Easter discovery

Even better than finding foods that Norah loves is discovering that the mere smell of a hard-boiled egg will make her dry heave. Does that make me a horrible person? Because I'm not sure if I can accurately convey the joy that these pictures bring to my soul.

Egg in shell is perfectly acceptable. Look at us; we're all having a grand old time!

Out of the shell, boiled eggs become some kind of harbinger of Easter sadness that caused Norah to have the most incredible, visceral aversion to a food that I have ever seen.

I think she's trying to will it away with her mind.

But it just won't go away! Why would we do that to her?

Only when the tears came did we stop. Which brings me back to the part about my being a horrible person. Mind you, I could have reminded her how she is nearly a year old and still disrupts my sleep at least twice a night, but I figured the egg was in itself torture enough. So, really, I was going easy on her.

I also made her a special egg. She didn't eat it.

Don't feel too bad. Grandma Wendy got her a special Easter basket full of prizes and we only tried to get her to try a boiled egg one more time. Just in case she wanted to change her mind.

Hipstamatic

I do own a real, live Holga camera. But, you guys, how much do I love my iPhone and its accompanying array of camera apps? I. Cannot. Get. Enough. Combine the most incredible electronic device I've ever owned with my most favorite baby in the world, and well, this is what you get: a lot of pictures and a gushing mommy.

I do feel like I'm cheating. Like, I should get out the real Holga and take an honest picture. But I also didn't shower today, so realistically, actually driving to a physical store and developing film is down on my list somewhere next to get a replacement water filter for the ice machine in the fridge. It's just not going to happen.

And besides, I'm impatient and none of the Holga pictures I took ever came out to be very awesome--which probably had a lot to do with the impatientness.

But, now. Now I get instant gratification and photos that make me want to die of cuteness. Both are things that make me very, very happy.

All Norah wants to do is stand, even though she can't do it on her own yet.

That's why we bought her this walker; it is saving our backs and our sanity.

This is what I mean about the cuteness that makes me want to die. Death. By cuteness.

Best thing about being a parent? Norah does this when either of us come through the door:

She also learned to pull herself up in her crib. Ask her how proud she is.

9-ish months

I think it's time for a more lighthearted update, which means baby talk!

Nic weighed Norah and determined she's about 20 pounds. "After 6, straight to the hips" apparently doesn't concern her at all, because she's definitely sustaining her rotund figure by still insisting on eating twice a night. Do I just give up hope on ever getting a full night's sleep? She's just so darned adorable, it's hard to stay mad.

She still has just two teeth, although judging by the amount of yelling at me she's done in the past few days, I'm thinking we're going to see a few more here soon. And if she's not teething, we're really going to have to sit down and have a rational discussion about her tone of voice. Girl can get angry.

She also wants to do nothing but walk, even though she still requires assistance. That means there is a lot of bending over while she holds on to your fingers and flings herself around the room like she's in a giant pinball machine.

Oh, and I also wish that all fat rolls could be as adorable as hers.

Subtlety is not her speciality

Neither is holding still, which makes it very difficult to take a picture with my phone.

So in case you can't decipher how we feel about cancer, this is how we feel about cancer:

I feel like Norah is going to be wearing this onesie a lot in the next little while.

After a weekend stint in the hospital, my mom is thankfully doing much better--but I think we're in for a much longer six months than any of us could have anticipated.