God's #1 Fan

A few months ago I wrote about Stella beginning to ask questions about God. Her curiosity slacked off for a while but returned over the past few weeks.

Now we get almost daily sermons from her on how God did this and God did that and how God is in charge of everything. Luckily I have managed to maintain a respectable 3rd place in the order of who is in charge of the world (coming in behind God and Rabbis).

Lately Stella has been curious about the age old question, "if God made everything, who made God?". She insisted that we ask one of our Rabbis this question upon our next visit to temple.

Rabbi Shira was first in sight so she got the honor of answering Stella's question. Upon hearing it, she paused, got down on one knee and explained to Stella that no one made God. God was always here.

This seems to have appeased Stella. For now.

Here Comes the Tooth Fairy

Weeks of living with a wibbly, wobbly tooth came to an end yesterday as Stella lost her first baby tooth.

The bottom front tooth had been loose for weeks now, but it was only a few days ago that we noticed the replacement tooth has already begun to come up behind it. This discovery made Stella even more excited about the promise of a visit from the tooth fairy.

So, yesterday while at Beansprouts, the baby tooth made its exit as Stella played. She felt something moving around in her mouth, and when she reached in to see what it was, she came out with the tooth! She excitedly took it to her favorite teacher, Beth, who had her take it inside so another teacher could wrap it up.

When Lisa came to pick her up, Stella squealed with joy and ran to tell her the good news. I found out about the momentous event via three emailed photos and then spoke with a very excited Stella via phone.

Last night the tooth was placed under Stella's pillow. When she wakes up in less than an hour we expect that the tooth will be replaced by a shiny silver dollar.

Although I am relieved that the loose tooth is gone (because it really creeped me out), I'm a little sad the my Stella's beautiful smile will never be the same.




(This post contains video that can only be viewed from the website).

Successor

Millions, crowded into the plaza, erupted in frenzied cheers last night as a small puff of white smoke curled out of the famous chimney announcing that Stella had finally chosen a successor to Bear.

For many years there had been worries that if Bear, Stella's inseparable stuffed animal from birth, ever got lost that all hell would break loose and that life on Earth, as we now know it, would cease to exist.

With the announcement that surprised all last night, humanity breathed a sigh of relief that civilization would now continue even if Bear does not. The successor? "Black and white dog".

Bear, who has been getting a little worn and a little ratty over the years, could not be reached for comment.

Thin Ice

Today we grabbed Brooklyn by the throat and squeezed a ton of fun out of it.

Event number 1 was a trip to Wollman Rink in Prospect Park. The girls wanted to try skating and their wish was our command. Only problem... neither Lisa or I have skated in years and the girls have never skated at all. Even at my best, I could barely skate to save my life. So who was suppose to teach these girls?

We paid our money, laced up our rented skates and headed for the ice.

Disaster.

In the one hour that we played on the ice, we barely moved 10 feet away from the entrance. Lisa eventually remembered enough about skating to take the girls for a drag around the ice. I was pretty much stuck. At one point Marni wailed, "I want to skate, but it's hard!".

Our ice folly was cut mercifully short at 1 o'clock as the rink was closed for Zamboni time. No one was more relieved than Marni and I. While prying off the rental skates we made the decision to continue the Brooklyn adventure by driving out to Coney Island for winter fun on the beach.

We fueled up at our favorite Coney Island eatery, Nathan's. Quite a freak show; even in the dead of winter. Then the girls mixed snow balls and snow men with digging in the sand and collecting shells. I think they would have jumped in the water if we let them.

Our final Brooklyn adventure was a visit to Sherri Bubbles at her beautiful Bay Ridge apartment. We snacked, played games, tortured Kobi the dog, and watched big ships sail by her window until just past sunset.

Thanks Brooklyn. We had a real nice day playing with you!



(This post contains video only viewable from the website)

February Break(down)

My bad. I've just about missed the entire month of February. My excuse? I've been a little busy with the move of my office from Wall Street to Madison Avenue. Well now the move is over (It went fairly well. Thanks for asking) and I can get back to being a daddy blogger.

"Move week" was also "February Break" for the girls.

Stella and Marni started their vacation week at Nana Bev and Papa Art's house. I brought them up on Saturday and left them there Sunday as I headed back to NYC to get started on "move week". While up in Natick, Stella was given painting lessons by Papa Art and both girls played a lot in the snow. Papa Art even dared to take the girls to a movie all by his self when Nana Bev was feeling a bit under the weather.

Needless to say, they had a great time. Job well done Nana and Papa!

On Thursday night Lisa headed up to Natick to join the girls and bring them over to Albany for the remainder of the vacation.

Late Sunday afternoon all three girls stopped by my new office to check it out and pick up their exhausted daddy.

The Blue Bed

Stella's nocturnal migrations have been going on for a couple of years now. They ebb and flow. But they continue. Marni's evolution into person-hood has created a problem with this though. She's no longer content to stay behind downstairs as Stella snuggles in with mom and dad.

Lately, she's been joining Stella in middle-of-the-night escapes from their bedroom. Instead of one kid and two adults in our queen-size bed, there are now two kids and two adults. This just doesn't work. And someone (daddy) ends up sleeping on the sofa downstairs.

Enough.

Enter the blue AeroBed. Originally purchased in 2006 upon Marni's arrival, the air-filled bed has never been pressed into duty. Until now.

Earlier this week I unpacked and blew up the bed in anticipation of an overflow crowd that night. Indeed, the nightly migration took place right on schedule, but this time the girls were confronted with a new option.

The blue AeroBed greeted them at the foot of our regular bed. After a short revolt, the girls quickly accepted their new upstairs sleeping accommodations and fell fast asleep next to each other. And so it has been every night this week.

The future is murky. Of course we are breaking every rule of child rearing by letting the girls sleep in our room. But it's pretty cute having a couple of sweet girls sleeping at the foot of our bed like a pair of pooches.

Overheard #29

Marni to everyone while Stella drew and Marni ate at a restaurant:

"Stella's a good artist. I'm a good eater."

The Era of Skype

About a month ago I was instant messaging with friend Theo. Half way through the "conversation" Theo began berating me for using primitive IM when the world had moved on to Skype. An hour later I had signed up for an account, installed the software and video camera, and was having my first video Skype session with Theo.

Over Christmas I purchased and installed webcams for Natick, Brooklyn and my laptop, and the era of Skype was upon us.

The girls immediately took to it, and almost as quickly became jaded. But they've enjoyed the video calls with daddy's Nana and Papa and with me at the office. Stella already uses the word "Skype" as if it was the first word out of her mouth 5 years ago.

The big test came this past week while I was away in San Francisco. Not only did we have nice chats from my Moscone Center office, but I took the girls and the notebook for walks in the hallways, into other offices and up into the Yerba Buena Gardens. Stella and Marni got to chat with all the NASFT staffers. They were quite a hit.

Skype will now settle into a routine until summer when it will get a workout between Old Orchard and New York City.

And the girls will probably never remember a time when they couldn't see who they were talking to on the computer.

Overheard #28

Stella was watching a little bit of a Three Stooges Marathon with me on New Years Eve. First time for her.

After a while she turned to me and asked, "are those the Jonas Brothers?".

My Beauty

Official kindergarten school photo.

Giftwrap Giftnap

Yesterday Lisa sent Stella to school with three envelopes in her backpack containing gift cards to Dunkin Donuts. The idea was for Stella (or Lisa) to hand them out to Stella's three main teachers at her after-school place, Beansprouts.

When Lisa got to Beansprouts to pick Stella up, the cards were gone and no one, not even Stella, knew what happened to them. Understandably, Lisa was very upset and no one at Beansprouts got a holiday gift. I suggested sending Stella's kindergarten teacher an email asking if perhaps she had seen the cards anywhere. So that was the plan.

Later that night, after the kids had gone to sleep, the telephone rang. An unknown number. Lisa answered, and it was Jennifer, the mom of one of Stella's classmates in kindergarten. I listened to one side of the conversation and then Lisa burst out laughing when the mom asked if Stella really meant to give Lucy two Dunkin Donuts gift cards.

Mystery solved. Almost. What about the third card?

Lucy happened to be standing next to Jennifer during the phone call, so she asked Lucy if she knew anything about a third card. Lucy said she saw Stella give a card to a boy in the class, Alexander (the card was addressed to Stella's Beansprouts teacher, Alex).

So at least we know Stella has begun to read.

All turned out well though. The call from Jennifer resulted in a playdate being set up with Lucy for New Years weekend (to return the cards and have some fun).

And now, I have an awkward email to write to Alexander's parents.

Overheard #27

Marni to Lisa while in the rocking chair at bed time...
"Mommy, I don't like curly hair. I want straight hair like Stella and daddy. Stella's hair and daddy's hair are perfect. My hair and your hair are not perfect. I want straight hair, and then I can marry Cassius." (Cassius is a boy at Raindrops)

Marni to daddy while holding up a note she had just scribbled on...
"Daddy, I want to give this note to the boy at Raindrops with the hat. He sits next to me at circle time. I don't know his name, but I love him. I want to marry him, but I don't know his name."

Celebrate Me Home

The other night I was lying on the floor in my girls' darkened bedroom. They were both drifting off to sleep, snug and cozy in their beds as the frigid winter winds whipped by outside the window.

Their breathing was getting deeper and slower as they slipped away into dreamland.

Playing quietly in the dark was Christmas music from the radio. A song came on that I had never heard before. It was released by Kenny Loggins in 1976 and has become famous in its own right. But I had never heard "Celebrate Me Home" before. I'm no fan of mellow Kenny (with the exception of maybe "Danger Zone"), but this song was really nice.

I listened to it as my two precious girls slept on either side of me. And then, without fanfare or ceremony, it became one of those songs that you associate forever with a special time and place.

So now "Celebrate Me Home" is my magical Christmas lullaby song. And every time I hear it, it will remind me of my two most wonderful gifts... Stella and Marni, as they slumber peacefully on a cold winter's night.

Click here to hear for yourself.

Overheard #26

This morning Marni called me "despicable".

Yes, she watches a lot of Bugs and Daffy cartoons.

Meet the Press

Please join our round-table discussion on poop, already in progress...

God Has Arrived

It could be worse.

Stella could be asking about sex. Or about first marriages. Or about Glenn Beck.

But, instead, she is asking and talking about God.

It started over the weekend when she asked me if I knew about God. I said yes, and then quickly changed the subject. I was caught off guard.

Then she did it again the next day. She asked me something about God. I asked her what she knew about God.

She said that God was the biggest guy in the world. He made everything. And he lives up in the sky.

I asked her where she learned about God. Her response was predictable, "I don't know".

And then she started to explain God to Marni.

Nebulized

The call from Lisa started with "Don't worry, Stella is ok". Now that's a nice kinda phone call to get!

Lisa went on to explain that Stella visited the school nurse's office complaining that she couldn't breathe. The nurse checked her out and couldn't find anything wrong. Stella finished the rest of the day as usual and Lisa set up a doctor appointment to check her out.

The 6:45 p.m. appointment ended up being a 7:30 p.m. appointment at our perpetually late pediatrician. All I have to say is thank goodness for the iPhone! It kept Stella occupied all the way through the process.

When we finally got to see the doc, she asked Stella some questions and then listened to her chest. The prognosis? Some sort of minor bronchial infection that was keeping Stella from exhaling smoothly.

The doc disappeared for a moment and returned with a nebulizing machine in the shape of a yellow race car. She told Stella she would need to wear a mask like an astronaut and breath "clouds" for 10 minutes. Mask on. Machine on. More iPhone games while the clouds made Stella better.

After the treatment, Stella said she felt fine. The doc listened again and said she seemed to be breathing out a little easier.

We left the office with a prescription for some home nebulizing stuff to give Stella over the next few days plus a prescription for a precautionary chest x-ray.

Luckily there has been little drama with the at-home treatments (with the exception of Marni also wanting to breathe into Stella's machine).

The x-ray is happening as I write this and hopefully all will be ok. For now, Stella is happy and no longer complaining about breathing.

Now I can breathe easier.

Born Free

Last June America fell in love with the story of a little Brooklyn girl and her two pet snails. Rescued from the wild, the two snails soon learned to live amongst people and became domesticated.

The two snails (whose names changed on an almost daily basis) went with us everywhere. To Natick. To Albany. To Old Orchard Beach. They became a part of our family.

Eventually, Stella agreed with daddy that the snails missed their real families and should be set free.

So today the snails bid our fair family ado. We took them to Prospect Park (after a brief visit to temple this morning). There, we said our goodbyes. We placed the snails on nice damp leaves in a wooded area that we know well. The snails immediately started to move towards freedom. Stella and Marni were happy.

As the snails slithered deeper into the leaves, they turned back towards us and roared a little farewell. And then, they were gone.

Perhaps next spring we will visit this part of the park in search of the snails. If we see them, will they still remember us? Will they come up to us, without fear? And maybe, just maybe, they will let us see their new pride of baby snails.

"Born free, and life is worth living
But only worth living
'cause you're born free"

Overheard #25

At dinner, Stella was recounting her exciting field trip to the New York Aquarium. Sharks! Stingrays! Walruses!

Then Marni pipes up...

"Excuse me daddy, but nothing was fun at Raindrops."

(Photo courtesy of Meike Discher)

Photo Op

I just had to put this picture up. It's so perfectly Marni. As we were rushing out the door to grab the plane to Germany, Marni decided she needed to wear a crown.

And as we waited to check our luggage, Marni set the tone for the trip by being a total goofball.