wild*life

Back around Christmas time, the boys spent a lot of time plotting the construction, design, and merits of “bone rocket ships.”  Back then James says to me, “You need to write a blog about bone rocket ships!  It’s so funny, I don’t want to forget it.”

Unfortunately, I had nothin’…  Bone rocket ships?  I think they were inspired by our then acute obsession with dragons and vikings and flying.  And now here it is, captured for posterity in a questionable attempt to bridge the 6-month evolution of our household’s dialectal comings and goings.

Most recently, I’ve noticed Nate is a liberal fan of the word destroy.  Meanwhile Jake is more about what is invincible and post to.  We spend a lot of time discussing the strongest materials in the world.  We’ve had trouble finding items that can survive hot lava.  Though the philosophical debate rages on regarding the strengths and weaknesses of a hot lava sword and whether it’s post to turn into stone.  This week he’s convinced acid may be superior to hot lava.  How can we ever truly know?

Historically, our discussions have centered primarily around jet packs, jet shoes, boosters and mega-mega blasters.  I only vaguely claim to know what most of these are.  Jake’s been talking about many of them since he was two.  In kindergarten, he started telling me about his “blay-blays.”  These are all one-of-a-kind Lego tops that he builds and then spins.  We admire their merits based on three primary criteria: 1) Ease of spinning (some require formal training), 2) Spinning beauty and/or pattern and 3) Ability to win battles against other spinning lego contraptions.  When I asked Jake to write down what exactly he was saying, it appears they’re actually “blade-bladz.”  The ‘z’ was backward, probably as it givz it more street cred.

Meanwhile, Nate is especially keen on infinity.  I feel like I still mentally struggle with the concept of infinity.  I mean, of course I understand it, but I still find the idea of a string of numbers that never ends to be… well, a bit unnerving.  Not Nate.  He understands infinity at his very four-year-old core.  Yesterday it was so hot.  Nate tells me, “I think it’s 90 today, or infinity.”

“Really?  Those are the two choices?  Which do you think it actually is?”

“90.”

He’s so confident about his grasp on infinity that now he’s just casually joking about it…

The other night we’re in the bottom bunk, where most philosophical conversations and discussions of the universe, the origins of life, and other scientific and supernatural discourse takes place… naturally, and Nate tells me:

“Lucas from my old school says goo goo dots is bigger than infinity.”  Lucas has been Nate’s best friend at preschool for the last three years.

“Goo goo dots?”

“Yes.  But I told him infinity is bigger.  I know infinity is definitely bigger than goo goo dots.  The numbers go on forever and ever.”

If I was feeling uneasy about infinity, goo goo dots have just pushed me over the edge.

This morning was a sad, sad morning in the Fucillo family.  We returned home yesterday from several fun-filled days in Disneyland and Pasadena.  All seemed well, however, when James checked on Boobooboos this morning, she had joined the great big goldfish in the sky.

Back in January, poor little Boobooboos came down with the popeye.  That was the medical diagnosis provided by Dr. James when one of her eyes bugged-out to the size of a marble.  Before I left for my annual trip to Vegas, I said my goodbyes and told her I loved her.

Miraculously, Dr. James nursed little Boobooboos back to health.  Her appetite returned and the popeye retreated.  She was back to her happy-go-lucky, tail-wagging self.

But over the last few weeks, we knew something was wrong.  She had stopped eating again and was not greeting us each morning by splashing around.  Last night she swam down into her favorite little corner and went to sleep with the fishes… forever.

We held a little funeral for Boobooboos this morning in the half bath.  I had to stay at the kitchen table as I didn’t want that to be my last mental image of her.  Technically she was Nate’s fish, but really she was everybody’s favorite.  After a good cry on the floor behind the laundry basket, Nate joined us back at the breakfast table.

Jacob made sure he received more Honey Nut Cheerios than he had, and even more notably, the special “tall” spoon.

Rest in Peace little Boobooboos.  We love you.

When I was a kid, we had two sets of silverware: a pewter set which was considered the “nice” silverware, and another set which was primarily reserved for eating cereal.

I’ll never forget the day my parents procured the casual “cereal-eating” flatware.  It was a Sunday morning at the Santa Cruz flea market down at the Drive-in.  “Oooh, look at all this great mis-matched cutlery.”  And thus we ended up with a drawer of random flatware.

These days, this would be considered trendy and eco-friendly.  However, to pre-teen me, I really couldn’t think of anything more nauseating than eating off of something associated with the words flea and market.  My brother developed a propensity for the one and only real silver spoon to make it into the flea market purchase.  He liked it because it was heavy.  I’ve never ever eaten with that spoon as its natural tarnish appeared to be just another suspicious sign of its origins.  I immediately reverted to only eating cereal with our hand-me-down long-handled iced tea spoons from my grandmother’s house.

Somehow I inherited said favorite iced-tea spoons and they are now a staple when it comes to eating cereal in my own grown-up house.  And of course, the boys have found the one and only spoon that doesn’t match any of the others and is thus the most coveted spoon in the drawer.  It’s a Japanese, stainless steel spoon with a bit of a 1960’s motif on the handle.  At our house, it’s known as the “tall” spoon.  Apparently Nate has compared it to all other spoons and it came out the tallest.

Every morning there is a veritable rush to the breakfast table to try and get the tall spoon first.  Lord help us if it is still dirty from the day before, or hidden in the steamy depths of the dishwasher.  We’ve had to institute a daily taking-of-turns with this special spoon as the Spoon Wars have resulted in countless tears and threats of removal from the Super Hero team.

This week James talked Nate into a giant sterling silver serving spoon.  Initially Nate was intrigued, as he thought it was made of golden treasure.  But after a few bites, he recognized that it just isn’t practical.

How will we put an end to the Spoon Wars?  A truce?  A treaty?  An unfortunate accident with the garbage disposal?  What other choice do we have but to… dare I say… start scouring the flea market?

I think I may have mentioned that I have a bit of an OCD streak.  I do things like clean-up my entire house before going on vacation… in part so I can come home to a tranquil, clean house.  And in part because there is some little part of me that wants to know everything was in it’s place when my house burned down.  I know, crazy time.

I’m convinced it’s genetic.  I inherited this little quirk from Granddad.  He’s constantly tidying and for decades we have fondly nicknamed him Señor Tidy.  I found it particularly amusing when my mom shared with me that apparently my brother gets noticeably grumpy when his house is messy, too.  I don’t know how Grandma gets the outlaws to tattle on their significant others, but this is one of Grandma’s most notable strengths.

I do admit, if you want to put me into a particularly irritated mood, lock me in James’ home office slash shoe closet slash Ebay distribution center.  Crazy time.

On this subject, Grandma recently reminded me of the time when Jacob was still two years old.  Angela was babysitting and Jacob went on an audible tirade, complete with finger pointing at her neighbor’s yard sale, “That house is SO messy!”

Now to be clear, we were also recently asked to describe Jake and whether he is organized or all over the place.  Given we haven’t seen his Wild Kratts lunchbox since the second week of kinder and have lost count on missing navy blue hoodies, we had to go with option two.  That said, Jake appreciates a nice clutter-free environment.  He was really the only one to appreciate my recent Spring Break pantry cleaning and reorganization project.  Quite complimentary, I must say.  He visited Grandma’s and asked her why her cupboards were so messy… his cupboards are “clean and organized.”  Grandma still seems to be stewing over this little anecdote— Jake must have delivered it in his most unfiltered, Grandma-esque way?

Over Spring Break, I also cleaned the garage… again.  I am sick and tired of my role as Chief Garage Cleaner as I’ve found exactly zero people (except maybe Señor Tidy) appreciate my hard work and there is no effort to help maintain the improved state.  I mean, I almost died last time.

Despite all that, I spent another day cleaning-up the garage so as to make room for our fleet of riding toys.  And just after I complete my project, and tell all the boys they aren’t allowed to enter the garage without my EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION, James shuts the door, which we’ve been raising and lowering manually for several years, and SPROING: the cables break, springs fly, and the garage door is stuck in the down position— perfectly preserving and protecting the beautiful organized bliss I have just created.  Plus my pallet of leftover landscaping stone is still blocking the “human entrance.”

I live happily for several weeks knowing the garage has been preserved in an orderly state.  But, last week our new garage door was installed with two fancy clickers that work.  And the new door is perfectly silent so the Mess Makers can sneak in there utterly undetected.

On Saturday I got this text from James while I was with the boys at swimming lessons:

Garage door openers?

Hello?

Nate is undeniably edible.  I’m not exactly sure what it is, but people look at him and they just want to eat him up.  When he was little, I thought it was probably his blond cherubic curls and those little bee-stung lips.  Or maybe that chubby belly sticking out over the waistband of his diaper.  But even now, his curls are gone and his little tummy has flattened out and he is still just as yummy as ever.

He has spent much of his childhood exclaiming, “No eat me!” in countless situations and settings.  I’m sure it’s unsettling to always be on high alert as some sort of blond-haired, amber-eyed appetizer.  I do distinctly remember one time when he was two, he laid flat on his back on the kitchen floor, pulled-up his little shirt and giggled, “Eat my belly.”  My three most favorite words.

For years I’ve been trying to decide exactly which of my favorite foods he looks like.  Dumplings?  Marshmallows?  Maybe shortcake or sourdough bread?  Powdered-sugar doughnuts filled with vanilla custard?  Definitely some sort of warm sweet roll confection.

Last week at school, we received an incident report for Nate.  Nathaniel never receives incident reports unless he is the unfortunate bystander of some sort of accidental violence or calamity.  At the dinner table, I looked at the chubby little crook of his elbow and there was a nasty red mark of someone’s entire toddler-sized dental impression.

“Nate, what happened?  Did someone bite you?”

“Yeah, Ahana bit my arm.”

“What happened?  Did you do something to make her bite you?”

“No, I was just sitting in circle time and she bit me.”

“She just chomped down on you?  What did you do?”

“I cried and told the teacher.”

I admit, I was pretty skeptical of this story.  Was he rewriting history so as to edit out the part where he snatched her toy before she clamped down so forcefully?  I asked Miss Chethi to provide more context the next morning.  Turns out Nate was in fact minding his own business at circle time and this little girl just leaned down and firmly bit down on his little eclair of an arm.  Miss Chethi couldn’t tell what was happening until she saw Nate’s panic stricken face and came to his rescue.

As I’ve said, there is something about Nate that just makes him edible.  Ahana was clearly just hungry.

Someone get that little girl a snack.

When I was a kid, my little brother idolized He-Man.  We would shout, “By the power of Graaaaay Skull!”  And ride around on pretend Battle Cats and fight Skeletor.  On more than one occasion I would do something to make him cry.  By accident, of course.  And whenever that would happen, in order to avoid getting in trouble, I would give him my best pep talk: “C’mon Geoff, He-Man doesn’t cry.”  And he would suck up his tears and my sins went undetected as he did his best to emulate the body-building, blond-bobbed bravery of his favorite super hero.

I used to feel guilty about using gender stereo-typed tactics to avoid getting in trouble, but now I just like to think of it as my early years of influencing without authority…

So, somewhere in the first few months of kindergarten, Jacob started his own “Superhero Tim.”  That’s pronounced Team in Spanish.  He immediately began recruiting members and assigning secret identities.

WARNING:  Nobody is to mention that they know anything about this Superhero team or who is on it.  I have purposefully left out most personal identifiers.  I mistakenly brought it up at a birthday party as a way of making small talk with the parents of one of the little girls who was fortunate enough to be “chosen.”  Jake was so upset that I’d blown their cover that he cried and I could barely get him to forgive me, even with cupcakes and a bounce house at my disposal.

Here’s the breakdown:

Superhero Identity: Thunderbird
Position:  Omnipotent Captain and Leader
Powers: Controls fire
Weapons/Special Possessions: Swords with indestructible ends, fire mega-mega blaster that shoots fire bullets that put enemies to sleep, car, jet and motorcycle with four wheels

Superhero Identity: Cheetah Boy
Position:  Trusty Sidekick
Powers: Super fast; can run forever (unlike normal cheetahs)
Weapons/Special Possessions: Jet, car with booby traps, a motorcycle with robot feet instead of wheels, guns with speeding, sleep-bullets

Superhero Identity: Super Nature
Position:  Team Mom… I mean Member
Powers: Queen of nature; can control nature
Weapons/Special Possessions: Hover board, mega-mega blaster, force field; nature is her weapon

Superhero Identity: Armor Cat
Position:  Thunderbird’s Father
Powers: Indestructible body
Weapons/Special Possessions: Hover board, mega-mega blaster, shield, invisible dagger

Other members of the team include:
Water Girl (girl from the bounce house birthday party)
Black Jaguar Boy (aka best friend from school who was a Peregrine falcon for Halloween)
Rock Girl (Black Jaguar Boy’s Mom)
Crystal Girl (long-time female best friend)
Music Girl (was Little Red Riding Hood in this year’s play at school)

The omnipotent, dictatorial captain and leader spends much of his time, of late, creating lists of who is on the team and who is off.  If you don’t do what the leader says or give him what he wants, he uses his powers to threaten and/or remove you from the team.  Sometimes he crosses your name off the list, or puts you on the “Bad Giz (Guys) List,” or underlines all his favorites and strikes your name or erases it.  All of this power is unfortunately over-effective with Cheetah Boy, who will melt into a puddle of powerless spandex if he is taken off the list.

I’ve been coaching Cheetah Boy not to let Thunderbird control him with these mind games.  Pssst, Cheetah Boy… how ’bout we start our own super hero team?  I bet we could get He-Man!… you know, he never cries…

There is an illustrated Super Hero Tim book around here somewhere.  In the meantime, a couple snapshots of the latest lists:

God Giz Tim (Good Guys Team)/Bad Giz Tim (Bad Guys Team)

Lest (List); I had to add Nate back and double-underline him in order to get him in the car on Sunday… apparently Super Nature’s powers are ineffective on Cheetah Boy.

During my childhood, the rule was that I had to drink a full glass of milk every night with dinner.  And we’re not talking a little juice glass.  More like an 8 ounce Big Gulp.  And yes, I haven’t broken any bones.  Though a case can be made that this data does not imply causation.

It was torture.  I remember holding my nose and glugging it down like it was turpentine.  There’s even a story from when I was a toddler, my dad tried to trick me and told me it was white juice.  That only worked once.  Apparently when I was a baby I wouldn’t even drink milk.  The doctor advised my mom to feed me pudding.  I love pudding.  And creme brûlée and custard and ice cream and whipped cream and cheese and all dairy derivatives.  Just don’t make me wash down raw materials.

During dinnertime milk martyrdom, I told my parents it tasted like warm seagulls.  That has been my lifelong descriptor.  I have never waivered.  I have no idea where it originated, but I’m sure my procrastination didn’t help the temperature.  And I’m a beach town kid and have smelled many seagulls.

I finally escaped to college and am fairly certain I haven’t consumed an 8 ounce glass of cow’s milk in one sitting since.  Unless you count chocolate.  Never dismiss the value of a glass of chocolate milk as a late dinner.  Fast, filling and very little clean-up.  Don’t tell the boys.

When I was in college and living in Spain, I came across the concept of shelf-stable milk in boxes.  One more reason not to drink it by the glassful.  I would sometimes eat breakfast with my roommate’s grandmother and she would cluck and chide me for eating my cereal with cold milk.  It was a horrible idea!  Likely to cause a great “eshock” to my system.  She practically ordered me to eat my cereal with warm milk.

Meanwhile, I then proceeded to fall in love with and marry a guy who spent much of his childhood on a dairy and frequently waxes poetic about the many admirable qualities of la lech.  Given his devotion, you’d think he woke up each morning and guzzled it directly from the source.  I’m 98% sure he didn’t.

Years later, Jacob comes along and he’s a milkaholic.  The child has just turned six and he still begins every single morning with an 8 ounce sippy cup of warm milk.  He guzzles it down while running his fingers inside the edge of his favorite pillowcase.  I kind of wonder what his college roommates will say…

Nate, on the other hand, has recently weened himself from warm sippy cups of milk.  I could tell his interest was waning last year.  Now he likes me to warm up his sippy cup of milk so he can pour it onto his cereal by himself.

He’s our little Spanish grandmother…  to my surprise, he’s said nothing about seagulls.

My dearest Jakey,

I’ve been meaning to write your special birthday letter for weeks now, please forgive the delay.  I can hardly believe you are six.  6!  Here is a little peak into six-year-old Jake:

You birthday weekend was three days of pure sugared oblivion.  I brought Texas Sheet Cake cupcakes to your class on Friday afternoon.  It was Friday the thirteenth.  I’m not sure it’s been Friday the thirteenth since six years ago when you decided to show-up early and thought that would make a good birthday.  On Saturday we went to swimming and skipped tee ball.  You wanted to go to the dragon store in Los Gatos and then to the toy store a few blocks down.  You were impressively OK with just looking at the knights and dragons and playing, without getting anything new.  For dinner, Daddy made you barbecue ribs and we ate in the backyard.  You had chocolate brownies for dessert.

The next day was our joint Star Wars Rebels Transformers ice skating birthday party at Sharks Ice.  You masterfully navigated the dynamics of inviting your new best friend, Stuart, and your long time best friend, Helen.  You ate pizza and chocolate cake and recently declared that you want the exact same chocolate cake next year.

Speaking of which, you are a planner.  As soon as one holiday is over, you’re already planning for a year from now.  You’ve been telling me what you’d like to be for Halloween.  You like to plan your next project and your future.  You can’t wait to get your hands on building materials.  You tell me that when you’re old enough, you’ll make me a teleporter.  I can’t wait.

Lately, you provide me with a daily update on what you’re going to be when you grow-up.  Sometimes it’s an architect.  Sometimes an inventor.  Usually it’s a plastic maker so you “can make all the toys.”  For several weeks you’ve told me almost every day that you’re going to have three jobs: a house builder, a plastic maker, and an army supply salesman.  You sense that I’m not that keen on you joining the military, so you’ve concocted a profession where you can still get your hands on all the weapons and “show people how to use them.”  This week you decided to focus on just one career: saving baby animals.  Well, and being an adventurer that looks for gold and treasure while saving baby animals.  You are a jack of all trades.

And you’re still immensely imaginative.  You spin quite a tale.  Last week you told me about mischievous leprechauns wreaking havoc in your classroom on St. Patrick’s Day.  The story sounded feasible until at one point, you saw a flash of green and just missed grabbing the leprechaun as he darted through your outstretched hand.  You were both convinced and convincing.

At CDC they’ve nicknamed you Jake the Spaghetti Snake.  You like it.  I think it’s because you eat unbelievably large quantities of spaghetti, and Honey Nut Cheerios.  They also call you Jake from State Farm based on a current national insurance advertising campaign.  You’re not quite as keen on that one.  You love when I call you Buttercup.

You’re crazy for Legos.  You tell me they’re the only toys you care about in the entire world.  The one thing that quiets your mind and your chatter is sequential hours in complete silence building kit after addictive kit.  But after hours of silent solo building, you genuinely miss Nate.  You love your brother and are best buddies.  You like to tell me, “Mom, Mom.  Nate is epic.  He’s totally epic.”  I’m certain the two of you are equal parts monkey and colt.

You’re busy with homework and swimming and tee ball and soccer.  You recently told me you understand everything your teacher says in Spanish and you’re more apt to spontaneously offer up bits of español.  You’ve been trying really hard and I’m so proud of you.

I love you kiddo.  You are everything that is important to me and I can’t wait to see the adventures this year will bring.

xoxo,

Mommy