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)

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.

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.

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.

'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.

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...