Lisa: unilingual

Jeffrey took Nora to the library's "bilingual" storytime. Unfortunately, it was actually just plain Spanish storytime, so Nora didn't get much of it. Jeff translated for a while, and they had a great time anyway.

Lisa: she speaks for the trees

Ever since Grandma read Nora The Lorax, her favorite spot on our walk around the block has become this stump. She stands up there and dramatically announces that she is the Lorax. I think we need to read the book again so that she can expand the game.

Lisa: Blow Your House Down

She'll huff, and she'll puff.

Lisa: sleepy

Who hasn't fallen asleep while reading a book on the couch?

Lisa: Elmo walking

Nora has a musical Elmo book, the kind with the buttons you push at certain parts of the story, to add sound effects. It was a gift.

PLUS:

1) Patented 'Elmo's walking music' dance
2) Coy 'I'm ignoring that camera' face
3) Fierce bear roar.

Those three things are my gift to YOU.

Lisa: To dance, or to read?

All the Single-- hey, KNUFFLE BUNNY!

Lisa: I guess that's why they invented tape.

Nora doesn't want to look at the ripped-out pages of Knuffle Bunny, because she knows she's in trouble. She knows, because we just read about naughty babies ripping books in that Babies board book in front of her.

Lisa: tiara

Nora fell in love with some of the props for my Princess Bride-themed book club.

Lisa: Moving Forward, Keeping Still

I guess it's the size (unless she just loves Eastern Wisdom), but this is not the first time Nora has chosen this book for a little rocking chair reading.

Lisa: No No Yes Yes

This is one of Nora's very favorite books. It's handy, too--we can say "what does the No No Yes Yes book say about that?" and she already knows that touching power outlets (or whatever) is a no-no.

I love these Leslie Patricelli board books. That reminds me, I should pull out my storytime stuff for Yummy Yucky.

Lisa: Tuesday morning

Nora and her buddy Alex, watching a movie and catching up on a little Eastern philosophy reading.

Lisa: bedtime story

Lisa: sharing

I tend my friend Molly's daughter Sabrina once a week, and Nora has a love-hate relationship with her. Here's one of the nicer moments.

Nora just can't understand why Sabrina won't hold that book.

Lisa: On Becoming Baby Wise

It's hard for me to find time to read a whole book about parenting when I'm actively being a parent. When I do have time to read, I'd much rather read something fun and escapist. So, when my neighbor heard that we're having problems getting Nora to sleep at night and lent me a copy of Baby Wise, I didn't want to read it. I looked for an audiobook version, but there doesn't seem to be one. What I really wanted was for someone to read the book and just tell me the important or relevant points. Well...nobody did that, and we needed to get Nora's sleeping schedule straightened out, so I bit the bullet and read the book myself.

The tone of the book is a bit condescending, and it alternately made me feel like great parent and like a failure who was ruining her child's life, but there are some good points. I think we'll try some of the things we aren't already doing and see if our situation improves. In case someone else is looking for the easy way out (like I was), I'll list what I feel are the salient points.

So, there you go! If this system works for Nora, I'll let you know.

Lisa: In which I try to bore you to death with completely insignificant details.

For better or worse, the nursery is pretty much put together! It feels good to have that task done. The polka-dotted fabric bin on the lower shelf of the white table holds board books and tub books. You can see the Boppy pillow hanging out on the seat of Blake's grandpa's rocker.

The dresser is full of baby clothes and linens that have been washed with Dreft, folded and sorted by size, and put into labeled drawers. The IKEA frog is sitting in a Bumbo baby seat next to George and Martha and a sweet little baby sock sorting thingie I found at HomeGoods. I made the print over the dresser in my letterpress class--it features my favorite quote from Peter Pan.

The top two shelves of the bookcase are full of baby supplies, and the bottom shelf is picture books. The art is two pages from an advance copy of You Were Loved Before You Were Born, written by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Karen Barbour. The book is due out in January.

Under the window you can see the gift Marci got us--the first baby item Blake and I picked out together. Above the crib are the letter hooks I talked about here. Since I took these pictures, I got some big clear totes at Target to go under the crib: one for extra diapers, one for blankets, and one for stuffed animals. We're still waiting for our Sophie bumper and crib skirt to arrive from Pottery Barn.

The light must have been a bit different for this photo, because the wall color here looks closer to how it looks in real life. Anyway, you can see we've been messing around with the toys on top of the bookcase and on the shelf above it. We swapped out the fancy (and arguably creepy-looking) dolls I had when I was younger for the Cabbage Patch Garden Fairies I adopted in college. And of course we had to dig out my Boo doll and press her belly a bunch of times. The soccer-playing Build-a-Bear was a gift to Blake from the girls he coached one year, and the other one is Olivia, who Blake gave me for our anniversary three years ago.

TA-DA! She'd better friggin' love it.

Lisa: Amelia and Eleanor Go For a Ride

Our friends gave us this picture book when they found out we were naming our baby Eleanor Amelia:

It's about Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart sneaking away from a dinner at the White House for a plane ride, and it's by Pam Munoz Ryan and illustrated by Brian Selznick. The story is so cute, and the black and white colored-pencil drawings are gorgeous.

Our Eleanor Amelia won't strictly be named after that Eleanor and that Amelia, but I'm hard pressed to think of two better women for her to look up to.