No It All

Nate’s the kind of kid that doesn’t appear to be listening that intently, and yet, he is in fact soaking it all in.  His teacher, Maestra Iron, noticed in kindergarten that she couldn’t tell if he was engaged, and yet he’d surprise her with his accurate responses to her questions in Spanish.

Last Friday, Nate came with me to my private Pilates appointment.  It didn’t seem like he was paying attention at all.  I was whimpering in pain and he didn’t even bother to look up from my phone.

That night when we got home, he did a great interpretation of my instructor– attempting to do a bridge and yelling out her most frequent commands about tightening my backside.  He could barely hold it, which gave me a little more cred in the athletics department.  So he was listening…

Over dinner a few nights before, Nate turns to me and says, straight-faced, “I like thick chicks, Netflix, and Olive Garden bread sticks.”

They tell me he read this on the back of a truck… months ago.  I’m afraid he’ll probably never forget it.

My dearest JJ,

I started writing this letter on Coronavirus Day 74, which was 11 weeks after your birthday, only to succumb to the pit of time quicksand that is quarantine.  It’s Day 185 and here I am, finishing my favorite letter of the year– your birthday letter.  Or shall I say, your half birthday letter?  You’re exactly eleven and a half.  So here goes, doing my best to capture just a little glimpse into who you are and what you’re all about.

You really came into your own in fifth grade.  It was all the things you were excited about– volcano making, experiments with two-liter soda bottles and Mentos, a cool male teacher named Mr. Marthaler, and Dungeons and Dragons club with school buddies.  Those in the know called it “D&D.”

So… 2020.  We had your birthday slumber party on Saturday, March seventh.  A week later, we celebrated your birthday on the fourteenth, the day after we were all sent home.  And then the lockdown descended upon the earth.  So this year isn’t so much what you’re like as an eleven-year-old, but more like what you’re like as an eleven-year-old under pandemic house arrest.

And so, without further ado, an ode to Ocean’s Eleven, I mean Jacob’s Eleven… and-a-half:

You are an endless stream of questions.  I’ll be getting ready for work and you’ll ask me things like, “Mom, how do contracts work?”  Or, “Why didn’t you get a Phd?”  The other day, it was something about taxes.  You listen intently during the end of the workday chit chat, absorbing all the employee performance management highs and lows.

You love Manga books, comics, drawing, and coding.  You still like soccer, though I’m not so sure flag football or baseball will survive the COVID hiatus.  You eat multiple mini bags of trail mix, but leave the almonds. And the bags on the coffee table.

You hope you can go back to school for some part of sixth grade.  You don’t love remote learning.  You miss your friends and learning in person and I can’t bear to tell you the Catalina trip is canceled.  I have a hard time imagining you going to Jr. High, when really it seems time stopped just as fifth grade was hitting its stride.

You see every opportunity for advantage.  You write me long persuasive letters for why I should do things and stuff them with money to buy things I won’t let you have.  No answer can be accepted without interrogation or negotiation.

You hear just about everything.  Even with your Beats headphones on, you’re listening to every word.  Unless I’m asking you to do something.  Then you feign you can’t hear or respond with, “I’m OK.”  Which is not my favorite answer.

You feel overly sensitive to television kissing or romantic relationships of any kind.  You pull the blanket up over your head.  You must avert your gaze or you’ll be turned to stone.

You dream about what our new house should look like.  You tell me all about your ideas for your room, including the space for all your Legos.  I am also endlessly excited to talk about alternatives to your Legos being displayed in my living room.

You want to study computer engineering.  And to build your own PC.  You generally have every step planned on your way to CEO.

You need a lot of freedom and free time and decision-making authority.  You want to decide what we do every weekend.  You must be consulted.  You’re happiest when you’re the boss.

You give me a warm and fuzzy feeling when you take my hand on the street.  Or your dad’s.  You lace fingers and walk closely to me, even though you’re usually kind of grumpy that you have to walk.  Somewhere.

You would like to spend all summer at College for Kids.

I love my Jacob because he is clever, creative, wise, and good-humored.  I love my JJ because he is exactly who he is.  Who he is meant to be.

I love you Gyoza,
Mama

There’s something about lockdown that makes you desperate to treat yourself.  It must be the endless withholding of normalcy that makes one inclined to declare, “Strap on your masks, we’re headed down to the Woodstone Market for mint chip It’s-Its, stat.  Let’s do this.”

Meanwhile, we’ve just finished two riveting seasons of Cobra Kai and are making our way through an encore of the Karate Kid trilogy.  Coincidentally, the boys have developed an insatiable craving for sushi.  Otherwise known as the double-edged samurai sword of takeout.  On one side, our lives are infinitely better since the world of international cuisines opened back up to us.  No, Panda Express does not count.  On the flip side, these two little people can throw back at least a hundred bucks worth of fancy rolls in as many seconds.  We’re beginning to fly right past that special dinner-out anchor point of one Benjamin.

I remember back in the day when we’d take the boys to Willow Glen and Nate was still in a high chair.  It’s only been about a year since Nate stopped calling it shushi.  Back then, he would just eat odds and ends and James and I had all the rolls and nigiri to ourselves.  Jacob was partial to potstickers, which were quite affordable if we hit the Willow Glen post-nap app happy hour.  At some point we had to ratchet up the order given Jake could knock back twelve dumplings, which left very few for our other blond meatball.  I’ll never forget one early dinner when the waitress literally exclaimed in recognition, “You’re the three-potsticker family!”

This is our legacy.

As the boys have grown, so have their appetites.  We’ve found the Cheers dinner at our local Kanpai has served us well over the past three years, but now we’re beginning to supplement.  I recently made the mistake of trying a new sushi takeout place.  As soon as I begin unpacking the various rolls and spreading them across the dinner table, the boys ask animatedly, “Where’s the Party Girl?  Which one’s the Party Girl?”  Note: they still have zero interest in any girl except this one.

We’re well on our way to our next sushi server exclaiming, “You’re the three-Party-Girl family!”

Somehow we’ve cobbled together three extracurricular activities a week.  Mondays are safe Soccer Academy with our British buddies.  And Tuesdays and Thursdays are evening recess at Pacheco with our All Star mates.

On Monday I noticed the Academy attracted the likes of Modric, Pusilic, Ronaldo and De Bruyne.  It’s a real who’s who of Premier league players.

Tonight I’m relaying this observation to James and Nate says, “I’m so much better than Pusilic.  I can beat him every time.”  Yes, he’s referring to the Arroyo Grande kid in the Pusilic jersey, not the American superstar.  I think.

“Wow.  I don’t even know how you can be so fast with such a big head?”

“What does that mean?” he asks, as he keels over from his copious cranium.

People are saying we’re not working from home– we’re living at work.

Yesterday I came out of the front door of the barn… straight into a flock of six wild turkeys.

Living at work is that special combination of herding cats and chasing turkeys.

Years ago, Alesia taught me about food menu trigger words.  She described them as words on a menu that immediately jump out as something you’d order.  One of her triggers is artichoke.  My trigger words are descriptions that include lemon, apricot, cherry, pear, blue cheese and candied nuts.  And fresh English peas.  That always gets me.  James is swayed by onion jam.  Lava cake.  Death by chocolate.

This week, the boys have been enjoying their final week of soccer camp before returning to “school.”  Yeah, those quotes are intentional.  Nate’s finishing up his sixth week of soccer.  We’ve joked he’s almost an honorary British coach at this point.  Unfortunately, this week is only half days.  Fortunately, they then get to have lunch with their dad.

Yesterday Nate found a new go-to sandwich at Panera.  The chipotle bacon melt.  He tells me:

“Mom, it has spicy chipotle– always good.

Bacon– always good.

And melt– oh yeah.”

There’s nothing like moving back to the college town of your youth to make you feel old.

Last week my fitness teacher put me through so many jumps that my legs literally buckled.  I kind of keeled over on my knees as I reached for my non-existent life alert necklace.  She’s probably too young to even remember, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”…

All this talk of aging reminds me that this past autumn, I was happily carded at Target while buying several boxes of White Claw for our Halloween party.  Then over Christmas, I arrived early and solo to a mat pilates class in Ojai.  A man and his wife asked me if I was the teacher.  I accepted his assessment of my fitness level with a flattered laugh and beamed my way through the Pilates 100.  Then I was carded again while buying alcohol and doughnut holes in Santa Ynez during the All Stars Winter Classic.

Today I was carded while picking-up a four pack of the cutest pink cans of sparkling rosé and a week’s worth of lunchtime salads.

The secret to my youthful glow?— leaving the boys in the car.

James is always heckling me when I read my news feed in the evening.  He believes it to be a source of endless chaos and negative emotions.  I’m sure he’s right.  But, I protest, “I’m a princess on a mountaintop!  I must know what is happening out in the world!”

So while I was enjoy my gluten-free pizza while flying a fancy pirate ship kite at the beach, my brother said he’s thinking this whole pandemic is just the equivalent of two bad flu seasons rolled into one.  I was curious.  Is this true?  Should I be thinking about it this way?  I started by reading several articles estimating the Corona virus to be 7-10 times deadlier than the flu.  Hmmm.  This could explain why scientists and health experts are concerned.  And so the princess embarked on a bit of math.

According to the official flu death statistics on the CDC website, over the past nine annual flu seasons, the range of estimated deaths has been 12,000 on the low end, to 61,000 at the high end.  Running the average, that’s 37,462 deaths from the flu.  The median is 38,000.  For round numbers sake, let’s use 38,000.  As of today, based on CDC data, we’re reporting 156,311 deaths from COVID-19 in the US.  Some more basic math and that appears to be 4 times greater than a typical flu season.  It’s the beginning of August, so we still have the better part of five months in order to compare a full season to a full season.

Now of course this is just back of the blog napkin math.  It doesn’t take into consideration population growth, confidence intervals, regression testing, that the flu season usually straddles the winter months of calendar years, or that the seasonal flu appears to be much less contagious than this Corona.  This is a Mommy blog people.

And so I’ve come to two conclusions:

1. This is not just two bad flu seasons rolled into one, Bro.  Looks like it’s more like four entire flu years compressed into the last five months, with five more months to go.  And…
2. Despite being sequestered on a mountaintop with Zoom as her only connection to the outside world, the princess can still do basic math.

Pass me another piece of that gluten-free pizza.  And my mask, please.

The boys and I are home from our two week jaunt to Santa Cruz for a change of quarantine scenery, and the deceptively easy process of transfiguring zombies back into boys.

This summer was supposed to be our very first week of overnight camp with cabins and campfires and crooning.  But given the global pandemic and the fact that all of those things involve being covered in other people’s spit, we settled for a two-week session of day camp.

Those two weeks in the redwoods of my childhood were unequivocally deemed “Amazing” and “The best.”

Nate’s counselors for the blue group were Zack and Leah, just like our neighbors.  Zack was British and might have been 6’6″.  Jacob’s counselors for the silver group were Conner and Simeran, similar to Cinnamon.

There was swimming, axe throwing, riflery (with bee-bee guns), archery, outdoor cooking, something called Monkey Palace, ball sports, and lip-syncing.  They built forts during “Outdoor Adventure”– which has a special place in my heart as a former counselor specializing in Outdoor Adventure.

The boys did the Thursday night Outpost where they made foil stew and s’mores.  They excitedly declared they’d made new friends– Cole and Raymond (or Raymonde) as Jacob brought me up to speed on his nickname.  And Nate’s friend Logan, who I’m told, “Has blond hair and an older brother.  And he likes sports like me.  He’s almost as good as me at soccer,” he adds oh so modestly.  Jake came home with a riflery badge and a number of stories about the antics of baby foxes.  Nate came home with a spot of poison oak and a lot of stories about Zack.  We safely avoided the Coronavirus.  Morning temperature checks, regular mask-wearing, hand-washing, and sunshine all made for a successfully adapted summer experience.  The kids easily forget they’re even wearing masks.  No different than wearing seat belts and bike helmets.

When they weren’t at camp, there was evening swimming.  Brownie-making with Grandma.  Sneaking the pointers dog cookies.  Marianne’s green tea ice cream.  A crawlspace-filled train wonderland.  Peanut butter mice from Mackenzie’s (Jacob has requested a subscription).  Lamb chops and pie for Grandma’s birthday.  And a morning billiards lesson.  Bry Bry declared the emphatic shunning of his baby name for the regal and all powerful: Bryan.  I’m going with Jefe.  And a final night with pizza and a pirate ship kite at the beach.  All-in-all, two weeks was a long time away from home for the boys, but they powered through after a mid-trip visit from Dad.

At Kennolyn, things deemed kid-friendly are “k-rated.”  This blog does not aim to be kid-friendly— our first almost overnight camp was kickass.

Yesterday the boys and I drove up to Santa Cruz for a much needed change in scenery.  Today marks four months since we went into lockdown and well, things don’t look to be turning around anytime soon.  That said, we’re several weeks into the multi-week process of transitioning the zombies… back into boys.

This morning over breakfast we talked about all the things the boys might get to do at Kennolyn day camp.  Besides swimming and archery and other activities, the one that stood out to me was axe throwing.  Both Jake and Nate weren’t convinced.  Not something they wanted to do.  Sounds like a bad idea.  Now, in normal circumstances, I can’t say I’d disagree.  Raising children who have the common sense not to embrace the idea of axe throwing sounds like parental success in my book.  But this is Kennolyn.  Forty-five years of raising adventurous, outdoor campers in the redwood forests of my youth.  If they say it’s OK, then pass me an axe.

Granddad and the dogs shuttled the boys to pandemic drop-off while I got ready for a partner webinar.  We took temperatures.  We labeled our belongings.  We packed their swimsuits, sunscreen, and masks.  “This is my pandemic pocket, Mom” Jake instructs me this morning as we check his backpack.  “It’s where I keep my sunscreen, hand sanitizer, and face mask.”

I pick-up the boys this afternoon and day one was a clear success.  They leap into the car, buzzing from the day.  “It was great!” Jake proclaims.  “The best!” Nate agrees.  Even though they don’t get to spend the night, there was swimming and s’mores and fort building with sticks and mud.  Jacob saw three baby foxes that were just balls of fur.  They got “the best lookout” and are going to do outdoor cooking tomorrow.  They played hockey.  They shot archery.

And they’re now game for trying axe throwing.