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."