Ice cream and personality

Costellos take ice cream very seriously of course and it's amazing the degree to which the boys' personalities are reflected in their choices in the matter of frozen treats. I take the boys for an ice cream most Mondays after school. It's a nice tradition and a good way to take some of the sting out of the Monday blues, to which both are subject. Jamie, our loyal, steadfast child invariably gets the same thing, which is basically the combination with the most possible chocolate, in a cone. Connor, on the other hand, is adventurous with his choices seeking out new wonderful things, almost none of which are chocolate. At this place you can mix in two candies to your ice cream and Connor produces some extraordinary combinations. Sometimes there is an aesthetic to it that I can appreciate, as when he got vanilla with white sprinkles and white chocolate chips. Other times they are the strangest things imaginable. This last week he got Lemon Custard ice cream with gummy bears and Reece's pieces. It may be because I'm a little punchy with the stress of the kitchen renovation, but I just found this so funny I couldn't even say it to the women helping us without laughing. Jamie had to do it for me.

I should add that Connor gets his in a cup. He does not eat ice cream quickly, to say the least, nor in a linear fashion so a cone gets very messy very fast. He used to complain about this periodically but seems to have come to some self-knowledge. Once, when Sarah took them instead of me, she let him get a cone. He smiled devilishly and said, "Daddy never lets me get a cone! After today, you won't either!!" He was right.

Wait, what?

Connor did a classic Connor the other day. There was much discussion about baseball this winter, because Little League abruptly changed the age definitions so that Connor suddenly went from being baseball-8 to baseball-9, even though he'll play the whole season at 8. This is big because it means he goes from playing machine pitch with 7s and 8s to playing kid pitch with (real) 9s and 10s. When I told him he could choose to play down if he wanted, however, he said without hesitation he wanted to play kid pitch. A laudable sense of adventure in my view.

So the other day, we are meeting his coach and the subject of kid-pitch comes up and Connor looks at me and says "Wait, I'm playing kid-pitch???" His coach looked at me like I was nuts, not to have informed my own child of this. Sigh.

Confidence in me!

Going to try and get back in the habit of blogging as there has been lots of fun stuff lately. Here's a little nugget to get started. Jamie had his audition for middle school the other day. He tends to be very even keel about stuff, and self-aware, so he himself seemed a little surprised as we were getting out of the car to say, "Oh Dad! I have butterflies in my stomach." He wasn't too worried, but I reassured him that was normal and good and to use that energy to play loud and strong. We walked on and he informed that he was singing "I Have Confidence in Me" from The Sound of Music.

The audition seemed to go well. He did his usual strategy and let someone he know be the first to go play and then describe it to him, so he know the situation he was getting into. We'll see what the results are, but Julie Andrews would be proud I think!

Duet time

Occasionally the boys can stop bickering long enough to be really cute together. Here they are singing the "Sorry song" from Calvin and Hobbes:

Hallway baseball

That is the sport of the moment. The boys invented this game and it is all they want to play most of the time (other than Minecraft, of course). Basically it's like stickball, except that instead of a narrow street, we have an even more narrow hallway. Instead of cars for bases we have doors. Instead of a tennis ball, a bean hacky-sack and instead of the broom stick, a sawed-off pool noodle. None of this sounds like to produce success, and I have to admit I was skeptical at first and rather reluctant to get drawn in. It is, for  instance, very difficult to hit a fair ball. In fact, it's difficult to hit it all. The boys have learned that throwing the "ball" at a very high speed from a very short distance is a path to pitching success. Connor, interestingly, is particularly good at this. Then, since you have a foam noodle you have to hit it almost perfectly for it to go anywhere at all. Also almost everything is foul territory.

On the plus side, one can make it to first base in about 1/4 of a second, so if somehow you do get it fair you are in business. Also, especially when Connor is pitching, there are a lot of hit batters so that's one path to scoring, albeit a painful one. Otherwise, funny things just happen in tight quarters, including thunderous bopping on the head of the umpire/catcher for any rulings the batter dislikes.

A new Connorism

Connor's malapropisms are wonderful, as were Jamie's. Jamie's could live for a long time, because we found them so cute we never corrected him. Unfortunately, Connor's tend to be much shorter-lived because of course Jamie pounces on them immediately and gleefully informs Connor of the mistake.

Anyway, the latest one has been in play this week with Sarah being tired coming back from Italy: "Mommy, are you jetlogged?"

Ewwww....

Connor and Jamie still love their woobies, no question about it. The other night, I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor of their room as I sometimes do. I thought Connor was asleep when suddenly he proclaimed, "Dad! My woobie smells like a mixture of French Fries and throw-up!" Oh, I said, OK, we'll wash it tomorrow. He yelled "NO!!!!!" Got it just the way he wants it apparently.

Let's go Mets!

To my infinite delight, yesterday at about 6PM Jamie said, "Oooh, is the Mets game on soon?" A few things have gone into this. Generally speaking it's been hard for the boys to get into a pro baseball team. To some extent Jamie says he likes the Astros, but frankly they're so bad it's pretty hard to get really into them. And, just like the Mets until very recently, we can't get any of the games on TV, so there's just not much chance.

We've been settled into a really nice pre-summer ritual. I get the boys from school and we've got a half an hour before swim team practice at 4:30. We get back a little before 6, and then the boys practice cello while I make dinner. Then it's about Mets time. Being able to watch just a few nights in a row has suddenly made fans out of them. They also don't quite conceive of a 162-game schedule, so they get really into each and every game.

Little bunny

A quick note from Connor's classroom. Apparently, every child in the room can pick Connor up. I've seen a number of them do it, so it seems to be a bit of a thing. Connor can pick a few of them up he says, but that seems to be a lot less fun for everyone involved.

Project time

Every year, just about the time we are feeling done with school, after all the standardized testing...comes the dreaded project. Connor's teacher, to her everlasting credit, determined that they would do everything for the project at school, which was fantastic. Jamie had to do his at home. They had to design a three-dimensional house, using at least three geometric shapes. Interestingly, the guidelines for size only gave two dimensions. But Jamie, with a lot of help from Sarah, got pretty into it. I think some of the travels to the classical world have had an effect. I think Jamie's was the only project that involved "Squinches."

Here they are talking about them:

Connor's was a team project, to design and sell "I am..." t-shirts. His team did "I am wacky and cool."

Curve breaker

OK, I try really hard here not to be braggy, so don't take this that way. Really, it's just funny. At the boys' school they have some kind of points system for reading. Every book has a certain point total, based on length and difficulty, and as the kids read they report their books and accrue points for their class. Inevitably, the school has a competition for the class with the most points.

James reads a lot. It is literally impossible to keep him stocked with enough reading. So a couple of weeks ago he came home to report that his numbers were no longer being counted for his class's total. How can this be?, we asked. It seems that James was single-handedly demolishing the other 4th grade classes to the point that the competition had ceased to exist. I think it may have actually discouraged reading among his classmates, because they figured James had it in the bag for them anyway.

In the midst of all this, I joked with him that he should read War and Peace. He looked it up the next day and it would be worth 110 points. He was on about 550 for the year so that should give you a sense of the volume we are talking about.

The problem is that he is also rather picky about what he reads and once he takes a set against something in his mind, he will not relent (at least he's consistent!).

Love, woobie, Miley Cyrus

Connor has an intense relationship with his woobie. Years ago, you may remember he looked at woobie and proclaimed, "Love is full of crazy."

Last night I was getting him into bed and he could find woobie. I gave it to him and he clutched it to his face and said "Woobie! You came in like a wrecking ball!!"

Fun to be found everywhere

One of the things I like so much about the boys, as I've posted about before, is their ability to find amusement anywhere. This clip is from the building where I take guitar lessons. We were at a playground nearby and Jamie needed a bathroom so we came here. He was a little nervous about this unsanctioned usage, so we pretended to be commandoes sneaking in on a mission. That didn't stop him from finding a little baseball to play...

Adventures in Connorland

Connor is very much aware that Connor World is not like the place the rest of us live. Yesterday he produced some extended narrative about Connorland, which is, I think, a nation in Connor World. I'll let the master speak for itself. I didn't have the camera when he started but the crucial information is that in Connorland people can change into animals when they want (Connor would like to do that in this world very much). Enjoy

For the birds

It really seems possible that Connor was an animal, or various animals, in previous lives. This morning on the way to school, not normally a time given to reflection or introspection, but more often an opportunity for grumbling and venting, Connor announced, out of nowhere, "I really wish sometimes I could be a bird. I could live up in the trees in a cozy nest and snuggle the baby blue jays!"

Hard at work

So Jamie was promoted to the advanced cello group this year, which he was very proud of, but which has also meant quite a lot of work. There is a Suzuki workshop coming up in a couple of weeks, which is followed by concert that is sort of the centerpiece of the year. His teacher has chosen a very challenging piece, Breval's Sonata in C Major, for them to perform. She knew this would be a stretch for Jamie, but he has been really dogged in working on it. At his last lesson though she told him very frankly, and without any reproach, that while he's been working hard if he can't improve some technique things he won't be able to perform it. She asked then if he wanted to keep trying, with no guarantee of being able to perform it. He actually thought for a minute and said yes, which impressed me. So here is a progress update, with him playing a couple of sections...

Oh, and yes, shirtless is the preferred state for practicing cello, as for so much else.

When Connor grows up...

So the other day, Connor walks up to me and says, "So, Dad. What do you think I will be doing in 15 years? A) sitting in my pool, in my mansion, counting my money or B) rescuing cheetahs?" Before I could answer he said, "Yep, you guessed it, it's B!" (For the record that's totally what I was going to say).

Over the weekend he and a friend were playing in the boys' room and they built a zoo for his stuffed animals. Here he is describing it, as well as performing a much-advertised show. We got updates about the starting time very minute and then a rather shrill announcement summoning us to the zoo. Enjoy!

Yes!

I've mentioned Connor's habit of giving a big "Yes!" and doing a double fist-pump when something goes his way, so I've videoed him here. I really feel like this should be an internet meme. He's playing it up a bit here, but you'll get the idea I think. Sometimes it's more subtle, even stealth as when he's secretly pleased about things. But one of the great things about is that it is marshalled for happy occasions both big and small. So you could get a "Yes!!" from questions ranging from "Are we going to Italy this summer?" (which implies, will there be a lot of gelato?) to "Can we have a sleepover?"to "Can I have eggnog with dinner?" to "Did I spell 'brain' right?" Anyway, enjoy, and when something goes your way give a Connor "Yes!!!"

Connor plays with gravity and inertia

One thing that the boys' very clever mother has learned to tap into is the power of novelty. This doesn't mean buying them new things all the time, but rather that the well-timed re-introduction of a toy can be very effective and bring much joy to all parties, alleviating some of the "I'm bored!" comments that drive parents nuts. Lately we've pulled out matchbox cars to some good effect, for instance. This is nice for us too because it brings back the old days when we would watch Connor send cars down a ramp for hours at a time.

But Sarah scored a real success last week in bringing out the marble run blocks from the closet. Connor has been playing with them constantly ever since. We are frequently (every 2-3 minutes in some cases) called upon to look at his creations and marvel at his skill in manipulating the effects of gravity. Here he is describing one of his more elaborate setups to date:

All-city

At danger of a braggy post here, but we got the news late last week that Jamie was selected for all-city orchestra! This was a bit of a thing because it was his first audition. As it happened he was sick and home from the school the day of the auditions, but he was determined to go to the audition. It was a blind audition and he admitted to me afterwards that he was pretty nervous about, but said it went really well. I said that sounds great and he replied that he was sure he wouldn't make it, but he wanted to see what the audition was like. When I asked why he didn't think he'd make it he said "Oh, Dad, there are a lot of really good players there!"

So the next day I was home with him when we got the news. I told him and he literally jumped up and down with excitement. So great to see him feeling proud of himself and knowing that he had worked so hard to earn it.