nina wants to be...

...an artist!

last week it was a police officer. months before that, it was a doctor. but today, it's an artist. she told me this just before going to bed, so i didn't get to ask her if there's any kind of artist i particular she's thinking of (like, painter vs. sculptor or whatnot), but if she still wants to be an artist tomorrow, i'll try to find out what medium lights her fire these days.

yesterday, maggie was wearing her sleeping beauty dress (well, she was wearing it today too. it's the it item of clothing this week. hey, at least it's not footies!). she was modeling it for us, and said it "glitters like the night sky." what the heck! i did see the phrase "night sky" in a book, and she has the barbie and the fashion fairy tale book with the flairies glimmer, shimmmer, and shyne, but no one has put that phrase together for her, as far as i can tell. quite the little poet! even if she did hear the entire phrase somewhere, it obviously stuck with her, and she was still able to use it appropriately, which is still quite the accomplishment for a 2.5 year old.

an artist and a poet. hm, i'd better get a job!

(nick says, "bennington college, here we come!") (nick says bennington is very expensive, the most expensive in the US. i didn't know this)

nina is reading a book to maggie.

i feel like we've hit a major milestone. nina, reading to maggie. i'm off the hook!!!!

maggie loves when people read to her. she can sit with a stack of books and listen to stories for hours. and ever since maggie got so into books (when? i can't even remember. very early, only a few months old but i can't say exactly), anyway ever since whenever that was, i have dreamed of the day that one child could read to the other, and i could do nothing! hooray! dear sweet nina, taking over for mommy! she helps maggie with the potty too. if she could just take over putting her to sleep, i'd be totally free!

today mom and i took the girls to an indoor play place in brunswick. it was COLD today, 3 degrees farenheit when we woke up, so we let nina play hookey, and we all went to visit great grandma and get some indoor play. just too cold to be outdoors today! unfortunately, i had forgotten that the kids were going to get their first report cards today. what kind of mother lets her kid play hookey on report card day!! ooooh well, now we can be excited for monday.

still it was too much indoor time today, and the girls aren't all that tired. hence the reading time, which is already over, maggie is pretending to be chester. nina's still reading though, with nick's help. which she's needing a lot of now, it's a dr. seuss book with a bunch of made up words.

dear maggie,

it is not cool for you to wake up at 7:30 am, not nap, and then not fall asleep until 9:00 pm. children are not allowed to require less sleep than their mothers, no matter how much sleep their mothers require. i hope that you read this one day and thank me for my sacrifice.

that child! she spent half of today running around naked pretending to be chester. i managed to convince her for a while that chester has fur, so she should wear this furry vest we have and some brown velor pants. it worked for a while. mom left while she was still dressed and said she was going to tell herself that maggie would wear the outfit all day, even though she knew full well that maggie'd be naked again in no time. and she was. she stamped her foot and said "no! chester has skin!!" amazingly, she stays warm. i think it's all that running around.

nina is much more reasonable (unless she gets overtired, in which case she just cries. but even then, it's just crying, she doesn't sit there stamping her foot and insisting on something ridiculous). she's becoming such a good reader! she was reading one of her barbie early readers over the phone to erik, it was very cute. mrs. mellor is still sending her home with books, and she just tears through them. i'm so happy for her! i can't wait until she's able to read all of the great children's books that i loved as a kid.

not much else to report. i'm still sick. i'll go to bed soon, it's just nice to stay up for a few minutes after the kids are asleep and just veg out.

poor me, i am still sick

the girls seem better though. maggie ended up getting the cold, but her sinuses drain well, so nothing stagnates in there. nina and i suffer from mucous stagnation.

did i mention in the last post that maggie wore pants?! she wore them again on monday. today she wore the sleeping beauty dress with tights. good enough for me! she got a lot of compliments too, at the school when we picked up nina and at the grocery store. people kept telling her they liked her tutu (she was wearing her jacket over the dress, so it did look like a tutu. and she'd frown and say "no, it's my sempa beauty dress". for some reason she still says "sempa" instead of "sleeping."

well, i'm going to bed now, i was going to put up some more photos tonight but i didn't put maggie down until 9:30, so perhaps tomorrow.

i'm siiiiiiiick

"i want this to be our tree," she said

"or this would be a good tree."

"how about this could be our christmas tree?"

"i'm going to grandma's!! don't follow me!!"

finally, nick and nina carrying the tree home.


poor me, i'm sick. it's just a head cold. poor nina too, who is also sick, and coughing in her sleep. she's ok during the day, but at night the mucous just builds and builds. i probably should have given her benadryl before bed. i hope she doesn't throw up. :-(

even though i was sick, nick and the girls and i went out and cut down a christmas tree today! i am attempting to download photos as i type. wait, upload photos? i think both, really. i am downloading them from my camera as i upload them to my laptop. so far it seems to be working, so i'll leave some space for them and continue on while i wait for the upload/download process to complete.

so, we got the tree. it really looks good. it comes from our own property! so, it's a little more sparse than a tree lot tree would be, but really it's got a fantastic shape and great fullness for a homegrown tree. wait till you see it!

it took us a while to get it up because it's not very big, and the stem is really thin, and it was bent until we cut the bent part off, but after about 4 hours it was up! wooot! the girls had a great time putting up ornaments. "this is fun!" said maggie. or something like that... decorating the tree is fun? i'm having fun? well, you get the drift. we were decorating the tree and she was having fun.

OH big news! she wore regular clothes today!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's been since before halloween. that's right. she's only worn footie pajamas, day and nice, for a month and a half. and today she wore pants! nick did it. i've tried before and she's melted into a sobbing heap on the ground at the mere suggestion of pants, but today it worked. she looked so cute!

yesterday we took the girls to see the nutcracker ballet in portland. they loved it! they are familiar with the score because we have barbie and the nutcracker at home, and they've watched it a few times. we also watched the nutcracker scenes from fantasia the other day, and they liked that too. they were totally entranced, even maggie, which was not a given since she didn't nap. and yes, she wore footies to the ballet. good thing she's little enough that people just chuckle.

what else? hm... oh here are 2 funny funnies, one from each kid.

maggie, to oma: i want the pony "pizza dough" for christmas, but i'll accept any pony. (she made up pizza dough, there is no my little pony with that name)

nina, while peeling her hard-boiled egg: "oh, i have to peel away the dura." (she was at that membrane under the shell. i had to look it up, but technically only the membrane around the brain and spine is called the dura mater, dura for short. i don't know where she learned this, her anatomy books i guess!)
funny girls!!

tryin' to upload some videos!

cross your fingers that it works!


well, i've tried uploading the toothbrushing video, and it has failed. sorry! so here's a bit about our day:

today nina played hookey from school. on wednesday night she had a bit of a sore throat, so i was on low alert for sickness. pretty much every other kid in her class is sick right now, so it's not unlikely. then this morning, nina was just too out to wake up at 6:30, so nick decided to let her sleep, thinking she might really need the rest if she was that impossible to wake up. then we all got out of bed at 7:30 and no one felt like driving her in. haha. ok that, and we're going to see the nutcracker on saturday, and we don't want her to be sick for it! so we figured that in case she's fighting something off, we'd let her rest. i think it was a good idea, she has a runny nose and needed to rest on the couch for about an hour today. plus it was fun!

we took the wagon and 2 5-gallon buckets up to our neighbor's farm. i call it a farm because she has 2 horses. one's a miniature horse, and maggie once called it mary-linda's "horse dog." haha!
why did we take 2 5-gallon buckets you're asking? for manure of course! best thing for a garden! i put it in the compost pile so it could decompose for a few months, then i'll add that lovely rich compost to the garden soil, and dammit i'll get a good harvest next year! those 2 new garden beds are gonna need a LOT of work (very sandy soil), but i'm hopeful...

we also fed the horses some apples, which the girls love. then, as we were leaving, maggie said "goodbye!! thank you for the poop!"

haha! too funny.

to steal a title from last week, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

that's me being tired. i didn't get to bed until after 11:00 last nigh because as soon as i tried to fall asleep, one of the kids would wake up. they know! they can sense the instant i drift off into wonderful dreamland, and they wake up. then they wake me up! oh dear children, if you ever care to read you old mom's blog when you're older, please appreciate all the sleep i lost by taking care of you at night. especially you maggie, miss i still prefer to wake mommy up 15 times a night to nurse. go show your appreciation by baking mom some brownies, and then cleaning up the kitchen.

speaking of cleaning the kitchen, the girls were painting the box their new bedroom chandelier came in (i'd promise a picture, but you know by now that it'd be an empty promise anyway, so i'll just drop the pretense). they were painting in the kitchen while i was cookin' up some noodles to go with our beef stew, and maggie decided to go and paint the fridge. thank goodness nina pays attention because i sure as heck didn't notice. yesterday our little dear came up to me and said:
"mama, can i paint on the wall?"
"no maggie," i said. "paint on paper only."
"ok mama," she said, and walked away.
then she came back with a big smile on her face.
"mama, i painted on the wall!!"

it was like, she wanted to double check that she wasn't supposed to do it before she did it anyway. painting on the wall is only fun if it's not allowed i guess.

nina never did that!!

tonight before bed nina sang us some christmas carols. i recorded them on the other computer. if i try to stay awake tonight to watch law and order, i'll upload them to youtube and then come back and post a link.