Connor is more and more chatty these days and ever more able to voice his interesting thoughts and questions. Lately, for instance he has been asking a lot about being a grown-up. Now Jamie frequently, rather poignantly, says that he doesn't ever want to be a grown-up and if he is wants to go back to being a kid. Fine with us. But Connor has been asking lately when he will be a grown-up. Jamie tells him he has to be a teenager and then a young adult first, and then we say 16 years. Then, in the car yesterday Connor announced, "I want to be a grown-up NOW!!" Sarah asked him why and he said in his little 3-year-old voice: "Because I want to drink beer!"
Another, rather more sweet one, came at a playground yesterday. He had a great time, but it was also a little fraught. He is at the stage where he can do more things, climb things, get higher move faster, and of course he wants to so he can keep up with Jamie, but he is also not sure of himself yet and so has periodic bursts of anxiety. As a result he wanted to go in the harness swing where he felt safer. As I swung him higher and higher he laughed with delight and said, in that same 3-year-old voice, "Daddy! I feel like a snowflake!"
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Here comes Santa Claus
Christmas Eve seemed an eternity to poor Jamie. He had been waiting, not particularly patiently, for Christmas ever since his birthday and time seemed to crawl for him. At about 1 in the afternoon he declared he wanted to go to sleep so he could wake up and it would be Christmas. Sensing a rare opportunity, we pounced and suggested he take a nap to make the time go faster, but this was brushed aside. In fact he spend most of the time watching the NORAD Santa Tracker. It is good to see Pentagon technology being put to some useful end, and in addition to adding to the excitement it produced a day-long geography lesson. We had some friends over later in the and were showing them and they pointed to an island far north of Norway and asked what it was. Jamie immediately answered "Svalbard! And Santa has already been there."
The friends stayed fairly late so the boys didn't get to bed until 9:30 or so. Jamie was torn at this point. He admitted the next day that he had snuck out of bed to look at the Santa Tracker a couple of times. But he also came out at some point genuinely worried because he couldn't fall asleep and he was afraid if Santa got there and he was still up, Santa might pass him by. We reassured him and miracle of miracles he didn't wake up until a little after 7, so Christmas Day didn't start too early for Mommy and Daddy. We also got to bed earlier than the last few Christmas Eves. This was in part due to Sarah excellent organization of the big show, but also because this year there was actually very little pre-assembly to be done.
The friends stayed fairly late so the boys didn't get to bed until 9:30 or so. Jamie was torn at this point. He admitted the next day that he had snuck out of bed to look at the Santa Tracker a couple of times. But he also came out at some point genuinely worried because he couldn't fall asleep and he was afraid if Santa got there and he was still up, Santa might pass him by. We reassured him and miracle of miracles he didn't wake up until a little after 7, so Christmas Day didn't start too early for Mommy and Daddy. We also got to bed earlier than the last few Christmas Eves. This was in part due to Sarah excellent organization of the big show, but also because this year there was actually very little pre-assembly to be done.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Bad dream!
Connor woke up this morning absolutely sobbing. He was quite incapable of speech at first so Sarah hugged and kissed him and eventually he calmed down a little. She asked him if he had had a bad dream and he nodded vigorously, still blubbering, and spat out "Cookie!!!" Did you have a bad dream about a cookie, she asked. He nodded and she asked what happened. And then with a new round of tears, "I lost my COOKIE!!!!"
Monday, December 21, 2009
The Boot
Well, our little Jamie has a broken bone in his foot. For the most part it sounds worse than it is. We don't know how exactly it happened, but a couple of weeks ago he began limping and it seemed to really bother him so we took him to the pediatrician, who suspected a slight fracture but wasn't sure and so referred us to an orthopaedist. This was, of course, after seeing us at 11:10 for a 10:00 appt. We had been waiting in the room for about 45 minutes and the boys were being really good. Finally poor Connor, who has really gotten the hang of things with the potty by the way, tells me he needs to go. At which point the doctor arrives and is annoyed that we have to leave.
So off we go to the orthopaedist, whose office is on the 26th floor of the medical tower. The boys like this. We get up there and Connor goes shooting off to the windows. I start filling out paper work and he is there with his wee arms resting on the sill, engaged in vigorous conversation with a woman sitting next to him. They are pointing out the window, finding things, comparing notes. Very cute. We finally get settled and I get the boys some water, before I realize that we forgot the X-rays, the all-important X-rays, in the car, which was valet parked. So back out we head to get them, then all the way back up. About 40 minutes after the appt. time we are called back into the room, where we spend another hour or so. We actually had a great time, playing the exciting "The person who is [blank] is a goose" game. Jamie made this up and it's simple. Describe something about the other person, perhaps their location, appearance or some other detail and say that person is a goose, e.g.: "The person with glasses on is a goose." If you are the target of this, your goal is to change the detail in question if possible. Good times, as Connor would say.
Finally the doc came, looked at the all-important x-rays, confirmed the diagnosis and recommended putting Jamie in a protective boot. This was primarily, he said, to slow him down and keep him from re-injuring it. At the first mention of this, Jamie crawled under a chair and refused to come out. As the technician came to fit the boot Jamie began an absolute knock-down, go to the mattresses fit. Didn't want the boot. Screamed his head off. First I had to drag him out from under the chair as he held on to the legs for dear life. Then it took three of us to hold him down while the boot went on. The screaming continued out into the hallway, past the nurses' station, where, happily, the doctor was sitting. At this point, most activity in the entire office had ceased to watch Jamie throw down. The doc was sympathetic and asked if this was likely to continue. Knowing Jamie's tenaciousness I said indeed it was. To the relief of everyone within a half-mile radius, we then got the OK to take it off, but with instructions to try and keep him from doing too much on it.
Now, this is about like trying to keep the Pope from being Catholic, but as the boot came off I told Jamie he would have to take it easy and if he didn't the boot would come back. We decided on the codeword "Boot" for when he needed to settle down and it's actually helped. The other day he was jumping up and down, as is his wont, and then suddenly he stopped and clapped a hand over his mouth. "What?" we asked, and he replied simply, almost reverently: "Boot."
Happily, he is reporting much less pain so it seems all is healing well.
So off we go to the orthopaedist, whose office is on the 26th floor of the medical tower. The boys like this. We get up there and Connor goes shooting off to the windows. I start filling out paper work and he is there with his wee arms resting on the sill, engaged in vigorous conversation with a woman sitting next to him. They are pointing out the window, finding things, comparing notes. Very cute. We finally get settled and I get the boys some water, before I realize that we forgot the X-rays, the all-important X-rays, in the car, which was valet parked. So back out we head to get them, then all the way back up. About 40 minutes after the appt. time we are called back into the room, where we spend another hour or so. We actually had a great time, playing the exciting "The person who is [blank] is a goose" game. Jamie made this up and it's simple. Describe something about the other person, perhaps their location, appearance or some other detail and say that person is a goose, e.g.: "The person with glasses on is a goose." If you are the target of this, your goal is to change the detail in question if possible. Good times, as Connor would say.
Finally the doc came, looked at the all-important x-rays, confirmed the diagnosis and recommended putting Jamie in a protective boot. This was primarily, he said, to slow him down and keep him from re-injuring it. At the first mention of this, Jamie crawled under a chair and refused to come out. As the technician came to fit the boot Jamie began an absolute knock-down, go to the mattresses fit. Didn't want the boot. Screamed his head off. First I had to drag him out from under the chair as he held on to the legs for dear life. Then it took three of us to hold him down while the boot went on. The screaming continued out into the hallway, past the nurses' station, where, happily, the doctor was sitting. At this point, most activity in the entire office had ceased to watch Jamie throw down. The doc was sympathetic and asked if this was likely to continue. Knowing Jamie's tenaciousness I said indeed it was. To the relief of everyone within a half-mile radius, we then got the OK to take it off, but with instructions to try and keep him from doing too much on it.
Now, this is about like trying to keep the Pope from being Catholic, but as the boot came off I told Jamie he would have to take it easy and if he didn't the boot would come back. We decided on the codeword "Boot" for when he needed to settle down and it's actually helped. The other day he was jumping up and down, as is his wont, and then suddenly he stopped and clapped a hand over his mouth. "What?" we asked, and he replied simply, almost reverently: "Boot."
Happily, he is reporting much less pain so it seems all is healing well.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Dear Santa
Christmas time is on in the Costello house of course. The boys are counting down the days. Connor is of course much more aware of the whole business than Jamie was at this age, thanks to Jamie. This is Jamie's letter to Santa. Every bit of it, including the spelling, he did himself, though Sarah gave him a mock-up of the Santa picture to work from.
I will transcribe it exactly: "Der Santa Jamie Ples giv we Str Wrs Legos transformers double bladed light sabre dans gontlet." (This latter is a reference to a popular anime show, "Bakugan".)
Jamie is grappling with the reality of Santa. He has asked us straight up if Santa is real and we've pretty much lied, though in our minds we are answering with reference to metaphorical notions of Santa as a manifestation of the spirit of giving, etc, rather than his literal existence. Jamie was growing more and more suspicious, asking questions like how old is Santa and will he die. He is also onto the reindeer and their ability to fly with no wings. He has seen Amazon boxes coming to the house but we told him that Santa is not averse to technology and uses Amazon to bring some of the toys ahead of time. Jamie thought that sensible. He thinks Santa will be very tired after going around the world in one night, but that it will be OK because Santa is clearly nocturnal. This is Jamie's favorite word, because he feels that he too, is nocturnal (this is used to suggest that us keeping him from staying up late is not just unfair but is in fact attempting to reverse nature). He also asked about the volume of mail going to the North Pole this time of year and whether it was just one mail carrier bringing all the letters to Santa. I reassured him that they hired some extra seasonal help.
Oddly, the other thing that seems to have have kept all this skepticism at bay, aside I think from some desire to keep believing, is the elves. We've explained to him that Santa has elves to help make the toys and that is plausible to him. We were talking yesterday and he said he didn't want to be an elf because they had to work so hard to make all the toys. We agreed that they probably get a couple of weeks of vacation after Christmas. So should we all!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
What we're thankful for
We had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday with the boys. They are getting to the age where days off from school seem less like long stretches of trying to find ways to keep them entertained and more like spending good time together and having fun. That morning we went downtown to see the parade. We had watched it on TV last year and there had been interest so we figured why not? On the whole the boys liked it. Jamie sensed the possibility of concessions and so began angling for cotton candy very quickly and lost some interest in the parade itself. To be fair it was hard to see.
Connor stayed a little more engaged. At some point a float sponsored by one of the local sports teams went by, featuring several cheerleaders. Connor watched their progress down the street with his mouth agape. Then came some clowns on bicycles. His face soured. Sarah asked him if he thought the clowns were fun. He replied, "No I don't like clowns. Are there more beautiful girls?"
Connor stayed a little more engaged. At some point a float sponsored by one of the local sports teams went by, featuring several cheerleaders. Connor watched their progress down the street with his mouth agape. Then came some clowns on bicycles. His face soured. Sarah asked him if he thought the clowns were fun. He replied, "No I don't like clowns. Are there more beautiful girls?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
