Saturday, November 13, 2010

Time and space

As with many four-year-olds, Connor's sense of these things in very much still in development. About a month ago, Pops was coming through Houston on business and stopped by. Now, we had already told them some time ago that Nana and Pops were coming for Christmas. At this point, about September, Connor had said, eagerly, "Is Christmas TOMORROW???" This is about the conception of things he has, today and tomorrow. Anyway, when Pops walked through the door a couple of weeks later, Connor turned to us, his face bright with glee, and said "Is it Christmas???!!!"

Similarly, for all of his ongoing fascination with the continents his sense of place is a little vague too. There is constant confusion between the categories of North America, the United States, Texas, Houston and our neighborhood. Because he knows that we are in North America, for instance, he assumes that other things similarly favored by geography must be quite close. Thus, he other day he and Sarah were at a doctor's appointment. The office was up on the fifth floor so they had quite a good view of the tall buildings in the Medical Center, about a mile away. Connor became quite excited and proclaimed loudly, "Look!!! New York City!!!" If only it were true...

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Sick again!

Well, as I write this I am home again with a sick Connor. Poor little guy has had a rough Fall so far. He got sick Saturday night, was out of school Monday, seemed better Tuesday but is back under the weather again today. Hopefully, he's getting it out of his system before the holidays.

We've had a nice day together, if somewhat disjointed. First, we spent some time sitting on the couch this morning watching a movie. He was on a Motrin high for a while and seemed almost like normal. He spent a good 20-30 minutes playing with Jamie's Star Wars legos. Suffice it to say Jamie keeps a very close eye on Connor while he's around so unimpeded access to the Legos is rare and Connor was clearly enjoying it. I played with him for a while and then went to do some other stuff. When I came back I remembered why Jamie is so watchful. Connor does rather like to destroy the Legos. This creates two related emotions for me: one is fear, because I know if I don't get them fixed we will all feel Jamie's wrath. Two is the dread of fixing them. Just getting them built is one thing but having to re-do the process is almost worse. So I quickly dealt with the carnage and encouraged Connor to be a little more gentle.

It was a nice morning so I thought we'd head to the zoo. Connor fell asleep within moments of getting in the car so I spent a good bit of time sitting in the parking lot listening to him snore. Then he woke up, looked around and asked imperiously "Why are we sitting here??!!!" He refused to believe that he had been asleep, so I let it drop and in we went. It was soon apparent however that the Motrin was wearing off because he was walking around hunched over and shivering a little. So I gave him some more medicine and he sat on my lap and snuggled up to me. This was lovely and lasted for about 10 minutes at which point the Motrin clearly kicked in because his head popped up suddenly and he said "I feel better. Can you stop snuggling me now?!" So we went to see birds, lions, and tigers. Connor's favorite part is seeing where they all live. Still likes to talk about the continents, our little fellow.

So we came home, had some lunch and played some games. Connor beat me in two out of three games in Sorry! He is really pretty good at it, but of course gets mad when he doesn't win or when something bad happens. Eventually it all came to a head when we were well into a game of Candyland. He got sent back to the beginning and almost the next turn I got the much-coveted ice cream float card, which puts you very near the end. This was too much to bear. He stomped off into the other room and it got quiet. I went to see him and he was lying on the couch with his woobie. It was expressed fairly clearly that my company was not desired so I went into the other room to do a little work. After I didn't hear anything for a few minutes I went to check and he was sound asleep, as he remains now an hour later. It's hard to be a sick bunny!!