Some more of Rose Pink's artwork

20 December 2010

Lots of fun and funny Christmas joy at our house tonight. We had a half hour tickle fight on the living room floor. There are advantages to having no furniture in the living room.

Our Christmas tree is bursting with amazon.com boxes. Hopefully when we open them on Christmas morning we'll be able to match them with the right giver to send the appropriate thank you note. The amazon smiley-face is the must have for this year, I suppose. We have such generous friends.

Mr. Brown watched kids for a friend today, and left a partly opened box from a friend (in Texas, you know who you are!) in the living room while he carried on a very long conversation with a friend in need on the front porch. Four kids five and under, relatively unsupervised. When he came back inside, he discovered that they had emptied the styrofoam peanuts from the box and shredded them into bits and bits all over the living room. (Proving once again that no good deed goes unpunished.) Another advantage to having no furniture in the living room - easier to clean up.

Rose Pink this evening was playing with putting things in her stocking and then 'discovering' what Santa had left for her. She said, "Oh look! A kazoo! And a little car! And a bloody knuckle!" Morbid, yes, that's our daughter. (The bloody knuckle was a piece of styrofoam she'd colored red and green a few days ago.)

15 December 2010

Reading scriptures at night, Nut Brown asked us what 'behold' means. We told him that 'behold' means 'look'. Now whenever anyone reads 'behold', Nut Brown interrupts to say, "Behold means look!" Last night he'd gone out to get a drink when I ran across a 'behold' in the verse. I said it loudly, hoping he'd hear it and shout back from the kitchen, but instead Mr. Brown and Rose Pink chorused in unison, "Behold means look!"

14 December 2010

Sunday afternoon Rose Pink departed into the snowy wilderness that is our driveway bearing tea bags that I had intended to throw away. She wanted to turn the snow pink with the tea bags (it's hibiscus tea). I was dubious, but sure enough, as she messed around outside, the tea bags did indeed bleed into the snow. Her summary: "So it turns out that snow really is just frozen water."

12 Dec 2010

Lots of snow on Sunday. We had two inches on the ground when I left for church and it didn't stop snowing until seven or eight that night. When I went out to shovel, Rose Pink followed me and we built a snow chair on the front lawn for her and a short snowman with raisin eyes and buttons.

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This morning Nut Brown climbed into bed between Mr. Brown and I and said, "I love you, Mommy! I love you, Daddy!" He is so affectionate.

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On a side note, it looks like we can trust our kids with markers now!

13 Dec 2010

We settled down to watch some tv on Saturday afternoon with a plate of Christmas cookies, and Rose Pink said, "There's only one jumjill! Somebody better take it or else I'm going to eat it!!" Jumjills are favorites at our house. Nut Brown said, "I'll take it!" and he did. Rose Pink was exceedingly indignant.

cookies

Mr. Brown and I and our good friend Tiffany had a baking orgy and made all our Christmas cookies for plates. We carefully plated and wrapped almost twenty plates of cookies (I told you it was an orgy) and then Mr. Brown got sick, so instead of distributing them as planned, we have been eating them ourselves, one plate at a time. :) The cookies are very, very good.

hippopotamus for Christmas

Megan- it's Christmas in Detroit. We heard the 'hippopotamus for Christmas' song on the radio the other day. It's a funny song so I turned it up and afterwards I asked Rose Pink what she would do if she got a hippopotamus for Christmas. I wish I could have captured the look of total stupefaction on her face as she replied, "I'd...I'd...I'd give it to the ZOO! I don't WANT a hippopotamus for Christmas!"

10 December 2010

First serious snow today, about an inch on the ground this morning. Rose Pink is of course ecstatic. I am less ecstatic. Mr. Brown is sick so if there is to be playing in the snow, I have to be in charge of it. So here's what happened - we went to the library (minus Mr. Brown, who is sick) on our way to the Cranbrook Museum. We were dashing inside to pick up books on hold. On our way back to the car, Rose Pink and Nut Brown got distracted by the snow around the edge of the fountain, and then they climbed into the fountain and played with the snow there. Rose Pink picked up fifty-six pennies. (See how well she can count?) I read my book for fifteen minutes until their fingers got too cold to go on (because we weren't going to play in the snow, we were going to the museum.)

We proceed on to the museum. Children get out of the car and race over to snowbanks. I get back in the car and read my book some more while snow play occurs. Eventually Rose Pink comes over and tells me she has to go to the bathroom, so we go into the museum. Snow play successfully achieved for the day.

Snow on the ground has also illuminated exactly how often the squirrels get into our trash can. The snow around the trash can is completely compacted by little squirrel footprints. Going to take out the trash tonight, I told Mr. Brown that I was going to feed the squirrels.

30 November 2010

So in our neighborhood they do something called 'leaf vacuuming' (sounds awesome) which means that most of the on-street parking is now taken up by as-yet-unanimated shambling mounds of leaves. I love living in a tree-filled city! ------ Just back from Thanksgiving visit to Iowa. On to Christmas.

12 November 2010

Nut Brown has a few speech difficulties that I want to record for posterity, especially since Mr. Brown has started working with him to get over them. First, he has a little bit of a lisp. I asked him to put some socks away the other day and he said, "Oh! Thesthe are my sthisther'sth sthockths!"

Also, he drops the 's' from the front of words like 'spoon' and 'stir'. So he asks for a 'poon and tells me that the movie is too 'cary. This is the one that Mr. Brown has told me very firmly that I have to stop encouraging. But it's so cute!

8 November 2010

Conversation yesterday with Rose Pink:

Rose Pink: I really want to go to school next year, Daddy.

Mr. Brown: Why do you really want to go to school?

Rose Pink: So that I can make lots of friends and they can come over and we can make hominy soup with a BIG can of hominy! (She means a number 10 can size of hominy.)

Mr. Brown: Sweetheart, if that's the only reason that you want to go to school, I can make hominy soup with a big can of hominy for you right now.

Rose Pink: Really? Really?!?

Mr. Brown: Yes.

Rose Pink: Hooray! And maybe I can take the label off and paint the can!

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Since Halloween and the arrival of masses of candy, there has been some discussion about how Mr. Brown doesn't eat chocolate, and the children, crushed by the idea that Daddy might miss out on some of the windfall that came their way, have been diligent about finding non-chocolate candies for him to share. The other night at the table, we were talking about how we need to let Santa know not to put chocolate candy in Mr. Brown's stocking. Mr. Brown said that he would like to ask Santa to bring him some Pay Day candy bars. Nut Brown, very seriously, said, "Maybe Santa will bring you a new computer with more Duck Tales movies on it."

4 November 2010

Rose Pink's gotten quite proficient with scissors and glue. She colored, cut out, and glued together both of these items all by herself.

2 November 2010

I love where we live. Our kids trick-or-treated about three blocks (just about right for a five-year-old and a three-year-old) and came home with EIGHT POUNDS of candy.

Because every 5-year-old should know how to use a bo staff

Halloween 2010

So we've been working on Halloween prep lately...

Painting our batcars... Trying on costumes... (thank you to Jessica for the loan and the idea!!) And here is the culmination of work in the church parking lot pre-Halloween party: (Mr. Brown is dressed as a monk. Geoffrey of Monmouth.) The batcars are painted cardboard boxes with shoulder straps. Besides the bat symbols, the kids did all the painting and gluing and I just put the straps on.)

Happy Halloween! I love my two little batpeople!

29 October 2010

So we're riding in the car the other day and Rose Pink says to me, Can you please turn on the radio? I want to listen suspiciously. I was certain that I had not heard her right, but it turns out that she and Mr. Brown have had conversations about advertising and what some of the things that advertisements and commercials say and what they really mean. Hence her desire to listen suspiciously, as taught by her wise father.

Tonight in the car on the way home, she reads the name of the store we're passing: "THE HOME DEPOT". I say, Good job, Rose Pink! and she replies, That's the power of the Home Depot, Mom.

26 October 2010

We spent last weekend watching in fascination as men with saws and rakes and dumpsters and a Bobcat spent a day and a half cutting down two dead trees in our backyard. Such noise! Such drama! So many power lines! Friday night we sat in chairs by our sliding door (inside, because it was chilly) and watched the branches come off. Rose Pink wandered out to the kitchen to find something to nibble and came back with green beans (!!) that she and Nut Brown snacked on while we watched.

Our backyard is a lot more open and sunny now than it used to be. Sadly, my tomato plant (which still had ripening tomatos on it! Be jealous, o Iowa residents who are reading this!) had to be sacrificed to the chainsaw men.

25 October 2010

A few weeks ago, Rose Pink got on her two-wheeler bike and rode off down the driveway. She had been practicing coasting on it with no training wheels, and hadn't wanted to try riding it. But I told her that someday, she was just going to get on her bike and go flying off into the sunset so fast that we wouldn't even see her go... and it was worth finding out if today was the day. Well, it turned out that it was.

She is so fast on two wheels. Why does it make such a difference to take off the training wheels? Go, little girl, go.

15 Oct 2010

Both of my little goblins are going to be Batman for Halloween (just for a change from being a witch and a cat) but one of them's going to be called Batwoman. We were trying on costumes last weekend and there was a fair amount of crime stoppage happening on the first floor of our house that involved capes. On Sunday Nut Brown produced this coloring page in nursery at church. Notice that he colored the little girl just like his sister: copper hair, as she always defines it, and he colored her clothes black and told me that he drew her cape on. He always surprises me with how much more grown up he is than I expect him to be.

14 October 2010

What we sang tonight at bedtime: On Top Of Spaghetti, This Land Is Your Land, Bananas In Pajamas, and Skip To My Lou.

I have started learning new songs to sing, memorizing them as I ride my bike home from work. I now know three verses each of Greensleeves and This Land Is Your Land and Amazing Grace, not to mention all of Senor Don Gato.

12 October 2010

Nut Brown thinks that the number five is infinitely large. This means that when he gets 'five minute' warnings, he is extremely pleased to be told that he has an infinite amount of time left to play in the tub. He always wants to be assigned verse five to read when we're reading scriptures at night. And the other day on the way home from the park, he had a conversation with Mr. Brown about death in which he offered to die, but not for five days, Daddy. I personally hope it's a bit longer than five days.

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Last night we had a backyard full of kiddos from the neighborhood engaging in that classic childhood pasttime- mud pies. Also mud soup. Also making a 'cement carpet' by spreading the mud on a piece of cardboard. Tonight Rose Pink was invited up to play at a little girl's house up the street. Nut Brown was determined that he was going with her, but since she hadn't specifically invited him, we kept him home. We tried distracting him so he'd forget about going to Anna's house, but whatever we offered, he insisted that he was going to Anna's house, as in, "I will get a haircut and take a bath and THEN I'm going to Anna's house." or "I will not make cookies with you BECAUSE I am going to Anna's house." Finally we just said, No, dear, you're not going, and he cried and cried, and then made cookies with me. Sometimes kids just break your heart.

6 October 2010

As Nut Brown has been learning to use the toilet, I have been so touched to watch my husband teaching our little boy how to do 'man things' (urinate standing up). It is sweet to me to think about the other 'man things' he will teach Nut Brown as he gets older - shaving, for one, and how to treat girls and women, and how to bear the priesthood with respect and reverence.

I told Mr. Brown how it makes me all mushy inside, and he smiled and said that it makes him happy, too, but also angry, because there was no father figure to teach him 'man things' when he was growing up. I'm glad that he can do it for Nut Brown.

Conference weekend

We played our semi-annual game with conference where we offer the children a small piece of candy (a choc chip, a jelly belly) every time they hear a speaker say one of the key words on a list that we compile together (Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ, faith, love, temple). It encourages them to listen and also to spoil their dinners. On Saturday afternoon (there's no 'morning session' when you're in the eastern time zone) they both sat with Mr. Brown & I on the couch for four solid hours of conference. At some points they were also engaged in quiet activities like drawing or reading to themselves, but they were sitting with us, snuggling and cuddling and listening. We went through half a bag of tiny M&Ms (Rose Pink totally scored with the second talk about prophets). It was a lovely and wonderful afternoon.

4 October 2010

Rose Pink, the other day, in the kitchen, when I suggested having popsicles for dessert, began an imitation of a cheerleader, chanting: "The Y word! The Y word! Not (her name here)! YES!"

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Last night she sat at the kitchen table and explained to me how to make 'bun glasses' out of hamburger buns, bendy straws and glue.

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Early one morning this week they woke us up by creeping into our room to read 'picture scriptures' (children's scriptures) together. Rose Pink explained to Nut Brown about how Joseph Smith wasn't allowed to receive the gold plates until he came to meet the angel wearing his church clothes. Tee hee hee.

27 September 2010

Rose Pink is adding words to her pictures. In this one she's carrying buckets with her hands and feet. This priceless gem is an alligator, carrying Mr. Brown's hand weights, wearing shoes with double-knotted laces.

17 September 2010

Mr. Brown emails me this morning and says, "what we did"

"(it's a hover car if you can't tell)"

14 September 2010

Rose Pink lately has been making a sulky puppy dog face when she doesn't get what she wants. Mr. Brown and I find this extremely irritating. She did it last night during scripture reading, which generated a quick direct very firm lecture from Mr. Brown about how puppy dog faces would not get her what she wants, and she might think about that next time before she makes a puppy dog face, etc. He finished and Nut Brown said, "Ruff."

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I made half and half cupcakes tonight (an orange cake mix and a chocolate cake mix) with Mr. Brown to celebrate that tomorrow is halfway through September. We had batter left over (two cake mixes makes too many cupcakes) so we made an excellent cake to wrap up.

D&D

Last night Mr. Brown wanted me to play D&D with him but I didn't want to. It was about nine p.m., and I was hungry, so he offered to make me an omelet- and cooked up a most delicious ham and potato and egg concoction, with rye toast. Fabulous. Wonderful. While he was making it, he somehow cajoled me into role playing with him.... so it turns out that I will play D&D for food. :)

12 Sep 2010

A few notes:

*Mr. Brown got out the fall clothes to sort out what fits now that's long sleeved and long legged. Rose Pink, our clothes horse, told me that some of her new shirts were so cool that she had no choice but to play air guitar when she tried them on.

*Nut Brown stands on his head by putting his head down between my legs while I'm sitting indian-style on the floor. Tonight he got his legs up in the air by himself, bracing his arms on my thighs. He waved his feet artistically in the air and kicked me in the face.

*We went down to Davenport over Labor Day to celebrate an old friend's re-employment and to see the Iowa City Browns. It was interesting to be somewhere so familiar but not to feel as if we belonged there at all. We ran a couple errands for things we hadn't yet figured out in Michigan (haircuts and oil change) and felt very uneasy about the idea of driving past our old house and our old neighborhood. (So we didn't.) We missed Detroit. We did enjoy very much seeing our friends and family!

*While in Davenport, the kids and I went to see the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus (pardon me - the greatest show on earth). I had wanted to go the whole time we lived in Davenport, but when the kids were finally old enough, we moved. The kids enjoyed it but it turned out that they weren't quite old enough. Nut Brown curled up in his seat and went to sleep during the last fifteen minutes.

*Have I mentioned that Mr. Brown & I are the nursery leaders at church? WE LOVE IT. And Nut Brown does a truly excellent job of sharing his parents with everyone else for two hours. He really is well-behaved in nursery - I have first-hand evidence now.

*Nut Brown is just about through with potty-training. There were a few accidents and incidents but it overall went very smoothly. Good work, Nut Brown! He's a big boy in big boy underwear now. His favorite is the pair with Batman on them. He has the darling habit of putting his underwear on backwards, because he wants to be able to see the picture instead of having it on his bum.

*He's not quite staying dry through the night so he wears pull-ups to bed. He pronounces it, "pull-ips". He also has been half-waking himself at night because his body is learning to wake up in order to use the toilet. But he's not awake enough to actually go to the bathroom and use it, so he just cries in bed until Rose Pink wakes up and shepherds him into our room so we can help him. Last night he actually did get himself out of bed and into the bathroom. We will all be less grumpy once he gets this part totally figured out. We are very proud of him!

*I have a new boss at work. New boss makes me feel safe, like finally there is someone to help me instead of attack me. I am really starting to feel a lot better. Also, old boss that we moved here to escape came up to visit, and I called in sick in order to avoid seeing her. Successfully choosing not to see her has really helped me feel more in control and has also helped me feel a lot better. I think things may be on the upswing for me at work... even if it is September!!

*Mr. Brown has a friend in playgroup that he told about our tradition of having a practice Thanksgiving. She invited herself over for it as soon as he mentioned it. They made two 9x13 pans of baklava this week (Amri's recipe: thank you, Amri!!) and I have personally consumed half the pan in the last two days. Rose Pink didn't want to try it at first but then she had a bite and has been totally absorbed by it ever since. Best baklava ever, she says, and I have to agree.

*I hosted book club at our house the last day of August. We read Chalice, by Robin McKinley, which is a honey-themed book, so Mr. Brown made a bunch of honey treats and bought five kinds of honey for us to try. We had honey cake and rolls with honey and this completely fabulous fig-honey-goat cheese pita pizza.

*Rose Pink's two favorite colors are pink and orange. When my parents were here visiting, Rose Pink one day chose a pink top and an orange skirt combo (the colors actually went together more nicely than it might sound) and my mom commented that with her red hair and pink sandals that Rose Pink had nice layers of orange, pink, orange, pink.

*At the moment, when people compliment Rose Pink on her red hair, she says, "Thank you. Actually, it's copper."

*My brother Chris has moved to Chicago to attend grad school. We are hoping to see lots of "Uncle Kiss", as Nut Brown calls him.

2 September 2010

Rose Pink asked me what the longest song I know is, and I made the mistake of telling her. Now she asks for "Master, The Tempest Is Raging" every other night at bedtime.

Glub

Last night when putting the kids in bed, Nut Brown requested that I sing the green and speckled frog song (the one that counts down the frogs on the log as they jump off into the pool, glub glub). I sang it with three frogs, because that's about as many verses as I like to sing. Then Rose Pink reminds me that Raffi sings it with four frogs, and decides that she's going to sing it to us with five frogs. She gets through the first verse and finishes with one glub, and tells me that she's going to do one glub for each of the frogs that's jumped off at the end of each verse. So verse 2 finishes with 2 glubs, verse 3 with three glubs and so on. I thought it was pretty great that she could keep separate the number of glubs versus the number of frogs left on the log, because that's what the song tracks. Then she finishes verse five and starts glubbing, and she keeps going, and then more glubs, and I realize that she's singing the Star Wars theme using the syllable 'glub'. I start to laugh, and she stops and says, that's a lot of frogs.

27 Aug 2010

So in the car, on our vacation in Utah, we're driving about an hour, and Rose Pink asks Mr. Brown to tell her a Princess Rose Pink story. Princess Rose Pink stories always start: once upon a time, long ago and far away, lived a beautiful princess with red hair and blue eyes whose name was.... and Rose Pink shouts, "PRINCESS ROSE PINK!". That night we were all tired, so Mr. Brown tried to get Rose Pink involved in helping tell the story.

Mr. Brown: One morning Princess Rose Pink received a message from the dwarf chieftain (is anyone surprised that it was a dwarf? Me neither.) asking for assistance! So Princess Rose Pink mounted her trusty steed Fluffy and rode to the dwarves' mountain. What is wrong? she asked the dwarf king. Oh help us, Princess Rose Pink, said the dwarf, for we are overrun by zombies! (Zombies are popular in our house lately.) See, mighty Princess, look here? And she saw a whole cavern full of zombies fighting the dwarves and moving inexorably forward. There were hundreds of them! What does Princess Rose Pink do?

Rose Pink: Princess Rose Pink runs away. She runs all the way back home to get Prince Nut Brown.

(Prince Nut Brown was falling asleep in his seat but revived when he heard his name.)

Nut Brown: Prince Nut Brown kills all the zombies with his axe! Whack! Whack!

Mr. Brown: With his axe?

Nut Brown: From his father! It's silver! Whack! Whack! They're all dead!

Mr. Brown: And then what does he do?

Nut Brown: He climbs up to the top of the mountain!

Mr. Brown: What does he see?

Nut Brown: He sees a dead dragon.

Mr. Brown: How does he know that it's dead?

Nut Brown: It's been eaten a little bit.

Adrian: Well, if there's a dead dragon, that must mean there's dragon treasure around here! (Is anyone surprised that the chronic rogue felt this was an opportunity to jump into the story? Me neither.) You should look for it! Climb around the mountain and see if you find a cave.

Nut Brown: I go in a cave.

Mr. Brown: What do you find?

Adrian: Treasure!

Nut Brown: Another dragon! It's alive!

Adrian: Run away! Are you going to kill it?

Nut Brown: No! I have my axe. And my two swords. They are named... um... (insert five minute discussion about what the swords are named, and I don't remember now)

Adrian: So are you going to kill the dragon?

Nut Brown: No! He fixes my swords. They're broken. And then I kill more zombies!

Rose Pink: Princess Rose Pink gets out her sword, too, and goes to visit the dwarves.

Adrian: As Princess Rose Pink prepares to attack the zombies with her sword, she suddenly feels weak and wobbly. Her muscles won't do what she tells them to! She begins to collapse on the ground! What are you going to do?

Mr. Brown: I smell a hidden magic user.

Rose Pink: Ummmm....

Nut Brown: I take Princess Rose Pink to the dragon! So he can fix her!

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That was the first time that Nut Brown demonstrated his interest and capacity for telling his own stories. Last night he asked me for a story again and we started with Prince Nut Brown setting off to explore, and staying overnight in a barn on a farm.

Adrian: Early the next morning, Prince Nut Brown is awakened by the farmer hollering, "Git outta here, you no-good varmint!" Prince Nut Brown runs out of the barn and sees the farmer yelling at a gigantic chicken, as big as the barn. "bock bawk bokk" says the chicken, and then it lays an egg as big as the table!! What does Prince Nut Brown do?

Nut Brown: (with very round eyes) He lays an egg too!

Adrian: He what?

Nut Brown: He lays an egg too! Out of his nose!

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Another time Prince Nut Brown was riding on his steed with his daddy on his way to the Mountains of Doom (it was Nut Brown's decision to bring his daddy on this quest) when a tiny groundhog popped out of the ground in front of them and warned them about not continuing on their quest, for they would surely come to a BAD END if they pressed on. Then the groundhog dove back down its hole. What did Prince Nut Brown do? He dove down the hole after the groundhog.

This type of storytelling is entertaining for everyone. He keeps us on our toes.

dreaming

Tonight we drove up Woodward Avenue to a park in Birmingham. Please note that today is August 18th. Here are a few of the sights we saw driving up (photos taken out the window of our car): The Woodward Dream Cruise isn't until the 21st of August, but there are already tons of people cruising, and watching the cruisers, all along Woodward Avenue.

On our way back, we ended up in the middle of a lot of Corvettes of various years. How many distinctive double taillights can you count? Double that, because there were more ahead of and behind us. What do you call a group of Corvettes? A cruise, of course. Wish you were here, Dad!

trip to greenfield village

4 August 2010

Woo hoo! We are OUTTA here!! Off to Utah to go to my brother's wedding and visit family and friends!! See you all on the 17th!!

1 August 2010

Putting kids in bed tonight.

Mom: Nut Brown, take off your shirt and put your pajamas on.

Nut Brown: I can't take off my shirt!

Mom: How are you going to solve that problem? What are you going to do?

Nut Brown: I'll take off my head!

Nut Brown, when he means 'alright', says 'o-white'.

Mom: Nut Brown, I'm giving you some beans on your plate.

Nut Brown: O-white.

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Yesterday Nut Brown trailed after me when I went out to open the garage door. I opened the side door and pressed the open button, then went around front to wait for the door to open. I came around the front and discovered Nut Brown hanging on the bottom edge of the door as it rose, riding it up. It was startling.

23 July 2010

Last night we ate some poor lady's hair and eyeballs for dinner, stewed in her blood, and accompanied by her crunchy feet and slightly mushy fingers. Our daughter is a little morbid. We were having spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread and green beans for dinner.

16 July 2010

Life is a blur with two little kids. (spinning in an office chair)

Nut Brown in particular is usually blurry.

Occasionally we all stand still together.

Here we are in our living room, and you can see the dining room through the door.

frogs

Making origami frogs.

Note the tongue.

bicycle

I rode my bicycle home from work six miles IN THE RAIN yesterday. Truly I am a champion.

color

Rose Pink lately has been making bold use of color, covering large swaths of paper with solid brightness. Nut Brown also uses a tremendous variety of color, unlike his sister when she was this age. He is very proud of his ability to draw circles.

*cough*cough*

Yesterday Nut Brown got out of bed with a slightly croupy cough, and Mr. Brown made him hot chocolate to ease the cough and give a sick boy a treat. Rose Pink also had hot chocolate for breakfast when she got up.

Nut Brown's cough got better during the day, and was pretty much extinguished by the time he went to bed. However, this morning, both he and Rose Pink got out of bed *coughing* in an effort to get hot chocolate for breakfast again.

batman smells

Lately Nut Brown's technique at bedtime is to ask if I know any songs about --fill in the blank--. Last week he asked if I knew any songs about Batman. I said no, but Mr. Brown called out from the other room, sure you do! What about 'Jingle bells, Batman smells'?

Jingle bells, Batman smells/ Robin laid an egg/ Batmobile lost one wheel/ And the Joker got away!

The kids were both completely enchanted. Rose Pink told me in awe on Sunday afternoon that the singing leader in her big class at church knew the words. Rose Pink has altered the words to say, "...and the Joker went to the beach!" Nut Brown sang to me the other morning on the phone, "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg, the Batwagon lost a wheel, the Joker went to the beach!" He wants to be Batman for Halloween. (Can we borrow the costume, Jessica?)

8 July 2010

Rose Pink: And do you know why her skin's green, Mom? Because the stuff in the bottle is green!