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.
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