Always Watching

Nora has been learning so much. It is really amazing how fast she picks things up. She is very observant and she mimics everything we do. I’ve heard kids do what we do, not what we say. This is very true. Kids model much more what they see in us than what we say. Here are some cute things we have caught Nora doing.

The other day, I saw her push her dresser drawer closed with her foot. I thought this was quite a funny thing for her to do, but then I realized that I do this when I am in a hurry. I’ll push cupboards and drawers closed with my foot. So, that is what Nora does!

Nora loves to help. We taught her to say help me because she was whining and fussing when she couldn’t do something. Saying help me please is much nicer. But she has taken this and uses it for when she wants to help you. So if she says, “help me” you have to determine whether she wants help or if she wants to be the helper.

She loves to fill the dog dish with food and water. She loves to help sweep the floor. She stirs things while we are making food. She delivers clothes to bedrooms in her little pink grocery cart. She likes to give food to the chickens and she loves to collect eggs. Though her helping usually turns into a bigger mess, especially with the eggs. I am not sure if she has made it back to the house yet without breaking one.

Nora has watched us put in contacts. Now she thinks she needs contact solution on her finger. After I put a little on her finger, she pulls at her eyes and pretends to put contacts in her eyes.

Nora also loves looking at pictures of people either in photographs or in books. She will mimic their facial expressions and how their hands are placed. She has a story with a little frog winking. She is so cute trying to wink like the frog.

Brad’s Dad and Mom had a photographer take pictures of the Coulson crew. After the pictures were over, Nora continued to line everyone up to take “pictures”of them with a calculator as her camera.

I’ve mentioned before that she loves music and loves to dance. Anytime we play kid music in the car she will try to sing along and then she yells each of our names if we are not singing along too!

One of Dana’s dances this year for the recital was Singing in the Rain. She wore a little yellow rain coat and danced in her tap shoes with an umbrella. Well Nora watched all of this and now she thinks that every time she tap dances she needs an umbrella. So she puts on her little black dress shoes and runs around the house yelling umbrella, umbrella until someone gets her an umbrella to dance with.

I wasn’t sure how the dance recital would go with Nora. I knew that she loved to dance but I wasn’t sure how she would do sitting quietly for two hours for multiple days watching dancers. She surprised me! She loved the recitals and during the Friday night show she watched each and every dance. I was trying to point out Dana on stage. (Which was difficult because Nora doesn’t know the words left, right, in front, behind, in the middle or on the end) While I was pointing Dana out to her she turned around and put her finger to her lips and shhhhed me. I guess I was talking to much!

In another dance a girl named Isabella ran across the other girls’ backs and jumped into another dancer’s arms. Nora watched every move and was afraid Isabella fell. She sat up as straight as she could to see around the people in front of her so she could see if Isabella was ok.

Twice she jumped out of my lap and tried to dance in the aisle!

Nora also loves cows. They are one of her favorite animals next to cats. The older girls did a dance in cow costumes. So, you can imagine dancing cows were just beyond awesome to Nora! After the recital the big girls were getting their pictures taken. And of course Nora wanted her picture with the cow! Getting your picture taken with a dancing cow could not get any better!

Another fun observation Nora made was when Clara and Dana did a cheers with their water glasses. Nora caught on to this quickly. But she thinks that if you have the same thing as another person that you should always tap it and say cheers. For example if two people have plates of spaghetti then that warrants a cheers. Spoons, oatmeal, crayons, cookies, watermelon, toothbrushes and even hymn books at church bring on hearty cheers!

Our lesson for the week is to be careful what you do because little eyes are always watching.