La Familia Brophy

I am posting this entry from a moving train. That is so freaking nerd-cool. My friend and colleague accesses the internet through his cell phone, and then shares the signal out through his wireless card on his laptop, and the three of travelling together are all online. Now we don’t need to talk to each other!

I love this train route the Connecticut coast here is so beautiful. Unfortunately I’m staring at my computer, but when I tear my eyes away, it’s really nice to look at.

Nathan and I enjoyed a really beautiful day today. We spent a long time outside while he rode his tricycle and played at the playground. Then we bought some pansies and planted them in a pot on the porch. The kind of weather we had today makes everything seem great and I was just so appreciative of the fact that we got to spend so much time together in the beautiful urban outdoors.

Nathan’s been pretty eager to begin summer activities. He fondly remembers our camping trips from last summer. Last week when we left the house he said, “Hey listen to the camping birds.” And then today we smelled some fresh mulch as we were walking by a garden he said that he wanted to go camping to smell the wood chips like that. I’m surprised that he has such strong sense memories from our little outdoor trips but happy to see they make such an impression.

Well it certainly feels as though summer will return though I can’t help but feel that we will have one week of spring and end up back in winter until the second week of June.

see the tricycle video

Nathan and I made peanut butter cookies the other day. He used his cookie sheet that Rara Debi sent him to make his very own batch which he rolled and pressed with a fork. He made them in a perfect bite size that made them easy to gobble up.

After they were made we had this conversation:
N:Are we going to eat these for dinner?
Me:No, we don’t eat cookies for dinner.
N:Why?
Me:Cookies don’t have enough vitamins.
N:But these cookies have peanut butter. Peanut butter has a lot of vitamins.
Me:That’s true but these have a lot of sugar too.

This conversation is rather typical but one thing is changing. Instead of everything I say being followed with “Why?” he is starting to challenge me.

For example not too long ago he would have followed my statement about cookies not having enough vitamins with “Why don’t cookies have enough vitamins?”

And we thought answering all of those “why” questions was difficult!

Ocaasionally a freight train crosses Mass Ave. Nathan loves to see this happen. The train was passing on my way home today. Nathan wasn’t there, but I get pretty happy about seeing trains now, too, so I snapped this shot with my cell phone, and showed it to Nathan when I got home. He really enjoyed that, and we talked about how it blew it’s horn and what kind of cars it was pulling. I know he was into it becasue later at dinner he said “Mama! Papi saw a Diesel engine today!”

The Chocolate Sweater is done and Nathan wore it for the first time when we went out shopping this morning. The sleeves aren’t as long as they look in the photo.

In case any knitters are interested I used Mountain Mohair color Alpine Shadow. The pattern is Family Tunic by Debbie Bliss in the book Weekend Knitting.

We’ve been a little under the weather around here so not much has been going on. We are returning to normal though and finally got to cook a real meal for the first time in nearly a week. Nathan and I decided to make a souffle which is one of the favorite foods of his train guys. Since the green guy had been missing for a few days and made a joyful reappearance this afternoon it seemed fitting. During the preparations I kept thinking of creative ways for Nathan to be involved since during his sickness he became reacquainted with near-constant physical contact and needed to be very nearby.

He is quite helpful these days and can do things like unwrap butter, carefully mix ingredients together, and pour items from one container to the other. He used to crack eggs but has decided that is too messy for him. Quote: “That’s a little too messy for my hands.” So tonight while I measured the milk he took one bay leaf from the jar and put it in the milk pot and took two sprigs of thyme from the box of mixed herbs in a really helpful fashion. Then he stirred the little bowl of cinnamon sugar that was sitting near by (not for the souffle) and while doing so plucked a rosemary branch from the box and dipped it in the cinnamon sugar. Eating about 3 inches of rosemary dipped in cinnamon-sugar kept him busy while I separated the eggs. I’m just glad he didn’t ask me to sample his recipe.

Nathan: (looking at his cow cup that Suzanna sent) “I just figured something out! This is a baby cow because it doesn’t have udders!”

Nathan had his second ever dental appointment today which he loved. We arrived 20 minutes early because that is a problem I have and he happily played with all of the trucks and diggers in the waiting room (parking one under each chair making himself look a little loony) before marching up the stairs to get his cleaning. Everything went smoothly with his beautiful strong teeth.

The only reason I think this is an interesting story to blog about is because as his teeth were being cleaned he got a serious look on his face and stopped everything to declare that he liked the song that was starting on the radio. It took me a few more notes to realize that it was Tainted Love by Soft Cell which he is indeed familiar with.

I do wish I brought my camera to snap a shot of him reclining in the dentist chair with his sunglasses on (which they offer to keep the light out of the eyes). He was most adorable as usual. “Touch me baby, tainted love….”

I am knitting Nathan a new sweater. I’ve been trying to involve him from the start so that he will actually wear it. He has been wearing his sweaters more lately but the truth is that he is often too warm for them. He really doesn’t like when they are scratchy either. So anyway, we went to the yarn store together to look for yarn for this sweater. When I asked him what color sweater he’d like he said, “Brown, a nice brown would be good.” We looked and looked for brown yarn and I couldn’t find “a nice brown” that would work with the pattern.

I gave up. When we got home I looked through my yarn and found a sweater that I started for myself in the summer of 2002. I hadn’t gotten very far on it so I ripped it out as it was “a nice brown.” I found a pattern that would work with the gauge a scrapped the original pattern. Once I started knitting it Nathan dubbed it the chocolate sweater and I’ve been knitting and knitting and knitting it forever it seems (seed stitch does that to me).

Here is a video of Nathan helping me out by winding the last of the chocolate yarn for the top of the second sleeve. I hope to finish the sweater this week. And I really hope he’ll wear it (it is pretty scratchy).