Amigos

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.