Archive for the 'ronin' Category

Ronin

Monday, July 9th, 2012



Ronin. This photo was taken by her friend’s babysitter, who rocks with a camera phone.

ps – Ronin wanted to say something, and that something is: “I’m a kitty-cat.”


Summer is gone and we never posted anything about it

Thursday, October 6th, 2011



Well, basically what it says above. Ronin has grown like 7 feet, weighs in at a whopping 30 pounds, and can read simple words when she’s feeling obliging. She is intensely willful and inordinately contrary. We like to say that she inherited the contrary gene from her great-grandma Nikki. She loves to sing and is constantly making up songs about random things, like a little mosquito, a bird flying to its nest, a little blue car.. She makes up unusual melodies and even attempts to rhyme her verses. Driving in the car on short trips around town is no longer fraught with peril; she sits tight, sings herself a song, and most importantly, stays awake (usually).







Summer was brief and very mild. I didn’t get my tomatoes into the ground until June and they are just now fruiting (but they are fruiting lots). I also tried to grow arugula and as soon as the plants got large enough that I felt I wouldn’t be depriving them of their only mature leaves to make my salad, they all bolted. Lame!





Earthday: Ronin danced with the hippies and rolled in the grass.



Ronin and the other kids peeking at Kricket in her caterpillar puppet.



I painted a little snake on her arm. What then followed was an introverted hour of intense concentration while she carefully picked all the paint off with her fingernails. Temporary tattoos are also far more temporary than they should be where Ronin is concerned.





Hiking in Forest Park. Ronin wanted up.



Our summer was really very low key, yet we kept very busy. We went to the river or lake, hiked in the woods, and biked around our new section of town to one of the many different parks. We did a lot of cooking and eating al fresco while the kitchen was dismantled. Here I am cooking a caramel custard on the back patio amidst the construction debris.



Ronin finally got her bunkbed. It took us long enough. We were given this one by Joshua’s mom, who used to use it in her classroom for puppet shows. It’s way sturdier than the IKEA one and we didn’t have to monkey with it to get rid of the lower bunk. Unfortunately, it had been stored in her garage for two years and had some mildew on it. I scrubbed it and dried it well before we assembled it in Ronin’s bedroom but by the time we got it together, both of us were coughing, had tight throats, and just general allergy-yuck symptoms. So, to Ronin’s intense and vocal disappointment (we felt so bad), we took it apart and brought it back outside, where we stewed over what to do with it. In the end, I sanded the entire thing, sanded away all mildewy spots, and then lacquered it with many coats of the stuff I finished the floor in the kitchen with. It no longer smells and it looks quite nice. We got it back up in Ronin’s room soon thereafter and she LOVES it.





Bunny and Nigel love it.



All the guys got to sleep in it the first couple of nights. Now she’s back down to Nigel and sometimes one other guy.



Underneath is a little playhouse. We have curtains that enclose it and I thought I could cut little windows, a door, and paint cute things on it.





She has never before shown any sort of irrational fear to anything but just lately she has voiced some concern about a moose in the walls. Also a knocking in the bathroom closet. Neither of us are sure where this came from. She always wants us to open the closet so she can look inside (there’s a toilet plunger in there, which I suppose is scary in its own right). It was bound to start at some point I suppose, but still, we’re trying to figure out how best to respond so that that they fade rather than grow more intense.



Joshua signed her up for a gymnastics class and she loved it. She is strong and fearless (when it doesn’t involve moose) and can hang on a bar almost indefinitely. She likes the bars and the “balance bean.” We originally thought we would put her in ballet since she’s still mad about it but the ballet classes seem to be less structured for this age group. Maybe when she’s a little older.


Medicine Crow

Monday, May 9th, 2011



This weekend we went to a bird festival/show/thing in the rain at Sellwood park. When it really started to pour, all the children crowded under the craft tent to color bird masks and wings. Ronin colored her mask and called it “Medicine Crow.” We looked at each other all, huh. I have no idea where she heard that but I’m guessing there must be a northwest coast native storybook at her preschool with similar artwork. Crazy!



Perhaps two or three times per day she’ll dress up as the Medicine Crow and run around the house for maybe two minutes. Then she deposits the wings and mask somewhere inconvenient and goes off to make more messes.



The wings are still in the process of being colored. The detail though has been rendered in blue glitter, which falls off everywhere she goes with the wings. Of all the debris I find myself digging out of the rugs, couch, and various crevices of the house, glitter is by far the least annoying. Rather pleasant really.


THREE

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

The little monkey turned THREE! She was very excited about having a party and we actually ended up having two parties. Neither of them on her actual birthday. So I guess you could say she had three birthdays, one for each year.

On Friday I made a bunch of carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and brought them to her preschool for afternoon snack. We played pin-the-bat-on-the-batbear (Cara, her preschool teacher, made an awesome batbear poster) and then had cupcakes. Silas asked what kind they were and I answered, “carrot cake on the bottom with cream cheese frosting.” He looked at me like I was totally freaking insane and regarded the cupcake with some suspicion before touching the tip of his tongue to the frosting part. Next time a kid asks me what kind of cupcake it is, I say: “cake on the bottom and frosting on the top.” The end.

For Saturday, we invited way more people than our little house could reasonably hold (two families didn’t make it so it ended up being perfect) and then made a whole bunch of food: pulled pork, tangy coleslaw, wild mushroom tart (for the veggies), and lemon cake with cream cheese frosting. We also made blueberry ice cream with blueberries we picked last summer to go with the cake, and salt caramel ice cream just because.

We bought a bunch of cool Playdoh colors (seriously, you should see what they have these days) and that was a hit, but what was really the bomb was screaming their heads off in the bedroom with the lights turned off.

[flash /images/2011/1101/scary_monsters.flv w=400 h=300 f={autostart=false}]

“Dada! Be a MONSTER!!” and Joshua would don the blinky head-lantern thing and lurch after them with arms outstretched. Hilarity ensues.

[flash /images/2011/1101/blowing_out_candles.flv w=400 h=300 f={autostart=false}]

Ronin needs to practice her blowing skills for next year I think.


Mother Ginger

Saturday, January 8th, 2011

[flash /images/2010/1012/Mother_Ginger.flv w=400 h=300 f={autostart=false}]

Ronin loves Mother Ginger; we have to watch a video at least once per day. Ronin sings the song, plays with her guys and frequently declares one or the other of us Mother Ginger. And she’s a little ginger bon-bon.

Here we see she’s dressed the rocking moose up as Mother Ginger and staged various guys as the bon-bons. A cheerful dance ensues.

We attempted to go see the Nutcracker performance downtown thinking that we could get last minute tickets for less (since we were still not entirely sure Ronin would be able to sit through it) but it turned out that they were $90! Next year we will have to not be so lame and get our tickets in advance.


Cheyenne Weil, Joshua Coxwell