Swim boys

The boys have been doing great in swimming. Connor has been swimming in first heats, so he's against the better swimmers in his age group but has been plugging right along. In both meets so far he's gotten second place as a part of the "A-team" relay and then 6th in the individual free-style. He is extremely frustrated because he wants a first-place ribbon. He said after the last meet "I've never been first in my WHOLE LIFE!!" My efforts to remind him that this consisted of a total of 4 meets to date were for nought. We've got the last meet of the season tomorrow, so fingers crossed.

Jamie meanwhile has been plugging along. He moved up an age group now so he is swimming against 10 yos but has soldiered on and done a great job. The amount they have those kids swim is incredible so I'm really proud of him for keeping it up. I swam two lengths (25m) as a part of the father/son relay races at our pool on the 4th and I can tell you I was sucking wind by the end. Granted I also nearly swam myself out of my swim trunks I was going so hard. We never had a chance in Connor's but Jamie got to me in good order and I hustled and we won the heat. Jamie was very pleased, I got a bottle of wine and some respect, but it didn't help with Connor's first-place envy a bit.

Jamie's best stroke is the breaststroke so here he is at the last meet. He got 5th here, but it was second heat of three so there were some tough kids in there. You can judge from the time of the video that it's not to bad a time for 25m.

Unfortunately, I can't get video of Connor because I have to volunteer during the first half of these endless meets so we can leave by 9:00.

Here's another of Jamie practicing at the pool in Tuscany. One thing you can note is that he has a good racing dive. He's actually better at it than a number of the older kids. You can also enjoy the scenery a bit here. This pool was very much the center of the boys' lives in Tuscany. The first week we were there, it was freezing cold but they were undeterred!

Long trip!

So the boys were great on the long trip back from Italy. Fortunately, after the last time I have a pretty good idea about what to expect and when there are likely to be breakdowns. Just like last year really, we had a long early morning drive before the first flight. Jamie had wanted to sleep and been very uncomfortable last time so this year I had them all set with pillows so they could be comfy. It helped that we had a bigger car too, so he could not touch Connor, which, when he's trying to sleep, invariably infuriates him. So they both sacked out for most of the 3-hour drive to the airport in Rome.

Getting on the plane was a bit of an adventure, because you have to stand in 20 lines. Once I finally got our boarding passes I realized we weren't sitting together. I think here my bit of Italian worked well. I was as nice and charming as I could be in talking to the agent at the desk in Italian and she smiled, ripped our passes and gave us three seats on the bulkhead so we had loads of room. The boys were great for the 10-hour plane ride. Connor is a little tougher because he doesn't quite have the patience to watch movies a lot and he got fidgety for a while, but in the end we made it, and, as always, when we were getting off they were complemented on what good travelers they were.

We had to fly through Charlotte, so we got the bags, rechecked, got some food and headed to the gate. I put Connor's sweatshirt on the ground and made a cozy area for him to sleep. He promptly sacked out, face down, on his stomach for an hour. He was NOT pleased when I had to wake him up to get on the plane, but then fell asleep as soon as we were in the air. Being smart now, I positioned myself in the middle seat of the three so Jamie could put his head on me without touching Connor, so he actually slept most of the time. Later Connor admitted that he had no memory of the second plane whatsoever.

Our friend picked us up in Houston and brought us home. I suspect that if the pool had been open they would have asked to go to the pool, but there one request was some time snuggly with the guinea pigs, whom they had missed terribly. I didn't have the wherewithal to get a picture then, but here is a similar scene the next day.

Connor is a joiner

Well, more than the rest of us I think. Last year he won camper of the week once, basically entirely on the strength of the incredible enthusiasm with which he sung, belted out even, the camp song. Last week we went to see the Westbury 12yo All-Stars play. Jamie was of course very interested to see these kids, some of whose younger brothers we know, playing so impressively. Eventually their attention wandered. Jamie went off to play with a bunch of kids from WLL. I love seeing them have sort of free-range, unstructured time like this.

Connor meanwhile starting throwing a tee-ball against the wall, which he likes doing a lot now. I had my eye on him and then game but was startled and at first alarmed to see him surrounded by a bunch of big kids from the Bellaire All-Stars who were there watching the game. They were all laughing and at first I was worried they were making fun of him, but it turned out they were being really sweet and having a kind of mini-game with him at the center pitching. Very cute.

But as the game when on, it turned into one of the best Little League games I've evr seen and Connor especially got really into it. We were up 11-4, then gave up 10 runs in the 5th to go into the 6th down 14-11. We rally and Connor is chanting along with everyone "West-bur-y, West-bur-y!!!!!" With 2 strikes and 2 outs a Westbury kid hits a three run homer to put us up 15-14. Pandemonium in the stands, cats hugging dogs. Jamie's mouth was just hanging open and Connor was freaking out. Then Post Oak hits a 2 out, 2 strike homer to win it in the bottom of the 6th. Heartbreaking. Connor took it really hard. At first he was just in stunned disbelief, then he started bawling in the car and really didn't shake it off before falling asleep. It was the first of many talks likely about sports fandom being primarily about heartbreak.

Connor does the awesome dance

I think Connor has a good bit of performer in him. Here he is dropping an original number, choreography, lyrics and all. This is just in the courtyard of where we stayed in Tuscany. There's not too much I can really say about it in terms of explanation, so just enjoy...

Everyone's a critic

Jamie went to see one of our good friends in a dance recital recently. Now, as a rule, this is not the kind of thing that is of the least interest to him I'm afraid, but he went along pretty good naturedly and seemed a bit amused by the whole thing. The girls were all about 4-5 so the choreography was pretty basic and there was definitely a range of skill levels and attention spans, which Jamie noticed. He said Alana, our friend "is pretty much the best one out there. The rest of them or just sort of lurching around!"

Concert footage

Here is some footage from the season ending cello concert. I don't have Jamie's solo recital ready to go but this is fun because it features Connor speaking. They polled all the cellists in the school on various topics (including cello being better than violin) and between songs announced the results, so that's what he's talking about. Enjoy...

Connor and the creatures

So we had sort of an epic day on the day before the 4th that involved quite a lot of creature excitement for our young animal lover, Connor. It started with a dead squirrel in front of our house. This might not seem promising but a large vulture was right in street working on it. There is a Wild Kratts episode about the turkey vulture and you need to understand that for Connor to see an animal from the Wild Kratts is like seeing Robert Redford or some movie star for the rest of us. So here is Connor dropping some knowledge about the vulture:

Then we went off to the beach, which went pretty well. To enjoy Galveston several things have to be in your favor and they were this day. There was astonishing little traffic, it was not excruciatingly hot, and the beach was pretty empty. Next, there was really not that much seaweed in the water, which makes a big difference. And the water temperature was really pretty perfect. The beach we went to is very shallow and has soft sand too so the boys could play in the waves without getting in very deep so it was pretty ideal. Jamie, as usual, got very uncomfortable about the sand, but then a game of whiffle ball helped him move on. He liked it because it was windy so the ball curved. He knows I won't let him throw a curve ball til he's 16 so this was a big thrill. 

After getting from the beach, I realized it was the first night in a while we've had things sorted so early, so we cozied up and watched the rest of this movie about saving these three whales trapped in the ice in Alaska. It was cute and they both liked it, except one of the whales, the baby named Bam-Bam, dies. Connor seemed really not to register it when it happened but then when the others were free he said "Where's Bam-Bam???" We had to break it to him. He waited about 5 minutes and began sobbing, just sobbing. I toyed with going the cycle of life route, but instead offered to buy him a stuffed animal whale for his birthday. "You can name him Bam-Bam Connor," Jamie said, "so you can remember him in your heart."