Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Category: Danielle

  • The Greatest Show on Earth

    Ringling Brothers is in town, so we took Danielle to see it. Victoria is still a bit too young. One of the things I like about Ringling Brothers at Madison Square Garden is that the floor is open an hour before the performance and clowns and acrobats are doing smaller tricks. So the kids can walk down and see it up close. This is what it looks like.

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    Here are some jugglers juggling around three volunteer kids:

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    Here is Danielle’s reaction to this:

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    Of course, part of going to the circus is getting treats like snow cones in a clown cup (for the bargain price of $12 – twelve bucks for a snow cone?).

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    The circus through a five year old’s eyes is pretty funny. Because she talked to one girl clown before the show she spent most of the show looking for her. She’s the one in the middle:

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    All in all, a good time was had by all:

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  • I would gladly pay you on Tuesday…

    I often take my daughter Danielle to school. It gets me into the office late, which means I either need to get work done before I go in or after I get home, but it’s usually worth it.

    On the way to school, we pass a Macy’s. This Macy’s has some big signs on the front showing pictures from old Macy’s Thanksgiving parades. They mainly show the big balloons. There’s a picture of an old Kermit the Frog balloon and next there’s a picture of an old Popeye balloon.

    Danielle obviously knows who Kermit the Frog is, but she had no idea who Popeye was, because you can’t see Popeye on Noggin, PBS or Playhouse Disney. So a while back she asked me who that was. So I told her that Popeye was from an old video (all things on TV are videos to Danielle) from when I was a kid. She asked me to tell me some of the stories.

    Now I haven’t seen Popeye in 20 years. But the basic premise (for those too young to remember) is pretty simple:

    • Popeye is a sailor who likes spinach
    • When he eats spinach he gets super strong
    • He is good friends with Olive Oil, a remarkably skinny girl
    • Generally mean guys somehow mess with either Popeye or Olive Oil or both
    • This usually involves separating Popeye from his spinach
    • Somehow when everything is at it’s worst, Popeye gets his hands on spinach
    • He eats the spinach, becomes super strong, and beats up the bad guys, rescuing Olive Oil if necessary

    That’s it. So whenever Danielle asks, I just make something up that follows that general theme. It’s reached the point where she asks for several Popeye stories every day. This is frankly a challenge, since my creative juices are not exactly flowing first thing in the morning.

    Today after another made up Popeye story, Danielle asked me if Popeye and Olive Oil were best friends. I said that I thought so. She asked if Popeye had other friends. I had to think for a bit and then I remembered Wimpy, the guy who likes hamburgers. So I told Danielle about Wimpy, and told her the one thing I clearly remembered which was that Wimpy would always say, “I would gladly pay you on Tuesday, for a hamburger today”.

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    This made Danielle laugh like crazy.

    She kept asking me to say the line again. I’d say it and she’d laugh more. OK, it’s kind of amusing, but she was going crazy.

    We get to her school and there’s some time before it starts so she gets some paper to draw and wants me to stay. Then she asks me to say the line to one of her friends, Tessa. Tessa has the exact same reaction. She can’t stop laughing.

    One of the teachers, Camille, sees everyone asking and asks what is going on. Camille is fairly young, so I have to ask her if she ever saw Popeye. She never did, so I tell her the whole story. She thinks it’s amusing.

    But then more kids in the class are coming over. They are all completely cracking up. Danielle asks me to tell Maura, her other (and more senior) teacher. Maura remembers Popeye. So I just remind her of the line. Again, every kid around me cracks up. Maura is more of the child psychologist and she says that this line completely epitomizes the 4-5 year old sense of humor.

    She’s clearly right because by the time I leave pretty much every kid in class is cracking up at “I’d gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today”…

  • The Quasi-Cursed Vacation

    It wasn’t really cursed. For the most part it was very nice. But there were enough crazy things to wonder.

    The first issue, as reported previously, was trying to get the proper documentation so that Victoria could re-enter the country. With our Congressman’s help her green card arrived on Monday for a Wednesday departure. That is cutting it too close.

    Also on Monday, Danielle and I got sick. Danielle was sick enough to stay home from school and I should have stayed home from work (but there’s always so much to wrap up before a vacation). We were both better on Tuesday so everything seemed ok to go.

    My wife got most everything packed Monday night. That is because she was going to work very late Tuesday night. She does this before every vacation, in part because she’s a procrastinator and in part, I think, because she hates to fly and wants to be really tired so she can sleep on the plane.

    So I’m home with the girls Tuesday night. I get the last few things packed. Victoria is asleep. I’m trying to get Danielle to sleep. She has a total coughing attack. Danielle has some mild asthma and occasionally a cold can morph into a nasty asthma cough. This looked to be one of those times. So I have her under the nebulizer breathing the asthma medicine. She’s upset, her throat hurts, I’m wondering if this trip is a good idea. Finally she gets to sleep. Eventually my wife comes home and we decide to go through with it. The warm moist air of the Caribbean should help her anyway.

    We get up in the morning very early to get to our flight. Danielle is doing better and is being very helpful. It’s looking good. The car service takes us to Kennedy Airport. We check our bags. We were worried that the big one would be overweight. 50.7 pounds. Overweight but they let it slide. Things are looking up.

    We start heading to the gate. We have a stroller that we will check at the gate. There are a couple of places at Kennedy where you have to go down an escalator and then back up. So we’re taking the elevator.

    It stops between floors.

    My wife is not calm. We’re pressing the alarm button and the guy is asking us what elevator we are in. We have no clue, there’s no identifying number on it. Danielle is starting to get nervous. The guy says they’ll send someone. We need to get to our plane. My panicking wife is now telling Danielle not to panic. Very effective.

    The elevator starts up again.

    So we make our flight. It is uneventful. The girls do pretty good. We get to the Dominican Republic and get on the bus to the hotel. When we get there we are looking for the “Royal Service” check-in. This is like the concierge level with a few perks. We paid a little extra for this. But the place is totally disorganized. The “Royal Service” takes about four times longer than the regular check-in. This is after a long flight and the girls have basically eaten nothing. Everyone is getting cranky. We finally get to the room. It’s a bit on the small side for four people. Nothing is looking very Royal.

    We’re in between lunch and dinner so we go by the pool to get some food. It’s not great and Danielle is fighting it. Did I mention that everyone was cranky? We basically get through the night with no major meltdowns and that had to be declared a success.

    Then the vacation got good. The pool was great. There was a separate pool for the Royal Service rooms that wasn’t so crowded. Happiness is going to the swim up bar with your five year old. We were in the pool a lot.

    There was a kids’ club. For the most part Danielle just played with us, but one day she went and got to climb on these amazing rope bridges and also got to ride a horse. Victoria had fun in the pool as well.

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    We did the beach, we swam, I drank a lot of Presidente beer. It was always 5:00 somewhere. The weather was great. Occasionally it would rain, but if you waited five minutes it would be over. It was beautiful.

    Then on Saturday we get a call from our travel agent. “Did American call you?” “No” “You’re flight got canceled, they put you on the same flight the next day”. Now this is a problem. I wouldn’t mind staying another day, but this hotel is completely booked. We can’t extend a day. Our travel agent talks about trying to get us into a different hotel. But the thought of packing, moving, unpacking and repacking for just one day seems crazy. He mentions another flight that will connect through Miami on our original travel day. It gets in around 2:00 am. With two small children that just isn’t going to work.

    We finally conclude that leaving a day early is the only sensible alternative. We’ve had a lot of sun and swimming. Danielle misses her friends. One more day would have been nice, but a reasonable travel schedule also is nice.

    So our quasi-cursed vacation ends a day early. The trip home was uneventful which is all you can ask. And I get a day at home before I go back in to work. Which isn’t bad either.

    OK, not so cursed…

  • Victoria Update

    I haven’t posted any pictures of Victoria lately. She is doing very well. She’s taking a few steps and in general has been catching up very well in her early development. And her big sister is still being the best big sister around.

    Here’s a Christmas morning picture of Danielle pushing Victoria

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    Here’s Victoria with her cousin Michael:

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    And with her Titi (that would be Aunt for us non Spanish speakers). I think that’s my wife’s hat.

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    She’s doing great.

  • My daughter is not Mia Hamm

    My daughter’s best friend is named Cordelia. She’s six months older which puts her in kindergarten while Danielle is still in Pre-K. And given the incredible social calendars that kids have these days (I never did any of these things when I was a kid) they don’t get to see each other enough.

    So when we heard that Cordelia was signing up for a soccer class on Sunday mornings, we signed Danielle up as well. Her reaction was this. “We signed you up for soccer” (frown) “with Cordelia” (jumping up and down for joy).

    So this Sunday they went. Neither Danielle nor Cordelia is particularly competitive. This class is for 5-7 year olds (both are just 5). They’re both tall though, so they fit in fine. Though neither is particularly fast or good at soccer. They do a lot of drills at the beginning. Danielle does fine. She has to be prompted to go faster occasionally but she’s a good listener. She cracks me up because occasionally she breaks into skipping instead of running.

    Boys just don’t skip. I never skipped. But watching my daughter skip makes me happy because skipping is just one of those total childlike things that kids do for no reason other than that it’s fun to skip. Not optimal for soccer, however.

    Finally towards the end of the class they play a 15 minute actual soccer game. Danielle and Cordelia are on the same team. They literally spend most of the time making sure they know where each other is and trying to hold hands. I’m calling to Danielle, “watch the ball” as it rolls right past her. But she just wants to hang out with Cordelia. The whole competitive thing of trying to get the ball away from someone else just doesn’t do anything for her.

    Maybe Victoria will play sports…

  • Worst Santa Ever…

    OK, I wasn’t that bad. It’s not like I was drunk or anything. It’s just that at six feet, 164 pounds, there’s some serious padding missing. And the pillows just didn’t cut it.

    Our nanny and her circle of nannies always get the kids together for presents before Christmas. They get someone to play Santa and give out the gifts. This year whoever was going to do it fell through, so I became the last minute sub.

    The danger here is that at 5 years old, Danielle has a decent chance of recognizing me. And it’s not just her, all of her friends know me reasonably well.

    I get to the house where they are doing this. I sneak into a bedroom and start to get dressed up. Then I hear two of the older boys sneaking around saying “let’s find out who Santa really is this year”. Their mother manages to shoo them away.

    So I make my grand entrance. Lots of “ho, ho, ho’s”. I hear one of Danielle’s friends say, “I think that’s Danielle’s daddy”. Uh-oh. But I stay in character and it goes relatively well. I read a story (on the right kneeling is Danielle and her best friend Cordelia):

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    I hand out presents (that’s Danielle getting hers)

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    Some of the younger ones are afraid of Santa. But Victoria wasn’t:

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    Afterwards the nannies apparently convinced the girls that Santa just looked a bit like Danielle’s daddy. The funny part was that Danielle told me later that this Santa had green eyes. I have blue eyes. So that clinched it with her that this Santa wasn’t me. Though she did say he sounded like me. But since this Santa had green eyes and Danielle knows that Santa has blue eyes (not sure where she got that, but she’s quite adamant about it) she knew that this one was one of Santa’s helpers. And that made sense because she knows the real Santa is very busy.

    So maybe not the worst Santa ever, but I need to gain weight if I’m going to keep doing this…

  • A Happy Birthday

    Danielle turned five this weekend. We did her party at the same gymnastics place as last year, but this year we did rock climbing. They have a small rock climbing wall for kids.

    It was pretty good. Most kids were excited to go up the wall. The coaches were good. Very encouraging and funny. First they did some lateral climbing without being roped in (Danielle is in the middle).

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    Then they got harnessed in one at a time and went to the top (well, some of them). Danielle made it to the top (made me proud).

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    Then they had cake

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    Except Victoria who prefers cantaloupe…

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    Our nanny, Maggie is holding her. So a good time was had by all.

  • Happy Halloween

    It was a good Halloween. We had perfect weather for trick or treating.

    Danielle was Ariel the Mermaid (but when she has legs, because it’s hard to trick or treat with a tail).

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    And Victoria was a pumpkin (yes, a hand me down costume).

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  • Captain Crunch

    Like most parents, we have resisted the sugar cereals. Danielle started out only with Cheerios. Then we mixed in a few Fruit Loops (which today she still refers to as “rainbow Cheerios”). Finally we were visiting my wife’s sister and her boys (14 and 18) were eating Captain Crunch. So Danielle tried it.

    It’s all over.

    The problem is compounded by the parental convenience factor. In the morning we are typically scrambling trying to get Danielle ready for pre-school. She needs to eat breakfast. When it’s Captain Crunch, she doesn’t complain and eats quickly. We augment it with apples afterwards and make sure she brushes her teeth well, but let’s face it, the healthy breakfast just went out the window…

  • A hard day

    We’ve moved directly from adoption mode to moving mode. There’s a lot to do. We gave our nanny this week off as a vacation week, since my wife and I knew that we’d both be home. Plus we are going to Newport, RI, Thursday through Sunday (it’s jazz fest weekend) so it seemed like a good week to give her off.

    In hindsight it may not have been the smartest move. Did I mention there’s a lot to do?

    Danielle has been spending a ton of time lately with her friend Cordelia. They are truly best friends. So on Monday she actually stayed with Cordelia while we went to our storage place to get the last of the baby stuff that we needed. That was very handy.

    Today we were hoping to do the same. I needed to wait at our new place for the cable guy (four hour window: 10 – 2) and my wife was meeting with a decorator to help figure out what to do with our new place.

    I would have never considered a decorator until we got this place. I love the space, but the main living/dining area is just a huge rectangle. The rooms aren’t really delineated. It’s the classic blank piece of paper problem. What do you do? There are too many options. So given that my wife and I both had things going on, Danielle being with her best friend would be very helpful.

    But this morning New York got hit with major rain storms, flooding and tornados (well, at least one tornado, which is very unusual for New York City). Every subway line was affected. So Cordelia’s nanny couldn’t get to work and all plans went haywire.

    In the morning, the new plan was to get Victoria to take a nap, I’d go to the new place and wait for the cable guy and my wife would be with Danielle and wait for the decorator. Only Danielle decides she wants to be with me.

    Let’s consider this decision. Going to our new place and waiting for the cable guy. Following the rain storm, we are having the hottest, most humid day of the year. We haven’t installed air conditioning in our new place yet. There’s no furniture, toys, food, TV (at least until the cable guy gets there). So why exactly does she want to go with me? Because she’s four.

    So I grab a couple toys, a small soccer ball, a couple snacks and my laptop (need to be able to test the cable modem). Danielle is surprising good in a very boring situation. We play some soccer in the apartment (hey, no furniture, you have to take advantage). I’m able to pirate some WiFi, so we play some computer games (nickjr.com – mainly Blues Clues). I order a pizza for lunch. I brought some Play Doh so she plays with that.

    Did I mention that it’s really hot? We are both drenched with sweat (maybe soccer wasn’t such a good idea).

    The cable guy finally gets there. That’s good because once he’s finished we have TV. The decorator has already arrived at our old place (to see our existing furniture) and is on her way over to the new place with my wife and Victoria.

    She needs both me and my wife for various decisions. OK, let’s recall. I’m a guy. I want the place to look nice, but I’d be perfectly happy for my wife to decide and inform me what is happening. Frankly I’d pay extra to be left out of it. My wife knows this. She’d like me to be a part of it, but when Danielle starts to get restless (she’s now been in this apartment for about five hours) she tells Danielle that she can leave with me.

    Now Danielle wants to stay with her Mom.

    Honestly, my daughter is just making crazy decisions. She wants me when that means going to the hot boring place and she wants my wife when it means staying longer at the hot boring place. But there’s no arguing with a four year old. Well, that’s not true. There’s actually lots of arguing with a four year old. It just isn’t very logical.

    Finally Danielle decides to leave with me. We go back to our nice cool place. At this point I’m hot, tired and irritable. I take Victoria as well so I can feed her while my wife finishes up with the decorator.

    I get Danielle some dinner and I start to feed Victoria. She’s just starting solids, so this can be an adventure but she’s been doing pretty well with it. Not tonight. She doesn’t want to open her mouth, she’s not keeping food in her mouth, finally she does a nice huge spit up all over her clothes. I’m just not happy at this point.

    I come out of the bathroom where I’ve disrobed Victoria and cleaned her up and Danielle comes over to me. “Papi, I have something for you” she says. And she gives me a big hug. “That’s because you’re having a hard day”.

    No matter how bad your day is, when your four year old gives you a hug to cheer you up, life is good.