Chess, the true test of brotherhood

The boys decided, of their own accord, to play chess tonight.  Matt and I were delighted (he's holding his tongue here).  They have seemed so addicted to screens lately that this seemed to be a great turn of events.  Matt had played with them the other night, but they hadn't played each other in over a year.  This picture was toward the middle of the game.  What I couldn't capture without appearing insensitive were the tears at the end of the game, and the declaration that, "I am never playing chess with you again!" from the boy who didn't win. Sigh.

The Detectives

I am not sure how this began, but the boys have formed a detective agency, called The Detectives [lastname].  Liam now has an old briefcase from Matt, which has a coded lock on it, and they have created business cards.  This evening, they hounded Matt for $1.36, claiming he owed it to them for their find of cat vomit on the floor.  Matt protested that he himself had found the vomit, when he stepped in it, but apparently the agency charges a fee for their time regardless.  At a different point this evening, Finn lost his detective wristband (so they can identify each other) and Liam offered to find it, for a fee.  He went on for quite a while about the contract, the lawsuit, etc, but Finn declined his help.  I  then asked Liam for a card for his agency, in case I needed assistance, but he couldn't find one, so he went to Matt for help.  I'm pretty sure Matt didn't charge for this service, but I bet he could have.

Making choices

Liam let us know he was disappointed in how he did on a math quiz the other day, and on further questioning it was determined that he had rushed through the work.  We discussed taking your time and being careful to check over your work, and tried to reassure him.  I did email the teacher to check in, figuring since I hadn't heard from her it couldn't be anything serious.  As it turns out, he finished a 2 hour exam in 45 minutes and then rushed to get back to reading "Mockingjay."  I can understand; it's a very compelling book.  Nonetheless, I'm glad he has finished it before his actual STAAR exam.

My, how times change!

It has been years since I updated this blog, and I'll admit I have very nearly forgotten about it.  Until today.  Today, I received an email that Liam had commented on an old post.  Oh my goodness!  Not only has he figured out how to do these things (from school!!!) but he has been reading my old blog.  Horrors!  When I first started writing this, it was mostly to update the grandparents and to try to hold onto some of the memories of when they were so small, but I never imagined them growing up and reading it themselves.  Naturally, the most recent post is about Finn being in love, but I am sure Liam would never, ever tease Finn about this (right, Liam??!).  I need to go back and re-read this all myself to see what incriminating evidence I've left behind.  While I'm at it, I may as well update with a few more recent pictures of the boys, as well as of my newest baby, Solea.  And maybe, if Liam needs incentive to behave in the future, I can remind him that I have the ability to publish recent stories about him, too. . .. 

This is Finn and Connor, meeting Solea for the first time.  Seeing this makes me realize how much she has grown in just a few weeks.  Connor isn't really as sad as he looks, he's just super tired because we are irresponsible adults who let them stay up too late.

 This is Liam on the first day we brought Solea home.  They are already best buddies.

Love

Finn is in love.

For a while we used to jokingly ask whom he planned to marry, and it was usually his friend Mazzy. This seemed to us to be a great choice, as we would really like his future in-laws. Then rather suddenly one day, Finn told us he longer wanted to marry Mazzy. He wanted to marry Violet.

Violet is in Finn's class and seems like a nice girl. She is very interested in princesses, which is most likely why Finn was so insistent on giving me a princess tiara for Christmas. With a dreamy look in his eyes, Finn announced recently, "Violet is my princess."

We also like Violet's parents a lot, and appreciate that her mother goes out of her way to make vegan muffins for class so Finn can eat them. This is fortunate, since the romance seems to be blooming. According to their teacher, they spend quite a bit of time cuddling in the corner together, and the teacher has been considering whether to break it up a bit.

Yesterday, the boys insisted on bringing their "cell phones" in the car to church. Liam kept calling Finn, and getting annoyed that he wouldn't answer. Matt and I could hear Finn talking quietly to himself on the phone, and could make out the words "Violet," "purple," and "pansies". Perhaps he was composing a sonnet.

Where do I begin?

Liam was upset with Finn this evening for several reasons. Finn had apparently told Liam that he was not in kindergarten, was allergic to soy milk, and that Eve was not a girl.

After reminding Liam that he was in kindergarten and was not allergic to soy milk, and reminding Finn not to deliberately aggravate Liam, I tackled the Eve question.

I assured them that Eve was a girl, and then began, "Do you know the story of Eve?" Liam said yes, but Finn was silent, so I began. "The story goes that a long, long time ago . . ."

Liam interrupted quickly, and told me that he was actually talking about Eve in the movie Wall-E. Oh. But he would like me to continue the story I had started anyway. So, with even greater hesitance, I did. I explained how the world had animals and plants, but no people, and so God made Adam in his image. But Adam got lonely, and so God made Eve for him.

Liam found this interesting, thought about it for a moment, and then said, "That's just like Narnia!"

Um, yes. Then he added that Adam and Eve were kind of like Mama and Daddy. Um, yes, kind of, and they even had two boys. Liam was interested in the two brothers, and I had to field questions about fraternal jealousy, when *ding* the oven time went off, the pizza was ready, and I was off the hook. Saved by the bell!

Bugs and Homophones

Finn received a "talking" microscope for Christmas, similar to the telescope that Liam received. You put slides in, press buttons, and learn about the different items represented. There is also a quiz mode. The vast majority of the slides, if not all of them, represent insects. Finn, however, will only look at the mosquito slide. When I asked him questions about it, though, he appears to have learned nothing. Liam, having overheard all of the mosquito information repetitively, is quite knowledgeable about them and would really, really, like to answer all of the questions for Finn.

As in:
Me: Finn, which mosquito bites you, the boy or the girl?
Finn: Um, the boy?
Liam: No! It's the girl!

Me: How many legs does a mosquito have, Finn?
Finn: Four?
Liam: Six! A mosquito has six legs!!

This last question led to Liam explaining how insects, like mosquitoes and ants, have six legs while spiders have eight. Finn paid absolutely no attention.

A few minutes later, however, Liam seemed to have pondered this a but more, and then excitedly told me, "I know another homophone!! 'Ant"!" I, naturally, was very impressed and asked him to tell me the two meanings. Liam replied, "An 'ant' like the bug, and 'ant', like, 'Ant I good at this?'"

Ugh. We had a little grammar lesson before discussing the different pronunciations of the word "aunt".

Wants and needs

Yesterday, mom asked me what little things the boys might want for Valentine's Day. I had some trouble coming up with ideas, so decided to ask the boys. Not wanting to encourage greed machines, I decided to phrase it a little delicately and see what they said. I figured if their hearts truly desired something, it would come out.

"Boys, how are things going; is there anything in your life that is lacking?"
Liam thought about it for all of 5 seconds, and then asnwered, "Nope. Things are good."
Very reassuring.

Finn didn't answer at first, and then asked what lacking meant. Liam helped me explain, and told Finn, "If something is lacking, it means it is something that you don't have, but if you had it, it would make you happy."

Finn thought about this for a couple of minutes, and then answered, "Quinn."
Quinn is his best friend who recently moved up a class.

So, Mom, can you get the Finn's best friend back for Valentine's Day?

Lame Duck

When I arrived to pick Liam up from after school yesterday, one of his teachers came up to me very excited. She said it was so nice to finally meet me and asked after our sitter. Mind you, I have picked Liam up from after school on several occasions, although not regularly, and have said hello to her before. I'm such a good mom.

While we renewed our introductions, another teacher approached to tell me a story about Liam. I became instantly nervous, fearing the worst, but she was smiling, so I figured it couldn't be all that bad.

Apparently (one of Liam's favorite words), during roll call at afterschool, the teachers sometimes ask the children to reply with something relevant to a particular topic, rather than simply saying, "present". One day, they were isntructed to say something presidential. According to this teacher, most of the children said something about Obama, or Barack, etc. (You can tell the kind of school Liam attends.) There are children from all of elementary school in afterschool, so at least it is mixed age-wise, if not politically. When the teacher got to Liam's name, he replied, "Lame Duck." She said she then asked if anyone knew what a lame duck was. The other children thought it was funny, and said it was a duck who can't walk. She then turned back to Liam and asked him to explain. Which he did.


When we asked for a replay of this explanation, he told us, "When a new president is selected (sic) and the old one is still in office, no one believes what the old one says he will do because he doesn't have time." We were all pretty impressed. Now Liam will be repeating his lame duck comment for weeks, hoping to elicit more parental praise. :-)

Beer and Onion Rings

We have been learning about homophones lately, thanks to the "Between the Lions" video we recently rented. Much as rhyming games were great fun at younger ages, homophones are a good game to play with words. Liam is pretty good at it, and can come up with "red" and "read" as well as a few others. Finn also tries to play, but it is a bit hard for him.

After driving home one day and playing this with great success (Liam can really come up with several, given enough time), I decided that Finn had probably overheard enough, and it was time to show off to Daddy. Finn, I said, can you tell daddy a homophone? And he replied, with great gusto, "Beer!!!". I assume he meant bear, but perhaps he is just very far advanced and knew about the word "bier". Or maybe he just wanted some beer.

Also recently, Matt decided to convince Liam that onions are yummy through the power of onion rings. Liam, very suspicious, asked me what onion rings are. I told him, "They are very yummy things that make you fat." He seemed to accept this, and agreed to try one. After tasting one, he declared happily, "I like onion rings!!" Then he looked down and became a bit disappointed. He thought he would get instantly fat.

Does it make me a bad parent if my kids talk about beer and onion rings? Mmmm . . . .

Post-holiday joys

After all of the excitement of the holidays (too much to blog now, maybe when I get more energy!), who would have thought the boys could get so excited again? As it turns out, finally getting the slippers they wanted was enough to thrill them. Liam got penguin slippers and Finn got dragon slippers (see picture!). They immediately wanted to put on a play with their slippers, and Finn even wore his to bed. They are quite happy!

Then, to top things off, I was quite indulgent, and not only bought mint chip ice cream for the boys, but also bought cones to eat it in. Finn's ice cream is made with coconut milk, and it's pretty good. To entice the boys to eat dinner, Matt sat down and ate an ice cream cone of his own. Finn watched him with great awe and wonder, and finally said, "but you can't eat the cone, right?" We explained that you can eat the cone, and he wanted to know, "is it soft?" At this point I realized, with a bit of a shock, that Finn had not only never eaten an ice cream cone before, but we had sheltered him so completely that he had not actually even seen one before! Poor child.

Needless to say, he enjoyed it quite thoroughly, as you can see in his picture.

Happy Holidays

Liam has been learning about December holidays in class lately. They studied Kwanzaa first, and Liam made a kinara in art class. He explained the order of lighting the candles, and told me it was different from a menorah, because it had 7 candles instead of 9. He couldn't tell me anything more, but was able to tell Matt one more thing he remembered. On the third day of Kwanzaa, according to Liam, you clean. And paint the fence. Matt tried to protest that he was sure you didn't actually paint a fence, and Liam got upset, and insisted the fence needed to be painted before you went on to the fourth day. Matt argued that we didn't have a fence that needed painting, and Liam got a little ticked off. Matt was pretty excited to have the day of cleaning, and that also ticked Liam off.

Today Liam brought the menorah he had made home. He also brought a picture of a man, colored, cut out, and glued to a popsicle stick. It was labeled, "Judah the Maccabee." Liam was excited to tell me about the menorah, and when I asked him about Judah, he said happily, "he fought the Christians!". He then explained how Judah tried to protect the temple from the Christians, who wanted to tear it down, but it got torn down anyway. But then God rebuilt it, and they hid inside with only enough oil to last for one day, but a mirable happened and it lasted for 8.

Good thing we chose a secular school for him. I can't wait to hear about Christmas.

Swimming like Pops

When Liam was little, he loved the pool. He would jump in anywhere and assume someone would catch him. His first swimming lesson at age three changed all of that, and he became very, very fearful of the water. Swim lessons this summer made a very little improvement.

Since starting swim classes at school, however, with what I assume to be adequate peer pressure, Liam has improved quite a bit. He wanted us to go to the pool the other weekend so he could show us how he swam underwater.

The biggest excitement of all, though, was when he managed to imitate Pops. Apparently, he had been trying unsuccessfully to sit on the bottom of the pool the way his grandfather does. When he eventually asked Matt about it, he was told he had to blow the air out of his lungs so he would sink to the bottom.

Now, not only is he really excited to go "swimming" at every opportunity, but he can sit on the bottom of the pool, just like his Pops.

Politico

A couple of weeks ago, we were notified by Liam's school that some of the political discussions going on at afterschool were getting a bit heated. We were asked to remind our children to use appropriate language and be respectful of other people's opinions. I figured this was just something going on in the upper grades, but it still made me laugh that instead of getting notices of vandalism or truancy, we were notified of heated polical debate.

Nonetheless, Liam did show interest in the election. He was amazed that someone voted for McCain, and very excited to cast his vote in the library on Tuesday. Now today, he informed me on the way to school that McCain chose a bad vice president (this did not come from Matt or me!).

On the way home he told me that McCain said, "I have been tested; he has not!". He also informed me that Obama said, "To those who want to destroy us, we will defeat you!" Then Liam and Finn broke out into delighted choruses of "We will defeat you! We will defeat you!" He also insisted that McCain didn't like Obama. There was really no arguing with him about their both being good men who have different opinions.

I asked him if they were talking about Obama and McCain in school and he said no. Then where did he hear them speak? He said he heard it on the radio, in the car. I guess we've been listening to NPR a lot. It must be a good way to create a 5-year-old political junkie. When I asked Liam if he wanted to be president someday, he told me it was really hard to get to be president. Too true.

second breakfast?

We all had a really nice trip to a "cabin" at Fall Creek Falls last weekend. Thanks to Lolita's organizing, we had a great place to stay (complete with large screen tv for the red sox game) and lots of great meals. Liam and Finn enjoyed the playgrounds and hiking quite a bit, too.

On Saturday morning, Lo planned a pontoon boat ride for us before a hike, so we asked the boys if they were hungry before we left. Second breakfast ensued, and Liam put away a hot dog quite neatly. He ended up hiking almost three miles, so that hot dog "snack" was put to good use.

On Sunday, second breakfast was particularly exciting. The boys had been promised s'mores at some point during the weekend, and with time running out, and a fear of s'mores-induced sugar highs before the car ride home, we all enjoyed a very special brunch together. Having both a grill outside, a fireplace inside, and a "S'mores maker" from secret santa of years past, we mutually decided that roasting marshmallows over the electric stove worked best. Hopefully, either Mike or Lo will email me pictures to post.

Finn had a one-smore second breakfast, and Liam managed his way through 3 before being turned down for a 4th. This will now fall under the category of "only on vacation".

It's beginning to feel a lot like . . .

We are two weeks away from Halloween, not even close to Thanksgiving, and Liam has already decided to start planning for Christmas.

He announced the other day that, for Christmas, he was going to ask for a computer. And an ipod. And some very pricey Legos. Shocked, I told him that those were all very expensive items, and we couldn't really afford to have that sort of Christmas. His response?

"No, Mom, they are for Christmas. From Santa. So it's all free, see?" Oh dear.

I explained that Santa would think him quite greedy and put him on the naughty list. Santa, I'm pretty sure, brings just one nice present, and you might ask for some smaller things from Mama and Dada.

He thought this reasonable, and settled, a bit sadly, on an ipod. He thought he'd write his letter to Santa right then and there, but I thought he might want to wait a bit, since a letter to Santa is irrevocable and he mght change his mind.

Since he has been asking for an ipod since his birthday, I am beginning to warm to the idea. For my 5-year-old. I must be crazy. So I ask him, again, what music he would want on his ipod.

He replies, "The Rolling Stones, The Clash, Queen, Johnny Cash, and Pay me my Money Down (his favorite Dan Zanes song). And some jazz."

Okay, fine, how can I argue with that?

Now back to Halloween!

From Lolita

This is from Lolita, who came in to Nashville to save the day and help Matt out in my absence:

" I have to share this Finn story. At breakfast Sat. Finn asked for more milk but didn’t say “please.” We had just discussed the need to use special words so I said. “I didn’t hear you say something.” To this he yells his request even louder, still not saying “please”. Liam chimes in and says, “You’re supposed to say please.” Finn then yells please. I say, “You need to use a complete sentence and not yell.” He looks at me blankly. I then give a verbal prompt and exaggerate the word “may” with a rising intonation, “May…..” He looks at me straight in the eyes and says, “June” and then smiles widely. I totally dissolved into laughter as did Liam. Pretty funny, huh? I think we can deduce he is learning the months of the year."

I hope he finally asked correctly!!!

Star Wars

Last Saturday, Matt gave the boys light sabers. Liam has a green one, and is calling himself Luke Skywalker, and Finn's is blue. He will tell you he is Obi-Wan Kenobi . On Sunday, Matt let them watch Episode 4 for the first time. On skype that night, Liam told me about the movie, and how he wasn't even scared. It was a pretty big deal for him. Finn had apparently been silently entrances thoughout. Liam then he went back to playing light sabers with Finn. Finn was too busy to talk.

Eventually, Liam came back to the computer to reiterate that he was Luke and Finn was Obi-Wan. And Daddy was Darth Vader. Apparently, Daddy wanted to play, too, and got himself a red light saber.

Does this mean I am once again relegated to Princess Leia? I guess it is better than being the blue power ranger.

Home for the weekend

I am so excited to go home for this weekend, as I have been missing my family so much. Liam and Finn refused to talk to me on the phone two nights ago because they were too busy playing Star Wars, their lastest obsession. Naturally, I was glad they would talk to me yesterday. Liam was pretty chatty, telling me about playing at school and baseball. Finn, even, seemed eager to talk. Lately he seems content to let Liam do the talking for him. It makes me miss Finn more since I don't really hear from him.

I leave tonight, and will spend the day with Finn tomorrow while Liam is at school. I'm pretty excited about this, as I rarely get to spend one-on-one time with Finn. I told him excitedly, "On Friday, we get to spend the day together, just you and me! We can go to the Discovery center!" He answered, "And Liam."
Me: "Well, no, just us. "
Finn: "I want Liam to come. And Daddy!"
Me: "Well, we'll have Liam on Saturday, and Daddy on Sunday."
Finn: (audibly upset now) "I want Liam to come!!!! "
I realized at this point that I cannot win, so I wish him good night and tell him how excited I am to see him on Friday. Sigh.

New Clothes

Finn was so thrilled with his new spiderman pyjamas from his Aunt Sarah that even after wetting the bed, he didn't want to take them off, for fear we would wash them. It was quite a battle. So when he opened his birthday present from Aunt Carolyn, Uncle Chris, Erik and Emma and saw a new set of clothes, I wondered if once again, we'd have to fight him to wash them.

Of course we did. Carolyn, always thoughtful, sent clothes that would fit Finn perfectly in the fall. He started to strip immediately, and didn't even give us the chance to take off the tags. The problem arose at bathtime, when he had to take his new clothes off. Finn can really throw a mean temper tantrum, and he showed off that ability. Wow. It was actually hard to talk to him through his sobs.

In the end, we compromised. He would take off the new clothes if I promised to wash them and let him wear them to school tomorrow. It will probably be 90 degrees, and he'll have his long sleeves and pants on. I guess we'll send a change of clothes in case he changes his mind.

He does look pretty cute in them. And way too grown up.