NEW BLOG!

Visit Roan's new blog at:

http://raisingroan.wordpress.com

"I Drive!!" (2 Going on 16)

Roan's latest obsession is pretending to drive the Subaru. He LOVES putting music CDs in and out of the stereo, pressing all the buttons, and looking in the mirrors. When he's in his car seat (and painfully not in control), he shouts out requests, referring to CDs by name. Here is a typical conversation with Roan in the car:

"Mama, listen Mooo-sic class tunes!!"

"How do you ask nice?"

"Pwweease!"

"Mama, youder [louder]!"

"How do you ask?"

"Youder, pwease."

"Mama, crack-crack [cracker]."

"How do you ask nice?"

"Mama, pwease, crack-crack."

"Mama, I listen 'Once' [soundtrack]!"

"Mama, youder!"

"Good song!" (clapping at the end of a song)

"Mama, I hear trash truck."

"Mama, can't see trash truck."

"OOooooo, mama wook! Dump truck!"

"Mama, wa--er [water]."

"How do you ask nice?"

"Pwwease, mama, wa--er."

And on, and on, and on...

Kitchen #2: Buyer Beware

After spending hours and months surfing catalogs and the Web looking for a kitchen that wasn't plastic and a company that hadn't been caught red handed in lead paint, I thought I had finally found the most adorable, most affordable, most likely to be safe, most stylish little play kitchen on the market. After 3 of us spent 3 hours putting the thing together, we unveiled the world's best little kitchen on his birthday the way you unveil a shiny red convertible on your spoiled brat's 16th birthday. Unfortunately, the hip little retro red kitchen turned out out to be the most toxic smelling artifact in the entire free world. I'm talking headaches, nausea, can't-stand-to-be-in-the-same-room sort of choking. So we left it outside for days. Still gross. Left it outside for 2 weeks. Still gross. Left it outside for over a month! Still gross. Finally took the damn thing apart and sent it back to Texas, from whence it was distributed post-China. After a frustrated call to the EPA (having been referred by the American Lung Association for info on indoor pollution), I now know more than I ever wanted to know about VOCs, formaldehyde, and off-gassing. And I never want to buy another painted toy or pressed wood product again. Our kitchen designing friends in Texas (they actually handled it quite professionally) sent us a different kitchen (seen here), which hallelujah, did not emit a single odor upon opening the box. So, Roan is back to cooking. And if you want our advice, take a page from the Europeans and the Cohen brothers (" Unpainted Arizona!") and stick to the good old-fashioned unpainted, solid wood craftsmanship, or just give them a bunch of sticks, leaves, and stones to play with.

Deep in Conversation

Puzzle pieces easily double as phones.

The Things You Do

This is Casey talking on the "phone" (a puzzle piece in the shape of a giraffe).

This is Casey wearing a lego box on his head while sipping coffee (upon Roan's insistance).

I hang-a da branch!

This is Italian-mafia / rasta-Roan speech for, "I want to go hang from that branch" (btw, a ritual, if unsatisfied, leads to shrieking, crying, protest, and mayhem on route between the apartment and the car). He is trying to incorporate articles of speech into his Tarzan English, such as "the." He is also trying out past tense. Listening to him put the two together is sometimes hilarious.

"I drop-a da paci [pacifier]" turned into:

"I drop-id-id da paci."

Ghetto Jammies

Well, we think the photo speaks for itself. This is what you call homemade summer jammies recycled from springtime jammies - complete (or incomplete we should say) with cut-off sleeves, and one cut-off leg (the zipper runs down the left leg, so we could only cut off the foot on that side). You know George Lopez's "cut pants" and Eddie Murphy's mother's homemade hamburgers? That's what we're talkin about. Yeah, baby!