wild*life

Jacob says to me this evening as he’s getting ready for bath time, “I’m so glad I’m not a girl.”

“What?  Why?”

“Because I don’t have to deal with that baby pushing problem.”

“Uh…yeah.”

“What… it’s hard!”

Don’t I know it.

When Jake was four he started asking me a lot of questions about God.  More specifically, he’d spring a “Who’s our God?” question on me when I was checking-out at the grocery store or signing him in at daycare.  He was also quite intrigued with “the baby Jesus” and church.

Desiring to remain neutral and divinely agnostic, I did my best to answer his questions and give him a sense of the existence of many spiritual persuasions both with and without a god.  A little birdie told me this will likely be a focus area for this year’s Book Elf… who also has a plan to lower expectations now that the library has re-opened on Saturdays.  And just in the nick of time given all the religious learnings Nate brings home daily.

Now to be perfectly clear, my writings on this topic are simply to capture the humor and joy of learning about an unfamiliar religion through the eyes and explanations of a four-year-old… never to cast judgement or make light of religious beliefs or religion itself.  There are plenty of other blogs for those sorts of crazy, comment-inducing shenanigans.  These stories are the gentle, chuckle-inducing type and are just too precious not to capture based on the concerns of some future googling human resources partner.

And so we begin…

A few weeks ago we attended a house-warming party at Matt and Dr. Antsy’s house.  As I’ve mentioned, Nate attends the same Temple as Matt and so it was a great opportunity to try and clarify some things… fortunately Matt tolerates my sense of humor. Plus he knows Rabbi.  We recently saw Rabbi at Chili’s and it was truly a celebrity sighting.

Nate has actually missed a significant number of school days in September and October as there are many important Jewish holidays during this time. And if you’re going to close school every Monday and Friday, you might as well through in some teacher training days for good measure.

Matt confirmed that “Yonkey-Poor” does in fact mean “I’m sorry” as Nate faithfully reported. Well, maybe not that exact phrase.

He also provided some further context on the “lula and the lemon” which is technically a palm frond called the lulav and an etrog. The etrog is a special Israeli citrus fruit– imagine a wrinkly lemon.  In any case, he concurred with Nate’s direction that you “wave it around when God is near.” Good news is, Nate is two-for-two.

I shared with Matt that Nate brought home a Torah he made, as well as a special kiddish cup.  I was a bit disappointed that Matt didn’t even know any of the words to The Itsy Bitsy Akavish and was unable to identify the flag Nate made with a crest and two lions.  But he also enjoys “hollow,” speaks a bit of “Hebwew” and can confirm that Rabbi does not have gum stuck to his hair.

We got in a bit of a scholarly debate when it came to my questions about Cantor Meeka.  She’s Nate’s music teacher and based on some research, it appears a Cantor has many important responsibilities beyond the preschool music program. Matt was able to confirm that her first name is not in fact Cantor.  But is it Meeka?  I’m still unclear.  In any case, I speculated it seemed too coincidental that Cantor sounds like cantar in Spanish, which is to sing. And mostly I see Cantor Meeka singing the Itsy Bitsy Akavish and playing her guitar. He argued that I couldn’t possibly be right because Hebrew is most definitely unrelated to Spanish.

O’contraire, Señor.  Cantor is the English term which does in fact come from the Latin canere… Somehow being used interchangeably with the Hebrew, hazzan.  One point for me.  Did I mention Matt is also one of the most competitive soccer players I know?  His half-time pep talks can be summed-up as: Don’t stop scoring until we’ve crushed their souls.  No, really… those were his exact words.

And so our year of Nate being Jewish-ish continues.  James was recently lamenting that it is only one year.  It just isn’t enough time.  Even after the Cantor Meeka thing, I did still potentially wheedle an invitation to Passover at Matt and Antsy’s.  I’m super excited…

Challah!

It was one of those Halloweens where we were ahead of the game:

Costumes?  Check.  Two identical zombie hunters.
Something to pass out?  Check.  Let’s do plastic witch fingers.
Decorations?  Check.  Why buy yellow “Caution” tape when they sell red “DANGER” tape?

But when I saved up all of our normal household necessities not found at Whole Paycheck such as electric toothbrush heads, socks, powerful dishwashing detergent, and real peanut butter, the zombie hunter costumes were only in size 10-12.  I checked everywhere.  Clearly the market hadn’t anticipated four-to-six-year-old zombie hunters.  And so Jacob turned to the Chasing Fireflies catalog for inspiration.  Which is like turning to Louis Vuitton.

And then in the course of a week, we lost our lead and we were now very, very behind.

We had one rough night full of fits and lamentations about “cool” Star Wars clone costumes.  And only the $100 Chasing Fireflies Clone Trooper costume with the $16 Clone Trooper Blaster was cool and the smorgasbord of $30 clone costumes was not cool and no he did not want to break his $100 bill which has been squirreled away in a cupboard since he was three even though I offered to split it with him and he was not going trick-or-treating and had decided to skip Halloween entirely.

Nate was Nate.  Willing to switch to “Dark Vader” no questions asked…  “I want to be what Jacob is.”

The Trick or Trace festival was in two days and we had nothing.  Unless I could talk them back into last year’s ankle-flaunting dragon ensembles.  But after the long night of costume commotion, Jake woke up the next day and declared it the year of the Black Ninja.  Most likely because ninjas are known for their weapons.

And what kind of country do we live in where you can decide you want to be a ninja on Thursday night and thus your wish is granted by 2:55pm the following day?  The United States of Amazon you spoiled weapons-loving martial artists.

That Saturday James and I took the two stealth ninjas to the Trick or Trace festival.  They had a blast.  Nate visibily shocked the big kids running the carnival games when he threw a true ringer at the ping pong fish bowl stand.  The ball swirled around the bowl like a heat-seeking missile…  Then he proceeded to nail the bean bag dinosaur toss.

My favorite part was when I had to return that afternoon to staff Hogwart’s Castle.  Imagine a big blow-up castle attached to an enormous Quik Shade Commercial Canopy completely transformed into a dark Harry Potter Wonderland.  I kid you not, as I packed it up at the end of the day, the boxes were labeled: Griffindor’s Lounge, Potions Class, and Flourish and Blotts Bookstore.  One family had clearly been collecting Harry Potter furnishings for years, maybe a decade.  There were even real bookshelves and an actual dresser.

My shift at Hogwart’s consisted of acting as bouncer at the front door– collecting tickets and running off three-year-old packs of princesses trying to sneak in based on the merits of their precious dimples and sparkly gowns.  It started to get windy and the blow-up castle began to get a little squirrelly.  I spent a good ninety minutes literally holding down the fort.

But the best part of the day was when a four-year-old hulk gave me his tickets and braved the spooky castle by himself.  A big gust of wind came along and the castle blew to the side quite dramatically.

The hulk came back through the front door like a shot– his eyes as big as saucers.

Now this is Halloween.

Dead Or Else
No Parents Allowed

The same weekend Jakey became dentally poorer yet richer in the eyes of the first grade, we were playing down in our favorite creek in San Luis.  Unlike previous trips, I hadn’t packed their bathing suits and so the outing involved NOT falling into the creek in their normal clothes and only pair of shoes.

They had a great time leaping from rock to rock, throwing pebbles into the water, and retelling the story of when Nate was dive-bombed by birds.  The weather was perfect, the sunlight was dappled, the creek was calming.  The funniest thing was that Jake made his way out into the middle of the stream, found a big, flat rock, and then in total yogi-style, sat cross-legged, both thumbs to middle fingers, shut his eyes and practiced his meditation.  Of course Nate copied him exactly.

There’s plenty of history to why and how Jacob knows how to meditate (and actually likes it).  Maybe one of these days I’ll go into it.  In any case… both boys ran down to the far end of the creek where the big stones act as an exciting and precarious pedestrian crossing.  Jake assumed his meditative pose, as did Nate.  After a few minutes of contemplative rest and likely a count of deep breaths matching their age, they came running back to me in their usual “thick as thieves” manner.

Jake whispers conspiratorily to me, “Mom, Mom.  We were down there doing our breathing on the rocks and I could hear some grown-ups watching us.  And they whispered, ‘I wish my kids were like that.'”

… so do I… so do I.

I can totally envision Nate’s new Pokémon character, Connoisseurus… imagine a Japanese cartoon anime-style dinosaur… drinking a big, bold Cab.  He “evolves” from a little friendly looking lizard that drinks grape juice and his “attack” is via Lava Cheese or the Swirl and Spit.  His “weaknesses” are warm stone massages and tweezer food.

Thanks for sticking with me during that abnormally nerdy digression into Pokémon.  Grown-up Jake and Nate will appreciate it someday.

And speaking of mythological creatures, we got our first and second visit from the Tooth Fairy in decades!  If memory serves correctly, Jakey’s two little bottom front Tic-Tac teeth were discovered to be loose during the first week of first grade, back in mid-August.

Those loose teeth shot us straight down Memory Lane to the “Pole-Dancing Incident of 2010“.  Who can believe it’s already time to EOL those tiny little razor sharp teeth that chipped his upper front tooth?  And on Thursday, October first, 2015… Jakey lost his bottom right front baby tooth.

The following Sunday morning, we’re at the Los Osos house and James and I are busy packing-up the car.  Jake and Nate are amusing themselves by slipping and sliding around on the high-gloss wood floors while knocking into each other with throw pillows.  And as the old saying goes, “It’s all fun and games, ’till somebody gets hurt.”

Jake slips and instead of landing face-first on the soft, cushy pillow he has in his hands and directly in front of his face, he lands face-first on the wood floor.  He comes running to me with both a bloody nose and a mouth full of blood.  After a bit of detective work, it appears his injury is not dissimilar to the original “Pole-Dancing Incident of 2010“.  (Yes, I’ve inserted the link twice… now you have to click on it.)  His other loose tooth has taken a solid knock, but fortunately, the new grown-up tooth, which is pushing through an alarming distance behind his row of bottom teeth, appears to be unscathed.

Later that night, that tooth also falls out… or rather was knocked-out, so it seems.  Fortunately, the Tooth Fairy keeps her contact management records current and is able to locate us both at home and abroad.

Sunday night she brought a silver dollar and a pack of gum.  And on Thursday night, a dollar and a little pack of Pokémon cards.  This past weekend, our favorite family photographer, Terry Way, told us about a popular 1980’s bumper sticker that read:

Pokémon Put Me In The Poorhouse

The Tooth Fairy is totally bringing bumper stickers next time.

This  weekend we were in San Luis Obispo for a little getaway and I decided to take the boys down to explore one of our favorite creeks.  As we’re walking toward the path, Jake says, “Oh hey.  Maybe you should go say ‘hi’ to our friend.”

The friend he’s referring to runs the Just Looking art gallery.  Our favorite art gallery.  And, well, the only art gallery we know.

So I ask, “Jake, what’s our friend’s name?”

“Hmmm, I dunno.”

“I’ll give you a hint.  He has the same name as Barbie’s boyfriend.”

“Uh…(long pause)… Sydney?”

“What?!  Barbie’s boyfriend Sydney?!”

“Uh… James?”

“James?  Barbie and James?”

Clearly I am losing the battle here at home.  I have got to get some more dolls and unicorns around this place.

As we’re finishing-up at the creek Jake says, “All right Mom.  Let’s go visit our buddy, Syd.”

Ha Ha wise guy.

Family Game Time.

James and I both have similar memories of playing against our card shark grandmothers… neither of which showed any mercy to their grandchildren.  Me-momie would wipe the floor with us in Crazy Eights and I’m told Grammie Lani would crush James in Scrabble.

At our house, we’ve dabbled in games, however formal rules and the ability to hold a hand of cards has made it slow going.  There was a time we were hot on Pengaloo.  But it’s hard to keep track of all those wooden, rainbow penguin eggs.

Somehow we were gifted a deck of cards called Old Maid.  And I let down over half of the world’s population when this appeared on our living room floor.  Unfortunately, the Old Maid giggles were contagious.  And Jake and Nate could actually play this game unassisted.  I’ve done my best to thoughtfully provide contextual guidance as to the offensive name and sexist objective of this game as little boys scream and giggle and exclaim, “I don’t want the Old Maid, noooooooo!  Not the Old Maid!”  No one ever wants the old maid…  some Google research has just uncovered a Kickstarter campaign for Bold Maid.  I should probably redeem myself and invest.

And now we’ve graduated from the easiest game ever to this crazy complex, impossible game called Pokémon.

Pokémon is all the rage in first grade.  Jake decided he liked it, but didn’t actually have any of the cards.  He humored me when I would ask him if he was Pokey Mon in my best Jamaican accent as I poked him in the ribs and the belly button until I got a good, “Nooo, Mooooom.”

Now we’ve realized these cards make a decent, sugar-free reward for achieving good behavior milestones and so we’re now neck deep in this first grade Japanese phenomenon.

Here’s what I know:  There are infinity Pokémon characters.  They come on little baseball cards that you can trade and compare and long for.  Each card has teeny tiny Barbie-sized writing that tells you all about the characters’ relative power.  There are also Barbie-sized coins representing “damage.”  It promotes a lot of adding and subtracting by tens.  Our entire world revolves around damage and weakness and power and resistance.  Some guys “evolve.”  We only seem to have leaf, fist and eyeball energy, also known as grass, psychic and fighting energy.  There are holographic coins to flip.  And something called HP, which I’m guessing isn’t Hewlett Packard.

I’ve gathered that E.X. and Legendary are the best.  I hear a lot about what cards Truman has.  Truman is our seven-year-old Pokémon sensei.  Skitty is cute.  Her attack is a tail smack.  Yesterday Nate and I were “knocked out” by Tangrowth’s mega mega drain.  Which I much prefer to the horn drill, knuckle punch or beatdown.  When Nate and I played against James and Jake, I remember being attacked by a lot of beatdown.

Jake and I started out by playing Pokémon kind of like War.  We would each put a card down and then decide whose looked more powerful either by the numbers or the artwork or whether the character name was menacing, like Machop, or kind of cute like Horsea.

One night I thought I would read the directions and figure out how to play Pokémon for real.  Twenty minutes with the directions and another twenty minutes on Youtube and I threw in the towel.  I decided I’d never learn how to play.  It appears to have been devised by the makers of american football and revered by little kids and those guys that like the World of Warcraft.

James has put in some time… likely watching some sort of secret Pokémon Sports Center, and now leads us all through battles each night.  Tonight I actually heard myself say, “No, no.  You can’t evolve Rhydon to Rhyhorn.  Rhydon is a Stage 1 and Rhyhorn is a Basic.  What are you even thinking?”  I was quite proud of myself.

This morning Nate and I were at the breakfast table, as he leisurely examined the cross-country roadmap-sized instructions that are our lifeline to playing this hundred step game.  He points to a picture of a cartoon human guy and says, “Mom, mom.  Do you know who this is?”

“Um, no.”

“He’s a Pokémon Connoisseurus.”

It’s soccer season.  Jake is on the Ninjas.  And Nate is on the Thunder Bears.

Fortunately or unfortunately, neither team is quite as menacing as they may sound.

The games consist almost entirely of a swarm of kids kicking the ball past an unsuspecting goalie.  Generally ours.  There are an inordinate number of stuntman-esque falls, like bowling pins.  It looks more like rugby than soccer.  Balls bounce up and kids reflexively catch them.  Our coach finally realized that he needs to begin every quarter with a very direct, physical and mentally complex exercise called: Which Way Are We Going?

Despite their aggressive, rough and tumble nature, both my sons choose to avoid the fray.  They’re generally put in defense.  Jake can turn up the speed and come at the threat sideways… kicking it away in the nick of time.  But then he’s tired from sprinting and feels compelled to stay where the coach placed him.  Nate can also gear himself up to kick the ball away from an oncoming offender… but I see him getting distracted easily.  He’s always looking at the referee or listening to the grown-ups on the sidelines.  Most of the time his back is turned to the ball.

On Saturday, Jacob’s old teacher, Miss Amy, and her husband Nick, met us at the soccer field.  James was taking them out to look at some houses.  I was describing how the game went… something to the effect of, “It’s definitely bunch ball.  A lot of running and falling and butterfly watching.  But it’s really fun and funny.”

And Nate says in support of my description, nodding importantly, “Mommy, Mommy.  I was watching a butterfly.”  Continued adamant nodding, “I was.”

Lately Nate has developed quite an affinity for apples… dipped in honey.  He tells me it’s so good.  I was having trouble understanding where this constant request had originated.

But then last Friday he came home and reported that Rabbi has hair clips.  That’s how it stays on his head.  And then he stayed home in celebration of Rosh Hashanah.  And I was reminded that Nate is learning hebwew and teaching me more about Jewish customs and traditions.

I saw on our school calendar that on Friday was the blowing of the shofar.  September has a number of important Jewish holidays and I’m ashamed to say that my Judaic education is quite lacking– a sixth grade talk on the menorah and a free dreidel.  I hope the new Common Core has righted this wrong.

So I ask about what is going to happen…

“Nate, what is the blowing of the shofar?  Is it like a candle or something?”
“No, it’s a horn.”
“A horn?  Like an instrument?”
“No, a horn.  Like Gwanddad has.”

And clearly I understand it must be some kind of animal appendage.

It turns out our friend Matt attends the same temple associated with Nate’s preschool.  James tells Matt, “Nate goes to your temple, too!”  Matt just could not understand.  The cognitive dissonance was palpable…

Maybe Matthew and Nathaniel can get together and teach me how to blow the shofar?  Followed by some apples dipped in honey.