wild*life

Tomorrow is Crazy Sock Day.  Which reminds me of a conversation I had with Nate a week or two ago.  He comes up to the bathroom as I’m doing my make-up and he says, “Mama, guess what’s on my socks.”

I look down and he’s wearing a pair of short green socks with a repetitive pattern of unidentified somethings.

“Uh, I don’t know, redstone?”  (They were giving off a Minecraft vibe so I went with the answer I recently failed during a Jacob Minecraft Mom Pop Quiz.)

“No.”

I guess again.  “Uh, lava?”

“No.”

I quickly pivot to typical Nate answers generally engineered to trick me into saying something naughty or gross.  This ain’t my first rodeo…

Dog poop.  No.  Barf.  No.  Boogers?  Nope.

“OK, I give up… what is it?”

“Rotten flesh!” he says with glee.  And he gets the exact Mom response he’s looking for.

“Ewwww, that’s dis-GUS-ting.  Rotten flesh?!  What?”

“Yeah, when you kill zombies in Minecraft they turn into rotten flesh.”

Hmmph.  “Where did those socks come from?”

“Nonna.”

Nonna finds all the best stuff.

Oh my baby Nake,

I can hardly believe you turned 7 years old on March first.  You continue to grow and evolve and become you through and through.  As our annual tradition goes, this post is meant to freeze time for just a moment, painting a picture of seven-year-old Nate.

You’re my Sporty Spice.  You’ve spent close to 10,000 hours playing indoor kickball against the front door.  When that got too loud, you turned the laundry hamper into a basketball hoop and have challenged me to hours of front door Pig.  Your skills and dedication are legit.  As we recently traversed the blacktop at school and a ball rolled toward you I asked, “Nate, have you ever met a ball you didn’t need to kick?”

And you casually replied, “Nope,” as it then sailed through the air.  Didn’t think so.

Baseball is now in full swing.  Your “ready position” is impressive.  This week at practice, Coach Woods highlighted your example as you called out from second base, “Play’s at any base.  Play’s at any base!”  You were thrilled the Easter Bunny brought you Big League Chew.

When it comes to the dugout, your baseball team is a Who’s Who of your main crew.  Cruz is rising through the stack ranks this year.  You generally cite Kai B. and Cruz as your main wingmen.  Eddie, Finn, and Kai K. are also on your team.  Unfortunately Jackson doesn’t play baseball, so after hours run-ins are generally at zip line birthday parties… there’ve been at least two.

On the catching front, you’re a crackerjack creator of the cootie catchers.  Our living room shelves are littered with prototypes.  I’ve read a number of the outcomes and they gravitate toward kissing Penelope or some sort of potty talk fate.  Your love of toilets has not waned.

You thrive on re-lyricing songs with forbidden words and phrases, and continue to have strong opinions on music.  While your brother’s ability to recite lyrics is extraordinary, you’re more in tune with the rhythm.  I notice you unconsciously bopping to the beat in public places.  You prefer to dance next to the dinner table versus sitting down at it.  Your most favorite song is Pharrell’s Happy.  Other recent faves include Heartache on the Dance Floor, the song we refer to as Rebel with a Kickstand and The Piper and the Lightning.

Without a doubt, you are hands-down the most generous person I’ve ever met.  You are quick to share your treats, your desserts, your Easter candy.  When your brother wants something, you’re generally quick to hand over whatever it is.  You genuinely make selflessness look easy.  Make no mistake, you can hold your own.  You also have a healthy stubborn streak.  But in the grand scheme of things, you give things away and I’m confident that you’ll get it all back and more.  I really love this about you.

For your birthday dinner you requested hamburgers.  You’ve also become quite the connoisseur of “shushi.”  You’ll eat just about any roll or nigiri.  You love quesadillas.  You appreciate a good bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, followed by the variety of Honey Nut Chex.  We have an ongoing disagreement about the appropriate matching of food to silverware.  You continue to insist, “Broccoli is hand food Mom.  Hand food.”  For the record, broccoli is NOT hand food.

I love sour.  You love sour.  Pickles and lemons and vinegar.  Kombucha is the leading “special drink” of choice.

When it comes to a complementary “special drink”, you’re my best pedicure buddy.  So far we’ve had three manly-pedis.  Your toenail polish always looks better than mine.  Seriously.  You’ve chosen an Elmo blue, a bronzy gold, and this last round, a metallic azure.  You appreciate a good massage chair, a warm neck wrap and a foot soak.

And on the soaking front, you still prefer bathtubs to showers.  You like all things that smell good, especially citrus and lavender.  You still give me little flowers as presents.

You dig Pokémon, Minecraft and Legos.  You recently finished a complete Star Wars Lego BB8– possibly your most ambitious project to date.  You study Pokémon cards with a passion.  This is likely why you’ve received several Pacheco Pride awards as a self-directed learner.  You know your tens times tables like nobody’s business.

When it comes to the business of chores, you’re a great helper.  You’re getting slightly better at holding your plate parallel to the floor as you’ve taken up after dinner dishwasher duty.  It’s not instinctual.

This week we had our first family eye doctor appointment.  My favorite part was when the technician asked you to read the letters with your eye covered and you asked incredulously, “ZOOP?”  Your daily reading leads to questions about “Woley Fo-odds” and “Icky” (Icy) street signs.

I’m sad to report that you really dislike the name Nathaniel.  It’s Nate.  Strong.  Simple.  Rhymes with Great.  And your jersey number eight.

I love you Nate the Great.  You continue to delight us with your most infectious laugh, your deep insights and your remarkable wisdom.  We’re so very proud of you and cherish every second of watching you grow into the unique and special person you are.

Love,

Mommy

Just in time for the boys’ birthday party on March 17th, we declared the barn “done enough.”  The upstairs is finished… if you don’t count the fact that we’re still waiting for the bathroom mirror and we need to install the barn door handle.  But there are real beds and lights, a little stool I bought in Cabo and three plants.  The definition of done, right?

The funny thing is that leading-up to that weekend, I found myself making several trips back and forth from the house to the barn, at night, carrying towels and sheets and other houseguest basics.  I’ve noticed a strange screeching noise swooping past the house.

Over the weeks, I’ve done my research and we’ve had some clear sightings and pictures of the inhabitants of the owl box we installed last summer as a birthday present for James.  A wise, rugged gentleman named Walt put the box up just behind the barn, overlooking the chicken château.

Ironically, we either have a pair of barn owls… or a velociraptor.

I remember after giving birth to a baby without drugs that the phrase, Hurts like a mother, made… Absolutely. Perfect.  Sense.

Lately I’ve found myself thinking the same thing about Rat Bastard…

It’s been several weeks since I opened the hood of my car and found the great rodent residence.  And I’ve been bouncing around from insurance estimators to body shops to mechanics to dealerships.  I have a sticky note next to my computer at work to remind me to work on my car project every day at lunchtime.  They say they’ll have to lift the engine out to fix the insulation wall and then reinstall it.

Our exterminator guy is doing double time.  James has to leave his hood open every night and set-up the Raticator on his engine.  Now I have one, too.  Every other night it has another mouse in it.  Welcome to the country…

Mouse Bastard.

It was my half birthday, April 20th.  The day of Columbine.

The images of high school kids running in lines with their hands on their heads are forever etched into my memory.  That same year, one of my classmates told me he’d written a play and that one of the characters had my name.  His name was Josh and he had a crush on me that even I had noticed.  He asked me to read his writing and I got one page in, realized it was a fictionalized story of a school shooting, and completely lost it.  I gave him a verbal lashing for even associating my name with something so disturbing.  I didn’t give him a chance to explain.

I made it out of the school system before we began desensitizing ourselves to the unfathomable fear and horror of mass shootings.  I couldn’t bring myself to read one single word of the news stories on Sandy Hook.  I do remember sitting in grad school and positioning myself near the second story windows.  I never sat near the entrance.  I never sat with my back to the door.  We were vulnerable and exposed– perched in our little desks engineered to hold one sheet of paper.  Untold scenarios playing through my mind rather than the nuances of business law.

And then I grew-up.  I had two precious little boys.  And now those little boys are in classrooms of their own.  Sitting at tables designed for little hands and chairs made for little bottoms.  Not for barricading doors or blocking bullets.

And one day I find myself sitting at our round kitchen table with my six-year-old.  I ask him about his day and he tells me there was a bad guy at school.  My chest tightens and I’m barely breathing.  A pretend bad guy with a gun.  He says they have to hide in the classroom while Maestra closes the blinds.  I ask if he can hide in the bathroom?  Is there somewhere specific where he’s supposed to go?  No.  Hide anywhere.  No one can go in the bathroom.

He tells me he can fight the bad guys.

He doesn’t notice the instant tears in my eyes.  I tell him in the most insistent, barely controlled voice that he goes into the bathroom and he locks the door and he never comes out unless his teacher says it is safe.

This entire scene is unacceptable to me.  It is unacceptable that it is taking place at my kitchen table.  It is unacceptable that my most sincere and trusting brown-eyed baby will never know a life without this fear.  This is not a natural disaster.  It’s not a fire drill or an earthquake drill.  It’s manmade.  And it’s not a choice between loving guns and loving our children.  But it is a choice.  And I don’t accept it.  It is not inevitable.  My sons deserve to be innocent.  To feel safe at their school– their biggest concern should be whether they left their Minecraft sweatshirts on the blacktop or in the gym.  And I deserve to know they are safe.

Enough is enough.

I’ll never forget the night Nate was born.  Yes, there was the part where he was born so fast James was still wearing his backpack… but I’m thinking more about how he was supposed to be a February baby.  He was perfectly comfortable and five days late and as the clock struck midnight and the date rolled-over to March first, I remember thinking to myself, “Oh no!  This can’t be happening.  Now he won’t have his own birth month.  He’ll have to share March with Jakey.  Poor Baby Cillo…”

Honestly, it’s one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

Having two little boys, both born in March, just two years minus two weeks apart, has resulted in exactly one birthday party extravaganza per year.  Planning one party is a dream come true.  One invite.  One food order.  One theme.  Sometimes two cakes.  But otherwise economical, environmentally friendly, mentally friendly.  And these are the years where if you’re not careful, you can spend every weekend tromping from one screaming pizza party to the next.

It’s been over seven years since we hosted our last home birthday party.  Very, very early on I realized there is a certain brilliance to holding your party at a venue that is not your home.  No cleaning-up beforehand.  Kids show-up.  Run around like crazies.  Eat lunch.  Eat cake.  Make an insane mess.  Two hours go by.  Grab your kids.  Settle the check.  Leave the chaos behind for teenagers stuck working weekend birthday parties.  We’re outta here!

Like I said… brilliant.

Over the years, we held our first party in our backyard.  One-year-old parties are for grown-ups so our camping themed barbecue for Jacob’s first birthday was simple, and super cute and only involved one crying kid.  The following year we somehow pulled-off a monkey party for our two-year-old big baby monkey and his 15-day-old baby monkey brother.  That was our last at home youngster soiree.

For Nate’s first birthday, there was the joint cowboy party at Granddad’s with real ponies and little neighbor girl pony managers.  It helps when your granddad has an actual log cabin.  We followed that year with 2 & 4 at Happy Hollow.  Perfectly timed so as not to outgrow the darlingness that is the treasure of Happy Hollow and the Fruit Crate Express.  We hit AVAC for our 3 & 5 indoor swimming party which was slightly stressful given the water part, but at that time Jacob was mostly grumpy unless immersed in chlorinated water.  The big 4 & 6 were celebrated on ice skates at Sharks Ice.  I remember a lot of buckets and wrestling on the floor with giant blades strapped to their feet.  And we topped-off our final year in birthday party venue heaven at Bass Pro Shop for 5 & 7.  It included bowling in an underwater fish bowl and watching the trout feeding.  The best part of Bass Pro Shop is really all the free vehicles you can “drive.”

Last year we moved to San Luis and found out there are no businesses dedicated to kid birthday parties.  Well, except for the two town gymnastics joints.  Our Pokémon Parkour party crushed it.  Primarily because of the young dude that could run up walls and do flips and made gymnastics look super fun for boys.  When you’re 6 & 8, you can market gymnastics as exercise for ninja warriors.  Little boys eat it right up.  They totally don’t associate it with pink leotards.

Today we’re recovering from our first actual party in the barn. We marked 7 & 9 with an all-out Minecraft theme of course.  The Purnell family was quite fashionable traversing downtown today in their designer Minecraft eyewear.

Over the course of the party it rained off and on creating the perfect trifecta of sugar-crazed + Nerf gun wielding + muckfest-enabled bilingual banshees.  We had creeper balloons, TNT goodie bags, a homemade Ghast piñata and Texas sheet cake.  Yeah, I don’t really know what half of those things are either… ask Steve.

In the barn we set-up rented tables and chairs and created a full-length buffet of our primarily Grandma and Granddad-supplied child Russian roulette games: Soggy Doggy, Pie Face, Bean Boozled, and Toilet Trouble.  I put Kai’s dad Robby in charge of Pie Face and he put so much whipped cream on the hand, it struggled to smack kids in the face.  I knew Robby was the man for the job.

Outside we had the ninja line and the Swerfer and the zipline and a giant mud pit with straw bales where you could slip and slide and pretend to shoot each other with Nerf guns because all the bullets were lost.  Cruz’s brother Jackson won the Pokémon prize for mastering the ninja line.  James declared Veronica “Queen of the Zipline.” She had to get her fill as it was down during our last playdate.  Bry Bry and Devon spent the majority of the after-party deafening grown-ups via eardrum piercing surprise balloon “‘neak attacks” in the cavernous expanse of the barn’s great room.  It was a crazy, filthy muckfest where every kid had to strip down for the ride home.

A party where the majority of the guests left in their skivvies?

Success.

Let’s just say that when it comes to pop culture, I’m warming the bench.

You know that game Celebrity?  Yeah, me neither.

Probably the result of my woodland childhood and five staticky TV channels.  (3, 8, 11, 35 and 46, for the record.)  But no matter how wide-eyed and clueless I might be… I have one certain childhood friend that I’d actually take on, toe to toe.

There was this one time in college where we were riding camels in Morocco, and she is loudly proclaiming her love of camel toes.  She just can’t get enough camel toes.  They’re so cute!  She needs a picture!  Aren’t camel toes the best?  Meanwhile, I’m traversing the Sahara riding the only pregnant camel with giant water canteens strapped to her sides during this entire conversation.  After multiple references and my inability to contain my mirth any longer, I brought her up to speed on the urban dictionary definition of camel toe.  Her moments of recognition are so undeniably genuine…

My other favorite story is when she retold me how from the dentist’s chair, the hygienist had asked her what kind of floss she’d been using and she responded, “I think it’s called Astroglide?”

So, this year our family dutifully immersed ourselves in the winter Olympics.  One particular night, we were watching men’s speed-skating and well, let’s just say, the speed-skating uniforms were the subject of numerous news reports and social media critiques.  After one race, James can’t help but exclaim, “Holy Camel Toe…” and we’re both hit with a case of the giggles and an inability to make direct eye contact.  The boys begin to pipe-up, “Dad, what’s camel toe?  What?  Why are you laughing?!”

I just can’t speak— the giggles are too strong.  I’m able to squeak out, “James you have to tell them!  They need to know.  What if they don’t find out till college?  What if they tell Dr. Petrik they floss with Astroglide?!”  Just kidding, I added that last question for comedic effect.

And so, we had a familial teaching moment.

The next day Nate is relaying to me how he took some of his scant cash resources to school to purchase a sno cone.  And he says to me, “Mama, I had it doggie-style.  Doggie-style.”

“Uh, what?”

And he mimes eating the sno cone without hands like a dog.

James and I exchange furtive looks over his head.  Camel toe seems sufficient for this week.

It’s the MOST wonderful tiiiiiiime… of every two years.

The Olympics.  I love the little flags.  The suspense.  The heartbreak.  The triumph.  The wipeouts.  I love the columns of numbers and the standings and the milliseconds.  I’d forgotten how much I love slopestyle and halfpipe and snowboarding motorcross.  I love the sweeping panoramic landscapes taken from helicopters.  I love the names and the diversity and learning about the different customs and parts of the host country.  I love the medal counts.  I love the McTwist.  And the touching human interest stories.  I love when they take us to the homes of the competitors from all over the world and we get to see where little international athletes come from… Colorado and Utah.

Only two complaints in 2018… I had higher hopes for the debut of this new women’s Big Yawn… I mean “Big Air” event.  That, and it seems the OAR (Olympic Athletes of Russia) team has really put a dent in the number of Svetlanas this year.  I definitely have not gotten my fill of Svetlanas…

Jaimie, please tell me you don’t have any more childhood rodent stories.  Oh, but I do.  And I don’t yet have to dip into my cache of James’ wild college mouse days.  One of my all-time faves…

So this one time, living in BFE, my cat had her litter of kittens in a wood rat’s nest.  The kittens were so, so cute.  The rat’s nest was logically disgusting but practically functional– well-built, centrally located… the perfect kitty cradle.  You’d think after a childhood of questionable run-ins with creepy crawlies, I’d be desensitized to the homes of furry woodland creatures.

Well a week ago my tire sensors mysteriously begin throwing errors.  The guy at the tire store tells me they’re scheduled to crap-out after ten years.  A morning or two later, my airbag fault light comes on.  Then I go to start my car last Saturday and it’s dead.  I’m annoyed but not surprised.  I’m the recipient of luxury automobile hand-me-downs.  My tailgate alone is a public service announcement.

I get out my handy dandy battery charger, raise the hood and what do I find?  A litter of teeny tiny kittens?  I wish.  Like a cake sitting on an engine cake stand, I find a perfectly formed nest made out of meticulously chewed bits of engine insulation, tire sensors and airbag wires.  With a giant pile of oak acorns squirreled into a pile on top of some sort of motor cap.

The boys had to see the nest after I shoveled it into the garbage can.

James smugly claims that he checks his engine regularly.  I’m clearly a rodent target due to my lack of interest in engine management and general automobile abuse and neglect.

So on Saturday we all pile into James’ Audi loaner car and head to Santa Barbara to pick-up his SUV from the dealership.  Apparently the check engine light came on because of *cough rodent damage cough*.  Our bill so far is up to $1,800…

A cat is looking pretty cheap right now.

Some of my earliest memories involve waging war against the wild.  My first rodent recollection involved a little something scurrying out from under the kitchen trash compactor and my dad’s swift, permanent stomp.  He used to get in big trouble for using my mom’s yellow dishwashing gloves to carry questionable small corpses from point A to point B.  Granddad uses “rats” as an alternative swear word.  So does his grandson, Jacob.

A few months ago when I noticed some strange things happening on the back porch, I thought it was probably the boys, or the puppies.  I accused deer of eating my succulents and moved them onto the fenced back deck.  Crocs were mysteriously moving.  Shoelaces were chewed.  Then one morning I noticed my Aeonium had bite marks.  The following day it was beheaded.  Did the deer stick their little noses through the slats on the porch?

My suspicions rise.  My little plastic gardening trowel is mysteriously wedged under the expensive outdoor armchair.  I eye the protective furniture covers dubiously.  What could be hiding under there?

I use two fingers to inch the furniture cover up like a couch-shaped pillow case.  Oh god oh god oh yuck, I can hardly look.  Something has made a nest on our loveseat.  There is a pile of black chewed-up fibers.  I stomp my feet and hold my weaponized broom at the ready as I tackle the covered chair next.  I have my knee-high rubber boots on for protection.  I inch up the cover, inch it up, inch it up…

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee— I scream like a maniacal little girl.  It’s a long tail on the armrest.  I run inside and slam the door and the boys are disgusted.  And thrilled.

James and the hunting puppies are under a lot of pressure to save us.  They choke.  It escapes.  And we go about disinfecting EVERYthing.  Then we invest a small fortune in an arsenal of rodent eradication.

A night or two later, James declares victory, thanks to the shocking effectiveness of the $50 “Ratinator.”  The electric chair for rodents… powered by dog food.  Which I’m convinced is the primary origin of this entire situation.

At dinner that night, James proudly declares the death of my nemesis.

Nate eagerly asks where it is.  He wants to see it.  “Where is it?  Where’s the rat?”

Of course James says it’s in the trash.  Nate promptly jumps up from the dining room table and beelines it for the kitchen trash can and opens the lid.

Oh Nate…

Much to his disappointment, of course James is not referring to this trash can.