No It All

Level: Easy

Servings: 2 1/2

Time: At least 20 minutes of calm.

Ingredients & Directions:

Serve up 2 plates of grown-up dinner.

Pour 1 frosty beer to share.

Break 1 piece of corn on the cob in half.  Use 1 half now and reserve the other half for later.

Give corn to kid.

Eat at your leisure.  Converse without interruption.  Bon appetit!

Tonight I was reminded that Jakey cannot be trusted with crayons.  He bites off the little tips and eats them like they’re carrot sticks.  His clever daddy calls him Bluetooth.

At dawn, we are awakened by the son.

He struggles and toils in the valley of the bed.  He must climb Mama Mountain.

A great rumble erupts on the other side of the valley, then all is still.

He drinks from the River Baba.

Then he is set free.  To roam the great Shasta plains.

There is a new Jake in town.  I don’t know what it is exactly… a change of routine?  A change in school?  A change in his little 15-month old brain?  That often cited, potentially theoretical phenomenon called “teething”?

Almost overnight, everything about Jacob is meltdown-worthy.  Bath time’s over?  Nooooooooooooo!!  Put my PJ’s on?  The end of the world.  Wash my face?  When hell freezes over.  And just when everything causes some sort of fit, we’ve also noticed he’s started to say everything.

Before there are too many words to count, I thought I’d try and capture this vocabulary explosion:

Agua.  Apple.  Baba.  Ball (Still #1.  Almost certainly the first thing out of his mouth every single morning.)  Ba-bye.  Bath time.  Boppy.  Bubble.  Button! (Belly button).  Da Da.  Down.  Eyes.  Flower.  Hat.  Hot (Said in that whispery way that for some reason is unquestionably required of the word “hot.”)  Hi.  JJ.  Ma Ma.  Moo (In response to the question: What does a cow say?)  More (Still his only sign language).  Nana (Banana).  No (OK, maybe “ball” has fallen to #2.)  Nigh-nigh (This now also refers to his Nuk which is only allowed at bedtime…  I know, I know.  I am weak.)  Nose.  Outside!  Poo poo.  Pee pee (Hoping these announcements will actually prove useful during that much anticipated and dreaded phase: toilet training.)  See!  Shoe.  Uooo Uooo (Constant dog barking, for no reason easily discernible by the average adult.)  Up (Runner up to “ball.”  Don’t be surprised if you see James and I hobbling around like hunchbacks from lifting this 27 pound child up 10,000 times per day.)  At least 30 words…

We’ve also noticed 3 almost sentences: Whatizit?  Oh no! (Someone taught him this which includes putting both hands on the side of his face like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone.  It has to have been someone at his new school.  I wish I had it on tape.)  All right! (Also said with a great deal of enthusiasm.)  All done! (This rivals “ball” in terms of repetition, however, don’t be fooled.  It does not usually mean he is in fact, all done.)

Let’s hope the fits stop and the manners start… soon.  Really soon.

He wore a washcloth beret

The kind you find on a bathroom floor

Washcloth beret

And if it was warm he wouldn’t wear much more.

I got this picture as a text on my iPhone with no note, from an unknown number.  Is it weird that my first thought was: OMG, what if this is a ransom text?…  “I have your child.  Give me a million dollars and nobody gets hurt.”

Maybe I’ve been watching too much TV lately… or Miami made me paranoid.  Luckily it’s just Jakey’s new teacher, Miss Dulce (“Sweet” in Spanish), texting me pictures of my little munchkin.  Phew!  I better get some sleep.

Newsflash: They have finally discovered the torture gene.  It is passed down through the maternal grandmother and can, in fact, skip a generation.  I work for a famous biotechnology company so, of course, I am privy to this type of super secret genetic informational scoop.  You read it here first.

My mom is known for her creativity when it comes to torturing her loved ones.  When I was three, she taught me how to take my hair and tickle my baby brother’s nose when he was sleeping in his car seat.  I subconsciously cover my rear end as I scamper up the stairs.  There is an extreme sense of vulnerability in a public port-a-potty.  And she is acclaimed for hiding in the dark and jumping out, sending that same younger brother into some sort of harmless, yet convulsive attack.  These examples barely scratch the surface.  The name “Aunt Suzy” is uttered in a tone of both awe and giddy fear by all of my cousins…

Jacob is clearly a carrier of said gene.  I’m pretty sure it began to manifest itself before his first birthday and has begun to advance at an alarming rate.

It began with the zerberts.  His giggle started to take on that slightly maniacal quality of a truly gifted family torturer.  Then he invented “Shut Mama in the Closet.”  This involves shutting me in my closet and then peeking in to see if I’m still in there and then shut the doors again real quick, laughing triumphantly.

Another one of his favorite torture tricks I like to call “Psych!”  Today when I arrived home, Jake was enjoying a pre-dinner hors d’oeuvre of cherries (“balls”… which just doesn’t sound right no matter how you frame it).  He always gets this big adorable smile on his face and offers to feed me.  He’ll get it all the way into my mouth and then, Psych!, redirects it into his mouth where he chomps it down, wiggling and laughing at his own torturing brilliance.

He’s taken this splendid torture recipe and reworked it to fit our morning routine.  He brushes his teeth with his Dada while I do my make-up at the sink.  Then every time my back is turned, he offers me his toothbrush.  As soon as I turn around, he quick puts it back in his mouth and pretends like nothing happened.  Endless glee.

Jakey clearly has a knack for this… scientifically proven, it’s in his genes.

This morning James puts Jake in his car seat so we can all go to the train station.  He is now sitting forward which seems to be way more his style.

James, “Jakey, are you ready to go to school?”
Jake, “No.”

James, “Jakey, aren’t you looking forward to seeing your new friends today?”
Jake, “No.”

James, “Jakey, do you say anything other than no?”
Jake, “No.”

We’ve been cruising along the freeway of parenthood for 15 months now.  Of course there have been some sections of the road that seem to be maintained by the City of San Jose, some nausea inducing curves, and a few times we may have been asleep at the wheel.

Just when we thought we’d hit that beautiful section of 280 where the tony people live, we noticed some bizarre baby behaviors.  We’ve been watching these scenes unfold like a car crash on the side of the road… you just can’t look away.  I’d say we’ve screeched to a halt at the El Monte bottleneck.  We are now just rubberneckers on the toddler turnpike.

* One night Jake took a block and hit himself in the head.  He then furrowed his brow and scowled, hitting himself again in the forehead with this block.  Then he was pissed.  At the block.  He threw it down and waved his little arm, slamming the evil block away, AWAY!  Stupid block.

* Jacob loves “bath time bath time.”  He likes to bathe with his two rubber bees (one is probably a butterfly, but really it’s more like a bee with fancy wings),  his rubber flower, and the round green plastic soap cap that does double duty as a cup.  It’s round so it’s also known as “ball.”  Jake will not stop drinking the bath water.  He leans down and laps it up.  Sometimes he drinks it from the green “ball.”  “Yucky” is ineffectual.  The other night he decided he was thirsty, after we’d washed his hair.  He drank the soapy water, ignoring my advice.  Then he was pissed.  At the water.  He slapped his hand at the water and waved his little arm, sending tidal waves of evil water away, AWAY!  Stupid water.

* Jakey recently made up a new game.  It involves taking any giant blanket-like covering, such as a towel, an afghan, curtains… and creating a big self-inflicted blindfold.  He thinks it is so funny to walk around like a little zombie with his arms out.  One morning when I wasn’t there to stop little dangerous “Ghost Jakey” he tripped and fell into the bed, skinning and bruising the bridge of his button nose.  Then he was pissed.  At the bed AND the towel.  He slapped his hand at the bed and waved his little arm, swatting the heaviest bed in the world away, AWAY!  Stupid bed.

* A few weeks back we were playing with Jake’s computer, which is an old giant Dell doorstop.  He leaned over multiple times to kiss the screen.

Rubberneckers.  Can you blame ’em?

Last week was the longest I’ve ever been away from Jakey.  4 nights in the steam bath that is Miami in June.  More importantly, it was the longest I’ve ever been away from both Jakey and James together.  We are all still recovering and in need of some pampering.

Speaking of pampering, just when I thought there is no time for a pedicure when you have a baby… I found out there is time for a pedicure when you are a baby.  My mom says Jake told her the polish bottle was “bubbles.”  Not to worry, Jake is quite secure in his manliness.  He was busy playing soccer when his dad noticed his little pink toenails.