La Familia Brophy

I have been travelling for work a bit lately. Last month I was in Indiana for a couple days. I am on my way home now from Michigan, next month I’ll be visiting Stanford. I used think I would like doing this sort of thing, but I actually don’t. It’s too hard being away from because I miss Nathan and I know it’s hard for Lisa. One thing that helps with the missing the family is the little iSight I got for Christmas. I leave one at home and take the one that belongs to my office. Then we can have a little video conference when i’m at the hotel in the morning and at night. On this trip we even did a quick video conference during one of the breaks in my meeting. Here’s what is looks like:

Nathan is showing me the ball he’s playing with (balls are Nathan’s second favorite object after trucks and just before trains). What’s cool is he was really showing it to me he was holding it up to my picture on the screen - he tried giving me cereal too. So I feel like it’s nice for him to see us too. Lisa’s parents are moving to Wisconsin soon, I am really hoping Lisa’s mom is going to get a mac and a iSight - you reading this Debi? I think it would pretty fun - and it’s a free call unlike the phone.

Later: I am back home at last.

Nathan started an art class called “Sticky Fingers” last week. After the first class I wasn’t sure he was old enough to really enjoy it but today he got artistic! Here is his first gluing project. It is of course more product oriented than I like but if you just look at the shapes he glued on and ignore the “ice cream cone” the teacher had already glued onto the paper plate then you can see Nathan’s real work. He also did some painting and played with play dough. A fun time for all!

There are these cool bikes from a company called Bigha. They are really neat, but they cost $3000 dollars. I read about how if you order a free DVD brochure from them you can enter a contest to win one. I got the DVD, it’s swell. Bigha assigned me my own personal sales rep who sent me an email (personalized with cruel references to snowy weather in Boston). Here’s what I wrote back.

It’s all true. Nathan takes the DVD very seriously. We’ve watched it three times. And the video lovingly lingers over all of the bike related gear - if made me desperate for one of these things.

Lee wrote back and said that, yes, his company’s bikes are rather “spendy” and he hopes Nathan continues to enjoy the video. See, now that is nice marketing. And here I am blogging about them and linking to their website - it totally worked.

Today Nathan ate multiple breakfasts all before 9 am.

• First breakfast was banana, pear and waffle.
• Second breakfast was Papi’s cereal.
• Third breakfast was a scrambled egg.
• Fourth breakfast was more waffle and tea.
• Fifth breakfast was Mama’s cereal.

Nathan has a new trick. He likes to climb into his little chair and sit down. This is a little scary for me. These chairs were Ben’s and although he survived just fine they are extremely tippy and prone to falling over. So far so good though.

It means that he doesn’t like his highchair so much and that is one of the last confined areas to put him so I can do things in the kitchen. It will be nice to get rid of the highchair soon though.

Here he is eating Fourth Breakfast and saying “Tea.”

This morning was one of the longest I can remember. We have gotten used to getting out each morning since the weather warmed up a bit. We were blasted with more snow last night (about 7 or 8 inches for those who want to know) so we are kind of stuck inside. We did have a chance to go out sledding for the first time ever though. I wasn’t sure that Nathan would go for it but he liked it quite a bit. When we came back in he wanted to go right back out there. Maybe later…

I am repeatedly surprised that people think Nathan is a girl. I am certainly not one to be insulted by such stupidity but he looks so boy-like to me that I just can’t imagine him looking like a girl!

We don’t dress him in football suits or overly “boy” clothes but he isn’t dressed in pink and flowers either.

His hair is sometimes long-ish but certainly not long. He does have a lot of it though and it is so shiny and beautiful.

Sometimes I think that it is because he is small and not a “big strapping boy.”

Oh well, it doesn’t really matter to me because he is perfect as he is and we aren’t changing anything.

Here’s a new photo as recently requested by a fan.

Nathan likes to use his words, and he’s got so many. We recorded him using a lot of those words tonight. We’re prompting him, but ordinarily he uses them on his own. We have a slide show screen saver he likes - he watches it and yells the names of every one and thing he sees, and if he doesn’t know the word he says “dat?” and makes us repeat for him until he learns it.

Hear Nathan’s Words (mp3, 650k)

There are some funny details here. He was working on a bowl of pasta during this conversation, which is why he interjects “Yum Yum” (which was his first word) and “bowl.” Also listen to his noise for a baby - its the same snarl he uses for lion and shark. I haven’t figured that one out. He has been bitten by a baby before.

A guy got on the Red Line today looking a little drunk and wearing a top hat with the words “Manifesto Heterosexual Holocaust” (huh? those words all mean something, but I couldn’t figure them out as a sentence.) He sat quietly for a few moments before he started yellingat us all “They let homosexuals parade around the Common!” and on and on, something about this about being the end of heterosexuals and something about how they wanted to violate us all. He seemed pretty upset about it.

If only he realized he’s wasting his time. It’s not Gay Marriage he has to worry about. God Hates Shrimp!

This is one of those quizes but maybe not as accurate as some others. If you know me then you might agree that this doesn’t sound like me except for the part about liking big trucks, big cattle, and big oil rigs.

You’re Texas!
You aren’t really much of your own person, but everyone around you wishes you’d go away, so you might as well be independent.  You’re sort of loud-mouthed and abrasive, but you do have a fair amount of power. You like big trucks, big cattle, and big oil rigs.  And sometimes you really smell.  But it’s not all bad, you’re big enough to have some soft spots somewhere in all that redneck madness.
Take the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid