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.

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.

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.