Norah Gets Weirder

I like weird kids. Heck, I like weird people. They make the world go round. But there is a fine line between weird and too weird. I trying my best to encourage my kids to be the interesting kind of weird and not the destined-to-wear-a-cape-while-walking-around-town kind of weird, but it's difficult to know where the line needs to be drawn and how to keep from crossing it.

Norah has finally reached the age where kids get interesting. Babies and toddlers are all well and good, but let's face it. Most of their appeal comes from their cuteness and their "they're just like little PEOPLE" similarities and realizations. Once they can get around freely and start coming up with their own ideas and expressing them, that's when they start earning their entertainment chops. And their weirdness factor increases their entertainment value incredibly.

Norah is a hoot right now. But I just want to focus on two things that she's been doing that I find interesting.

The first is . . . I don't know. I'm not sure if I want to worry about it or find it encouraging. For the past month or two, Norah has been wandering from her bed somewhat and falling asleep in weird places. On the one hand, it's kind of annoying because it means we have to pick her up and put her to bed without waking her up (I don't get this concept and how some parents can carry their kids from the car or wherever and get them to bed without waking them up--we've NEVER been able to do that with either of the kids). On the other hand, it's encouraging because it means she's learning to fall asleep anywhere.

Being someone who can only fall asleep in very specific conditions, I have always hoped that I could engender in my kids an ability to not only get to sleep easily, but to get to sleep easily wherever they might be. By sticking with good sleep schedules through all these years, I THINK I'm getting the kids used to a healthy sleep schedule, and by continuing to make them take naps even when they don't want to, I hope I'm building their ability to lie down and go to sleep even when they might not want to or feel like they need to--something I have never been able to do myself. But I fear I have been neglecting the ability to fall asleep anywhere part. Pretty much, they've always slept in their beds and don't have much of a track record for being able to sleep anywhere else--not even in the car on long road trips anymore.

So, Norah's wandering sleep might be a good thing. Unless it's not.

Anyway, over the past four weeks or so, Norah has gotten out of bed several times--at night and at nap time--and then fallen asleep on the floor somewhere else.  I find it kind of weird, but I guess as long as she's playing quietly, not keeping Gabe awake at the same time, and eventually getting enough sleep, I suppose I don't care that she's getting out of bed and playing or messing around until she physically can't anymore and dozes off.

Most of the time I find her sleeping on the floor in their room, but the last time (earlier in the week), we found her here:

At the top of the stairs.

Kind of weird, right? She actually followed Gabe out of the bedroom when he came downstairs for something or other. But, for some reason, she didn't go back to bed, she decided to go to sleep at the top of the stairs. We didn't find her there until I thought I heard a weird snoring noise coming from somewhere (she has a cold--she doesn't usually snore). Our recently deceased cat Tsunami used to snore. She used to come sit at my feet wherever I was, fall asleep, then start lightly snoring. When I heard the noise, at first I thought it was her. Then I remembered she was, well, gone. Our other cat Typhoon WAS sleeping at my feet, but she doesn't snore. So I started tracking the sound until I found this scene.

The second kind of weird I want to discuss is her choice of clothing. Now, this one might cause us some problems in the future and lead directly to an it's-ok-to-wear-capes-in-public kind of mentality in her.

We like to let her pick the things that she's going to wear now. Partly because she loves the freedom to choose her own stuff (she is a bit on the fiercely independent side--she's already refusing to give me a hand so I can help her out of the van now, which Gabe still gladly accepts, for instance), but also because it's awfully amusing to see the things she picks to wear.  Here are some of the pictures we've gathered over the last few weeks.

This week was X week at pre-school. There's not a lot to do with the letter X, so they go with the hidden treasure/pirate theme. This is the hate she came home with yesterday, which she wore for a goodly portion of the day yesterday. That's her "arrrgh" face.

Libby found a tub of curlers a few days ago, and Norah really wanted them in her hair. Also, she's had a pretty terrible head/chest cold this week. Notice how she still closely resembles the little baby in those pictures over two years ago when she was sick. Yeah. Shes suffers through sickness about as well now still as she did then. She's a bit of a misery to be around when she's sick, still.

This is my favorite picture of the last few months, I think. First she insisted that she wanted to wear her new swimsuit. It was still kind of chilly out, so I insisted she wear the top over the shirt she had on (she refused to wear the bottoms over her pants, though--I'm not sure how she could make a fashion argument against it since she immediately ran to put on her rubber boots). Speaking of the boots, they are a staple in her fashion accessorizing right now. The yellow ones both of the kids had been wearing blew hour over the last month, so we had to buy her new ones. The lady bug boots were the only ones Libby could find that she thought Norah would find acceptable. But I agree with Libby's description. Norah looks like she's off to the roller derby.

And another one with the boots. And no pants. We actually have a fair number of pictures like this. There's just something adorable about a small child with rubber boots on even when they don't need to wear them. We can't help but document it. And I'm sure she'll really appreciate the fact that we did when she's older. Just sure.

So, I don't know. I love how weird our kids are right now. I just have to make sure I never buy them any capes, I guess.