Pine noodles…

Ahh, to be three again.  Drew is the most amazing child.  He is entertaining to say the least.  He’ll be sitting at the table, taking a drink and then contorting his lips.  His explanation, “I’m kissing my milk.”

We walk to the neighborhood pond to feed the ducks.  He searches for a stick to pass through the pond sending ripples out in all directions.  He states, “I’m making rainbows”. He is fascinated by the dead fish in the pond, sure that some duck ate them.  He pulls grass and leaves to throw to the ducks.  The grass is “noodles” and eventually “pine noodles”.  On the way home, he is so excited to see real rainbows in the mist from the sprinklers. 


As we play on the play set in the backyard, he says “Grandma, can we go down the slide together.  I can sit on your lap.  It will be awesome.”  He and Brooke play “dog”.  He must be the Mom as he is cleaning the floor with the cloth used for the chalkboard (of the play set).  Brooke climbs the steps without hands (after getting them wet in the sprinkler).  She makes handprints on the floor while Drew screeches, “Hey, I just cleaned that!”  When the roles switch, he is confined to a corner of the house by Brooke’s muttering, “Lock up, lock up, lock up”.  He is not deterred as he replies, “Unlock, unlock”.

Any stick he finds is a magic wand and any blanket a beautiful dress.  The kids had left a pile of blankets in the living room from their latest fort.  Drew draped the blankets over the arm of the couch and tied them with a string he had found, saying “This is a beautiful dress”.  I had a feeling he was recreating the scene in Cinderella where the mice added the beads and sash to make Cinderella’s dress.  As the blankets fell, he would whine, “Grandma!”  I couldn’t figure out why I was to blame, but I guess the scene needed some opposition.  He will take on an accent as he invites you to have some tea.


He knows all the words to the Veggie Tale songs, but will only dance when there is music.  What a dancer he is.  He has all the poses down and can maintain an active pace until the music stops. 

We had a painting project on Friday.  The kids went with us – Drew in his Royal Purple robe.  All through the paint store he was doing magic.   He loved the paint brushes and would tell me about the various colors he used to create his masterpieces.

The kids wanted to go to Zamzows – which is a pet and nursery store.  The whole time we were looking at frog fish and birds Drew was singing “She’s got a ticket to ride” complete with the falsetto “My baby don’t care”.  It was pretty cute.

Here is the Royal purple robe:

Brooke is starting to read!  It is a lot of work, but she is really getting good.  After reading, “If you give a pig a pancake", I think I could author a children’s book.  It reads like something you made up on the way to the grocery store.  "If you give a pig a pancake, she'll want some syrup to go with it. You'll give her some of your favorite maple syrup. She'll probably get all sticky, so she'll want to take a bath."

Brooke is very observant. She could tell us which button to press in the car to get the garage door to open. When she wanted oatmeal for breakfast, here were her instructions: Put oatmeal in a bowl. Put water in the bowl. Put it in the microwave. Wait until the oatmeal rises. Then add cinnamon sugar. I questioned, "Oatmeal rises?" I had never cooked oatmeal that way. It really did rise just like she said. Grandpa thought it was good too! We'll have to try it that way at home.

Brooke is taking dancing, gymnastics, and is doing great on her bike. Pretty soon she'll be ready to have the training wheels off.

Brooke is a great pretender. She and Drew are inseparable. What great friends.