Having a two-year old is like having a puppy all over again. We are potty-learning. Which means the wee one runs bare-bummed about the house while I cross my fingers that she will tell me she needs to potty or I will see the signs. We do not always succeed. Which is why Scott’s shoes and my friend Joy’s book “Song of the Bride” are sitting on the front porch. Yep, Norah released the flood on these lucky objects. Sorry friends.
Meanwhile, Norah and I continue to fight our cold. The illness has motivated Norah to use grand sentence structure, “My nose hurts.” We are taking a homeopathic treatment derived from a geranium that the Zulu tribes used. Somehow I can’t picture Zulu warriers with colds. On top of that, I bought an ear candle but haven’t worked up the nerve to use it yet. I’ve been using a remedy my 4th grade teacher told me about: heat salt, place into a towel, hold hot salt pack against ear. I don’t know why that helps…but it really does. Thanks Mrs. Allen!
We celebrated Norah’s two-year birthday Sunday. She received a Radio Flyer wagon, an indoor tent (to be her new comfort corner), plan toys vegetable garden w/ grandpa and grandma dolls (Nana), Haba wooden fruit, the book Mom and Dad are Palindromes (Zach and Noelle), and a shopping cart full of play food and goodies (Grammy and Papa). Oh, and of course, Grammy and Papa added to Norah’s college fund. She may not appreciate it now but I know we all will later! It was a lovely, low-key celebration.
I give you names like nails, walls that withstand your pounding, doors that are hard to open, but once they are open, admit you into rooms that breathe pure sun. I give you trees that lose their leaves, as you knew they would, and then come green again. I give you fruit preceded by flowers. Venus supreme in the sky, the miracle of always landing on your feet, even though the earth rotates on its axis. Start out with that, at least. –birthday poem by Lisel Mueller
Inexplicable Ways 
