Nora has been quite the little social butterfly lately. She’s been having more playdates recently and I think I’m enjoying seeing her play and interact with other kids just as much as she’s enjoying it.

The butterfly theme seems to be a running thing around here lately. After we enjoyed raising the caterpillars we got Nora for her birthday so much we decided to give it another try. We took Nora to a little local nursery to “adopt” a little caterpillar. Nora decided to dress up for the adventure in her appropriate butterfly attire. And of course Smiley the caterpillar joined along for the trip.

We took our cute little swallowtail caterpillar home, named it Spotty because of it’s yellow spotted markings. Then we watched it eat and poop a lot for a few days, it cocooned and we watched and waited for 2 weeks until one day Spotty emerged as a beautiful butterfly.

Nora couldn’t wait to teach Spotty how to fly. She grabbed her butterfly wings and said “I have to teach Spotty how to flutter!” Then she proceeded to dance around the room flapping her arms saying “flutter, flutter!”

Look at that proud little face!

Nora’s flying lesson resulted in Spotty getting lost in the house for a few hours. Apparently swallowtail butterflies are ready to full on fly a lot sooner after cocooning than the pink lady butterflies we had. Although I worried a bit until we found her, Spotty’s extra stay in the house before getting released turned out to be a saving grace since the bug man came to spray outside that afternoon. It’s nice when unpredictable occurrences seem to happen for a reason.

On Memorial Day Nora discovered how fun sparklers are.

Fireworks are fun too but a little loud.

Last year the fireworks were too loud for Nora and scared her. But this year she realized all she needed to do was cover her ears and enjoy the visual show. We only had a few fireworks on Memorial Day and she wanted more. So for the 4th of July we will have to do it up big time.

We attempted to take Nora to her first dentist appointment recently for a general check up and cleaning. She was all geared up and excited to go, fine and happy in the waiting room enjoying watching the other kids run around. She was just a tad nervous when she went back…and then the hygienist put on gloves and a mask to clean her teeth and then…….things went down hill quickly, very quickly. Poor Nora had such extreme anxiety and got very upset, she clung to me with all her might as if she was trying to melt into me to hide.

The only experience Nora has had with people wearing a mask and gloves is when her port is going to be messed with which makes her very nervous. I can’t believe that neither I or Montana didn’t think about this situation before her appointment and talk to her about it. I was kicking myself in the butt big time for not making this connection ahead of time. The hygienist was very understanding and didn’t try to pressure us to stay. The dentist on the other hand wasn’t rude but let me know he thought it was important for Nora to tough it out. I politely let him know that we have had to force Nora to do many unpleasant things for medical necessity in her life and a teeth cleaning was not going to be one of them. So we ended the appointment very quickly and will try again in a few months.

By the time we left Nora was smiling and even shook the hygienist’s hand and promised to let her clean her teeth next time. Since this experience we have had many talks with Nora about all the different reasons people wear masks and gloves besides to mess with her port.

Life is one big learning experience for all of us.

Our trip to the beach was great. It was just the relaxing distraction we needed from the everyday hustle and bustle. I wish we could live in day dream beach land forever. I loved seeing how the work stress just melted away from Montana’s face as soon as we arrived. He works such long hard hours to support our family. I am so very thankful for his devotion and giving our family the opportunity for me to stay at home with Nora to give her the undivided care and attention she needs.

A good sword fight is always a good stress buster.

Nora had a great time but it seems that the idea of the beach is much more appealing to her than the actual beach. Sand between your toes, big waves and the heat can be a little much for such a little girl. She only liked  being down on the water for short spurts at a time. Even though it made for more work trudging back and forth to the beach house so often it was actually just what Nora needed to do to not get overheated and stay hydrated. Short bowel causes enough hydration issues in itself and you add excessive heat to the equation and things can go bad fast.

This was Nora checking out a fellow toddler and his baby brother down the beach. She found them very intriguing and insisted we walked down for a friendly hello.

Nora the wind warrior! I think Nora’s favorite thing about the beach is that the wind is always up for good kite flying. And playing in the kite tales on the deck makes for a lot of fun too.

We usually only make posts on Nora’s blog that are directly about her or SBS. But with this circumstance I felt that we needed to utilize Nora’s blog to help spread the word about Sunday Blombergh who has been missing since last Thursday. We do not know Sunday directly but a family who is near and dear to our hearts knows her. Please look at these flyers and keep your eyes open. She lives here in Tallahassee, FL but was last seen in Tifton, GA. If you have any information please contact me ASAP and I will direct you to her family. Or if you are on FaceBook please visit the page that has been created about her disappearance. Here is the FaceBook link:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=112721198763582&ref=ts

If you click on the flyers it will open in full size.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Today is Nora’s 3rd birthday! How happy we are that we are three years down the road from where we started on this journey with a strong, happy and healthy Nora.

We’re having a little birthday celebration this afternoon at Nora’s favorite park so I’ll be sure to post some pictures of her party later. But for now here are some of the big birthday girl this morning dancing it up in dress up clothes from cousin Marin. Thank you cousin Marin for making Nora such special birthday decorations, having them here makes the day extra special.

We took Nora to Toys-R-Us over the weekend for her to pick out a few toys as an extra birthday treat. Our girl is a natural shopper.

She was quite in awe when we got to the aisle with all of the talking puppy pets.

Look at the smile on her Daddy’s face in the background. That’s one happy, proud Dad.

Happy Birthday sweet Nora, we love you so much!!

(If you looked at Nora’s site on her actual birthday yesterday, this really didn’t get posted until 4/28, even though I wrote it yesterday morning, couldn’t get it to post until now)

Nora had her first official “playdate” with my good friend Elizabeth’s daughter Maya this week. Nora has played with cousins at family get togethers, and we’ve met up with some friends and their kids at a park a few times but this was the first time that Nora had a friend over on her turf to play.

It was absolutely wonderful, Nora and Maya got along great and had a blast just being two sweet little girls together. Maya is just 9 months older than Nora so they are close enough in age to make good buddies.

(as you can see by Nora’s bloated belly, she was having so much fun she wouldn’t even stop to poop even though I knew she had to and kept trying to get her to!)

We’ve been guarded with Nora’s interactions with other kids from the start to lesson the chances of her getting sick. But we also haven’t wanted to keep her too isolated and keep her from socializing and playing with other kids. It’s been a hard balance, we’ve been trying to have playdates for a while but it seemed that every time it was about to happen the other child would come down with a cold or some other sickness. So this playdate was a long time coming and very good for our hearts and souls. Elizabeth and I are planning to make a Maya and Nora playdate a weekly event.

I think this is just the beginning of many fun happy moments to come.

On a side note, Nora hasn’t said “blah, blah, blah” since she learned that it will get her a quick ticket to time out. Like any little one her age she likes testing the waters but she’s a smarty and is learning fast that time out is no fun.