Tuesday, November 28, 2006

All About Connor

Lately I have seen an abundance of those fun "all about me" lists out there on the interwebs. Andria's list finally inspired me to start typing. Allow me to present "A Dozen Fun Facts about Connor."

1. Refers to any time in the past, be it earlier today or two months ago, as "yesternight."
2. Knows how to pause the TiVo so that he doesn't miss a minute of the cartoon du jour when nature calls.
3. Can throw a tight spiral with an appropriately-sized football.
4. Gave himself a nickname, George Costanza-style, which is now widely used by friends, family, and teachers.
5. If his sleeve gets wet while washing his hands, he immediately (and often tearfully) demands a new shirt.
6. Favorite song is "Shake Your Booty" by KC and the Sunshine band.
7. When on the toilet, feels compelled to completely remove his pants, and sometimes his shirt, so as not to get them dirty.
8. Writes and eats with his right hand, but bats and plays guitar left-handed.
9. Knows the brand names of all of his shoes.
10. Current favorite phrase is "Let me show you something!" (Which Chip and I immediately repeat in Fire Marshall Bill mode.)
11. Adds an extra "-ed" to the end of words that are already in the past tense, as in "Daddy beated us home!" and "I wipeded myself!"
12. Does not know how to wipe himself.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Mother's Little Helper

Up to now my kids have had somewhat of an entertainer/audience relationship, but lately Connor's interest in Chloe has become more caring in nature. This coincides with a recent desire to be helpful, which is a huge departure from his former passion to be as contrary as possible. Not that he's given that up completely or anything.

Anyway, it was nice to be able to put groceries away while he gave Chloe her bottle.

Chip also enjoyed eating a meal without employing the "two bites for me, two bites for Chloe" method he usually practices. He did teach it to Connor, who often told an impatient Chloe, "I've only had one bite! I get two!"

I wish I had something cynical and witty to say to end this post, but the truth is I'm all caught up in the holiday spirit and think my kids are just as cute as they can be. Sorry!

Thursday, November 23, 2006

My Thanksgiving

Chloe "helped."

Connor mashed the potatoes (and fixed Chloe a banana for lunch).

Oh yeah.

Not my only glass.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Superhero Self-Portrait

Although Connor has his own Spiderman pajamas, he's still pretty impressed with my Superman pjs. (I have already bought him some for Christmas-shhhh.) We thought we looked pretty cool and decided a picture was in order.

Apparently the ability to take awesome self-portraits is not one of our superpowers.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

All In

Saturday night we went to the Morgans' house to celebrate Cullen's 29th birthday. (Can you believe I have a friend who is still in his twenties?) Jay and Lesley were there, as were Brian, Erin and Samantha. Two nights in a row we saw other adults! I was so overwhelmed I had to curl up in a ball and sing the Dora theme song to myself until I felt calm again.

Gina slaved over a hot stove (ha! But seriously, thanks for dinner) while simultaneously participating in a raucous game of poker. We actually had a buy-in! ($5 per person, but still) After "having his a** handed to him" on the golf course that day, Cullen had high hopes of redeeming himself by doubling up early at the poker table. Instead, he was the first person out. Other highlights included learning the actual rules of poker from Erin, and setting up a sushi get-together in a couple of weekends. Because as much as I love my kids, hanging out with adults rules. As the uber-potent RJA so eloquently pointed out, one of the great things about having kids is how much they make you appreciate your time without them. If I got to hang out with other couples on a regular basis, talking about wine and college basketball and whether you burn one or two cards before the flop, I might just start taking it for granted. And where's the fun in that?


Too late to talk about last weekend? No? Good.

Friday night we were looking forward to a visit from the fabulous Aunt Carrie. We were expecting her around 7:30, which gave us plenty of time to grab the kids and meet up with some friends. We figured we could grab a beer while Connor enjoyed some fried-not-microwaved chicken nuggets. Unfortunatley, the beer garden we wanted to visit wasn't all we had hoped. We ended up at El Porton, trying to convince the hostess that we really had 20 people coming. (10 adults, 10 kids- we were evenly matched!)She refused to hold that many places for us, so we agreed to go out to the patio by ourselves and hope for the best. Fortunately, not that many Memphians were taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather (at least not at 5:30 they weren't) so there was room for everyone. Unfortunately, Chip and I got stuck on the very end. As others showed up, they managed to push their kids down to our end of the table and convene happily at the other. (The genius of my Bosco's seating arrangement is suddenly clear to all!) I was sitting with Chloe and Jiro in highchairs to my right, and Chip to my left at the end of the table. Across from me sat Connor, Satchel, C, JP and occasionally S. I managed to shout at some adults at the other end of the table, but eventually gave up and enjoyed watching Connor interact with the other kids.

It is funny to watch Connor interact with this group for two reasons. For one, he is kind of an outsider hanging out with a group of best friends. It puts us in the same boat, actually. Since he generally acts just like me, I certainly enjoy seeing myself in him. And yes, he does just push his way in and talk like someone's listening, even if they aren't. Just like me. The other interesting social dynamic is the pecking order created by age. Connor is right between Satchel and Jiro, so if we're with just those two Jiro is interested in Connor, and Connor is interested in Satchel. And on this night Satchel was not-so-patiently itching for C to show up, even though JP is actually the same age as Satchel and is probably one of his best buds. Now S and Miss M are both the same age as Connor, but since they're girls they are generally thick as thieves somewhere far from the Power Ranger-toting boys. So Connor is the lone three-year-old boy trying to get hold of some of Satchel's awesome toys and avoid playing with the highchair-dwellers. On Friday night he only had to yell "SATCHEL YOU NEED TO SHARE WITH ME!!!" once to get his hands on one of those Power Rangers, making this a successful social experience as far as he was concerned.

Eventually Warren showed up and was stuck at our end of the table. (How bad was it? When Warren saw we had the only empty chair, Stacey had to convince him to stay with the promise that "The Chockleys are leaving soon, then we can rearrange the chairs!" I hope for his sake they put Satchel, C, JP and S at their own table.) Considering he is older than we are, we of course wanted his attention. He didn't have a backpack full of toys, but was plenty of fun anyway. It was great to enjoy some time with our friends and still make it home in time to see Cool Aunt Carrie. Even if we did have to give Satchel back his Power Ranger.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Super Tuesday

Yesterday was the day we had all been waiting for. A day that could change our lives significantly. After months of ads and excitement, November 7 was finally here:

The day that Cars came out on DVD!

Connor just happened to be sick yesterday, so he and his dad went to Target yesterday morning to make the most important purchase of Connor's young life. When Chloe and I got home, he ran to greet me and show me the package.
"Mommy, let's watch it!" I laughed and said, "I don't think we have time - we need to eat, bedtime, blah blah blah." I turned to Chip and asked, "So how many times have you all watched it today?" He replied, "Well, actually, we haven't watched it yet. Connor wanted to wait for you." As my heart began to melt into a puddle on the floor, Chip quickly added, "I can cook dinner- you stay in here and watch the movie." It was about the most romantic dinner/date I have ever had.


(That's Connor in a Dennis Rodman mask, by the way.)

Monday, November 06, 2006

Snazzy new duds

So I've gotten really tired of the standard Blogger templates-- and the "dots" one we were using was particularly butt-ugly. So, I spent some time looking around, trying to figure out what the heck I was doing, and to learn just enough to make the blog look snazzy. I found some stuff by this guy Ghyslain Armand and modified his theme some for Chockley purposes. I don't know you from Adam, man, but thanks for the cool template.

My friend Brandon helped out with the image there at the top, and voila, new blog! I'll still be ironing out some kinks when I get a chance-- like making that Flickr thing down there actually point to OUR pics. Also, some of the older posts may look funky, especially the ones where we run our mouths for a while-- like that Seaside vacation post down there. Not much I can do about that-- we'll just have to split our really long ramblings into multiple posts from now on.

All you other bloggers may now bow down at my feet. And no, I won't re-do your blog for you, simply because I don't have any wires, mirrors, or voodoo left over from making this one work.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Asylum on Wheels

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result each time. If that's the case, then Connor is most definitely insane. He asks me the same two questions multiple times on the ride to and from school, apparently unsatisfied with the only answer he's ever going to get.

For the most part, the conversation goes like this:
(Stopped at a red light)
Connor: Why are we just sitting here!?!?!?!?!
Me: Well, Connor, we're sitting here because the light is red. It turns red to let us know to stop so those other people can go, and there won't be any (as many) wrecks.
Connor: Mom! The light is greeeeeeennnn! Why aren't you gooooiiiing?!?!?!?!
Me: Connor, the reason we're not going, even though the light is green, is because the cars in front of us have to go first. There's a lot of traffic, and we have to wait on that traffic to move before we can. If I tried to go right now, we would hit the car in front of us and have a wreck and we might get hurt. So we have to wait our turn.

At least that's the way it goes the first time we have it on any given car ride. (Time out: Did I mention that each weekday we spend at least an hour together in the car? Because that's pretty important.) The next time I get the "we're just sitting here" question, I go ahead and try to head off the rest of the conversation by saying it all at once. "Connorwehavetostopwhenthelightturnsredandthenwehavetowaitonthelighttoturn greenandforalltheothercarstogobeforewecangothatwaywewonthaveawreckokay?" Connor usually accepts that. At least until the light turns green. "Mommy! The light is greeeen! Gooooooooooooooo!"

The next stop light becomes a little more aggressive:
Connor: Mommy! Why are we sitting here for sooooo looong!? Go NOW!
Me: Connor! We are sitting here because I know how to drive and you don't! Stop questioning me!

By the time we get to his school, we have decended into:
Me: Connor! You are being very disrespectful! You do not tell adults what to do, and you especially are not to tell me how to drive! Do you really think if I went right now that I wouldn't just run into the car in front of us? Quitbeinguglyandstoptellingmehowtodrive!!!

I don't get it- I tell him the same thing every time! Why doesn't he just listen to me?