Memorial Day

Apart from assorted shopping trips (mainly to the grocery store and home improvement center), we stayed around the house this holiday weekend. Connor is fortunate to have several little boys nearby who come over to play with him. I have to say it's great. They are good models for Connor, and it limits the demands on mom and dad to be full-time activity directors.

P.S. Check out the new shoes. Cars! Also, these pictures were taken on the same day, morning and afternoon. Connor goes through three or four outfits in the course of a day.

Traveling the Country

Connor's fascination with American geography dovetails perfectly with the start of the summer traveling season. He is so excited that in only three days, he will begin a trip that will take him "Mississippi-Alabama-Georgia-South Carolina." Every few hours he asks, "Can we go now?" It's going to be very exciting.
Uncle Hubbard has also helped the geography come to life. A couple of weeks ago he was in Boston, Massachusetts (a capital), and on Friday evening he called to say he was in Wyoming (Connor's favorite state, you may recall). He sent text message updates as he hit various states: Utah, Idaho, and finally his destination, Oregon. Connor knows that he left his truck in Little Rock (another capital).
You may think this ambitious for a two-year old, but the truth is: I find it a whole lot more interesting than playing with cars, trains, or Legos. Luckily for me, sometimes Connor does too.

Isla - every time Rhode Island is mentioned, Connor says your name. I think he associates "island" and "Isla." That makes sense, because he doesn't know what an island is ...

United States

Wow....I don't know exactly when or how it began, but Connor started learning the American states. When he was an infant, I bought a placemat featuring a map of the U.S., thinking he might one day like it. (In Japan I used it almost daily to show how large the U.S. actually is and where Joe and I were from.)
After we got back, it went back to life as an actual placemat, used to make clean-up after mealtime quick and easy. I probably made small talk with Connor about the various states where people he knows reside. Connor's little brain sucked it up like a vacuum cleaner; he was so interested. He knew Danielle is from Minnesota; Maria lives in New York State; Miss Laura lives in California; Grandpa and Monnie stopped by Ohio on their way back to Michigan, where Alex and Grandma Sweeney live; Mary lives in Florida; Uncle Wally lives in South Carolina, Carlos and Sofia live in Texas; and so on.
A couple of weeks ago we happened upon a giant children's atlas -- perfect for him.

I wondered how he would handle a different map of the same thing. He got it. Since then, almost every night before bed, we study the United States. I estimate he can locate and identify about 2/3 of them now. Since he can't read, it's kind of freaky sometimes.

Yesterday after school we stopped by the library, and he found a DVD featuring the book The Scrambled States of America. It's a story of what happens when the states all decide to switch places in order to see other parts of the country (Mississippi and Nevada even fall in love). Connor loves it, and it is uncanny how he recognizes the states out of their context -- New Mexico will be dancing across the screen, and he knows it. I guess his little brain stores the shapes and associates the name with the shape.
This past week, just for fun, we started talking about the state capitals. He knows a few (Jackson, MS; Austin, TX; Atlanta, Georgia; Tallahassee, FL; and sometimes Lansing, MI).

Since we got the atlas, he says his favorite state is Wyoming. ??? He's sticking with that.

Playmates

This week Connor gained two new after-school playmates, Lane and Eli, who live on our street. Both are kindergartners at Overpark. Here they are driving matchbox cars along a track they designed using sidewalk chalk.
Lane and Eli show up first, after they get off the school bus, and Gavin usually joins them later. They're all pretty good kids, and Connor does well with them despite the age difference. While the cars and chalk are fun, I think Connor's Lego collection is the real draw.

Connor Likes to Climb

Overpark

Last Saturday we found the school Connor will attend when he is five. This is the side of it, featuring the playground.

Here's the boy, yesterday afternoon, being silly, lying in the under-bed storage. We had been looking at all his warm-weather, short-sleeved shirts. He is very independent these days and has been doing a great job dressing himself, so I wanted him to see all of his options. He has tons of clothes for summer thanks to Aunt Shannon (and Alex).