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!!"