wild*life

Friday morning I wake-up in the 4:00 hour and lay in bed till the 5:00 hour, when I can no longer take it anymore and climb out to put on the kettle.  Somehow the first few days of Daylight Saving Time leave me incredibly groggy until my internal alarm kicks-in and instead of springing forward one hour, my body overcompensates and springs backward two.

So I’m on the couch waking-up with my warm cup of joe and decide it’s so early, I’ll watch this super funny and informative Trevor Noah video on YouTube about the history of the filibuster.  After you’re done razzing me, you’ll thank me later.  So I’m sitting there with just the glow of my iPad illuminating my face when this silent, puffy white baby hand comes out of the darkness and glides in front of my screen.  My heart is racing again just remembering it.  I most certainly jumped.  We’re not sure if I screamed.  I had ear buds in so my memory is just silent terror.

I recover and have the wherewith-all to ask Jake what’s wrong.  Why is he up this early scaring the filibuster out of me?  And he says his legs are itching like crazy and he has hives.  I take him into the dark kitchen and the poor child is covered.  He looks like a globe but where all the oceans are angry and red.  I scramble around and find some children’s Benadryl and it seems to make a difference.

Fortunately it’s Friday-zoom-school-for-a-minute day and therefore the most convenient day for a non-life-threatening emergency.  Unfortunately, the second and third doses of Benadryl don’t seem to be working and my war chest of medicinal itch inhibitors is declared ineffective.  Side note: It appears if you were to analyze my medicine cabinet you would come to the very strong conclusion that I am most frequently afflicted by various types of itchy skin ailments.

Jacob wakes-up Saturday morning and the problem is worse.  His hands are covered and he tells his dad that his “eyebrows feel droopy.”  I look at him and his eyes are definitely puffy and the rash is now on his face.  It’s Med Stop time.

We luck out and they let us in almost right away.  We know Jake’s had hives before because all of our hive medicine has been eaten up and we remember that one time where he got into the doTERRA cinnamon essential oil Aunt Laurie gave James to rub on the bottoms of his feet to protect him from evil spirits and Jacob rubbed it on his body and was possessed by evil spirits.  There were definitely some times when we fed Baby Jacob some random cheese and he would break-out in a rash around his mouth.  We think there was another full body experience, but no one can remember and so today my blog becomes our EHR, Electronic Health Record.  Totally PCI compliant.

We get a prescription at CVS that I keep calling hydroxychloroquine until I remember that’s that crazy drug previously sold via Twitter.  Well, it’s hydrox-something and Jake washes down two of the little pills in the parking lot.  Some Sprite and our first Hawaiian pizza home delivery ever, and Jake is reborn.

In any event, like most hives, they are generally considered a mystery.    Maybe it’s the fact that our oak trees are literally blooming yellow weeping willow like flowers which we’ve never, ever seen before and could be pandemic-induced, or occur only in years where winter rains lasted exactly three days and then it was spring.  Or maybe it was the sloppy joe’s spice packet, even though he’s had that before.  Or maybe it was the jar of Prego Creamy Vodka spaghetti sauce I mixed the spice packet with.

Personally, I’m going with vodka.  Nothing like a miserable skin burning rash for days to keep a twelve-year-old far away from the liquor cabinet.

Remember those days when we couldn’t fathom being out of school for three weeks?  I felt so bad for those poor sods in Washington state.  How would they survive?  I was completely convinced we could not make it, having barely made it through two-week holiday breaks before we practically threw the boys onto the playground from our moving car.

Last Monday the boys went back to school for the first time in a year.  A YEAR.  It was so exciting!  They were giddy.  Unfortunately for administrators, there’s no parental credit for beating the one year anniversary by a week.  This is fourth grade, we’ve already learned to round up.

We’re in the morning cohort which involves getting to school precisely between 8:05 and 8:15AM, watching your upperclassmen walk with appropriate masked, social-distancing across the soccer fields, then driving home, getting out of the car and going inside and drinking the rest of your coffee and then getting back in the car and picking the boys up precisely between 11:05 and 11:15AM.  Fridays are a minute of Zoom school.

The boys were so happy… on Cloud NINEteen all week.  As in it felt like 2019.  Back before time froze.  And we were just part way into third and fifth grades.

This weekend we held a sequel of last year’s birthday slumber party with Big Jackson, Cruz and Kai.  Our pandemic pod.  Chinese food and McConnell’s served on the plywood counters of our latest kitchen construction project.  No one can be believed when it comes to the reporting of bedtimes as numbers are thrown around like nerf bullets.  Jacob may have been the first to bed at 2 or 3AM.  The other brothers never did go to sleep, until it was time for me to pack them up and deliver the zombies back to their parents.

Today was Jake’s second Coronavirus birthday, having the luck of being born the day after we went into lockdown last year.  He chose a lunch of tacos and cake in Santa Barbara followed by enchiladas and chocolate dipped strawberries for dinner.

He fell asleep as soon as we got back in the car, his head back like the old carseat days.  And Nate just folded forward and slept facedown in his own lap.

At last, the slumber part of the party.

We are deeply saddened to proclaim the passing of her royal highness, Princess Fucillo, of the kingdom of San Luis Obispo, Saturday, the sixth of March, two thousand and twenty one.  Princess is survived by her not-so-evil step-sisters, Perfect and (probably) Pipsqueak.  The story behind the probably is better covered under a different obituary.  She will be greatly missed by her adopted humans, Prince Jacob and Prince Nathaniel.

Princess, as her name would imply, was a well-known socialite who preferred to see and be seen.  She had impeccable taste, choosing gourmet delicacies from Prince-approved chefs and turning-up her beak at the mealy-worm luncheons of her ladies in waiting.  Her style and sophistication were regularly captured by the paparazzi, infatuated with her royal origins.  Many articles referenced her likeness to Princess Di, particularly her feathered golden coiffe.  Princess was determined to stay grounded, leaving the royal family to put down roots on the central coast.

Princess was not only known for her glamour, but for her charitable heart.  She co-founded, with her sister Chicken Sando, the SLO Chapter of Hens Against Domestic Violence, based on her tragic first-hand experiences.  Her personal accounts kept her authentic and relatable to millions, despite her independent wealth.  Her generosity and philanthropy touched dozens, as she generously donated every ounce of her work to feeding the hungry.  Princess looked quite peckish yesterday, moving with unusually slow grace.  Given the pandemic and the close living quarters of her royal household, her cause of death is unknown.  Corona does mean crown, which would be quite fitting.  She was discovered in her favorite nesting bedchamber by her loving brother Prince Nate, who sorrowfully knew she’d taken her final coach to the chicken chateau in the sky.

A celebration of Princess’ life was held at the Poultry Palace with the wife of the good Reverend James presiding.  The reverend was out of town, attending to his human flock with Prince Jacob.

A day or so ago, the Tooth Fairy finally showed-up and emptied the little kitchen glass where Jake’s never-ending tooth torrent temporarily tarries until she has time.  We’re pretty sure she must have either had COVID, or has been in quarantine, as two teeth sat on the windowsill for close to two weeks.

Jacob lost a tooth the night before we left for Yosemite, leaving a snowball-sized gap on one side up top.  She left him $5, which either shows a high rate of inflation, or that she’s so engaged in her work that she never leaves Tooth Mountain for cash.

Jacob lost another tooth today– for the love of miniature fairies.  I know it’s rare, but so sad that she has to quarantine AGAIN.  The perils of international travel.

On Friday I take the boys for shots.  The sharp kind, not the fun kind.

It’s been so long that no one remembers what to expect.  Apparently it’s been eons since those needles were put into the little dough-balls we called thighs.  At lunchtime James admonishes me for trying to prep the boys by mentioning it the day before.  Apparently it created a lot of visible Nate anxiety.

We arrive and there are some new COVID protocols, but honestly, I prefer waiting outside in the sun versus in the germy little kid waiting room.  Nate’s scheduled for one flu shot, and Jake’s scheduled for… wait for it… four.  Unfortunately there is a buffet of middle school shots I seem to have blocked out from my sixth grade memory bank.

Nate goes first.  The nurse tells him to count Orcas on the aquarium wallpaper border and “What?  You’re done?”  Nate hardly even notices.

Jake’s up.  He has to have two shots in each arm.  He powers through with nary a peep.  The nurse is sincerely impressed.  The warriors leave with their various multi-colored cartoon bandaids.

I work for the rest of the afternoon and when I come in at the end of the day, Jake has set himself up on the couch with a blanket and a movie.  He’s not feeling great.  I’m struck by his independent, self-soothing set-up.  We feed him his fave spaghetti for dinner.  Jake’s a T-Rex.  He can no longer extend his arms.  The soreness has really set in.  Before bed he confesses he’s lost half his dinner to the porcelain gods.  Poor kid doesn’t have a fever but the shots send him willingly to bed.

Saturday morning they both wake-up almost good as new, and vaccinated for almost all things except the one thing we all really care about… the Corona.  Nate shows me evidence embedded in the little crease of one of his fingers where it appears he has a permanent graphite tattoo and declares, “I’ve poked myself harder with a pencil!”

I don’t doubt it.