sunday afternoon

Nut Brown is sleeping upstairs, and Rose Pink is playing some princess story with the barbies. She asked Mr. Brown to get a tight sleeve on a barbie, and he suggested cutting the lacy, delicate, finger-grabbing sleeve off entirely. Rose Pink was very pleased with the idea and has brought me three more dresses to cut sleeves off of, and one pair of tights that she suggested we make into leggings. She also suggested cutting their hair, but I negatived that one.

A new little girl named Makayla (sp?) has moved into our complex. She is five and she and Rose Pink took to each other immediately and have been inseparable since. Mr. Brown and I also approve- we find her nice and well-mannered and she really seems to enjoy playing with Rose Pink. Yesterday she was over for dinner (she didn't want to stop playing and go home) and when Rose Pink had to go do her chore of putting away the silverware Makayla asked if she could help. I was impressed. Her parents are also pretty relaxed about her, too, which has made it very easy for Rose Pink to make friends. I am so glad that Rose Pink has another friend. The only downer about the whole thing is that Makayla is a child of divorced parents so she's only here some of the time.

Nut Brown has been producing more and more words. He's in that delightful parrot stage where he repeats every word you say like a little echo. It is so, so fun. As his vocabulary has expanded we've started to hear more adjective+noun phrases: big truck, red truck, etc. and requests, like drink please. ('Drink' is pronounced 'gonk'. Only his parents know what he means.) Today he negotiated with us for the first time- I told him, time for your nap, Nut Brown, and he said, "ONE BOOK! ONE BOOK!" So we read one book and he went to bed. He 'reads' a verse every night by repeating each word after the speaker.

The other night he and I were out playing by ourselves and he suddenly says, "Sssss!" and made monster hands. I said, Oh, are you a lion? and Nut Brown said, "Nake! Sssss!" He was pretending to be a snake. He has a very vivid imagination, like his sister. But he imagines different things.

He has also completely, utterly fallen in love with books. An empty lap is an invitation to trot over with a book and say, "read!" It's the first thing he does in the morning (even before breakfast) and the last thing he does at night. He's not interested in stories as much as he is in identifying and naming objects. I love reading to him.

And when he comes downstairs from his nap or from his night's sleep, he smiles and says, "Hello!" He also says "Hello!" to me when I get home from work, and to Mr. Brown when he comes up from the basement. He is still small enough that when I pick him up under the armpits I can feel his heart beating under my fingertips, and that feels so intimate.

Rose Pink is learning to read and reads from Dick and Jane to us. I am amazed at how well she does reading and remembering words. At night when we read scriptures, she reads all the words that she knows (and, the, if, is) and repeats after us the ones she doesn't. Mr. Brown is looking for a list of common words for her to memorize.

Nut Brown just got up from his nap ("Hello!") which means that Rose Pink has been playing barbies by herself for almost two hours.