Thursday Thoughts

Whew!  I have a lot of photos to upload.  But this weekend I'll get started with our Christmas adventures.  Meanwhile, here are a few things on my mind:

1)  We're less than 2.5 months from Match Day- the Day In Which We Find Out Where We are Going.  Eek! Kevin has one more interview left.  He thinks they have all been going well so we're crossing our fingers.  I think I could be happy with several of the options.  They each have their positives and negatives.  It does make it very hard to think about the future though- it's like a tree with different branches going in completely different directions, and I have plans for each branch outlined, just in case.  But I'm a planning fiend so the unknown is always a little tricky for me.  I think I've gotten better at it though since medical school began.

2)  I actually got to see several movies in December, mostly thanks to having more family around to babysit!  Kevin and I saw Argo and Skyfall, and my mom and I saw Les Mis.  Ratings?

Argo: Ok, I'm not sure it's worthy of all the hype, but I was on the edge of my seat the whole movie and I really liked the major characters.  I would definitely recommend it!

Skyfall:  Probably my favorite movie of these three, which is surprising, because I don't even like Bond movies.  But I thought this was a great action movie, with good twists and a super creepy bad guy, and artfully done.

Les Mis: There's definitely some question as to why Russell Crowe was given a role that depends on killer vocals ("Stars" was completely ruined in this movie- one of my favorite songs in the Broadway version).  Still, it's hard not to love anything Les Mis- I love the music, and I think this show is actually a good one for Hollywood, given the extensive scenery and action.  I think they should have gone with lesser known actors and better singers.  Marius was the best singer and maybe I'm out of the loop but I've never seen him before.  Still, Hugh Jackman did a decent job and I thought Anne Hathway made up in acting what she lacks vocally.

Anyone seen any other movies that I should go to?

3)  Nora turned 19 months old.  It feels weird not to do an official post since I've been doing them every month for a year and a half, so I'll give a quick update here: mostly, she's really a talking machine now!  She now says at least 100 words so I've stopped keeping track, as she comes up with new ones every day.  She does lots of two and three word phrases, like "Mama's shoes" or "Dada go?" or "Love you Mama" (my favorite).  She learned how to say all the colors, though she can't identify them correctly yet (everything is yellow, one of her new favorite words to say).  She also picked up some more complex words like broccoli and butterfly ("buttfly"- haha); and of course being Christmas she quickly picked up "Santa" and "stocking".   She also became self-aware this last month- she started calling herself by her first name (it's very 3rd person- like "Nora's nose!" while pointing to her nose).  She loves saying all the names of family and classmates- her teacher told me she's the only one in her class who knows all the other kids' names.  She has a crazy good memory, like her dad- she learned who's stocking was whose after my mom showed her just a couple of times, and then we'd point to a stocking and she could tell us to whom it belonged.  Watching her learn language is a fascinating process- it's interesting to see how she learns nouns first and then starts putting together words to describe the nouns.  Pretty soon there will be more verbs and then presumably sentences! I realize I'm very lucky to have a good talker at this stage- it really helps our communication with her. She's a ball full of energy and she wears me out, but I'm enjoying being her mama. :)