Despite Mom’s skepticism, I think that Charles is finally starting to use language. He’s certainly starting to understand more complex sentences. We were waiting downstairs the other day and I said “Charles, we need to get you dressed”. He immediately got happy and took off for the stairs. It’s probably just memorization of stock phrases, but it’s a start. I think that he’s also starting to use “this” and “that” to refer to things. This morning his sippy cup was empty and so he handed it to Dad and said “sumwah moah”, which I think was his rendition of “some more”. Charles also uses “uh-oh” in appropriate circumstances as well. The biggest break through I think he’s had recently is the concept of words being used to communicate, which is why his understanding of words is important.
It’s frequently an issue with young children to get their underwear on in the right direction. Normally this is because it’s hard to tell the front from the back on just casual inspection. However, Corwin is once again ahead and behind of the curve at the same time. He doesn’t seem to have any problem knowing which side is the front, but he crosses his legs as he puts the underwear on, leading to having it on backwards.
Corwin is currently engrossed in his Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets game, which Mom bought him with money from Grandma and Grandpa. Unfortunately, he needs help from Dad at certain points. So Corwin is running through a particularly difficult part where Dad has to help a lot. The internal economy of the game runs on jelly beans. Dad being the obsessive person that he is, his first priority is to gather all the beans that he can. Corwin sees this and immediately says “stop that! get back to work!”.
We’re driving back after a long set of errands and we see that the Monster Truck nationals are being held nearby. We decide that Corwin wouldn’t like it because it would be too loud.
Corwin : What did you say?
Dad : That we shouldn’t take you to the monster truck nationals because it’s too loud.
Corwin : Monster trucks … cool. How loud would it be?
Mom : Very loud.
Dad : Really loud.
Corwin : What number?
Dad : I would say 85-90 decibels.
Corwin : Ay-yi-yi!
Mom : Corwin, you don’t even know what a decibel is!
It turns out that Charles can move matter to and from an alternative dimension. I took him up to change his diaper. He had a car clutched in one hand, which he promptly dropped over the side of the changing table as soon as I set him down. That side is next to the wall so I didn’ t see where the car went. It was a crisis situtation - Charles had no cars! Thinking quickly, I pulled out the table and looked behind it for the car. I could find no trace of it - I later realized that Charles had phase-shifted it to the alternate dimension. I did, however, find four other cars, which had either been phase shifted back by Charles, or the phase-shift lasts for only a limited amout of time. I will require further experiments to determine the exact extent of Charles’ dimensional abilities.
Charles is doing magic tricks. He had his pajamas in each hand at the top of the stairs as Dad came up to get him. He ran into the toy room over next to a big fabric cube cushion. Behind the cushion where Dad couldn’t see was a black plastic top hat from Corwin’s magic kit. Charles stuffed his pajama top and bottom into the hat and then triumphantly raised his arms to show that the pajamas were now all gone! Then he picked up the hat, tipping it over so the pajamas fell out behind the cushion and put it on to show that the pajamas weren’t there either. He then modeled the hat and smiled, figuring his cuteness would overcome any spectator doubts. It was a complete success — Dad was completely fooled — he had no idea what happened to the pajamas.
It’s very traumatic - Mom and I don’t know where we went wrong. Our Charles, at age two, is a … a … baby wipe addict. Yes, it’s true. Charles is hooked on baby wipes. Most of the time when I change him, the first thing I have to do is give him a baby wipe. He won’t let me get any for my own use until he has one for himself. Sometimes he washes the wall next to the changing table with it, sometimes he eats it, on occasion he wipes his face or nose with it. Another technique is to try to erase with it (he saw me do that with the chalk board once, and use kleenex to erase a dry-erase board, so now any white cloth like object is an eraser). But what he generally likes is to carry it around for an extended period of time. It’s like a disposable security blanket. He wanders about the house, a baby wipe clutched tightly in one hand. It’s almost as good as a car.
The whole family was out last week, picking up a present for Mom (she had already selected the specific item, so it was more important to get the exact thing than surprise her). We found the meter tall blue ceramic chicken she had her heart set on and it was resting a pottery dish and a metal work stand. I claimed that that was just for show, but Mom thought that it came with the chicken. I went over and asked about it and the accoutrements were not included. I triumphantly called back to Mom “Ha! I was right!”. A this point another woman cruising by with a cart stops and says to us, “A man was right! Call CNN! I can’t believe it!”. I assured her that I would make a note of it for posterity. She wandered off, her world view forever altered.
Grandma was right - it had been a week since the last update. Well, it’s a packed day of content today. Our internet connection has been down so I’ve been accumulating stuff to post when I got connected again. I’m at work now, after dropping off the car, so I can get my connection fix. But I like to favor quality over quantity, so if there’s no updates that means that life is going on without anything out of the ordinary, or that Mom and Dad are frantically busy. Eventually the boys will spill over the order horizon and there’ll be more to share.
We made it back from Grandma’s without incident. Those happened after we got back. Charles and Corwin opened up the two Lincoln Log sets that Mimi and Gramps had sent for Christmas (yes, the boys got so many presents that days later we’ll still working our way through them). Unforunately, Lincoln Log structures are not the sturdiest shelters and Charles, in his enthusiam to play with Corwin, kept knocking them down. There were some train tracks and a train with it as well, but the train had real train wheels, which jump the track a bit too much for a two year old to handle. After some frustration, Charles reverted to using his Hot Wheels cars on the track, plowing through the discarded logs of former buildings.
So it wasn’t a good evening for Charles. He didn’t sleep well, either. He got upset in the middle of the night and he was inconsolable. He didn’t seem to be awake and his cries seemed tobe more of frustration rather than pain. Mom first took him down to watch some movies, which calmed him, but then he pulled Mom back upstairs, where immediately after laying down he was screaming again. Eventually Mom went over to the play room and stayed on the couch in there, which seemed to relieve Charles’ distress. I had to get up early and take care of garbage and dropping off the car, but Charles seems to be fine with no trace of his distress. It may just have been separation anxiety. While we were at Grandma’s, either parent leaving would cause Charles to become very distressed, even if he was being held by the other parent. Mom and Dad went out only once without Charles, for a walk, and he recovered quickly once we were gone and was happy by the time we got back. Corwin, as he has generally always been, was oblivious. He’s even more so now — give him a computer game and he doesn’t notice anything. He must get that from Mom.
Christmas morning. It’s a white Christmas, a bit cloudy but it has stopped snowing, leaving a good cover over the landscape. But what was more important was the good covering of presents that Santa had left under the Christmas tree. The children plowed through the stack in quick order. Corwin kept asking “aren’t there any more presents?” as we went through the various caches of presents. Charles got so enthused that he just kept opening presents even after all of his were done, so Grandma got some pre-opened presents.
After a brisk morning of present opening it was time for sledding. There is now a large drainage pond just a block or so from the house, which promised some good sledding for small children within walking distance. Corwin and I set out and after collecting a Jacob we went over to sled. The sledding was good. Another local family had already arrived and beat down some good runs. Mom, Charles and Jacob’s sister Jesse showed up a little later. Dad got a lot of exercise running down the slope to retrieve children and sleds. Hauling up two children in sleds at the same time was almost too much. After sledding, it was time to pile in the car and head off to Grandma’s, about three hours away. It wasn’t a good trip for Corwin because all of the McDonalds were closed for Christmas. But we arrived without excessive trauma in time for a nice Christmas dinner. We opened some more presents, played with them for a while and then watched Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. As Jesse said, “this is the best day in the whole world!”.
Charles has discovered cleaning. He has always liked baby wipes - I generally have to let him have one while I’m changing his diaper. Now he’s discovered cleaning windows (he tends to use a baby wipe) and sweeping the floor. Right now he’s bouncing around the kitchen with a full sized broom and dustpan, sweeping away. He’s about to also discover that brooms do not work as well on carpet. Corwin used to do this as well, but he has sadly grown out of it. Still, even now, Corwin does windows and that’s pretty special in today’s workd.
We all opened one present this Christmas eve. Charles got a Blues Clues boom box, which has a microphone and a lot of buttons, each of which plays something. It’s from Bear’s Mom and is just like the one all three of them fought over while we were in Florida. Dad got an analog / digital video converter. Mom got a Vegeta T-shirt which Corwin picked out. Mom was thrilled. Corwin got an RC car, the Super Tret. Corwin was very excited about it as he opened it.
Corwin : I knew this was the right present to pick [to open]!
Dad : It’s a good present?
Corwin : Yes. This is so cool!
Dad : Your godmother Laurie gave that to you.
Corwin : I love her!
Corwin : Jacob should have gotten this present because he will knock his socks
Corwin : … off.
For all you women out there, this aspect of masculinity doesn’t ever change. Of course, we immediately opened up Charles’ and Corwin’s presents and powered them up. Corwin ran his RC car around the kitchen for a bit and then went off to watch TV with the car. It’s sitting there beside him as he clutches the remote control.
It’s Christmas eve. Corwin is very excited. He woke up this morning and his first question was “how many days until Christmas?”. He became very excited when I told him it was tomorrow. In a incident of amazing timing, it started snowing heavily in the late afternoon. Enough came down that the kids, Jacob and Mom went out to enjoy the snow. Charles got tired of it after a little bit, but that’s probably because we couldn’t find his mittens. This is the first snow of the season and it will provide a beautiful white Christmas for the boys.
We’ll be opening a few presents this evening, so that the children don’t suffer from too much present overload. This will be the first Christmas for Charles where he understands presents, although I think that he is not clear on the overall Christmas thing. He definitely likes to open presents now, though.
There were two little girls visiting for Charles’ party, both a little over 4. Apparently they had a tiff — I overhead one saying to the other “but why don’t you want to be my friend?”. The upset one drifted away and refused to respond. The tone was confused and hurt. In contrast, Corwin and Jacob were battling it out in Re-Volt, yelling at each other to “cut me some slack”. Those girls were already acting in a more emotionally complex way than I expect Corwin will be when he goes to college.
Charles didn’t really understand opening presents before today. Mom started him on some in the afternoon, after he got home, on the assumption that he’d get more overall enjoyment if they didn’t all come at once. At first Charles didn’t see what to do, but by the time he opened the garage he was very clear on the concept. As soon as he was through the paper and saw the tape, he got frustrated. We’ve turned one more innocent child into a greedy consumer. We’re so proud.
We’re winding down from the party scene. The parties went well overall and Charles is now officially two. Corwin’s godparent and his wife were over, along with Jacob’s family and one of Jacob’s sister’s friends, and Erica. Some old friends of the family dropped by for just a minute and dropped off some presents for the boys. Charles got a bag of goodies with a balloon. We don’t know what’s in the bag because Charles was completely fascinated by the balloon. He spent quite a while holding it and pulling it down from the air and then giggling.
We had cupcakes with icing instead of cake. The icing was very strongly colored, so that Charles and Corwin have colored hands and faces still, even after some washing. Erica ended up with green teeth so of course I took pictures. But nothing was spilled, which is something of a minor miracle.
After dinner we opened Charle’s big present, a wooden garage that he can use to play with cars. For too long Charles has struggled on, deprived, forced to run his cars on the couch while trying to pretend it was a road. Never again! Now he has a nice hard multi-level surface with ramps and lines and an elevator! Corwin immediately asked if he could play with it. We told him that for now it was best to let Charles play with it, it being Charles’ present and his birthday and all. Corwin replied “I want one of those for my birthday”. Corwin is now bugging Charles to open more presents, but Charles doesn’t see the need. He has a garage.
Tomorrow is going to be a good day for Mom. She has 5 parties, 3 of which will require a significant effort on her part. There are two parties for Corwin, one at kindergarten and the other at daycare. Charles also has two parties, one at daycare and another at home (for his birthday). There is also a party at work. Dad prepped the goodies for Corwin’s and Charles’ party away from the house, but Mom has to come in with Dad to help out at Corwin’s kindergarten party. Mom also has to make a dish for the party at work and prepare Charles’ birthday party at home. It should be quite the day, full of parties and family. What could be better? Oh, that’s right — she has meetings at work all day.
Corwin was taking a bath tonight while I was downstairs blathering on about my technical triumphs as Mom nodded and “hmmm’d” appropriately. Corwin then declared from upstairs that he wanted to get out of the bath. We told him “ok, then you should pull the plug, get out and dry yourself off”. This was unacceptable to His Royal Boyness. He called down every now and then, asking when we would be done talking so we could come upstairs. Eventually Dad ran down and went upstairs to rescue Corwin. Once Dad was in the bathroom with Corwin, His Royal Boyness changed his mind and decided that he didn’t need Dad to get out of the bathtub. What he wanted was to wait for Mom. After a bit Mom came up and went into the bathroom, at which point Corwin got out and then told Mom that he wanted “some privacy” and sent Mom away. How exactly Mom was necessary to catalyze the exit from the bathtub will, unfortunately, remain unknown, despite extensive interviews with HRB.
Mom is working at home this morning, while Dad takes care of Charles who has fallen asleep, trapping Dad. Fortunately Dad has his toy so you readers are not deprived of your dose of Die Biden Buben. But for now I’d like to write about Mom. She ordered a new table for the dining room and it arrived this morning. She had to deal with it because I was busy cleaning up after a Charles art experience. Charles went to help Mom. I tried to move him out of the way after I finished cleaning but Charles wasn’t pleased with that because there was a truck outside. Fortunately Charles was OK with walking out to the truck to look at it, freeing Mom and the delivery driver to handle the table.
After the truck left, which Charles watched raptly until it was out of sight, I went in to find Mom with the table top on our old table. I commented that we didn’t need to get the table set up immediately. She claimed that she was just “measuring it to see how it will work out”. I wasn’t fooled. Her slight slip of the tongue, “it’s a new toy” provided the clue I needed to see through her little deception.
After a bit, Charles had a face planting accident which bloodied his lip a bit. He and Dad got snuggly to make him feel better and he crashed out. For Mom, who had been a bit twitchy while working on her laptop, this was too much. She was up and fiddling with the table a few minutes after Charles went down. As I type this, holding a snoring Charles, Mom is busy with a mad light in her eyes, fastening down the base of the table. What we’ll do with the current table, for which the main problem is that it is too big, I don’t know. But I’m sure Mom does.
It’s time for another adventure for Corwin. We’re sending him home with Jacob again. I gave him the lecture this morning, that he’s to stay with Jacob until a parent is present, that he’s not to go home and that he’s to go with Jacob to Jacob’s house. Jacob’s Mom had the same talk with Jacob and Mom had another talk with Jacob when he was here in the morning. We’ll see if they remember.
Sorry, nothing actually about the children. I’ve tweaked up the format a bit, feel free to complain uselessly in the comments (except for Mom). We also have a spiffy new address, http://order-horizon.net. Try it here! That may be easier to remember. The current address will continue to work, so there’s no need to update your links. UPDATE: A few minor glitches, but I think I fixed them all. If you see something wierd, please comment here.
The last couple of days I’ve started having Charles help pick out clothing. Yesterday I got out two shirts for him and he seemed a bit confused about what Dad wanted, but eventually he settled on one. Today I got out three and Charles immediately grabbed one and then happily let Dad put it on. Ah yes, the boy is already acquiring his Dad’s legendary fashion sense…
Apparently Charles’ previous time at day care was so good that he was very eager to be on his way this morning. Due to a car mixup over the weekend, Mom had to come back from work to pick me up. She called and said she’d be leaving soon, so I put shoes on Charles to start getting him ready. Charles, who had been a bit of a clutchy boy earlier in the morning was energized. He imediately started heading for the garage door, although he was a bit puzzled that Dad didn’t follow along. When hanging out and banging on the door didn’t work, Charles realized the problem — no coat! So he tried to pull his coat down from the rack. At this point Dad gave up. I bundled Charles up, got my own coat on, packed up my work materials and we went outside to wait for Mom. Charles waited patiently for a bit, and then started playing with a little push toy, whizzing around to pass the time until Mom arrived. Then into the car and off to visit his little friends - enough of hanging out with Dad.
Remember, Charles will be two this Friday. Don’t forget to buy him lots of stuff. You can get some idea of his tastes here.
This morning I gave Charles so milk in an open cup with a straw. I tried to help him but Charles pushed me away. He didn’t spill any from the cup, but he’s not quite clear on the concept that milk stays in the straw for a little bit after you stop drink. He generally takes the straw out the instant he stops and of course milk drips out all over everything. After I cleaned it up, Charles started hrrmmming in a distressed voice - Dad had missed a spot of milk! I hustled over and cleaned that up which cheered Charles up immediately.
For any computer software, Corwin and Charles have a 1800Mhz P4 computer with 512Meg of memory and a 40G hard disk with USB and FireWire ports along with a color inkjet printer running Windows XP.
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Corwin’s Stuff |
Charles’ Stuff |
Charles was playing the piano while Mom decorated the tree (Corwin’s decorating needs were fufilled enough that he was off playing Re-Volt). But it’s not good to just bang on the keyboard — Charles requires sheet music. He gets quite vexed if there isn’t a book of music on the piano for him to peruse. Dad tried to just leave him to play but Charles was having none of that! Dad was forced to make himself useful by holding the music book open to te page selected by Charles.
Ultimately normal sheet music wasn’t challenging enough for our prodigy. He deciced to try playing the gadget catalog Dad was looking at. Dad put it on the piano and Charles tried it a bit. Interesting, but still not quite right. Charles then made Dad page through the catalog, Charles intently studying each page until he found just the right one. Eventually after several playings, we reached the back of the catalog. But Dad had let the corner dangle over the edge of the music ledge! Charles played one note and stopped, carefully pushed the edge back into position, and then resumed his recitation. Dad was forgiven. Yay!
We found out that when”Corwin went home instead of going to play with Jacob”:68 that he was not in fact home alone. The cleaning people were there as well, although Corwin “kinda forgot” about that as well. Susan discovered a message on her phone at work when she returned from the cleaning people about Corwin showing up alone (and probably had them wondering what kind of parents we were to send him home alone). Mom of course had to call them back to explain that it was a mixup, that Corwin doesn’t normally wander around the neighborhood alone. Fortunately Jacob had arrived to retrieve Corwin before they left so at least they didn’t have to face the decision about whether to just leave Corwin.
Corwin had made no mention of this, but when interrogated specifically he admitted the whole thing. The only loose end is that Corwin now things that he’s supposed to go to Jacob’s every Tuesday. But I don’t think that anyone else could survive the adventure on a regular basis.
Like Jacob, Corwin has a unique artistic perspective. This is some artwork that Corwin did for Halloween. It is, as you might guess, a monster. It is a five eyed monster, which is much scarier than a four eyed monster. The monster has a spider friend who is crawling on the monster’s chest. The monster is out walking around during the day (you can see the sun and a nice tree behind him). The work is executed in crayon on 36 lb. paper. It is signed by the artist in the upper right corner. This is a key distiniguishing mark which will help you avoid forgeries.
Apparently Charles was happy to return to all his normal habits after his visit with Grandma. When Mom picked him up yesterday, the teachers said that he had been happier than they had ever seen him be before. Charles is normally a fairly happy boy, so he must have had a major happy day. They said he just giggled randomly all day because he was so happy. Maybe I’ll make him extra happy and taking him driving on the computer while Mom and Corwin decorate the tree if Charles doesn’t like enjoy it.
Today we started getting ready for Christmas at the house. We went out for breakfast with Santa and then we got a tree. Corwin picked it out. It was the second tree he looked at but from then on he just wasn’t interested in any other trees. Corwin has been desparately eager to help Mom decorate the tree, so it should be a good day for him. He has to wait for Mom to put on the lights, but then he gets to put on the candy canes. Charles isn’t much in to Christmas yet - he didn’t even want to see Santa this morning. But I’m sure the cultural zietgeist will re-program him eventually.
But we ran into a snag — some of the tree lights didn’t work so Mom had to run out to Wal-Mart to get some new ones while the rest of us went driving on the computer. Mom eventually returned, but she had also purchased some outside lights. While she was putting this up Corwin was wandering the house, moaning piteously “where are the new christmas tree lights?” like a little lost spirit crying for what it never had in life.
Jacob was over this morning to go with Corwin to the bus stop, but Corwin was running a little late so Jacob had time to draw some art work using Corwin’s color change markers.
Charles and Mom are back home now. Charles has been very happy since he returned, except for some frustration when Mom wouldn’t play a driving game with Charles. Very soon after getting home, Charles was closely reading his book of truck pictures. Then he gathered up some Hot Wheels and ran around the house being happy.
The big adjustment to being home is between Charles and Secant over the ottoman. I normally use it as a foot rest while I”m typing these at home, but I’ve given up trying to fight Secant for it. Now Charles is using it to put his puzzles together and he gets some what steamed when Secant jumps up and sits on his puzzle pieces. It should be quite the contest of wills.
Charles can now almost put the big fire truck puzzle together all by himself. Dad only helped on two pieces, which is quite good. He’s also started to sound like he trying to talk, rather than making random phonemes. He seems to be close to be able to say “this”, which would be a big step. He certainly seems to understand language better. Just try it Charles — since Corwin won’t ever talk with us it will be nice to have conversations with at least one child.
Corwin: When will it be Tuesday?
Dad: In 6 days. It’s a long time till Tuesday. Why do you ask?
Corwin: On Tuesday I get to go home with Jacob!
Mom is out of town for a few days and Charles is visiting his grandmother so I’m alone with Corwin. I needed to work late one day so I arranged for Corwin to go home with his friend Jacob today. Corwin was very excited about this. After much phone calling and arrangements, everything was set - Corwin would head home with Jacob on the bus instead of going to day care. I put a note for his teacher in his backpack, although she said that Corwin spent most of the afternoon talking about going to visit Jacob anyway. The teacher dutifully made sure that Corwin and Jacob set off hand in hand to the bus after school. But a little while later I get a frantic call from Jacob’s mom that Corwin is missing. Apparently he didn’t arrive with Jacob. Of course, this is compounded because Erica the Brave is holding down the fort at Jacob’s house so everything is second hand. I’m not very concerned because at the time I assumed that Jacob had gotten on the bus while Corwin waited patiently in his room for Jacob to pick him up. I dropped by day care to verify that Corwin wasn’t there and then headed over to the school. Corwin’s not there and the staff is starting to panic. I go to talk to Corwin’s teacher and she tells her story. I head back to the office to try and figure out where Corwin might have gone. As we get back to the office Jacob’s mom is on the phone. Corwin did arrive with Jacob, but instead of visiting Jacob he went home instead. Neither Corwin nor Jacob apparently found this strange, despite the whole build up to “playing with Jacob”. Nor was Corwin concerned about the fact that nobody else was home. Finally Jacob, sensing somehow that something was wrong, went over to Corwin’s house and brought him back. Corwin’s explanation of why he hadn’t stayed to play with Jacob: “I kinda forgot”. I just had to explain this to his teacher, the office staff at school, the office staff at day care and the care provider at day care. I’m glad I arranged for this time saving adventure.
UPDATE: an exclusive interview by Order Horizon with Corwin himself
OH: Why didn’t you go home with Jacob?
Corwin: I kinda forgot.
OH: But you were very excited about it and talked about going all afternoon!
Corwin: I just forgot.
OH: What did you do while you were home alone?
Corwin: Played Re-Volt.
OH: Daddy was out driving around looking for you
Corwin: Oh. I just forgot. What’s in the box? [points at a box Dad brought home]
When Jacob arrived at home, Erica asked him “Did Corwin come home with you?” to which Jacob replied “No”, because he knew Corwin had gone to Corwin’s house. Erica interpreted this as Corwin not getting on the bus at all. After Jacob’s mom got home and interrogated Jacob more thoroughly, he disclosed Corwin’s whereabouts, with a bit of a smile. Jacob’s mom said “it’s not funny!” to which Jacob replied “yes it is”.
But except for that, a good time was had by all.
As you can tell from the previous posts, panic is begining to set in around the house as Christmas approaches and we have yet to do much shopping. This week Mom is off on a business trip. Charles is staying with his grandmother while Corwin gets stuck with Dad. We’ll be eating salsa and chips for every meal, except when we feel like chocolate chips with ice cream. Haha, just kidding Mom, it’s cold hot dogs and ketchup sandwiches for the boy.
Corwin didn’t mind Mom heading off very much, he figures that now he can play a lot more Re-Volt. Unfortunately, I think he’s also going to learn about straightening up the house and putting away toys. If Dad can tear himself away from his weblogs…
Since Mom won’t ever post this, I will. And when I think of something to get her, I’ll buy it for her myself instead of posting it here because, quite frankly, I’m desperate. I had one good idea but I gave it to Corwin, who picked it out for Mom. So if anyone reading this has ever thought “gosh, I’d like to get that for Corwin’s Mom but it’s just too expensive” let me know! Thanks.
By popular demand, here is my Christmas list. If I update this I’ll bump the date so it’s clear there are new items.
Last night was the Christmas concert at Charles’ day care. Corwin isn’t there full time since he started kindergarten so it was just Charles, although we made Corwin come along so that he could watch his little brother.
The program is just a few songs sung by each class. Charles was with the toddlers and at least he didn’t start screaming in the middle of the event (a couple of the 2 year olds had to be carted off). But as far as I could tell, none of the toddlers actually sang, although a couple of them did wave their star wands and jingle bells randomly. Charles was in full catatonic mode. I’m sure he was thinking “what is this? It doesn’t look like a car. It’s not even a truck. And those sounds they want me to make — those certainly don’t sound like a car. Maybe if I’m quiet and good they’ll give me a car later”
It worked out for Charles. After the concert there was punch and cookies in the next room. While Corwin foraged like a starving boy Charles wandered among the toys and found a big fire engine! So a good time was had by all.
We spent the last day just hanging out. We went to a book store in the evening because it was raining (Corwin was desperate for mini-golf but none of the adults wanted to go play that in the rain). The next morning we got up and headed home, another uneventful trip, except for a slight mixup in the tickets that we got resolved. Charles was kind of grumpy but after he had a long nap on the plane and we touched down he turned into Very Happy Boy. Now it’s time to relax and recover from the vacation.
We went out on a swamp boat yesterday with the entire crew. Corwin sort of enjoyed it, but the pilot managed to drench the passengers several times. Corwin was on the edge and he caught quite a lot of it. Corwin didn’t like that so much but he really liked it when we went fast and the the wind rushed by. Corwin also liked seeing the alligators. We didn’t all that many on the boat trip but there were a lot of them on the way back, just by the side of the roads.
