Catching Up with Connor

Just in case you were craving your Connor for the week, here are his latest doin's....

Last Saturday, Connor and I attended a birthday party for Frosty the Snowman. What's that you say? YOU didn't receive an invitation? Yeah, well, it was a pretty exclusive guest list. It was just a little somethin' somethin' at Con-man's school, but he was pretty excited. He just LOVED watching the Frosty flick over Christmas. He knows most of the words (his thumpety-thump-thump is right up there with, well, it's the best). He sang the song all the way to the party. Now I know you are wondering, well, where are the pictures of said festivity? Unfortunately when Connor and I arrived, it turns out Frosty the Snowman is about 8 freakin' feet tall and absolutely TERRIFIED the majority of the guests, all of whom were under the age of 5. Including my son. I have no pictures because a) I actually forgot to put the memory stick in my camera and b)I was attempting to peel a frightened-out-of-his-mind child off my leg. I couldn't even get one with my phone he was so freaked. He finally agreed to go up and say "happy birthday" (the only polite thing to do even if the guest of honor slightly resembles GOLIATH) but only if I went with him. Connor was content to go to the art table and make his own birthday hat, eat ice cream and play pin the nose on the snowman (a facsimile, not the actual) but he wouldn't go near Frosty the Freakin' Jolly White Giant again for nothin'. I am thinking, they may want to revisit the issue of the Frosty suit next year. I have to admit, he made me a tad nervous too.

And speaking of nervous, I am afraid that I am turning into, yes, one of THOSE moms. Connor has a little friend at school...to protect her identity, I will call her, oh let's see here....THUG. Thug has attacked Connor (completely unprovoked I am sure as my child is PERFECT) on a number of occasions. Okay 3. That I KNOW of. He has been bitten when he refused to give Thug his "Movie Car", and was scratched slightly across his face the other day. But when we picked him up on Wednesday, he had a HUGE band-aid across his cheek and it was reported that while Connor was innocently riding a bike, Thug decided she wanted said bike and scratched Connor's face pretty badly to get it. It bled for quite a while and was pretty ugly. The school will not rat out the perpetrator, but Connor has no problem doing so. I walked right up to him in front of everyone and said "who did this to you" and he pointed at his assailant and shouted "THUG!" with great gusto. That's when Mama Bear saw red. Connor has bled exactly 4 times in his entire life, and TWICE at the hands of Thug. I stewed all day yesterday trying to figure out how to march into his class today and say "ENOUGH! I do NOT want Connor and Thug playing together anymore!!" In my mind, I was forceful and the epitome of what a mom should do. In my heart I was a shrew that has to know that Connor will encounter many "Thugs" in his life and that I can't fight all his battles for him (plus, I kept hearing Ginnie's rousing rendition of "You Got To Keep 'Em Separated" from our last Rock Band session and kept cracking up). When I dropped him off this morning, I kind of said "Connor, you and Thug play nice today". And his cute teacher, Miss Melanie said "I know, it's so strange, because they absolutely LOVE each other". I guess, in addition to the realization that my little man is going to have to stand up for himself, I learned that it truly is a thin line between love and hate. I bent down and gave him a kiss and whispered in his ear "Kill Thug with kindness, little man and uh, yeah, you're on your own". Not unlike Frosty, Thug happens to make me a little nervous too.