First Week of the New Year

 My New Years Resolution: CONTENT.  Not "Contentment" which is also on the list, but to produce weekly usable content for the blog.  This leads to New Years Resolution #2: Find time. It's gotta be out there somewhere.  Put the 2 together and we have a blog up and running again. 

This week marks Brooks at 16 months old.  Boy does time fly.  Each month that passes he grows more cute and more loveable.  Right now he and I are amidst a very strong love affair.  Basically it just boils down to the fact that I am the best person to be with at all moments.  Dada, who used to be #1 (remember), has now unfortunately for him taken a back seat.  Or maybe it's not so unfortunate for him at 1 a.m. when Daddy just doesn't do the trick.  Everyday there is a new word out of his mouth.  My favorite right now are "uh-oh", "more", "f-f-f-f-f-f-f" for our new frog pets, "bubbles" for taking a bath, and "no".  Good thing for us, he really only says no if you ask him to.  Or the way he calls himself "Buh-fa" and says "I do" with the most profound Texas accent.  And how could I forget the infamous "Da-doo" for Thank You, which he does say at the most appropriate times.  He even brings me things he shouldn't have and says "da-doo". 

Yesterday the stomach bug hit.  Brooks was a happy camper all day until we went out to the bus stop to get Chance and the river opened and for the next couple hours, I got to experience the insides of Brooks's stomach.  In the middle of vomiting, I asked Chance to hurry and get him a bowl.  He brings it to Brooks who is sitting there in my lap in utter misery, and he graciously looks at Chance and mumbles "da-doo".  How could I not be in love?

BAD, VERY BAD

Apparently Brooks has been really bad lately and I didn't even know it.  Good thing I stumbled upon this note to set me straight.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Please mom, can I play hickey from school today?"

The Elf and the Baby That Knows

If only Brooks could speak, he'd tell poor little Chance all the secrets, including the fact that yes, mom does move that Elf.  I keep wondering to myself when Chance is going to put two and two together.  I keep waiting for the day for him to come home from school and have some kid spoil the fun.  But in the meantime, the parental lying and deception continue.  Again I find myself up against another moral dilemma that Christmas brings: tell your kid not to lie.......and then keep the magic of Santa and his Elf going at all costs. 

So you see, the morning of December 1, there was an Elf on our mantle.  He appeared there over night holding a piece of paper, written by Santa, explaining that we've been chosen to house this elf until Christmas Eve.  The Elf was to watch over the happenings of the house and report back.......Naughty or Nice.  Apparently the threat is not enough to stop the constant infractions that occur between Chance and Brooks.  Somehow the Elf swinging from the chandelier gets overlooked in a moment of panic when your little brother has taken your prized eraser shaped like a stapler and torn it in half. 

So the Elf is a bit mischievous, he takes things that are not his, he eats food and leaves behind crumbs.  And most importantly, he moves when no one is looking.  Sometimes he hides in very hard to find places, but Brooks is always around when I move him and so when Chance goes looking, somehow Brooks always knows where he is, screaming and pointing UUF, UUF, UUF!!!!  And every time Chance has no clue, exclaiming, "Brooks!!! You are such a good finder". 

And so the magic continues, if only Brooks could tell.

Eleven

My humor has changed since living abroad, and I find this totally hilarous on this fine Wednesday morning.

RUDOLF and OLIVE

Chance: "Mom, can you please tell me the names of all the reindeer, I only know two."

Me: "Which 2 do you know?"

Chance: "I only know Rudolf and Olive."

Me: "Olive?"

Chance: "Ya mom, you know: All-of the other reindeer."

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Chance was coloring at the table with Brooks (which seems to be a very frequent occurance lately) and as he's drawing his picture, he tells me about it:

"There is SO MUCH colors in my picture, like Tumbleweed and Copper and Denim".

Halloween

Everyday that I would walk the neighborhood, I'd tell myself, "next time you better bring along your camera and take some pics of these uber-decorated houses".  It apparently got to Chance so much that we didn't have out sufficient amount of decorations, that he begged and pleaded to please go and get some.  One day after school we drove up to the Halloween City store.  I was hoping for the friendly front yard, with happy pumpkins, cute little witches, and welcoming scarecrow people.  But when Halloween City let me down, it was one of those days where I just wasn't in the mood to drag the kids to a bunch of other stores in search for the perfect decorations.  So, we settled on Halloween Citys nasty scary evil ghosts and such.  Believe me, we made it out of there with the tamest decorations I could find, but.. I kinda flinched at the sight of it, and I know that poor lady that was knocking door to door trying to spread the word of her "bible", must have said some extra prayers for our house when she had to wade thru the hanging skeletons to ring our doorbell.  But Chance liked it. 

We did have lots of family fun decorating our pumpkin.  Ooo and goo for all ages.

We put Daddy to work on the bat design, and it turned out pretty rockin I must admit.

Chance skyped with his long-time friend from Zurich, Jack several weeks before Thanksgiving.  Jack's family just moved to Chicago from Zurich about the same time we did.  Jack and Chance were chatting about who was going to be who for Halloween, and Jack exclaims to Chance, "yeah and in America we get to go trick-or-treating to lots and lots of houses, not just 3 or 4!!!!" 

This was Chance's first year with "real" trick-or-treating.  A totally different experience from our very intimate, friends house to friends house make shift trick-or-treating we did in Zurich.  Chance was elated at the fact we'd get to go from house to house to house to house to house getting oodles and goodles of candy that I would eventually binge on myself and then throw the rest away. 

Chance was Luigi, and with a request like that, how could I deny the little shorter stout fellow a shot at making Mario proud?

The neighbor boys were Yoshi and Toad.  All that was missing was Princess Peach but I was too cheap and not cool enough of a mom to pull that one off.

So after a fun little neighborhood gathering down the street, we tagged along with the neighbor gang for trick-or-treating.  I was envisioning a lap around our cul-de-sac and maybe a couple houses more.  My friend informed me that last year her boys collected 14 lbs of candy and that they were trying to beat their record.  Little did I know this candy hunting endeavor would last for a full on 2+ hours.  Brooks stayed in the stroller most of the time and then passed out mid-way.  Little Mario just couldn't keep up with the pace.  And Ryan stayed at home to pass out candy to the rest of the neighborhood. 

All in all it was a good first take at this peculiar tradition....now onward to Thanksgiving.

It's All About DADA

Brooks has become a Daddy's boy big time.  Yesterday we went to get Chance's haircut after school and upon coming home, we walked in the door, Brooks looked around the corner shouting "Dada" as he looked all over for him.  Poor guy, to his disappointment it was only 4:30.  And Daddy's aren't usually home at that time.  After searching high and low, he finds my phone and starts crying at it, "Dada, dada, dada".  He NEEDED to call his Daddy and fast.  I am desperately texting Ryan to call us ASAP......how do you tell a 14 month old, sorry you have to wait for your daddy to call you back.  Needless to say, there were tears until the phone rang.

Daddy comes home, and his excited boys (and wife) gather in the closet as he takes off his work clothes.  Brooks is clinging to his leg, Chance is jumping on his arm. 

Ryan sits on the ground and asks, "Brooks, who is your number one?"  Answer: DADA.  "Chance, who is your number one?" Answer: DADA.  "Honey, who is your number one?" How could I not say: DADA. 

Then the audacity.  Want to know what came next? He asks himself, "Daddy, who is your number one?: DADA".  Uh-huh. 

QUOTE OF THE DAY

CHANCE:  "Dad, why can't you be like all the NORMAL dads and NOT watch football all weekend long"

RYAN: "Oh, so you want 2 moms?"