Napoleon Costello

We have all known Connor, since the time of his birth, to be a very good-natured, sunny little fellow. We have also seen him have to contend with the force of nature that is his older brother. Generally, he goes along with what Jamie wants and finds places to insert himself where he can.

What's funny though is what happens when Jamie is not around. First of all, this is usually a big problem because inevitably he wants to be where Jamie is. He hasn't quite got the idea yet that if one of Jamie's buddies invites him over for a sleepover, Connor doesn't automatically get to go. But, finding himself back here alone with us, something changes. Suddenly he realizes he has the field to himself and two things happen. One is that he becomes very bossy, producing a series of requests and generally keeping us both and his bidding. Believe me, we try to keep it under control and at least get him to ask politely but the onslaught is really extraordinary.

The other thing that happens is that he NEVER stops talking. I mean that literally. Until the moment he falls asleep and starting again immediately when he wakes up, it is a constant stream of consciousness, as if all the stuff he's forced to keep quiet about as Jamie fills the space suddenly comes pouring out. He has this way of moving from one utterance to another, beginning with the phrase "Oh and mommy??! or "Oh and daddy??!" (sometimes he confuses us, but it doesn't really matter). This can often introduce a topic that had been dropped days ago as if we had been just talking about it, so you have to stay alert. We hear that phrase about 50 times an hour.

This has happened the last couple of days with Jamie around, however, and I think it has to do with Legos. See, he got a bunch of them for Christmas, about which he is thrilled, of course. He has now tasked us with building them, and our initial responsiveness with this seems to have sort of empowered him. Seeing us doing his bidding like that must evoke those brief periods of solitary power and so he is in full on Connor rules mode. But of course Jamie cedes no sonic ground whatsoever, so the last two days have been a real cacophony of sound here.