http://www.blogger.com/html?blogID=1755139666841541603 about a dream: April 2009

Thursday, April 30, 2009

ladies and gentlemen!

for the past few days nina's been standing on the beds saying "ladies and gennemen! mans and gennemen!" and then dancing. it's too cute. it's so cute that i just can't bring myself to explain that "gennemen" is really supposed to be "gentlemen," so there's no need to continue with "mans and gennemen" and that furthermore, mans is grammatically incorrect. i don't correct her grammar anyway, they say it's not necessary and only makes kids feel self-conscious.

interesting aside about grammar, nina says "so as" instead of "like." as in, she'll say "i have the same dinner so as you." this is a literal english translation of the way comparisons can be made in german. nick might say "ich schaue aus so wie du," or "i look like you." that "so wie" literally translates to "so as." nina's translation is literally correct, which is neat. i've heard that kids who learn 2 languages make these kinds of mistakes but sort things out eventually. at least this is proof that she has retained at least some german!

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

is it wednesday already??

how does this happen? i could have sworn yesterday was sunday and today was monday, maybe tuesday. but it's wednesday! i think it's the heat. we hit 90 yesterday, i think 90 on saturday, and high 80s on sunday and monday. ridiculous. it's not even may! we are all out of sorts here from the heat. thankfully, today it's a cool 61, perfect.

the weather has been the big news here lately because not much else is going on. our open house on sunday attracted 5 potential buyers, so that's good. no offers yet, but at least we've got people coming through. hopefully only a matter of time!

no signs of swine flu either, though we all do have allergies.

so, like i said, not much going on! i will try to download some pictures from the camera soon, but right now i'm pooped from a trip to the grocery store.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

strange!

nina and i were sitting on the couch watching muppet show, and she says to me:

it's strange that i don't like cold weather but i like cold water. and i like warm weather but i don't like warm water. that's strange.

cutie!

Friday, April 24, 2009

school vacation recap, continued....

so, come wednesday, with the bedbug scare mostly behind us, it was time to head to maine. we ended up leaving at noon on wednesday instead of after school because nina didn't feel well anyway. it was a good choice, the kids slept in the car and i think i even managed a snooze, squished (but snug!) between the two carseats. we made good time, stopped at a mcdonalds playplace, got some ice cream for the car, and generally did whatever it took to keep the girls (especially her royal highness, queen margarete) happy. maggie's carseat is covered in melted ice cream as a result of my efforts to appease her, but she can throw an amazing tantrum if she feels like it, so appease i did! ahh, the terrible twos... one of the worst parts of toddlerhood.

here's an interesting little tidbit that i know i haven't told vanessa at least. it was about 9:30 at night when we were driving through wiscasset, and nina pointed out the right turn from route 1 that takes you to camp chewonkee. she said to me, "that's where the camp you went to when you were a little girl and did hanging is." what!! i did indeed to go camp chewonkee when i was in jr. high, and they had that awesome ropes course, but i have NO recollection of telling nina about it. that means if i told her, it was at least this last summer, possibly earlier. how could she possibly remember where it was, and point it out in the dark? amazing. or frightening, since we haven't eliminated the possibility that she can read minds. however, i was not thinking about chewonkee when we drove by, so she wasn't reading my active thoughts at that moment. i tell you, she can be a bit frightening at times. hopefully this is an indication that she has vanessa's memory for detail (not mine!!), and my directional ability (not nicks). whew!!

we got in safely to boothbay at about 9:45, and got to hang out with grandma and grandpa for a bit before the kids were ready to hit the sack for the night. all in all, one of our most successful trips ever.

next up, the story of how nina, chester, and maggie are all best of friends. awww...

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

grandpa's birthday


last week was dad's birthday. nina and i made everyone (except maggie, we figured she wouldn't wear one) a birthday crown. it was quite festive! i had one too, of course, but i'm taking the picture.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

school vacation week recap

since i didn't write anything at all while we were in maine, i'll fill you all in on what happened there. i'll start with our trip up and work forward from there. maggie is asleep right now, so i'll write until she wakes up.

actually, i'm going to start with the monday before we went to maine--monday, april 6. i got a phone call from donna (the woman at the co-op management office) saying that the apartment next to us has bedbugs. BEDBUGS! bedbugs are the plague of astoria these days. they live in your mattress and suck your blood while you sleep. their bites can be like mosquito bites, all itchy, red and swollen. apparently they are notoriously hard to kill, and fumigating to get rid of them is ridiculously complex. so, donna said that the exterminator would be over within an hour to inspect our apartment for them. bedbugs can cross from apartment to apartment, but i don't (didn't) know how easily, so i didn't know whether we might actually have a problem or not. since no one had been bitten, things looked ok. but still scary.

well, the exterminator came and found no evidence of bedbugs. he said they'll leave little droppings on the mattress, especially in the seams, and that's a tell-tale sign. we had no little droppings. woo hoo! i breathed a sigh of relief and went to pick up nina at school.

that night we ate dinner at the diner. when we got home, there was an envelope on our door. actually, it was on bob's door, but it had our name on it and i was expecting to hear from the co-op about the bedbugs, so i took it. the letter said that the co-op recommended exterminating even though we didn't seem to have any bedbugs. the list of things we had to do to prepare for extermination was crazy-- remove everything from every surface and drawer, and wash everything in the apartment in hot water and dry on hot.

in the morning, i called donna and she sent the exterminator and head maintainence guy, marcel, over to talk. marcel said the wall between our apartment and the neighboring one is at least 2 inches thick and as far as he knows, none of the walls in the complex have cracks going through them. the exterminator had already told me bedbugs can cross through sheetrock but not through plaster or concrete walls. we decided just in case to have the seam of the common wall sprayed and the outlets on that wall, just in case any bedbugs found a crack to crawl through.

so far, so good. i did wake up one night in maine with a few of my eczema hot spots itching like crazy, which made me worry that we had bedbugs and had brought them to maine, but it was just eczema.

well, maggie is up and i haven't even gotten to our trip! more to come...

Sunday, April 19, 2009

we're back!

back in NY. sorry i have not written in the blog in forever, it was so busy in maine. on top of all the fun, nina got sick, and then maggie and i got sick. we're still feeling under the weather (i have a tummy ache and nausea that comes and goes, and i think maggie does too because she's nursing but not really eating anything).

but we got back today, the trip home went really smoothly. which was great. nina and maggie can really entertain each other, and i was sitting in the back part of the way with them to help keep maggie happy. she can really throw a tantrum if she decides she wants out of the car immediately, and i didn't want that to happen.

now i have to go to bed, because the combination of the travel, this bug, maggie having this bug and waking up a lot at night, and nina having this bug before that and waking up to cough and throw up at night, has been exhausting. i almost passed out at costco today i was so tired. then i managed to perk up a bit back in the car, to my surprise. sometimes places like costco, with all the people, products, and lighting, make me dizzy and out of it feeling anyway. so that must have been part of the problem.

well, like i said, nothing interesting today! i promise i will write about the adorable things the kids did over the vacation starting tomorrow.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

little miss grown-up


she insists on drinking from this cup. she takes it everywhere with her, motoring about with her iced coffee (it's really water of course). she is too funny.

some fun on a rainy day

it rained friday morning and early afternoon, but by the time maggie and i went to pick up nina from preschool, it was much warmer and the rain had stopped. so, we stayed outside blowing bubbles and stomping (or sitting, in maggie's case) in the puddles. here are some pics:




Thursday, April 2, 2009

knitting

sorry family, this post has nothing really to do with the children. i'm finally getting around to adding sleeves to the sweater dress i knit for nina, and i want them to look more polished than the sleeves on the sweater i knit for nina. here's the problem:


see, messy. :-(





this one looks pretty good, but i can't remember what i did differently here



a close up, but kinda blurry sorry.



here's the final product. next winter maggie can wear it!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

the girls were up late last night

nina fell asleep on the couch at 5 and slept until 7. so of course, she was up until 10:15. and don't you know, if nina's up, maggie's sure as heck not going to sleep... so both girls are running around all night, maggie so deliriously tired that she's wobbling around, about to fall and clock her beautiful little head on whatever surface is nearby, while nick and i tried to corral the madness and even clean up a bit.

i tried getting them to settle down by watching TV in bed with them (genius idea. i really just wanted to watch the weigh in on the biggest loser). so, while maggie is flailing about the bed, and nina and i are watching TV, i notice that while trimming her fingernails the other day, i did her left hand but forgot to do her right.

so i say to her, "oh, i forgot to trim the fingernails on your right hand. oops!" and nina scrunches up her beautiful little face and says, "lets deal with that tomorrow."

ha!

april fools!

i told nina about april fools day this morning. i told her that people play jokes on each other today, and asked if she wanted to play one on papa. she said sure (a little reluctantly, she's very sensitive to people's feelings and was skeptical about the idea of april fools day). i told her we could tell papa that there was an elephant in the street that must have escaped from the zoo. and when he got up to look, we'd say "april fools!"
she liked the idea but she had to go to the bathroom first. she couldn't wait for the gag, she callled out from the bathroom "papa, look out the window, there's a tiger outside! there really is!" and nick, the good sport, gets up to look and says "hey, there's no tiger!" nina, a bit confused as to who's supposed to say april fools, smiles and tells nick he's supposed to say april fools now. so cute! so for the rest of the morning, nina kept telling nick to look out the window and see what have you, and he would, and then say april fools.