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.

quick photo for oma

the girls LOVE the snow!

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!

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!!

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...

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

our weekend in virginia

Here are the 5 members of the kelly family. this photo was taken right after lyla was baptised, a rather hasty affair as the priest didn't know about it and was on his way out the door for a funeral. at least he hadn't left yet! i don't know what happened, but he said the secretary told him there were no baptisms today, so there must have been some miscommunication. all's well that ends well though, and with 5 kids aged 3 and under, short was good.

so, here's a quick recap: we left on thursday at 7 pm and the girls promptly fell asleep. before we even left queens. the plan worked! unfortunately, we arrived at midnight and the girls woke up. we were all up for about an hour, then it took another half hour to settle everyone to sleep. waking up at 6 friday morning made for a tired mommy. tired mommy started to feel sick on friday--first just a few sneezes, then the itchy nose, throat, and eyes. i told myself i was probably allergic to the dog or cat, but by friday night i knew it was a cold. oh well. maggie got it too but we seem to be recovering quickly.

the girls played all day on friday and had a great time. saturday was the christening (10:30 to 10:45), then we took some pictures and went home for lunch. party lasted until we put the girls to bed.

sunday we had breakfast with the kellys and then drove into DC to see leigh and jim. the plan was to take the girls to the museum of natural history, but maggie and i were not up for it so we just had lunch at their place. still, we got to drive by the washington monument and the white house ("look!" we said to nina,"that's where the president lives!" "mitt romney?" she said. "no!" i said. "barack obama is the new president" i'm not making this up! she's really a mitt supporter i guess. "a rock obama?was her reply. "maybe mitt romney will be elected next time," i told her. i didn't add that he's a mormon and grandma give him no chance of getting elected. because who knows, right? if we can elect a black man, maybe we can elect a mormon.)

we left leigh and jim's at about 2 and the girls were out like lights before 2:30. maggie slept until 5:30 when we stopped for dinner. it was miraculous. nina slept for almost 2 hours and then occupied herself. we got back on the road at 6:30, maybe 6:45 and were home at 8 on the nose.

so, we had a great time! i can't believe we're heading out to stoughton tomorrow, hopefully maggie and i are much better by then. i was sick last thanksgiving and really want to enjoy this one.

christmas list!

it's almost that time of year! i thought i'd put nina's christmas wish list up here instead of emailing it out.

first, the girls measurements:

NINA
height: 40 in/102 cm
weight: 32 lbs/14.5 kg
chest: 20 in/50 cm
waist: 19 in/48 cm
hips: 19.5 in/49 cm
shoe size: 10 or 10.5, but her feet grow rapidly

MAGGIE
height: 28 in/71 cm
weight: 19 lbs/8.5 kg
chest: 18 in/45 cm
shoe size: her foot is 4.25 in/12 cm, i don't know what size this corresponds to

now the fun stuff!

NINA
we went to toys r us to pick out toys for sarah davidson's girls. i wrote down all of the things that nina ran to and asked for. here they are:
tinkerbell doll (barbie-ish kind)
baby doll (but we really have enough of these!)
cash register that makes noise
little chair (plush)
foam sticker letters (there was a whole section of foam sticker craft stuff that nina liked. she likes anything crafty--stamps, stickers, glue, glitter, paint, paper... everything)
new playdough
wagon (big enough to pull kids. i don't know about this... it's big and i'm not sure how often i envision myself pulling them up the road there in maine or around the streets of NY)
animal figurines. she loved the bottle of bugs/animals that ethan has in KC.

here are some other things she could use:
rain boots (i'm thinking a big size, like 11 or 11.5, because i could put on heavy socks and use them as winter boots, and then in the spring as rain boots)
her own luggage (with a handle to pull and wheels!!)

she is pretty set with clothes. she will be needing some 5T pants soon, but i don't think they'll fit until spring or even summer, so we might not end up using them until fall. so i'm thinking of waiting on pants until the next big growth spurt.


MAGGIE:
mom is checking the clothing stash we have in maine to see what might fit maggie. right now she's in size 12-18 months. she's set for the winter with the exception of baby winter boots. what i'd really like are warm, fuzzy boots that don't have hard soles (because those are impossible to get on little babies). maybe i'll just put nina's old boots on her, i'm not sure... but if you see anything like this for cheap, i'd like it. i think she'd be a size small.
she likes toys with flashing lights that make noise. nina didn't, so we actually don't have too many of these.
other than that, maggie has everything she needs.

i'll update if there's anything else i can think of. last christmas was kind of crazy, so mom one gift is enough!!

ok, more when i think of it! oh, nick and i are doing great, except nick wants new pj pants (vanessa and micah, he's counting on you!), and i want an electric pencil sharpener (mom) and a meat thermometer (oma!) and really that's all!!!!

questions, questions, questions...

the connie stevens episode of the muppet show (which is, incidentally, episode 2, season 1) has been freezing on lydia lately. since lydia comes before the connie stevens spot, we haven't been able to watch "teenager in love" without a great deal of trouble. thankfully, it's on youtube. we were so grateful to have found it again that we watched it a few hundred times in the past few days. (we would be me, nina, and maggie, who doesn't like to miss a thing).

in case you don't know the lyrics by heart, it starts like this:

each time we have a quarrel
it almost breaks my heart
'cause i am so afraid
that we will have to part.

each night i ask the stars up above
why must i be a teenager in love?

looks simple enough to you and me, right? well, there is a world of new ideas in there for a three-year-old. here are some of the questions i've fielded today:

why is she afraid?
why is she in love?
she's not really afraid though is she?
what's a boyfriend?
why does she have a boyfriend?
but her heart doesn't really break right?
why is she afraid they will break apart?
what does break apart mean?
why does she have a quarrel?

man!! i don't know why she has a boyfriend! don't go getting any ideas my friend, i know you have at least 2 little boyfriends at preschool already!!

the new cabinets

here they are!

and one of the both of them

move over connie stevens

each night i ask the stars up above
why must i be a teenager in love?

there is nothing cuter than a three year old singing "why must i be a teenager in love?"

nina learns a lot of songs at preschool

you all remember the farmer in the dell, right? nina must have learned it in preschool and has been singing it lately. it goes like this:

the farmer in the bowl
the farmer in the bowl
hi ho delario
the farmer in the bowl

i tried to correct her lyrics but she's having none of that. "no, it's hi ho de-LAR-ee-oo!"

ok ma'am!

we have new cabinets!!!!!!

i will put up a picture as soon as i can, but george's guys (george is the twins' papa, lives across the hall from us and does cabinetry/furniture building) put them in yesterday. it only took a few hours and they are soooooooo beautiful! YAY!!!!!

politics, politics, politics

i was reading an article online the other day, and there was a picture of barack obama with it. of course, nina asked questions:

nina: who's that?
me: that's the new president of our country.
nina: mitt romney?

HA!

saw maggie's pediatrician yesterday...

...and got a referral to the cranio-facial specialist. she said she can see the asymmetry in her head and face, but that her face looks so mildly asymmetrical that it looks normal to her. because she is a resident, dr. russo works with this guy at the hospital a few times a month and she thinks he's great. she said he'll just give maggie's head a feel and let us know what he thinks. she thinks maggie won't need a helmet, but said that all of the cases she's seen while working with this guy were really bad, so she doesn't know for sure what he'd think about a mild case like maggie's. maybe he'll be able to give us more pointers on how to help position to reshape her head without flattening out the other side too much.

also, she weighs 18.5 lbs. that's a big maggie! nina was about 15.5 at this age. she's a little bit taller than nina at this age, maybe half an inch or an inch. she's also sitting up very well, rolling in both directions, and starting to scoot a bit on her tummy.

oh, and her favorite food is cantaloupe.

maggie is amost a PT grad!

maggie has been doing fantastically during physical therapy. her neck muscles are almost even, and she only tilts her head when she's tired. so, we get to wait 8 weeks before the next PT session. hooray maggie!

we're going to work on strengthening both sides of her body during the 8 weeks, and will continue daily stretching at home, but she doesn't have to meet with the therapist, which is great for me because it's a hassle to drive to the hospital for PT once a week.

in helmet news, we'll be meeting with her pediatrician on monday, so i'll update then. i did see online that fullness in one cheek is also a sign of facial asymmetry, and she has that, so i'm feeling more certain that we will do a helmet. but, we'll see what the specialists say.

Food funniness

on wednesday night i made crepes for dinner. i filled them with leftover chicken and cheddar cheese sauce. nina liked them, but was a little confused by the word "crepe." she thought they were crab and kept calling them crabs. we told her they were crepes with chicken, but she was confused.

this morning she was hungry. i asked her if she wanted some cheese and she said, "no, i want leftover crap."

HA!

back home from kansas city

sorry for not updating while we were gone oma!

we had a fantastic time in kansas city. maggie did wonderfully on the plane, as did nina. we left early saturday morning and arrived around 10 am. we spent saturday hanging out with vanessa, micah, ethan, and mom and dad, and on sunday went to the science museum and lunch at the big train station. monday mom and dad left and we went shopping (i tried to find jeans, to no avail. but i did order some online today from old navy for only $20. the $20 jeans streak continues! featured in glamour magazine too!)

then flew home tuesday and had another easy flight.

today was my parent/teacher conference at nina's preschool. mrs. rickert, one of her teachers, had nothing but positive things to say. nina plays well, listens well, knows everything they try to teach the first year (colors, reading and spelling her name, etc) and apparently has never once given them even so much as a devilish look. she's still a little shy there, though, so maybe they'll see the dark side when she finishes coming out of her shell. next parent/teacher conferences are in march, so we'll see...

on the maggie front, we made an appointment to see her pediatrician on monday. dr. russo will evaluate the head shape and refer us on the the specialists at presbyterian if she thinks a helmet is a possibility. apparently they have a whole department of cranial-facial specialists that deal with this kind of thing.

maggie is continuing to say mama at me, so i think this might qualify as her first word. well, i guess second, she was saying hello. and one morning it sounded like she said "good morning" to us, but that only happened once... still, i'll take third, i was like, nina's 10th word. as long as i beat out nick this time, i'm happy. :-P

a helmet?

today, maggie's physical therapist said we might want to consider a helmet to help reshape her head. i was a bit blindsided by the suggestion because i didn't think her plagiocephaly (you can click on that word) was that bad, but apparently it's borderline. the physical therapist (aida) gave me a pamphlet about the helmet and said to think about whether we wanted it. (the kid in the picture above is wearing one of the helmets. it would have to be worn 23 hours a day for probably 3 months and is for purely cosmetic reasons).

one of nina's classmates dad, khan, is a physical therapist, so i asked the mom if he would give an opinion on the head. she said sure, and to call right away because he was answering the phone and not with patients today. i called and he said to bring her right by and he'd take a look (this is zohaib's dad. this is the family that we went to chuck e. cheese with back in september so nina and zohaib could play).

well, he agreed that the plagoicephaly is borderline, but he said if maggie were his patient, he'd want her to see a pediatric neurologist to decide whether the helmet is in order. i guess that's what we'll do next. he also said that if it were zohaib, he wouldn't be going with the helmet because zohaib would really hate it, and the correction wouldn't be worth it. if it was his daughter, he said he'd think about it.

the issue is that the flattening on the back, right side of her skull causes a slight misalignment in her ears, a slight bulge in her forehead, and can cause some asymmetry in the face. if you look at this chart(you can click that too), maggie is a 1 in all of the categories. she used to be a 2 in neck involvement, but we've corrected that to a 1 with the PT. khan said she'd probably improve about 50% without a helmet, close to 100% with. i think the 50% might be optimistic--she spends almost no time on the flat part anymore, even at night, since she nurses almost all night long and that puts her on the left side. i was expecting that it would be much better by now, since we started PT 2 months ago, but it's only slightly better.

so, that's that. i guess we'll see the neurologist and find out whether the asymmetry in her face will become more pronounced as she grows, less, or stays the same. the only way i could see us going for the helmet would be if the asymmetry is going to become more pronounced. right now, the only thing i really notice is that her ears are ever so slightly misaligned, but i don't think anyone else would notice.

also, i asked aida how much longer we'd be in PT, and she said she'll want to eventually be seeing us every once in a great while to make sure the torticollis doesn't return, but for now it's next week, and if maggie's rolling well then, we go again in a month. i also asked if maggie's torticollis was mild (like i've been telling people), but she said no, moderate.

so, big update there, but i think that's everything.

she has her grandma's snore alright...

turn the volume up because it's quiet. then close your eyes, and it's just like watching a movie with mom.

HA!

aww, i see now that it's dark. well, it's just maggie's little face. such a cute face though, what a shame you can't see it. i'll just have to upload another video where you can see her face. since nick is just playing wii anyway...

maggie's turn for a post and a picture

maggie likes food! mmmm!

we started feeding maggie solids this month, and they've been a hit. she's still mad that we're not feeding her the same food we're eating (especially the chocolate. she knows what's good already!), but she's far happier getting something. she eats a lot, too. my baby, she's growing up!!

wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

we got our wii!!

i just bowled against myself, and i won, 164 to 89! funnily, the 164 was using my left hand, and the 89 was using my right (you can configure the controller for lefty or righty, and it was set for nina, lefty). maybe i'm such a terrible bowler because i'm really a lefty bowler, and all these years i've been using my right hand.

the lessons we've learned from wii already...

we've been trying to figure out what to be for halloween. this is a costume possibility. she'd be balloon girl, obviously.

short entry, kids need me!

oma gets in trouble...

nina wanted oma to read her a book during dinner. oma told nina to finish her dinner and she would read her a book afterward. nina approached the dinnertable, book in hand, and said, very softly, "oma, read me this book or i'm going to spank you with it."

where does she get this stuff!

fuzzy-headed baby

here is maggie's beautiful fuzzy head. i don't have too many funny maggie anecdotes yet, since she's just 4 1/2 months old, but i can tell you all that she snores like her grandma when she sleeps. yup i'm talking about you mom. sleeping with her is like sleeping in a room with my mother. or watching a movie with my mother. ha!

the sky is blue

nina, maggie, and i walked to and from the dr's office on friday afternoon. it was cool and clear, and maggie was sleeping. the sky was totally clear, and i pointed it out to nina.

me: look at the sky, isn't it beautiful?
nina: can it come off?
me: no, it just goes up and up forever. if you went up, you could just keep going and going.
nina: i couldn't come down?
me: no, you could come down too.
nina: maybe the wind could blow me down.
me: maybe.
me: isn't it such a pretty blue?
nina: who colored it?
me: (pause) just the light colors it blue.
nina: look a doggie!!

i love conversations with nina.

isn't this picture adorable? it's nina coming home from her first day at preschool. i love the look on her face.

Mini-Me

One of the great things about having kids is watching them grow up, seeing them develop and noticing the traits they get from their parents. The one big thing that Nina and I have in common, other than our beauty, is that we both love food very, very much. And our metabolism is insanely fast. The girl is a stick despite eating far more than any other child we know. Our days are structured around food. Sometimes she will want to eat leftover Chinese food at 10 in the morning. What kind of kid does that? We had to give her snacks to take to preschool when she first started going because she was getting hungry. All they get is a small snack and they're there for 3 hours. That's not going to cut it! One of the teachers asked Desiree concerned: "Well, what has she had to eat today?" "Let's see, a bowl of cereal, a slice of cinnamon toast, a banana, a yoghurt, a bowl of Wonton soup, three figs and a half of a PB & J sandwich." This was at 12:30. Most kids don't eat that much food in 2 days.
But anyway, we eat. She gets very excited about food. We shop at Costco a lot where they often have free samples. Not often enough though. One late afternoon there were none. She would point at the workers unpacking boxes and stocking shelves and ask if they had free samples. For Halloween she is going to be a Costco lady handing out samples. She got all dressed up one day in a princess outfit she had gotten for her birthday, gloves, shoes, veil and went around the rest of the day handing out free samples. To my dismay, they were pretend. Princess? How dare you father, I am a Costco lady! I am going to have to warn other parents on Halloween not to mistake her for a princess either.
But all this talk about food is making me hungry, of course. We just got back from the diner 2 hours ago. What did we have? "Stuffed mushrooms, soup, french fries, cake,...."

oma comes to visit

oma is here (that's anne, nick's mom, for those of you outside the immediate family circle). she came bearing gifts for the girls (as usual) and chocolate and coffee (as usual) and cheese (not usual). the cheese is called geheimratskase, which translates to "secret agent cheese" (says nick), but nina calls it austria cheese. nina really likes cheese, it makes up about 40% of her diet. she's only 3, but she can tell her colby jack from her monterey jack. no big surprise, nina loves austria cheese.
nina is also learning about the days of the week and the months in preschool. (check out that link insertion. sweet!). i think she's getting a better concept of time because of this. or not. either way, she keeps asking when oma is going to leave, is oma leaving, is oma going to be here in the morning, and we keep explaining that she'll be here for a looooooooong time (2 weeks). yesterday at lunch we had the following exchange:
nina: is oma leaving?
me: no, oma is staying for a long time. she's staying monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday. that's a long time!
nina: when she leaves, will she take the austria cheese with her?

ha!

the inaugural post

well, nick and i have decided to start a family blog. the idea is to write often about the adorable things the kids do, to complain about things (like the viagra commercial playing on TV as i type), and other such blogginess.

we will take turns typing. you'll know it's me (desiree) because i don't use the caps key (why? it's a mystery. a hook, if you will, to draw in readers). also, i use exclamation points. a lot!

i'll get right to it with a little story about nina. she's in preschool now, and comes home singing new songs just about every day. last week she started singing
row row row your boat
gently down the stream
merrily merrily merrily merrily
your life is about a dream.

and that's why i've decided to name our blog about a dream.

so, enjoy!