The battle between good and evil

Jamie has responded at some kind of core level to Star Wars, and it seems clear that it is so because he is fascinated with the idea of some elemental engagement between the forces of good and bad. While he is very certain that Yoda is his favorite Star War and has the appropriate level of interest in Luke Skywalker, he is also very curious about Dark Vader, as he calls him (this rather appropriate malapropism reminds me of his previous use of "shark teeth" for all sharp teeth). He has all kinds of questions about why Dark Vader was good and is now bad, but he seems very understanding of the idea that it was a bad decision that Dark Vader made, rather than some inherent evil. There's room for forgiveness here. He asked Santa Claus to bring me a red light saver (also an appropriate slip!) for Christmas, so we can now stage the battle ourselves. It is reassuring to me that Jamie is very definite that the light side must always win, even if that means experiencing defeat dozens of times a day.

It can be a bit exhausting at times, however, because he wants to apply this to all things. He has come to understand that I like sports and that I often root for one team or another. He now asks which one by demanding to know, "which is the bad team?" Given that the Costello family views North Carolina/Duke basketball games in very much the terms of the title of this post, this is rather perceptive, but I'm trying to make him understand that there are times when the fate of civilization is not at stake in a sporting event.

A pair of jokers

As noted previously in this space Jamie seems to see his role at dinner as providing entertainment while everybody else eats. Connor mostly likes to enjoy the show, but lately he has been getting very jokey himself and the two of them just crack each other, often with the very same joke repeated endlessly.

There is a girl at Connor's school with whom he is great friends named Amelie. One day he came home calling Sarah "Mom-elie" and Jamie "Jam-elie" and oh, how he laughed at that. Then yesterday I took him downstairs to get him ready for bed and said, "OK Connor time for pajamas." "No!" he said "Time for VA-jamas!!!" And then he laughed and said "I joking DADA!!!!" Crazy times.

Jamie has also discovered the knock-knock joke. His delivery needs a little work though. In the first place, upon hearing this, Connor started saying "Ding-dong" and now Jamie's picked it up, so he says, "Ding-dong!" "Who's there?" we dutifully provide.
-"Orange," says he.
-"Orange who?"
-"Banana"
-"Banana who?"
-"Orange you glad I didn't say orange?"

Or sometimes he just keeps saying banana.

The fascination continues

Jamie has been into castles and knights for some time. He views knights as a sort of early super hero and the whole pageantry business seems to fascinate him. Also, swords are like light-savers, as he calls the weapon from Star Wars, so they must be cool.

He had been asking for sometime for Santa to bring him a castle, which Santa duly did, though not the accompanying 2-headed dragon. So this morning he got up and started playing with his castle and had some questions. This was further prompted by having heard "American Pie" in the car yesterday. He was very interested by the references to the King and the Jester, so he wants to know what the knights do, the jester etc. Sarah did some explaining and then he asked, "Are there really knights?" (He does a lot of this these days trying to figure out what's real and imaginary.)And then he asked, "Are there really knights in the castle of New Jersey?" Now Sarah was confused. She tried to gently suggest that she wasn't sure that there was a castle of New Jersey, but he vehemently protested, "No, Mom, Connor and Dad and I all saw it." Soon she realized he was talking about the Medieval Times restaurant in Lyndhurst which we drove by. New Jersey truly is a magical place!

Winter wonderland

Yes, we have very little of real winter to experience here in Tejas. Usually "winter" means temperatures in the 40s and everybody rushes to the mall to buy a sweater since they packed away the one from last year in March. When Sarah and I visited Ft. Worth the February after Jamie was born it snowed the night we got there and it was cold the whole weekend so the snow stuck. In our minds now Ft. Worth, since we've never been back, is like Canada. But we had never seen it snow in Houston until...The Blizzard of 08!!!!!!!!!! OK, that's overstating it, but after threatening all day, it snowed for about 3 hours tonight. We had been telling Jamie all day that it might, and we were beginning to despair of it happening while the boys were still up, but about an hour before bed it started. We rushed to put warm clothes on in the fear that it would stop before we could get outside.

But it just started snowing harder. The boys were immediately screaming with delight and I can't say that Sarah and I were much less excited. We walked to get the mail and around the block and Jamie squealed with with delight and announced every flake that went into his eye, nose, ears and mouth. Connor proclaimed "'now AWESOME"!

And then almost immediately said "Want go home!" Seems he was cold. We offered Jamie to stay outside and play some more and he said, "No that's OK. My hands are freezing! I want to go in too." Ah, these boys are just not conditioned to the cold.

Different kid, different sleep issue

Many of you have heard of our struggles with Jamie's sleep issues as a two-year old. He started climbing out of his crib at about 20 months and the fight was on. It only ended about a year ago when he finally agreed to the big boy bed. Connor, on the other hand, still sleeps happily in his crib. With Jamie, once we put him in his room to go to sleep we wouldn't go back in there unless it was absolutely, impossibly unavoidable, because if we did and he saw us, it might be hours before we could leave. With Connor on the other hand, we can put him in there, forget something, go back in, tell him good night again and leave with no problem. It was also not until Jamie was almost 4 that we could put a blanket on him at night, whereas Connor happily "nuggles" (as he says) up under a blanket.

Interestingly, though, lately Connor has been taking a very long time to go to sleep. We didn't realize until one night I went in there an hour and half after he'd gone down and was shocked to see him staring up at me. "Go to sleep Connor" I said. "OK," he whispered and rolled over. While Jamie, no longer getting a rest time at school tends to drop off like a log now, it is common to find Connor composedly looking through a book in the dim light well after we've said goodnight.

Silent treatment

Connor, though agreeable and of a very sunny disposition, is also a very forceful, even stubborn little creature, though in different ways from Jamie. Disciplining him has proved interesting. As he turned two, he clearly had the idea that if he didn't like what we were saying he could just not listen. Inevitably, this led to conflict. Sarah instituted the "naughty step", to which we would send him for not listening. At first, this OUTRAGED him. He would just scream at the first mention of this sentence being imposed and the whole time he was relegated there. But soon, for whatever reason, he came to like the naughty step. It may have started when he started trying to send Jamie there. Jamie was not amused, you can imagine. But now he will gleefully disobey us and march off saying "I go Naughy step!" We're working on some alternate methods.

What's funny, though, is that Connor's method of having a temper tantrum is in essence to go silent and pretend that the rest of us don't exist. He drops his head a makes a kind of poopy-face and stares off into the distance. It's a real miscalculation on his part because a) it's fairly cute and we enjoy seeing the face and b)after Jamie's drag-out screaming tantrums, it's really quite easy to wait Connor out. Sometimes we actually forget he's staging a protest at all and go about our business. Eventually, he will come out of it at the offer of putting cars down a ramp.

Ho ho ho

Here are actual letters to Santa, as dictated to Mommy, who also offered a little help in polite forms of greeting such as "Dear Santa," rather than beginning with "I want":

Dear Santa,
My name is Jamie. I was good and I helped my mommy and daddy and I didn't wake my mommy and daddy up at night like I did yesterday and they were so tired and grumpy.

Please bring me a blaster, but mommy and daddy say no. Please bring me a castle. Can I please have a castle with some guys. I want some books from school like sharkpedia and superfriends and star wars. Can my daddy have a red light saber?

Love, Jamie
oh, and a batcave
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Santa,
I want Santa bring cheese. And a car.

Love,
Connor

Parental warnings

Like many parents of children Jamie's age, I assume, we struggle with his entertainment choices. His fascination with superheoes is so genuine and enthusiastic that we enjoy watching him get excited about new programs and discoveries. But, of course, we worry about what is appropriate for him. One thing that has impressed us ever since he has gotten into superheroes, however, has been his ability to understand the make-believe quality of it, so he is often non-plussed but things that we might think are scary. Sometimes we're a little sad I guess that he is already such a big boy, but recently we had proof that he is very much still our sensitive little Jamie.

On a chilly Saturday afternoon, Sarah and the boys found the Christopher Reeves Superman on TV. Jamie had never seen it and Sarah figured, here's a superhero show where there's not too much scary stuff to worry about. As the movie started, Jamie had lots of questions about why Superman's planet was getting to close to the sun and various details. But then as Superman's parents were sending him away and he realized they were going to die his questions became much more anxious until he proclaimed to Sarah, "Now I'm crying Mommy!" and then proceeded to do just that. She was pretty happy to console him and tell him no one would ever take him away from us.

The joys of travel

For some time now Jamie has been an excellent traveller. He has been clamouring lately for a plane ride, so while the reason for our recent trip up north was very sad, he was looking forward to the flight. Jamie is generally thrilled by transportation, so the fact that we get to ride the polka dot parking shuttle bus as well as go up in the airplane is great. Also, being on the plane, he has quickly come to understand, tends to mean that the normal rules regarding show watching and treat limits are considerably relaxed, if not altogether waived. But beyond this, his ability to find interesing things in almost any circumstances makes him a traveller of very good cheer and adaptability, and he is often complemented by other passengers. He is also very into helping with the luggage, which, to be honest, can actually make a real difference at this stage, as he goes from someone to be carried, to someone who can carry.

On this last trip, however, he did get a sense of some of the downside of travel. First, as we rode in the back of the polka dot bus early Friday morning and got bounced around he complained of a headache. He was pretty cranky as we got into airport and stood in line to check-in. We thought this was just tiredness and Sarah prepared a dose of the magic herbal rescue remedy that we have used for calming effect with some success in the past. In a sense it worked. It seems to have been the final straw for Jamie to throw-up from lingering car-sickness, which he did on the floor and my shoes. Once we cleaned it up though he felt much better.

On the way back, with just Jamie and I, we were comfortably seated playing with some new dinosaurs I'd gotten him for the trip when the plane encountered some fairly intense turbulence. This went on for much of the flight and for the first time Jamie was a little afraid. He handled it very well, though. When it would start to get a little bouncy he would immediately put away his dinosaurs, "so they don't get hurt." I think it was his way of sort of reassuring himself that he, put away in his seatbelt was safe too, and a way of controlling a situation, which clearly was beyond our control. I realized very soon that my constant reassurances to Jamie may have been doing much the same for me, as well as the person sitting next to us for that matter.

For his part, Connor slept for much of the trip back with Sarah yesterday. When they landed he picked up his head and exlaimed "Yook Mommy! We're on EARTH!!!!"

A little New York?

We are frequently amazed that we are raising two native Texans. I picture them going off to college and being nicknamed "Tex" immediately. That's cute, but not quite what we expected in life.

But there are some signs that there is a little New Yorker in Jamie yet. First of all, as we were driving from Newark airport to our hotel in Rutherford this weekend, he said, "New Jersey is beautiful! I love it! I want to live here!"

The notion that he has a certain fondness for the Tri-State area (just think what he would make of Yonkers!) was reinforced this morning. There is one store in town that makes what could legitimately be called a bagel. It has a certain authenticity, from the no-nonsense/cleaniness decor to the surly staff to the joyous fact that they make salt bagels. Jamie, to my great pride, tried one today and absolutely loved it. He nibbled away the outside of the entire bagel leaving only an irregular area from the middle without one single grain of salt left. Next, I'll try to get him some whitefish salad to put on there and we'll really know.

Say what?

Jamie has an impressive vocabulary, there is no question. His ability to mobilize terms like "pyroclastic flow" at appropriate moments is great, though it is matched by an anarchic drive to speak in nonsense, a language in which he is fluent. Sometimes we confuse the two categories. He came home the other day talking about a "sensorial decanomial." We had no idea what this referred to until we got these pictures from his teacher, in which he is working on the sensorial decanomial at school. Gotta love Montessori.

Awwwww....

Jamie and Connor have sort of been at each other's throats lately, fighting about seemingly everything, especially toys, since each one seems to decide that he only wants to play with the toy that the other one has at the moment. There are some moments of detente and mutual play occasionally, and even affection. One such moment occurred at bedtime recently.

Now to set the stage, one must be aware that although Jamie is very demonstrative with his friends, often greeting them with big bear hugs, his expressions of affection with Connor are perfunctory at best. For his part Connor's idea of hugging and kissing tends to be simply leaning forward and proffering a cheek or his shoulders to receive attention. But he has been very into the phrase "I love you" lately. He says this particularly when we put him to bed now. Sometimes after we close the door we can still hear him in there saying it for a couple of minutes. He really understand the sentiment, too. Sarah recently came to give him a quick kiss while he was eating and he responded to the kiss with "I love you too!" Very cute.

So on the night in question we told them as usual to give each other a hug. Jamie put his arms around Connor and seems to have realized how nice it is to hug Connor. So, suddenly he's giving Connor another big hug. Connor of course responded with a big, heartfelt, "I LOVE YOU JAMIE!!!!"

Gooaallll!!!!!

Yes, our experience of youth sports has begun, albeit in very gentle fashion. For a few weeks, while it was still hot (Texans only do outdoor activities when it is painfully hot), we participated in the primary soccer program at St. Catherine's. Jamie tended to claim that he didn't to go at first, but was then pretty enthusiastic once he was there. It was fun for us because he's talking to all kinds of kids, they are saying hi to him, he's joking with them, thus providing evidence that he has lots of friends at school even though he will report none of this.

Jamie's a little more coordinated with his hands than his feet at this point, but he gave it a good try. Some kind of turning point came when I started helping out by reffing/coaching his game every week. He was tickled by this and waited for the first moment when I knelt down to tie somebody's shoes (a major part of my role here) and took a running start and jumped on my back. This is one of his favorite ways to show affection to me and he seemed to feel after that he had a real stake in things.

So me and two teams of 4 4-5 year-olds. Interesting. It started out with Jamie, inexplicably, biting my shirt (another sign of affection, I guess). The other players were pleased by this and came forward to do the same. So I put a stop to that, saying "No biting the coach's shirt," which they all thought quite funny. But then a young boy named Will came towards me. I stopped him, but he said, "I'm not biting, I'm going to hug you," which he did. So I said, "Hugging the coach is OK," and we did that for a bit. Then we started to play. This goes about the way you can imagine, a great scrum, out of which eventually emerges a ball and one running child. The others follow. Often this is towards the goal but sometimes they simply shoot off the side of the field and keep going until stopped. Coaching involved some measure of the futile effort to get them to pass the ball but also a lot of consoling, for kids who received a variety of injuries, and some negotiating of feelings. One boy stopped playing, and made everyone stop, because he felt a girl had laughed after he was struck in the stomach with a glancing blow from the ball. So I had to bring them together and effect a conciliation. I also had to encourage some kids to try and put the ball in the goal rather than themselves.

Jamie generally did well. The first few weeks he tended to simply trail after the ball and he was not fast enough to catch the slightly older kids so got a little lost. But by the last week he started to get the idea of going where the ball/person is headed and that was good. He was also on a very weak team and actually seemed frustrated with the fact that the other three players tended to wander off to inspect pieces of mulch. Then he scored a goal and that was exciting. I have to admit that I sort of used my power to rig it for him. We did a free kick from near the goal line. I positioned him directly in front of the goal and without encouraging the defense to pay much attention, I told his teammate to pass it to him. But to be fair, he took advantage of the opportunity and kicked it on the roll and buried the ball in the net, some 2 feet away. He seemed highly pleased by this. Final score 8-1 other team, but that was the last goal of the season, so this will give the fans something to think about over the winter.

Using the lingo

Jamie is very sensitive to the meaning and usage of words and phrases. He asks what words mean all the time and is very quick to use them in context. Sometimes this results in very adult-sounding comments, many of which begin with "Actually..." or "In fact..."

Today, he used some of the lingo from the neighborhood. He and I were doing some work in the backyard and garden. Jamie was actually being fairly helpful, ferrying plants for me, watering and digging some holes. We talked about how happy Mommy would be to come and see the work we had done and he said "Yeah! 'Cause that's how WE roll!"

Maverick parents

Jamie and Connor have both been pretty politically aware, relatively speaking, this election season. Jamie was very excited to go vote with Mommy and happily proclaimed, "I'm voting for Obaaaaama!" Sarah told him she wanted him to remember this because it was a historic occasion. He said, "Oh I didn't know that. OK, I'll try to remember!"

Today coming home from school, he suddenly busted out with the question: "Dad, why lately you and Mommy have been saying the word 'mavericky' a lot?" To be honest I was a little too stunned to even answer at first, but I tried to explain it as mildly as possible. Then he said, "I just wouldn't like it if McCain won." He then mentioned a friend at school who was for McCain, so it was a good parenting opportunity to talk about diversity of opinion, blah blah. No, really I meant it of course.

We all watched part Obamercial the other night and Jamie asked alot about where Obama was and if was in Texas. No, we assured him Florida. Connor kept looking at the TV, saying, "That's Obama!"

What kind of party is this?

Connor is a very sensible young person and is becoming quite capable of expressing his fears, concerns and pleasures with the world. He has also been brought along into the world of dinosaurs by his brother who balances his alter egos between Batman and a baby Triceratops. In front of the Museum of Fine Arts which we often drive past is a large, playful sculpture of a red dinosaur in a cage. Connor delights in pointing it out and the boys take great pleasure in it every time we go by.

Now, last weekend featured the following: Friday evening, Fall Festival at Connor's school (which was very strange since they've outsourced it to some Christian group); Saturday: Soccer in the morning, a lunch birthday party and Jamie's school's Fall Festival (a decidedly left-wingy affair as usual, much more pleasing) and Sunday: zoo boo in the morning (pictures to follow) and 2 birthday parties in the afternoon. The culmination was the party at the Natural Science Museum, which Jamie calls the Dinosaur Museum, of course. Connor had napped through the first party so I waited at home with him for Sarah and Jamie to pick us up. When I informed him that we were going to the Dinosaur Museum he looked alarmed and said, "Dinosaurs...in CAAAGE??!!"

That time again

In this space last year I note that there was a gap in blogging around Halloween and birthday season and the same craziness has been in full effect this year. Halloween really is like Christmas for Jamie. What he mainly wants to do all the time anyway is wear his Batman costume, only being stopped by our despotic, tyrannical even, ideas of propriety. So a season in which he culturally sanctioned to wear it, and even rewarded with large amounts of candy is about as good as it gets. It was something of a saga finding the right costume. A cape is a crucial element. Sarah ordered a costume online and each day was filled with excitement to check the mail. But when it came it was too small. Then he ones at Target were too big so we ordered another online and eagerly waited again. But this one had those fake muscles and these upset Jamie intensely so there was great sorrow. But at last we settled on using the cape from the costume with his Batman pajamas and all was well.

A boy's home is his castle

Jamie had his first drop-off playdate at Will's recently. As I pulled up to the house and noticed the front door which is about 3 times as wide as ours, I sensed that Will's family was on the other side of the Obama tax plan from us.

They are lovely people and Will is an incredibly sweet boy. He and Jamie were off together in a flash hugging each other awkwardly and running off to play. Will has a castle bunk bed, with all sorts of secret corners and compartments, so Jamie was in heaven. Later, after Sarah picked him up Jamie was marvelling at all the nice things about Will's house. Well, Sarah said, what's really important in a house is that there is love and laughter in it. Yeah, Jamie, said and some kids don't even have a house, so we are really lucky. For a moment Sarah though this was a real breakthrough and perhaps it was. But Jamie's next comment was, "Mom, I want to live at Will's house!" Why can't a kid have it all?

Yukking it up at dinner

Jamie best friend at his new school is a very sweet young boy named Will. Today they had a play date at our house and of course much silliness ensued. Great fun was the Mommy, Daddy and Connor in jail game, wherein we were imprisoned inside a fort of furniture, encouraged to attempt to escape and then, inevitably, captured and reincarcerated. I begin to understand the feeling of being institutionalized.

Dinner was a typically raucous and hilarious affair, with Will eating his food quietly and politely while Jamie provided the entertainment. Connor was already in a silly mood when Jamie proclaimed he was going to tell a joke. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" he asked. A pause pregnant with anticipation followed as we all waited for the punchline. "To get some information on da compuuuter!" At this Connor threw his head back and burst into laughter. Will laughed, as did we all, and then proclaimed "That was a SUPER-funny joke." Jamie will be here all week.

Interesting. Very interesting...

Jamie has started reading some short words lately and doing some rather impressive math. He is clearly enjoying the new sense of power that his deductive reasoning is able to provide as well. He has started a game of looking for clues lately. A couple of days ago after school, he and Sarah went outside to search for clues. She brought some paper to keep track of them. Here is the list exactly as Jamie found the clues:
1. Penguin sticker
2. Doggie footprints - brown and white dog?
3. Tiny footprints - dinosaur?
4. Fire ant
5. Footprint on a leaf
6. Color of the concrete
7. The moon
8. Volcanic rocks "(dried lava)
9. Clinky metal thing
10. Smooshed orange crayon
11. Dog barking
12. Moon following us
13. Dog poop
14. 2 Black kitty-cats with green eyes
15. Lifted up concrete
16. T-Rex prints
17. Tile floor

What could it all mean???!

Paging Dr. Freud

Jamie's favorite game, as many of you may be aware, is "Heroes," or "Superheroes." It can be slightly challenging as an adult to participate, since it is not at all clear what the game actually consists of. I have, however, been given something of a niche, in that I am almost always the bad guy. Connor often gets to be Robin and Sarah can be Batgirl or Wonder Woman, but I guess you need an enemy to be a hero and that enemy is me. So in this role I have been punched, kicked, jumped on, tackled, bataranged, put into hot lava and repeatedly incarcerated.

These things, of course, I take for the most part to be standard parental treatment, but sometimes I suspect that there is some symbolic import to all of this. For instance, not too long ago Jamie asked Sarah, with me in the room, I might add, "Mom, when Dad is worn out will you marry someone else....like me?" Ouch.

A similar ambivalence was directed at another couple recently. We got power back a full week before Jamie's teacher and he came home one day, very sweetly and thoughtfully, saying that we ought to invite her over for dinner. We thought it was a great idea and we were very pleased when she and her husband accepted. When told Jamie that they were coming over the next night he looked blank and said "Husband? What husband? Leo?" No, we explained she had her own husband and they were both coming. He accepted this at the time but wouldn't really acknowledge the husband's existence after that.

It's a matter of time

Jamie has not really actively started lobbying for a pet, but we get the feeling that it will happen sooner or later. About six months ago, while we driving in the car (and thinking about this blog I realize how many things I relate that happen in the car-that's living in Houston for you!), Jamie busted out with the statement that he wanted to get a cat. We asked him to repeat himself, not sure we'd heard correctly and he said, "Yes, I want to get a girl kitty-cat and name it Sally." We had to admit that the idea gained immediate currency on cute points alone.

Little more has been said about Sally, but lately he has adopted some toy pets. There is, interestingly, a distinction between the stuffed cat and pig with which he sleeps and the would-be pets. Kitty cat and piggy stay in the bed but there have been two animals who've gotten to be companions during the day. First there was a small pink lizard, no more than an inch in length, whom Jamie dubbed, appealingly, "Splash," since Jamie liked to put him in water. Splash had a good run, but is just too small not get lost, and so hasn't been seen in a few weeks. Splash has been replaced by Snakey, who, being some 4 feet long, is a lot easier to keep track of. Actually, I should give his full name: "Snakey Poisonous." He likes to take Snakey everywhere, but we have to draw the line at bringing him into Connor's school and over to friends' houses. Snakey, you see, is really rather life-like, fangs and all, and it can be a little disconcerting to see him suddenly, for both children and adults.

I think, if it comes to it, we'll push for a cat over a real-life Snakey.

Mr. Bossy (sort of)

Yes, our little Connor can be quite demanding. As many of you know, he has always been rather less ambivalent about food than Jamie. As Connor's vocabulary has expanded, he has clearly sensed the opportunity to really get what he wants out of a meal. One day coming home from school with Sarah, she mentioned dinner and Connor began chanting, loudly, "I want chicken!!! I want sausage!!! I want oranges!!!" And the other morning, she asked him if he'd like an egg for breakfast. He nodded vigorously and then as Sarah turned her back to head for the kitchen he said, "Mommy, make TWO eggs!"

He can actually be very polite, though. Recently we had a friend over who asked him if he'd like something and he replied in his little baby voice, "Yes, ma'aaaam". Interestingly, he has sort of confused "Thank you" and "you're welcome", or, more accurately, simply decided to use the latter in all situations. So you bring him dinner and he looks up and cheerfully says "Welcome!" We understand he's saying thank you, but it does seem sometimes as though he thinks we should be thanking him for the privilege of serving him.

Tales of Ike, pt. 2

So, it took only one "special" night at home to convince us that we ought to get the heck out of Dodge. As unlikely as it may seem for a 4-year-old, Jamie has an old friend, Siler, with whom he has been tight since he was about 1 1/2. Siler recently moved to Corpus Christi and Jamie has been really missing him. When the storm looked like it was headed to Corpus, Siler was going to come here, but now that the tables had turned we decided to make the 3 1/2 trek to see them. Getting out of Houston wasn't too bad though we had to detour around closed highways. Most of the traffic lights were out (many still are and apparently will be until November) and this is a challenge given the odd mix of extreme timidity and aggression that characterizes Houston drivers.

Jamie, of course, began asking if we were in Corpus before we had gotten a mile from our house, so the drive was long. But once we got there we had a wonderful time, staying in a hotel with an indoor pool and open-bar Happy Hour. Siler's parents took wonderful care of us and Jamie and Siler were beside themselves with excitement.

The next day, Monday, we spent at the lovely aquarium in Corpus and at Siler's house, where the two of them resumed their silliness as if they had never been apart. Our leave-taking from them was really quite poignant. Jamie began crying at the first mention of leaving Siler and just went he'd gotten it back together a little we asked them to hug. Once Jamie's wee arms were around him, Siler broke into tears and looked up accusingly at Sarah and said, "Don't take him from me!!!!" Sweet boys.

We stayed that night in the hotel and then got up the next day and went provisioning for a return to Houston in which, as of then, one could not get water, ice or gas. Connor, of course, had managed to dirty all the clothes we had brought for him, so we also bought some new clothes and headed out. We stopped every 60 miles or so for gas, wanting to keep the tank clean. Sure enough, about 50 miles out from the city the gas stations were empty. We then found an open restaurant to feed the boys and headed back into town to spend a powerless night, which was actually perfectly endurable thanks to a miraculous cool, dry spell that lasted most of the week.

Tales of Ike, pt. 1

Well, loyal readers, it's been a long time since posts and much has happened. The big joy here is that we have electricity back. The boys seemed pretty much untraumatized by the storm. We put them to bed as normal that night and then as things started to get a little crazy around 11 we brought Connor downstairs, and there we all stayed for the night. Jamie woke up several times but thunder seems to scare him more than wind so, as unbelievably noisy at it was, he never seemed alarmed. Connor just slept through the whole thing.

The real story, however, started the next day. Our power had gone out at about midnight after several false starts. We got a tantalizing flicker of power at about 7, but then nothing. We all walked out to see a river on Calumet St., a pool in our backyard and a lake in the park next door. That day itself was fine, but the hurricane left muggy hot weather in its wake and the first night without air conditioning was hot hot hot. Jamie, for reasons unknown, INSISTED on sleeping under the covers despite complaining vociferously about the heat. Amazingly he did fall asleep, but when he woke up at 4:30 (more on that to follow) he was soaked in sweat, as if he'd been in the bath. Sarah and I slept not at all, her because she and Connor were being tormented by the mosquitoes, me because of the hot still air. The experience has scarred Connor, who has something of a complex about mosquitoes, whom he refers to as "e-bogs", as in "ladybugs." Unfortunate to lump the lovely, harmless ladybug in with the mosquito, that proof of the imperfection of the world, but there you have it.

Things got even better at about 4:30 when the alarm started going off. Seems as the battery ran out it put the system into some kind of panic mode. But because the power was out and the batteries were gone we couldn't turn it off. Even in the midst of the ear-splitting noise, which was soon joined by a chorus of screaming children, the irony of the fact that there was somehow power for the alarm to sound, but not for us to turn it off, was not lost on us. Eventually, however, it seems to have worn itself out and stopped. Sitting on the stairs in the aftermath of this, and in a surprisingly chipper mood, Jamie opined, "This is a SPECIAL night!" Special, indeed. We decided more or less on the spot to avoid more special nights and decamp to Corpus Christi. More on that to follow.

Friends

Connor has moved up to the 2-year-old room at his school and there are a number of kids there who have been together for a year now, exactly half of their little lives. Connor likes listing his friends. He seems especially intrigued by the twins, Ella and Grace. When he gets to them he holds up all four of his fingers with the index and middle finger tucked behind the ring and pinkie fingers (to signify 2, of course) and says "Two Ellas". The other kids in the class can tell them apart perfectly. Connor may be able to as well, but he seems far more interested in thinking of them as a unit.

New York New York

Well, I'm looking forward to going to the Big Apple this weekend, but I'm also feeling a little badly about it. Jamie has been getting more and more interested in the city for some time. This relates to a) a long-standing concern with the skyscraper and b) a very cute Curious George story in a book from his great aunt Thea, which includes a number of the landmarks. We've talked about the Chrysler building and the subway and the Guggenheim Museum, among other things.

But I was not prepared for hearing from Sarah how upset Jamie was to hear that I was going without him. She said when he heard he absolutely fell apart when she told him this. And he doesn;t even know that I'm seeing his cousin Eric AND going to a baseball game. I have promised him that we will go soon, but it's not soon enough. I'm buying him off with a light sabre (saver to him) when I get back.

Nothing but Star Wars...

An epochal event has taken place this weekend as Jamie has seen Star Wars for the first time. You may remember there was some discussion about it before Mommy went to France. He brought it up again the other day and asked if we could watch when he was 5. Sure, I said. There was then a brief pause and he said, "Can we watch it a little sooner? Like...today??!" So, I ordered it in Netflix and we've been watching it all weekend. Jamie really likes it. Tops are the "Light Savers" scenes and second are scenes with blasting, especially where "Luke almost falls in the cavern."

He asks all kinds of detailed questions, many of which are difficult to answer in any simple way, but most of them concern good guys, bad guys, and the details of Darth Vader. Because he heard of Star Wars at the same time as PowerRangers and Transformers, he thinks that the individual characters are each a Star War. He is, of course, very fond of R2D2 and also not clear about what it is that C3PO, whom he refers to as "R2D2's golden friend", does exactly. He is also curious about Chewbacca's role. At the end of the movie, when they are all walking down to get the medals Jamie asked of Chewie "Why is that dog-like Star War walking with them?"

Major promotion

I will blog more soon about some very positive behavioral developments with Jamie, but for now one very exciting development has been a real upswing in his treatment of Connor. They have been playing so much more together the past couple of weeks and it is now not at all uncommon to hear Jamie call out "C'mon Con, come with me!" Music to our ears, sweet music. Connor is of course thrilled with this and comes running, "I comin' Ja-jame, I comin'," he says.

There have been a number of other manifestations of this new affection, including Jamie calling Connor his "best friend" while Nonni was here last week. But the biggest, most unmistakable sign of Connor's new status is that he has FINALLY been named Robin to Jamie's Batman. Jamie had resisted this for a long time, and we had taken to calling Connor "Little Blond Sidekick." But now when we say this Jamie says, "No! He's Robin!!"

What a pair!

There's not a whole lot I could say that could compete with this picture from a recent trip to the aquarium. The boys are wearing the shirts Mommy brought back from France for them. They both like them a lot and ask to wear them. Connor will point to the drawer and say "ooof shirt?" Anyway, enjoy.

One step forward...

Connor has always been a talker. We never really did a lot of signing with Connor, as we did with Jamie, because he just seemed to gravitate immediately to verbal communication. These days, his language is increasing by leaps and bounds, but the more complex possibilities this opens up for him to tell us things, and for us to understand what's going on with him, the more challenges it presents and he comes up against the limits of his comprehension.

For example, he woke up this morning and announced to Sarah before he was even downstairs that he wanted a "waff-o" for breakfast, "not pan-CAKE". Very well, she said. So I took him downstairs, and as I was making the waffle, I asked him if he wanted jelly on the waffle. "No," he said, "Waff-o!!!" "Yes," I said, I'm making you a waffle. Do you want me to put jelly on it?" "No, no je-yee", came the answer. "OK, Connor, do you want me to put something else on it?" "No, put waff-o in mouth," (pointing to emphasize this, since Daddy is clearly stupid). So, sensing that the jelly question really wasn't being dealt with I put some on and he ate the whole thing.

Day two

OK, I promise I won't blog every day of Jamie's school life, but we want to remember all the details of these first couple of days and we have this cute picture of him being led off into school.

Jamie seems to have had a great day again. He was his usual silly self getting into the car, and I asked if it was "totally fun" and he said, "YES! Totally Totally fun!" I asked what he did and he said he sang zoo animal songs and played with toys. Then I asked if he'd played with any friends and he said "Yes, Jordan. No, Thomas. Thomas is a boy." I asked what they'd done and was a little off-put to hear: "We pretended to be dead." But later it came out that he and Thomas had raked the grass outside. I think the playing dead had something to do with the animals discussion, too.

One down

Yep, Jamie had his first day today at his new school. They are working on a gradual schedule, so this week he and the other new students are there from 8:15-10:15. He has been expressing a little nervousness about the new school and sadness about leaving his old school and friends, but on the whole has been pretty calm about the whole business. It's helped that a lot of his other friends from Pre-K are starting to leave to go to new schools as well. Plus he gets to go to the old school in the afternoon this week, so I think that has given him a comfort zone as well.

We were a bit nervous because at St. Catherine's does a curbside drop-off as one of the teachers or assistants walks all the kids from the car to the classroom and Jamie has always liked to have some lingering time for hugs as we get to the classroom. But he was non-plussed by the new system and was chatting away with his escort as we pulled off. And then, when we picked him up, we had a more or less best case scenario as he got in the car and said "That was TOTALLY fun!" Pretty proud of the little fellow.

We are not impressed

It seems there is a rash of people claiming they could swim faster than Michael Phelps, from pro baseball and football players to Cousin Finn. Well, add Jamie and Connor to the list. Given Jamie's immersion, as it were, in swimming of late, we turned on the Olympics during a swimming event to perhaps inspire and instruct him. When Sarah, remarked that the swimmers kicked really hard, Jamie said, "I kick harder than the E-lympics. I can swim faster." Connor then chimed in "I go fast!! I go fast!!!"

The Law Offices of Costello & Costello

Jamie, we think, has the makings of a fine litigator. He has an astonishingly long memory and, in cases where it serves his interests, his 4-year-old mind can be almost preternaturally logical. When, for instance, we are asking him to do certain tasks and offering a reward for doing them or a punishment for not doing them, he listens very carefully to the terms of the offer, often looking for loopholes. He is also very much inclined towards making deals. Dinner often becomes a site for negotiation: "If I eat 2 broccolis, 1 piece of chicken and all my avocado can I be done?" It can get very complex, but whatever deal has been struck he remembers it to the letter.

But one of his main skills is the search for precedents. He forces us to be very consistent in the application of rules, because id we have ever bent in the past he will remember it. This can sometimes be a little embarrassing. One thing Jamie likes to do is eat anywhere other than a table. A particular favorite is the couch. Seemingly food tastes better if it can be dropped behind the cushions or onto the rug. When Sarah told him recently to that we must always eat at the table because that is good manners, he quickly responded, "But Daddy ate breakfast on the couch yesterday!" Ouch.

By the book

It has always seemed to us a little bit like Connor got hold of a baby manual at some point and decided to follow it to the letter. As a baby, he would cry when he needed something and then stop when we gave it to him, just like the books say. Jamie, of course, would cry when he needed something, then cry when he got it, then cry some more afterwards, so this really never ceased to amaze us.

And the very day that he turned 2, Connor started acting exactly like a two-year-old. As his abilities and ambitions expand, he has gotten more and more impatient with not getting what he wants, and suddenly much more prone to have some really impressive tantrums. One thing he wants, of course, is to everything Jamie does. Most afternoons he stays home with one of us while Jamie goes off to swim lessons and this makes him so angry. The other day as Sarah and Jamie had gone downstairs to the car, Connor started to go down the stairs, after them, saying, not a little desperately, "I coming Mommy!! I coming Mommy!!" As he saw them go out the door, his face twisted into a mask of indignation. I was punished for this.

He has also expanded his emotional range in the expected ways. He has a greater capacity for understanding relationships, and has, not surprisingly, particularly latched onto the mother/baby dyad. All women are now Mommies and anytime he can pair something small and big, it is a mommy and baby. The other day at the park he found two rocks for instance, and said "Mommy rock." And then with exaggerated cuteness, and a cherubic smile, "Baaaabbbeee rock!"

Finally, he also seems to know that along with all of this 2-year-old-ness comes an accompanying set of expanded fears. He's gotten very touchy about loud noises and now knows the word "Scary" (comes out sort of "Saaiir-ee"). And just as when he says baby, he has a kind of exaggerated gesture to accompany this reaction, cupping his two hands under his chin and putting his fingers on his cheeks, while his brown furrows. This also often leads to a snuggly boy, which is very nice. Not that we like him being scared, mind you, but we're happy enough to enjoy the snuggles where we can get them.

Alert the media!

Well, Tropical Storm Edouard came through Houston. It was Jamie's second named storm and Connor's first. For a while it looked like it was going to hit Houston directly, and we were worried mainly about a prolonged power outage, but I have to say that the experience was actually quite pleasant. The storm jogged a little to the north and east of us so we weren't on the "dirty" side of it. What we got was a day of rather nice, steady, soaking rain of the kind that we rarely get in Houston, where it tends to not rain for weeks and then pour buckets and buckets down for an hour so everything floods.

The boys were home from school anyway so for the first part of the day we just cozied up inside and watched the rain. Except that we had to go out briefly because someone called and wanted to show the house. Then in the afternoon we went to the "Dinosaur Museum" (Museum of Natural Science) before heading to Jamie's swim lesson. Connor had a lot of fun with what he calls the "Waya-saurs", roaring away at the T-Rex. At some point we went through a section that had some displays in windy corridors and he would lose track of Jamie and I for maybe two minutes. When he saw us again, he would act like it had been AGES and say "HI DADDY!!!!" and come running up and give my leg a big hug. Very nice.

The funny thing was that earlier that day I had noted to Sarah that in anticipation of a big news day, the local media had fanned out all across the city (nothing gets them worked up down here like a storm-I think all the reporters think it's going to be their Anderson Cooper moment.) The best they could come up with were stories like people at the local Denny's who didn't have rain gear and had to walk 20 feet to their car. I'm not kidding: "Focus over there if you can, see... they're getting very wet!" GASP! So I said to Sarah that morning if we go out today there is a 1 in 2 chance we'll be interviewed. And sure enough the second time we went out we got approached by a reporter for the Houston Chronicle at the Museum. We didn't really have a lot to say, because there was NO STORY! Except that our boys are very cute.

I'm not bragging, babe, so don't put me down...

Really, I don't mean the following to come across as bragging about Jamie--though we are really very proud of him--more as reflections on how he has developed over the last couple of years.

Some of you have seen bits of this, but Jamie has really become a swimming star and we're not sure whether it's the cause or the effect, but it has coincided with a real period of opening up in terms of Jamie's personality. When we started him on lessons last year, he reacted at first with the sense of caution and reticence which we had come to expect from him. I don't think we worried about this, as such, but were sometimes concerned that it might inhibit his social growth in some ways, make certain things challenging for him. The breakthrough seemed to be when he managed to put his face under water. He was really proud of it, and it seemed to give him a real sense of confidence. Those of you who have been in a pool with Jamie since have seen demonstrations of this, especially the Bradys, whose pool is so often the site of them. And really, in the past year Jamie has become so much more outgoing and so fearless in a lot of ways that really impresses us. I think his lack of concern at being made fun of a little about his tricycle is one sign of this sense of self-control and confidence. We have always known that Jamie is a very sweet, sensitive little boy but this self-assuredness is really wonderful to see.

These reflections are prompted, in part, by his recent performance in an intensive two-week swimming class. The other kids in his class are 5 1/2, 7, 8 and 9 but Jamie is regularly among the most successful. One thing that was great was to see him scared to do new things the first day, but really soldier on and keep trying. He cried a bit the first day, but then the very next lesson suddenly he started to do the forward crawl entirely by himself in water is over his head. His teacher gives him a boost about 10 feet from the edge of the pool and then little Jamie just motors himself right over. It's quite a flurry of skinny arms and legs, but he gets there. He has some trouble with the coordination required for the backstroke and the breaststroke, but is completely game about trying it.

What's impressive is that he is so self-controlled. He swims with his head in the water, picks it up, breathes, looks for the edge, and when he's not there yet, he just puts his head back down and keeps going. The sight of his little face, beaming at us with pride as he picks his head up at the edge of the pool, is literally priceless. Nothing could match it. Nothing.

Bad parents

Well, as much as Megan was very congratulatory about Sarah getting the light-up Spiderman shoes, it seems we have dropped the ball on the bicycle. We have been plotting with Nonni and Diddy for some time to get a bicycle for Jamie for his 5th birthday. At school this week, however, they had bring your bike day and Jamie was the ONLY one with a tricycle still. Sarah has been losing sleep about it, fearing he would get teased. So we asked him how it went and he said two of his friends made fun of him about it.

But he seemed non-plussed. I asked what he told them and he said that he just told them "Don't make fun of me!" and rode off. I then asked if he told them that he was getting a super-hero bike for his birthday and he got a sort of sneaky, pleased expression on his face and said "No, I want it to be a secret."

Difficult concepts

Jamie is at an age where he has a good deal of information at hand, but not quite the conceptual ability to piece it all together in an understandable way. It makes conversations rather challenging sometimes. Here's an example: on the way home from swim lessons tonight I told him that his much-loved baby-sitter Merrill is coming tonight. This pleased him greatly and he began anxiously asking when she would be there. That is, asking if she would be there right when we got home. No, I said she'll be here in a little while. "How long?" he asked. "An hour and a half," I replied. "How much is that?" he asked.

Now, I was ready for the question and knew that I was required to supply a number of some kind. "90 minutes," I said, hoping that would settle it. But no, he pressed: "How long is that?" "I just told you I said." "No," he continued, already getting a little frustrated with me, "How long is that?" "Jamie," I said, "I don't know what else to tell you. She's coming in an hour and half and there are 60 minutes in an hour, so it's ninety minutes." Here the conversation threatened to veer into an Abbott and Costello routine. "NOOO!" he said, "I'm asking how LONG!!!" I stopped trying at this point and he spent the next minute or so mumbling in the backseat until proclaiming triumphantly: "I think an hour and a half is TWENTY!"

Making an impression

This doesn't concern the boys directly, but it seems close enough. Sarah recently went on a field trip, too, accompanying the class to the schnazzy new kid-friendly park in downtown Houston. In her group with Jamie was a certain young girl named Ravenne. Ravenne is one of the older kids in the class, and is a rather precocious young person with long curly brown hair and a distinctly fashion-forward sensibility. Well, Sarah introduced herself to Ravenne, who began giving her the fashion eye. "I like your shoes, Sarah" she said. "Thanks Ravenne," Sarah replied. "I like your shirt, Sarah," Ravenne next said. Then, "I like your bag, too." And finally looking Sarah in the eyes, after a pause, she said with some solemnity, "I like everything about you." Don't we all?

A quick note on Spiderman shoes

I chaperoned Jamie's field trip to the fire museum yesterday. I was responsible for Jamie and two other boys. Imagine my surprise, when I looked down to see that both of them also had not just Spiderman shoes, but light-up ones as well. So all three boys in the group had them, and interestingly, not one pair was exactly the same as another. Nice market, it seems. I said that I felt a little left out and that maybe I should get some, but no, they told me, that would be very silly.

Connor Costello, come on down!!!

Little Connor really enjoyed his birthday. He actually seemed to have grasped what was going on and would break into the biggest, goofiest grin of unallayed pleasure that I've ever seen anytime anyone sang happy birthday to him. In fact, he liked it so much he started singing "Happy Birthday to Connor" by himself at one point.

He also had a great time with the cake, as you can see. He tried to blow the candles out but didn't quite get the notion that one has to blow AT the candles for them to go out. Sarah made a wonderful homemade chocolate layer cake. Connor liked the cake, but really liked the raspberries with which it was adorned. He ate about half of them before I had to take the cake out of his sight.

The presents were also a real revelation to him. As Sarah observed, every time he saw a new present he looked rather like a contestant who's been called down on the "Price is Right"- a mixture of surprise, joy and deep materialist yearning for STUFF.

Who's the boss?

Yes, our dear Connor, who, as many of you know, is a very happy, easy-going spirit by and large, has been developing a definite bossy streak. This is mostly just a 2-year-old being a two-year-old, I think, but the contrast between his usual easy agreeability and this increasingly demanding streak is marked. Jamie has learned well to play on the former quality. When Jamie wants to watch another episode of Spiderman and we tell him it's Connor's turn to pick a show, he quickly asks, "Connor do you want to watch Spiderman?" Invariably Connor happily says, "Yeah, Mayer-man!" Too easy.

But as his desires increase, so too does his ability to inform us of how we should meet them. It started very sweetly at the Children's Museum. When he was done with one area, often just as one of us would find a comfortable place to sit, he would beckon with his fingers pointed downward, European style, and say "Mum-on! Read' to go!" Very cute. But lately at home when he wants us to come somewhere he says forcefully "'Tand up!! 'TAND UP!!!!!" and then tugs on us until we oblige.

Every so often he decides he wants something in particular and woe-unto-us if it can't happen. The other day we got a bunch of their toys out of storage, including a motorized Thomas the Tank Engine. Now, the trains we have had so far are those wooden ones that link together by magnets, so Connor is used to being able to pull the trains apart and reconfigure them at will. Well, this Thomas train has three cars and two of them do not detach. This made Connor utterly, hopelessly, inconsolably sad. And of course, angry at us, because CLEARLY it's all our fault.

Who is that unmasked man?

As I have noted, Jamie is fond of saying that his real name is Spiderman. Fittingly, he would like to wear his Spiderman costume everywhere he goes. We allow this when we can, but often we have to say no. Sometimes we let him wear the body part of the costume without the mask. We've explained to him, for instance, that wearing the mask to school might scare people because they wouldn't know who he was.

Jamie has been needing some new sneakers lately, so of course we've been thinking to try and find some Spiderman shoes. He added to this that he wanted light-up shows. Well, clever Mommy hit the jackpot and found light-up Spiderman sneakers (could it be that Jamie is not the only 4-year-old with this desire?). Jamie was very pleased and looked immediately forward to showing them off. Then he asked us, "Will people recognize me with these shoes on?"

He has a friend at school named Aiden Prusmack, who is big with the superhero stuff too. This morning Jamie declared, "I'm can't wait to show Prusmack these shoes!"

Loving the brother, pt. 2

Despite the usual conflicts, namely always wanting to play with the exact same toy, Jamie and Connor have been getting along pretty well lately. Connor idolizes Jamie of course, and Jamie, despite not letting Connor be a part of the superhero team, does seem at times very fond of his little brother.

At school last week they made collages by looking through pictures and finding things for which they were thankful. The results for Jamie were generally predictable: a pool, a car, a slice of pizza, race cars, a rocket ship. But there was also a rhinoceros
(can't explain that, but it's nice), and, a picture of a baby who looks surprisingly like Connor. Then, last weekend we had some friends over for a playdate and the mom, who has always rather adored Connor, jokingly said, "Oh, Connor I'm going to take you home." Jamie looked up in real alarm and yelled, "NOOOO!"

Loving the brother

A number of people, including ourselves, have wondered how Jamie would react to Connor's birthday, and the party, attention and presents that will accompany it. But we have been presently surprised so far. While there has been some sense of longing, Jamie is very clear that his birthday is November 7 and that is a few months off, and he seems genuinely happy for Connor. Today, Connor got a couple of cards in the mail and Jamie asked if he had gotten any. Sarah said no, and said that Connor would be getting a lot of cards and presents soon. Jamie said, "Because it's his birthday? Is he going to be 2?" Yes, Sarah said. Then as she was getting him out of the car he jumped up and gave Connor big hugs and kisses to congratulate him on the feat.

Then, tonight after he had been in bed for a few minutes, Jamie called up from downstairs. He knows that we will not mind coming down if he has a scary dream, but he's learned that we won't buy it if the "dream" comes 5 minutes after we put him down. So now he claims to have had scary thoughts, so we tell him to think of happy things. Tonight he said, "OK, I'll think about Connor's birthday party."

I suspect that Jamie also knows that whomever they are for, this is going to mean an influx of toys into the house that will benefit him. So it's not totally disinterested, but I do think he is genuinely happy for Connor.

Of superheroes and relativity

Jamie, to put it mildly, is into superheroes of all varieties. Spiderman is still the big one but Batman has an important role to play and Transformers and Ninja Turtles, too. There is quite a culture of playing superheroes on the playground of course, where he learned all of this. Yesterday I picked him up and he had been playing with his friend Austin, who is a little younger.

Jamie informed me that at school he was Batman and Austin was Robin, "Because I am big and Austin is small. But at home, Daddy is Batman and Jamie is Robin because Daddy is big and I am small." Connor, a natural fit for Robin, it would seem, is not quite eligible for participation.

A well-spoken almost 2 year-old

We have long marveled at Connor's ability to express himself verbally, or at least orally. He never really took to sign language like Jamie did as a baby, because very early on Connor seemed to be able to give voice to his feelings and needs. As he approaches two, we are still amazed at this. Connor does not like not knowing a word and is very curious about learning the names of the things in his world. While reading a book he will often point now and say "Was dat?" and the repeat the answer many times, until he gets it. Last night, after books, I put him in the crib and started to walk away and he sat up and said "Daddy, banky?" Seems he wanted me to tuck him in under his blanket, something Jamie NEVER let us do.

This was actually unusual in a way because more and more he also tends to speak in sentences rather than in 1 or 2 words utterances, which is very funny to hear. Connor really likes to roar and has been doing it a lot because Jamie has a little kids version of the The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, which we often read together. Connor just roars away at every picture of Aslan, but when Jamie did the same yesterday Connor, no doubt tired of Jamie's constant policing, said, "No, Ja-yee, don' roar!!" Jamie was a little taken aback.

He also walked up to Sarah with a plastic sword of Jamie's and tapped Sarah on the arm with it and said "Hit Mama!" and then had a good laugh. Sword people nicely we told him. He laughed again, a little maniacally.

I'm #2!!! I'm #2!!!

Many of you have asked, of course, about Sarah's reunion with the boys. Interestingly, while Connor seemed much more even keeled about the whole business, having got used to seeing the computerized version of Mommy, he was a little more ambivalent when she arrived. Jamie went running up to her and practically tackled her at the airport. Connor hung back a little and wanted me to hold him. He was a little shy around Sarah for the first 24 hours or so and would actually ask to come to me.

Very soon, however, the natural order of things was restored. We went to the Brady's today, revisiting the pool that was the site of great good times during Mommy's absence, with Connor clinging to me and then jumping from all sides of the pool into my arms. Today, however, he was sitting with her and when I asked him if he wanted to come jump to Daddy he looked at me like, "Are you crazy? Do I even know you?" Alas. Well, it was good being number one while it lasted.

Remind me again why we are doing this?

Connor is a wonderful mimic. His ability to recreate sounds on hearing has been noted before and continues to grow. He can recite entire books from memory now and can count to at least 13. He likes to do this before jumping, about which he is quite fearless. It makes things a little intense sometimes because he will starting counting and then sometimes at 3, sometimes 8, sometimes 13 will suddenly launch himself off whatever edge he is standing on.

Very much of this comes from watching Jamie, of course, and he will imitate any behavior, activity or language of Jamie's. What's funny is that it's clear a large portion of the time that he doesn't really know WHY they're doing it, but just that this is what they do. At dinner recently Jamie began playing a peek-a-boo game in which he chewed a hole out of a piece of cheese and peered through with one eye (never mind the table manners issue here for the moment). Connor was pleased by this so, he picked up a grape, stuck it in his eye and started saying "PEE-A-BOOOO!"

Then there is the exciting game "Heroes". This is a Jamie invention, of course, and starts with him wearing his Spiderman costume. I get to be the bad guy of course (Mommy gets to be Mary Jane - go figure), and it seems that bad guys in this house try to steal couch pillows. So I abscond with the pillows and Spiderman comes after me, first taking back the stolen goods then slinging webs and hauling me back to jail. Connor saw this once and then as soon as I started walking away with the pillows came running after me, chubby cheeks jiggling away, and grabbed a pillow and took it back to the couch. Batman has Robin and this Spiderman has Connor, whom we've started referring to as "Little Blond Sidekick."

I'd like to buy the world a...

As many of you have witnessed, Jamie, like so many of his kind and age, has an aversion to meals. He would much prefer to snack his way through the day. This involves in part his need to be in motion at all times, and in part, of course, the desire for snack-type food, crackers, cookies, sweets. In a word, junk.

Recently, he has discovered Doritos. I don't know where to be honest, because we didn't give him any. These are the preferred snack at the moment. I took him out of school for a morning this last week before Sarah's return and we went to the Children's Museum to have a little Jamie-Daddy time. It was great and discussing it afterwards Jamie said, "Dad I didn't have a good time, I had a FANTASTIC time." When pressed for details, however, he made it clear that his favorite thing was sitting in the cafe having Doritos and chocolate milk.

When we went to the airport to pick up Mommy on Saturday, he was promised a snack, and, predictably, went for the Doritos. He was being very good about sharing with Connor and I suppose the sense of excitement at seeing Mommy soon made him especially ebullient. When I complemented him on sharing nicely he said, "Dad, I wish there was a giant Dorito at the center of the earth and everyone could share!

Domani, domani, domani...

Well, as my time as single parent comes to an end, I find I can reflect a little on my job performance. Jamie seems to have been doing that too. Despite the fact that this weekend we went to: a birthday party Friday night, another one Saturday morning, went swimming at the Brady's Saturday afternoon, had dinner at his babysitter's house that night, went to the water fountains in the new park in Houston Sunday morning and over to a friend's house that afternoon, I am clearly wimping out. In response to repeated requests that we go to Galveston and the Children's Museum--for different reasons neither should be attempted solo--I have promised we'll do each when Mommy comes back. So when he asked me to do something else and I said the same thing, he sighed and said accusingly, "You always say 'when Mommy comes back.'"

One of the things that is difficult about this single parent stuff is that you never can quite predict where the challenges will arise. I suppose in part to counter such accusations, when Jamie said he wanted to eat at a restaurant today when I picked them up from school, I said, sure, why not. So we went to this Mexican restaurant that has toys outside that the boys can play with. I figure this will be a hit, I can sit in the shade and drink a beer, all will be great. Well, we get there, we order and head outside and Jamie starts playing, so all is well. The food comes and I am just about to start doling it out when Jamie announces he needs the potty. OK, so I pull Connor out of the high seat and off we go. Only in the bathroom do I remember that this restaurant has very aggressive birds that come and eat any food that is left unattended for even a moment. So we go back out and when we get to the door leading outside Jamie exclaims, "DAD!! There are birds all over our table!!!!" Joy. Fortunately, the boys' food was still in foil in the bag, but my burrito, which had been sitting there oh-so-tantalizingly waiting for me, was sullied. Happily, they took sympathy and made me another.

So we settled in for a bit, Jamie played some, ate some, Connor ate and drank lemonade, when Jamie has to go potty again. So this time I wrap all the food up, bring it inside, leave it there and go to the bathroom. Back out we come and are just getting settled again. Connor is waiting on the floor to be lifted in his seat when I knock my beer over and it spills on his arm. Lovely. Now we have what every mother probably fears will happen if she leaves the kid with Dad--her beautiful little boy stinks of beer.

We left pretty soon thereafter because I began to feel a little like the three other people in the restaurant were looking at me like I was nuts and high-tailed it home. Connor, I am glad to report, was bathed and does not smell like beer anymore.

Possession is 9/10ths?

We went to a birthday party this morning, and as often, there was a gift bag. Jamie is very into these and immediately looks in to assess the take. Upon seeing a matchbox car in his bag, he moved quickly to get into Connor's bag to compare cars and see which he preferred. Connor had a sort of pimped-out pickup truck which they both came to like. They were "sharing" it for a while but when we got home Connor saw it in Jamie's hand and started screaming for it, so Jamie had to settle for his own car. Connor took the truck up with him for a nap and was unwilling to relinquish it. When I came down Jamie asked "Did you get my truck back from Connor?" "No," I said, "and besides it's not your truck, it's Connor's." "No," he replied innocently, "it's mine. I took it out of his bag!"

Why is kitty cat in the trash?

I think now that we are back in Houston the reality of missing Mommy has been setting in, especially for poor Jamie. This emerged in a manner and with a strength that I think caught even Jamie rather by surprise.

It all started with a postcard Sarah sent that had a picture of a cat on the front. We got home after school and Jamie was feeling tired and a bit sulky about something, I can remember what. We came upstairs and as I attended to Connor's dinner, Jamie lay on the couch looking at the card. Suddenly he said, "I don't like this kitty cat." Why? I asked. "I don't know," he said. I turned back to Connor, seeing Jamie going towards the kitchen out of the corner of my eye. Next thing I know Jamie is bawling, and desperately saying, "Kitty cat is in the trash!!!!" Did you through kitty cat away, I asked? "Yes," he said, "and I don't know why!!!" So I fished the card out which made him feel a little better and then he said something about missing mommy. The penny dropped for me. "Did this card upset you because it made you think of missing mommy," I asked. At this point the poor little fellow sobbed "Yessss!! and absolutely collapsed in tears.

In the end, though, I think it made him feel better to be able to voice what he was feeling and no more ambivalence has been taken out on the kitty cat since.

Big plans

For some time now, Jamie has been very into the idea that Mommy is an archaeologist. Aside from the fact that whatever Mommy does must be wonderful, it has the great attraction of being a profession in which one digs in dirt. While in the car with Nana the other day, he began plotting a way to make the whole thing a little more lucrative: it seems that he and Mommy will be archaeologists and will dig lava, which they will then sell. Nana pressed a little for details of a marketing plan, but he seemed pretty convinced that everyone would need to buy some. Could be some new energy plan at work here.

He's still thinking about it, because today on the way to school he announced that he and Mommy would need an excavator and a dump truck. He informed me that I could bring the trucks to them. I'm very happy to know that I can still have a role in things as support staff!

The joys of travel

Some of you may remember that during our car trip to Yavont last year, Jamie suggested that next time we should take a plane. Well, on the way back from this year's trip up north, he discovered that even that has its perils.

I'll give you a brief overview of the way our trip back went:
3:00PM ET: leave Nonni and Diddy's house for scheduled 5:25 flight.
4:00: arrive BWI.
4:50: manage to make it through check-in line and security.
5:20: Airline announces "brief delay". First lollipops given to calm boys.
6:10: Board aircraft.
6:25: announcement made that we are grounded due to weather.
6:40: get off airplane, get dinner.
7:30: get back on airplane.
7:45: plane leaves gate and taxis to corner of runway to wait for storms. Jamie asks several times "Are we in the air yet?"
8:30 second set of lollipops adminstered.
9:30 thunderstorms finally pass. Jamie has been entertaining other passengers by loudly proclaiming every flash of lightning. Now he annouces,screaming with glee, "I saw a plane take-off!" There was general applause and glee since this indicated that planes were flying again. Connor plays peekaboo with anyone who will bite. I change 3rd diaper since we've been on the plane.
9:45 plane takes off! Boys get celebratory M&Ms.
10:00: Entertainment portion of the flight begins for the boys (I'd been saving the batteries in the portable DVD player).
10:30: Jamie falls asleep, Connor eats 3-hour old chicken nuggets.
11:00: Jamie wakes up.
11:05: Connor falls alseep.
11:45: DVD player runs out of batteries
11:50: Jamie "reads" new Spiderman comic for remainder of flight (see post below).
12:45AM ET: Plane lands, Connor wakes up.
1:00 AM: We arrive at Baggage claim.
1:15 AM ET: We are still waiting for bags. Airline announces our bags will come in 5 minutes. 3rd lollipops administered. Connor, having exclaimed "Yoyipoppp!" begins dancing in a circle on the floor while eating lollipop with one hand and putting his woobie in his ear with the other. Jamie is running back and forth across the floor, and climbing the walls while proclaiming that his real name is Spiderman.
1:35 AM: Bags begin to arrive, conveniently on 2 carousels, so I have to run back and forth between them.
1:50AM: All bags have been unloaded and Connor's carseat is declared lost.
2:05: With loaner carseat, we leave airport. Connor announces in the car: "Cha-cha off pane!!!"
2:30: we arrive at home. I tell Connor it's baby night-nights and he says "No!". I ignore him, he deals with it.
3:00: Jamie argues for 3 books instead of 1, we settle on 2.
3:30: I open a beer and consume it in two gulps.
3:32: I have no further memory after this point.

Fortunately no one sat next to us, so even though Connor didn't have a ticket, we had 3 seats and the boys were unbelievable troopers. There was very little complaining all things considered and neither cried once, though there were several incidents of whimpering (some of them mine!). Many people complimented them on how good they were. Jamie slept til 9 (Houston time) the next day and Connor 'til 10:30!

Mommy, can you hear me?

Many of you have asked how the boys are doing with Mommy so far away, and I must say that they have handled it really well. I can tell that they are missing her, but the slightly more fragile emotional state of Jamie, and by the fact that both are a little extra clingy. Jamie, after a number of sessions with the globe, understands that she is in France and that it's a long way away. Connor, too, seems to understand this at some level. One thing that has helped is that we have had the benefit of technology, using Skype videophone to talk most mornings. The boys love this of course. Whenever I go to the computer now Connor points and says "SEE MOMMA! SEE MOMMA!!"

It has caused a little confusion, though. Sarah also made a very sweet videotape of herself reading books to the boys. They love watching it of course, but sometimes they think it is Skype. In some places, Sarah addresses them specifically, and they answer and then ask her questions and are confused by the lack of response. Oh well, technology flummoxes us all at some point!

Comic-con in Houston

It would seem that we have a budding comic book fan on our hands in Jamie. For some time now, starting I guess with his interest in the scary dinosaurs in spite of his stated preference for the peaceful Triceratops, Jamie has been more able to handle more grown-up material. things have escalated quickly over the past month and a half or so. It started, by chance, with Jaime spotting a Yu-Gi-Oh book at the library. This is some manner of Japanimation series for younger kids, about duelling with monsters and spirits of some kind. Jamie was utterly utterly fascinated and it seemed to open an an sbsolute new world to his imagination. We read this short book over and over and Jamie treated it like a sort of foundational document. He memorized all the characters and the monsters, and referred to this little paperback simply as: "The Exciting Book."

The Exciting Book being almost intolerable for adults we managed to bring it back to the library where he found a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book, which was similarly wondrous. Then in Frederick, at the library there with Nonni, he hit the jackpot: Spiderman and Batman comic books. His excitement at these was beyond adorable. According to Nonni, he couldn't wait to get back and show me his discovery, which is in his words, "Awesome." He can sit with one of these for half and hour at a time totally absorbed while leafing through the pictures. Some of it, he tells us, is scary, but he's not scared he says. "It's not real-life, Dad, just pretend."

Butt(on)s, cont.

Perhaps predictably, the result of this talk of butts is that Jamie, who feels the proscription against potty words keenly, enjoys asking Connor, leadingly, "Conno, do you want to press some butts?" He smiles with great satisfaction as the agreeable Connor innocently replies, "Yeah!"

Connor's other big reply these days is, having been asked where his pacifier is, for instance, "Ummmmmm". Wonder where he's heard that?

Whose butt(on)s?

As many of you may know there is some child instinct which not only is fascinated by any electronic button at all, but also is interested only in those buttons that actually do something. Thus it is with Connor. He knows all the places in his life where buttons occur and will begin explaining "Butt!!! Butt!!! Butt!!" stopping only when he has been able to press them at least a little. The exception to this of course is the phone, which is the "Hi."

Not only will he not be bought off by old non-working cell phones or remote controls, but he also won't even accept a remote control that is working, but just not effective at the time (say a VCR remote when a DVD is on). He will begin crying, gesturing for the buttons that could be used to wreak havoc at that moment and say "My butts! MY BUTTS!!"

When things go well

Most of the entries in this space concern some of the more humorous or challenging experiences with the kids. It's worth, however, remembering that things do go pretty easily sometimes. Yesterday, before Sarah's plane, she took Jamie to the 3-D dinosaur IMAX movie. He seems to have enjoyed the movie, even though, predictably, he did not want to wear the glasses.

As Connor watched her and Jamie go out the door he began crying. I settled him down and began reading him a book and he sort of leaned over and let his head fall on my lap. Yawns and eye-rubbies immediately ensued. It was a little early for a nap I thought but then he had just eaten and gotten a new diaper. I suggested it to him and for once he said quietly, "Yeah." So we read a couple of books upstairs and he pointed to the crib and said "Buh-bee (baby) nigh-nigh!" So I plopped in the crib and that was the last that was heard of him for two hours. Sometimes, not too often, parenting is easy.

A bientot, Mommy!

Well, Sarah is off to Provence now. We took her to the airport yesterday and Jamie, who has been prepped for this for some time sort of lost it. Things lined up badly. He had woken up fairly early that morning and had not napped, as is his wont now. He was getting cranky to begin with and got into one of those moods where he is determined to be displeased. First, we suggested he wear his Spiderman sandals. Normally this is a slam dunk, but feeling contrary, Jamie decided he wanted his sneakers and had a tantrum. This turned into an extended fit over a variety of insignificant things. About 10 minutes before we got the airport he fell deeply asleep, of course, so much so in fact that he was snoring. This meant we had to wake him up to take him inside, which was not good.

So when it came time to say goodbye to Mommy, he was in a pretty fragile state and just started bawling. Connor was more or less non-plussed. I think Sarah's fellow passengers may have been a little impressed actually, at the intensity of the farewell, as we walked off with Jamie saying "MAMAAAAA!!!" between sobs.

Things actually settled down pretty quickly after that, though. The mood changed considerably when we had to pull of the airport road so Jamie could pee. A good outdoor pee always cheers him up.

Spiderman, Spiderman

Jamie has quite definitely settled upon Spiderman as his favorite superhero/alter ego. He has still not, of course, ever seen a Spiderman movie, TV show or comic book, but he knows what he likes. While I was in London, Sarah and he happened upon a Spiderman costume in a store. Jamie was shaking with excitement about it, but had to wait for a less exorbitant version from e-bay. He now wears his Spiderman outfit more or less all the time when we are at home. He has also taken to answering the question, "What's your name" by saying, "Jamie, but my real name is Spiderman!"

I guess because he's never seen the actual thing, and because he's 4, he is full of questions:

What does Spiderman do?
Why does he shoot webs?
Why does my costume have a spider on it?
Does Spiderman ever sit down?
Does Spiderman lie down?
Can Spiderman ever die?
Is there a green Spiderman?
Can Spiderman be a bad guy?
And, in response to a movie poster featuring Spiderman and Kirsten Dunst: "What is Spiderman doing with that woman?"

Scenes from a developing vocabulary

As much as we are amazed by Connor's close attention to our words and ability to recreate them, Jamie has a remarkable habit of turning particular phrases back at us. Sometimes this is troublesome. For instance, when we are disciplining him, he likes to say "You're not speaking very nicely to me!" something we tell him not infrequently.

But most of the time it's very cute. Some recent examples:

The other morning Sarah was putting the boys in the car for school. She asked Jamie why he didn't have his seatbelt on yet, and he said, "Because I'm getting myself SITUATED!"

Yesterday, Jamie was calling for Sarah to come downstairs to help him look for something and she replied she would come down in 5 minutes. "Okay," he replied, "in the MEANWHILE, me and my Dad are going to look for it!"

Girls

For some time now, there has seemed to be some emerging division of the sexes at school among Jamie's friends, as the boys have enacted their PowerRanger/ Transformer/Ninja Turtles/Spiderman/Batman superhero personas. We heard from one Mom that her little girl was sad because the boys didn't play with her any more.

Lately, however, Jamie seems more and more interested in girls. Our on-the-way-to-school stories lately have focused around Jamie and his friend Shawnie and "the team" referring to the superheroes - usually J and S as the leaders supported bu Luke, Siler and the lone girl, Leah Mei. Yesterday, however Jamie said that the story would be about a new team member, and a girl no less, Jackie. This is, to be very clear, an elite group of fire-fighting, bad guy-catching, Batmobile-driving superheroes, so this is a major honor, though one fully deserved. In the ensuing story, Jamie made sure that she got to play an important role in reeling in a criminal stealing double-decker buses in London.

Another clue about the rising status of girls comes from a Wiggles video the boys are into right now. There are some singing and dancing pirates (don't ask), some men, some women. Out of absolutely no where the other day in the car Jamie informed Sarah that he liked the girl pirates better. When asked why he thought for a bit and said "Because they talk prettier and sing prettier."

Cha-cha!

Given his ever-expanding vocabulary and desire to name everything he sees, it is not surprising that Connor has produced a name for himself: Cha-cha! It actually makes a great deal of sense, since it is a similar format to the other key players in the family unit here: Ma-ma (most important, of course), Jay-jay, and Da-da. We have a book with a little mirror in it and Connor likes to look in and say, in sing-song voice, "I see Cha-cha!"

Among his recent additions to the vocabulary, a particularly cute one is "Ach-pus" for octopus.

Play ball!

I took Jamie to a Rice baseball game the other night which was great. Though he was visibly excited when he saw the pitcher throw the first pitch I think he saw virtually none of the rest of the game, but had a blast anyway.

In the first place he liked that one cheers at the game meaning that he could, for once, yell at the top of his lungs in a fully sanctioned way. He got a good laugh when the umpire failed to punch an opposing batter out on an apparent strike three. Prompted, of course, Jamie waited until the boos subsided and let loose with a ringing "C'mon that was a STRIKE". He was applauded.

He also met a charming 6-year-old named Margaret, who came bearing a wondrous new thing: peanuts in the shell. The two of them worked their way through a whole bag of them. This was great for Jamie because it is a) a snack, the preferred form of food intake b) the shells can be discarded on the ground, so one can be messy and c) he got to bang the shell on the chair, my head, the ground, any hard surface at all. Good times.

They also chatted amiably about important things. Jamie informed Margaret (he had a bear of a time with that name) that he was a VERY good baseball player, and she said she believed him. Then dinosaurs came up and Jamie asked what Margaret's favorite dinosaur was. She answered with something made up I think, and Jamie said T-Rex was his fave. Alas, by the 6th inning it was time to go, but when we left Jamie and Margaret hugged like old friends.

Cute!

Connor is very cute. He has a way of saying "Bye-bye" that seems to make women everywhere swoon. He says bye-bye to each and every teacher at school and they just laugh with delight.

But he also seems to understand the concept of cute. The other day he was wearing some corduroy pants that his great Aunt Joan had given to Jamie and Sarah remarked that he looked cute. He then began pointing at his pants saying "cuue pans", "cuue pans." Seems somebody at school had been complementing them.

Then yesterday we were watching a TV show with a caterpillar. This word Connor renders, pleasingly, as something like "bada-bada". So he starts cooing at the TV "Cuue bada-bada, cuue bada-bada." Takes one to know one.

Superhero time

Jamie has a cohort of silly friends at school and they run around on the playground saving the world from criminals and bad guys (there is evidently a distinction there, though we're not quite sure what it is). His friends have introduced him to the world of superheroes, as well. They morph seamlessly from Spiderman (who often drives a batmobile) to PowerRangers to Ninja Turtles to Transformers. Superman, interestingly, is of no interest, and don't try. Jamie, it seems, has either chosen or been named the green PowerRanger, making green his new favorite color.

The funny thing is that Jamie really has no idea what all of these things are. This was clear the other day when an interest in Star Wars emerged from the playground. As a means of coping with Sarah's impending 5-week absence, I think, Jamie has been imagining fun things he will do with Daddy. So the other day he came home saying he's "been wanting to watch Star Wars for a long time" (probably meaning since 11 o'clock that morning when it first entered his consciousness). Maybe, he suggested, he and Daddy could stay up late one night while Mommy was gone and watch.

But later that day, when he was telling our friend Paul Brady about Star Wars, Paul sensibly asked which is his favorite Star Wars movie. Jamie answered with great certainty, "I like the green Star War." No idea.