More big boy

Well, as we prepare to move, we are getting rid of some things. Since Connor is not such a baby any more, we decided to sell the crib and changing table and some other things. This all happened rather suddenly, so Connor came home from school on Wednesday to discover that his crib had been replaced by a toddler bed. We played the "big boy bed" angle relentlessly and it pretty much worked. He was excited at first and then seemed a little uncertain, but ultimately he climbed right in at bedtime, without a tear. He was awake a bit longer than usual, which is understandable, since it must have been a bit disorienting. But compared, of course, to our attempt to get Jamie into the toddler bed, which not only failed but set off a 2-month, knock-down, winner-take-all battle of wills over sleeping, this was a great success. Now we move to potty-training. Joy.

In other ways lately Connor seems preternaturally mature for his age. He is surprisingly able to give voice to his emotions, and those of others. Sometimes Sarah asks him to give her a hug and he declines. "Don't be sad," he says. "You're right," Sarah agrees, "You don't have to hug me." "No," says Connor, "I don't."

Part of the strangeness of hearing this comes from the fact that he has this sweet little voice that still sounds like a baby's. This is even more incongruous when he voices his displeasure with us. If he doesn't get what he wants, of course sometimes he cries. Other times, however, he just squints his eyes, furrows his brow and says, "You made me MAD!"

Big boy!

Connor is really not a baby anymore. He will tell you so. Today in the car as he was bombarding me with questions, many of which I couldn't quite understand, I tried the catch-all answer, "I don't know." Since I knew this would probably not satisfy him, and would perhaps even anger him, I tried to sugar-coat and said, sweetly, "I don't know sweet-pea." Well, this angered him for a different reason. "I'm NOT a [this slowly, uncertainly] sw-ee p-ea! I'm A BIG BOY!" I quickly agreed, but not quickly enough, so he brought out the big guns: "Mommy told me I'm a BIG BOY!!"

He is indeed policing us very carefully now for signs that we are treating him or addressing him as a baby. This makes me nervous because it means that our nicknames for him are suspicious. For instance, we like to call him "bunny." I don't know why exactly, but he just looks like a bunny. So lately he asks, "Is a bunny a big boy?" Yes, I assure him, with all the earnestness I can muster, a bunny is a big boy. This one is anyway.

Courtship

Things seem to be moving along well with Jamie and Carson (his intended fiancee). They have a chance to spend some time together during after school gynmastics on Tuesdays. Last week he reported that Carson had been making a mean face at him. This week he eagerly told me as soon as he got in the car that Carson had been "smack smack smack smacking me. And I liked it!" Sarah later asked him if he liked it because it meant Carson was paying attention to him and he enthusiastically responded "YES!!!" Ah, young love.

Random Connor stuff

No real theme to this post, other than the strange and funny world of Connor. As some of you may know, Connor's favorite activity is putting matchbox cars down a ramp. It's really more of a state of mind than an activity at this point. If he's not doing anything else, he just sort of defaults to putting cars down the ramp. Well, the other day we were getting onto the highway (many Houston stories begin this way) and Connor began demanding, as is his wont, that I go fast. Jamie, having often demanded the same explained, a little wearily, that I couldn't because we were on a ramp. Something clicked in Connor's brain and his eyes widened and he said, voice pregnant with excitement, "We-we-we-we-we-we-WEEE going down RAMP?" Livin' the dream, man. These are Houston boys, no doubt.

Connor is also coming to grips with numbers. He has basically two categories: More, which is signified by the number six, and less, which is referred to as one. Generally speaking six is better than one, as it might be mobilized to ask for, for instance, six gummy bears. Recently, Sarah was picking him up at school and he was outside playing having a good time. She told him it was time to leave in one minute. "No, no, no, no, I want..." Now his face began twisting with concentration as he starting trying to command the wee fingers on his hand to stand up in some kind of order. After some considerable effort 3 fingers popped up together and he said... "SIX!!!"

That'll show us

On Friday at about 5:30, as we were planning for a normal night of dinner/bath/books/bed, to conclude at the usual time, 7:30-8, a friend of Sarah's called with Astros tickets for that night. It was a beautiful cool, crisp Houston evening so on a whim we said sure let's go and we did indeed have a lovely time. Neither boy paid much attention to the game and there were two little girls there, with whom Jamie was very happy to spend his time, especially since they had popcorn.

Now, we knew that there were fireworks after the game, but were non-committal about it with Jamie. While he used to be terrified of the prospect of hearing fireworks, let alone seeing them, he was now pretty excited for it. The game went fast so we said OK. Both boys enjoyed them. Connor sat on Sarah's lap with his hands over his ears staring upward with his mouth opened in awe. Jamie sat on my lap and I covered his ears. He later admitted that he had been a little scared, but that he loved the fireworks. There were lots of questions about how they worked (like I know) and what their relationship to guns and bombs is.

By the time we got the home and to bed, it was probably 10 o'clock. Late, but we figured it was the weekend, they could sleep in. Yeah right. Well, Connor actually did sleep 'til 8:30 but Jamie was up at 7:15. And, what do you know, they were both cranky ALL weekend as a result. Neither slept in much on Sunday and they were both real pills. Then today, a school day they slept until almost 8 and would have happily kept going. Jamie proclaimed, "I just want to go back to sleep!" Like that would EVER happen on the weekend. Oh no.

Jamie turns 13

So, we are always interested to hear what's going on with Jamie and his plans to woo Carson. Yesterday, he went to the nurse because he wasn't feeling well (unspecified symptoms.) He hadn't eaten breakfast that morning, which, actually, is unusual these days. Jamie has discovered that he likes cereal and often has two bowls in the morning (!). But today he just ate the gummy vitamins we also give them. This meant that when the nurse very intelligently asked what he'd eaten for breakfast that day he could honestly answer: gummie bears. Way to make us look good Jame! Of all the things we did on the vacation to St. Simon's he also only told his peace-mongering, leftist teacher that we had been on a battleship to see guns. No mention of the sea-turtle rescue/education center we went to, oh no.

Anyway, as he was finishing dinner last night he informed us later that day that there was a little girl who was also in the nurse's office, who knew Carson. Eager for details, we tried to press a little and find out how this had come up. Jamie was evasive. So we asked the little girl's name. He took his last bite of dinner, put his fork down and said, "I'm outta here!" and left the table.

Law offices of Costello and Costello, pt. 2

We have already thought for some time that Jamie might make an excellent litigator one day. He never accepts an initial offer, he has a keen memory for precedent, and is creative about how to apply it. As I've spent a lot of time with the boys together over the past couple of weeks, I've come to think that, like lion cubs play fighting with each other to practice hunting skills, while the boys seem to be fighting they are actually practicing future court room behavior.

I say this in part because when I am with them, I feel very much like a judge, having constantly to decide between a variety of acceptable practices, followed by objections to be overruled or upheld. For example, just to give you a sense of the potential banality of much of it, today in the car on the way home, Connor pointed out a taxi cab, with great glee (he does this a lot). Jamie began silly talk, calling it a caxi tab. Connor voiced an objection to this, and proclaimed "Jamie CAN'T SAY THAT!" Jamie then objected to the objection and appealed to me. In this case I came down on the side of the defense, it seeming to me that there being no harm in Jamie's wordage, Connor couldn't reasonably seek a cease-and-desist order.

Seriously, they have been getting along really well at times. Connor was up first today and when Jamie got up, he cheerfully marched over and said "Hi Buddy!!!" to Connor and gave him a hug. They have been playing chase and Star Wars together a lot as well. It does seem that the more they play though the more they fight. This was exacerbated by being in the car for four days of course, which came with the requisite "Connor touched me!, Jamie touched me!!" (repeat 500X).