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?)