have i ever talked about how i think nina is psychic?

sometimes, i'll be washing dishes thinking about something or other, and nina will start talking about the very thing i was thinking about. one time recently i had run into a friend (heather) on the way to pick up nina from school, and she said she'd be going to the playground with the kids after school. i was thinking about this as we were approaching the playground (but not yet in sight of it), when nina said "maybe heather will be at the playground." what the heck! it's not like we see heather at the playground often at all... totally out of the blue. anyway, it happens enough that i noticed, and started to try to figure out if she really is psychic. then i thought hey, maybe i'm reading her thoughts! then i realized that if i were the psychic one, i'd notice this phenomenon with other people too. and with the exception of knowing what erik got isabelle for christmas in 07, i've never read anyone's mind. so, it must be nina.

which brings me to an interesting article i read on yahoo today: Romney's Work Puts Him in 2012 Political Spotlight. remember the time we drove by the white house, and nina said mitt romney lived there? it all makes sense now....

another nina is so cute post

nick had to work some on saturday, so i took the girls outside to play. when we got down to the lobby, greg the mailman was there. we said hi and he said, "going out to play?" i said yup, and nina said "not papa, he has to work today. he loves his job."

cutie!

and a video

nina is so good at writing!

the kids made vegetable soup at school this week and ate it for lunch on thursday. (they all brought in sandwiches too and had dessert. nina was really excited to be a "lunch kid" for a day). so, they also made these little crafts--paper basket cutouts with pictures of vegetables glued to them. i didn't notice right away, but this morning i saw a word nina had written on the back of the basket.

i couldn't figure out what she had tried to write, so i asked her. "maggie!" she said. she mixes up the order of letters sometimes, so i was thrown of because she wrote amggie instead of maggie. and because the first g kinda looks like a p, and the second g like a balloon... but lowercase g's are hard to write! so, i thought this was pretty fantastic! it's not like anyone had written it down for her to copy either. go nina!

a little cuteness...

maggie loves to stick her little tongue out.

nina in my or vanessa's old dance costume!

performance art, the final installment?

it's not quite finished, but it's almost just a technicality at this point. i'll need to get out the rubber spatula to get the last. we're at 4 days now. estimated time until finish: 0.75 days. don't worry about us though, there's another jar in the cupboard.

parent teacher conference today

i had a conference with mrs. d, one of nina's preschool teachers. everything's great, but we all knew that already. she said nina is a delight to have at school, that she is friends with everyone, plays well, and just generally wonderful. mrs. d said that when nina plays with toys, she goes for the toy she wants regardless of which kid is playing with it too. meaning, if she wants to play with the blocks, she'll go over regardless who is there. she doesn't base her activity choice on which kid she wants to play with, it's based on which toy she wants to play with. this fits well with nina at home too. she's much more interested in what we're doing than she is in playing with any particular kid.

mrs. d also said that nina is always 100% aware of what's going on and what she's supposed to be doing. which of course is no surprise as well. she said that if the class is talking about, say, the weather, it's very common for a 3 year old, when asked a question, to say something like "my shoes are blue." and they say, "why yes they are, but what about blah blah blah." but not nina--if she's asked a question, she always answers appropriately. ah, i forsee nina's future, sitting in the classroom, teacher trying desperately to draw the correct answer out of another child, knowing that he can call on nina at any time and always get the correct answer.

mrs. d said that nina is much less shy than she was at the beginning of the year. at the beginning, nina was more likely to hang back and watch the other kids play. mrs. d said she would ask nina, "would you like to play with the blocks too?" and nina would nod. so mrs. d would say, "well, why don't you go ask if you can play too?" and nina would say no, she didn't want to. so mrs. d would take her over and ask for her. but now, and for a long time, she has just happily gone over by herself and asked to join in. so, isn't that nice.

maggie was with me, and mrs. d was very impressed with her too (little show stealer!). she said something to maggie at one point, and maggie looked up at her, and mrs. d said "oh, she's smart. she's very smart."

i think that's it! i'm so glad nina has so much fun at school. this week they're making vegetable soup. nina brought in carrots.

performance art, continued...

here is the nutella jar 3 days out. this is a 26 oz jar, by the way. the jar the supermarket sells is only 13 oz.

here's one way i'm eating the nutella. i call it reeses peanut butter cup on a spoon. mmm!

performance art

this is what a new jar of nutella from costco looks like.

this is what a jar of nutella looks like after 24 hours with the halter family.

this is what the same jar looks like after 48 hours.


our record is finishing a jar in 5 days.

to be continued....

maggie is fine again this morning

just a quick maggie update, she's fantastic, happily throwing cheerios all over the floor and banging her bowl. the bump on her head is gone, just a black and blue that's now yellow.
she was, however, up until 10:00 last night, which is about 3 hours past her usual bedtime. i don't know what was going on, but she screamed and cried whenever i tried to put her to sleep, so we just let her stay up. it got to the point that we were starting to worry, but i looked over the discharge instructions, and it didn't say anything about NOT sleeping, just being too sleepy. it did mention irritability, but she's cutting some teeth, so we thought it was probably that. maybe it was a headache that got worse when she was laying down. either way, i looked it up online and the internet said to only worry if a headache didn't go away with tylenol. so, we gave her some, and she fell asleep within minutes. it was probably just the teeth. maybe a headache, but she's entitled to one of those, it really was quite the bump.

i guess i will quickly fill in in case anyone who is reading this didn't hear--maggie fell and hit her head on the floor (the floor in the dining room, which is really hard). she cried and got a bump, but she also started throwing up. she didn't actually get anything out, but she heaved and gurgled 3 or 4 times. throwing up after a head injury is one of those things you're supposed to call the dr for, so i called. the on-call dr. said after a head injury with throwing up, a child really should be seen, so that i should take her to the ER. this was 6:30 at night, so we were not happy with this information. oh, this was on wednesday though, the same day that natasha richardson died after her initially harmless-seeming head injury. i had JUST read an article about how people can seem fine after head injuries but their brain is silently bleeding and sweeling, and they can still be dead in hours. perfect timing, no?

so, long story short, we went to the ER and they did a neurological eval and she was fine (they were all impressed that she was walking, too). still, they wanted to keep her until it was 4 hours from the injury, because apparently the first 4 hours after an injury is a window in which damage can appear. i think they were all skittish about natasha richardson too. this was presbyterian and she was at lenox hill, but i think everyone in the world knew about it. also, i didn't ask how her being only 9 months old mattered, but i know babies are even more sensitive to brain injury than kids. i read online yesterday that under 6 months old is the real danger time though. most of that info was in regards to shaken baby syndrome though.

anyway, they woke her up at 10:30, did another neurological eval (looking at her eyes, took temperature, made sure she could wake up) and we were on our way. they said to pay close attention to how she was doing 12-24 hours after the injury because that is another period that problems can show up, but she was her usual self yesterday.

ok, hopefully we won't have any more incidences like this!

hello!

this girl is too funny. these are 3D glasses that came with one of her books.

our trip to fort tilden

it was supposed to be 55 degrees yesterday (it wasn't), so we decided to charge ahead into spring. here are our pictures from fort tilden in rockaway. we went with nina's friend jack and his family. the kids had a blast digging in the sand.

this picture of maggie walking with nick reminds me of a similar pic we have of nina and nick walking at ocean city, NJ.

me and margarete. in the background you can see nina and jack sitting on a piece of driftwood and mr. caralis (dennis).

the initial plan was to also explore the fort aspect of fort tilden, but the kids were enjoying the beach so much that we just hung out there. it was great--almost totally deserted and very clean. cool, but not too cold. i think we stayed for about an hour.

back at the driftwood.

i think we'll have to go back when it's warmer!

a good video of the walking

she's walking so well! she's only 9.5 months old. my 9 month old toddler!

a song from nina

the lyrics to her song:

i made a little snowman
i rolled it on the ground
he had two eyes
a nose
a mouth
a lovely scarf of red
he even had some buttons
and a hat upon his head
melt
arms
melt
arms
maggie

(the arms and maggie at the end there were an improvisation. usually it's just "melt, melt, melt" and she melts to the ground)

more maggie

this is maggie jumping. she saw nina jump and has been trying to get off the ground ever since. she was trying to jump a second time on this video, but she fell when she bent her knees. it was all good, though, because she found some cheerios on the floor. really, the cuteness never ends here.

a little bit of maggie

it's hard to get video of her walking, but here she's holding onto stuff and takes 1 or 2 steps on her own at the end.

story hour at the library

we went to story hour at the library today, for something to do in the morning. lots of kids were there; rain, moon, august, diamond... anything really goes these days name-wise. i guess it's always been like that though. people used to name their kids grover or orson or what have you. perhaps if we have a third we'll have to get more creative with the name. brock if it's a boy, storm for a girl. ha!

so, i made quesadillas for dinner tonight. yum! nina is always very enthusiastic when i make a dinner she likes, and tonight she told me that she really liked my "tasty ideas." (she pronounced idea to rhyme with quesadilla. it was too cute).

maggie has found a less cute way of communicating lately. when there's something she wants she points at it and whines/grunts. kind of a "uhhnnn uhnnn" sound.

finally, nina had her hearing tested today. apparently she hears just fine, which means she really is just ignoring us half the time. i was reminding her about the test this morning (i had told her yesterday that they were going to do a hearing test, and maybe put headphones on her, and she'd hear a beep and maybe raise her hand). she said "yeah, and they're gonna put an ear infection in my ear." how do you get from headphones to ear infection? she didn't have to raise her hand when she heard a tone by the way, she put a block into a bucket. seems unnecessarily complicated, doesn't it? mrs. rickert thought so too.

OH!!!! and we got her school pictures back! check your mailboxes soon for the amazing cuteness!

WARNING: FUNNY STUFF AHEAD!

i hope you're seated, because this might make you fall down laughing...



i obviously have no shame...

this might be even funnier than me hula hooping.






we were arguing last night about who looks more ridiculous. i say me, nick says him. either way, i laughed so hard at us last night that i almost threw up.

but now check out our child. what could the product of these two people possibly look like when she hula hoops? the possibilities boggle the mind!

how is it that nick and i could produce such a graceful child?

preschool playdate

on friday, nick joined nina at school for a playdate. how fun! only one of us could go, and no little sisters, so nina picked papa so i could stay home with maggie in case she needed to nurse. what a sweetie!

nick will be by later to tell you highlights of their day, but one very cute treat we got was a little story nina told the teachers about each of us. i'll transcribe them for you all because they are SO cute.

the nick:

his name is papa.
he's married to mama. actually, mama is married to papa.
daddy works at home on the computer.
his favorite books are german books. he speaks german.
he watches basketball and baseball and football on TV. he claps for his shows.
his favorite songs are ABCs and twinkle, twinkle.
watching television makes him happy. nothing makes him sad.
maggie and nina are his friends.
he teaches me how to write a "b."
he tucks me into bed.
he likes oranges, apples, and strawberries. and cantaloupe. and watermelon.
he plays with me in the morning. we play chasing each other outside. we run and hide. daddy hides behind the slide. in the afternoon, we play ball. we play catch. you throw a ball back and forth.
i like to draw with daddy.
i love him a lot.


and the mama one:
mommy's name is desiree.
she's 40.
she has nina and maggie.
mommy lives in new york. papa and nina and maggie live with mommy.
at home mommy cleans. she cleans everything like toys and balls. she cleans the table.
mommy drives a white car. she drives to the store and to school and to the movie theater.
she likes to eat bananas and apples. she likes to drink water.
mommy watches baseball on TV.
i like to drink with mommy. she drinks water and i drink juice.
me and mama make pictures with markers.
mommy takes me to maine on vacation. mommy reads the newspaper and she watches TV in maine.
i love my mommy a whole bunch.

she drew a picture of each of us to go with the descriptions. we love them!

bring on the cute!

here are some pictures from the children's museum in brooklyn. finally.

this food is fake, but it looks so real!

maggie befriended this turtle.

the buttons make animal sounds

cute!

we spent a long time at the sandbox.

maggie's checkup

she's 21.5 lbs and 30 inches tall! that's about 85th percentile for weight and off the charts for height. she's also exactly 50th percentile for height to weight ratio. perfect in every way!

i have learned to hula hoop!

wow am i having a fun day. nina's going to be late to school because the hula hoop has thrown our morning for a loop! hahaha.

i will try to get nick to take a video of me hula hooping for your general amusement. i'm pretty sure there's no funnier sight than my ungraceful hula hooping. my abs burn! what a workout!

10.5 inches of snow!

i didn't realize we had gotten so much! unfortunately, there will be no pictures of the girls romping in it because it's FREEZING out. i took nina out to play yesterday while maggie was napping and i almost got frostbite. she was toasty warm though.

also a quick update on the apartment sale: we are still negotiating with our potential buyer. he is, i believe, looking into how much the updates he wants to do will cost, before we settle on a price. hopefully this is just a matter of reaching a price. however, there's still the chance that the very tight restrictions on renovations (need a licensed contractor so you can't do them yourself, can't borrow to do them unless you've paid off 75% of your mortgage) deter him. since we live in a co-op, the board is pretty much free to write up all of these rules. however, sara davidson says that if it looks like we might lose the sale over this, to talk to a lawyer about whether we could throw in extras like we pay the closing costs as incentives. this would free up extra cash for the guy, and perhaps help us seal the deal. so, we'll pull these guns out if we need to. keep your fingers crossed! i am SO done with straightening up for the open houses!