Mr. E'Toile

In high school I failed a pop quiz.  In English class we were studying Ernest Hemingway, reading A Clean, Well Lighted Place.  I was the outlier--the only girl in class at Gonzaga, an all-boys school.

I had done my homework.  I read the story and loved it.  I analyzed that short story with my friends the day before, so I was not fazed when my English teacher announced we were having a pop quiz.  I knew the story and was confident until I saw the question.

What was the old man's handicap?

Nap Away From Home

Non-Toys

            

    

We have two laundry baskets masquerading as toy bins.  Inside those bins are toys that run the gamut from soft to hard, safe to supervision needed when in use, made in the USA, made in China, natural, Fisher-Price plasticky. Toys, pshaw.

List #2: Levi's Reading List

Levi reading with Kathy, my parents' neighbor.

There is no shortage of books in this old Breuckelen house.  This list is what Levi grabs for reading on a regular basis.

Levi's Top 5 Books

Waiting To Board

 

            

My favorite time to travel to Chicago is on the day of Christmas Eve.  All is calm and bright at the airport.  Levi is able to explore and I am able to shadow him.

List #1

I think of bloggers as chronic list makers.  Bloggers make word lists and photo lists.  A list of must-sees.  A list of things they love.  A list of pictures taken every ten minutes in a day.  A blogspot is a long list of ideas, tagged, sectioned and dated.

I.  Am.  Not.  A.  List.  Maker.  To a fault.  So this year I resolve to dedicate one day a week to the art of making lists.  I will blog those lists--the mundane and the creative.

Today is List #1: My resolutions for 2013.

Dear Virgil

My older sister Cristin always kept a journal. Because of her, I wrote my way through my tweens and my teens, confessing my life to a diary with the name Virgil.  Why Virgil?

I have absolutely no idea. I stopped writing to Dear Virgil when I went away to college and life shifted from the written word to the typed word.  That meant I stopped recording my life in the writerly sense.

Last month my mum reminded me that I am thirty-something (in the same breath she also reminded me to take better care of my elbows).  I'm a mama myself now.  Raising Levi has made the sunny days long, the seasons fast.  The milestones, big and small stones are fast piling up, and I have been chasing after those "stones" in a scatterbrained way: Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook.  Those are all the awww moments.

So the camera Douglas gave us me is the impetus for this blog.  Brooklyn Sweet Brooklyn is far more significant and succinct than Dear Virgil.  As I record our life, including the aww and the ehhh and even the eww moments, I will not forget why I chose the name Brooklyn Sweet Brooklyn.