Lollipop

In the last three or four months, Jacob has actually started coloring.

I mean, he’s always used markers to draw on paper and the surface surrounding that which is intended to be colored, but this is different.  This is real, quiet, sitting still, absorbed in concentration, coloring.  The kind of coloring you see little girls of all ages doing in quiet restaurants.  I’ve actually left him in the kitchen, taken a shower, put my clothes on, and found him exactly where I left him.  It’s like striking parental gold:

Crayons, they’re not just for snacking anymore!

And his pictures are now treasure maps and personalized sumbarines [sic].  By the way, I’ve always been slightly unsure about the use of the bracketed sic… seems this little writing gem should really be making more frequent appearances in this blog written in toddlerease.

So this weekend we went on our first real evening family date… ever.  Dinner and a movie.  I know… that was our old standby every weekend four and a half years ago.  James and I had seen just about everything in the theaters.  We were experts on what was out and who was in what and what was playing where.  Now we’ve lost any shred of expertise and can barely participate in cocktail reception conversations.

We went to see Monsters University, followed by dinner at Jakey’s favorite restaurant, Pacific Catch.  It was Nate’s very first movie and I got to hold him in my lap the whole time.  We scarfed down kettle corn and practiced whispering.  Natesy covered his ears during all of the scary parts.  A couple of times he’d look behind us in a paranoid, startled kind of way based on sounds from the darkened audience.  At one point I heard Jacob starting to whimper (this sounds worse than it was).  I had to nudge James to snap the kid out of the movie trance.  When JJ is scared at the movies he shakes uncontrollably, like he’s shivering.  Sometimes it helps if I cover his ears so he can cover his eyes.

As we left the movie theater Nate told me, “Gooood big teebee.”  I guess that’s a solid positive review.  I liked it, too.

At the restaurant they have little chalkboards to keep kids busy while they wait.  These and the magnetic drawing boards they have at Blue Line Pizza are the creme de la creme of table entertainment.  Jake just used to scribble two circles, drop all of the crayons on the ground one hundred times, and then try to escape from his chair unless distracted by piles of bread and pesto dipping sauce.  I really thought this whole concept of crayons and kid menus was the biggest waste of perfectly good trees and colored wax I could possibly think of.

But this weekend, dinner on Jacob’s side of the table was almost civilized.  He’d eat his prawns, draw a cat, grab a bite of broccoli, write his name.  I almost enjoyed a full glass of Chardonnay.

Meanwhile Nate holds a piece of red chalk up to me, “Look at me!  Lollipop.  Lollipop!”

“Nathaniel.  Not a lollipop.”

I turn away for a moment, only to glance back at my high maintenance companion to see pink drool dripping down his chin, “Oh yucky.  Mama.  Yucky.”  And we wipe his tongue off with my linen napkin.

Four years forward… two years back.