A Cerney Periodical

I've heard about Zoo Lights at the Lincoln Park Zoo for many years, but I guess I never had enough inspiration to check it out. Brock is most certainly enough inspiration. We started out with a cup of cocoa. Brock first warm chocolate was a hit. Nom nom nom. Brock's had quite an interest in dragons as of late. This guy with lit flames was a favorite of the night. Brock watches the musical light show with seeming boredom, till he reveals his true feelings.  In case you missed it the first time. Brock's boring show. An us-ie in front of the lit up lion family. We felt a familiarity. The resemblance is striking, don't you think? No trip to the zoo is complete without a once around in the tiny train.  Ahhhhhh! Lions in the train!! Well, turns out there was a very nice Santa at the Zoo Lights. We thought we'd try to arrange  meeting. The line was just long enough to explain who Santa was, and hype him up...

Today we took Brock to his first real play. Emerald City Theatre, a local troop was putting on "Dragons Love Tacos" a favorite book of his. He was very excited to see the dragons. Clapping is a real joy for the little guy these days, so any event that warrants applause already has something going for it.   Our seats where pretty meh, but it is not a huge theatre, so he still got a piece of it.  Brock was way more interested in this light than the show. He kept saying that it was dim and what was going to happen with that light. Hilarious that this light was more engaging than the stage lights.   Maybe a little board. Brock did say that it was a "lounge chair".  You can kind of see the dragons here. Basically dancers in leotards with tails. We were not blown away by the production, if you've read the book you might wonder how it would be adapted for the stage. Indeed, that seemed an issue. Brock did quite well however. He was mos...

Brock says some pretty funny stuff these days. We're not always sure where it comes from. I think in this particular case one of us referred to Brock as a "Perplexus-master" as he played with the puzzleballs. The next day he was mastering everything. It started while eating a ring pop. "I am the ring-pop master," Brock declared, "Because I am good at ring-pops." Later, while snuggling, "I am the blanket-master, 'cause I love blankets." He also declared himself breadmaster while eating bread, but my favorite was while he played with the kitchenaide mixer: "I am the mix-master!" Yes you are Brock. Here are some more random ramblings from Brock: Brock likes to open and close one of our screw-top water bottles. I walked in on him practicing openning and closing while having a fascinating conversation with himself. "OPEN IT till an elmo comes... CLOSE IT for another elmo... OPEN IT till an elmo comes... CLOSE IT for anothe...

Brock has always been interested in our Perplexus puzzle balls. It's basically a large 3D track contained in a ball. You roll/balance a tiny ball-bearing along the track by tilting the ball. For most of his life, they have just been large colored balls with a rattle inside. Over the past couple months he's become an eager spectator of daddy. He'll call out which ball he wants me to use ("blue" or "colored") then he'll get right in my lap and enjoy the frustration on my face as his wiggling derails my run. It's basically, "hey daddy, you play games while I watch." OK by me! Well last night after watching a few of his favorite sections ("spiral!" and "ball fall into cup!") Brock picked up the second ball and loudly asked, "how do I do this?" So I put the ball on the start of the track and handed it over, expecting lots of failure and frustration, which is, of course, the point and totally ok. I was so w...

(Brock eats strudel. Unrelated, but cute.) Brock has been working on the concept of favorites. For quite sometime, we were pretty sure his favorite color was orange. He generally preferred orange things when we looked at books, whether it was flowers or trains. This led us to suggest to him that orange was his favorite. Well he has definitely corrected us. His favorite color is officially blue. He tells us this a LOT. Last night he let out a non-stop torrent of verbal diarrhea that basically went, "I want apples daddy cut them into large chunks and put them in blue bowl 'cause blue is my favorite color 'cause i like blue more than orange 'cause blue is my favorite. Bluey blue blue!"

Brock recently let me use clippers to cut his hair. It was pretty quick and painless for all. Here's some before and after shots of the new doo. Farewell Hairman!

(unrelated pic of Brock in his fort) As you can tell from earlier posts, Brock is a huge help on brew days. One of the ways he helps the most is by letting me store all my supplies in his closet. Sometimes, like this past saturday night, I forget to take them out before putting Brock to bed. This is a problem, as I like to get up and brewing before he wakes. Brock's a pretty good sleeper, so I just wait until he's asleep and go get my supplies. This past saturday I crept in as quietly as possible. As I unlatched the closet door I heard a ruffling of noise from the crib. Did he wake up? I froze, back to the crib, thinking perhaps he had T-Rex vision and if I remained motionless I'd be invisible and Brock would fall right back to sleep. That's when I heard him. "Someone's by the closet." Oh no! I realized simultaneously that he was both awake, and somewhat concerned by the strange man in his room.  "It's just daddy Brock. I n...