Five Brown Kids

Let me just sit right here and rearrange the pantry for you.

On New Years Eve we watched Back to the Future with our kids.  They loved it!  The first movie goes back in the past 30 years and you need to see it to understand the second movie which goes into the future to the year 2015.  It is worth watching just to see what they thought 2015 was going to be like. The clothes and flying cars?  Really???  But there is a big TV screen on the wall with people talking (Skype/FaceTime and flat screen tv's?) so that was kind of close. I recommend it for your pre-teen and teen kids although there are a few swear words.....

No broken bones for a few months now, but not for lack of trying.  Blythe is climbing up anything her chunky little legs can stretch to.   And she can climb up the stairs at the park play set, crawl over to the slide, sit down and then I'll hold her hand while she slides down.  She loves it!

Monday was Martin Luther King, Jr Day. It's a great day to remember how lucky I am to live right now and to feel especially grateful for Dr. King and all the marchers, protesters and boycotters. They were everyday folks who put their lives on the line for me and my four little brown kids. There is still improvement to be made in rights for women, the poor and minorities. I don't want to forget that I owe the coming generations some change too. It was a beautiful sunny day. The kids spent most of the afternoon down at the meadow.  Then we picked up trash on the greenway. Ate dinner at Moes and enjoyed the gospel music concert downtown.  They were gathering these onion-like-weeds and then cleaning them off in the creek to make onion stew? A cat tail snowstorm 

A favorite podcast mentioned parenting resolutions for the new year.  I have one this year - get my boys set up with good schools for next years big change.  (High school and middle school!) Following up on a small parenting success. Two years ago when Tyrone started working we made a resolution/plan to take our kids out on regular dates.  (Every other week, one parent, one kid.) We were perfect up until baby came and since then we've had to be a little more flexible.  But it's still happening. To quote Tyrone, "Individually the kids are heavenly, collectively they are a nightmare :-)".  I love hanging out with my kids one on one.  They are heavenly! The top date hang out is still Fresh Berry's down town.  But any burrito place followed by ice cream will do.  Sometimes it really official with a time and place scheduled days before.  Sometimes its a quick dash from school for a fast food lunch, sometimes it's just dinner on the way home ...

Our run of bad luck hasn't finished yet. Tyrone got steroid shots for his back but it's still really hurting. Long shifts at work are miserable. Back to the doctor. Sore backs mean we can't really work out like we want to which is so frustrating. It's such an important part of our routine.  And our short term disability application  was screwed up and we are now missing several weeks of pay.  That plus lost extra pay from December is putting a damper on my summer plans.  But the kids are happy and healthy, we have a great job and spring is just weeks away.  We can make it!

I meant to post this last week during winter break when Taye had swim practice twice a day. Five hours of working out every day makes a kid hungry. Go to practice, come home and eat, go back. Next time two-a-days roll around I need to have some better feeding strategies! Teaching Blythe to swim like a Brown. 

She was babbling away like a good little reader.

Christmas vacation is wrapping up and hopefully taking our bad luck with it. Tyrone missed thousands of dollars of premium/holiday/weekend pay with his hurt back, we missed our trip to Pennsylvania with my hurt back and on Friday night the boys all headed down to Charlotte to see the Hornets play the Cleveland Caveliers and Lebron James was out with a sore back!  The boys still enjoyed the game and loved breakfast/pool/hottub at their hotel.  We had other fun moments visiting with friends but I'm ready to move on.  Tyrone has MRI results and meets with a doctor again tomorrow. Hopefully no surgery... 

Just a funny note. On Christmas Eve I staggered into urgent care with Tyrone's help. The nurse was taking my vitals and asked my pain level on the happy little face chart. I was kneeling on the floor leaning against a chair because I could not sit or stand and ( remembering childbirth just 12 short months ago ) told her I was maybe an 8.  Then I watched her fill in a 10 on the notes for the doctor. I was telling my mom this story and she said that's because childbirth without pain control is actually a 15! Here's an hilarious clip about level 8 pain.  Watch it if you need a good laugh!

For your viewing pleasure!  Happy 2015! Jaxon christmas dance from jessica brown on Vimeo . Blythe Disappears from jessica brown on Vimeo . Taye pencil from jessica brown on Vimeo .