No words

Connor views bedtime sort of like the curtain call to a daylong performance. He likes to make many return appearances. One of his excuses for coming back out is to claim that he has a question to ask, something he's learned from Jamie. As with his older brother, moreover, if he doesn't really have a question he'll just make one up. Thus, for instance, he likes to ask "Do you know that fire can beat lightning?" This then takes on a ritualistic aspect and is repeated on a nightly basis.

In a (futile) effort to forestall this I took for some time to asking him while I was in his room still whether he had anything to ask. I think he sensed this strategy required a new response, so one night he said, "Yes. My question has no words." And then he stared significantly at me for a few seconds and said, "There. That's it." I was taken aback at first but now we do this most nights. I stare back at him and say "That's the answer."

Connor-sick

The last couple of weeks things have gotten pretty good with the boys' relationship. For a long time we have felt that the more the played together, the more they fought. Lately however, that's changed. Perhaps it's because they argue more or less continuously and so couldn't do it any more, but the fighting does seem to have leveled off, even as they have been playing more and better.

Jamie seems to finally see Connor as a potential partner in fun, and, while he is still pretty hard on the little guy, he is capable of great kindness towards him as well. The other day we were at a cross-walk downtown and Jamie just walked up behind Connor and gave him a real hug. Whenever he does this, or asks Connor to play, Connor's face lights up like the sun.

Last weekend we were all planning to go out to a nature preserve on the Katy Prairie, but Jamie got a last-minute invitation from a boy at school he's becoming quite chummy with. Connor was very unhappy he couldn't go to the party, but he and I went off to the Prairie anyway. It's quite a drive out there, so Jamie and Sarah were home for a good while before Connor and I got back. After a couple hours, Jamie announced that he was "Connor-sick," as in "home-sick."

Tsunami anyone?

Connor has a wonderful approach to language. Like so many children he is a sponge, picking up expressions from Sarah and me, and Jamie of course, and TV and movies. Just today as he and Jamie were play fighting Connor told his brother he was a "miscreant." What's great about him, however, is that he is very un-self-conscious in trying out new vocabulary. He doesn't always pay a great deal of attention to whether he is particularly right. He used to do this with animals a lot. Upon seeing a giraffe, he would happily exclaim, "Look!!! A zebra!" and be totally unconcerned when corrected. Even now, he blithely calls dinner breakfast and lunch dinner. Sometimes one doesn't know whether he's mixing words up or just being eccentric. Ask him what he wants on a hot dog, for instance, " and he'll say "Ummmm. Ketchup...and pickles...and CHICKEN!"

Lately he has had a number of great malapropisms and idiomatic expressions. Here's a sampling:

Waffle = "Muffle". As in, "I want a muffle for breakfast."
Sneakers = "Fast shoes"
Fast = Speed, as in "I can run SO speed!!!!"
Aisle = Style
Hamburger = "Hang-ubber" (Cheeseburger, "cheese-gubber")
Burritos = "Doritos"
Pajama tops = "Topping" as in "I don't want to wear a topping to bed!"

And our personal fave:
Salami = "Tsunami"

What's bad about this is that they are so cute, and we know how soon they will be gone, that we not only don't correct them, but actively encourage them: "Who wants tsunami for lunch?"

Fair play

Jamie gives Connor a pretty hard time. He wins every game they play, every race they run and is perpetually correcting how Connor plays, sings, talks and quotes movies (an important skill around here). Connor's opportunities for revenge are few and to be honest he's such a good-natured little fellow, and adores Jamie so much, that he rarely takes them.

A few days ago, however, the bath afforded an opportunity for a little gentle payback. Jamie has this squirty fish he plays with in the bath. He likes to set up targets and knock them down. Connor very rarely gets to use the fish. In this case Jamie tried to soften the blow for Connor by telling him he would be the judge in Jamie's game. Actually this was somewhat sensitive because his impulse would initially have been to have a squirt fight with Connor, which the latter would inevitably lose. The game was to squirt a particular tile on the wall from some distance. Jamie would get points for hitting it and the tile would get points if he missed and Connor would judge whether the tile had been hit.

Jamie, making some gesture to give Connor a stake in the game, asked how many ("how much" in Jamie speak) points he would get for hitting the tile. "Ummmm....Forty!!!" answered Connor. Then Jamie asked how many points the tile would get if he missed. I could see Connor's mind working but was surprised when he said, "Ummmm.... Two...hundred...and.... fifty-thousand!!! Jamie didn't quite know what to make of this and so pressed on, only to discover that within moments, even after some fairly accurate squirting, he was down 500,000 points to 120. He proclaimed "Connoo!!! That's not fair!" With a rather enormous grin, Connor answered, "Yes it is! That's why I'm the judge."