Saturday, December 29, 2007

Peace in the valley

The entry on Jamie thinking that Connor lived at the neighbors has gotten a lot of good feedback, so I thought I'd update the status of relations between the two of them lately. In fact, things have improved considerably. Jamie has come to find a number of fun games to play with Connor, most of which involve the two of them rolling around on the floor giggling and being silly. Many, inevitably, involve balls as well. I think the shift that has occurred for Jamie is being able to think of Connor as a potential partner in creating havoc and chaos, rather than as a rival for our affection. Connor is learning to bring Jamie towards him, too. Connor likes to be tickled and invented a sign to ask for this (he opens and closes his hands from a fist). He will now go to a particular spot on the floor where he likes to be tickled and give Jamie the sign.

A couple of other general notes about the boys:

Jamie's latest favorite construction is "I noticed something." You ask what and he will tell you, for instance, "I noticed that you forgot to bring my milk downstairs." He has also taken to turning our phrases back against us. Last night while I implored him to eat, he got annoyed and said "I'm disappointed in you Daddy."

As some of you know, Jamie's class sang the "Twelve Days of Christmas" for his pre-school pageant. Jamie excelled doing "Six geese a-laying," never once missing his cue. He knows the rest of the song too, and if you say a number from 1-12, in any context, he will supply the appropriate gifts for that day. The lyrics can be a little strange though. Day 7, for instance, is "Seven swamps of swimming."

Connor, meanwhile, has been saying "Thanks" (hard to transcribe, but unmistakable), "Eat" ("eeeeee!"), woobie (wuuuh, wuuuh, wuuuh), "Car" (rummmm, rummmm, i.e. "Vrooom vrooom"), and "Jamie" (Jay!, sometimes Jay-Jay"). He also likes to do high fives and to point at you and say "Yoooouuu", a la Robert De Niro in "Analyze This."

Friday, December 28, 2007

The princess within?

Jamie and Sarah were looking through a Playmobil toy catalog recently, which features elaborate settings for small figures (Jamie has the police station--it comes complete with a stubble-faced criminal who may be repeatedly apprehended). They came across a princess page, which had a castle and all manner of pink accessories. Jamie asked what the girl was and Sarah said a princess. She then asked Jamie, who has never shown the slightest interest in any kind of doll if he might like a princess. He looked thoughtful and asked "What would I do with it?" Well, Sarah said, you dress her and comb her hair and other things. Jamie just looked at her with complete uncomprehension and then turned the page.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Accept no substitutes

Jamie is very much into Santa Claus this year. There was some sense last year but this year he has really internalized the idea of a kindly older gentleman who will reward good behavior with a toy. Jamie is still very specific about what he wants. Last year it was "McQueen, the noisy red race car." This year, from the first moment we asked pretty much, Jamie has been very clear about wanting a big cement mixer. He's very into working trucks these days especially and the cement mixer, a important part of any construction site, is really the missing link in his garage.

We haven't had him visit a Santa, knowing his reticence about new people, especially men, but we did make it clear that we would pass the request on in no uncertain terms. At his school last week they dressed one of the teachers, Ms. Rosa, up as Santa. Jamie was typically wary and to try and ease his mind I told him it was really Ms. Rosa and did he want to tell her about the cement mixer? "No," he said, "I just want to tell the real Santa." Good man.

We have, I have to admit, used Santa as a motivating factor for good behavior, especially eating dinner, suggesting that Santa was very detail-oriented in his evaluation of good/bad. This morning we talked about how Santa was coming tonight to bring toys. Superego beginning to work Jamie said, unbidden, "If I don't share the toys Santa brings he will take them back." For the record, I said no, Santa wasn't in the repo business, but that it would go on the scorecard for next year.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Fear the T-Rex!

Jamie is very much in the dinosaur phase right now and the particular fascination with the T-Rex is in full force. He was given a dinosaur book a while back and was already enthralled, primarily by the ones that had "shark teeth" as he used to put it. But there was also some fear there. Then for a while he would tell us that he and his friends had been hunting T-Rexes on the playground at school. Well, things have certainly shifted now as hunted has become hunter. Jamie now likes for all of us to stomp around the house pretending to be T-Rexes looking for food (woobies are not to be thought of as prey, however). Even Connor tries to do this, picking his right leg up a little higher and jerkily bringing it down. Car stories on the way to school have reflected this shift as well as they are now to be about a family of T-Rexes. In particular, lately they have been hunting Triceratops. Sounds like someone is getting a little more comfortable with the idea of the food chain, as long as he's on top!

More on the decisive little fellow

Sarah went to the store today to buy some shoes ("booes") for Connor. His current ones have fallen a part a bit and he still trips over himself in the next size we have from Jamie. She pulled one pair off the rack and he seemed interested, which she didn't make too much of, but they didn't fit. She began to pull another pair off though and he immediately said "no, no, no!" and pushed them away. She went for another and the same thing happened. She then spied a pair of Elmo shoes and this received an approving "Momo!" They fit and so all is well. But, as Sarah said, how can a person who needs shoes that small have such decided opinions about them?

The payoff begins?

For some time, at difficult moments with the boys we have looked forward to the time when they would play together as the payoff for some of the more challenging things about having two children. We have been getting a glimpse of this over the past few weeks. Mostly, these moments are fleeting, where Jamie finds some way to include Connor productively in his little world. Often this involves Jamie placing something on Connor's head, squirting him with water in the bath, or some other one-sided activity in which Connor is in essence transformed into a toy. But they've also been hiding together, sometimes, for hide-and-seek, for instance. Connor, of course, loves to do everything Jamie does and so he is thrilled, even when it is evident that he has no idea why, exactly, they are doing whatever it is that they are doing.

Then last night we were playing a very good energy-burning game where I stood in the kitchen on the other side of the gate that blocks Connor from the stairs. Jamie would fetch balls and throw them over the gate and I would throw them back into the living room and he would go tearing off after them. Connor got right into it and Jamie liked the sense of traffic of them both going back and forth and bombarding me. When Connor, clearly tired, took a rest on the ride-truck, Jamie actually lamented his absence and said "But now who's going to play with me?" A momentous occasion truly.

Monday, December 10, 2007

A decisive little fellow

Yes, our Connor, small though he be, knows what he wants and tends to be very effective in getting it. Sure, this is true of lots of babies and toddlers but in comparison to Jamie there is something so much more direct and decisive about Connor. This is particularly true as relates to food of course, but covers lots of things. Often he becomes fixated on one particular object of desire and shows remarkable tenacity when we try and remove it from his mind. When, in a blatant attempt to curry favor with Jamie, we went to Chuck E. Cheese the other day, for instance, Connor got OBSESSED with the hard, orange skee-balls. He usually tries to mimic Jamie, who was himself hurling them up the ramp with limited success, but in this case Connor really wanted to place the ball over his own very round head and then fling it forward so that it smacked hard against the plastic side of the ramp. He wanted to keep doing this. We, however, after about 20 minutes, wanted to leave. He screamed, I mean screamed, the moment a hand was laid to the ball to take it away.

This morning when I took him to school, I put him down on the floor while I got his lunch and blanket ready to give to the teachers. By the time I had readied myself to go Connor had decided he wanted to stay with me (Mondays tend to be a little clingy), so he started marching towards the door I had just opened and raised a surprisingly strong arm to stop it from closing while he marched through. I picked him up and brought him back in and he was about to really get mad when his teacher produced his sippy cup and a snack. He then turned his back on me, flung his pacifier and woobie to the side and marched over saying "ma-ma-ma" (yum yum yum).

Monday, November 26, 2007

He walks, he talks

Yes, Connor is a true toddler now. He almost never crawls any more and can pretty much navigate around the room with only the occasional loss of balance. It's fun seeing this stage since Jamie never really went through it, preferring to wait until he could walk perfectly to walk at all. The best idea I can give of the way Connor looks when he walks is to suggest something like a cross between a penguin and a miniature Frankenstein.

He is also developing the vocabulary away from b-words, though these are still faves. It now includes:

"Dada" (Me, Sarah and even Jamie sometimes)
"Djissz" (Juice)
"Boooes" (Shoes)
"Bir-tuh" (Bird)
"But-tuh" (Button, to be distinguished from Jamie's "buttoom")
"All done!"
"Nah nah nah" (No, repeated many times)
"Mow" (Meow, following Jamie)
"Yellow"
"Ba Ball" (Foul ball - Jamie's into baseball these days and Connor likes to provide commentary)
"Bah bah" (Chicken - the animal not the food)

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Insult to injury

Connor has not been sleeping through the night very well lately. Lately being pretty much his entire life. He very often wakes up in the middle of the night and is up for 1 - 2 hours. Often I bring him downstairs, where one or both of us sleep on the couch, eventually. But for the last couple of nights Sarah has been bravely taking him into the bed to try and snuggle him into submission. He is highly imperialistic with respect to bed space and things usually end up with Sarah clinging to a tiny strip at the side of the bed, while I am again banished to the couch. As I was resignedly taking up my pillows and slouching off to the door last night, Connor, gloating perhaps, added succinctly: "Bah-byee." Ouch.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

We don't like G-U-N-S. Do we?

Jamie has been blissfully ignorant of the nature of guns for a long time, even here in "I've got a right to defend myself" Texas. But he came home from school the other week saying that he and his friends had been shooting T-Rexes. With what? we asked. Guns, he replied. So we talked to him about how guns hurt people and they arent good toys, etc. He has since been very good and when there has been T-Rex hunting going on they've used swords, which we find a reasonable compromise. More chivalrous or something.

Then, the other week we were over at the Bradys, and Paul and I were watching the boys while Claire and Sarah were out. We were playing for a while and the TV was on the background. It was a 60s black and white submarine movie. Nobody was paying much attention to it, until I noticed that there was a battle scene going on with torpedoes, exploding ships and strafing fighters. I looked over to find Jamie quite transfixed. I said to Paul that perhaps wed better change it since it was getting a little violent. Jamie looked at me wide-eyed and said, "But I LIKE this!" Ah, boys.

Friday, November 23, 2007

In and out

Jamie is clearly aware that we want him to like Connor and include him in things and he tries to balance this against his impulse to ignore Connor's presence entirely. In response, he has developed a way of both including and subtly excluding Connor from the family unit. For Halloween, of course, Jamie wanted us all to be lions, but Connor got to be a leopard. Close, but not quite the same. Similarly, in stories, which lately have focused on a family of lions or cats who are alternately construction workers and fire fighters, Connor is present but sometimes made into a sister.

Then this morning, as Jamie asked me to perform task after task for him and play with him constantly, with no reference to my taking care of Connor, I asked him if he was aware that Connor lived here too. No, he said, he didn't know that. Well, where do you think he lives, I asked. In that house next door, he responded. You see the theme here.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

'Tis the season

Hasn't been much time for blogging lately because this is the season of birthdays and Halloween. The latter began a good two weeks before the actual date and we were able to dress Connor and Jamie in their costumes for several events, which was great of course. Jamie had determined some time before that he was going to be a lion. Lions are the preferred animal right now for him. He likes to roar and display his claws, but to point out that while he is indeed a fierce lion, he is also a cuddly one.

He also determined that the rest of us were to be lions. Sarah got a mask and a lion tail, but all we had for me were some doggy ears and tail so Jamie proclaimed me a "doggy-lion." Connor was a very dashing leopard. As we were getting ready to go to the first party Jamie's excitement built to the point that he proclaimed, "It's going to be so fun I can't resist!!!" Then, as we drove to the party Jamie began roaring like a lion. Connor, typically, followed suit with a prim little "RAIR!" so off we went roaring all the way.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Cause and effect

Connor's repertoire of "b" words continues to expand and lately he's taken hold of button, which is rendered "butt". He has of course that child's sense of which remote controls actually work and will only play with those. Same thing with the phones. One interesting development though has been his growing sense that the buttons actually do something (hanging up on his grandparents for instance!). Recently, we discovered him hitting the buttons on the remote control for the ceiling fan, repeating "butt," "butt" and looking up to see if the light on the fan had gone on. He also likes to poke our belly buttons, so next thing I know, he's poking Sarah's belly button, and then looking up at the fan. Ummm, noooo...

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Nighttime in the 'Hood

We've had Connor and Jamie together in the same room for about 3 months now, with pretty mixed success. Getting them to sleep is generally not too much of a problem, but keeping them that way is something else entirely. Connor is still waking up at least once at night and this gets Jamie up and he doesn't always handle that too well, so we end up putting Connor in the pack and play in our room for the rest of the night.

Here's a little snippet of how this can go at night: It begins with Connor, not crying, but making happy, silly noises in the crib. By the time I am down there, Jamie is crying and telling Connor to stop. This pleases Connor, who gets sillier. I arrive in the room and Connor beams and says "HIIIIEEEEEEE!!", as is his wont this days. I take Connor away to give him some milk and try and get him back to sleep. I get to the top of the stairs, Connor sees the milk and drops his pacifier on the ground. Jamie begins crying. I pick up the pacifier, not the easiest thing while holding a 20 pound baby, go down stairs and deal with Jamie's issue (music not loud enough). Go back upstairs. Connor sees the milk drops the pacifier to the floor. Jamie begins crying again. I pick the pacifier up, go down stairs deal with this issue (water needed). Go back upstairs. Connor sees the milk, drops the pacifier again. I pick it up again and give him the milk at last. An hour later he is sound asleep on the couch. Not nestled cozily in my arms, mind you, as would be very nice indeed, but on the couch, with his bottom in the air and his legs scrunched beneath him, his preferred sleeping position now.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Don't get any ideas

Sarah was taking the boys to school yesterday and so was on story duty. Now that Toonces is pretty much out, we've been scrambling a little. One thing that has been working are stories about a family of animals (they can be different species but are often feline) named Mommy, Daddy, Jamie and Connor. In this case, they were kitty cats and Sarah got the clever idea that they were in the car to go to Yavont. At this point Jamie cut in rather nervously and said "No, Mommy, they drove to the airport and took a PLANE to Yavont."

Seems that car trip has left its mark on all of us.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Sweet dreams

As he is going to bed at night Jamie always asks if there are going to be scary things, fireworks or thunder that night. Happily, I've been able to confidently answer in the negative lately, but we've also been talking about happy things to dream about. He had a play date with his friend Leah Mei this weekend, and that night said that he would dream about her. Then last night we saw Bella, with whom Jamie has always been quite taken, and later I asked him if he was going to dream about her. Yes, he said, and baseball. Bella and baseball, not bad.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

How to make Mommy teary

Jamie has been getting a little mushy lately. Here's an example in a special guest contribution from Sarah:

Tonight Jamie and I were talking about when I was a little girl. He
asked if he was already an egg in my tummy then. I said yes, there was
always an egg in my belly named Jamie. He said, "Mom, when I was that
egg in your tummy I really loved you."

A bit of self-reflection

While their frequency seemed to diminish a little when we got back from Yavont, the why questions have been back with a vengeance lately. It is interesting to see some progression in the sophistication of the queries, however. Sure, there are still the unanswerable "Why this is Wednesday?" types, but there are some real advances, too. Sarah went away this past weekend and Jamie and I were talking about missing her, and he asked "Why I miss Mommy?". We came to the conclusion that it was because he loves Mommy, prompting the inevitable "Why I love Mommy?" There was a lot to be said in answering this, including, but not limited to: "Because she makes me feel cozy."

Anyway, this was a real step in self-examination I thought, away from such gems as "Why I did that?" and "Why this is my foot?"

Friday, September 28, 2007

More stories of stories

One holdover from Yavont is that whoever drives the boys to school in the morning is obligated to tell Jamie a story. It can get a little difficult coming up with new scenarios every morning, so Sarah came up with a very productive source of material: Toonces the Driving Cat, who is also a Cat in a (Purple) Hat. Jamie often determines Toonces's mode of transport for the day. Thus, over the past few weeks, Toonces, who drives poorly by human standards, but very well for a cat, has driven: a purple rainbow car he built with his friend Phil, police cars, a commuter bus, a school bus, many fire trucks (front and back), an ambulance, excavators, bulldozers, front loaders, dump trucks, cement mixers, a helicopter, a jet plane, the space shuttle and several monster trucks. Toonces has also gone hiking and took over a donut shop one morning, uttering, in meows of course, the unforgettable phrase, "Time to make the donuts."

Lately, however, this seemingly inexhaustible wellspring of stories has dried up. Jamie now demands a story "about Toonces, the driving cat in a hat, who is a guy and doesn't wear a hat and never drives." Fortunately, the last rule is not too firm and if you put Toonces, in whatever form, into a monster truck, you won't go too far wrong.

Monday, September 24, 2007

The joys of a bed

The falling-out incident of a couple of weeks ago notwithstanding, Jamie has really never looked back after getting into his new big boy bed. We noticed, for a little while at least, some slight tendency to sleep a little later in the morning and attributed this to the fact that he just had to be more comfortable on the new bed than he had been on a mat on the floor, or even, since he frequently rolled in all directions, just the floor itself. We didn't have too much material proof of this, however, until a couple of days ago when he asked Sarah: "Mom, why my arm doesn't hurt when I sleep anymore?"

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Goooaall!

A displeasing, but admittedly funny, postscript, as it were, to the previous post. Connor now also likes to yell "GAH!!!" (Goal!) when he throws food, which he does quite often these days.

Connor's throwing food, incidentally, pleases Jamie because he likes hearing us tell Connor no, instead of him.

He walks! He talks! He still only has 1 tooth!

Yes, Connor is progressing by leaps and bounds--well, small shuffling steps would describe it better. I arrived at school to pick him u on Friday and his teacher said, "He's been walking all day." "He doesn't walk," I said, but sure enough after couple of attempts he shuffled a few steps towards me, quite unaided. The teacher said that they could get him to do it by pushing a car in front of him. Just like his brother with the cars! To Sarah's not inconsiderable frustration, we can't get Connor to do it at home though. I think it must be the example of seeing toddlers all day that gets him in the mode. Here he just pushes his truck from Nana around until he hits something, then screams at the top of his lungs until we get him pointed in the right direction.

He has also been developing his vocabulary and song repertoire. the Lewerenzes gave him a little tractor with animals that plays "Old Macdonald." Very quickly we realized that as it was playing he was saying "Eeyaiyo Eeyaiyo." Now all he has to do is hear 2 notes of the song or catch sight of the tractor and off he goes singing. His stable of b words is increasing too: "ball" (Bah) and "Bottle" (Bah bah). Birds are still a favorite though.

One of the things we've noticed is that he tends to do whatever Jamie does, even though he doesn't understand why. For instance, Jamie loves to put things in the compartment of the seat of his rider truck and in the cab of a large toy pick-up truck named Clake Big (See earlier blog on Stories and strange names!). So Connor tries to do the same, but having no sense of spatial relations, he tries to put things in that are far, far too large and gets frustrated and angry. Jamie has also been into a kind of soccer game in which he runs around kicking balls and then yells "Gooooooal!" So Connor, sitting, throws the balls from over his head and yells "GAH!" And, having watched Jamie throw balls down to the first floor from the second floor landing, Connor pushed a rubber ball through the rails and watched it go down with great fascination. Then displaying his usual sense of timing, looked at me and said, "Byyye-byyyyyyyeeee!"

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Ouch!

Well, poor Jamie fell out of his bed 2 nights ago. We first heard the screaming and Sarah went down to discover the poor little guy had a gash next to his right eye, probably from hitting the corner of the dresser on the way down. So we've belatedly got bedrails on now. He had done so well I think we were lulled into a sense of false security. He seems to really like the rail there and actually slept sort of snuggled up to it last night.

We were scared at the time, but the cut is healing and he is otherwise fine. We were all up with him for a bit afterward and Sarah and I were worried about him having a concussion. She started trying to test him by having him cover one his eyes and watch her with the other. She tried to get him into it by calling it a game. At first he was tickled. He spends all day wanting us to play with him so the prospect of a game in the middle of the night was pretty excited. But very soon he said "Let's play a different game, Mom." It was about then that we started to think he was very much himself. Maybe he thought we were going to play "Candyland."

He got to spend the rest of the night in bed with Mommy, which was pretty great too. He immediately said that he wanted to sleep "REALLY CLOSE" to her. He lay on the side of his face with the cut all night, because that way he was facing her, and would only let her sleep so that she was facing him. Not that she had room to turn over anyway.

Monday, September 10, 2007

You'll always be Mr. Sillypants to me

During the first few months after Connor was born, many people asked how Jamie was dealing with it, of course. Although there was undoubtedly some emotional difficulty that was expressed in some potty regression, we were at first really pleasantly surprised at how well he seemed to accept Connor into the family, often calling him "my baby." He seemed to get a kick of Connor's baby habits and made up nicknames for him, like "Mr. Sillypants."

Since Connor has been on the move, however, things have gotten a little more ambivalent. Toys, of course, have been a source of conflict, especially since Connor follows Jamie exactly in his regard for cars above all else. Also, sitting in Mommy's lap has become a particular point of jealousy for both. Then the other day Jamie announced to Sarah: "I don't like Connor. I love him and he's still Mr. Sillypants but I don't like him."

Friday, September 7, 2007

Do as I tell you

Jamie has developed the very appealing habit of creating conversations between his toys as he plays with them. This must be nice because it is clear that we don't always say the things he wants us to. This was demonstrated in a recent exchange. First he told me to sit on the low window sill of our living room window, behind the chair. He then stood on the sill, only about 6 inches off the ground and said "Dad, tell me to get down." Well, I said I don't think you need to get down. "No, Dad, you have to tell me to get down," he said impatiently. So I told him to get down and figured that was that. But no, he stayed there and said "Say why Dad." "Okay," I said, "Why." "No Dad, tell me why I have to get down." "But I don't know why Jamie," I honestly answered. He sighed, "Tell me I have to get down so we can hide from Mommy." So I told him. Seems the whole thing was about playing hide and seek with Mommy, who was of course upstairs and had no notion that she was supposed to come find us. Even so, I stayed put until I had express permission to leave.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Big boy/little boy

Well, we thought the day, or night I guess, would never come, but Jamie has spent the last two nights in a big twin bed. No more sleeping on a mat on the floor, after almost two years. He has been saying for a while that our bed is cozier than his, but we mainly thought that this was a ploy for us to let him sleep with us, but he persisted and claimed to be ready for a big boy bed. We had heard such talk before only to discover that he would shy away at the last minute in favor of the little bed. This time, however, he was serious and saw it through with very little hesitation. Predictably, he woke up the first night having fallen in between the bed and the wall, but last night he stayed up the whole time.

He has been feeling his big boyness in lots of ways lately. When he first got back to school he was talking about having helped another child with something because he was a big boy. He also imagined that Connor wouldn't recognize him at school because he would be with the older kids. At the same time, however, there is clearly some ambivalence. Sarah was telling him the other day to eat so he would get big and strong and he answered that he didn't want to get big, he just wanted to stay a little boy. He likes to pretend that we are airplanes and we all fly around and we have to call him "Baby plane".

As happy as we are to see him cozily settled in a bed, which must be so much more comfortable than the floor, it is a little bittersweet for us too. This seems like one more tie to baby Jamie that has been lost. On the other hand he looks so small in that twin bed it helps us remember that he really is still a little boy.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Bizarre love triangle

Jamie's return to his preschool here has meant a reunion with his great friends Siler and Leah Mei. The three of them have been in class together for a couple of years now and make quite the triumvirate. They are usually there before Jamie in the morning and his arrival often instigates a battle for his heart and mind between the other two. This morning they were playing with balls in the gym. Poor Jamie, who generally needs a little time to warm up at school, was immediately confronted with the two of them saying "Play with my ball Jamie," "No, play with my ball Jamie." The complexity of the interactions between them has quite surprised us. The other day Jamie reported that Leah Mei, who certainly fancies herself the ringleader, "always orders us around, so we try to stay away from her." For his part, Siler has a birthday coming up and has been trying to use this for leverage. Jamie informed us yesterday that Siler had told him that if Jamie shared his book with Leah Mei rather than Siler, he would "wipe Jamie's name off my birthday party list." I think Jamie called Siler's bluff on that one.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Woo-woo-woo!

In response to the previous post, I have been asked about the new underwear in question. Firetrucks, police cars and rescue vehicles. So you see the excitement level was high. This morning he began running around the house wearing only the firetrucks saying "Woo-woo-woo!!!!"

Monday, August 20, 2007

Showing off the vocab...and other things

Jamie has really advanced not only his vocabulary of late, but also his phrasing, which can often sound surprisingly grown-up. He has adopted a number of interesting phrases recently. The first, actually some time ago, was, emerging from his room at night, "Dad, I didn't realize I don't have my woobie." Then lately we've heard "I just happen not to be hungry right now," and in the car, "Oooh, I clearly saw two working trucks." But perhaps best, he announced, quite of nowhere, today after school: "I was determined to show my friends and my teacher my new underwear."

Sunday, August 19, 2007

"It's a bird! It's an...another bird!"

Connor's developing vocabulary tends to go from one favored word to another, one at a time. Now the in word is "bird," which comes out more like "brrrr". The kid loves birds and uses it all the time. He is really into going for walks because he can do lots of "brrrr". He sees planes, and these are "brrrr", too. He's also learned to take a kind of quantum approach to the thing, pointing to general areas in which there might be birds and saying "brrrr". If one is holding him by a window, for instance, there may be birds, and one walks away from the window only at risk to one's eardrums for he will not be happy. He even likes to point at the tree that Nonni and I painted on the wall and say, speculatively, "brrrr."

One final cute bird detail is that we have a little lullabye toy is his crib that plays a song and has little birds that fly around a nest. We put him down to sleep and come in later to see him fallen asleep with the birds going, positioned so he can look right at them. Very cute.

J'accuse!!!

As previously discussed, Connor expresses himself forcefully when he sees others having food that he is not. This morning at breakfast this was a most serious matter as BOTH Jamie and Mommy were having strawberries with their pancakes. Connor screamed and cried pitiably until he got some, which was not very long. But soon he finished them and Sarah and Connor still had some. Connor also likes to point and this time he stuck out his two pointer fingers at each of them, as if to say "Both of you, both of you are guilty of depriving nice babies of strawberries." Later, Daddy was implicated, too.

We ask the impossible every day

Jamie is discovering the world of conflicting desires that is life as a three-year old. I have already mentioned here his requests for baths that are both hot and cold. Lately we have augmented that that with this statement about his dinner: "I'm done and I'm not done." Also, when being tickled he will proclaim: "I want you to stop and not stop." Hard to know what to do exactly.

Bombs away!

Over the first couple of days after our return from Yavont Jamie would remember various games and toys that we used to play in Houston. He was very excited to remember what he calls "Throwing balls down to Daddy." I was less enthusiastic. This games involves Jamie standing on the second floor behind the railing while I go to the first floor and look up. He then hurls balls down at me while laughing maniacally. He takes particular joy in my expressions of fear or pain, both of which can be quite genuine. He has figured out to throw multiple balls at once and to vary them by size, weight and hardness, making it impossible for me to defend myself against all of them. At one point he was holding a plastic ball of Connor's, a little larger than a golf ball and about as heavy and hard, with his arm cocked to hurl it at me. I protested, saying "That will hurt Daddy!" "Yeah," he said, "Let's do it!!!"

Sunday, August 12, 2007

No fireworks!

As happy as Jamie is to be back in Houston, there are some things he'll need to get used to again, like the street noise. The second night we were back Jamie woke up crying at about 11:30. We had been deeply asleep for about an hour which is sort of the worst possible time to be awakened, so I was a little too fuzzy to really understand what he was telling me when I went down. He dutifully went back to sleep, but the next morning he kept talking about the fireworks. It finally emerged that he was crying because he had been woken up by, he thought, fireworks.

I figured this was just a one-off thing, but he has remained really concerned about fireworks, questioning us about them before every nap or bedtime. He himself ruled them out during naps, observing that fireworks (which he's never seen by the way) are only done at night. The next night when he asked me if there would be fireworks, and I confidently said no, they only do them for special occasions. Now at bedtime he always asks, "Dad, is it a special occasion tonight?" with an anxious look on his face. And the last couple of mornings I have been greeted with "I slept well last night. No fireworks." Seems he got used to those nice quiet Yavont nights.

One, well-aimed, why question

Out of the flood of why questions that spills from Jamie's mouth occasionally one really stands out. Such was the case with the recent query: "Dad, why you don't have so much hair?" My answer, left unsaid, is that I think it's because he and Connor are taking it all.

The return

When we told Jamie we were leaving Vermont to come back to Houston he began jumping around saying "Yay"!!!! Connor, predictably clapped at this. Mostly we really attribute this emotion to Jamie's contrarian nature as a 3 year old, but there is no question he was genuinely comforted to get home.

I had driven ahead of Sarah and the boys and picked them up at the airport. Sarah said that as soon as the plane started to descend, Jamie looked out the window and began yelling "I see Houston, I see Houston!" And then more loudly, "DADDY!! DADDY!!" When they emerged from the security, I could see from thirty yards away that Jamie had had a lollipop on the plane and the bottom third of his face was covered in blue. It looked a little Goth, actually.

When we got back to the house, Jamie came in the front door and uttered only one word, said quietly but with real intensity: "Upstairs." This refers to the main floor of our house, where his toys, and especially his riding truck, were waiting. We didn't hear much from him for the next half-hour as he systematically, almost meditatively, tested the rolling capacities of all his cars.

We're raising a Texan

Well, Jamie had a wonderful time in Yavont, there can be no question. We played in the dirt, went to the pool, went to the beach by the lake, went for walks, threw rocks in various bodies of water at great length and saw many family members and friends all of whom responded loyally to Jamie's oft-repeated demands to play with working trucks. Good times. Jamie, however, claimed throughout not to like Yavont. "I just like Houston, Texas," he would say. When asked why he produced two reasons. One, "I'm scared of the bears in Yavont" (We didn't see a single bear all summer). Two, astonishingly, "Yavont is kind of boring." The real reason, in fact, is nothing more than the fact that his beloved riding truck, upon which he zooms around our house, had stayed behind. This was a strike against Yavont from the beginning. I'm glad he blamed the state and not us.

He is getting a little come-uppance now, however. He had gotten in the habit of saying "Let's take a walk," or "Let's play outside," only to be told that it is far too hot. We're not in Yavont anymore.

Friday, July 27, 2007

More why questions

Having chosen a Richard Scarry book to read: “Why I chose that book?”
Having dumped mud on the stairs: “Why I did that?”
Why cats and dogs have tails?
Why God made us?
Why lava is hot?
Why Connor has no teeth?
Why those trees are there?
Why aminals are naked?
Why you have never seen a bus pulling a car?
Why tractors are noisy?
Why you said “ewww”?
Why we can’t reach the sky?
Why we can’t stand on the sky?
(Several days later): "Why the sky can't hold us up?"

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Maybe no pets right now

While we have been in Yavont, Nana's cat Annabelle stayed with us for a few weeks. The boys were, predictably, tickled by this and Annabelle showed considerable patience in having her fur tugged at, and having Connor crawl aggressively towards her (see previous post). Jamie really wouldn't leave the poor cat alone, despite all our efforts to teach him to give her some space. He especially liked to play "Where's Annabelle" at times when it was obvious she was doing her best to hide wherever she could.

Jamie did seem to have some self-awareness about the relationship, however. We went hiking one day with Suzanne, who cleverly taught Jamie to look for the appropriate paint blazes on the trees which marked the path. He took this very seriously and kept us from straying. He and Suzanne agreed that we shouldn't get lost and talked about who would miss us if we did. Nana and Pops, and Nonni and Diddy, and David, Suzanne's boyfriend, it was determined, would all miss us. "What about Annabelle?" Suzanne asked. Jamie replied, "No, Annabelle doesn't like us."

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

A little literalism

Jamie got some new books at the library today, one of which is about different kinds of boats. He asked questions, as always, about them. As always he wasn't totally satisfied with all my answers. He asked for instance what the ferryboat does. I said it carries cars and people across the water. He added, "and fairies."

Then we got to the warship. He looked confused, and asked, "Does it carry...wa..wa..wars?" Not to wax political here too much, but gotta love that he has no idea what a warship is.

1 year and 0 teeth!

Yes, Connor turned one recently amidst modest fanfare, but has yet to cut a tooth. He has been developing noticeably in the past couple of weeks, becoming more and more energetic and active. He now moves around in about as close to a running crawl as one could get. It's a bit scary to see from floor level. He lets out a joyful, slightly anarchic "Aaahh!" and sets off towards you at double time crawl. He also recently impressed our friends Mike and Margit and Suzanne by crawling up and down the rather steep hill in front of the Yavont house.

For his birthday he had a train cake, devised by Nonni, and expertly executed by Jamie, Sarah and Nonni. Interested to see what our enthusiastic eater might do with a chocolate cake we plopped the whole thing in front of him. He was actually a little taken aback and held his hands up in the air and regarded the cake cautiously. Then, slowly, he reached down and primly removed one blue M&M from the cake. Probably thought it was a blueberry.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

I only ask the impossible

Jamie's Nonni and Diddy are visiting and got to witness a classic Jamie-ism last night. As some of you may be aware, young James can be rather particular. In this case, we were giving him his bath before bed. Jamie is very sensitive to the water temperature and I have to say I was feeling pleased with myself for having gotten it perfect. Just a little to the warm side of tepid, impossible to complain about, I thought. Wrong. Jamie got in, I poured some water over him to rinse him and he immediately went to the mattresses, as we say when he goes from calm to tantrum in a heartbeat. I calmed him down and discerned that he was telling me he wanted the bath "cold AND hot."

The scary thing is I knew what he meant. I had to run some cold water and mix it with the warm in the cup that we use to rinse him. So there you have it. A bath can in fact be two temperatures at once.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Bye-bye!

Okay, "Bye-bye" is the new "Yay!" for Connor these days. He says it in this high-pitched, kind of dreamy way, almost a baby version of a falsetto, extending the last vowel sound, so it's sort of "Bye-byyyyye."

He has some sense of context for it. He likes to say "bye-bye" as anyone, including himself, goes out the door. Especially memorable for Sarah was his invoking it when they went to a beach by a lake recently with her friend Katy. Sarah would sit Connor on the edge of the water, and he would say "Bye-bye" and crawl purposefully off into the water, at which point she would grab him and repeat the funny, but a little scary, process.

He also uses it when someone comes in the door, however, and is especially pleased to say it when we go in to get him after a nap. It seems that for Connor, "Bye-bye" is like "Aloha," and can mean hello and goodbye.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Why?

We have discovered that reports of the "why" phase were really not exaggerated. The word probably passes Jamie's lips 30 times a day at the least. I would like here to record some of the many ways in which he has queried us with regard to the nature of life, the universe and everything:

Why we are next to this lake?
Why bricks are not food?
Why I was born a boy?
Why Annabelle (Sarah's parents' cat) was not born a dog?
Why did it rain? (X25)
Why mud is dirty?
Why the sun is going to bed?
Why the wheels are under the car?
Why you don't know? (X25)
Why this is Wednesday?
Why this is Earth?
Why there was a Big Bang?

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Broccoli, broccoli

Well, it was a momentous occasion last week, one which Sarah correctly thought worthy of recording in the annals: both boys actually asked us for broccoli on the same day, at the same meal. The form taken by these requests was typical: for Connor, it was a matter of envy. He saw that we were having broccoli, and, despite having a tray full of food in front of him determined to let us know, in his inimitable way, that he thought it only fair that he should have some of what we were having. For Jamie, the request took the form of a negative, i.e., "I don't want peas." Casting about he saw our broccoli and settled on that as a desirable alternative.

So there it is. It may never happen again, but at least we can say there was a brief moment of vegetable synergy.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Squirpmunk

This is not related to Jamie and Connor exactly, but as I write there is a creature outside the window that, while clearly a squirrel, has a white and black stripe and non-bushy tail that is distinctly reminiscent of the chipmunks which also live around here. Hmm, strange things are afoot in these blue states up here.

Words and sounds

Connor, who has been known to many of you as a quiet, easy baby for most of his life, has become much more...vocal, we'll call it. For a child who can still only gum his food, he eats an impressive range and amount of food. No one is allowed to eat anything under Connor's very watchful gaze now. If he is not getting it, no matter what it may be, he screams with a volume and pitch that is attention-getting to say the least. We've also been trying to teach him the sign for more, but he has found that when he signs more we calmly say okay, and casually begin to go about the business of getting more food. Screaming his head off, however, has the effect of getting us both to run to get him the first food product we can find. You guess which method he tends to prefer.

"Yay!" is sort of out right now, though he still likes to clap. While our friend Suzanne was here, she and Jamie would play "Yum yums," which was really Suzanne's clever way of getting Jamie to eat things like broccoli, while they would both say "yum yum." Connor liked this very much and joined in saying "mum mum mum mum."

He has also developed a number of words and has said at various times, "Daddy," "Mommy," "Jamie," and, to Nana and Pops's cat, "Kitty." Indicative of our world in Vermont, he is also interested in birds now and may have said "bird" today. Still he prefers to scream.

Stories of cars and strange names

Our time in Vermont has seen limited internet access and thus blogging, but with the chance appearance of a wireless connection, I'll try and relate some of the new traditions that have emerged here. The ability to go outside during the summer months has made a big difference in little and small ways. For instance, Jamie has taken to enjoying a popsicle on the porch after dinner. It's a messy business, even in the relative cool of a Vermont summer. But this has also become a time for discussion as he likes to sit out there with one of us and "talk about things." As some of you know Jamie likes to throw out topics for discussion. Often this is a challenging constellation of elements. For instance he might say, "Let's talk about babies, bottles and...trees." Or, "Let's talk about working trucks, dirt and snacks." Lately, however, he is into having us making up stories for him.

Predictably, this soon became focused on cars and trucks and we've had to limit the time for these stories to when we were in the car. Jamie's main contribution to the story are names. Thus far we have discussed a cross-country driving big rig named "Clake Big," a pair of race cars who create baby race cars (no details asked, none given on this process), named Clean and Beean, and, our personal favorite, a run-away orange Volkswagen Beetle named "Clampy Amp Cleeamp."

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

The simple things

When we are trying to imagine elaborate schemes and activities to make Jamie happy, it is often instructive for us to remember the pure, absolute joy that he is so often able to take in the simplest things. When we were in Frederick with Nonni and Diddy, we went for a walk of about three blocks to the playground. Jamie emerged out of the front door, looked around a little and then exclaimed, "Ooooohh, look! A parking meter!" Then looking down the street, "Ooh look! ANOTHER parking meter!" He did this for most of the walk, with undiminished enthusiasm, except when he was distracted by the only slightly less thrilling fire hydrant (which he used to pronouce, appealingly, hy-druh-yant).

Now that we are in Yavont, the details have changed but the love is the same. When we go for walks now, it's "Look! A driveway reflector!" And my favorite is the identification of certain sunken areas in the road in which the dirt is a little darker than the rest. These are each to be inspected and discussed and are called either "dirty dirt" or "dirty holes" (his pronunciation of holes, I'm afraid, renders it with a bit of an "r" sound instead of the "l" --I'll let you say it aloud). On special days the dirty holes have water in them and become muddy holes. We have to tear him away.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

How Connor Got his Yay! Back

As previously noted, poor Connor has been suffering through an ear infection that has dragged on for the past 3 weeks or so. He is such a good-natured little fellow it is all too easy to read when he feels poorly, but also when he starts to mend. There was a brief flowering for instance when we got to Nashville to stay with the boys' cousins, Liam and Finn. They were still at school when we arrived and Jamie and Connor were faced with a room full of toys after spending 3 days in the car. Jamie got down and started rolling cars along the floor, almost meditatively, and with the greatest concentration. Connor, however, just sat on the floor and started saying "Yay!!" over and over again.

We didn't hear too much of it again as the infection returned and has only just now let up again. We knew because again, after a long lay off yesterday was full of big smiles accompanied by lots of "Yay!!!" and clapping. Good to have him back.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Travel agent

Sorry again for the delay between posts, but as you all probably know we've been in long transit to Northern climes. The trip went well enough all things considered, and the boys were troopers in the car. The biggest issue was that Connor developed an ear infection more or less the moment we left Houston and this made him a very UNHAPPY baby.

Jamie dealt with the trip pretty well, but it took a few days of him asking if we were in "Yavont," as he calls Vermont, yet to really comprehend the magnitude of the undertaking. Having done so, at some point in the middle of Tennessee, he stated simply: "Next time we should take an airplane."

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Live from Graceland

Well, our road trip has had highs and lows so far. Visiting Graceland was pretty great, though. Sarah and I were actually surprised by the very human scale of the mansion. In these days of McMansions and giant SUV's, the word we kept finding for this version of conspicuous consumption was "quaint." We had always thought of it of course as a monument to American commercialism, but it really seems more like a museum to the commercialism of a bygone, simpler time.

Anyway, we told Jamie all about Elvis and he had a lot of questions. We said we were going to visit Elvis's house and Jamie asked if Elvis was home. No, we said, he was not. "Where is Elvis?" he then logically inquired. "Well, Jamie, nobody really knows," we replied. Then as we were in the parking lot of Graceland he said, "Did Elvis go down the drain?" "In one sense, yes," I answered, "though not in the way you mean." Finally, he got to the end game and asked if Elvis was dead. I took a middle road and said probably but nobody was really sure. The best part, however, came as we entered the mansion. He took one look at the living room, to the right as you enter, and said "Where are all Elvis's toys?"

He approached the house for the rest of the tour in much the same way he does everywhere we go: he took his new matchbox car (bought at the Elvis Car Museum, which we all quite liked) and got down on the ground to watch how it rolled on various surfaces. For future reference, shag carpet is not optimal.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Future plans, pt. 2

Well, when I mentioned Jamie's desire to own a purple Audi when he turned 16, I worried that he might not understand the realities of academic pay scales. It seems, however, that he's got a better grasp of the issue than I realized.

He and Sarah were talking about cars and how Jamie wanted one, but that they cost a lot of money. "It's okay," he said, "I'll get a job so I can buy a car Mom." This, as Sarah says, appealed to her Yankee sensibilities, so she asked what kind of job. "Work," he answered. She asked what kind of work and he said, "You know, pre-school work." Duh.

Applause, applause

Young Connor is mastering new skills every day it seems. Having gotten waving down (he'll wave to us now, too), he has moved on to clapping. It's funny to see the baby brain in motion. We will say "Yay!" and clap. He will look at us with great interest and then a smile breaks out as he realizes he knows what to do. From there one sees the following, happening at about the same speed as it will take you to read this: brain registers action in others; brain realizes it can act; brain sends message to hands; hands clap; brain registers pleasure at this shared experience; face smiles; brain is surprised to see hands moving; eyes gaze at hands in wonder.

Out of all of this, however, has also come his first word: "Yay!" He has realized he can start this fun cycle himself and we will respond. Now a wide variety of things elicit a "Yay!" and some clapping: Mommy entering the room; Jamie riding his truck around the room; Cheerios being placed in front of him; peeing on himself on the changing table. Such are the joys of the 10 month old.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Odes to Mommy, drawn and spoken

Jamie was an enthusiastic participant in Mother's Day this year. He made two cards, one of which featured his first, as far as I know, drawing of the human figure. This was a portrait, from memory, of his mom. She had a brown body and a blue head topped with a shock of orange hair. One couldn't help but notice that the features were distinctly pig-like, so I think he needs to work a little on observation but it was a fine first try. He is working on writing his name, and his 2/5ths of the way there, signing his drawings with a confident JA.

He also came home on the Thursday before Mother's Day beside himself with excitement to recite a poem to Mom he had learned at school:

Roses are red,
Violins are blue.
Sugar is sweet and so are you.

Of milestones and public transportation

Apologies to loyal readers of Jamie and Connor news. As often, Connor's new skill, crawling, affected his sleeping for a little while so we've been a little exhausted with that.

But Connor's latest milestone was waving, something we have been working on for quite sometime. It has actually happened only once, last week when Sarah took the boys on the light rail train downtown to go up in Houston's tallest skyscraper. Jamie was non-plussed about the skyscraper, but the train, as always, was a thrill as was the fountain outside the building. Anyway, Connor, who is quite the flirt, was getting along very well with a very nice homeless man on the train. When the man waved Connor happily waved back. Won't do it for us, of course.

Monday, April 30, 2007

Forward motion

I am happy to update that Connor has indeed crawled: we witnessed the event Sunday morning. There have been a couple of times over the past few days where he seemed to have moved further than usual while we were distracted watching Jamie ping-pong around the room. But then we actually saw him crawl forward a couple of feet. I think here, as in so many cases, motivation was key.

Connor has a fuzzy blanket with which he likes to sleep. It is a small, square, giraffe-print plush blanket with a giraffe head and it can be rubbed vigourously along Connor's cheek to encourage him to sleep. We call this his "woobie," a reference to the movie Mr. Mom. Jamie, of course, has his beloved "orange woobie," a random orange T-shirt, which is very, very, very dear to him and Connor now has his giraffe woobie and he is very attached to it indeed. So anyway, it was in a quest for giraffe woobie that Connor finally worked out the mechanics of crawling. Actually, though, what he does now is move forward to a point where he thinks he is in range and then flops on his belly and reaches for the desired object. In this first case, however, he miscalculated slightly and when he flopped, the woobie remained about an 1/8th of an inch away from his little fingers. Good to be able to crawl, but good also to have people to help you out sometimes.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

At a crawl

Connor's fascination with, and desire for, Jamie's toys, especially the cars, grows every day. This has led him to make real strides, as it were, with his mobility. He tends to sort of lunge forward and then somehow locomote himself on the floor towards things. He also seems to have developed those baby extend-o arms that reach things you think they never could. It's actually quite funny to see him placed in front of a basket of Jamie's cars because he looks so thoughtful and mature as he picks through them looking for just the one he wants. Then he sticks it in his mouth, of course.

What he has not learned to do, however, is crawl. About this we are conflicted. On the one hand, of course, we look forward to this important milestone. On the other hand we are aware things are a lot easier now that he can only move within a relatively small radius, and he shows every sign of being very nosy and inclined to get into everything he can once he can get further afield. As of now his attempts at crawling have produced only frustration and despair. He gets himself on hands and knees, with his arms locked, but then his hands start moving backward instead of forward and there doesn't seem to much he can do to stop them. Poor little guy just looks at his hands as if they were totally independent beings who refused to obey his will (pretty close to the truth) and then starts crying. I have to confess that this can be rather a funny sight, as much as we feel for him and rush to his aid. We comfort him, and ourselves, by telling him, borrowing a phrase from Sarah's younger sister, that we're not laughing at him, we're laughing near him.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Don't get too mushy

We had put Jamie to bed tonight and a few minutes passed before he emerged, as inevitably he does, with a request (a demand, really). Having met his needs, which in this case were too mundane to even relate, I gave him a kiss and told him I loved him. He said he loved me too, and then began a game we play where he says "you're not going to give me lots of kisses," prompting me, of course, to do exactly that. He said he liked getting lots of kisses from me so I gave him more. Then he said, "Okay, Dad, now let me sleep."

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Future plans

There is a supermarket to which we often take the boys that has special carts with side-by-side elevated, front-facing child seats with steering wheels. These we call "race carts" of course. Now readers of this blog will already be aware of Jamie's preoccupation with wheeled vehicles, and young Connor seems to be going down the same road as it were. The boys sit up there steering happily as I bang into things (the cart is about half as long again as a regular one). I don't see them from the front too much but judging by the faces coming towards us they must look awfully cute.

This no doubt was what led Jamie to proclaim in the car yesterday that when he was bigger he would have real race car and it would have two steering wheels, one for him and one for Connor. Another future automotive plan emerges when asked what he'd like to receive on his 16th birthday. One will always receive the same answer: "A purple Audi" (see Suzanne's comment on the first blog!). I'm afraid Jamie doesn't understand about academic salaries.

Connor does an endo

Little Connor is becoming increasingly ambitious with respect to interacting with the world, especially as relates to Jamie's toys. He can't quite crawl yet and has faced some obstacles in getting there. One big problem, literally, is that at presenthis head weighs about as much as the rest of his body, if not more. This makes going from a sitting position to a crawling one difficult, because as he leans over there seems to be some threshold at which point gravity takes over and pulls his big head to the ground, which it hits with an audible thud (We make sure to keep him sitting on the rug). For a pretty good idea of what this looks like, refer to the scene in The Godfather, Part II, where they put baby Sonny on the stolen rug and over he goes.

This maneuver we've come to call an "endo" after the mountain biking term for going over the handlebars of the bike. It has become something of a spectator sport for Jamie who, when we may be a few feet away in the kitchen, enjoys proclaiming loudly "Conno' did a endooohh!" Sweet Connor is so mild-tempered, he usually doesn't even cry. One comes over to find him with one cheek mushed to the floor and his arms stuck under him, quietly looking around with the one eye that's pointed upward for somebody to come pick him up.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Hola!

Jamie speaks almost completely non-stop at this point. He also frequently seems not to hear anything we say (e.g. Jamie, please don't dump that water on the floor!). We are actually quite used to this for the most part, but the other day, particularly frustrated with this state of affairs, Sarah began speaking to him in French. This had absolutely no discernible effect on the boy, lending credence to the notion that, in fact, he really isn't listening, or just doesn't care what we say. Not long after, when Jamie again ignored a direct request from Sarah she said, a little desperately, "Maybe you really do speak another language!" He turned, smiled, and said with real gusto, "HOLA!!!"

Shades of lucky

On the way home from pre-school the other day, Jamie abruptly announced that a little girl in his class has two mommies. Sensing an opportunity to encourage open-mindedness and to emphasize the beauty of all kinds of families, Sarah said, "Well, isn't she lucky to have two mommies." Jamie agreed and said, in fact, "I'm not lucky, I only have one mommy." It was pointed out that he had a very good mommy indeed, and a daddy, and that that was pretty lucky. He was willing to concede the point but only so far: "I'm a little lucky," he said. "Not lotsa."

Monday, April 2, 2007

Interviewing the sitter

One night fairly recently, we had a sitter over for the first time in a while. Not, of course, that we were going anywhere together, since it is scarcely to hoped for that we might leave the house together after 7 PM, but we both had engagements that had to be kept.

Since Jamie is a little high maintenance as regards the bedtime routine (I'm putting it gently)and we weren't going to be late coming home, we figured we'd put Connor to bed and let Jamie and the sitter, Jen, watch the Cars movie until we got back. This, to be quite clear, is Citizen Kane, The Godfather and Star Wars all rolled into one for Jamie and can be watched over and over. We told him that we were bringing a friend over to watch the movie with him and that he would need to tell her all about it. So by the time she came, he was very excited about this viewing and his responsibility. When Jen got upstairs however, Jamie looked at her and then looked behind her and all around and said "Where's the little girl?" Must remember "friend" for Jamie usually signifies someone about 3 feet high.

Anyway, he began breathlessly filling Jen in on every detail of the movie, explaining the various characters, their personal histories, motivations and various intertwining plot strands. Literally mid-breath, however, he stopped and asked: "Jen, if I do a poopy, do you know how to clean my bottom?" Our James, you see, has recently mastered the potty, and so takes the matter very seriously.

Bad manners/Good presents

The background to this story is that Jamie loves toy cars. That understates it really.

We've been working on manners a lot lately with Jamie, with mixed success, albeit, but he has shown an interest. So we were riding home in the car one evening and Jamie wanted to talk about manners. Bad manners, actually, which turn out to be far more interesting than good manners. After bringing up a seemingly endless number of situations in which good or bad manners might be exercised, we asked him about presents. We agreed it was polite to say "thank you" when receiving a present, but asked him what he might do if he received a present he didn't really like, a piece of clothing perhaps. He replied matter of factly: "I would tell them they should put a car in there. Then I would like it."