What kind of party is this?

Connor is a very sensible young person and is becoming quite capable of expressing his fears, concerns and pleasures with the world. He has also been brought along into the world of dinosaurs by his brother who balances his alter egos between Batman and a baby Triceratops. In front of the Museum of Fine Arts which we often drive past is a large, playful sculpture of a red dinosaur in a cage. Connor delights in pointing it out and the boys take great pleasure in it every time we go by.

Now, last weekend featured the following: Friday evening, Fall Festival at Connor's school (which was very strange since they've outsourced it to some Christian group); Saturday: Soccer in the morning, a lunch birthday party and Jamie's school's Fall Festival (a decidedly left-wingy affair as usual, much more pleasing) and Sunday: zoo boo in the morning (pictures to follow) and 2 birthday parties in the afternoon. The culmination was the party at the Natural Science Museum, which Jamie calls the Dinosaur Museum, of course. Connor had napped through the first party so I waited at home with him for Sarah and Jamie to pick us up. When I informed him that we were going to the Dinosaur Museum he looked alarmed and said, "Dinosaurs...in CAAAGE??!!"

That time again

In this space last year I note that there was a gap in blogging around Halloween and birthday season and the same craziness has been in full effect this year. Halloween really is like Christmas for Jamie. What he mainly wants to do all the time anyway is wear his Batman costume, only being stopped by our despotic, tyrannical even, ideas of propriety. So a season in which he culturally sanctioned to wear it, and even rewarded with large amounts of candy is about as good as it gets. It was something of a saga finding the right costume. A cape is a crucial element. Sarah ordered a costume online and each day was filled with excitement to check the mail. But when it came it was too small. Then he ones at Target were too big so we ordered another online and eagerly waited again. But this one had those fake muscles and these upset Jamie intensely so there was great sorrow. But at last we settled on using the cape from the costume with his Batman pajamas and all was well.

A boy's home is his castle

Jamie had his first drop-off playdate at Will's recently. As I pulled up to the house and noticed the front door which is about 3 times as wide as ours, I sensed that Will's family was on the other side of the Obama tax plan from us.

They are lovely people and Will is an incredibly sweet boy. He and Jamie were off together in a flash hugging each other awkwardly and running off to play. Will has a castle bunk bed, with all sorts of secret corners and compartments, so Jamie was in heaven. Later, after Sarah picked him up Jamie was marvelling at all the nice things about Will's house. Well, Sarah said, what's really important in a house is that there is love and laughter in it. Yeah, Jamie, said and some kids don't even have a house, so we are really lucky. For a moment Sarah though this was a real breakthrough and perhaps it was. But Jamie's next comment was, "Mom, I want to live at Will's house!" Why can't a kid have it all?

Yukking it up at dinner

Jamie best friend at his new school is a very sweet young boy named Will. Today they had a play date at our house and of course much silliness ensued. Great fun was the Mommy, Daddy and Connor in jail game, wherein we were imprisoned inside a fort of furniture, encouraged to attempt to escape and then, inevitably, captured and reincarcerated. I begin to understand the feeling of being institutionalized.

Dinner was a typically raucous and hilarious affair, with Will eating his food quietly and politely while Jamie provided the entertainment. Connor was already in a silly mood when Jamie proclaimed he was going to tell a joke. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" he asked. A pause pregnant with anticipation followed as we all waited for the punchline. "To get some information on da compuuuter!" At this Connor threw his head back and burst into laughter. Will laughed, as did we all, and then proclaimed "That was a SUPER-funny joke." Jamie will be here all week.

Interesting. Very interesting...

Jamie has started reading some short words lately and doing some rather impressive math. He is clearly enjoying the new sense of power that his deductive reasoning is able to provide as well. He has started a game of looking for clues lately. A couple of days ago after school, he and Sarah went outside to search for clues. She brought some paper to keep track of them. Here is the list exactly as Jamie found the clues:
1. Penguin sticker
2. Doggie footprints - brown and white dog?
3. Tiny footprints - dinosaur?
4. Fire ant
5. Footprint on a leaf
6. Color of the concrete
7. The moon
8. Volcanic rocks "(dried lava)
9. Clinky metal thing
10. Smooshed orange crayon
11. Dog barking
12. Moon following us
13. Dog poop
14. 2 Black kitty-cats with green eyes
15. Lifted up concrete
16. T-Rex prints
17. Tile floor

What could it all mean???!

Paging Dr. Freud

Jamie's favorite game, as many of you may be aware, is "Heroes," or "Superheroes." It can be slightly challenging as an adult to participate, since it is not at all clear what the game actually consists of. I have, however, been given something of a niche, in that I am almost always the bad guy. Connor often gets to be Robin and Sarah can be Batgirl or Wonder Woman, but I guess you need an enemy to be a hero and that enemy is me. So in this role I have been punched, kicked, jumped on, tackled, bataranged, put into hot lava and repeatedly incarcerated.

These things, of course, I take for the most part to be standard parental treatment, but sometimes I suspect that there is some symbolic import to all of this. For instance, not too long ago Jamie asked Sarah, with me in the room, I might add, "Mom, when Dad is worn out will you marry someone else....like me?" Ouch.

A similar ambivalence was directed at another couple recently. We got power back a full week before Jamie's teacher and he came home one day, very sweetly and thoughtfully, saying that we ought to invite her over for dinner. We thought it was a great idea and we were very pleased when she and her husband accepted. When told Jamie that they were coming over the next night he looked blank and said "Husband? What husband? Leo?" No, we explained she had her own husband and they were both coming. He accepted this at the time but wouldn't really acknowledge the husband's existence after that.

It's a matter of time

Jamie has not really actively started lobbying for a pet, but we get the feeling that it will happen sooner or later. About six months ago, while we driving in the car (and thinking about this blog I realize how many things I relate that happen in the car-that's living in Houston for you!), Jamie busted out with the statement that he wanted to get a cat. We asked him to repeat himself, not sure we'd heard correctly and he said, "Yes, I want to get a girl kitty-cat and name it Sally." We had to admit that the idea gained immediate currency on cute points alone.

Little more has been said about Sally, but lately he has adopted some toy pets. There is, interestingly, a distinction between the stuffed cat and pig with which he sleeps and the would-be pets. Kitty cat and piggy stay in the bed but there have been two animals who've gotten to be companions during the day. First there was a small pink lizard, no more than an inch in length, whom Jamie dubbed, appealingly, "Splash," since Jamie liked to put him in water. Splash had a good run, but is just too small not get lost, and so hasn't been seen in a few weeks. Splash has been replaced by Snakey, who, being some 4 feet long, is a lot easier to keep track of. Actually, I should give his full name: "Snakey Poisonous." He likes to take Snakey everywhere, but we have to draw the line at bringing him into Connor's school and over to friends' houses. Snakey, you see, is really rather life-like, fangs and all, and it can be a little disconcerting to see him suddenly, for both children and adults.

I think, if it comes to it, we'll push for a cat over a real-life Snakey.