Two of a kind

I’m glad I started the website when Connor was born.  As I went to review where Connor was at 16 months to see where Josephine was developmentally (because all good parents compare right?), I noticed a few things.  First a lot of these observations were made due to a new purchase.  My wife and I have been using a little Sony point and click and we always have it nearby.  We’ve captured Connor’s first movements, sounds, rolling over, Josie’s first steps, stand, etc.  But now that they are both mobile, and very mobile at that, a lot of the pictures are blurry. 

So I just got Nita a pretty nice DSLR with 18 Megapixel and an “image stabilization” lens.  I watched a few videos on line about how to best use it, and read through the instruction manual and started playing with it.  The pictures (which you’ll see shortly) are phenomenal. Not my artistic picture taking, but the clarity, focus, etc.  I can’t wait to really play with this.  The videos are also great and now that Josie is talking, we’re really excited about continuing our photo record of the kids.

As I was playing with the camera I noticed something that I didn’t really realize before.  My kids have different interests. Connor has the attention span of a gnat in heat.  He likes to read books, play with trains, blocks, legos, gears, puzzles, sing songs, and watch shows.  The problem is, and it isn’t a problem per se, that he moves from one thing to another so quickly that picking up his station never even enters his mind.  So he leaves a little trail of destruction.  It’s kind of ironic, because the builder while Josie is more of the destroyer.  Josie loves to come to Connor’s current station and start pulling apart the legos, train tracks, etc.  When she does this Connor usually calls her “Godzilla.”

But here is the funny thing, she will pick up the toys and put it in the correct box without being asked.  She’s also just as likely to dump out the box, so she’s not exactly an OCD cleaning prodigy. But the other funny difference is how they read. Like Connor she loves books.  But she wants to read the same book over and over and over.  Connor will bring you three books at a time and might cut you off mid book to start a new one.  And when we go outside to play, Connor is all over the place.  He’s on his back hoe, building tunnels for bugs (which is awesome because I used to do that and he came up with this on his own), playing on the playscape, digging, etc.  Josie wants to get on the swing.  That’s it.  She’ll run around after Connor, likes the slide and being in the fort when Connor is in it, but if you put her in the swing, she’ll make you push her for about 20 minutes.  Connor will have done 15 different things in those 20 minutes and asked you to tell him at least 10 different stories. Meanwhile Josie is pointing to the front of the swing and saying “push” while doing the sign language sign for “more.”

Josie is also getting vocal and noticing our routines.  She’s making relationships like in order to go outside, you must wear shoes (Connor by the way would go out shoeless and nekkid if you let him, and technically he’s done it…on more than one occasion).  She can say outside, socks and shoes. So when she’s ready to go outside, you’ll know it pretty quickly, she’ll bring you a shoe and say, “outside.”  You ask her to go get some socks and she runs off to the sock basket.  For meal times (and Nita thinks I’m going to give her a complex) she can’t wait to get rolling.  She knows or at least understands that we pray before meals.  So she slaps her hands together says “God is gate amen” and there better be something on her tray PDQ.  Speaking of food, Connor loves to help in the kitchen.  Green eggs and ham last week, and he helped make pancakes this weekend.  Josie likes to be held to watch, she doesn’t need to participate quite yet.

She’s a bit ahead of Connor on the vocal part and is really excited about communicating.  She is just absorbing everything.  The other day while watching Baby Noah (from the Einstein series) Connor, boy genius that he is, doesn’t just say “tiger” he says “Bengal tiger.”  Not because that’s what they call it on the show, but because he saw it in a book we read him. Needless to say, Connor’s animal vocabulary is quite vast.  It’s actually very impressive.  Well on the baby Noah show, they roll out five or six animals per region and then do a summary.  Connor calls them out before they even show the whole animal, but this time, Josie was calling out animals too.  Hippo, Lion, jaff (giraffe), whale, etc.  It’s really fun watching her learn and grow.

So the thing that is making me wonder is whether they will try to be more alike, or completely different.  I kind of hoped they’d be into some of the same things and they could do stuff together.  I know they’ll need independence and whatnot and don’t want two clones of different genders, but I’m just curious how it’ll all shake out.

Oh, and as a humorous aside, one of my old college roommates is coming to town for south by southwest.  He’s a big shot at an advertising agency and wants me to meet him for a showcase one of his clients is sponsoring.  So I asked him about the bands and when I went to youtube to watch a couple of videos, holy crap.  When did I get old?  I know my 20 year reunion should have been a hint, but seriously?  Just the fashion and hairstyles in the videos makes me feel like I don’t belong at the venue.  Of course I’m going because it’ll be open bar for me and my buddy. J  I’m not stupid, just old I guess.  The funniest part is I’m not sure I would have gone to see these bands 20 years ago…in my 501 jeans with the bottom in a tight cuff of course, genera shirt, and 501 jean jacket.  Cool huh?