It begins...

Jamie has gotten to be such a big boy. On the one hand it makes things very easy. He absolutely loves going to cap and had none of the apprehension in going back after two weeks that I expected. He even helped reassure Connor about it a little. But this comes at a price. He has started demanding that I only hug him outside the camp building. "And no kisses!!" he says. Ouch. As soon as we walk in the building he shoots off without a look back at me. Makes me appreciate Connor's clinginess a little.

3-year-old being a 3-year-old

The boys had a great weekend with Auntie Meg. They were extremely excited for her visit and were counting down the hours until she came on Friday. Except that Connor hasn't quite mastered the idea of which numbers are smaller than others so he kind of counted up to it. Whatever.

Today we went out to lunch with some friends at a very popular Houston breakfast place. Now, the boys had already eaten so as we stood in the long line to order I wasn't surprised that they claimed they weren't hungry and didn't want anything. Neither, however, was I surprised when Connor announced, literally as I took my first bit of food, "I'm hungry." I was prepared for this and had some toast to which I applied strawberry jam and all seemed well. Then he remonstrated me strongly for not giving him ketchup. Silly me. I didn't quite know what would happen when I did, but I should have guessed he would just happily pick up a glop of it with a corner of the toast as it went towards his mouth. Yum!

Jamie, meanwhile, had found a table knife and had begun slashing the salt and pepper shakers into submission. I came down on that pretty quickly so he turned his blade to his brother. He did at least give Connor a knife to protect himself. I came down on that to so then Jamie took Connor's ketchup-and-jam splattered crusts and began hacking them to crumbs. Good, good times.

Nature up close

The boys and I have been to the Zoo a couple of times this week and it has been a real success. We used to go a lot but they seemed to have gotten a little bored of it, so it was nice that they were really into it again. We've been spending a lot of time at the reptile house, as the boys are into snakes these days. They also like the little frog displays because they can play find the frogs (Jamie finds more inevitably and Connor gets impatient). Today was rather intense since and we got there as they were feeding the black-headed python. We got to see it eat two mice whole, which is quite a thing. I wondered how the boys would react to this but they were very interested and not the lease bit disturbed. Jamie did feel a little sad for the mouse. But he offered a very pertinent fact to the group gathered around ("Some larger pythons can eat a whole deer!") and asked the zoo keeper relevant questions about the mice (turns out they get them frozen).

Then we went outside to have some snacks. Connor wanted to sit and watch the ducks so we found a shady spot and they turned their chairs around to face the lake and happily munched away on pretzels and goldfish. As we were walking towards the elephants Connor spotted a centipede on the ground. Jamie was immediately concerned that the little fellow would get stepped on so he plucked it right up and put it in his palm. A bond quickly formed. He giggled delightedly as the centipede crawled over his hand and up his arm, that unaffected bubbling laugh that is one of the best sounds in the world. He held onto to the little guy for the rest of our time there. When eventually we had to leave (it was 11:15 and we were going to expire from the heat), we agreed it was best to put the centipede on a nice bush. Jamie duly did so, and then turned around and hugged me, crying a little. He really liked that little guy.

Connorisms

The boys talk pretty much non-stop. It's another thing about Sarah being gone. They sense there is only one pair of eardrums for their voices to reach so they are in considerable competition to make themselves heard. As with many other competitions, Jamie usually wins in the end. The two manage to make virtually everything, like walking from one room to another, into a race. Connor generally tries to do this retroactively, so that having gotten somewhere, or eaten something, or done anything really, he happily proclaims, "I won!!" This angers Jamie who insistently proclaims that it wasn't a race, but remembers it exactly, so the next time he makes sure to announce that it is a race, which, given an equal start, he invariably wins. Connor then collapses into tears.

Anyway, in the midst of all this Connor does manage to get a word in occasionally and he's got some very cute little sayings. One of my favorites is that in playing "I spy" he likes to say "I spy on my little eye..." He also likes to stand on the scale. The boys have been enjoying this as they like seeing when they have gained weight. When Connor wants to go weigh himself he says, "Let's go measure my feet!"

Missing mommy

Well, the boys and are getting along OK without Sarah, but we all miss her. Jamie has been in something of a mommy phase lately so this came at a tough time for the little guy. But, as he gets older, he is a little more able to cope with the emotions directly. We talk a lot about what time it is in Cyprus (Houston +8 hours) and what Mommy might be doing. Every time we see a plane Jamie proclaims "That's Mommy's plane bringing her back to Houston!" as if by saying it he could make true. And he talks a lot about giving her hugs and kisses and telling her he loves her when she comes back. He's also excited, because as always he knows he will be due a present when a parent returns from abroad. But in the past this has at times seemed to eclipse the joy of seeing the parent. He himself now says that he's excited both for Sarah to come back and for the present.

Connor is a little less able to vocalize and is a bit pouty. He asks me when mommy's coming back and when I say 3 1/2 weeks he gets sulky and says, "That's too long!, giving me an angry look. It's the same look I get when it's raining and he doesn't like it, or when he doesn't like the position of the sun. Daddy can really be good for nothing sometimes.

More from Mr. Bossy

Sometimes the things we say to the boys come back to haunt us. During the period when Connor was sick, he had some tummy issues that precipitated a bit of a regression in terms of the potty. This got a little frustrating for us because there were times when it seemed he was making no effort to get to the potty. When we would gently remonstrate him about this or betray some frustration, he would often answer that he had tried. Given that he evidently hadn’t, we sometimes told him to “try harder.”

So yesterday we’re walking home from the pool and Sarah asked him, as is often our wont, “Do you know how much I love you?” He gave the standard answer “So much,” a little wearily. Then he asked, “Why do you always ask that?” “Well,” Sarah said “because we love you so much.” Here Jamie chimes in with an eye-rolling, “We already know that.” Sensing she was being reproved, Sarah said “OK I’ll try not to ask that so often.” What was Connor's reply? “Try harder.”

Mr. Bossy

Poor Connor has been suffering over the past couple of weeks from a variety of illnesses. He is only just now recovering from a series of ailments whose cause was much less certain than the symptoms. On the early side of this, I'm afraid some rather impressive vomiting was involved. I'll spare you all the ugly details, but suffice to say Connor has not quite learned to keep himself out of the way of his barf. Not pretty.

The second half of the illness featured a fever that spiked at a shade over 106! This happened while they were at the doctors office as a matter of fact and the nurses were rather impressed, though not as alarmed as one might have expected. What's curious about Connor when he's sick is that our normally laid back second child turns into something of a Napoleon. When they got the 106 reading the nurses brought in some cold towels to cool him down. One might well imagine that this would feel good, but Connor did not like it one bit. Screamed his head off in fact. When he had endured this for a while, Sarah asked nicely him he would like them to take the towels off. "No," he replied angrily, "I want you to throw them in the trash. Gotcha.

He had been promised a lollipop to make for the indignities of being poked and prodded. The doctor, in a misguided attempt to be nice came in at some point, however, with the offer of a popsicle. He first politely declined, but when she insisted it might feel good to have something cold he said firmly, "No!!! I want a lollipop! And I'm taking one home for my brother Jamie!!" She took the popsicle away. Finally, as things were wrapping up, the doctor, who was extremely gentle and kind with Connor, was doing a few last things. Connor beheld her with a steely gaze and then turned to Sarah and said, as if the doctor weren't there, "When she gets out of here can we go home." He did not find this as amusing as Sarah and the doc.