Logan just discovered recently that he can ask Connor to do things.  A few times when Logan is enjoying some dedicated mommy time and Connor starts coming over, he would say “Connor, go find Daddy”.  Poor Connor would of course follow what Logan told him to do and would walk away to find daddy.  When we were in the yard playing with some tennis balls, Logan tossed the balls and said “Connor, go get them”; Connor happily obeyed.  Tonight, the boys drank their milk while we read some books.  Connor finished and brought his cup to the kitchen as I instructed.  When Logan finished, he said “Connor, bring this to the kitchen”.  I had to interrupt this time and have Logan take care of his own chore.  Logan is getting smarter now, learning to use his little brother.  Poor Connor, this is probably just the beginning.

   The two of them play very well together nowadays.  Logan always calls Connor over to play hide and seek with him; they both now can hide together quietly in a corner for a long time until we go find them.  They play the trains and cars together; I just stare at them running their trains on the tracks over and over again.  They enjoy bathing with each other; one of them will start a game, and the other will follow.  They like to put their washcloth on their heads or chests, and giggle at each other.  Or they like to each use a cup to pour water into the big ship until it is full.  Sometime they fight for the same toy; Logan tries to ask for it nicely, but Connor often shakes his head so hard to deny.  Ultimately he will give in and give it to Logan.  Today when Logan and one of the neighbors kids were running and playing pretend shooting in the yard, Connor kept running after them.  So the big boys ended up teaming up and chasing Connor instead, and Connor was having a blast while running away.  At Ashlyn’s birthday party, Logan was unusually active, crawling through any tunnels/spaces and walking on a balance plank.  Connor was not interested in them until he saw Logan do it, then he hurried and copied everything big brother was doing. 

     We had a packed day today.  We went to the library in the morning to exchange some books; the boys always enjoyed their visit there.  Logan would spend sometime on the computer before he moved on to books.  Connor played with some puzzles and just enjoyed walking around.  We picked up lunch to eat at home, then we had to put the boys down for a nap a bit earlier than usual as I had to attend a memorial service.  It was a touching service, and I was there for a little over an hour.  When I returned home, the boys were up.  I played with Connor briefly, then it was time for Logan and I to head out for the first birthday party today.  It was his school friend’s Ryan party at the Whole Foods Culinary Center.  They were to make their own pizza.  Logan enjoyed making the dough, but initially did not want any toppings on it until some convincing from me.  He hung out there with his friends while pizza being baked, but he was quite impatient and kept asking for his pizza.  He was finally happy when the food was ready, and he ate the entire pizza that he made.  He said his thanks and we got ready to leave.  With the commotion of everyone leaving and I lost sight of Logan for 1/2 minute.  He walked away from where I told him to wait for me, but he returned to find me.  He made me panic, so we had a brief talk.  Then we drove over to the next birthday party, Ashlyn’s 2nd birthday at the Gymboree.

    Stuart brought Connor to meet up with us there.  Logan must have been warmed up from the previous party, he just jumped right in to start playing with the structures.  Connor of course copied what Logan did and started playing.  When the group activity started, Logan was not interested and continued to play on his own.  Connor on the other hand was intrigued and participated.  Ashlyn is familiar with that place, and lead to the group through several group activities.  All the kids had a blast joining in the fun.  We then took a break to have some food.  Logan had another slice of pizza for the day, then asked to return to play.  Connor had some pizza, pasta and lots of fruits.  We sang birthday songs to Ashlyn, and Connor was very excited to have the cake.  While we were still eating, Logan bonded with one of the instructors, and she ended up watching Logan and Connor play for awhile.  The group activity resumed again, and Logan surprised us by joining part of it on his own.  Connor got scared by the clown that appeared at the last activity; he started sobbing while still keeping an eye on the clown.  The party adjoined at 7:30pm.  We said our thanks and good nights, then headed home to end the day.

    The weekend morning classes for the kid gym are all full, so I decided to take Logan in for an introduction class today after work.  The Friday classes are smaller, so I was hoping that it would be less intimating for Logan.  I gave both boys a more substantial snack on the way from the daycare.  Stuart met us there at the gym, and we were there 15 minutes before the class started.  Both Logan and Connor were so excited, and were running around at the lobby.  But right at the start of the class, Logan did not want to go into the gym room until I offered to go in with him.  The place was very cute, colorful and padded, with several small-scale gym apparatus.  I was allowed to sit on the side, and Logan rather sat with me then joined the group.  There were only 7 other kids there with 2 teachers.  They started with circle time, then some dancing and jumping with music.  The teachers were good; they periodically checked in with Logan and invited him to join which he denied.  Logan did agree to run in, give a high five to the teacher once and return to my side.  They moved on to an inflatable jumping platform which seemed fun.  Once a teacher suggested carrying him over that Logan denied again.  They separated into two groups to do individual apparatuses.  Logan was watching everything with a smile, but kept refusing to join in when I asked.  I got tired of convincing him, so finally gave him an ultimatum that we would go home after he tried one thing.  My goal was to get him out there and maybe he would enjoy it.  He was still hesitant with that offer.  The teacher asked him to walk a short distance again to give him another high five.  Logan eventually did it, and the teacher used that opportunity to ask Logan to do a swing on a high bar which Logan actually did it.  But when the teacher carried him over to another apparatus, Logan did not want to continue.  He returned to me and asked to go home.  I had to keep my promise and we left the place 35 minutes into the class. 

    I was preparing myself that Logan would not participate in this tryout class, but it was still disappointing and tiring afterward.  It was only a few minutes from home and it took another few minutes to warm up the dinner, but both kids were whiny by then, possibly from dinner being later than usual.  This whole evening turned out to be quite exhausting.  The teachers were trying to make me feel better that it is not uncommon for kids not wanting to participate initially.  They said some kids might take 2-3 classes before jumping in.  Will see if we have the energy to keep this up.

     One of Logan’s friends daddy decided to organize a weekly soccer practice for his son and friends.  They were the group Logan took the soccer lessons with a long time ago.  The dad wanted to try it out as he loves soccer and has the equipment.  He also wanted to do it as he felt that the lessons we took before had too much wait time in between plays which Stuart and I agreed as well.  For today, there were a total of 11 kids, all near Logan’s age, and it was held in a very nice park by their house.  The practice was just around 30 minutes, but it was full of drills with no messing around.  He started with a few warm up poses, then immediately did some drills with their soccer balls, some baby kicks, green lights/red lights, passing between buddies and passing to parents then to the goal.  I was sitting on the sideline with Connor who was contently sitting on me and watching.  Logan did not do the warm up initially but did participate in all the drills.  However he was probably the one who showed the least interest in following the instruction from the coach.  He would occasionally wonder toward me to say hi until Stuart brought him back into the game.  Logan also sometimes requested to hold hands with Stuart, but that was partly as he needed help to balance for a stand on the ball.  Overall all the kids seemed to have a great time, and the duration was brief enough for the kids’ attention span. 

     After that, we all had a picnic lunch on the lawn.  There was a a great playground structure at the park too, so as the kids filled up with foods, they all slowly migrated over.  Some of us were able to remain sitting to chitchat a bit longer.  Logan had fun playing with one of his friends, up and down the structure and hiding from the monsters.  Connor was getting stronger that he could climb up and down the structures all on his own most of the times.  After almost 3 hours at the park, we finally packed up to go home.  After 10 minutes of trying to keep Connor up during the drive, I finally gave up as he was just too tired.  Fortunately he continued to sleep after I moved him from the car to his crib.

     After this weekend, we felt that it is time to sign Logan up for some classes to give him more opportunities for physical activities and to work on following instructions.  We will see how it goes.

     Today was Logan’s classmate Bar birthday party, and it was held at a full-on gymnasium where Bar takes her gymnastic classes.  We decided to attend all together as we know their family quite well and Bar’s sister Raz is Connor’s classmate too.  If we knew the venue ahead of time, we might not have brought Connor as he was too young for the activities.  We got there on time, but it took a long while for the place to get their act together to start the party.  All of Bar’s classmates (at least 15 of them) immediately followed the instruction to go down to the platform to begin.  I guess we did not prepare Logan ahead of time, he did not want to part from us to participate.  Stuart and I took turns trying to convince him, but we both failed.  We were frustrated at Logan’s unwillingness to try new things and to warm up in social situation.  It must have been at least 10 minutes later before Logan agreed to join in at the parachute play.  Then Connor wanted to come down to play too.  He had a blast walking around some of the obstacles with his friend Raz and checking out what the big kids were doing.  I had to make sure he stayed out of their way.  Logan participated somewhat at the parachute play, but he totally did not want to do the next set of activities which was an obstacle course with some jumping, climbing, tumbling and swinging.  Logan was messing around on the sideline that Stuart finally told him if he did not participate, he should just sit out; therefore, Logan was sadly sitting there for awhile. Finally when the kids were moved to the other half of the gymnasium, Logan seemed to warm up.  They did some jumping on trampolines, walking on balance beams, running on a course and playing with some foam cubes.  Logan’s movement were more reserved than other kids, but he participated in all of the obstacles which we were happy to see.  During this second half, I tried hard to keep Connor in place as he really wanted to go back out to play with the big kids.  Fortunately I found a corner with kid toys that Connor spent some enjoyable time.  After over an hour of the gym activities and group pictures, it was pizza time.  Connor was so hungry that he started to whine just right before eating time.  All the kids was loving the pizza after all those exercises.  Logan had almost 2 slices of pizza and some cantaloupe while Connor had 1/2 slice with some veggies and fruits.  Then they both had few bites of cakes before we wrapped up our conversation with other parents and headed home.  We all were tired after the outing.

     Somehow I accidentally turned on the movie digest feature on my camera again and found this clip of today.  The beginning part was at the mall in the morning.

    Yesterday one of the teachers told me how Connor and his classmate Eli are the two kids who have to make sure all the things return to their original places after they are used.  As she was telling us that, Connor was trying to put away some toys and was having difficulty fitting everything back up on the shelf.  Then the other teacher chimed in to share that Connor directs her what to do in the morning sometimes, i.e. telling her to bring the kid over to the room and bring his food too.  Connor definitely does that at home too.  If he watches me making coffee in the mornings, he will point out my steps, first where the filters are, then the ground coffee, and later get water with the pot.  He will insist on holding the lid of the pot and will return to me after I get enough water.  I am amazed sometimes how much he can communicate with us by just gesturing and saying “ah” for yes or shaking for no. 

    Connor is also very persistent with what he wants to do.  He is now into being independent.  He still insists in carrying both lunch bags while we walk out of school.  He insists in putting them in the front passenger seat, then attempts to crawl into the seat.  I have to remind him that his seat is the one behind; then he will crawl up into the car all by himself.  Now he even insists on climbing up into his car seat.  Most of the time he can do it all by himself, or sometimes we just give him a slight butt lift.  If we try to interrupt him during this process, he will get very mad.  If we let him take it all the way, he looks so proud of his accomplishment.  Connor is so much stronger than Logan was at his age.  Logan did not start climbing up into his seat until only a few months ago.  Connor’s new thing now is trying to buckle himself.