Game face!

Connor has one. Last summer I told the story of Connor's sudden, unexpected intensity on the starting blocks of his first swim race. I now see this for the pattern it is. Connor seems to have another gear when it is game time. He has shifted up to a more competitive baseball division this Spring, so they actually keep score and standings, even though there is still also a definite developmental focus.

It seems that to get Connor's interest things have to count. To be fair, by the end of last season he took his at-bats fairly seriously, but it was nothing compared to this year. Out he comes from the dugout striding purposefully to home plate, where there used to be a wandering, looping path. Where he used to sort of situate himself anywhere in the vicinity of home plate, facing more or less towards the pitcher, bat akimbo, now he parks himself in the batter's box, raps the plate with the bat 4-5 times and locks into his stance, eyes steady on the pitcher. Honestly, I would pay money just to see this even before he swings. He's hitting the ball about 50% of his times up which for his age group is pretty good, and hitting it hard sometimes too.

Playing in the field is a bit more of an adventure. When he's in the outfield, there's very little we can do to keep him focused. It would appear that he is choreographing a future solo dance recital of some kind, because he sees this as the time to rehearse an interesting routine in front of an audience. It's evidently a free-form, interpretative kind of dance. When he's in the infield though, he's shown better focus. There is a bit of wiggling and playing in the dirt to combat, but the other night at third he dived to stop a ground ball, which turned out to be foul. And then he fielded a ground ball and knew to try to tag the kid coming to third. Kid turned out to be a little too fast and was by him before Connor could get the tag down, but still he knew what to do.

Thanks Jamie!

I had an affirming conversation with Jamie the other day. We were in the car and he heard something about old players in the NBA and asked how old the oldest player was. I answered 40. He thought minute and said, "I don't think that that's so old." I agreed. Then he said, "I mean you're 41 and you're really good at basketball!" Now, granted he's seen me play maybe twice and I don't think he paid very close attention, to say the least, but I'll take it!

Actually, it's funny they are always angling to come with me to my Thursday night pickup basketball games. It is mainly because they like the vending machine there. Also, there are some ramps and places to hide so they get very into that, not watching Daddy play. As it happens, this is at a church gym and there is a seniors line-dancing class going on at the same time, and they get very dressed in Western gear and pouffy skirts. The boys went to watch and found it more or less the funniest thing they'd ever seen.

Foons!

One thing we have always loved about the boys are their funny mispronunciations of things. They are getting few and far between these days and they both speak beautifully. One of the few remaining is Connor's rendering of "hotel" as "hootel."

Jamie used to have a tough time with "sp" sounds, saying them as "f". We still talk about looking for parking "fots." Going through email archives I found this from March 2007, when he was 3. Sarah wrote:

On the way to school, Jamie said, "It's spring!" (pronouncing spring nicely). Then, "Mom, I can say SPOON. 'Cause I'm such a big boy." I said, "Jamie! How wonderful! Did you work on that at school, or with Daddy?" "I practiced in my room." And he really did say it perfectly! No more foons. 

In retrospect, it's totally Jamie, to practice something alone in his room until he got it right.

I got it!

So Jamie's been playing on a select baseball team since last summer. In one sense that sounds impressive and really it is. The kid who started playing when he was 7 was a million miles away from even being on a field with these kids. On the other hand, we are playing up in a 10U group and so have been getting slaughtered regularly. Jamie bears this all just fine and seems to know he is a little over his head and so plugs away doing what he can. He has actually adapted to kid pitching quite well. One sign of his improvement came last weekend. With this group he plays pretty much right and left field and has learned the position well.

In this case there were two outs in what had been a brutal inning, of which we generally have one a game. Lots of runs had scores, balls had been dropped, throws gone awry, etc. And then a ball came arcing towards Jamie in right. In his telling his first thought was "uh-oh, I gotta catch this, I gotta catch this!" Now keep in mind that he has never caught a fly of any kind in a game at any level though he's caught plenty in practices. Fortunately, the ball came pretty much right at him and he stuck is glove out and THUMP! in it landed for a much-needed out #3. There was much rejoicing. Really, there was.

Cello update

Well, he's done it again. We always said Jamie's usual method of doing things, that is to say not doing them at all until he was very good at it, wouldn't work with music, but weirdly he's managed it. He is suddenly flying through songs in cello at a rate his teacher referred to today as "almost unprecedented." He has now gotten through the songs that she had given him until the end of May to do and is still rolling. He was still in beginning strings the first month of this year and now she says she may move him to Performing Strings (the big show here) at the beginning of next year. Typical Jamie.

Really, though to give him credit, he has been quite dogged about it. He does not like doing review practice, and he does not like doing exercises, but he does like learning songs. He has been laboring away for the past month on Bach's "Minuet #2" and actually will pull out his cello unbidden and sit down to work on it. This song seems to have been sort of a turning point for him because he says he wants to play it because he likes it. Then the other day, he informed us that the only thing he wanted for his birthday and Christmas was his own cello. Seriously. His teacher laughed at this and said, "Ha, ha, your kids chose the most expensive instrument there is." Ha ha indeed.

Meanwhile Connor has started the upward march as well, passing two of the "Twinkle Twinkle" variations, and maybe another 1 or 2 today. The main Twinkle theme gave him some trouble because he got to the middle part and just kept looping it, so he would get stuck in Twinkle purgatory. Apparently, on one of his failed attempts, the entire class was rooting for him. His teacher said all the other kids had their fingers crossed as he started and there was a collective groan as he made the misstep. But he persevered too and has moved on. Hasn't asked for his own cello yet, but it's a matter of time it seems.

Battleship!

How have we not done this before? We took the boys to the San Jacinto Battlefield today and to see the USS Texas. First we went up the 500 column (elevator to the top), with which they were moderately impressed. Far better was jumping off a stone wall, yelling "Geronimo!" Or sometimes for Connor: "I'm a man!!!" Then they bravely endured a nice nature walk and amused themselves by terrorizing ant hills, while Sarah and I looked at birds.

By far the highlight was the Texas though. First there was the hill.

Now as you look at this picture of sheer joy on Connor's face, remember that just the day before he had been so sick he could barely get off the couch. Next remember that about a half-hour before, he had been so tired he almost couldn't carry on with the nature walk, which was really far too long, in case I didn't make that point clearly before. But for Houston boys, used to the oppressive flatness of the land, any hill is a cause for intense joy. They took turns shouting "This one's for you Mom/Dad" and barreling down the hill straight into us.

The Texas itself was great too. First there is much climbing to be done, always popular. But best of all was that the gun turrets mostly still work. I can be pretty specific because there are a lot on there and they tried just about everyone moving aft down the starboard side and then forward back up the port side.

Project bedtime

So the bedtime ritual with the boys is complex and we've come to understand that it is their direct goal to make it so, all the better to delay the actual going to sleep. So at sometime as close to 7 as possible, in theory, they get into pajamas. At that point they are both entitled to cereal. Connor sometimes wants this, but Jamie always, and almost always two bowls. Then there is book reading with mommy or daddy, during which time Jamie consumes several cheesesticks. If they manage it, one of them can play Angry Birds or something on one of the phones while the other one is being read to. Failing this, while Jamie is being read to Connor will attempt to engage the non-reading parent in some activity including, but not limited to, legos, swordfighting, reading another book, playing a board game, or playing animals of some kind. Jamie may try this as well, but more often stands next to the reading area and throws a super ball against the back door, which he does habitually now, kind of like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.

Then they brush teeth and head to bed to read books there by themselves. Connor makes several repeat appearances. Then, they go to the bathroom. At this point, on the very cusp of being in bed to go to sleep, they invariably ask if they can sit out with us for a few minutes. This is very much to be desired because it delays the whole program. As a result, when they do achieve this they are a) very willing to snuggle, having sensed that this makes us more likely to say yes, and b) willing to watch a few minutes of whatever we might be watching.

And thus it is that the two Costello boys, who could not possibly care less about clothing if it is not a t-shirt and pair of shorts, have become fans of the show Project Runway. They have watched just a few episodes of the current season but are quite into it. Connor was sick today and spent a good part of the day asking if we could all watch the Project Runway finale. I'm slightly at a loss as to what they like about it. I think part of it is the competition. They are compelled by the one winner/one person kicked off reality format and are very interested in who they think will win, who we think will win, etc., and make a point to ask about the results of the episode they saw when they wake up the next day.