Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The good and the bad

Well, knock on wood, there is a good chance we will have sold our house very soon.

Jamie has taken this news with considerable interest. One of the main reasons for our wanting to sell has been our discomfort, and his, with the boys being two floors below us. We really can't blame Jamie for feeling a bit isolated down there. So when we told him we were probably going to get a new house he was excited. We asked if he wanted to sleep on the same floor as us and he said, "In the same room!" Well, no, but down the hall, we said, and he was pleased. But then yesterday morning he went downstairs to get dressed and suddenly we heard him crying. Not the I-want-attention drama kind of cry, but genuine tears. We asked what was the matter and he said he was sad to leave the sky Uncle Steo painted on his ceiling and the tree Nonni and Daddy painted on his wall. Poor little guy gets very attached to things, and his room is pretty cute.

Meanwhile, in other news, Connor NEVER stops talking now. Never.

Monday, January 26, 2009

What a mean daddy!

The boys definitely have something of a typical young child's persecution complex. Aside from the fact that they always look at their food with great suspicion, as if we are going to poison them, or far worse, try and Trojan Horse some vegetables into their cheese and crackers, or chicken nuggets, there are the constant things we do to torture them. Daddy particularly likes to do this in the bath. Rinsing them is a real standby of Daddy torture. Jamie has always complained about this, demanding a towel to wipe his face when I, either by incompetence or downright cruelty, contrive to get some water on his face. Connor has picked right up on this, of course. Last night I rinsed his head and a little water trickled past his eyes and down his chubby cheeks. He looked at me accusingly and said "Daddy, you poured water on my face." Then, literally, not 20 seconds later they've both grabbed water containers and started dumping water on their heads and faces, laughing with glee. That's a totally different thing, of course.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

More tales from bedtime

While Jamie has for much of his life fought tooth-and-nail against bedtime, and particularly being placed in his bed to stay, once he's in there and quieted down he tends to fall asleep very quickly and heavily. Connor, on the other hand, almost never complains about being put in his crib. But for the past couple of months he has also been staying awake for quite some time. It is not uncommon for us to find him down there an hour later happily reading a book. At some point, we've learned we have take everything that he might play with out of the crib because he'll just keep playing until he's bleary-eyed.

His crib has become extremely cozy, however, if crowded. He sleeps on a grown-up pillow that takes up the whole width of the crib, has a cozy blanket from Gigi to sleep under and quite a number of stuffed animals ("my guys") as he and Jamie call them. Here's a brief inventory of what was in the crib last night at bedtime, in addition to one 2-year-old.

(1) pillow, feather
(1) blanket, hand-knit
(3) pacifiers
(2) woobies, giraffe
(5) matchbox cars (1/58 scale)
(1) pullback action miniature Hummer (1/55 scale)
(4) board books
(4) stuffed bears, both mommy-baby sets
(2) stuffed dolphins
(2) stuffed alien creatures
(1) stuffed lion
(2) stuffed dinosaurs
(1) stuffed dog
(1) stuffed giraffe
(1) stuffed bison
and (1) doggy pencil sharpener (child safe of course)

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone...

Yes, Mommy is off for to Philadelphia for the weekend so it is just the boys here. She left early this morning, just after the boys woke up. Jamie was in an ebullient mood when he got up and took the departure in stride. This was partly so, of course, because he has already understood that I will sleep downstairs with the two of them while she's gone. Connor was very alarmed when she went to the door, but it turns out that was primarily because he thought he was going to be put in the car before getting his customary morning "blue juice" (juice in a blue sippy cup).

But the real effects of her absence will soon tell. Whenever there is an owie, the first call will be for Mommy, you can be sure.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Accusations and recriminations

Connor is becoming so much more aware of what's going on around him and it means we have to be a lot more careful about what he hears. Today, Connor's school started, while Jamie's did not. We knew that it was going to be difficult for Connor who hadn't been to school in about 3 weeks. Sure enough he started crying at the mere mention of being taken to school. Separately, I had been discussing the day's plans with Jamie, which included the two of us going bowling.

This has been a new and very successful activity. It is so cute to watch little Jamie bowl. He grabs the ball in both hands and it looks almost as big as him. Then he launches himself towards the pins and lets it go, making a giant THUMP as it its the ground and begins its slow progress towards the pins (the lanes have bumpers to assure it gets there). Jamie tends to lose interest a bit as the ball makes its way down the lane, as it takes a good wee while, but of course enjoys the destruction that marks the end of the journey.

Meanwhile, the drop-off with Connor had gone pretty well, actually. He cried at first but one of the teachers in his new room knows him pretty well and she got a hold of him and gave him a lot of hugs, so he was pretty content. When Sarah picked him up he had had a good day. She exclaimed, "Oh Connor I missed you so much today!" To which he responded accusingly, "YOU went bowling!"

PS Jamie typed his name throughout this post.

He'll be here all week

Jamie made an unusual joke the other day. It will require some background for readers to feel its real force. Firstly, Jamie has quite a vocabulary with respect to dinosaur species and can pronounce some very complex names. One of these is a T-rex-like fellow by the Xenotaursosaurus (first part pronounced zee-no). Secondly, Jamie's skin gets dried out during the winter so we have some Aveeno bath mix, which helps and which he likes quite a lot.

So the other night, after we had a bath Jamie was going on about Aveeno, which is a fun word to say. Then suddenly he started laughing and said "If there was a dinosaur that used this bath mix, it would be an "Aveenotaursosaurus!"

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Sleepovers

As an only child I learned to truly cherish the sleepover. Jamie seems to have inherited this. Not unlike many children, of course, his main goal is to sleep with one of us in the room/bed. We can't blame him. One of the reasons we want to move is that we are sympathetic to the fact that it must seem like we are a long way away when we are upstairs. So lately I've been having sleepovers with Jamie, where I sack out on the futon in his room. It is hard with him, because as always, once he gets a little he pushes for more and would really like to have me there all the time.

We had a New Year's sleepover last night, but already tonight he was clamoring for another. He was tired and he does get a little nervous downstairs without us, but tonight he was really struggling. So I went down to try and reassure him that even if I wasn't in the room I was always nearby and would never let anything happen, etc., etc. It seemed to be working, and then he asked if I was going on any trips soon. Aww, how sweet I thought, he's worrying about me not being here. But when I said no, I wasn't going away anytime soon, he looked a little crestfallen and said, "Oh, because when you go away I can sleep with mommy!" So much for my big parenting moment!