Norah has been amazing lately, just sweet and funny and cheerful and easy. She has definitely hit the “language explosion” phase–she has been a great talker for a long time, but now it seems like she is learning words hand over fist. She’ll just pull out some amazing word that we didn’t even know she knew, like “adventure” or “project” or “shower.” She can almost always make herself understood (”More. Please. Milk.”). If you do something for her, like zip up her sweatshirt or hand her a cup of water, and say “How’s that?” she’ll say “Better.” With this adorably perfect diction.

She had her 18-month checkup on Friday, and of course I always wish she were a little less shy with the doctor and showed off all the great things she can do, but, predictably, he was pleased with her anyway. She weighs 27 pounds, so her weight gain is really slowing down (she’s weighed 26 pounds since the 12-month visit), but she is making up for it in height. She is 33 inches–which puts her in the 90th percentile for girls her age. I knew this already from doing stuff with my moms’ group–she is taller than a lot of the 2-year-olds. Lucky girl.

A few little stories from the last week or so:

Norah is fascinated by lawn mowing. She loves to sit on the screen porch and watch Brian when he mows, and anytime she hears one of the neighbors start up a lawnmower she perks up and says “Mow.” So the other day when I was making dinner, I turned around and she was pushing her little pink plastic lawn chair across the kitchen floor in front of her, saying “Mow. Fast. Kitchen. Busy.”

If you ask her what her last name is, she will say “Fen-ding.” It’s rare that you’ll get her to say her first name, but when she does, she calls herself “Ra-ra.”

The other day, Yvonne was standing at the kitchen sink doing the lunch dishes, and Norah came up behind her, wrapped her arms around Yvonne’s legs, and said “Love.”

This afternoon, like we often do, Norah and I called Brian to say hi. “What do you want to tell Daddy?” I asked her. “Hi,” she said. She is just starting to talk a little bit when we’re on the phone, instead of clamming right up and getting shy. “Daddy says hi too,” I said. “Do you have any other secret messages for Daddy?” “Love.” And both her parents melted.

Norah has learned how to make fish lips, and will do it if you ask her for a kiss. She also knows how to give Eskimo kisses.

She can, very occasionally, count to five, and she is obsessed with letters. At restaurants, instead of coloring, she just wants us to write letters for her, over and over, marching across the page like steadfast soldiers. She got her big foam letters out of the closet, the square ones that interlock, and has been carrying D around the house. We talk about how R is for Reba, D is for Daddy, G is for go. Of course, all letters are B to her. Just like all numbers are 2 and all colors are blue.

On Sunday, I had a baby shower to go to for Brian’s cousin, so we all drove up to the Falls for a visit. It made for a long day for Brian and Norah–cooped up in the house for three or four hours while we were at the shower, and of course Norah was missing her nap, and while I was gone apparently there were several meltdowns, to be relieved only by a cup of milk and some crackers. Just before we were ready to leave, Tom and Linda brought out the much-talked-about, “you might yell but Tom has been looking for this for a long time” present. I know Brian and I were both holding our breath a little, afraid of what it was going to be. Something giant we’d have to find a home for?

But it was a little wooden piano. And from the very minute she saw it, Norah loved it. Tantrums forgotten, she was down on the floor in an instant, banging on the keys. “Buttons,” she said. We explained that they were keys. “Keys. Keys. Keys,” she chanted, fingers on the white and then the black. “Norah, you’re making music! What pretty music!” we cheered her on. “Meeza. Meeza,” she repeated. She was a dervish, all movement and action, banging on the keys, bopping her head, crowing “Meeza. Meeza. Piano,” then turning in a spinning little dance. “Dance. Dance.” It was wonderful. She was beside herself with joy.

Then Brian stretched out on the floor beside her and began picking out the notes to Baa Baa Black Sheep. He didn’t sing along, just pecked the keys. “Baa,” said Norah. “Baa. Sheep.”

We looked at each other, drop-jawed. That’s not a song we really sing to her. If anything, she should have recognized Twinkle Twinkle, which we sing every night and which has the same tune. But she knew. We were amazed. She is certainly her father’s daughter.

We went to the farmer’s market this morning. It’s still so early in the season, I knew there wouldn’t be much there but annuals, but I was hoping to get some more asparagus before the season was over, and Norah and I needed an adventure for the day, so we drove out to East Aurora. And we got the asparagus, plus a head of romaine for tonight’s salad, and some radishes, for eating on their own, sliced thin with a little bit of salt.

We also bought some apples. I stopped at the apple lady’s stall on the way out–she was selling mostly cookies and pies, but she had a few baskets of Empires and Granny Smiths. Figuring that a fall apple that’s local has got to be better, in one way or another, than a “fresher” apple that’s come all the way from Chile–or at least cheaper, anyway–I asked her how her apples were holding up. She handed me a small one to try. I took a bite and then shared it with Norah, the first time she had ever held an apple and just eaten it whole, all on her own. She loved it, you could tell she felt so grown up–except she couldn’t quite get the concept right and kept taking little bites near the stem. I waited outside the car for a full five minutes, while she turned that apple around and around in her hand, taking juicy mouthfuls here and there. She cried when I finally took it away.

So later that afternoon, when she woke up from her nap, true to my promise, I let her have an apple for her snack. We took it outside to eat in the grass. I gave it to her whole, and she marveled over it, just holding it and sniffing it and saying “mmmm” and pretending to take bites. But she wouldn’t eat it, so finally I cut it into wedges and put them into a bowl for her to carry around.

And oh, did she love those apple wedges. She’d pick one out of the bowl, hold it to her nose, take a big bite, then reach back into the bowl for another, to carry in her other hand. She’d take a bite of that one, then drop it on the ground and take another slice out of the bowl. Soon there were pieces of apple strewn all across the lawn. I tried to keep corralling them back into the bowl, blowing the grass off and segregating the ones that got too dirty to eat. Norah took her cue from me and started blowing on all her apple slices, little lips all pursed up into a great big pucker.

And all day long, till well into the evening, she kept thinking about that apple. In the car or at my feet in the kitchen, she’d suddenly say “appuhl.” “appuhl.” “eat.” “mmmm.” And I knew that she was saying, “Remember the apple, mama? That was fun.”