Friends for Annabelle

Annabelle, our very patient cat, is much beloved by the the boys. Jamie comes out for a hug every night when he's done reading and hugs the two of us and always, religiously, Annabelle as well. Weirdly enough I get the sense that she rather likes Jamie's attention. Granted, every time he touches her she feels the need to rather furtively clean herself, but she never tries to get away from her. Even though he picks her up a lot more than she would like, he is very gentle with her. Connor is learning to be so. Annabelle has actually sat on Jamie's lap a couple of times (he was over the moon), but she does give Connor a wide berth still.

Connor would like to bring some friends for her. He's been talking about wanting a bunny for a while, which makes sense. He would also like a duck. I thought I had an easy out for this, since I pointed out that we would need water for it. Not so. "We could just buy a pond," he sensibly pointed out. Ah, OK, we'll think about the pond for Christmas.

Ladies man

We are of course fascinated in watching our kids social lives. Jamie has always been so reticent, that I think we worry a bit about the degree to which other kids have to pursue his friendship a bit. We really shouldn't. They always do pursue him and it should clearly indicate to us that he knows what he is doing. There are three little girls at his old school who are absolutely adorable and who always loved Jamie. We never felt like he did enough to reward their efforts though. It seems the aloof thing works though, particularly combined with odd outbursts of very silly behavior.

We still take Jamie to the St. Catherine's soccer group on Saturday mornings with Connor. On Saturday we saw one of the girl's mothers who told us that just last week she found a letter in her daughter's room. It read: "Dear Jamie, I love you. I want to marry you but I know I can't because I am way too young. I know you don't love me, but if you start to let me know. Love, -----" (name redacted).

I will never question his methods again.

Seriously

One of the current catchphrases around the house these days is "Seriously??" or "Are you serious??", both uttered with looks of utter skepticism at things they dislike.

But seriously, we have two very silly boys. This is sort of their defining personality trait I think. Jamie likes to claim that he is the silliest person in our family and very frequently asks Sarah who makes her laugh the most (guess what he wants the answer to be). Our main disciplinary issue with the two of them is simply trying to control the silly, and indicate that there are just a very few times (dinner!!) when we need them to be a little serious.

But of course they know that, it's just that they conceive of the times for seriousness differently. For instance, as this picture from our trip to New York shows, they take Lego catalogs **very** seriously. As they are doing on the train out to Westchester, they can both pore over those catalogs literally for hours, looking at them in the greatest possible, almost microscopic, detail.

The other day Jamie was telling Sarah about some aspect or other of Star Wars. She thought she was responding with appropriate interest, saying, "Yes...oh...I see." But finally Jamie looked up and said, with some exasperation, "Mom, you just don't take Star Wars seriously."

How could you???

Children are fickle. No news there. But it's interesting the way it plays out. Yesterday, I picked up Jamie a little earlier than usual around 3:40. It was absolutely beautiful outside so I decided we would wash the cars, which they always enjoy. So we went to Home Depot and got a new hose and some other things we needed. The boys are ever helpful and tried to carry everything for me. Very soon it got too heavy but in case anybody doubted the effort Connor grunted his way halfway across the store with the coiled hose saying, "THIS--uhhh--IS--uhhh-SO--uhhh-HEAVY." So we got home, and I made them a snack (this is assumed) and we got ready to go outside. First Jamie got bent out of shape because he wanted to go shirtless and I said no because the sun was very bright still. Somehow this affected his sense of how wet he could get. It is also just another instance Sarah and I being blamed for the sun. Connor is very frequently frustrated by having the sun in his eyes in the car, and clearly feels one of us should move it. The sun, that is.

But we moved on and had a great time. The boys, of course, were much more interested in spraying the water than in washing the car. Almost the second we got out there Jamie took the hose and Connor began yelling "Try and get me! Try and get me!!" So Jamie sprayed him. At which point Connor yelled indignantly "Nooooooo! JAMIE!!!" and then, as if I hadn't been right there, said "Daddy! Jamie sprayed me!!" That same little scenario played out a few times until Connor got the hose and thoroughly soaked Jamie, who was very pleased. Eventually we turned the water off but they got a big thrill out of throwing the sponge into the soapy water and watching the suds splash up into the air. Soon Jamie was covered in soap. And then in a flash, they decided they were cold. Suddenly they are looking at me with this expression that asked why would a nice father make his children be freezing outside in the cold? Why?? So we went in and I made them hot chocolate, which helped, if only a little bit.