I gave Corwin his allowance this evening. I decided to have a little fun with him and miscounted it as I went. He noticed me doing that but it worked anyway and I managed to short change him. Happy with his ill gotten loot, he headed off in to the media room. I then went in and told him to recount because I thought I might have given him too much. He then noticed that he was short and started looking around, checking his pockets and clothing for the missing money.
After I got him straight he told me how much money he had. I was surprised by the total and told him that sounded like too much. He rushed off to count it all. He announced the same total again so I went up to count. He was right. I said “that’s a lot of money for a little boy to have”. He replied “I’ve been saving it. That’s how you do it”.
Charles said his first complete sentence today. We were in the basement of the new house. I had set up the paper roll, a big roll of 24 inch wide drawing paper, and had brought a collection of writing devices along. Charles was racing around the room on his little plastic push car while we I mean Corwin started playing with the crayon sticks. Charles saw this, came over and said distinctly “can I try that?”. I was stunned. I wasn’t aware that Charles even knew all of those words and suddenly he’s using them all in a sentence. After that we went over some colors which he did ok at repeating back to me. I think the only color he really knows is “blue”. He’s also picked up “rain”. I drew a little stick figure house for him which he looked at and announced “house!”. We both got very excited about that. Charles was the most excited by my picture of a plane. For some reason that was exceptionally fascinating to him. Later we did clouds and rain and then I had to do a picture of a plane with rain falling on it. Charles would draw blue puddles on the plane to indicate the water.
Charles’ ability to understand language is also rapidly improving. Charles remembered the way to that park from the new house (which is pretty good by itself). He tried going down the path but I persuaded him to explore the neighborhood a bit. After that, though, he went back. He got a little lost and it was just too cute watching him searching along the sidewalk for the hidden path to the magic land. Eventually he found it. At the time he was riding on his little plastic push car and he rode that all the way along the dirt path over to the park walk way. At that point, of course, he decided that he needed to be carried instead of pushing himself along on the car. I wasn’t up for carrying him all that way and back so I told him that we would go back to the house and then drive over to the park. He understood. He didn’t whine or cry at all even though he was desparate to go to the park. He’s smart and cooperative. Just like me! (Mom says “Yes, dear. You’re right as always”).
Charles is finally beginning to pick up language skills. He certainly seems to understand much more complex sentences. Previously he could understand variants on stock phrases but now he understands somewhat new sentences in novel situations. He’s also started asking “why” within the last couple of weeks. Charles seems to listen to the answers.
While we were closing on the house Charles was entertaining himself for a while by reading along with Mom on the legal documents. He’d point at clauses and babble about them. A couple of times he got upset when he didn’t get a chance to look things over.
And this morning, for the first time, Charles used the word “car” without any direct prompting. He was wearing his Hot Wheels™ shirt and Mom asked him “what’s on your shirt?” and Charles replied “car”. Maybe he’ll be using complete sentences himself by the time he gets to kindergarten.
Yesterday afternoon Mom took the boys over to the new house. Corwin didn’t go inside but he was willing to ride his scooter around on the nearby sidewalks. They went over to the park next to the neighborhood as well. Corwin didn’t have any problems crossing the dirt path between the two although Mom, on her roller blades, had a bit of difficulty. The park has a roughly 3 km sidewalk path which is nice for scooters and roller blades so the two of them had a good spin.
In the evening Mom went off to play tennis. Due to scheduling constraints Mom had to bring the boys along and pick me up at work after which I dropped her off at tennis. Corwin was still on a scooter high from cruising the park and he wanted to try the sidewalks next to the tennis courts. I thought we’d give it a try but Charles and I were still hungry from not eating supper (Corwin had sucked down 3 half-sandwiches before heading out). So we popped up to a fast food restaurant a few blocks up. Corwin had demanded that we not go any place slow or busy so that he would not be inordinately delayed from his scooting.
We got there and ordered. There was no seating so Corwin and Charles ran around outside. Charles was very happy, just giggling and litterally jumping for joy. Everything was going fine until we got the food and went back to the van. My electronic key decided to die right at that moment. We could get in the van with the key but because of the anti-theft interlocks I couldn’t actually start the car. Corwin helpfully suggested using the key repeatedly, though, in case the interlocks had magically disappeared in the last minute.
After much prying (and concern that I was going to totally destroy the electronic key) I got it open. A very corroded battery and circut board rested inside. Not good. I thought for a while and finally decided to be bold – we would, the boys and I, set out on an expedition to the Osco drug store two blocks down. Along a busy street. Crossing another busy street. With Corwin on his scooter. And carrying Charles a hyped up Charles.
Apart from my arm becoming very sore from carrying 30 pounds of Charles it went ok. Corwin didn’t stray too far on his scooter and Charles didn’t manage to dart out in to traffic. I found the battery I needed and we headed back to the van. After some vigorous contact and circut cleaning I managed to get the electronic key to work. After all of this it was time for Mom’s tennis outing to be over. Her original plan was to look pathetic until one of the other tennis players gave her a ride home but I decided to go over and pick her up instead.
We got to the tennis place ok and my electronic key still worked (I spent a minute or two zapping the locks on and off to be sure). Corwin didn’t want any of the food, he just wanted to cruise on his scooter. Mom was still heavily engaged in tennis so Charles and I went over to a bench and got out the food. I gave Charles a pot-sticker because he likes those. His response was to clutch it in his hand (where it remained until we got home about 20 minutes later). While Charles was clutching that I started on the main dish. Charles decided that the pot-sticker wasn’t enough and demanded more food. I tried to give him some of the main dish but he wouldn’t take it - he wanted the rice. I dished some out for him and then discovered my other mistake - I had forgotten to get a second fork. Charles took mine and left me to starve.
I was not yet defeated, however. On a previous outing the boys had guilted Mom in to buying them some umbrella skewers. I got three of them to use as chopsticks (three? because of course Charles took one as soon as I started using them). Eventually Mom gave up on tennis and we all went home where I could use an actual plate and utensils and Charles could finally lay down his pot-sticker burden.
The owners were supposed to have packed up by the time we previewed the house but they were still in desparate moving mode. When we closed the next morning the owner still hadn’t slept or finished moving (he ended up just piling stuff in the garage for later recovery). We just looked at it and said “that’s us in a month”.
On Thursday morning we went over to the bank to close on the house. For various reasons we ended up taking Charles with us. That made things extra fun.
Overall Charles was reasonably well behaved although he was quite squirmy while we were sitting looking at documents. He was quite good at bumping in to use right as we were signing something which made some of the signatures a little off.
The only real incident was when Charles got in to a head banging mood. He started head banging on my arm. I thought he had stopped so I picked up the document and handed it back to the lawyer. Charles didn’t notice and banged his head right in to the edge of the table. This made him unhappy. I was able to calm him down after just a few minutes outside in the hall but once he was just kind of sniffling and not crying and I took him back in he wanted Mom.
On Wednesday we went over for a final walkthrough of the new house. We told Corwin about this before we went and he was OK. When we arrived he started crying and said “this isn’t the house I wanted”. Corwin wanted the house with the pool. So we had a depressed and grumpy Corwin for the walk through. I think that he eventually reconciled to the house. We went through the house and told him which each room would be. After seeing the Mom office and the Dad office Corwin wanted to know where his office was. I asked why he needed an office and he told me that he needed a place for his computer.
The bedroom for the boys currently has an orange ceiling. Mom had decided from early on that that ceiling needed some painting. To help Corwin accept the house, she asked Corwin what color he would like. Corwin said that he liked the current color just fine. I think Mom’s view of Corwin’s asthetic sense took a big hit with that annoucement.
Corwin is over visiting Jacob this afternoon (because it’s a Tuesday). I called to check because there wasn’t school on Monday so it wasn’t clear that Corwin realized that it was Tuesday. But all was well, Corwin had gone off to terrorize their house.
Jacob’s Mom commented again on Corwin’s voracity. Today, for instance, he started off his visit by eating three waffles. Jacob and his siblings are light eaters so their mom tries to encourage them to consume by leaving food out, but Corwin is a different beast altogether. Jacob’s mom said that she had to stop leaving food out while Corwin was there because he would eat it. All of it. She asked him once why he was eating something and he replied that if he wasn’t supposed to eat it, why was it out?
Jacob’s mom said that Corwin just “cracks me up” with that kind of comment. The last time I spoke with Corwin’s teacher she said exactly the same thing.
All this eating is a mystery to Mom and me. I have to fight with Corwin in the mornings to eat anything for breakfast. Last time we had a parent / teacher conference she mentioned that he was eating inappropriate things at school which is normally a sign of not getting breakfast. Yet when I set out breakfast for him he kind of picks at it and then declares that he is done. Perhaps his appetite doesn’t turn on until he’s spun up for the day. Or maybe we just don’t have tasty food. I’ll try to go easier on the sawdust filler…
While one always hopes for the best for ones offspring, still it is a hard thing when your child finally surpasses you in skill. I had hoped to put this off until Corwin was 11 or 12 and he started whupping on me in computer games. However, it appears to be the uniform concensus of the office that his fashion sense is already better than mine.
During a recent trip to Walmart I picked up a couple of short sleeve button shirts. Mom picked one out which I thought was ok, but there was another one I preferred so I got that one too. After we got home, I showed Corwin both shirts and asked him which one Dad should wear. Corwin immediately indicated the Mom-selected shirt. Not able to take a clear hint, I put forward the other shirt and asked him “What about this one? Isn’t it cool?”. Corwin gave me the standard child-to-parent ‘Hello! The rest of us live on planet Earth, dude’ look and said “no”. I wrote this off as jealousy of my innate coolness.
So I wore my shirt to work today. While I was over annoying a co-worker, my boss shows up and says “It’s ok to pick out your own clothes”. My traitorous co-worker pipes up with “Yeah, I didn’t want to say anything”. Clearly they’re all just confused. If it wasn’t a cool shirt, would Walmart sell it? Answer me that!
Mom has been complaining about the rate at which Corwin goes through socks. He doesn’t like to wear shoes in the house but once the shoes come off the socks don’t remain long. I generally see Corwin wandering about the house with only one sock on. Of course, if he then has to put shoes back on he gets a new set of socks. So the house is generally littered with discarded Corwin socks which we accumulate on the stairs for eventual transport in the clothes hamper. Sometimes it’s quite a pile. We may need to put him on sock ration before they all wear out from excessive washing. On the other hand, are we bad parents in thinking that he can wear the same pair of socks all day?
Charles has been starting to get insistently independent. As part of his effort at scaring his Dad he has been insisting on getting out of the van by himself. Since that’s about a one foot drop Charles has to jump down and his balance is not yet completely developed. It’s quite the experience to watch him.
This afternoon when we went shopping Mom put Charles in the van and he became very distraught. We didn’t figure it out until the next stop - Mom had put Charles in seat instead of letting him get in to the van and over to the seat on his own.
Charles has also decided that I shouldn’t babble at him anymore. He’ll reach over and put his hand over my mouth to make me be quiet. I don’t see why he gets to babble but I don’t. Kids.
Charles, Corwin and I went to the park today while Mom played tennis. Corwin took his scooter and Charles took his new car (we went to WalMart to pick up kneepads for Corwin). This was Corwin’s first time out with knee pads. He’s had three spills on his scooter in just 3 days, each time on the same knee and mostly in the same place. He had one spill right before his party which meant bundling a screaming Corwin in to the car to go off to a party. Because this was the re-injury of already wounded skin I expect that it was truly painful.
Charles also has scraped up knees but his aren’t nearly as bad. While Corwin carefully protected himself so he could ride his scooter, Charles charged off in to the play structures of the park. The boy was demonstrating no fear today. The park had two play structures, one for bigger kids and the other for smaller kids. Charles of course headed right in to the bigger structure. He went for the big spiral slide. This was a concern because there was a small two step ladder with rungs far enough apart for Charles to slip through. Or his foot could slip and give him a face full of rung or metal floor. But Charles was just warming up.
Later Charles went over to explore the other play structure. This one had smaller slides but from the central raised floor it had a very steep metal stair to the ground. The steps were about 12 inches tall and made of metal. Charles found them and had to go down. At first I tried to hold on to him but that made him unhappy. Then I tried holding my arm in front to catch him if he fell and that was too much as well. Next I tried just standing next to the stair hoping to lunge forward to catch him but Charles didn’t like that either. I, however, stood firm and Charles eventually conceded. But he wasn’t done.
Later, after Charles had explored the swings, he decided to go back to the stairs on the smaller play structure. But he had a problem - Dad. So Charles took Dad over to near the ramp and told him to stay there. But Dad didn’t get it - Dad followed him as he ran up the ramp to the stairs. So Charles stopped and patiently pointed out where Dad should wait: at the bottom of the ramp. Not (and this was the tricky part) by the stairs. Dad still didn’t seem to grasp the concept so Charles came back and pushed Dad in to the correct position: the bottom of the ramp. Charles then took off at top speed for the top of the ramp, the central platform and then - the stairs! But dumb old Dad just couldn’t get it right because Dad headed over for the stairs despite all of the very clear instructions Charles had provided. So Charles was unable to taste the sweet nectar of victory. He reconciled himself to his fate with the stoicism that befits a two year old - he collapsed and cried for a minute or two and then went on. But, and I could see it in his eyes, he would go down the stairs without any supervision. No net for this boy!
Yesterday was Corwin’s birthday party. Mom and I were too exhausted afterwards to write it up. But now that Corwin is occupied with writing thank you notes I have an opportunity to catch up.
The party was at Ants in Their Pants which is an play place for young children. Attendance was somewhat sparse although we suspect that was because it was Memorial Day weekend. Corwin had seven guests in all and it probably worked out better that way. I can’t imagine what a full house would have been like.
As part of the package we got two young girls to lead the festivities. They played some games with the kids, did some gymnastics (mostly bouncing down a long trampoline into a pit of foam) and then served pizza and cake. After that it was time to hit the playland / arcade in the back. I had been concerned about things dragging on but we ended up without enough time to even open presents. Mom and I had to chose between the opening of presents and visiting the arcade. Corwin was a bit disappointed about not doing the opening at the party but the other kids definitely preferred visiting the arcade. Most of the games were the standard carnival type games – whack-a-mole, skee-ball, etc. The playland was extensive with foam stairs, lots of tubes to explore and ball pits. We got some tokens for the arcade which I divied out. Those went quickly so I got another slug of them, which lasted until just before the end of the official time. However, the kids were going so hard that most of the parents ended up letting them play for a while longer before taking them home.
All in all it seemed like a good party. Even Charles had a good time. There was another playland for younger kids (6 and under) with lots of foam blocks and a ball pit. Charles had a wonderful time there. Charles also was very happy just watching the other (older) kids run around and do things.
Corwin is spending the morning writing “thank you” letters for the presents he got for his birthday. He’s been good about it – we got started without much whining on his part. There was a crisis while he was working the thank you to Emma. Emma gave him three small presents instead of one big one. This was fine until I tried to get Corwin to use proper grammar – “this, that and those”. Corwin did not like the comma. He wanted to say “this and that and those”. I tried explain the proper construction of multi-item lists to him but he just said “I don’t get it – I can’t understand”. I gave up trying to install proper sentence construction once his eyes teared up and his lip started quivering. He’s doing well with reading and spelling so I suppose grammar can wait for a few months. But once he’s in first grade …
Charles had a new word yesterday, “plane”. Charles was out triking down the sidewalk when a small airplane flew over head. Charles points up at it and says “uh pwain!”. Shall we recap? The Charles vocabulary: shoe, no, socks, yes, up, kitty, milk, more, what, truck, plane, choo (choo-choo train), hot, please
Charles had fun on his trike for a while until Corwin on his scooter went across the street. Of course, Charles had to go across the street as well. I was hesitant about that but finally decided as Charles sat, crying and dejected on his trike, that it would be ok because I was there with him. So we headed off but Charles, for some reason, stopped about a third of the way across. I pushed him a bit to get to the other sidewalk but he became progressively more unhappy. I finally had to drag his trike off the road. By this time he was in serious meltdown. I picked him and the trike up and took them back to our house. I tried to take Charles inside but he didn’t like that either. So I let him loose to run around the yard and he was happy again.
Charles has turned in to a head banger. It started when he would just hit himself in the head when he was really happy. Lately though he’s been literally banging his head in to things to express happiness. Generally it’s something reasonably soft like couch cushins but he’s taken to banging in to Mom and Dad. At dinner (before the cake episode) Charles was enjoying his food so much he started banging his head in to Mom’s elbow. Later, after he had the car, we did some leg lifts (Charles lays on my lower legs while I raise and lower them) and Charles started banging his head into my knees. At least he keeps the loudness down while he’s doing it.
Today is Corwin’s birthday, he’s now six years old. He got a lot of presents. We didn’t buy him all that many but Mimi and Laurie pitched in to make sure that he had no shortage of loot. Mimi even sent along some extra presents for Charles (a set of trucks).
We let Corwin open a couple of presents in the morning before he went to school. He opened the rest of them when he got home (his party isn’t until Saturday because he wanted to have it at Ants in Their Pants). Jacob came over but fortunately I didn’t get home until around 6 so I missed the initial Jacorobwin spin up.
One of Corwin’s presents was a skooter. He’s been riding on Jacob’s for a while now so we got him one of his own. Of course, he wasn’t out on it long before he took a spill and seriously scraped up his knee. He’s got a big guaze wad bandage on it.
After supper we had some cake. Corwin had picked out the cake and he insisted on the NASCAR version. Unfortunately, this cake comes with two Hot Wheels™ sized cars on it. Corwin took one and Jacob the other because Charles had already gotten a set of four new cars from Mimi already. Charles, however, simply doesn’t understand how it could be that anyone else gets a car instead of him. He started crying and calling “mine!” in a piteous little voice. He didn’t stop the entire time we were having cake. At one point Charles got up out of his chair and ran around behind Corwin, angling to grab the car for himself. I tried to get him interested in his new trucks but they were hours old and he threw them on the ground. After cake Corwin lost interest in the car and Charles was able to sieze it for his own and so in the end he was happy.
Mom went to WalMart yesterday. She tooks Charles with her so of course Charles has a new car. This time he got a small semi that detaches the same way as a real one. Charles has been obsessed with it since he came home with it. But it’s not all joy. Charles was out in the yard playing on the short slide when he sent the semi down the slide. The parts separated and Charles was distraught. Mom looked over, very concerned, because Charles is crying and stretching out his hand in a very pathetic way. I realized right off that it was a car problem. So I put the semi back together but Charles was still upset because the slide was too long for him to run the semi down it from the top. He kept edging out a little more, stretching his arm, desparately trying to get the semi all the way down the slide. Eventually, of course, he went to far and slide down himself. But he carefully protected the semi, heedless of his own risk. And the semi survived all the way to the bottom intact! A triumph of the will.
Charles may not have the best language skills around for a child his age but there are some things he’s good at. He has quite a good sense of place and location. We popped out to the local WalMart today to pick up a few things. Charles knows about WalMart. It’s a place with cars. Not only that, Charles knows where the cars are (which is good for a two year old given the size of the store). The entire time we were shopping for food Charles was very energized, running around and giggling almost non-stop. I attributed it to his general high spirits but Mom informed me that I was sadly mistaken. She then performed an experiment – she turned the cart away from the path that lead to the toy car section. Charles immediately became distraught and began trying to turn the cart back to the good path. Once Mom was back on the straight and narrow Charles returned to his old bubbly self. Once we got to the toy car section Charles had Mom walk him back and forth across the display. He eventually settled on a Hot Wheels Big Dawg™.
We spent a lazy morning to let Mom recover from the shock of having children again after her latest trip. Because Corwin was there we ended up watchin a couple of Scooby Doo movies. At one point Fred accuses one of the suspects of being the villian. I thought that it was not well characterized so I said to Mom “Oh come on! Fred wouldn’t say it like that!”. Corwin immediately pipes up with “ ‘Fred’ – that’s my teacher’s wife’s name!”.
Corwin has lost another tooth. It was another of his bottom front teeth. I’m not sure when it actually fell out. Corwin didn’t complain about it being loose and after I noticed I had to convince Corwin that it was really gone. Because Corwin has his new teeth coming in before the baby teeth fall out there’s not really a gap to notice when one falls out. So now Corwin has lost his first two teeth and we still don’t have any of them. Corwin has a third tooth loose now as well, which is blocking one of his new teeth so I expect that one to not be noticed when it falls out either. I think I’ll tell Corwin that we need to start yanking them ahead of time so we have some as momentos.
Charles seems to have spent time learning vocabularly as well as playing with cars at Grandma’s. He can say “what’s that?” now along with “hot”. I think that he has also learned “please” although he pronounces it as “peas”. Charles wanted me to do something I was busy with something else so he started pulling on my arm and sayin “peas! peas!”.
Charles is also much better at using words he’s just heard although he doesn’t tend to repeat them without prompting. Today he has been very interested in hearing what things are called. He was playing with chalk and wanted to hear what color the chalk was. He draw a line, I would tell him the color and he would giggle and run over to get a different color. Eventually he dispensed with new colors and just giggle each time he drew a line. Later when we want out for some errands Charles was pestering Mom with “what’s that?”. So his increasing languages skills are not an unmixed blessing.
Yesterday was Corwin’s last day of tennis for the current sessions. So this evening Mom asks Corwin whether he wanted to continue playing tennis. Corwin looked pensive and started shifting from foot to foor and holding on to Mom. After about a minute of this, Corwin turns to Mom and says with all sincerity, “What?”
I haven’t heard much of Charles since he want up to Grandma’s. What reports I get second hand from Mom are that he was a little upset when Mom left but quickly quieted down and spent the rest of the day running his cars over the furniture. Which seems to be what he did all the next day as well. Grandma tried to show him off to the astonished townfolk (stunned to see the very embodiment of cuteness) but Charles got tired after the second set of admirers and demanded to go back for a nap. Refreshed, he returned to playing with his cars …
I met Corwin’s teacher at the ice cream social. She told me that she was going to miss Corwin because we are moving to a new school system. She claimed that Corwin “always cracks me up” with the strange things that he says. It’s apparently not because he’s trying to be funny but Corwin frequently has a rather unique viewpoint on things. I don’t hear any of this because of course Corwin doesn’t remember what he does at school and even if he did, he refuses to discuss it with Mom or Dad except under duress. What I think I’ll work on over the summer is a web cam type thing that I can attach to him that takes pictures every minute or so so that I can see whether he’s just stuck in the corner all day or not.
This evening’s fun was a trip to the ice cream social at Corwin’s school. In addition to ice cream and cookies they had a guy with a bunch of strange bicycles that the children could ride around on. Corwin was very enthusiastic – he rode and rode until it was time to put the bikes away. The bicycle guy then did some stunts, one of which was to ride on a 5 foot tall unicycle while juggling flaming objects. Corwin liked that. As we rode home, Corwin felt compelled to explain just where Dad stood in the pantheon of coolness.
Corwin: Did you see him juggle the fire?”
Dad: Yes
Corwin: It was awesome. It was way awesomer than you. You can’t juggle fire.
Dad: How do you know?
Corwin: You’ve never done it. Don’t even try it because you’ll burn yourself.
Dad: Well, Dad spent his time mastering other things. Like tickling little boys.
Corwin: Uncle Evil is much bester than you. He runs fast and catches me.
That’s it, Corwin’s hit the age where everything is cooler than Dad.
Mom is off on another corporate adventure this week. She left very early this morning to take Charles to Grandma’s house while she went on to the airport to catch her plane. Corwin and I will be going bachelor this week, partying till the wee hours of the morning and driving until we can’t see straight. We just have to make sure Mom doesn’t find out about that, or that we junked all the food she left and broke out the cookies and Super Beltz.
I had thought that I was a bit of a slug but I was unable to persuade Corwin to leave the house today. Part of the problem is that I thought it was going to be warm again today but a cold front came through so it was about 25° F colder than I had anticipated. Corwin, have acted on my bad advice, had put on his new sports outfit which is a tank top and shorts made of very light material. Going outside would mean changing in to something else (with sleeves and legs) and that was too traumatic for Corwin.
But I have a moment’s peace now because Jacob came over and the two of them decided to watch Ring of Fire. Oh, I typed too soon – I hear that bouncing around the house now which I suppose I should look in on before civilization itself is destroyed.
Back when I was a young tyke our shoes had laces that had to be tied. Of course, untieing them was far too much bother when I wanted to take them off. My mom would, naturally, yell at me to undo the lace before taking off the shoes. Now of course the shoe is on the other foot. Corwin, however, has shoes that either have two Velcro™ strips or zippers. This is still too much for His Royal Boyness. Just ripping off two strips or pulling down a zipper – too much work. What kind of kids am I raising?
We were out running some errands today and on the way back Corwin decided to entertain himself by counting. He got all the way up to 211 before he got bored (Mom got bored about 43 or so). Mom claimed that no one on her side of the family would find it entertaining to just count up. I suggested mistreatment in the womb as the possible cause. Corwin took no note of our conversation as he was absorbed in his number sequence.
Charles is becoming quite the little drama queen. He’s had the habit for a while of just collapsing to the floor in misery whenever he doesn’t get his way (he collapses so thoroughly that he’s bonked his head a few times doing it). However, the technique isn’t very effective. Charles is a clever boy, though, and he’s realized this as well. This morning he was upset because Mom wasn’t doing something he wanted so he did the collapse and then he started crawling on his tummy over toward Mom. Charles looked truly pathetic. Unfortunately he had neglected to indicate what it was that Mom was failing to do so she could only look on in wonder at the acting skills of her child.
Corwin lost his first tooth on Wednesday (yes, I’m late reporting it). We don’t know where it went – Corwin just noticed it was missing when he got to school. What’s been strange is that Corwin’s new teeth had already come in before he started losing teeth. 2 or 3 mm behind his bottom front baby teeth were the tops of his adult teeth. This mean that when his tooth fell out there was just a little gap, not all that noticeable if you didn’t look closely. Now Corwin has to write a note to the Tooth Fairy explaining that he doesn’t have the tooth.
I was discussing summer vacation with Corwin this morning.
Dad: “Corwin, what are you going to do all day during summer vacation?”
Corwin: “Eat your head”
Dad: “Dad won’t be there, he doesn’t get summer vacation”
Corwin: [points in the direction of Jacob’s house]
Dad: “You’re going to spend all summer at Jacob’s?”
Corwin: “Yes”
Dad: “But what about Erica? She was going to be bored and we promised her that you would keep her entertained”
Corwin: [bored, resigned voice] “Ok, I’ll stay here”
Ah, the sacrifices we require of our children!
Today’s word is “kitty”. Charles was looking at a book and he pointed at a picture of a cat on the front and said “a kitty”. Charles and I then got into an argument about another picture which Charles declared was a truck and I told him it was a car. Charles responded “No! Truck!” with a turn to take the book away from Dad who was being a pain.
Charles is also getting good at putting Brio™ track together. He doesn’t have much success with closing loops but he does assemble a respectably long chunk of track to run the train on. The train goes off-road when it hits the end of the track and then gets back on at the start again. It’s a very powerful train.
Corwin has decided who he is going to marry: Erin, a girl in his class at school. He told this to Uncle BlaineMcNutt while he was staying there but he confirmed it for Mom and Dad after we got back. Apparently Erin likes “boy stuff” which makes her an acceptable mate. Corwin hasn’t informed Erin of this yet – he doesn’t see any reason that she needs to be told. I asked about a date and he said it would be when he was taller than Mom so it’s a ways out yet.
We finally made it back from our travel. Mom likes to take red-eye flights back so we arrived at our destination at 5 AM in time for a 3 hour drive home. Mom and I slept for a few hours and then went to pick up Charles. He was napping so we went to lunch and when we came back he was still napping. Mom decided to wake him up anyway. Charles was OK with being picked up but he wasn’t overly excited to see us. He has, however, been glued on to Mom since we got back. Dad isn’t good enough anymore.
Mom went and picked Corwin up at school a while later. Corwin came back and said “hi” to me but otherwise was completely unconcerned about the entire trip. He did have the presence of mind to immediately start searching for any toys that might have been brought back for him. That’s a boy who has his priorities straight.
I reached another milestone today. Corwin’s friend Emma was over visiting when she announced that she had had a snack before coming over. I asked her “What did you have? Fried spiders? Boiled toads?”. Emma denied partaking of either of these. Corwin then commented to her “My dad’s just weird”.
Charles is a hot child. His Mom and Grandfather have elevated body temperatures and apparently Charles has inherited from both sides. Charles’ Mom and I have always noticed how hot he runs but since Corwin has the same property (although to a lesser extent) we didn’t have a good standard for comparison. Now we do and apparently Charles is nuclear furnace boy. The first clue was while were in Texas. As noted, Gramps got to interact with Charles by having him watch him play on the computer. Afterwards he commented on the waves of heat from Charles being that close. The other was the complaint of “sweltering heat” from Uncle Blaine. Now we just have to hide Charles from the Global Warming Police.