No It All

My dearest Jacob,

Let’s just pretend it’s springtime off last year and I haven’t fallen victim to the pandemic blahs and watching endless hours of Survivor and… drumroll please… it’s Jacob’s birthday letter time!  I do in fact think twelve-and-three-quarters truly suits you, and I know most people have never said that about twelve-and-three-anythings.

This may seem like a bit of a cheat, but I honestly am not sure any member of your family has ever written you this nice of a letter, including me.  And Zach isn’t even a member of your family.  So here is a glimpse into twelve-year-old Jacob from the perspective of a slightly older camp counselor guy.  We know those camp counselor guys don’t mince words.  And we know it’s not a form letter as demonstrated by the much shorter and unmemorable letter Nate received addressed to “Max.”

I love you my Hacobs.  I’m so happy to see you growing into the best version of yourself.

Love,
Mom

Back on January 11, 2016, I started this blog and then saved it in my drafts folder.  I was actively trying to land a new job and certainly didn’t want to stall my chances via one Google search linking my name and the word Barforama…

So here we are, having landed that job, and gagging up a little Throw-up Throwback:

Ahhh, Christmas Vacation.  We all look forward to the break as a relaxing and fun-filled time full of carols and cookies and sleeping-in.  Each year I try to capture all of the memories we pack into these two short weeks, though somehow I generally forget how exhausted we are after days and days of criss-crossing California and coming-up with cabin-fever eradicating activities to partake in during days of torrential downpours and the deeply unsettling feeling of “going to the snow” and seeing no snow.

On that note, our annual holiday tradition is to rent a house in Yosemite to enjoy one of the most beautiful snow-filled winter wonderlands around.  But due to the drought, the last two years have involved packing-up the car and attempting to enjoy our usually crowd-free national wonder with buses of tourists given how sunny and easy it is to drive a giant luxury tour bus on snow-free roads.  Last year we got a little bit of tubing in with the Hampton family, but we were all stripped down to t-shirts it was so hot.

So I declared enough!  We are not going next year.  And then it dumped inches and inches and that little twerpy niño just yucked it up.  The thing is, we probably couldn’t have gone anyway.

The first official day of the break, Jacob woke up in the middle of the night, leaned over the side of the top bunk, and barfed.  Everywhere.  Fortunately he came and told his dad.  Key detail.  But then James woke up the whole house with his disgusted mouth breathing as he scrubs and gags his way through the enormous blast zone.  Nate was lucky to have been spared in the bottom bunk.  A few days later, the same kid wakes-up with a nose bleed and again, proceeds to rain icky bodily fluids down from the top bunk onto everything.

Epic Christmas Vacation.

And now it’s five years later and clearly we’re due for a sick story.  At some point we started asking ourselves, has Nate ever thrown up?  We got nothin’.  Though Nate’s an unreliable source.  We’re still not sure he isn’t faking his experience of dreams.  But after a lot of research we confirmed he’d never thrown-up.  Apparently the kid has a strange tolerance for pain and a stomach of steel.

On Sunday the Raptors played two championship games and walked away with a second place medal and a dramatic soccer story for a separate, dramatic blog.  After two games in 95 degree heat, we celebrated at Meadow Park where Nate ingested a piece of pizza, a chocolate cupcake, two bags of Doritos, and some Takis.

Monday morning Nate was gripped with a 24-hour stomach bug, breaking his ten-year no barf record.  Taki barforama.  Enough said.

On my birthday I woke-up early of my own accord.  Kind of normal but usually I gauge the time based on how many rooster wake-up calls I’ve endured.  Where was the cock-a-doodle-doing?  Must be a special bout of birthday luck.  I didn’t give it much thought and enjoyed my first cup of birthday coffee in the dark, quiet fowl-free morning.

Before heading to school, Nate goes outside for his daily chicken chores.  He comes hurrying back to the house and announces with concern, “All the chickens are out of the coop.”

James and Nate head back out to survey the situation.

Now this is probably a good time in the story to take a bit of a detour.  Remember the time Nate was convinced wobbers and bad guys might come and steal his plastic dragon?  Or the time he was convinced a bird had swooped down and stolen Jacob’s goggles after he’d flung them into the sky?  Well, I’m pleased to say he’s at it again.

So back at the coop…  all the hens are herded back into the sorority through the suspiciously unlatched door.  The girls are unscathed except Spaz.  She’s lost half her feathers.  She’s still spastic because she’s either cheated death, or that’s why we call her Spaz.

Salty is nowhere to be found.  Officially gone.  The second half of the rooster ploblem, solved.

How exactly did the coop door end up open and all the girls’ lives jeopardized, ending in the demise of our rooster problem?

Nate puts forth, “Do you think a raccoon and a fox teamed-up?  I think they probably teamed-up and opened the door.”

Well I guess it’s possible…  Do you think the raccoon, or the fox, goes by Nate?

As I think I’ve mentioned, after school car rides are the best time to get all the hot goss.  I especially hear a lot of stories on Mondays and Wednesdays, when I’m in charge of getting Nate and Cruz to Mustangs practice.

Last week Nate casually mentions they “kind of had a lockdown” at school today.  That freaks me out so I nonchalantly pry.  So uh… what happened?

And he proceeds to tell me about a series of announcements over the intercom.  And his teacher being told to lock the classroom doors, but they don’t have to hide.  It seems someone named Juan Carlos was missing.  Nate doesn’t know Juan Carlos but believes he’s a second grader.  He doesn’t get if Carlos is his last name or his middle name or what exactly took place, but at some point it was declared safe and they were let out for snack time.  And there was a police car at school.

The next day I get the JC update.  Turns out some teacher thought Juan Carlos had gone to the bathroom and never came back. But… actually the kid was never even at school that day.  Holy major professional mistake being blabbed all about the playground.  As Jake would say, “She done goofed.”

Cruz then adds that a bleeding goose was found in the library.  Some first graders told Mrs. Clark there was a hurt duck in the building.

“Wait, was it a duck or a goose?”  It was a goose.  First graders are just confused.  And it was injured and bleeding everywhere and went into the library.

“All of this happened yesterday?  The same day Juan Carlos was missing?”

“Yeah, the day it rained.”

I’m not sure what’s harder to believe… the Juan Carlos story, the goose story, or that it rained?

Probably that it rained.

This past Saturday, Jake mentioned something called the Scare Farm happening that night.  I heard eighth graders and Halloween and I gathered it was going to be like a haunted house, but on a farm… how very San Luis Obispo.  Our neighbor, Mckinley, was in town and she oriented me to the existence of a previous Junior High School that’s now an “Adult School” and is back up behind French Hospital– a landmark frequently quoted and completely out of my territory.

James had to pack for Sedona, so the boys and I set out in our warm jackets with a 20 dollar bill and our Covid masks.  We showed-up exactly at the designated opening time and after asking some grown-ups to point us toward the farm, we found a line reminiscent of the Cars ride at Disney’s California Adventure.  Hundreds of teenagers crowded down the hill in the dark for miles.

The boys were instantly ready to call it quits, but I used my powerful powers of persuasion to get them to tough it out.

After forty five minutes of horror, we finally made it to the entrance of the Scare Farm.

It was great.  Imagine some kind of 4-H animal stalls and chutes and paths transformed into rooms of screaming teenagers with strobe lights and black lipstick.  There was a restaurant and zombies and clowns and maybe a casino.  Their choice of spaghetti noodles was whack, but otherwise I knew it was pretty good when Nate grabbed my hand over halfway through.  I guess I should have been paying attention to how he was doing, but I was too busy laughing and screaming and dodging crazy teenage actors yelling in my face.  Glad I brought that Covid mask.

When all was said and done, the boys thought it was pretty good and Jacob came up with all the ways he’s going to make it better next year when he’s an eighth grader.  (gasp I can’t believe I wrote those last words…)

During the wait, middle school girls cut in and out of the line in droves, talking at 10x the necessary volume, flipping their hair with cell phones three inches from their faces.  There were two physical altercations that literally almost turned into fights.  Shoving and chasing.  Tears and drama and insane amounts of mother-bleeping b-words.  Oh my god, I like bleeping posted this picture and then he like, followed it, and so I followed him back and then he was like stalking my post and like, what the bleep… give it back!  What the bleep??

At one point I successfully convinced the boys to follow me as I cut in front of the huge tornado of cussing tee-hee girls.  Someone tried to confront us, but we just stared silently from behind our masks under the cover of night.  On Sunday, we had a solid car lesson on how to recognize and avoid tee-hee girls.  For a full definition, please consult your Uncle Geoff.

The scariest part of the Scare Farm?  Hands down waiting in line for 45 minutes surrounded by middle school girls.  Mother bleeping h-e-double-hockey-sticks.

This morning we took a drive to the Elfin Forest for a morning boardwalk walk and some Thai food.  The boys are in the backseat and my potential future birthday present comes up as a topic of conversation.  Nate usually goes straight to the purse theory.  Always a solid supposition.  But this morning he starts with jewelry as that was quite a hit over Christmas.  Unfortunately, I’m the type of girl who takes out her earrings every time the winter Olympics rolls around so… we’re looking for some fresh ideas.

I give it a few minutes and ultimately, I really only need some wool base layers for our holiday trip to Banff.  But I’m not loving the idea of long johns no matter how luxurious, so I throw out that I want new clogs.

And Nate responds, “You want a new toilet plunger?”

For the record: Uh… no.

During the last few days of August, I traveled to San Diego for my first-ever work conference COVID-style.  It was energizing, productive, and my vaccine held up.  I’m not quite sure how it came up, but at some point I mentioned Rooster Creek.

What exactly is Rooster Creek you might ask?  It seems to be a colloquial name for this little strip of park in the small village of Arroyo Grande just south of us.  Oh wait, now it’s coming back to me…

I was lamenting my rooster problem.  Or the “rooster ploblem” as we like to say a’la Nate 2013.  As I’d suspected, the two little Sandos were not in fact just curious hens but big, bad, voodoo daddies.  I really don’t know why I ever doubted myself.  I know little boys when I see them.  And when they repeatedly wake me up in the wee hours.

So I’m in San Diego and I’m lamenting the fact that we now have two fartin’ roosters, not just one.  James already attempted to return the roosters to Tractor Supply as they falsely sold us pullets.  When they wouldn’t take them, he chose not to conveniently drop them off in the back of the store.  I guess maybe they have security cameras…
So we figure our options are:

1. Hire Neighbor James to solve my problem… again
2. Surreptitiously take them to Rooster Creek, or
3. Create my own new Rooster Creek down at the bottom of the mountain

My teammate Kate hears me talking about Rooster Creek and she envisions gentlemen farmers from miles around sacking their unwanted roosters in burlap bags and dropping them from above into a rushing creek.  Oh sweet, sweet Kate.  Kate is from New York City and apparently has no idea that California creeks are dry.

In fact, Rooster Creek is a darling little park along the side of an overgrown dry creek bed.  Roosters are clearly left in the dead of night, despite the threateningly-worded deterrent signage, to live out a beautiful well-fed life amidst farmers’ markets and joyful chicken-chasing children.

As much as I like fantasizing about what I’ll wear, what I’ll say to the authorities if I’m caught, and how I’ll inconspicuously lose two roosters in a dark park eleven miles from my home, we come up with option 4. Kick the boys out of the coop.  Get a move on Salty and Peppah.  So the twins begin strutting around our property like they own the place.  Every day they climb the stairs to the second floor of the barn, make a grand entrance as a Zoom background, and glare at me while they peck the window.  After I’m sufficiently intimidated, they take the stairs back down to find their next victim.

This goes on for a few weeks.  Nate and James succumb to various bouts of empathy and bullying and let them back into the coop to terrorize the hens and each other before booting them back out again.  On Wednesday night, we had a huge wind storm and the twins were out on their own.  I woke-up in the 5:00 hour Thursday morning and at some point I hear a few seconds of buck-bucking near the back deck.  Then… silence.

I had to be at work for a 7:00AM Zoom and didn’t have a chance to check on the rooster bullies.

Later that evening, James tells me how Salty came running into the coop like a bat outta hell, panting from his sunrise brush with death.  The human boys seem somewhat relieved and have spun a story that Pepper’s become breakfast for a little den of baby foxes.  Who doesn’t love baby foxes?  RIP in the chat, Pepper.

The Rooster Ploblem is now half solved.

Earlier this year JJ gave me my first warning.  It went something like, “Mom.  You have one more year of reading and then it’s done.”  I’ve blocked out the exact words and the exact timing as one does when stabbed directly in the heart with a blunt baby spoon found in the back of a silverware drawer.  We’ve been reading every night for twelve years.  Based on my last count, it’s been at least 60 chapter books just in the past five.

The countdown started sometime around his twelfth birthday as I remember the explanation being something about “It’s too childish.”  Harumph.  I pouted on the floor.

So we read A Long Walk to Water, and a bunch of tweenager books by Gordon Korman, and all three of the My Side of the Mountain trilogy.  During this past series, I was reading the first book and was instantly struck with a twinge of sixth grade quasi plagiaristic guilt– apparently I’d copied the idea of an escaped convict sleeping in a forest fort when I turned it into a creative writing story.  Who knew?  Hopefully not my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Post.

We wrapped up Frightful’s Mountain and needed another book, stat.  I didn’t want to let too many days pass for fear of the warning being activated early.  Jake recommended The Ranger’s Apprentice because kids at school have said good things.  We looked up the sample and I was reminded we’d already started this book and I hit the eject button.  The first sentence alone will explain why:

“Morgarath, Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night, former Baron of Gorlan in the Kingdom of Araluen, looked out over his bleak, rainswept domain and, for perhaps the thousandth time, cursed.”

The first word alone is exactly what I don’t like in my reading for pleasure.  Add the introduction of creatures called Wargals described as “stocky, misshapen beings, with features that were halfway human, but with a long, brutish muzzle and fangs like a bear or a large dog” and you’ve lost me exactly one page in.  I mean really.  I read every single book written by the author of the Percy Jackson series where he took us to various versions of the underworld multiple times in assorted cultures and I’d say I’ve done my time in adolescent boy hell.

But Jacob convinced me to power on and we’re several chapters in.  Now it’s mostly knights and castles and somewhat Harry Potter-esque so it’s getting better.  They just went through the Choosing Ceremony which wasn’t a talking witch’s hat but…  basically makes my misstep in sixth grade look quite mild in comparison.

I’ve just looked up that there are 16 books in this series so far.  Brilliant.

Mark my words… I’m gonna get an extension.

My dearest Nate,

It’s seriously September and you know what that means?  Time for Mama’s belated birthday letter attempting to capture just what ten-year-old Nate is like.  This year I’m going for a new Day-in-the-Life format.  You know, fourteen thousand steps in your shoes… you’ll see.

7:00AM: You stumble from your bed, Kramer-style, and after a quick bathroom stop go directly to the kitchen table.  You crouch on the metal chair, squatting like premier league coach Marcelo Bielsa.  You shovel Honey Nut Cheerios into your mouth like a shirtless and famished orphan.  Then you shovel Honey Nut Chex in like you don’t know where your next meal is coming from.  You immediately scamper back to your bed and pull the covers up to your chin while you stare into space.

7:15AM: I think you take a shower.  If standing under hot water counts as bathing.  Since the pandemic started you’ve been pretty cagey on your bathing frequency.  You think getting me to smell your armpits as proof is a great idea.  I disagree.  You love to wrap yourself in your hooded towel and lay on the bath mat or lounge on the couch.  You appreciate being “nude.”

7:30AM: You generally choose a soccer jersey, shorts, and a sweatshirt.  You’re a creative and lightning fast dresser.  Any color combination is possible.  Fluorescent green with red– why would you even comment?  You seem to be naturally built for athletic team life where they provide you with matching clothing and tell you what to eat.  Lately I’ve noticed a decent routine of brushing teeth, combing hair, and deodorant.

7:45AM: You’re highly attuned to time.  You hate being late.  Your Fitbit doubles as the time keeper for all people that surround you, big and little alike.  After Dad drops Jake at Laguna, he lets you out at Pacheco where you’re in your second year of upper classmanship.  Fifth grade is obviously the big time.

8:25AM (unless this is Monday, then it’s 9:25AM… don’t even get me started): You’ve got Maestra Del Toro and Mr. Marthaler this year.  I don’t know what he does exactly, but that Mr. Marthaler just keeps getting 5-star reviews from the lads in our house.  I really have almost no idea what happens during your class time at school.  You don’t share much.  You like math.  And sciency things.  I do know that at sometime during the painfully too short 15-minute morning recess, you head to the cafeteria for…

10:25AM: Honey buns.  Or pan dulce.  Or sometimes cinnamon rolls.  It seems all food is free at school this year and the daily bakery has plenty of customers.  You’re a vocal fan of the honey buns.  I don’t even know what those are but I’m confident they’re dessert for breakfast.

11:50AM: I imagine you inhale your lunch from your Man City lunch bag and then head straight to the field that appears to be ruled by King Moi versus King Nate.  There are many team-picking stories and we’ve had a lot of after-school talks about making sure the teams aren’t being divided into native English speakers versus native Spanish speakers.  It sounds like that’s improving.  I like that there are a lot of stories about a player named Ronaldo, even if he is the pushiest one.  Maestra Irion’s version of daily events is dramatically different than King Nate’s.  In your stories there isn’t a single mention of girls being excluded.  Sus.

2:50PM: You’re free and burst into the sunshine.  Bishop’s Peak looms large in the distance.  I can easily see you from my car across the playground in your fluorescent yellow sweatshirt.  Because of COVID we all have to circle the campus and wave from our vehicles.  Every day you and Cruz come racing across the fields.  Two blond heads.  Two big backpacks.  Cruz has a shark mask.  I see it in the dirt most places I go.

3:00PM: We take the big loop down Foothill and Los Osos Valley Road to the golf course to get Jacob.    Now that soccer has started I try to buy Jake’s patience to hang out for 2 and a half hours with stops at the Whole Foods sushi cooler.  You usually want mochi or macarons.

4:00PM: Then it’s off to soccer practice.  You go to Club on Mondays and Wednesdays and AYSO on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Every so often you complain but mostly I can’t get you to leave.  You can shoot a ball at your buddy for hours.  Your jersey is #8.  Now that I’ve taught the team parents that “Nate’s Eight” everyone knows your name.  You had your first Club game today in Santa Maria and it was like a new team.  We won 8-2.  You had a hat-trick and an assist as goalie.  Your soccer ego continues to grow but you do a decent job of keeping your bragging contained to the inside of my car.

6:00PM: We pull into the driveway and you’re off to your chicken chores.  You’re good about washing your hands with soap and putting your new blue Phantom shoes and your lunchbox away.  Of course you want to squeeze in some time playing Minecraft or Fortnite with your friends.  Over the pandemic you finally got sick of playing Fortnite with your buddy Oscar.  This past week you got a VR headset which is an entire post on its own.  You love wandering around the living room with this thing on your face that makes you look like a zombie, waving your arms in space.

6:30PM: You’re the last one to the dinner table.  Always.  You still gravitate to seafood, sushi, Mexican food, and hamburgers.  Last week you told me you don’t even know why anyone would want steak… “It’s so tasteless.”  Meanwhile you were completely fascinated with eating roasted jalapeños and nopales out of Daddy’s and my lunchtime molcajete today.  If I say something is too spicy or curiously foreign your eyes light up.  The idea of eating cactus totally appeals to you.  You ate all of it.  You struggle to sit down at the dinner table.  It’s a parental tight rope.  You just seem to need to eat and dance.  Next to your chair.  After dinner you’ve taught yourself to use the ice cream scooper.  Your commitment to McConnell’s Double Peanut Butter Chip has inspired the development of new skills.

7:00PM: This is usually when you really need a shower and somehow distract us into not noticing what you’re up to.  You dance your way out of the kitchen.  Sometimes there is music.

8:30PM: After three to four reminders you go to brush your teeth with your electric Quip toothbrush and don your little pajama bottoms covering your little bottom.  I used to tease your dad about his “default song”… which was the song he was always singing as he made his way through the world.  Your latest is Vanessa Carlton’s 2001 hit, “Makin’ my way downtown, walkin’ fast, faces pass and I’m homebound…”

8:45PM: You dive into your bed like a stuntman.  You’ve been reading Harry Potter with your headlamp while Jake and I read.  This is also when I attempt to guess your exact Fitbit step count with a game of higher and lower until I finally get it.  A Good Nate Day is a minimum of 14,000 steps.  Anything less and the goofball meter is off the charts.

9:00PM: Lights out.  You are the first to sleep and the last to get up.  You like the covers pulled over your head like Grandma.  I’m convinced you’ve never had a bad night’s sleep.  I give you lots of kisses and special appetizer names.

I love you my Baby Nake.  I’m so happy to see you so happy back out on the fields and living your best life.

Love,
Mom