March 2017

I'm so proud of Nora, I'm bursting. She finished her second "real" book today, Aap wil een baan. I sat down with her, in the basement, and while she was munching on apple slices she completed 6 pages in one sitting.

She has a booklet where we keep track of which books she read, and she can rate the book. This one got a 2 out of 3 stars from Nora. Op is op, the other "real" book, warranted a 3 out of 3.

We saw Frozen over the Christmas break. I bought the Dutch version DVD and Sasha, Nora and I watched it over two days. We skipped over the part with the wolves, but except for that Nora loved it (and we had a good time too).

Since then we've been watching "Laat het gaan" many, many times and Nora can sing good parts of it already.

Today she asked me: "Papa, mag ik Frozen in het Engels zien?" "Waarom?" "Nou, we wonen in Amerika..."

But no, that's not happening because she's getting plenty of English exposure already. Later in the evening she asked me: "papa, wat betekent 'verleg de grenzen die ik ken?'" so that explains why I want her to hear the songs in Dutch.

We brought Nora for her 5 year checkup. When we were at the eye doctor a few days ago, her eyesight was fine, but today the test didn't go well at all -- Nora couldn't see anything, except the largest letters. The nurse was a little worried, and we were quite surprised.

Then Sasha looked at Nora's glasses... and they were very, very dirty. After cleaning them Nora did the same test again, and everything was fine, haha.

The checkup was fine otherwise. Nora is 45 lbs, 45 3/4".

This morning we took the kids for a haircut. Tina was happy when she saw us -- three little customers in a row.

It's a long walk for the guys and they were tired and cranky when we came back. Nora too, so for the first time in a few months we had everybody crying at the same time. Some avocado and a sandwich with cheese calmed everybody down.

In the afternoon the boys took a nap. Leo didn't want to sleep at first -- a diaper situation -- but after a quick chat ("Opa kijken!") he finally fell asleep at 2.20 pm. Nora and I later relaxed. Me at the computer, she with her Bobo.

Only a five year old will carefully spend 10 minutes painstakingly writing letter by letter: "I don't want to write letters".

In Bulgarian, appropriately for today's holiday Baba Marta, the beginning of spring. "Не искм да пиша букфите".