dance class went well!

my plies and re terres are really coming along. oh yeah and maggie did well too.

heh heh. maggie was reluctant to dance at class today (she was reluctant to go, and then reluctant to participate. then she was suddenly excited to put on her new dance outfit, and i have no idea what made her suddenly excited). still, she didn't want to be more than an arm's length from me, so i danced too. it was quite fun actually! maybe ballet will teach me some grace. you never know!

she was adorable in her little pink dance outfit, and she did a great job. then, she got home and fell asleep for nearly two hours. i really appreciated that, because dance class had worn me out too and i really needed the rest. i'm still mostly better, coughing a lot but i don't think it's bronchitis. i did have a lot of pain in my upper chest (probably bronchial tubes) on monday and tuesday, but it was better today. so, i'm ever so slowly on the mend, and i need all the rest i can get.

an unrelated cutie:
maggie and nina were both cuddled up on my lap last night. maggie was nursing and nina was doting on her. she was saying how adorable maggie is, and how much she loves her. then she said, "and i can tell by looking at your eyes that you love me too!"

the sweetness! it's out of control!!

oh, but i can balance it out. i asked maggie to get me, her poor, sick mother, a tissue yesterday. "i'm not your mom," she responded. "get it yourself."

nice.

i have a new title too

i'm breaking this into a separate post both for emphasis, and to increase my post count. i take pride in my number of posts.

the other day (friday?) nina wanted something, and addressed me as "dearful mother who borned me."

dearful mother who borned me! how cute!!

a busy weekend

health wise, we're almost all better. nina and i are still coughing a lot, and still have intermittent (but mild) sore throats, but hopefully it's safe to say we're over the hump. hopefully.
on saturday morning we were feeling so much better (especially me). this was due in a large part to the fact that both girls had slept in their own beds until 6 am, thereby letting their mommy sleep THROUGH THE NIGHT!! do you know how huge this is? i have no recollection of having slept through the night since before maggie was born. i'm pretty sure there were some nights when i was pregnant with maggie that i slept through the night. i don't recall exactly, and neither does nick, but i think it must have happened. surely this wasn't the first time in 6 years and one month that i've slept from 11 to 6, uninterrupted? sadly, it could be, but it doesn't matter. it hasn't repeated since, and i don't even want to know how long it's going to be until it happens again, but it did and i am glad. isn't that sad? it's ok if you think that's sad, i do, but such is my life.

(*edited to add: oh my gosh, i just looked back at what i had written on friday night's blog post. i'll copy and paste it here so you don't have to scroll down. i wrote, " i've had some rough nights with maggie and could really, really use a good night's sleep tonight. but i'm glad that i've had the energy in the middle of the night to take care of maggie."
wow! if anyone read this that night and said a prayer for me, thank you. and please feel free to add my sleep to your prayers any time!)

anyway! i woke up with energy. we all went out to breakfast at the ebb tide since we had almost no food in the house (being too sick to shop, with 2 sick kids and all). what a treat! then we headed home, packed up some sandwiches, and visited the gray wildlife park. what a fun place! i'll let our pictures tell the story:


agghh! a bear! and what a cute little face it has!



after we saw the deer, an albino raccoon, looked for a woodchuck but couldn't find it, a skunk, and an opossum, we took this nice wooded trail through the woods.



a moose! this was the second moose actually, the first had the nice big antlers. but we didn't get such a cute photo with the first moose, so you can see the littler one. this was probably a child moose.




the canada lynx! they were everyone's favorite. spunky! and dangerous!




on the way home (after some yummy chinese food) we stopped at DeLorme, which has the world's coolest globe. the moose thing was just too much fun, but maggie had wandered off by the time i convinced nick to do it. so don't be expecting this pose on the christmas card, i can tell without even bringing it up that nick won't go for it. and that's the kind of compromise-minded wife i am, so i won't even bring it up, even though i think the 4 of us making moose antlers with a moose in the background would make a fantastic christmas card. well now i've brought it up, but that's just what happens when you have a blog.

we're still siiiiiiiiiiiiiick

we're getting better, slowly. nick is better, and so is nina. maggie is getting there, and i'm coming in last place, as usual. i've had some rough nights with maggie and could really, really use a good night's sleep tonight. but i'm glad that i've had the energy in the middle of the night to take care of maggie. nighttime sore throats are miserable for an adult, they must be so many times worse for 3 year olds. also, being sick makes me a more restless sleeper (harder to get comfortable, and my restless legs syndrome really flared up again last night. it hasn't bothered me in ages), and it sure does the same for maggie. i'm beginning to think she might have restless legs syndrome too. in time she'll tell us!

nina stayed home from school again today. she was mostly better, but had a cough in the morning and her nose was running constantly, and she really wanted to stay home. i figured that if she was going to spend half her time coughing and blowing her nose anyway, she might as well be home, but she had to agree to homeschool with me today. and she did, she did great! maggie didn't want to join us, so she spent her time painting her ponies, cleaning her ponies, painting on paper, and playing with her ponies. she really, really, really loves those ponies. nina did math, reading, and science with me. it was also really warm today so we got to be outdoors a lot. all in all, not to bad for a sick day.

we're all sick

:-(

and then to make matters worse, the power was out for about 5 hours due to an accident on route 27! fortunately it was really, really warm, and we spent most of the day outside. i was glad that nina could be home to enjoy it.

hopefully we'll all feel much better tomorrow, but i think nina will still be home. maggie got this little bug first and it took her a few days to feel better. even then, she still has a runny nose. but her fever is gone. the other symptom is a sore throat, but i don't think she ever mentioned that (note to vanessa: the first time nina ever described a sore throat, she said "my mouth hurts." i was initially confused and thought maybe she had a canker sore or something, but after i caught what she had and got a sore throat, i figured it out. so if you hear this from wyatt one day, now you'll know!)

i'll update tomorrow, hopefully to tell you that we're all on the road to recovery.

serial posting!

sorry, i'm going to go to bed after this. but i had to tell you all that nina watched all of godzilla the other day, and some of rodan the day before that, and loved it! she's totally hooked on the old monster movies, and can't wait to see the old dracula with bela legosi (i probably bungled the spelling of that, but looking it up would take too much time. maggie's a bit sick today and i'm definitely fighting it off, and i'm going straight to bed after this!). then she told us that she wants to see "franklinstein." franklin-stein!! it is too cute to correct her.

sisters in love

i was sitting in the living room one day not too long ago, while nina and maggie were watching TV. i heard nina say "aww, are you scared? come here little one." and i crept in to see this scene.

nina is the best big sister in the world!

the new deck!

here it is! we're also repainting the house. it's basically the same color--a little more green and less brown/gray. it looks spiffy though!

my girls, the naturalists

no, this is not going to be a post about them getting naked, fortunately.

a few nights ago, nina and i were out on my spacious new deck before bed, watching the moon rise. it was really a beautiful night--warm, with the moon full and still orange, reflecting off the water, framing the trees in black. we could see a few stars and hear the wind rustling in the trees, and it was unusually warm for a september evening. i said to nina, "i like the sound of the wind in the trees." and she said, "yeah, watching the moon, listening to the wind and just... livin'"
aww!

then today, we were down at the used bookstore, and maggie sat down on their front steps. i asked her, "do you want to go play?" and she said, "no, i just want to sit her and watch the world flutter."

i'm not making this up! my kids are deep!

oh, but i lied, i do have a naked story. maggie was at her first dance class, and things went really, really well for the first 4/5. then maggie decided she was done and stripped out of her dance clothes, quick as lightning. one of the dads, waiting for class to be over, said, "i didn't know it was that kind of a dance class!" it was funny. i promptly changed her back in to her pjs, of course.

edit: oops, i didn't realize i'd already told the naked story. i kind of glossed over it on tuesday though, and didn't include the dad's funny observations. so i'll just leave it.

it was the first day of dance class

for 2 little ballerinas today!

first up was maggie. she was so, so excited for class to start when we got there (before, at home, she said she didn't want to go. but her moods change).

initially, she said she wanted to wear her pajamas (of course). but, i packed a dance outfit (actually 2), just in case. then when she got to the dance studio, she really got excited. she wanted to change into the pink leotard and ballet skirt i'd brought, put on the pink ballet slippers, and danced around happily until the rest of the girls got there (among them, her good friend iris). she did a GREAT job in class, too! she listened so well! well, until the very end, when she was suddenly done, stripped out of her dance clothes, and wailed for her pajamas again. she didn't have a nap though, and nina had arrived for her dance class, and i think she was suddenly overwhelmed. we're going to do it again though, only there weren't enough kids to keep the tuesday class, so we'll have to move to wednesday morning. that'll work better though i think, she won't be so tired.

after that, it was nina's turn. there were 15 little ballerinas in that class! but they all did wonderfully, and nina's really excited to be dancing again.

well, there's maggie making some noise, so i'm off!

i can't help it, a few more cute pics

aren't they adorable?!

some photos, for the heck of it

Maggie did these all by herself! well, i helped with the spelling, but it's her handwriting. adorable! and, it was a few months ago, but nina took these pictures and i finally downloaded the stuff off her camera, so here they are. better late than never!





that's "tree," "elephant," "parrot," and "princess," in case anything isn't totally clear. the word choices were maggie's. she was going to do clown next, but got tired.

to squirrel island, or not to squirrel island?

yes, that is the question.

you see, nina's class has a field trip there, and of course one must take a boat to the island, so at first nina didn't want to go. we talked about it, and talked about it again after she was so brave at funtown. but on sunday she said she still didn't want to go. "what day is it?" she had asked me. "friday," i'd said. "oh, i can't go," she'd responded. "i'm busy on friday."

that kid is such a riot! she was planning to run a lemonade stand on friday by the way, in case you're wondering what keeps a 6 year old busy all day on a friday. (she also asked if we could move to town, so that she could do a lemonade stand in our front yard and still have people come by).

but then, today, she came home from school and said she did want to go. wonderful! so as long as we can file a new permission slip with the school, i think she's set. nick will even go with her (little sibs are not allowed to come)

also, the local whale watch boats both spotted a blue whale this weekend. a blue whale! they're rare wherever you are, but they're very rare off the coast of maine. we might try to catch a whale watch this week or weekend in hopes of seeing it. how cool would that be!

funtown!

we went to funtown today and we had SO MUCH FUN! totally lived up to the name. :-)

we weren't sure yesterday if we were even going to go, because at 48 inches (in shoes) a child is considered a "big kid" and, according to the website and the woman i talked to on the phone, not allowed on the "little kid" rides. nina is 47.75 inches tall barefoot, so we figured she wouldn't be able to go on most of the rides she was interested in, and that maggie wouldn't go on rides without her. but, we looked at the rides on the website, realized that there were quite a few "family" rides that big and little kids, and grownups, could all ride on together (antique cars, merry go round) that it was worth a go.

and it sure was! it turned out that they did make nina get a "big kid" bracelet, but that most of the "little kid" rides allowed bigger riders so long as they were accompanying little kids. there were a few of these rides that nina wanted to go on but maggie didn't, but nina just went as an accompaniment to some random little kids. a loaner big sister, if you will. the parents of one 2 year old little girl were very happy that nina could sit with her on the ride!

and beyond that, nina really surprised us with the rides she went on and LOVED! she rode the astro-shpere, the flying trapeze (swings), the thunderbolt, and the log flume. these are not for the faint of heart! and she loved, loved, loved it. i loved watching her huge smiles on the flying trapeze as she flew through the air.

even better, jessie, the girl i tutor, came with us. so i had someone to go on scary rides with me while nick watched the kids, and nick and i even got to do the log flume together while she watched them. it was so, so perfect. jessie is such a sweetheart, so much fun, and the girls love her. hooray for a wonderful day!

even maggie pushed herself some. she went on the baby bumper boats, a floating canoe ride, a boats ride (and so did nina. who knows, maybe all of this will open her mind to our boat!), multiple carousel trips, antique cars, and on and on. she had a wonderful time. at one point, when nina was on the frog hopper, maggie and i were sitting on a bench with a woman whose grandson was also on the frog hopper. she was eating some utz party snack from a small, individual-sized bag. maggie smiled at her, said hi, and asked "can i have some of your snack?" that girl is such a hoot! not the least bit shy. and of course the woman gave her some.

the weather was perfect too, sunny and warm but not too hot. now the girls are asleep and i am almost ready to pass out too.

maggie slept in her bed all night!

i don't think this is the very first time that has happened, but it's certainly one of 3 or less. and it could be the very first time. either way, what a milestone! i feel so rested!

not too much else going on. one cute: we were watching the beginning of wheel of fortune (the girls like to catch vanna's dress), and it was being filmed from new orleans, so they were showing a bunch of clips from there. nina was watching with rapt attention and then asked, "where is that? it's magnificent!"

haha! i think it was the brief clip of beignets from cafe du mond that really inspired the comment. i can't wait to take her there one day!

school is still going well. nina was less than enthusiastic about going this morning, but by the time she was heading out the door she was smiling, so hopefully that was just the morning sleepies talking. hopefully i will get a chance to talk with her teacher soon and work out a plan for her to get some work on her level so she isn't bored.

fishing!

we went fishing today; me, nick, maggie, erik, isabelle, and chester. only isabelle and i really fished, though maggie did help me reel my empty hook in. we just went up to oven's mouth and then trawled around some, but we didn't catch anything. we did see a seal swimming around though, so that was a highlight. maggie really enjoyed herself, which was exciting. now all we need is for nina to get excited about the boat (unlikely. maybe next year though), and then we'll really be able to go places.

actually, nina is getting ever more nervous about water. she doesn't like to be on any kind of deck that is built over the water. she is hesitant to walk on the wharf, and tonight she didn't want to eat at lobsterman's in east boothbay. she did though, mostly because their deck is entirely made of sheets of plywood and not planks with spaces in between. she wasn't excited about it, but she went along with it. well, at least she's not afraid of tigers in the bathroom any more.

nina's first week of first grade is done

it was a good week! she's very happy with her teacher and classmates. i was a bit worried that she would be lonely on the bus ride, since her good friend charlie, who gets on one stop before her, is now going to private school. but quite the contrary, she told me she enjoys the bus ride more now without him, because she "can relax now." i guess it's more fun to sit quietly by herself and look out the window than it is to deal with a chatty 6 year old boy. who could have guessed!

maggie is not enjoying the days without nina so much. all day long yesterday she'd run from one room to another calling, "nina?!" she even declined to eat the cookies nan had baked for her until nina was home. such a cutie.