La Familia Brophy

We just got attacked by an evil blog spammer. They left a comment advertising gambling websites on every single entry on this blog. I used MT-Blacklist to remove all of the offending comments, but I am annoyed enough that I took more decisive action. From now on the comments in the blog don’t accept HTML, and you can no longer enter your url when you add a comment. Not many of you use those features anyway, and those of you who do are probably in my blogroll. While I was at it, I removed the link to the comment poster’s email as well, because you probably don’t really want to post your email address on my website. I still ask you to enter your email so we can get in touch with you.

I decided to make a list of all of Nathan’s vocabulary words as of today. I’m sure that I forgot some but here is what I came up with…

spoken words:Bowl, Ball, Oscar, Mama, Pap(i), Yaya, That, Jones, Cat, Up, Cheese, Apple, Egg, Hot, Spoon, Eye, Fish, Star, Uh-Oh, Duck, Toot Toot, Waffle, Choo Choo, Flylady (no kidding).

Animall Sounds:Baa, Moo, Roar, Quack quack and a pig sound.

Signs:Brush Teeth/Toothbrush, Hat, Brush hair, All done, Cracker, More, Water, Milk, Again, Wheel/Roll, Poop, Cold, Flower, Cheerio, I want, Bye.

Just about a month ago he had about 5 words. I would say that he is learning new words at about the rate of 2 a day. It is really incredible. I’ll try to get a photo that goes with this entry in some creative way when he wakes up from his nap.

Edited to add:Well here it is. Nathan is eating a waffle which he learned to say today while signing wheel (because his car just fell).

It is still really cold here but at least one of us is coping well….

Nathan’s been knocking down blocks for months now, but today he stacked some for the first time. Here’s his inaugural creation.

I’m extremely proud. So what do you think, was he spelling “TOY” on purpose?

If you’ve been reading the blog then you know that we have been teaching Nathan some signs or, some would say, gestures in order to communicate. It has been going pretty well and I’ve been interested to see that he seems to babble in signs and create his own signs just as he might with spoken language. Recently, he came up with a rather complex sign which he always does the same way. He holds one hand kind of open and the other one with his fingers together and winds them around each other. For more than a week we could not figure out what he meant by this.

Well, this morning I was going through some knitting and I wound up a ball of yarn that had come undone a bit and Nathan imitated me with his mystery sign. I couldn’t believe that he had seen me do this before and he was making the sign when he saw yarn balls (which despite Flylady are always laying around).

Here is the sweater I finished today for him after I realized that I better get it done or it won’t fit. I wanted to try and get him to do the sign for the photo but I couldn’t do that and hold the camera…

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I keep a close watch on our iTunes most played list. One problem I have with the list is there is no way to see the what is the most played song this month, it is always just a cumulative count. Because of that I have decided to to reset my songs’ playcount to 0, and start the count afresh for the new year (OK, so I’m a little late). But before I do here’s the top ten most played songs from 2003:

1. Hey Ya!, OutKast, 2003, 49
2. A Dios Le Pido, Juanes, 2002, 46
3. beware of the boys remix, Panjabi MC Feat. Jay Z New , 2003, 45
4. La Unica, Juanes, 2002, 41
5. I Rock the Party, MC Lyte and friends, 40
5. Shifter, Timo Maas, 2002, 40
6. Seven-nation Army, The White Stripes, 2003, 39
7. Demonseed ‘03, DJ Spooky, 2003, 38
8. A New England, Billy Bragg, 1983, 37
8. Union City Noise - Public Enemy vs Blondie, Go Home Productions, 2003, 37
8. eden, Hooverphonic, 1998, 37
9. yadada, Nathan Brophy, 2003, 36
9. Laut Sprecher (Extended Mix), Omnibus, 2002, 36
10. The Guns of Brixton, The Clash, 1979, 35
10. Suavemente, Elvis Crespo, 1998, 35

That last number is the number of times played of course.

I got a lot of cookbooks for Christmas this year. I’ve enjoyed all of them so far but I’ve really been having fun with Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book. For the last four Sundays I’ve baked bread. It is pretty fun because it is so unpredictable, at least when you are a beginner. There is so much to learn and refine. I love the book though because it helps you along with every step and all of the recipes use whole grain flours exclusively.

The only problem is that Nathan and I no longer go for our bi-weekly trips to Fornax, the great bakery in Roslindale Village. Also, my bread isn’t nearly as good as their’s is. Not yet anyway.

Here I am with my first loaf. I was really impressed with how well it rose. Especially since it is 100% whole wheat!

This morning we braved the record low temperature (set more than 100 years ago) of -2 degrees to go to Whole Foods Market. (I spent $110 on beautiful food, much of which we could have lived without). When we first got in the car Nathan was fascinated by his visible breath. He just laughed and laughed. Boy was it cold. The car barely warmed up during the nearly 6 mile drive.

On the way home though it did warm up and Nathan was so content that he fell fast asleep. He doesn’t normally do that anymore unless it is naptime. And man was he ever asleep. I took him out of his carseat, somewhat ungracefully and he stayed asleep. He slept all the way upstairs and stayed asleep when I put him on the living room floor. We put away the groceries and then I got a blanket and snuggled next to him for a few minutes before I realized it was a great opportunity to cut his fingernails which had gotten way too long. Normally I can do one a day because of his protests.

We decided to wake him up. Ben took off his snowsuit and he finally woke up with a big smile that looked like he was saying, “Ha ha, I sure had you convinced I was asleep.” And Mr. Jones went back to his blanket on the radiator.

We’ve had a lot got wrong in the last week. Nothing too terrible but here is the run down:

Last Saturday when we got home from CT we found that our hot water tank was leaking. That was fixed on Monday so we just had one day without hot water. But it somehow messed up our kitchen faucet so we have very little water pressure there and still need it fixed.

Nathan got conjunctivitis. We took him to the 24 hour clinic at MIT and got him medicine on Sunday.

Monday night Ben sat on the bed (I was already nearly asleep!) and it went crashing to the ground. The wood on the side split. That is still covered by warranty and we can pick up the new piece from Heartwood in Central Square tomorrow. (Good 10 year warranty).

Tuesday night Ben got conjunctivitis. He can use Nathan’s medicine.

Wednesday Ben cancels the 6 month overdue car service appointment because his right eye is swollen shut. He rescheduled it for Friday.

Thursday Ben’s other eye gets it. We both don’t feel great. We’re over tired because Nathan has been waking in the night for the last 2 weeks. We all take a 2 and a half hour nap. Mr. Jones begins weird kitty litter box behavior.

Friday I called the vet to report Mr. Jones’ weird kitty litter box behavior. She tells me to go to the hospital as soon as possible because it sounds like he has a blocked urinary tract. We were on the way to drop off the car at the dealer. We got an appointment for Mr. Jones and borrow Theresa’s car to go. Luckily he wasn’t blocked but he has a “sore bladder” and has medicine to take. When he is done with the medicine we have to get a urine sample from him! We’ll try to get photos!

It doesn’t all sound so bad written down. The week is almost over. It hasn’t been so great for Ben who has had off from work since December 23rd.

Happy New Year!

Update: At 9:15 our clothes dryer broke. No joke.