http://www.blogger.com/html?blogID=1755139666841541603 about a dream: December 2008

Friday, December 26, 2008

oh the christmas joy!


we had a wonderful christmas. the girls loved their presents; nina especially loves her suitcase (it had to be next to her bed last night and came down the stairs with her this morning) and her cash register. maggie loves her pooh toy and her leap frog musical table (if the batteries would last more than 15 minutes). both girls still love this snow, even though most of it melted yesterday and our snowman is a pathetic lump with a stick in his head.

after presents we went to aunt maria's for christmas dinner and in the evening, everyone came back to our place for some wii. all in all a great day.

we haven't downloaded the christmas photos yet oma, so i put up another one of nina in the snow. she had such a blast.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

quick photo for oma



the girls LOVE the snow!

Thursday, December 18, 2008

no helmet for maggie!

we finally, finally, finally got to see the cranio-facial specialist today. it has been almost 2 months since aida, the physical therapist, said that we might want to look into getting maggie a helmet. in those 2 months her head shape has improved immensely, but i wanted to go just to get a professional opinion. and, as mom and i have discussed, there is this bump on the left side of the nape of her neck, and you never know... what if it were a tumor or something? i definitely needed my mind put at ease.

he thought her head looked great. he said he could see where there was still a bit of flattening on the back right, but that it was very mild and nothing he would ever recommend a helmet for. he said he can see some misalignment in her ears, but that's improved so much over the last 2 months that i doubt it'll be noticeable at all in another 6 months. he also didn't think it was worth worrying about. he said he didn't see any asymmetry in her eyes, and that her adorably crooked smile is either from the muscles being a bit tighter on one side of her mouth from the torticollis, or genetics, or both, but not a big deal and nothing he could do anything about anyway. he said to keep on doing the physical therapy and the positioning we're doing at night (which is getting her to sleep on her left side only by putting her to my right so that she has to lay on her left side to nurse and cuddle with me, which she wants to do ALL NIGHT LONG. at least i can say that i'm doing it for a good reason this time instead of being too much of a softie to let the kiddies cry it out).

and the nape of the neck lump, he says, is not a lump at all. it's actually that the right side is flat. the sternocleidomastoid muscle anchors there at the base of the neck, and that's the muscle that was tight, causing maggie's tilt. so, this tight muscle pulled harder on the right nape of maggie's neck, causing it to be a bit flatter. he said that part of the head won't change too much, but once all that baby fat is gone it won't be too noticable. it's so minor that we wouldn't bother about that even if there was something we could do. i just wanted to be sure it wasn't a tumor or something. isn't it amazing how moldable the skull of an infant is? who know a tight muscle could affect so many things.

so, yay! maggie's beautiful, fuzzy little head will remain helmet-free. he congratulated me on doing such a good job with maggie's PT and repositioning and said that's why her head is so fabulously round. maggie, if you hate me for whatever reason when you're a teenager, at least remember that i kept you out of a helmet as an infant you little ingrate. HA!

in other news, i meant to write much sooner but we're still fighting this bug. it's really lingering, and it's been sapping all of my energy in the evening. we're all mostly better, but nina did run a fever and then throw up all over the bathroom last night, so we're not out of the woods yet. she'd been eating blackberries too, it looked like someone had been murdered in there. that flowergirl t-shirt that erik and isabelle gave her at their wedding is totally ruined (or is it? i'm going to try oxi-clean, we'll see what happens. right now it looks tie-dyed. that's all i'll say about the vomit except that it also stained the cabinet under the sink. oddly, the stain turned blue after i tried to clean it with bleach, so no one would ever know it's vomit. except all of you of course).

ok, one of the kids is crying every half hour or so (like my old roommate sara davidson says, it's like whack-a-mole. put one to sleep, another pops up), so i'm going to run off while they're both still down. goodnight!

Monday, December 15, 2008

we saw santa yesterday!

maggie is starting her own blog



she says it's going to be a tell-all, mommy dearest kind of blog. we're in trouble!!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

maggie has a new word

nina and i are starting to feel a bit better (finally). so tonight, nina, maggie, and i were in bed watching america's funniest home vidoes while nick finished some online christmas shopping. i figured maggie had to be sleepy since it was about an hour past her usual bedtime, so nick and nina went to the living room to finish watching AFV. as soon as they left, maggie sat up and tried to crawl off the bed (she can almost crawl--she gets onto all fours and then eventually plops onto her stomach), saying "nan nan nan." i tried to get her to nurse and lie down, but she kept getting up and kept saying nan nan nan nan. i thought, "is she trying to say nina?" so i carried her out to the living room. when she saw nina her face lit up and she said "NAN NAN NAN!"

so cute! but i'm not sure how i'm going to get her to bed tonight...

Thursday, December 11, 2008

maggie's 6 month check-up

maggie saw dr. russo today for her 6 month checkup. all's well! she's 29 inches (99th percentile) and 19 lbs 2 oz (92nd percentile). she got her shots, and those went fine too. she cried for less than 10 seconds. she's really not ruffled by much. interestingly, the office finally got the pentacel vaccine, which i was hoping she could have from the beginning. see, the pentacel vaccine has DTaP (diptheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis), haemophilus influenzae b (Hib), and polio all in one shot. she had been getting pediarix, which contains DTap, polio, and hepatitis B. this is important because i wouldn't have bothered vaccinating her against hep B at this age if it wasn't already bundled into the shot. by giving her pentacel and the pneumococcal vaccine, i could have vaccinated her against all of the important stuff by only getting 2 shots. but because the clinic only had pediarix, she had to have 3 shots. now, she's immune to hep B which is great and all, so no big deal, but i would have been happier only giving 2 shots just because shots hurt and all. anyway, now they have pentacel and she got that, but we gave her a separate hep B vaccine to finish the series, so she still had 3 shots. also she had a rotavirus vaccine, but that's oral so all good. of course, my worrying about the pain of the shots is really for nothing since they don't seem to bother her at all...

so, that's all. nina still has a virus which is giving her a rash, but apparantly it's just a run-of-the-mill virus, nothing to worry about.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

and finally, jingle bells



to the left of nina is a classmate named nathaniel, a boy from pre-K that i don't know, then alexis, then zohaib.

we wish you a merry christmas



i was taking these little clips on our regular camera, which only records about 2 minutes of total video, so that's why i have such small clips. i ran out of space on the memory card while filming this one, so it's short.

if you like hanukkah



this one goes:
if you like lighting the menorah shout hooray (HOORAY!)
if you like lighting the menorah shout hooray (HOORAY!)
if you like lighting the menorah
and dancing the hora,
if you like lighting the menorah shout hooray
(HOORAY!!)

more concert



felitz navidad!!

a christmas concert!



today was nina's nursery school sing-along! she came down with a cold yesterday, so we brought her in for the sing-along only. she did great! she did all of the hand movements/dancing and sang a lot. she is a bit out of it because of the cold and cold medicine (we gave her tylenol and benedryl) but had a wonderful time. maggie enjoyed herself too!

Sunday, December 7, 2008

not so much new...

maggie is still up (it's precisely 7:51 right now) because she's getting closer to crawling and wants to practice. she can get herself onto all 4s and rock. she's loving it. if past milestones are to be any indication, she'll wake up at 2 in the morning and start crawling, get the whole family up to watch her for an hour and a half, and finally fall back asleep. i'm hoping that if i let her stay up and work on it now, she'll sleep until a more reasonable 5:20 (there's something about 5:20... maybe one of our neighbors sets an alarm for then or something.)

today we went to grand central station. there's a transit museum shop there, and they set up a big model train for christmas. not nearly as big as the one at kansas city, but fun. nick had taken nina last year, and she was very excited to again see ... the cool store next to the model train. we spent longer at this place than the model train. whatever makes the kids happy.

on friday nick and i went to the wine and cheese fundraiser auction at nina's preschool. it was fun! the first hour is just a wine, cheese and dessert social time. they loosen the wallets up with all the alcohol, that's the plan, and it works. but all of the money raised benefits the school, so it's for a good cause. i bought nina a kit kettridge american girl doll. only $80! it was a steal. and a good cause. her first american girl doll!!! aww....

maggie woke up while the babysitter was here, and she cried so the babysitter called me and i came home. nick stayed on to drink and hang out with other dads. the babysitter (nicole from apt. 6C) asked if maggie was talking yet. i told her she says mama but that's pretty much all. she said, "i thought she was saying mama but i didn't think babies her age could talk!" i felt awful that she was crying, but she cheered up quickly and was smiling at nicole and playing with her necklace by the time she left.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Nina learns a lot of songs at preschool...

...and sometimes they're ones we don't know. like, apparently there's song called "the old grass wagon" and it goes like this:

the old grass wagon, circle to the left
the old grass wagon, circle to the right


i tried looking it up online but i can't find any more lyrics.

well, anyway, nina started singing this tonight:

when you like kuronica (rhymes with veronica) stomp your feet
when you like kuronica clap your hands
when you like kuronica shout hooray
(HOORAY!)

and nick and i were like, what the heck is she singing? chronic what? what are they teaching her at preschool? until she got to the verse

when you like kuronica spin your dreidel


HA!

that little girl is choking!

so, you've all noticed by now that nina chokes constantly when she drinks, right? she's always done it and always recovers, so nick and i just kind of ignore it. i remember one time in target, she was drinking from her sippy cup and started choking loudly (and turning bright red, par for the course) and some old ladies got all worried. i felt like a bad parent because we were just ignoring it, we are so used to it. somehow the old ladies didn't think "she does this all the time" made our ignoring it ok. ah well.

anyway, my cousin jenny, a pediatric ICU nurse, also thought the choking was worrisome and suggested we take her to the pediatrician to get it evaluated. it had never occurred to me that someone could actually DO something about the choking. brilliant!

i called the pediatrician's office this morning and they said bring her in at 10. we didn't see her usual doctor but saw another one, dr. ho, who is the attending at the clinic. she said there are a few possibilities: the two most likely are reflux and some kind of swallowing disorder. she said a barium swallow test would tell us more (that's when she swallows some barium-containing drink and they x-ray the process so they can see exactly what's going on). she said it sounds like reflux to her. so i asked if we could just treat her for reflux and if she gets better, not have to do the swallow test. she said absolutely. so, we got a prescription for kiddy zanax and will start her on that post-haste. actually, not that fast, when we get the new insurance cards in the mail either this week or next. she's been living with this for 3.5 years, another week wont hurt i figure... however, dr. ho does want her on the zantac (not zanax, thanks leigh!) because she said if it is reflux, the constant stomach acid refluxing could injure her esophagus. we have a follow-up in a month, and if the choking stops we'll know it was the reflux. if it doesn't, she'll have to go for that swallow test after all.

however, in other good news, her heart murmur has disappeared! this means that it was indeed one of those transient, innocent childhood ones and we don't have to see the cardiologist. i was hoping this would happen! hooray!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

i love mitt romney posts

when we were visiting with paul and sarah we told them about nina's thing for mitt romney. paul, who can be somewhat evil, turned to nina and whispered "mitt romney is flip-flopper."
nina indignantly responded "mitt romney is NOT a flip-flopper!!"

i love it!

back!

well, it's been a busy few weeks but we are finally back in NY.

we had a fantastic thanksgiving in stoughton! we drove up on tuesday night--left at about 6:30 and the girls were asleep by 7:00. i think we arrived 10:45-ish.

wednesday we hung out at the house, picked up the turkey and some thanksgiving odds and ends, and waited for family to start arriving. mom and dad arrived at about 4, just before isabelle got home from work. jenny and uncle vito arrived around 5:30 and we all had dinner together when erik got in at 6:30.

thursday we spent cooking and eating! gina, angelo, and the girls were there, along with aunt maria, uncle lee, grandma, jessica, and her boyfriend nick. it was crowded but fun. it was fun eating thanksgiving in the 1769 farmhouse. isabelle even lit the candle chandelier. next year i want to have everyone in costume. :-)

friday we had grandma's birthday party at vinny t's, also wonderful. afterwards it was back to erik and isabelle's for some wii.

saturday we visited our friends paul and sarah and their new baby connor. this is all i have to say about saturday.

sunday we came home. lots of traffic but the girls did wonderfully!

and that's the weekend.