The Musings of Mireya Browning

My daughter and I are learning Chinese. More specifically, mandarin. My brother in law and his wife speak Cantonese, which I understand is much more complex.

My daughter mimics words and phrases impeccably for a toddler. Our Chinese teacher praises me every week for teaching her so well, but in my heart of hearts I can’t take any credit for her success. It is all her, I just provide the atmosphere and encouragement. My daughter does all the work.

We have so much fun in class. We sing songs, count and read. Its really a lot of fun.

My goal is to learn and teach our children how to speak common and important phrases in as many languages spoken in our country. Important phrases like; Jesus loves you, Hello, my name is, how are you and so on.

This is a list of the languages we hope to learn. Chinese-Mandarin/Cantonese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Vietnamese.

So far, we can say; Hello, how are you, I’m sorry, thats all right, cup, bubbles, what?, milk, cookie, listen, to make/do, I am 2 years old, water,chopsticks, thank you and your welcome. We’re still working on numbers and colors. My brother in-law was kind enough to offer to help. His accent is crazy good. I hope we can catch up to his uber skills. 再见 zài jiàn

My daughter and I went shopping downtown yesterday. I parked in the parking space. Placed coins in the meter and off we went. When I returned I found a ticket under my wiper, for violation RCW 46.61.590. My first thought was, “Dan is gonna kill me.” So, I’m screwed right? I don’t think so. As bad as I feel for getting a ticket, and as much as I submit to authority, I don’t really think I warranted a ticket. So, I’m gonna contest it.

Violation RCW 46.61.590, means I parked in a parking stall that is not for parking. You tell me. I parked where the black truck is on the left.

Clearly the ticket lady uses Violation RCW 46.61.590 to trick law abiding citizens to pay for the city official’s beach houses. Am I right?

I’m so stoked to see Indiana Jones. But, I must confess mostly because Shia LaBeouf is a lead character.

Now, I’m going to go against what I know is right and mention my favorite Shia SNL parody. It’s funny and wrong. But it’s funny.

Sofa King-who brought you Mattress King, where everything is Mattress King Great!

Watch and be amazed as the computer of bolts and levers solves what most humans cannot do.

We celebrated our daughter’s birthday this last Saturday. Her birthday is especially fun because she shares it with her grandfather. So we celebrated him too. (Love you Dad.)

In our home, we are too lazy to throw fancy birthday parties. I bake a cake, make a dinner, we sing, open presents, pray and we’re done. Some parents would call us mean and unloving for not lavishing our children with mylar balloons, clowns, hosting dozens of sugar-high children, and giving out fancy party favors. But come on, really. It’s not important. It’s like a wedding. The only thing you need in a wedding is a Pastor and two witnesses. So, yeah, if our daughter wants a fancy wedding she’s..well, thats another post. I would say the only really important part of a birthday is cake. We don’t candles either because of the carcinogens.

Anyway, this year I thought I would have a few decorations. I didn’t find anything that tickled my fancy. All the birthday party decorations were chinsy and ugly. Not even what Pottery barn had to offer impressed me. So I made my own. And they came out pretty good if I say so myself. I made a Happy Birthday banner with her name on it and I made one for Dad. He’s a retired forester so I made his banner with a Douglas fir theme. My daughter’s birthday is in Spring so I have flowers and Spring colors.

We had a lovely steak dinner. I made a chocolate cake with fresh strawberries and white chocolate frosting. We like our parties small and intimate. We had grand-parents and great-grandparents so our table fit our party of 7 comfortably. We had a wonderful time. We bought our tot old-school toys like bubbles, a slinky, a bell for her bike and a fancy Westminster tea cup and saucer. My in-laws gave her the best present of all. My daughter loves rocks. They gave her a pail full of painted rocks with the letters of her name and numbers. It is adorable and she loves it. My daughter is so cute. So yeah, we had fun.