Jamie and Connor at Club Med

We're all having quite the time here at Club Med in the Dominican Republic. The boys have been at the Mini-Club Med all week and of course have claimed not to like it much, but it's not at all clear that they haven't had a pretty good time. The first day, Jamie reported that his favorite part of the day had been going to the pool. He then reported that the scariest part of his day had been going on the flying trapeze. WHAT?? we asked. Yes, it turns out that Jamie, hooked quite safely in, had climbed up to about 30 feet and swung out into space on the trapeze. We later learned that in fact he wasn't supposed to, as his group is too young, but while his group was working on the adjacent, lower, tight-rope, he seems to have plopped himself down in the line for the trapeze and from there dutifully did what he was told. Unfortunately, we didn't have any pictures of this, but when you see the ones of Sarah up there, you'll see just what a feat this was for our brave little boy. Having done it, however, Jamie says that he does not wish to go again.

One of the funny things about the trip is the predominance of French guests and language here. Much is done in 3 languages but when push comes to shove French is definitely the lingua franca, as it were. One of the persistent jokes of the week has been telling his cousins Erik and Emma that Connor knows French. Jamie's caretakers, "G.O."s in the lingo here, do a fair amount of English but the younger they get the less English so Connor hears almost exclusively French during the day. The joke started because one afternoon Sarah joined his group for a snack. As Connor was munching some Cheerio's one of the G.O.'s asked in rather rapid French "Veux-tu du lait Connor?" He responded with his particular way of nodding, a kind of steady bobbing of the head with a brief pause at the top and eyes wide open. Now, the other joke is that Connor is a yes-man, as in generally inclined to answer in the affirmative to any question, but all the same Erik and Emma have spent all week befuddled by the idea that Connor has already learned French.

Jamie, meanwhile, has become interested in French. Last night, he and Sarah were at the smaller of the pools here. They were having a good time playing with a football, throwing it sothat Jamie would try and catch it as he lept off the side of the pool. This very cute little girl, a bit older than Jamie, began sort of hanging around and watching them very closely. Sarah asked if she'd like to play and she immediately responded, "Je le veux bien!!" Turns out out that her name is Marie and she and Jamie hit it off famously. As Sarah and Jamie left she asked if he would come again the next day. He did and a fine time was had so it seems that Jamie's "chick magnet" ability, as Nonni puts it, translates into French. Earlier today he asked me how we sounded to French people and then said he wanted to be able to understand French and speak French. I asked if this was because of Marie and he said "Yeah. And I just want to be able to understand." Tonight as she left the pool he gave Marie a lovely "Au revoir."

Can't have one without...

Jamie was at camp this week with his best buddy Will. He enjoyed himself very much and occasionally reasons other than Will were given for why he liked camp, and even other kids were referenced from time to time. But mostly it's all about Will.

Connor and I went today to the camp-ending "talent show" and awards ceremony today. The talent portion of the program consisted of some fun songs that the kids had learned. Jamie did not sing and seemed slightly inconvenienced to have to be quiet while the other kids did. I asked him later and he said simply that he doesn't like singing. Then they gave out awards. Each kid got one, for accomplishments like "most spirited", "Best dress-up princess", "Best block-builder," etc. Of course I was very interested to hear what Jamie's award would be. But as soon as the presenter said "This is our only award that is going to TWO campers" I knew what was coming. Sure enough, Jamie and Will shared the "Best buddies" award for being such good friends to each other, and it was added, to everybody else. Cute. One of the other teachers commented as they came to get their ribbons together "Can't have one without the other!"

Birthday boy

Here are some pics of the birthday party at the pool.

Breakfast with Connor

Here's a word for word account of my conversation with Connor about his breakfast. Having eaten some cereal and blueberries to start, Connor saw me fixing my breakfast and proclaimed, "I'm still hungry! I want more break-fist".
"OK," I said, "what do you want?"
He answered as is often his wont, "Lotsa stuff."
"OK, what kind of stuff?"
"Lotsa stuff!"
"How about some cereal and milk?"
"Yeah."
Then, as I am preparing to pour the cereal into a bowl, "I don't want that!"
"OK, how about a cream cheese and jelly sandwich?"
"Yeah...What's in a cream cheese and je-yey sandwich?"
"Well, cream cheese and jelly, Connor."
"But I don't like cream cheese and je-yey sandwich. It gives me a headache"
"Yes you do Connor you eat them all the time. And cream cheese and jelly sandwiches don't give anybody a headache."
"I'm not hungry."
"Do you want some blueberries?"
"Yeah...and cereal."

Happy Birthday Connor

Pictures to follow. Just a quick note to say that our little bunny, ahem--big boy--is a happy, tired 3-year-old. He had a great day. Slept in until almost 9:30 then got pancakes, fruit and presents. Jamie was a really good older brother and seemed to vicariously enjoy Connor's present opening.

Connor is already quite used to saying 3 when asked his age, but is still getting the hang of holding three fingers up, which is really much harder than two. He hasn't quite settled on which ones to use and often twists his face in concentration as he tries to get any three of them to come up while two stay down. Sometimes all four fingers go up and he just stares at them trying to figure out how to get one of them, any of them, to curl up and go back into his palm.

He was also a very courteous birthday boy at his party, which we had, where else, at the local pool. When somebody said "Happy Birthday" he often said the same right back. Things got a little tense when we first set things up because--prepare yourselves for something very awful--a fly landed on his pretzels. Fortunately, his people rectified that, not quickly enough to be sure and only after a strongly worded request, and from then on out all was well. Lightning McQueen was the big theme of the day and Sarah got perfect cupcakes from Moeller's Bakery. To be fair, though Connor picked them out. She was explaining various cake options to him, while he walked to the display cases and repeatedly pointed to the chocolate frosted angel food cupcakes with the rainbow sprinkles. He was very clear that these were the RIGHT cupcakes, and so they were.

Girls again

Things are at an interesting point with Jamie because on the one hand he seems like a bit of a boys' boy right now. Not always, but sometimes, he gravitates towards playing with boys over girls and generally seems to know a bit more what to do around boys. On the other hand, there is a clearly a fascination with girls, and he's starting to be able to voice this. He has for sometime noticed when Sarah wears a new outfit, or looks particularly lovely and will say, slightly dreamily, "Mommy looks pretty!" Well, his sense of pretty is expanding. The other day, while watching Scooby-Doo, he remarked that Daphne was pretty (of course this is what is intended by the show. Poor Velma- but she's smart and has a good sense of humor!).

Then yesterday I took the boys to get an ice cream. Soon after we sat down to eat a little girl a bit older than Jamie came in and sat nearby. Before long Jamie and Connor had gotten bored of ice cream and began being silly. Soon I realized that the girl's gaze was absolutely locked on Jamie. He realized too and began doing a real performance for her. Jumping around, running, making silly noises, striking poses, even hitting himself on the head. She didn't smile, but she also didn't frown and really for 15 minutes, her eyes NEVER left him. After she left, Jamie said, "Dad that girl was watching me." I know, I said, did you like that? "Yeah. I kinda liked her because she was pretty." I can't believe this is starting already, on the one hand, on the other hand he is so sweet and guileless about it, it's really cute to watch. In any case it's a far cry from the old days of First Christian where there would be 4 of the prettiest little girls you can imagine screaming "Jamie" and he would hide behind one of us.

Ramps and ottomans

As all who know him or have read this blog will be aware, Connor's favorite activity by far, with perhaps the exception now of being silly with Jamie, is sending matchbox cars down an incline of some kind. There is something distinctly therapeutic about the way he does it, almost losing himself in the effect of gravity on small wheels. What I didn't realize until we went to Nonni and Diddy's house last month was that this is only half of the fun. You see, at home we use an ottoman with the top placed on an angle for the ramp. This has the added benefit of providing a storage space for the masses of cars, of all shapes and sizes, that he has now acquired.

When we got to Maryland, Nonni and Diddy were ready with a ramp and we proudly showed it to him and the cars. Well, very soon Connor is looking anxious and saying "Is der a Ottoooman?" Seems in his mind, an ottoman is an open structure attached to the ramp into which the cars may be placed, having gone back up the ramp. Fortunately, Nonni and Diddy cleverly jury-rigged a ramp and "ottoman" by duct taping a sturdy piece of styrofoam to a small trash pail and he was happy as a clam all week. Doesn't have to be fancy, just has to be what he wants.

The last week that Sarah and Jamie were away, some friends had us over for dinner. They have a divine three-year-old girl named Caroline. When I picked Connor up from school, I told him we were going to Caroline's house. He immediately began calling her "Carolina", which I found very cute. I think it comes from a) his tendency to actually over-complicate longish words (he says "blueblerries" for instance--try saying it, it's tough!) and b) hearing about relatives and basketball teams from North Carolina. Anyway, he immediately asked, "Does Car-o-li-na have cars, and a ramp and a ottoman???!!" Turns out Carolina had all of two cars in the entire house, which had to be dug out. He was none too impressed by her many dolls, but it happens that they have a shared affection for hurling balls around, so a fine time was had.

Connor's life as an only child

There is no question that Connor missed Jamie and Mommy intensely. But there is also no doubt that he got used to being an only child. Connor had, half the family went to Cyprus, been a fairly typical second child is as much as he was accustomed to having to compete with his brother for our attention, and he was fairly used to not having his requests filled as immediately as they always were for Jamie.

Well, all that changed once he realized that with Jamie gone, I really had no purpose other than serving him. He very quickly became very impatient with we. As much as anything, it was my attention that he demanded. When he asked for my attention, he would become indignant if I didn't immediately acknowledge him and shout "DADDY!" One night we were at a friend's for dinner and I was talking to the other grown-ups. Connor was sitting next to me and started asking for my attention. I politely asked him to wait for a moment until I was done talking. After trying twice Connor reached over and put his hands on either side of my face. Then, with me still trying to speak, he used his surprisingly strong little arms and pulled my face around to look at him. Then, with his big blue eyes inches away from mine he said sternly "DADDY!!! LOOK...AT...MEEEEE!" Everyone was very impressed.

Kid friendly

Jamie is fully into the gun phase now. Except that we don't have guns in this house. We have blasters. This is our way of dealing with the irresistible force of the fascination with weapons. He will now transform any object into a "blaster" and go around the house "pew-pow-pew"ing away. Fortunately Jamie's other current obsession is Star Wars, so he is happy to let our all-important semantic distinction pass more or less unremarked. He is also, like Luke Skywalker, very firm in his opposition to the Dark Side, so that's reassuring too.

Actually, Jamie is very good at drawing the line between real and imagined. He feels an enormous pull towards shows that are really for older kids, especially those featuring battles of some kind. We have to balance very carefully between his desires and what is appropriate, but he is actually pretty good about being self-aware and telling us when something is too scary for him. He is also quite able to understand the distinction between real and make-believe on which the blaster/gun separation is based.

The other day in the car he heard something about World War II on the radio and asked if he could watch a show about it. Well, I said that's something that's going to have to wait until you're a little older because it's kind of a grown-up subject and can get pretty scary. He seemed to accept this and then thought for a moment before asking, "Are there any kids' World War II shows?"

Pool time

This has definitely been the summer of the pool. It has been incredibly hot, even for Houston, with temperatures over 100 degrees for several days in a row. But in a way this has pleased Sarah and I for it merely confirms the correctness of our decision to move to a house a block away from the local pool. We have been going more or less every day unless there's some particular reason we can't.

Jamie's swimming continues to improve. He is taking lessons again and despite some of the usual kvetching, he is quite into and very proud of himself. It's been very interesting to watch the simultaneous development of Jamie's swimming skills and his overall sense of confidence and adventurousness. I'm not sure which came first, but it's great to see either way. He can front crawl a good long way now, can swim underwater and can also go down and sit on the bottom of the pool. Perhaps most reassuringly to us, he can also jump into water over his head, come up and swim to the edge. As you can see from the above picture, he has also discovered the belly flop. He is totally unfazed by it of course.

Connor has also started swim lessons. He has never been the least bit afraid of the water, but happily he is beginning to acquire some skills to go along with the attitude. He has been watching Jamie for some time now and so he understands and mimics the basic motions. We have him in a swim vest and he can actually motor himself right along without being held now. It's very cute because he gets this big toothy grin, sticks head up above the water and paddles away. Actually, he looks quite a lot like a dog swimming, especially in the ration of effort to actual movement.

Back at last!

Yes, the title refers, dear readers, to the return of both the blog and Sarah and Jamie from Cyprus. Things have been a bit willy-nilly but in the coming days I will try to fill in what I can remember of the last month.

Jamie and Sarah returned in good order on a Sunday night two weeks ago. Connor and I spent most of the day at the pool, where he said repeatedly "I want go get Mommy and Jamie now!!!!" Try explaining "later" to a 2 year old who wants his mother. Eventually we got them and this time there was no cold shoulder for Mommy when Connor saw her, just hugs all around. Jamie and Sarah both looked amazingly well given that the had just been traveling for about 20 hours. Jamie was immediately concerned with his presents, since he knew that I would have not one but two Star Wars related gifts, both of which pleased him immensely.

He looked like such a big boy and seemed to speak more clearly than even a month before. He is a very good traveller in fact and had enough energy to help pull his luggage to the car. After speed talking for about 15 minutes, he suddenly fell heavily asleep in the car going home. Now, Jamie has NEVER and I mean never, fallen asleep in the car and allowed us to transfer him into bed, not even as an infant. I really genuinely thought this would be the time since he didn't even wake up as we unloaded Connor and the luggage from the car. But no, as soon as I picked him up, he bounced awake and was instantly energized. Sarah bravely kept going for a little bit but soon had to go to bed. Jamie, on the other hand, actually complained about having to go to bed. Where does the energy come from??!!

And, of course, there was no sleep-in the next day, he was up at 7 and ready to go. On the surface of it, he was quite unaffected by jet-lag. He didn't get sleepy in the afternoon and was as ready to fight bed-time as ever. In fact, though, he was pretty emotionally edgy all week and it was clear that deep down he was tired. Suggest that to him at your own risk.