wild*life

At my house we appreciate a good bad school picture.  For me it was always the “Grump Bucket” picture from Kathy Brown’s Preschool.  I remember the day well.  I was three.  It was picture day.  Pastel patterned overalls.  Cindy Brady pigtails.  We’re outside and there’s a crowd of parents cheering and smiling for every flash of the camera.  I scan the audience and it’s a sea of strangers.  My mom has clearly dropped me off and made a break for the grocery store, or Humpty Dumpty Diapers.  I.  Am.  Mad.

And thus, a piece of family history is born.

My mom couldn’t believe the sour puss picture that showed-up several weeks later.  She didn’t like it at all.  No retakes.  But then it must have started to grow on her.  And now, it’s one of our all time favorites.

A week or so ago we got Jacob’s kindergarten portrait back.  This day and age, with digital photography, our expectations have been raised.  I’m all for a good bad picture— I mean honestly, I may have to be buried with the preschool ornament of Nate laying face down under a Christmas tree.  He’s wearing the Santa hat, but otherwise completely uncooperative.

But Jakey’s kindergarten picture is just well… weird?  Or is it growing on me?  It does give me a mad case of the giggles.  Especially when Jake and I try to reenact it.

Uh… precious memories courtesy of Lifetouch.

During the first weekend of October, I set-out on a highly anticipated girls weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  After almost a year of planning, the reunion of my high school besties has finally arrived.

It begins early on a Thursday morning.  It’s a fitful night’s sleep.  I wake in a panic at 1:15am and then toss and turn until I wake-up in a second panic as I’ve been sleeping with the alarm on for half an hour.  Somehow I manage to get dressed and out the door with all my required belongings in less than fifteen minutes.  Not my favorite way to start a 5am day, but I am so excited it doesn’t matter.  And a confidence-building reminder to self:  It takes exactly twenty minutes from our doorstep to check bags, get through security, and be drinking a Peet’s Americano.  #SJCLove

So Jill is on the flight with me to Albuquerque.  We’ve known each other since Junior High.  We blabbidy blab blab all the way to San Diego, and then blabbidy blab blab all the way to New Mexico.  My how the time flies when you have a friend to talk to and no little munchkins hanging off your body like darling, oversized blond bracelets.  Jill is queen o’ the hashtag and my social media idol.  #FreeToDoWhatIWantAnyOldTime

We meet up with Jenny and Melanie at the airport and after a short wait, board the shuttle to Santa Fe.  We make it to the Inn at Loretto and proceed to check-in and seek out sustenance.  Cafe Pasqual’s is our first stop.  Highly popular.  Tiniest most claustrophobic bathroom corridor in America.  I buy a buffet of cookies and a giant hunk of fudge to tide us over until we can be seated.  #CookiesForLunch

Pasqual’s is a winner.  We’re joined by Emily, Alesia and Jamie A. and wolf down four orders of mole enchiladas and pear salads with pomegranate and cheese.  The food is fresh and delicious.  The ambiance is greenhouse aviary fiesta.  We poke around some shops and then head back to the hotel to rest.  A few hours later we gather the whole crew and head out to eat again at The Shed.  Great ambiance, average food, undrinkable margarita.  We head back to the hotel for a nightcap and dessert by the fireplace and are joined by Sarah after a long and challenging day of travel.  #GabFest

The next morning we wake-up from another fitful night’s sleep and set out to eat… again.  Looking back, it seems like we ate a lot, but it was more like a roller coaster of feast and famine.  We make it to the Plaza Cafe which has a great diner vibe and a giant booth with a view onto the beautiful central plaza.  It feels like Mexico.  The food is great and we can talk as long and as loud as we want.  #HuevosDivorciados

After breakfast we head to the Georgia O’Keeffe museum.  It only has one or two of her famous flower pictures, but an enchanting painting of Macchu Picchu.  The video about her life is the best part.  Outside, I am sucked into taking a photograph for a Taiwanese trio.  After four tries with the still photo feature of their video camera, I assure them it worked and make a stealthy escape.  We peruse the many shops and declare our favorites to be Maya, Savory Spices and the middle eastern salvage yard behind Serets.  Unfortunately, I forget that James has texted me a place called Shiprock that is only open on Saturdays.  Later I find out that people have called it one of the best shops in America.  Guess I have a reason to go back.  I decide to start collecting Mexican Milagros.  And possibly garden wind sculpture.

That evening we head up Canyon Road for dinner at El Farol.  Terrific tapas, intriguing over-forty dance scene.  We head home and most of us let Jenny talk us into further exploring the Santa Fe nightlife.  We’re lured into the Skylight by Why You Gotta Be So Rude.  Jenny buys us a round of lemon drop shots.  We’re driven out by some song about bitches.  And perhaps the blind date/escort/hooker? in navajo spandex pants.  #PuebloChic

The next morning we wake-up in anticipation of our spa day outside of town at Ten Thousand Waves.  We think about grabbing a bite to eat and then coming back for two taxis out of town.  I pause and suggest we set-up the cabs before we venture out for caffeine.  At the front desk, Mike calls the cab company.

There are no taxis.
It’s the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.
The hotel doesn’t have a house car.
There is one car service.
They will charge us $244 for a 4 mile drive.
It’s outside of pedicab territory.
Sarah thinks she might run it.
Others consider walking really fast.
I’m not going to hike for over an hour to show-up stressed, sweaty and dirty from an hour plus walk in the desert.
I urge Mike to get more creative and assure him he’s going to figure this out.
He says we can all pile into his Mini Cooper.
I graciously accept.
He quickly dismisses the idea as a joke.  Ha ha!  Eight girls in a Mini Cooper!
I notice the other front desk guy, Gabriel.
He’s been pretty quiet.
I look around at the three men running this hotel on an early Saturday morning.
“OK, so who do you know in Santa Fe?”
They looks sheepish.
Gabriel volunteers a scrap of hope: He has a truck and we’ll fit between the bed and the cab.
“Are you allowed to ride in the back of a truck in New Mexico?”  I ask.
“Well… no.”
“Perfect.  Let’s go.”
#CrisisTurnedAdventure

Gabe pulls his F150 around to the side of the hotel and we discreetly jump in.  Emily declares that all guys named Gabe are nice.  I decide that if you want to be rescued, you can count on the guy with a truck.  Sarah, Emily, Melanie and Jill get in the cab.  Alesia, Jenny, Jamie A. and me lay down in the back like four crayons in a box.  We tuck our feet under the giant built-in tool box with our heads toward the tailgate.  And we’re off.

It is freezing.  We have to snuggle.  Jenny spends the entire drive trying to get a view with her iPhone in the air.  I’m convinced a patrolman will notice her arms sticking up from the back of the truck and pull us over.  Jenny does not worry about these things…policeman’s daughter.  It feels like we’re driving forever.  At one point Gabe pulls off the road and turns around.  We decide that if he’s a desert killer we’ll overwhelm him, 8 versus 1.  Fortunately, he’s not a killer; he just took the wrong road.  We finally make it to the spa.  We give Gabe a nice tip, promise this story won’t end up on Trip Advisor, and take a souvenir photo.  #TailgateSelfie

Ten Thousand Waves is fantastic.  I sign-up for the whole body restoration and am convinced I’ve died and gone to Japan.  We eat delicious Japanese inspired morsels at the award winning restaurant.  It’s one of our best meals.  Fortunately Santa Fe’s two taxis make it back from the Balloon Fiesta and are available to take us back to town.  Our driver tells us that the spa started as a hot tub that his dope-smoking hippie buddy bought back in the seventies.  Now he’s a millionaire jet-setting spa consultant.  #SantaFeHeyHey

We spend the afternoon wandering the shops and eat nachos that night at an unremarkable family restaurant.  We return to the hotel to debate the merits of various Santa Cruz locales for our high school reunion.  The next morning we venture back up Canyon Road to The Teahouse for an oatmeal recommendation.  It’s essentially my favorite, black forbidden rice pudding.  I buy a pair of souvenir boots.  We toast the weekend.  We hug.  We shout Boston November 2015!

The weekend is so much more than shopping/strolling, spas, and the Southwest.  We share our worst fears, discuss the merits of legalizing marijuana, tell stories about our kids, laugh about “electrology,” and reach new levels of hysteria imagining a pirate-themed high school reunion at the Coconut Grove.  We trade cooking tips and eye-shadow lessons and reminisce about the time we got pulled over by the same South Carolina highway patrolman, twice.  And we go through the painful but necessary process of choosing a Sacred Weekend to protect and anticipate every year.  Because this… this is what it’s all about.

And to top it all off, Alesia tells me she read my blog and has my black Petunia Pickle Bottom wipes case, which means it’s been lost since Pasadena, June 2013.

#Perfect

The very next Wednesday, after I had written about our magical walk to the first day of school, Nate and Jake and I set-off to kindergarten.

About five minutes in, this is what happened:

I think you could hear him yelling from five blocks away.  I’m not really sure how I ended up getting him to walk the rest of the way and then back.  Probably threats under my breath.  The magic was gone.

That afternoon I went back to school to get Jake.  It was a hot, Indian summer day.  I was wearing a gray and white striped tank top.  At the last moment, I decided to throw-on my navy CAbi trench which is made of a soft, sweatshirt like material.

I get to school and Jake is wrapping-up Cooking Club.  I remember my former life when I was the one who had Cooking Club.  My friend Jill and I would whip-up gourmet weeknight dinners and watch the Bachelor.  Following in our footsteps, Jacob loves making jam and muffins and frozen yogurt.

So I pick him up that afternoon and he doesn’t want to walk home.  He wishes I drove.  He wishes I brought his scooter.  He can’t go another inch without water.  He has to pee.  He’s going to pee his pants.  Enough.

We literally stop by the exact same tree that’s in the picture above and I tell him, “Fine.  Just pee behind this tree.  I’m sure no one will see you.”  Girls would never take this as a serious option.

He seems to be considering his choices when all of a sudden he bends over with a nose bleed.  It’s everywhere.  I have the clothes on my back and a cell phone.  I consider my shirt.  I look around for a stray napkin, something… I decide to sacrifice my coat.  But meanwhile Jacob is irrational and frantic when it comes to his own blood.  Anything with blood on it cannot touch him twice, so every inch of my coat is affected.

Somehow we made it home.  I had one hand on the back of his neck and the other trying to stop his nose bleed, my coat smothering his face.  He had blood smeared all over him, forehead to chin, ear to ear.  A neighbor walking her dog did the right thing by stopping to ask if everything was all right… we were certainly a sight.

We made it home and the irrational blood fear made a shocking mess of our kitchen, the laundry room, the bathroom.  Finally, the madness stopped.

What a day.  I’m just glad I made that last minute decision to throw-on a jacket.  Would have brought new meaning to the term walk of shame.

A few weeks ago James decided to declare a weekly routine he aptly named Taco Tuesday.  He was excited about it, so I was excited about it.

It seemed to also coincide with the discovery of a miraculous new product brought to us by “Tortilla Land.”  I’m told these ingenious raw tortillas that puff up into a golden envelope of love come from Costco.  Nate eats them like buttered bed sheets.

So a week ago I come home and am greeted at the front door. Nate immediately declares, “Mama, it’s Taco Tuesday.  AGAIN!”

I’m not sure if he was reeling from the anticipation of his favorite buttered bed linens or the fact that Tuesday happens more than once.

And a new tradition is born.

Our little Nate is going through a “phase.”  He has generally been known as the agreeable one.  The generous one.  The child quick to reason, to apologize, to accept “no” as an acceptable answer and to keep on going.  If we had one remotely “flexible” child, it was Nate.

But Nate seems to be going through some sort of three-and-a-half-year-old identity crisis.  He has most certainly received a jolt of testosterone to his system.  He feels significantly more angry about not getting his way.  He says more things through gritted teeth.  He now says things like, “I’m going to break you in half in four pieces.”  And he is refusing to say he’s sorry… ever.

He’s experimenting with his own power; his independence.  He tells me he’s going to make his own “sumbarine” and a jet.  When I ask him to tell me more he proclaims, “I build it. I dwive it.”

And he has to do everything himself.  He has to fasten his car seat straps.  He has to put on his bull shirt.  He needs to read a book that Jake is reading.  He has to open the front door when I get home from work.  If his brother beats him to it, he cries and hides and demands I go all the way back to work so he can open the door for me.  If I act like I’m going back to work, he dissolves into a puddle of tears.  He hides under tables and generally goes through insane and unpredictable mood swings.  There are still hopeful signs of the old Nate.  He greets me with “a beautiful rock” almost every day.  He still likes to ‘nuggle, and he’s happiest while inventing new dance moves in the living room.  But life is a constant roller coaster.

I was describing the new Nate to Grandma and Granddad and they captured it perfectly, “Uh oh.  Nakezilla.”

Yep, Nakezilla is back.

Last weekend we were driving in the car on our way out to dinner and Nate proclaims from the back seat, “I want Drama Juice.”

“What?  We’re going out to dinner.”

“I want Drama Juice!”

“Drama Juice?  What are you saying?”

“No, no.  Jama Juice.”

You’ve had enough Drama Juice my man.  Plen-ty.

As some people know, I grew up in the boondocks, the mountains, what we affectionately called “BFE” when out of adult earshot.  School buses and big indoor schools with stone steps and cafeterias were the providence of movies and Beverly Hills 90210.  Walking to school?  Something people did in the 50’s.

And now that we are parents of a child attending our “neighborhood school,” the fact that we can walk to school makes me channel my inner Brenda Walsh, or maybe the Beave.

It turns out it’s about a ten minute walk to kindergarten from our house.  In most cases, walking is faster than getting caught-up in the traffic surrounding our K through 12 trifecta of academic institutions.  We are slowly increasing Nate’s endurance on these morning excursions, however some days can be quite challenging as he decides to examine and question every snail, rock, and bush along the way.  There may also be a story or two of him sitting down in the middle of the sidewalk and refusing to budge.

I’ve had fairly good luck, in my limited once a week experience, with Nate’s self-proclaimed Fast Poke identity.  He yells, “I’m Fast Poke!” and then races from tree to tree, pausing for short breaks.  He came up with that on his own by the way…

Going back to the very first day of kindergarten, it was my job to get Jakey dressed and to walk with him to his first day of school, just the two of us.

I had already spent quite a bit of time socializing and pre-selling the required uniform.  Over his lifetime, I have only intermittently achieved success on getting him to wear anything other than a t-shirt.  Short-sleeved polo shirts were a stretch goal.

That morning, the first day jitters set in and what had seemed to be an easy, agreeable sell a week prior was now inciting the start of a morning meltdown.  Dad swooped in and somehow Jake decided that he preferred the white polo shirt over green (his favorite color).  Plus he had to have it buttoned-up all the way to the top.

Jacob and I then walk to school hand-in-hand, and it is magically special.  A day I will never forget.  It’s still warm, but the crisp feeling of fall is already in the air.  I look down at him with his big-boy polo shirt buttoned up to the top, and his navy shorts that are too big and cinched tightly by the adjustable elastic waistband.  He has his shirt tucked in, possibly for the first time, and his backpack on, loaded down with his new Wild Kratts lunch bag.  He looks like a little boy in his big boy uniform.  He doesn’t even mind when I comb his hair down at school.  And he isn’t the slightest bit hesitant to hold my hand or to give me hugs and kisses goodbye.

I hold it together pretty well, until we get to the crosswalk.  The distinguished man in his crossing guard uniform, his aviator sunglasses, and his ear-piercing police whistle stops traffic for us.  He looks at us and you can just see his appreciative smile.  He knows we’re new.  Just the nod of his head, acknowleding this tiny, almost imperceptible moment in our lives as the milestone that it is.  I think I see him wink.

Tears well-up in my throat and I know, this is a moment I will never forget.  Today it’s a crosswalk; tomorrow it’s an aisle.  Our lives move at such an astonishing pace.

Slow down Fast Poke.  Slow down.

First day of kindergarten: August 13, 2014

If I ever write a book, I’ve decided to title it, Ketchup is Not an Entrée.

A quick Google search has turned up zero results.  How is that even possible?  Now I just need an actual book…

So we read the preschool outbreak notice, gather up our possibly infested trio of puppies, and take the boys home.

We go about our usual business, but I feel itchy.  Despite the fact that I’m sure there is some sort of gestation period, for a week I find my scalp crawls just at the thought.  Even when I’m not thinking about it.

Meanwhile a day or so after the notice was posted, Nate calls me to his room, “Qwickly!”

He tells me, “Mama, there’s lifez flying around my room.  Little tiny ones.”  He gestures with his hands to show tiny airborn bugs.  When I come to see these “lifez” he tells me his foot is itching.

And then last Friday I get home from work and Jake tells me, “Mom, I had lice today.”

“You did?  How do you know?”

And he says, “I saw a big pack of them climb up a tree and then jump onto my head.”

We have a serious infestation of phantom lice.  The only treatment may be brainwashing.

At 5pm the day before school starts, they post the class lists in the front window of the office.

I still remember my days at Happy Valley.  The excitement of going by the school to look at the class list to find out your teacher and classmates.  I remember seeing a girl named Gretel was going to be in my class.  I had never come across anyone with a fairytale name.  She turned out to have a fairytale singing voice.  Years later we cast her as Anita in my high school directing debut production of West Side Story.  She was perfect.

So on August twelfth, I show-up at 6pm to find out whose class Jacob will be in.  There’s a crowd in front of the doors and a reunion-esque atmosphere.  And I look at the two Spanish immersion class lists and I don’t see Jake’s name anywhere.  For a second I have that feeling you have when you show-up on time for something and there is no one there and you think, “Do I have the right date?  Is this the right place?”  But instead I’m thinking, “Did I enroll him in kindergarten?  I didn’t dream that, did I?”  After a split-second, I regain my senses and check the other kindergarten class lists and there he is.  On the list for the teacher with the unpronounceable name.  The name James starts shortening to Mrs. Ganja.

“Daddy, what’s ganja?”

That night I go through every piece of kindergarten paper we’ve received since January.  Do I have a scrap of paper to prove we won the bilingual lottery?  What proof do I have?  Not a shred of evidence.  All I have is a paper saying we didn’t win the science school lottery and that we’re 109th on the waiting list.

How did I know?… think Jaimie, THINK.  Voicemail.  It must have been a voicemail.  I start pushing buttons on my iPhone.  What’s this?  My deleted voicemails since the beginning of time?  Hallelujah, ¡Gracias a Dios!  And there it is, on April 28th I have a voicemail from the bilingual coordinator letting me know we had won the immersion class lottery and that there was nothing else I needed to do.  Undelete.

Armed with my proof, the next day we get all dressed up and head to school early so I can try to get things straightened out.

We get to the office and it is being run by Grammy Lani.  Not actually Jacob’s great-grandmother, but possibly her long lost twin sister.  She looks at me like a deer in headlights and gives me a “Parent Complaint Form.”  I have a feeling this is her go-to form.  The dad behind me gets one, too.

So we head to the “Kinderworld” playground to find out what happens next.

While we’re there, a really friendly woman speaking Spanish asks Jacob his name and if he will be in the Spanish class.  Turns out she is one of the two immersion teachers and is so well-prepared, she has time to hang-out and socialize with the kids on the playground.  Meanwhile our assigned teacher is frantically trying to pull things together in her class and chases us away until the designated “starting time.”  As we’re milling about, I also find the bilingual coordinator, whom I’m told is my best bet at getting this little problem solved.  If not her then I may need to escalate straight to the principal.

I find the bilingual coordinator and explain the situation.  She tells me she couldn’t have called me in April as she was working in the classroom.  Then I whip out my proof and in my best Perry Mason voice, “Is this your voice on my iPhone saying we had a spot in the bilingual program?”  I wonder how you say backpedaling in Spanish.

So James, Jacob, and I sit through orientation.  The first day of school is essentially a 90-minute-long Wednesday and then you’re supposed to take your kid home.  I think this deserves a future blog post of its very own.

Meanwhile I have to catch a plane to LA and so I jet from kindergarten orientation, but not before I see the principal poking her head in to sniff around Mrs. Ganja’s class.  I gently corner her outside as I think I’ve cracked the secretive, complex “Parent Complaint Form” process: They get dumped on the principal’s desk.

I get the same deer in headlights look.  The program is completely enrolled.

I decide it’s the first day.  This school has 1,000 students— a far cry from my 100 person Happy Valley days.  I have a plane to catch.  My strategy is to fight bureaucracy with my friendly, daily physical presence.  Hasta mañana.

That afternoon I get a voicemail on my phone from the school but it says it is zero seconds long.  Mysterious.

The next morning, Jakey and I set out early again.  Friendly, daily physical presence.  As we’re walking to school, my cell phone rings.  The April lady has good news… their records indicate he should be in the program and there was an error.  Someone has dropped-out and we’re in.  And his teacher is Maestra Patiño, the friendly, well-prepared teacher from the playground.

Problem solved!  I practically skip to school with JJ in tow.  And to her credit, during the night, the zero second voicemail overcomes it’s technical glitch and was actually a nicely worded and encouraging voicemail the evening before admitting the mistake and taking responsibility for solving it as soon as a spot opened up.  She also sent an apology e-mail copying the principal and our new teacher.  Skillfully handled.  Happy kindergarten parent.

That evening we pick Nate up at school and there’s an “Outbreak Notice” on his classroom door: Lice.

Dios mio.