Major promotion

I will blog more soon about some very positive behavioral developments with Jamie, but for now one very exciting development has been a real upswing in his treatment of Connor. They have been playing so much more together the past couple of weeks and it is now not at all uncommon to hear Jamie call out "C'mon Con, come with me!" Music to our ears, sweet music. Connor is of course thrilled with this and comes running, "I comin' Ja-jame, I comin'," he says.

There have been a number of other manifestations of this new affection, including Jamie calling Connor his "best friend" while Nonni was here last week. But the biggest, most unmistakable sign of Connor's new status is that he has FINALLY been named Robin to Jamie's Batman. Jamie had resisted this for a long time, and we had taken to calling Connor "Little Blond Sidekick." But now when we say this Jamie says, "No! He's Robin!!"

What a pair!

There's not a whole lot I could say that could compete with this picture from a recent trip to the aquarium. The boys are wearing the shirts Mommy brought back from France for them. They both like them a lot and ask to wear them. Connor will point to the drawer and say "ooof shirt?" Anyway, enjoy.

One step forward...

Connor has always been a talker. We never really did a lot of signing with Connor, as we did with Jamie, because he just seemed to gravitate immediately to verbal communication. These days, his language is increasing by leaps and bounds, but the more complex possibilities this opens up for him to tell us things, and for us to understand what's going on with him, the more challenges it presents and he comes up against the limits of his comprehension.

For example, he woke up this morning and announced to Sarah before he was even downstairs that he wanted a "waff-o" for breakfast, "not pan-CAKE". Very well, she said. So I took him downstairs, and as I was making the waffle, I asked him if he wanted jelly on the waffle. "No," he said, "Waff-o!!!" "Yes," I said, I'm making you a waffle. Do you want me to put jelly on it?" "No, no je-yee", came the answer. "OK, Connor, do you want me to put something else on it?" "No, put waff-o in mouth," (pointing to emphasize this, since Daddy is clearly stupid). So, sensing that the jelly question really wasn't being dealt with I put some on and he ate the whole thing.

Day two

OK, I promise I won't blog every day of Jamie's school life, but we want to remember all the details of these first couple of days and we have this cute picture of him being led off into school.

Jamie seems to have had a great day again. He was his usual silly self getting into the car, and I asked if it was "totally fun" and he said, "YES! Totally Totally fun!" I asked what he did and he said he sang zoo animal songs and played with toys. Then I asked if he'd played with any friends and he said "Yes, Jordan. No, Thomas. Thomas is a boy." I asked what they'd done and was a little off-put to hear: "We pretended to be dead." But later it came out that he and Thomas had raked the grass outside. I think the playing dead had something to do with the animals discussion, too.

One down

Yep, Jamie had his first day today at his new school. They are working on a gradual schedule, so this week he and the other new students are there from 8:15-10:15. He has been expressing a little nervousness about the new school and sadness about leaving his old school and friends, but on the whole has been pretty calm about the whole business. It's helped that a lot of his other friends from Pre-K are starting to leave to go to new schools as well. Plus he gets to go to the old school in the afternoon this week, so I think that has given him a comfort zone as well.

We were a bit nervous because at St. Catherine's does a curbside drop-off as one of the teachers or assistants walks all the kids from the car to the classroom and Jamie has always liked to have some lingering time for hugs as we get to the classroom. But he was non-plussed by the new system and was chatting away with his escort as we pulled off. And then, when we picked him up, we had a more or less best case scenario as he got in the car and said "That was TOTALLY fun!" Pretty proud of the little fellow.

We are not impressed

It seems there is a rash of people claiming they could swim faster than Michael Phelps, from pro baseball and football players to Cousin Finn. Well, add Jamie and Connor to the list. Given Jamie's immersion, as it were, in swimming of late, we turned on the Olympics during a swimming event to perhaps inspire and instruct him. When Sarah, remarked that the swimmers kicked really hard, Jamie said, "I kick harder than the E-lympics. I can swim faster." Connor then chimed in "I go fast!! I go fast!!!"

The Law Offices of Costello & Costello

Jamie, we think, has the makings of a fine litigator. He has an astonishingly long memory and, in cases where it serves his interests, his 4-year-old mind can be almost preternaturally logical. When, for instance, we are asking him to do certain tasks and offering a reward for doing them or a punishment for not doing them, he listens very carefully to the terms of the offer, often looking for loopholes. He is also very much inclined towards making deals. Dinner often becomes a site for negotiation: "If I eat 2 broccolis, 1 piece of chicken and all my avocado can I be done?" It can get very complex, but whatever deal has been struck he remembers it to the letter.

But one of his main skills is the search for precedents. He forces us to be very consistent in the application of rules, because id we have ever bent in the past he will remember it. This can sometimes be a little embarrassing. One thing Jamie likes to do is eat anywhere other than a table. A particular favorite is the couch. Seemingly food tastes better if it can be dropped behind the cushions or onto the rug. When Sarah told him recently to that we must always eat at the table because that is good manners, he quickly responded, "But Daddy ate breakfast on the couch yesterday!" Ouch.