When an expanded vocabulary is not a good thing

Like many parents, we fret over the television and its possible effects on the boys. As a result I was pleased a couple of days ago when Jamie asked me what "nullify" meant. I asked him where he'd heard it and he said on the Bakugan TV show. So I asked him how it had been used and we kind of reasoned out the meaning together. Well, there, I thought, he's picked up a good vocab word from the show, can't be all bad. A few minutes later, however, he asked, "Dad, can Connor ever be nullified?" Good feelings gone.

Goal of the year!

We continue to have Jamie in the low-impact, easy-going soccer group at school and he is more and more enthusiastic all the time. While no official score is kept Jamie is one of a number of kids who keeps a very careful tally of the goals. Interestingly, he seems equally happy when any member of his team scores a goal as when he does it himself. Sarah and I, and Connor for that matter, like to see Jamie do it though and the other week he had an amazing one. He has moved up an age group lately so in any given week, depending on the make-up of the sides, he may be playing with some older, bigger, faster kids. He doesn't complain though and really goes in and mixes it up. He has learned also to move out ahead of the pack and wait for the ball to come out. He was doing precisely this the other day and sure enough the ball popped out of the scrum and came directly to him. There was no one in front of him as he took off with the ball, but he was a good 50-60 feet away and so it wasn't long before a much older kid, at least 6 inches taller than him, had caught up and placed himself between Jamie and the goal. Jamie plowed bravely forward and the kid got tangled in his own feet and fell by the wayside. At this point the rest of his team, and the parents, were all yelling "Go! Go! Go!" (I may have been yelling a little too). But now yet another bigger kid had caught up and placed himself in Jamie's path. Jamie didn't pause however and kicked it directly through the kid's legs. The ball dribbled and dribbled and dribbled and edged over the goal line, just before another kid tried to sweep it away. There was much rejoicing.

It was was truly epic. The whole thing seemed to have transpired in slow motion. I really had to work hard to contain my enthusiasm. For his part Jamie was pleased but not overly exultant. I guess he's heard the phrase "Act like you've been there before." He was, however, very gratified when I decided the goal had earned him a trip to the donut store on the way home.

Talking to Connor

Though reticent at times Connor can be quite an engaging conversationalist. One has to be prepared however for some surprising turns, some creative logic and sometimes downright lying. Here's an example, taken from a recent conversation with Sarah:

Mommy: OK, kids, let's go, we're going to a fun place with animals.
Connor: (claps hands) Oh, thank you!! Is it the zoo?
Mommy: No, it's a feed store--they have seeds, plants, and bunnies, kittens, and puppies.
Connor: Oh, yay! I love kittens. Are there tigers?
Mommy: No.
Connor: Lions?
Mommy: No.
Connor: Oh. Daddy said there would be.
Connor: Are the kitties black and white?
Mommy: Yes.
Connor: Well if we're going, let's go!

Lollipop, lollipop!

We are a little obsessed with lollipops in the Costello house these days. This is in large part because of swimming. They are each rewarded at the end of their lesson with a Dum-dum lollipop and also bring some along as it can help to smooth any tiredness and crankiness after the lesson or in the car ride home. Things have escalated a bit, however, because Connor, as he often does, has charmed his teacher so he's now authorized to take 3 lollipops after the lesson. Jamie, of course, will not be shortchanged so inevitably he gets an extra one too.

Last week, however, Sarah noticed something odd. We keep the swim bag, which has a bunch of lollipops at all times, in the hall closet, near the boys room. When she opened the bag one day there were some empty wrappers and she hadn't remembered leaving any in there. She didn't think too much of it though and certainly wasn't thinking about it at all that night when, since I was at basketball, she was fighting the get-Connor-to-sleep battle on her own. For about an hour Connor had been talking, getting up to ask questions, go to the potty, do about anything but stay in bed. Jamie had long since fallen asleep, of course. Finally at about 9 it got quiet and Sarah went to look in on him. She was not completely surprised to find, however, that Connor was not in bed. She looked around the room and didn't see him. She next checked our room, which is logical because one night not too long ago, she came into find him there relaxed on the bed quietly watching TV. But this time no Connor. Now she started to get nervous and searched all over the house. She was about to really panic when she walked by the closet and saw a pair of blue eyes peeking out from between the coats. There was our little angel happily sucking away on a lollipop. This was almost exactly the point at which I got home, finding Sarah trying hard not to laugh but also having to get over having been really relieved to find him, and not a little bit exasperated. So I told Connor to go to bed which he dutifully did plopping the half-eaten Dum-dum directly into the swim bag, which now contained several more empty wrappers. Two mysteries solved.

It's all just a sign of how different from each other the boys are. Jamie could never be that sneaky. In the first place, he wouldn't be interested in getting out of bed if it didn't involve us. Secondly, he could just never sustain it for that long. He's such a good citizen, he'd come clean after a minute. Connor, on the other hand, would have kept this going precisely as long as he'd wanted to, then come out only to ask us to put his blanket over him.

Crushes? Really?

As I was getting him dressed after swimming yesterday, Jamie informed me that a little girl in his class has a crush on him. "Oh!" I said, surprised to hear this word, and asked how he knew. Seems another girl, best friend of this one, informed him. He then asked with a mixture of bravado and uncertainty, "Do you even know what that means?" I said yes, it meant that she really liked him a lot. "Yeah," he replied coolly, "And she wants to marry me." Well, well. She seems to come from a good family, though no dowry has been discussed, and her name isn't "Brytneee" or something (the Brittany variations are many here in Tejas), so we're in favor of it.

Things seem to be going a little less swimmingly for his best buddy. He informed us that W. is "looking for a girlfriend." It's not clear what qualities are particularly desired here, but Jamie also told me that the best friend of the girl who likes him does NOT want to marry W., so back to the drawing board I guess. In the same conversation Jamie started asking about whether one could marry someone in the same family, so I think he and W are still in competition for the hand of W.'s sister. What a tangled web.

Are we having fun yet?

So we started swim lessons again with the boys last week. Our goal is to get Connor to a basic level of independent swimming as soon as possible so Sarah and I can stop having drowning nightmares about the boys, so we signed him up for a 2-week everyday boot camp kind of thing. Jamie protested vigorously when we suggested signing him up as well, but after the first day of watching all the other swimmers and bragging about all the things he could do, he wanted to take them too. Connor cried terribly the first day. They are very loving at this place but also very direct about getting them used to being the water, putting their faces under water, etc and Connor was clearly terrified.

After the first day we talked to him about how it was OK to be scared but his teacher would make sure he was safe. We suggested to him that if he wanted to cry he should wait until after the lesson and then cry. As I watched him the second day he did some crying but was also clearly trying really hard to hold it in because sometimes he would sit on the side of the pool with an anguished expression and two hands clapped over his mouth. But he toughed it out and then came to me to be dried off afterwards. As he stood there shivering, he said, "N-n-n-now, m-m-m-may I cry please?!!!" I said yes and cry he did.

But incredibly that was the last time. By the next day he was completely fine and he has gotten better everyday since. Yesterday he went all the way under water to pick up rings from the pool floor and jumped off a little platform, going all the way under. Jamie, meanwhile, is totally fearless, diving (literally) headlong into every new thing without hesitation. He is the most advanced in his group and is very proud of the fact that he often goes first to show the other kids how to do new skills.

Ouch!

Sorry, loyal readers, for the paucity of posts lately. I had a couple of other writing things to occupy me the last couple of months but those are cleared away for the moment so I can concentrate on the important stuff.

The boys have inherited, perhaps from G-diddy, a love of the well-placed movie quotation. They've been at it for some time. About a year ago Jamie and I were at a Rice baseball game and we came across a Ferrari in the parking lot (tenured faculty member's no doubt). I showed it to him eagerly, and he immediately responded, quoting the Cars movie word for word, with Italian accent: "A real...Michael Schumacher...Ferrari!! Punch me Guido! Punch me in da face!!"

Connor has picked this up as well and deploys it sometimes to quite comic effect. We were discussing going to a surprise party for Jamie's teacher last weekend and Connor asked how old she was going to be. We told him 50 and he said, quoting his current fave Space Chimps, "Oooh. That's gotta hurt." You can't teach this stuff. Don't worry though, it will be several years before they're in a position to quote from The Godfather saga, and The Hurt Locker is right out.