From which tree did that apple fall?

Here is how a typical scenario plays out.  “Connor, don’t do that.”  “Daddy, please.”  “Connor children play with toys not with tools.”  Enter Josie stage left.  “Josie play with tools too.”  “No Josie, put that down, Connor put that down!”  “Connor you are being a bad influence.” Insert burp noise and giggle.  “Daddy please don’t say no.”  And then he pushes a hand truck (dolly) down the driveway while I take a screwdriver away from Josie.

Yes of course they have two sets of fisher price and little tikes tools. Complete with power drills, a jig saw, and a circular saw.  There are hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, levels, squares, nuts, bolts, a hack saw, a vice, and even a caliper.  But are these interesting to Connor?  Occasionally, but he asks me almost every day if he can play with a daddy tool.

It’s not just tools, today he made a bridge with a leaf from our dining table that he found.  Later he was doing some things with other daddy stuff.  The good news is he no longer plays with the car buttons (kind of), and he doesn’t touch the electronics (Iphones and Ipads notwithstanding).  As I was expressing my frustration around some of this stuff, Nita attempted to set me straight.  “Marco, that kid is smart.  He knows the difference between a toy and the real thing and he wants to be just like you.  He wants to help you and pretend he is doing the things you do.”  Well that was a bit below the belt.  Here I was going in to talk about re-upping our discipline strategy and she pulls the ole’ “he loves you this much” bit on me. 

So what do you do?  Thank goodness for Josie.  Now she is fine and dandy playing with toys and dolls.  Nita says Connor is all “boy” and Josie is all “girl.”  And you can see it by looking at them.  Connor has about 2 bruises and 10 scrapes and cuts at any given time. Josie is spotless.  She doesn’t even like getting that muddy unless Connor is muddy and then it’s on!  Although I think it is only because she loves baths so much.  She knows dirty equals bathtime.

Her new thing is shoes. (Why do I have a feeling this is going to cost me huge in the coming years).  She loves to wear different shoes.  Mine, Nita’s, Connors, and her own, it doesn’t matter.  And she doesn’t want any help, even it if takes her 15 minutes, she’s going to try to put them on herself.  And if you put them on for her, she pulls them off and starts over.  Then she’ll walk around the house in her new shoes and model them…until she falls.  She is little Miss independent task, but she loves an audience.  And she is learning so much so fast.  I remember when Connor was in this sponge stage, it was really exciting.  Josie has a monstrous vocabulary and has quite a repertoire of songs and phrases.  She also has a cute little sense of humor and quite a little mischievous side to her as well.  I think one of these days they are going to be dangerous.

Occasionally I hear them talking to each other and it’s pretty adorable.  Plus I was just informed that in their summer school whenever Connor walks by her classroom he peeks in and waves to Josie much to her delight.  I also heard that today they were doing a little sing and dance program and Josie was hugging Connor so tight that he couldn’t do his dance.  But he didn’t push her away or get annoyed.  He’s such a good kid.  Josie does get in his space too often, but he seems to be pretty cool about it most of the time.  However, my fear is once they realize it’s them against us, or worse yet they conspire to divide and conquer, I think we’re in for some trouble.  Now I don’t anticipate that two kids whose combined ages are under 6 are going to get the better of us, but man they are SMART.  Some of the things they figure out and some of the logical connections they make are pretty impressive. So I’ll still feel like a moron if/when they do it, but I’ll also have a little bit of pride going.

I had a couple of business trips over the last couple of weeks and Josie is still talking about Tappa, and now bah-ti-moe.  I also made the mistake of bringing a present each time.  I remember my dad would bring me little things when he went, but that was maybe once a year, twice tops.  Now the kids are giving me requests.  I told them that I have two more trips coming this summer and Connor is giving me his wish list for things that I might find at those destinations.  I think next he’s going to inspect my suitcase to make sure I have room for whatever he asked for.

Last weekend was pretty hot.  Okay, so summer in Texas is kind of like winter in Minnesota.  It is what it is, so you look for fun indoor activities.  Nita found a nifty little exotic pet store that even had a sloth.  That was our indoor zoo trip.  Well, the lady at the store fell in love with Connor and the next thing you know he’s holding a black scorpion and a tarantula.  Daddy was freaking out.  We all know how much I love stinging bugs.

It all stems from an incident when I was about 7 and I was trying to lure some yellow jackets off of my grandmother’s porch overhang.  My plan was to lure them towards me and once they flew at me to use my cat like reflexes to kill them with a tennis racquet.  I baited them with a stick and they didn’t move.  I went to retrieve my stick and all at once they came at me.  I wasn’t ready for the coordinated attack and took about six stings to my chin and cheek. This did not please me.  I remember some ice, some tough love from dad, and some swelling. I remember shooting them with my BB gun when they’d fly to our little kiddie pool (for the animals we had).  I also got stung there while “picking up my trophies.”  Dad had to dig out a bee stinger from my thumb that time.  I’ve never really been the same around bees, wasps and yellow jackets since.  Yes I do realize that I instigated those things, it doesn’t matter.

Anyhoo, so far Connor the butterfly whisperer is still fearless.  We think he’s going to be the next crocodile hunter (hopefully with a much longer running show and a completely different outcome).  Josie is all girl.  This weekend at her cousin’s birthday party she got some clip on earrings and a ring.  She paraded around in her jewelry for the next two days.  It was pretty cute.  I am still stunned at her vocabulary and retention.  She is really smart and can remember events from several months ago.  She’ll be 21 months on Aug 10, so that’s way ahead of Connor at this time.  An example is we were driving down MoPac and Connor was calling out names of the “machines” he saw (tractors, front loaders, cranes, etc.) when Josie said, “Maybe we’ll see a train.”  Now it had been several weeks since we’ve seen a train on MoPac and here she goes just calling it out of the blue.  Then she said she wanted to go to the mall to ride the train.  Way to go Josie.  Oh and speaking of indoor, Nita’s mom’s group set up a “make your own pizza” party down the street at a local pizza joint.  Good times.

Finally, the kids are very aware of what is going on.  They ask me about going to work and if I’m coming back (business trips).  When I go to play golf they ask if I’m playing in a tournament (like that is the only justifiable reason to leave them).  It’s getting tougher as they get smarter and more aware.  I sure cannot wait until they have the ability to ride around and play with daddy for a full 18.

Earth called says “Don’t worry, I got it.”

Austin has seen about 11 inches of rain in July.  Not bad considering we only had about 18 inches all of last year and every single day in July was over 100 degrees in 2011.  And by “not bad,” I mean this has been an AWESOME July so far.  What makes it better is that Connor and Josie love to play in the water, pool, puddles, they don’t care.  And it’s a little cooler outside for them to be able to enjoy the days.  It cracks me up how people use weather cycles to further different agendas as though we are significant enough to change these cycles.  Don’t get me started.

Josie has quite a little memory on her.  First of all she knows all the different animal hosts and puppets in the different Baby Einstein dvds we have.  Her favorite is Baby Noah and she loves the flamingos.  So when I went to Tampa for a business trip last week, I picked up a little beanie baby flamingo.  Josie LOVES it.  She sleeps with it now and carries it all around the house.  And before I left for my trip, Josie was nice enough to help me with my luggage.  When the baby sitter came by on Saturday night Josie was explaining that daddy got her the flamingo and brought it on the airplane.  The flamingo has “Florida” on it and I told the sitter about that.  Josie immediately corrected me and said I got it from Tampa!  Nice work sweetie.

Also, Sunday night was supposed to be Nita and her girlfriends and the kids for a trip to see theater in the park. The play was “The Sound of Music” at Zilker.  While they were doing that I took Josie out on a daddy daughter date.  We had a great time and then the rain came down in buckets again.  By the way, if you haven’t done it, you might consider a UPS back up.  It’s an Uninterruptable Power Supply that can run several devices for a couple of hours with a power surge or electrical outing.  It was designed for computer systems, but I figured why not protect your TV, DVD, Surround sound, Blue ray, etc.?  AND, it keeps the little ones from freaking out if the lights flicker because the movie keeps playing.  So there’s that.  Technically if your electricity went out for an extended amount of time you could plug a couple of fans (or heaters) into it.  I don’t sell them, I’m just saying.

Anyway, Josie and I went to Jims for dinner and then came back home while the flood waters were rising.  But during dinner she was such little chatterbox.  Her vocabulary is blowing up!  And one of her funny mannerisms is that she will not excuse a lack of understanding.  I’m not saying she doesn’t tolerate fools, I mean when she says something you must repeat it back to her to confirm the message was received loud and clear.  When repeat it back to her and then answer the question or comment on the statement, she smiles.  When you don’t understand she’ll repeat it, over and over and over and over and over and over again.  She will not let you just say, “Oh, yes sweetheart, that’s great.”  Bullshit, you better say it back and annunciate when you do it.  So in the restaurant we identified all the art, the koala bears, butterflies, cows, etc.  She was an absolute hoot.  I really enjoyed our little date, we even had peach cobbler ala mode and she led the mealtime prayer.  And Josie was calling it a date all day, it was pretty cute.  The nice man at the register offered to walk out with us with an umbrella.  No thanks, my kids like getting wet.  No one is worried about melting at the Martinez house.

Back to the storm.  It was actually kind of scary at a couple of water crossings near the golf course.  In fact our signature water hole was so full and having so much water funnel into it that it was overflowing the overflow channel. It looked like the bottom of a waterfall with really violent foam and some pretty choppy rapids.  It was beautiful to watch but the sounds easily let us know that it wasn’t a good idea to stick around.  I snapped a quick picture with my phone, but should have taken a quick video to capture the sound.  Any idiot who might have tried to cross the cart path from tee to green there would have easily gotten swept down the chute.  I’m glad none of our members are that stupid (or didn’t think about it).  So after the picture we got home and watched a show.  I wanted to watch the girl with the dragon tattoo, Josie wanted a Baby Einstein.  Guess what we watched?

Connor came home a bit, well let’s say moist.  That boy had more costume changes this weekend than a Milan runway model.  Connor has been jumping in puddles and getting hosed off in the back yard(s) almost every day for the last week.  Sunday when we went to the grocery store he asked if he could go to Abuelita’s house instead.  So we dropped him off with a change of clothes and went shopping.  When we went to go pick him up he was dripping from head to toe, completely naked, and was reenacting the Chris Farley maniac scene from Tommy boy.  When Nita brought him home (by the way of course the play was rained out) he’d been playing outside in the storm at her friend’s house.  At least he had pants on. Wait, did he have pants on?  I’m not so sure he did.  In any case, the kids had a wet fun weekend and I sure did miss them while I was out.  But everything heals…even the Earth.  Yep, call me crazy but I have a feeling that the cycles will continue with or without higher taxes, cow farts, and aerosol deodorant.  This year, well I guess we’ve got some puddles to jump in.

An interesting trigger

This weekend I took Nita out on a date at the Alamo Drafthouse.  We went to go see the new Movie Ted.  So I don’t ruin anything, I’ll stick to preview and trailer material, but the basic premise is a little unpopular boy makes a wish that his Teddy bear comes to life and it does.  It isn’t imaginary; it actually grows up with him into adulthood.  And he’s not the best influence, by the way. If you aren’t easily offended, this is a must see.

So early one morning, Josie is losing her mind because she can’t find her pink elephant.  This is her lovie for sleep and comfort.  Now I’m thinking what would it be like to really have a stuffed animal come to life?  Would I be cool with it?  Would I freak out and decapitate it? Shoot it? Have it blessed at the church?  I’m not sure to be honest.

At Josie’s last wellness check our Doctor asked if Josie could speak 30 words.  Nita and I laughed; Josie can rattle off 10 word sentences right now.  In fact, Saturday before we left she said, “Mommy and daddy going on date night, we’re having pizza.”  Okay, so it might have been two sentences and not a run on, but you get the point.  At her preschool she was praised for her ability to tell the staff what’s what.  For example, she doesn’t like the changing table they have.  I suggested that maybe Nita do a change on it to show that it’s no big deal.  They tried it and asked her if it was all better.  Josie replied, “I still don’t like it.”

Earlier that afternoon I was flipping channels while the kids napped. I momentarily stopped on the X-games.  What the F*$# are these kids/adults doing?  Then it hit me, all the memories of building skateboard and bicycle ramps.  The time we tried to jump over a small tree at our house in Manchaca (yes my mother was furious and made us take apart the ramp).  The time I tried to see how fast I could take a turn on my ten-speed and nonchalantly walked passed my mom and her friends with blood coming out of my palms and knees.  She jumped up and said, “What happened?”  I told her I had to go pick some gravel out of my legs, but I’d be back to explain after I’d cleaned up.

I remember riding on handlebars, hitting a bump, falling off, and getting run over.  I remember climbing up a tree in South Austin at around age six and proudly shouting to my mother that I could see K-mart from the tallest branch. I remember falling off a min-bike the first time I tried to ride it.  I made a joke post on FB hoping that Connor would never be interested in anything x-games related, but know deep down to just expect to have minor emergency pre-programed into the navigation system. He is my boy after all, and I guess the apple…

As for Josie, you know how Connor loves bugs and spiders and anything he can touch right?  Well Josie was watching a baby Einstein video and I saw her raise her leg.  I walked over and she was moving out of the way as a spider headed toward her.  I laughed because Connor would have been eye level to the spider trying to get it to crawl into his hands.  In fact, while playing outside prior to our date Josie was swinging in the playscape.  I noticed a Cicada hanging on to one of the beams. Connor had to see it and wanted to hold it.  He climbed up and stared at it for a few minutes and then ever so gently tried to grab it. As it flew away he said, “Please come back cicada, I won’t hurt you, I just want to see your beautiful wings.”  Then he scaled the rock wall backwards.  Josie just giggled and ate her crackers.

Speaking of Josie’s development, she’s a bit ahead of schedule.  You see a year ago I think I wrote about Connor taking off a poopy diaper by himself.  Well, Josie did the same thing yesterday afternoon about four months ahead of schedule.  Way to go sister. J  Also we have discovered that she has a rather unconventional way of eating crackers.  She basically eats them with what we’ll call the “oreo technique.”  By that I mean she’ll take a cheese or peanut butter cracker and open it, lick the filling and then discard the cracker.  It’s fine-ish outside but not so cool inside.

Finally, we got a pretty neat compliment yesterday.  We are looking at adding to the family and had a trainer bring a dog over to the house to give us a little in-home interview.  She was amazed that Connor didn’t come running up to the dog as most kids his age do.  Instead he took very deliberate steps and offered a closed fist for her (the dog) to smell.  He then started to gently pet the head.  She was kind of blown away.  I told her that he is pretty amazing with animals and she acknowledged that he was pretty special in his calm demeanor around the new dog.  Josie feeds off of that and was also very gentle, although she does like to hug and wanted to hug (and potentially ride) this new dog.  She may or may not work out (the dog I mean, we’re pretty bullish on Josie) so we’ll keep looking.  We’re also re-thinking our puppy approach as opposed to a 1-2 year old rescue.  We’ll see, you never know what will make you pull the trigger.