Faelan's Recipe for Vanilla Beans

(Edited down, adult questions omitted.)

You need baking soda, peppermint oil, chili powder, and sticks. Tree sticks, from the yard. You stir them together. Oh, but first you need to chop the sticks with a very, very sharp knife. Grind them in the spice grinder. I will do the grinding. Put the peppermint in the batter. Put the chili powder in the batter. What else was in this? Put the soda in the batter. Then the beans will all be ready. Then, how do you make vanilla oil?

Discussion in front of a Christmas Tree at Work

F: Guess what kind of ornament is my favorite?

A: What kind?

F: Fake candy!

A: Oh, the glass balls? I see.

F, with great emphasis: I love stars.

A: You like them, huh?

F: One day, for a special occasion, my friends and I went in a spaceship. We went up, up, up, and landed in the sky! And then we touched a star!

A: Whoa. What did it feel like to touch a star?

F: It almost burned our hands! But we didn't get burned. And do you know which one got to take it home?

A: Who?

F, wide-eyed: Me.

Caution and advice

If you ever go near a bear, kill it so you can eat its meat and use its fur. And use its fat for cooking.

How to Play "Heart Attack"

"By falling over backwards and pronouncing that you are dead."

Ouch

We've been reading stories about Jesus recently, including his miracles.
While I was laying in bed with a fever, Faelan jumped around the bed and landed on my neck. After howling, I said, "If I'm lucky I won't be paralyzed."
He said, "Will you be cured by the healing power of Jesus?"

September 2010

September 2010

A short bit of sleepy song from the backseat

Don't talk
Don't drive your car
Don't grow plants
Don't do any of the wonderful things that you do in the world
The beautiful things
The beautiful, beautiful, beautiful things
The trees, the stars, the moon
Don't eat the moon
The daily bread
Don't ever, ever, ever, ever eat the daily bread
The agnes, the four agnes
They are tame

The lovely squirrels
Climb up the tree
And don't bite you

I'm singing a song about tame squirrels.

New and exciting ways to use words

As Jeremy and Faelan and I were riding in the car one day in mid-August, Faelan started using "Jesus" as a swear word: "Bad! Bad! Jesus! Bad!"

He had learned that from a woman on the playground who said it when he fell off the fire pole. Her son had started to say it after she did, and she yelled at him for it, without even seeming to realize that she'd just said it herself.

Anyway, when I told him he shouldn't use God's name that way, he wanted to know why, and I said something about God telling us not to. He said, "God is just in imagination, he can't talk to us." I said that he was real, and that he left us instructions in the Bible.

Faelan said, what about that woman with the baby, and I asked, "who, Mary?" and he said "Yes! Mary! Mary! Bad!" So then I had to explain why he shouldn't use her name as a swear word.

He wanted to know if she left us instructions not to. "No," I said, "she wasn't God, so she didn't give us instructions. She gave her own children instructions." He wanted to know why, and I tried to explain that that was her job as a mother.

He thought for a minute, and then he asked, "who was the father?" Like a goof, I said, "you mean Joseph?" And he said, "Joseph! Joseph! Bad!" at which point Jeremy and I cracked up.

I'd never heard anyone use those names as swear words separately before. How long did it take the Irish to combine them? It sure didn't take Faelan long to go from one to all three. Happily, he has not done it again.

August 2010

August 2010

July 2010

July 2010

June 2010

June 2010

May 2010

May 2010

April 2010

April 2010

March 2010

March 2010

Developmental Milestone?

Yesterday, Faelan was nursing in Office Depot, and all of a sudden he stood up and pointed to a nearby sign, saying, "Hey! There's something there that goes in my name! Fffuh!" Sure enough, the sign read "Furniture." Then he insisted that there was a one in the sign, and that that also went in his name. He meant the lowercase letter I.

Songs

I learned a new hymn this morning, from Bible Study Fellowship's preschool booklet. I asked Faelan if he wanted to sing it with me, but he said "I have a song in my head that I just made up that I want to sing." Here it is:

The lord is come dead
He climbed a tree
And scraped his knee

A minute later, he declared he had a favorite song:

Wagon is dead
The soldiers came and killed him
Then he flew to heaven
And then he came alive again
The other part sang to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

"I'm your friend. I live next door."
"What is your name?"
"I think it's Fishing Rod. Or, no, it's King of Joy. That's a silly name. Or maybe my name is Tree Trunk."

Names

Faelan is playing with two matchbox cars and a Playmobil pirate. They asked each other what their names were, and they turned out to be Embarassing, Racecar Chicks, and Southeast Carillon.

The other day in the car, his fingers were naming each other: "This is my sister, Sandra Boynton, and my brother, Sandra Noynton, and this is my sister, no, my brother, no, my sister-brother Sandra Oynton."

A few moments later, he put his hands together and squeezed, and muttered "Help! Help! Help" Then the hands would break apart, and start again. I asked what he was doing, and he said, "These are my Bad Guy fingers, and these are my Good Guy fingers. Bad Guys! Good Guys!" This was accompanied by much emphatic pointing.

Bath toys

Faelan was playing with a Santa Claus, a nutcracker, a killer whale, a frog, a duck, and a dolphin. When I asked their names, the reply was "Santa Claus, Banta Gaus, Scary Bzzz Whale, Froggy Hopper Seafrog, Quack Quack Swimduck, and Mog."

Recent Smoothies

Sunrise:
3 raw pastured eggs
juice of 3 carrots
1 frozen banana, chunked
1/4 cup strawberry puree
1/4 cup homemade raw yogurt

Not terrifically sweet. Very frothy.

Meadow:
1/3 ripe avocado
2 frozen bananas
1 cup yellow watermelon
1/2 a pint of yogurt

Delcious, like ice cream. Could eat it every day.

Spelling

The granola lady at the farmers market asked what my son's name was, and I answered "Faelan."
He added, "F, A, O, N, Faelan!"

He's been spelling ever since:

"What's F L N O? What's F L L N A? What's F E L N? What does F E O spell?"

"C A H N. That's my chiropractic."

He wants to write something now:

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Meatballs We Made Tonight

These were received with near rapture. The raw mixture smelled so good it was hard not to start eating it right then. I would like to make a triple batch and freeze two parts for lunches out. This would be very easy to reheat and carry in a thermos. I would also like to try sauteeing the peppers first sometime. Hungarian peppers are supposed to be especially good for frying, as they don't develop bitterness when cooked like most sweet peppers do.

MEATBALLS

1 1/2 lbs grassfed ground beef
2 pastured eggs
1/2 cup cashew flour from crispy cashews
4 hungarian peppers, seeded and chopped fine
four mature chives, chopped fine
1 medium onion, chopped fine
a small bunch of cilantro, chopped fine
generous sprinkling of nigella
plenty of unrefined sea salt

mix in a bowl
form into balls
cook in hot coconut oil

SAUCE

pint of homemade stock
four small heirloom tomatoes, peeled and chopped

simmer tomatoes and peels in broth until broth is about half reduced

ACCOMPANIMENTS

garden salad (used the chive flowers here)
homemade sauerkraut
fresh figs for dessert

Sleep crawling

Faelan sat up last night and said, in a hugely enthusiastic voice, "Mommy! Where are we? Do you want to go do something? I want to - " and ended his manic sleep-crawl face down on my right shin. I put a hand on his back, afraid that he would start up again and crawl right out of bed. Then he seemed to be relaxed, so I took it off, and he whimpered, so I put it back. Then I decided to bring him up to the top of the bed with the rest of us, so that we could all sleep relaxed, and he shouted, "No, no, no! No covers forever!" as I began to slide him. "All right," I agreed, "no covers." Then, from a groggy throat, came a growl from the depths: "NO LEGGINGS!"

Too many Nursery Rhymes

Particularly those illustrated by Quentin Blake. Here is mine:

Oh my Dove, oh my Doe,
I want to watch a video.
Oh my Doe, oh my dear,
We cannot watch a movie here.

Bath time

Faelan counted up to twelve for the little fish to parachute into the sea.

The little plastic fish lost an eye, and said to its rubber dolphin mother, "Mommy, I guess I will have to be a Black Pirate."
I asked, "What if you lose your other eye?"
"Then I will be a Captain Soldier."
The little pirate scared his mother once, then announced that he would rather be a little fish.

Night Nursing

When he has been nursing in his sleep for a long time, sometimes I can whisper, "I need to get up for a little while. Can you let me go?" and he lets go and rolls over and sleeps.

Socialization

Walking to the playground:

"Every adult and every child that I meet is my friend."

We currently go to Mountain Park Park, Uncle Jeremy Park (Stone Mountain Park), G-Ma Park (Piedmont Park), Candler Park, Church Park (St Phillips Cathedral, during farmers markets), and Our Park (Lenora Park).

Faelan eats yoghrit.

February 2010

February 2010

January 2010

January 2010

December 2009

December 2009

Allusions and quotations

"Come to the table, my beamish mommy!" (Carroll)

"Aren't you tired from running around at the playground this morning?"
"No, I got more energy from that. And talking to the kids, I got energy from them too. They got more tired talking to me. I did not say to them 'how do you do and how do you do again.' I said funny words." (Mother Goose)

"Tumbledown B! Cat's in the cradle and you can't see me! I don't want to go to Kroger! I want to go to Tumbledown B Farmers Market!" (Mother Goose)

Telling himself stories

Three little pigs went to supper, and then they met a wolf.
"I'm going to huff and puff your supper."
"No, not by our chinny-chin-chin!"
The the wolf ate the supper, and the pigs speared the wolf: spear! And the pigs took their supper out of the wolf.

meals today

GAPS-friendly:

liver pudding
vegetable risotto
crockpot chicken w/pearl onions
fauxtatoes (forgot and added homemade cultured cream cheese)
fermented cod liver oil/butter oil & sauerkraut

SAD:
pizza
organic ice cream

Do not fret, it leads only to evil

"I usually cut evil out of my stomach. But not with scissors, 'cause that would hurt. With magic."

Health notes

Becuase I am in danger of forgetting what with all the gluten, casein, sugar, veg oil, restaurant food we have been eating since we moved across the continent:

In the last few weeks, I have made:

fermented ginger carrots
fish stock
chicken stock
crispy nuts
whey and cream cheese
fish soup
salmon with shredded cauliflower and another vegetable which I have forgotten
california pot roast

Vocabulary

We were going to take a bath, and I was so tired I wasn't feeling well. Faelan asked, "Do we have an instrument we could put in the bath to make you feel better?" I suggested essential oils, and he went off to look for them. (He didn't find them, since I had hidden them when he discovered how to open child-proof caps with his teeth.) When I fetched them, we had a discussion about who could use them and when, which ended with his pitiful cry, "I have the motor control to do 'ssential oil!"

Banana Smoothie

Put in blender:

about 2 frozen organic bananas, chunked
1 fresh, raw egg from pastured hen
2.5 ml organic extra-virgin cold pressed coconut oil
raw honey to taste (I used almost 2 TBPs, could have used a lot less)
two ice cubes
splash of raw milk (for GAPS, use SCD yogurt)

Blend.

Add raw milk until the texture is pleasant.

This was delicious. Cinnamon would have made it even better. Nut butter would have made it easier to process the sugars, I think.

Sleep Talk

"A lion! And a frog climbing in the tree!"

Comparisons

If Faelan is like Tigger,
Mommy is like Winnie-thePooh,
Daddy is like Rabbit,
Grandma Marcia is like Piglet,
G-ma is like Christopher Robin,
Uncle Jeremy Batman is like Grover,
Grandad is like a robot with a monster,
and Papa Leon is like a Grover.

Sleep Talk

"And then, my feet will change color. Zzzzzzzz."

We were listening to Michael Medved

...and Faelan piped up from the bathroom in a decisive voice, "The point is, what do I know about it?"

A break from gymnastics

Faelan is looking at a wooden jumping puppet which dangles from a string of fish-shaped cat toys.

F: What does he got- does he have on his head?
A: He has a crown on his head.
F: What does that mean?
A: I think that means he is a king.
F: Is he the king of his baby?
A: I don't know, is he?
F: Yes.
A: Does that mean that Daddy is the king of you?
F: Um, yep.
A: So, if daddies are kings of their babies, does that mean that mommies are queens of their babies?
F: Yes. Look, I got a fish! I'm a friend of the honey nut. I'm a friend of the rabbit queen. I'm a badger.
A: Who talked to you about honey nuts?
F: A badger in a bear book.
A: Oh, right, "Bear Snores On," of course.
F: Look out, here I come! [jumps from coffee table to couch, somersaulting as he lands]

Rhyming all the time

He sings them to himself. "Doffer, noffer, naffer, daffer, daffodil."

He greets us with them: "Daddy Baddy! G-ma B-ma!"

He uses them in sentences: "It's my bottom pottom!"

He greeted me one day with "Mommy Tommy Bommy Wommy Pommy, can I have this?"

First book he has memorized:

Potato Joe, by Keith Baker. It's not totally memorized yet, but he speaks more of it than I read.

Last night, I was searching for a word to explain to Faelan what it felt like when he poured cold water on my head while we were sitting in the hot bath, saying, "I felt... I felt...um..."
Faelan helpfully asked, "did you feel awwogant, Mommy?"

This morning, Faelan started by being Alexander, one of Babar's elephant triplets, but then switched - midsentence - to Huckle Cat, from Richard Scarry.

In the grocery store today, as we were buying milk and frozen raspberries to make smoothies with, at Faelan's request, he asked, "Do we need anything else? Should we get Daddy some chocwate? Some chocwate ice cream? Because he likes chocwate." (We didn't.)

This was shortly after he pitched a fit as I put in into the carrier after repeated attempts to run away from me outside the downtown library just before naptime, during which he scratched my neck badly enough to draw blood. A few minutes later I said "Ouch. Look, this is where you scratched me. It really hurt."
"I see it," said Faelan, scrunching his face up in sympathy. " 'I'm sorry,' says Huckle. Cats have very sharp claws to scratch."

talking to spaghetti

Never, ever eat a baby doctor! Or a daddy doctor, or a mommy doctor. Meedle! Never, ever get a needle from a doc-torrr.

Talking in his sleep last night

'I want another one,' says the baby bird.

Mommy! Please don't argue with me now!

I'm trying to fold a sheet, but Faelan wants to use it as a leash, and then as a cave, a cradle, and a cape. Joel distracts him by draping a baby-carrying wrap invitingly around his shoulders. "Oh," I exclaim, "what kind of a game is that?"
"It's Ringo-Tingo!" declares Faelan, draping himself over the wrap.
Of course.

"'Mommy, Mommy,' said the batman to his mudder, 'come, come!'"

Joel: Why did you take your underwear off?
Faelan, laughing, to me: He said, 'Why did you take your underwear off!"
Joel: Why _did_ you take it off?
Faelan: Because it was on my head, Joel.

Faelan was playing badminton with a washcloth in the bath (we have a graphic novel with a few badminton scenes in it), and said, "I have to hang the Badminton on the soap dish. It hangs and it hangs, and now it is a Deadminton. Hand."

A: "Oh look, there's an Israeli flag. I wonder how Israel is doing in the Olympics."
F: "What's Israel?"
A: "It's a country."
F: "What country?"
A: "Israel. It's the country of God's people, before Christ. Now there's lots of fighting there. And..."
F: "And cake."
A: "Cake?"
F: "Yes, because God like cake. God eats cake. And God's people eat cake. That's why we eat cake."
A: "Really?"
F: "Yes! Everybody eats cake in the whole world!"

Figure of Speech

The other night, after a long period of wriggling instead of going to sleep, I said, "if you kick me one more time, I am going to throw you out of bed, and you will have to sleep on the floor." Faelan stopped wriggling and lay quietly for about a minute. Then he said in a very small voice, "if you throw me, Mommy, I will be hurt." Then I had to explain that I wouldn't actually pick him up and throw him.

Food Prep According to F.

"The thing about cooking is, put some salt, and then add some books, and then read about the cooking lesson."

"Look, here are your shoes," Faelan said this morning, holding one in each hand and spinning in a circle. "They turning for you. 'Where are my mommy's feet?' they wonder."

Food, in Faelan's world, can be fweet, oily, and talty.

Sampling of Conversations in Transit

Imagine that most questions are repeated at least three times.

"What is that?"
"An old piece of orange."
"Who left that orange under there?"
"I don't know."
"I know - a woman! It was that woman!"

"What was the emergency on the train?"
"An old man wasn't feeling well, and they had to stop to make sure he would be okay."
"Why is there an emergency?"
"...because he wasn't feeling well."
"Why was he not feeling well?"
"I don't know."
"I know, he was with his daddy, and a baby, and his mommy wasn't there, and why wasn't the mommy with the baby?"
"I don't know. It's your story, you tell me."
"Why is there an old man?"
"What do you mean, why is there an old man?"
"Who made him old?"
"...life made him old. Everyone is born and then they grow older and older and older until they die."
"Who made him born?"
"His parents."
"Why was he born?"
"...because he was?"

"Daddy, I pee the bed. In my deams."
(Translation: "I peed in the bed. In my dreams.")

Alternate Realities

Lately, Faelan has been talking about "England, where I was born," and telling us things about his sister. When we point out that he doesn't have a sister, he says that he doesn't have a sister ANY MORE.

Nomenclature, Syntax

The other day, we'd been talking about foxes, and Faelan declared that we were Baby Fox, Mommy Fox, and Daddy Fox.
"What is the baby fox name?" he wanted to know.
"Faelan?" we asked.
"No! What is the baby fox name?"
"Baby Fox? Charlie? Frank?"
"No!" he said, obviously getting somewhat frustrated. "What the baby fox name IS?"
"Oh!" Joel figured out, "A kit! A fox kit."
"That's it!" said Faelan, grinning hugely.

Two-Year Old Theology

Quickly corrected, but worth recording:

God is a star.
Angels are God's wives.

Faelan, asking for some food: "'I'm hungry,' he said."

Tugging on my shirt: "'I can't get milk,' said the baby rabbit."

After I announced that it was time to leave the library, with no more 'one more minutes,' he started yelling "no," and running around in a circle, trying to avoid my putting him in the carrier. Then he yelled, "I vewy angy at that!"
I asked, "You're very angry that we have to go home right now and we don't have time to play?"
"Yep!" he said.
"Okay. Time to jump into the carrier."
"Jump!" And we were off, with no further complaints.

Phone conversations

I was on the phone one day, and I'd set Faelan up with his "project" on Edit Pad, starting by typing in his full name. He was typing away, and then picked up one of his cell phones and started talking in a loud voice. I told him he needed to be quiet while I was on the phone, and he said, "No, I'm just talking to Mate. Beep, beep, beep. Ring, ring. Hello, my name is Faeyan Wawick Mininnis and I belong to a family called Mommy and Daddy and Mommy. Thank you. Goodbye."

Clean up song

Clean up, clean up,
Everybody not clean up,
Everybody don't do their share,
Everybody just hit, hit
Alone, alone, alone

Sleep Talk

"Where are we going? Going to Aya's house." Waving arms wildly, "what are these things doing here?"

The opposite of upside-down is upside-up.

Ingredients, again.

"What is applesauce made of?" he asks, as we eat steaming bowls of sauce that he watched me make this afternoon.
"What do you think? Is it made of peaches?" Joel asks.
"No!" He laughs.
"Is it made of pumpkins?"
"No!" Then his eyes take on a kind of glint, and he says, "Is it made of sky? And moon? And stars?"
"Yes," we exclaim, "that's exactly what it is made of!"
He giggles a bit wildly, and complains, "Why you said yes?"
"Because it's such a lovely idea," I say.
Then we talk again about thirteen apples from the farmer's market and a heaping spoonful of cinnamon, and he asks for another bowl.

Let's sing a lullaby about ambulances.
Let's sing a lullaby about emergencies.

Bedtime Chat

Joel said, in a joking tone, "It's time to go to sleep right now, this very instant!" Faelan muttered to himself, "I don't yike this conversation."