Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Category: Victoria

Merry Christmas

Or Happy Holidays depending on your preference. This year the holidays totally seem to have snuck up on me. But we did manage to get Danielle and Victoria to see Santa at Macy’s.

We were pretty confident that Tori would be fine with Santa. She is totally not shy (unlike Danielle). If you’ve seen Santa at Macy’s, they have an amusement park like method of winding the long line around. At one point you walk through the inside of a “train” which is supposed to be the train to the north pole. When you come out on the other side there are all sorts of cool things for the kids to see while the line continues to Santa (actually multiple Santas, but they do a very good job of hiding that fact).

Right at the beginning of the “north pole” there is this huge tree with a big face and the eyes move. Kind of cute. Freaked Tori out. All the sudden we weren’t so sure how it would go with Santa.

Thankfully we got past the big tree and then Tori got into all the other cool things. And when we finally (actually the line wasn’t bad, maybe 20 minutes) got to Santa’s little building, Tori saw Santa and started yelling, “Santa!, Santa!”. We had to hold her back until it was our turn. She went right to Santa’s lap (Danielle, of course, is an old pro).

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all…

December 23, 2008
Where have I been?

OK, I’ll admit it. I’ve been a blogging slacker. And I’m unemployed so you’d think I’d have tons of time.

In an attempt to catch up, this will be a fairly random posting.

Fist of all, what have I been up to? Hmm. Not telling. There are some things going on that might work out or might not and for now my answer is no comment. I do not currently have a job, I am not currently making any money, I am strangely busy and having fun. Create whatever rumor you like based on those minimal facts. You are unlikely to be correct.

To get in shape, I’ve been trying to get into swimming. We belong to a new YMCA with a nice Olympic sized pool. I take Danielle there, but when I’m with her I basically stand around trying to teach her to swim. My running tends to slack off in the winter (between the cold and the dark I am just not motivated) so swimming seemed like a good approach for someone with some free time (though lately not as much).

So I’m still a fairly lame swimmer, but I’m to the point where I can do 20-30 minutes of lap swimming at an easy pace with no breaks. It is really good exercise. The strange thing is that as a runner I expect to be sore after a workout, but swimming is so low impact that I’m not. So I feel like I didn’t work that hard. Until I walk home. Then I realize that I’m exhausted.

What else? Football season has been interesting but not so great. My Packers are just beat up and lame. I’ve been following the Jets as a Favre fan, but they are all over the place. I’ll root for the Giants if they aren’t playing the Packers, but they are starting to show major problems.

The past few years have taught me (as a Knicks fan) to not pay much attention to the NBA. This year the Knicks are actually watchable, though they are clearly laying the groundwork for 2010.

Normally I’d be gearing up for college hoops, but Indiana is going to be so bad this year. I like their new coach but he has a couple years of rebuilding to do. I’ll be doing a pool for March Madness so if you are interested enter your information here.

It will be a mild Christmas this year as we try to be frugal, but we’ll do the usual. We always go to my wife’s sister’s place for Christmas morning. That’s a good, casual Christmas day. Close family, minimal stress, fun with the kids.

The girls are doing great. Danielle just turned 6 and Victoria just turned 2. Victoria has started to (occasionally) use the potty which is awesome. She has a while to go before she’s doing it for real, but I can see the end of Pampers forever.

Victoria is a piece of work. In many ways she is the total opposite of Danielle. Dan is a typical first child. Generally well behaved, smart (OK, I’m biased), a bit shy, always wants her parents.

Tori gets into everything she shouldn’t. Just today she managed to get to the power strip with the plugs for cable/phone/cable modem/router and turn everything off. I think she’s smart like Dan, but at 2 it’s hard to tell. But shy? Forget about it. If I’m staying in the apartment and a random stranger is going outside, she’s going with the random stranger.

Danielle is starting to read on her own which is huge fun. She’s really into it and will try to read every book we have. You realize how wacky many English words are when you are helping someone learn to read. When she sees a word like “right” telling her to “sound it out” just isn’t that effective.

My mom’s Alzheimer’s is a bit worse. She’s to the point now where she forgets words so often her sentences are total gibberish. It’s hard being far away because talking to her on the phone is largely pointless. She was given hospice care a few months back which is supposed to mean that she has 6 months or less, but I think she’s going to be around a while. Which is somewhat ironic because I know that she wouldn’t want to stick around in her condition. Probably the hardest thing this fall was not being able to discuss the election with her. My mom was a hugely political person and extremely liberal. She probably would have voted for Hillary in the primary to try to elect a woman, but she would have been incredibly happy to see the first black president elected. Sad that she has no clue.

But otherwise our family’s health is good. My wife’s brother (who smoked like a chimney) had a mild heart attack and then had triple bypass. That turned out to be the best possible thing because now he’s quit smoking, is exercising and is really turning his health around.

2008 was definitely a challenging year, but 2009 should be much better. I am definitely looking forward to the new year.

And I’ll try to blog a bit more…

Random links:

Cool astronomy pictures

Might only be funny if you’ve been in NYC cabs…

A tremendous "year in pictures" page. The last surfing picture is amazing, but there’s something about #23. It looks like a bunch of guys at a park until you look close and realize they are shooting bows and arrows.

And finally, I’ve said this before, but the best Christmas album ever…

December 18, 2008
Long Time No Blog

I’ve fallen out of the blogging groove. I need to get back with it. What has happened in the last two weeks? I’ve been strangely busy.

Tori turned two:

Two year olds should not be given cymbals under any circumstances…

Giving a two year old Elmo Live, however, is quite hilarious…

Then there was Thanksgiving. Other than the turkey taking about two hours longer than it was supposed to, we had much to be thankful for, Danielle and Victoria at the top of the list of course.

I’ll try to get back in the blogging groove…

November 28, 2008
Officially Unemployed

As of the 31st I am officially unemployed. I thought it would feel weird, but it doesn’t really. I have the official severance paperwork and while I’ll have a lawyer check out a couple of clauses to make sure I understand the details, I’ll sign it pretty quickly. It’s not like I have a real choice.

The only bad thing about the agreement is the non-solicit clauses for current employees. For the next year I cannot solicit current employees. That’s a bummer since the best part about my former company is the people. But they did me a favor by letting the entire NY office go. Nothing stopping me from hiring them…

What’s next? Well, you may or may not hear about it on this blog depending on what I do. There are a couple of start-up business opportunities that are possible (but obviously risky). There are a couple of interesting positions out there that I’ve talked to people about. But nothing is particularly close at this point.

I’m strangely busy. I’m getting back in shape (swimming instead of running). I’m doing a lot of research on potential technologies. And there was Halloween and Danielle’s birthday, so I’ve had some fun with the kids.

Oh yeah, Halloween:

Danielle changed into her costume right at school to get trick or treating early. So since she rides her scooter to school, here is Alice in Wonderland riding a Razor (with her American Girl doll also in costume)

Victoria was Minnie Mouse:

The ears didn’t last long but Tori was a trick or treating machine…

November 2, 2008
Best (family) vacation ever

We just got back from two weeks in Cape Cod. It was in a house right on Skaket Beach in Orleans, MA. For the record, our vacation house was here.

Part of the reason the vacation was great was that we did two weeks. I have so rarely taken a two week vacation, it’s really way better. But the main reason was location, location, location.

Our backyard was literally the beach. We had our own private beach right next to the public beach. We could have breakfast and walk out to the beach. The place we rented was a bit bigger than we needed. So we took the opportunity to invite people to join us. We arrived on Sunday. On Monday, my wife’s sister Abby, her husband Jim, sons Michael and Matthew and Michael’s girlfriend Sandy showed up. Michael will be a junior in college and Matthew is a sophomore in high school. So the “kids” were really pretty old which made the overall grown-up to kid ratio quite favorable. That made things easy.

One night we went bowling, only it turned out to be Candlepin bowling. I had never heard of it before, but it was quite fun and very good for Danielle because the balls are much smaller (Victoria was asleep).

They all had to leave on Thursday to get Michael and Sandy back to college. On Friday a friend of my wife’s came and stayed until Monday. Those were the quietest days. Then on Tuesday some friends of ours came with their 3 year old twins (boy and girl). Plus they brought up Danielle’s best friend. Suddenly the grown-up to kid ratio dropped below 1. Zone defense time. But it was big fun. The kids played together well.

And the star attraction was the beach. There are tons of beaches in Cape Cod, but we never went to another one. Why would we? Skaket Beach is on the bay side which makes it warm. It is very shallow with lots of sand bars. This is ideal for kids. It has huge variation from the tides. And you get a great sunset every night.

I might as well start posting pictures. That’s where this blog was headed from the start. This is the first morning we were there. Danielle is still in her PJs. That’s our deck and that’s our beach before anyone shows up.

This one is a bit later that same morning. I’ve just finished a run on the beach and Danielle and Victoria are digging. Tori is still in her PJs.

These pictures try to capture the effect of the tides. The first picture is at low tide. You can see the bands of sand bars and how shallow it is. You can walk about a mile straight out.

But a couple of hours later the tide starts in. Here it is at about the halfway point.

And here is the tide nearly full. If you want to really swim, you need to wait for high tide.

But low tide is great for catching minnows and hermit crabs. You see all the kids out there with their nets. Here is Danielle and her friend Kenzie holding some tiny hermit crabs (you can really only see the shells). We probably caught about 100 tiny crabs and 100 tiny minnows over the vacation.

And any time is good for playing in the sand. There was plenty of digging (Victoria was generally a hazard with the shovel).

There was plenty of burying:

Our place had WiFi so you could take a break on the deck and play some games online.

We did get out a few times. There was a “Zooquarium” nearby that was good for the kids. It included pony rides:

And one day we went to Provincetown, which is a cool and amusing town on the tip of Cape Cod. After a nice dinner

we took a walk and found a street musician (if you haven’t been to P-town, as it is known, it is very artsy) and Victoria had to dance.

The funny thing is that I know I blogged the last time we went to Cape Cod and P-town about two years ago and there’s a very similar picture of Danielle.

And of course, there were sunsets. Lots of sunsets. In general I don’t like sunset pictures because they never look as good on film (unless you’re a pro). You usually end up saying, “but it was even more beautiful”. So with that caveat, here are the pictures, ending with my favorite one (OK, it isn’t the sunset that I think is beautiful).

So there you have it. A simply fantastic family vacation…

September 1, 2008
Victoria – One Year in the US

We recently passed the one year anniversary of our adoption of Victoria. And while we noted it, I think the most interesting thing was how it just wasn’t a big deal at all.

After a year, we simply don’t think of Victoria as “our adopted daughter”. She’s just our daughter. There’s just no difference.

Though there are big differences between Danielle and Victoria. I have no idea if this is genetic or normal first child/second child differences. Victoria is a complete nut.

The therapists with Early Intervention have done their magic and Victoria is completely “age appropriate”, as they say. And in truth, from hanging around the big kids, she is a bit more than age appropriate. If we are at a playground with one set of climbing stuff for the 2-4 year olds and another for the 5 and up crowd, she has no interest in the kiddie stuff, she’s climbing the 8 foot ladder.

I was at the park one time with her and Danielle and this other father was there with his sleeping 16 month old. So he was watching Victoria and finally said to me, “How old is she? She’s fearless”. She’s the most self-reliant 1 1/2 year old I’ve seen. If we leave our door open, she’ll just go. If there’s someone there who looks like they might be going someplace interesting, she’d just leave with them. She gets into everything. But always with that smile. It’s that “I’m about to do something bad but you can’t get too mad at me if I’m smiling like this” look.

She’s boatloads of fun. She loves music (the Elmo “Kids favorite songs #2” has been playing constantly at our place for the past few weeks). She only has a few words and they are amusingly bilingual. She says both gracias and thank you and often the opposite of what you ask. “Tori, say thank you”. “Gracias”. She seems to call anyone that she wants something from Mami. So I spend a lot of time trying to convince her that I’m Papi. She just laughs and smiles a lot.

So here’s a couple of recent pictures of Victoria Dallas Fischer, now 20 months old and doing great.

July 30, 2008
House o’ Puke

I haven’t blogged for a while, partly because our house has been a medical disaster area.

Warning, icky medical details following.

It all started Sunday night. Everything was fine. Everyone was asleep. About 2 in the morning I wake up with the “uh oh” realization that I need to run to the bathroom. Big fun. The Immodium AD moment. It was bad. So I deal with it and go back to bed.

Around 5 in the morning I get the stomach gurgle. And then that tell tale sign that vomit is coming. I get up and walk to the bathroom, saying to myself “this just isn’t fair”. Sure enough, I puke up whatever didn’t come out the other end. Really nice.

I was supposed to fly to Chicago the next day. Yeah, right. So I deal with a day in bed eating basically two pieces of toast. No more puke, but my stomach wasn’t ready for anything. The next day is better, but I stay home because I’m still a bit weak. But OK, it’s over.

Or not. Victoria is clearly sick. Monday night she was a disaster sleeping. My wife stayed with her and Danielle came and slept with me because Tori was crying too much (they share a bedroom). Our nanny says she’s ok on Tuesday, but when I’m with her Tuesday night she’s totally rubbing her ears. So I’m thinking ear infection, take her to the doctor tomorrow.

So Tuesday night Victoria is cranky again. I’m feeling better so to give my wife a break (since she slept like crap with Tori the night before), I stay with Tori and Danielle sleeps with my wife.

About two in the morning, my wife knocks on the door. “I need your help”. Danielle has puked all over the bed. And since she has long beautiful hair, it’s all in her hair. “Can you bath her and I’ll change the sheets?” my wife asks.

So I’m washing puke out of my daughter’s hair while my wife is dealing with pukey sheets. We get Danielle cleaned up and she is shivering and feeling lousy. Let’s face it, puking feels horrible for a grown up, for a kid it’s horrible and scary. So my wife asks her if she wants to come back to bed with her and Danielle replies, “I just want to lie on the couch with Papi” (Papi is me, if you aren’t familiar with the Hispanic nickname for Daddy).

So we curl up on the couch. I’m exhausted, still recovering from my own illness. It’s 2:30 in the morning. Our apartment smells like puke. I’m lying on the couch that is too small for both of us, holding my daughter in the most uncomfortable position possible as she falls asleep in my arms.

I’m strangely happy.

This is parenting. It’s full of icky bodily fluids and lack of sleep. Yet there’s something about that moment when your child just wants you and no one else and you hold them in your arms that makes it wonderful.

July 18, 2008
Memorial Day with the girls

Our niece graduated from Yale this weekend (smart girl, got a full scholarship), so we didn’t have any big plans. On Saturday we all went up to see her. That was partly because the actual graduation was early on Monday morning and there was no way we were going to make a 1 and 5 year old sit through a Yale graduation (strangely, Tony Blair speaking holds no interest for them).

So on Monday my wife took the train up to New Haven (it’s her niece, I’m the in-law) and I had the girls. The day couldn’t have been more beautiful. Cool morning, high around 78, nothing but sun.

So we spent the day in the park. Of course for city folks, “park” means “playground”. There’s something about city parks. I don’t know if this is true across the country, but around here when I drive in the suburbs I see these gorgeous park/playgrounds with wonderful brand new equipment. The only problem is that no one is actually there.

I didn’t grow up in New York, so city parks are a relatively new thing to me. I love them. Sometimes we have pizza delivered right to the park so the kids don’t have to stop playing. And of course the ice cream truck drives right up.

So that was our day. Wake up. Park. Lunch. Different park. Home. Though actually, since it’s Memorial Day weekend most people have left the city. So the parks were actually very quiet. The city is kind of peaceful on holiday weekends.

Before hitting the park I picked up water balloons. Danielle had a field day. (all pictures via phone, my wife had our camera at graduation)

Stocking up.

Getting ready to throw (at me).

If you aren’t a city person, the blue thing behind Danielle is one of the sprinklers. There are four around that blue circle on the ground. When the weather is hot, they will spray throughout that blue circle.

Tori wasn’t exactly sure what to do with a water balloon. She got one with a tiny hole in it and thought it was the best.

Tori wanted to try the big girl swings

And Danielle had fun taking her down the slide

Sidewalk chalk is always fun at the park. Tori is eating cantaloupe and drawing (thankfully not eating the chalk)

I have no idea what Danielle is making…

Of course there was ice cream and Italian ices. Danielle rode her scooter all day and everyone was exhausted by the end of the day. Since my wife wasn’t back yet and we don’t have a grill, Memorial Day dinner was Chinese food. Not exactly traditional, but yummy all the same. And both were asleep by 7:30. A very nice day.

May 26, 2008
A day at the park with Tori

As all parents know, until you have more than two kids, you can play man-to-man defense. Once you get to three you have to play zone. We only have two and because Danielle has always liked doing active things with me, we typically pair off (when pairing off is needed) with me being with Danielle and my wife being with Victoria.

This afternoon we wanted to get Victoria outside but Danielle was tired (getting over a cold) and just wanted to stay home. She wanted to stay home with my wife. So for a change, I went out with Victoria, just the two of us.

Victoria is finally at the age where the park (what city folks call a park, really a playground) is big fun. She’s 17 months, climbing on everything. There are a ton of parks near us, but there’s one that is totally designed for her age. So here are the obligatory pictures.

Tori on the move:

Determined to go up the slide:

Cheerios in hand. The five second rule is about to be applied:

Two fisted. Milk and cheerios:

And of course, smiling as usual:

April 26, 2008
Easter Fun

We had a good Easter at my wife’s sister’s place. Danielle and Victoria had matching dresses. Here are the girls ready to go to church:

Of course there was an Easter Egg hunt. Danielle found most of them:

Victoria helped a bit:

March 24, 2008