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).
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2 comments:
I love caxi tab and agree that Jamie has a right, possibly a duty given his heritage, to play around with language in this way, but it must be so frustrating to Connor who is in the beginning stages of trying to make sense of our language and its vagaries.
^^^^ Very insightful.
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