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."