Taking in the World Around Us

Recently Gavin has really taken up the idea of being a "cool dude". His definition of coolness includes skulls, rock n' roll, drums, guitars, swords, pirate paraphernalia, heelies(a shoe with wheels in the heels), motorcycles, growing his hair long, and tattoos. So basically my preppy son wants to be a "bad boy". This doesn't bother me at all, but rather it fascinates me. He is only four, but already our culture has rubbed off on him. What other people think about how he looks or acts is one of the things he is beginning to notice.
I made him wear a sweater vest to church on Sunday. Gavin said it was "dorky". After chastising him for using such a negative word, Daddy had a talk with our dear son. He explained that sweaters were in fashion and a lot of really cool rock stars wear them. Gavin wasn't convinced. Then he says that it is kinda like the coat that Captain Jack wears. So, after church on Sunday, he wore that vest all day. Then yesterday he wore it in the morning. We went to the pool yesterday afternoon, but when we got home and got the chlorine washed off, he put it on again. Finally, I told him he couldn't wear it all the time(since it is Gymbo and I want it to last through the winter and hopefully a hand-me-down for Owen).

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Mr. Oh-Oh Man. He has learned to whisper. He loves to just softly say these little baby words. (I have to constantly remind Gavin to use an inside voice.) Every night, we will sit in my chair and he will squeeze into the "hole" beside me with one of his many books on trucks, animals or babies. He knows most of the names of the animals in his books and if he doesn't know, he will say, "Dat?" As in, "What's that?" He has this Tractor board book from DK that he loves so much. He will bring it to me and tell me who's tractor each is. However, instead of tractor he usually says, "Biiiigggg Tuck". So our conversation goes like this, "Mama biig tuck, Dada biig tuck, GaGa(Gavin) biig tuck, me biig tuck." If he knows that I am trying to take glances at the tv he will whisper all this.

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We recently received the Lilly's Kids Halloween edition catalog in the mail. When I brought it inside, those boys both laid on their bellies for at least an hour without moving just peering at all the neat costumes. Well, they did move their mouths to screech to me, "See, Mommy I wanna be that for Halloween"(Gavin) or "See mama, see"(Owen) I am thinking Owen wants to be Shrek, "Shek baby". Gavin is just filled with so many cool visions of himself in all of these scary costumes that he can't decide on just one. We have narrowed it down to Black Spiderman, Zorro(with the cool sword), and a new version of Captain Jack(of course, since he LIVES in his other one). His Jack costume from last year is starting to look like he wore it on the Black Pearl with all the rips, holes, and stains.