim (who teaches his class) on Sundays. This has lead to lots of interesting musings and questions from Liam. Exhibit A, last week we were driving in the car and he asked me who controls my feet. I told him that I control them, not at all understanding why he was asking. But then he followed up by saying "But doesn't God control everything?" He totally caught me off guard, so I asked him who controls his feet? The classic answer a question with another question to buy more time. He answered that God controls his feet. Suddenly it became clear that I was about to have a conversation about free will with a five year old. And I knew that I very much wanted him to understand he does have free will, and his own intentions, and that he is accountable for his actions. So I told him that. And I told him that there are lots of things in this world he can not control - and that maybe God does control some of those things. But the one thing he really can control are his own feet and the rest of himself. Right when I really felt like I was using this teachable moment to drive the point home, he lost interest and asked if we could buy a new car because his window in the back is too small. Such a mystery how that little brain of his works.

Exhibit B, this past weekend Nora was fussing at me all morning and finally I turned to her and said to stop demanding things because it was my world and she was just living in it. To that Liam said, "No Mommy, it's not your world, it's God's world."

12.4.13 ~ Cutting Down a Tree

The morning after Thanksgiving, Jason returned to Jeff and Angela's with a much happier Nora. From there, our two little families headed out to a nearby tree farm to hunt down the perfect tree. This was the first time the kids or I had ever been to a tree farm. We totally thought trees came from parking lots and NYC street corners. After much searching we found the perfect tree. And now is stands in our living room, looking beautiful, and sucking down about a gallon of water per hour.