wild*life

I’d say when you’re about seven or eight you get to thinking… usually after eating dinner… that your parents unmistakably decided that in order to save themselves the agonizing monotony of doing chores… they should have kids.

Clearly this logic is fundamentally accurate.  Everyone knows this.  Deep inside their being. And yet, it’s insanely far from reality— a universally perplexing, diametrically opposed truth.

I mean on the one hand, my parents totally had me and my brother for the sole purpose of filling their house with little blond servants to clear their table and hand wash their knives and unload their dishwasher and hoist large laundry baskets upstairs and take care of the crazy number of farm animals they had to have.  You know it’s true, Grandma.  You, too, Granddad.

And yet on the other hand, before the kid-servants are really of any use, they spend years perfecting their skills as the epicenter of all chores known to man.  As BabyCenter.com put it in an e-mail to me today: A busy preschooler means an ever-messier house.  And it’s not just the toys and books strewn everywhere.  Preschoolers also like to remove things from shelves and drawers.  They draw on walls.  They spill juice, tear paper, fling clothes.

I think I snorted out loud when I read that “fling clothes” part.  However there will be absolutely no drawing on walls… and I’m sure they’d love to spill juice, if they could get their sticky little hands on that contraband.

So, flinging.  Nate’s latest favorite game is to take whatever piece of clothing he is supposed to be wrestling his chubbiness into and toss it up in the air like a graduation mortarboard.  Endless fun.

I still remember several tense weeks when Jacob joined Miss Letti and Miss Chethi’s class just after he’d turned three.  He went completely deaf as soon as anyone mentioned the word “clean-up.”  He was full of excuses, stories, fits, and flops about why he could not participate.  Weeks of acute coaching on the importance of “teamwork” were immediately put into action.  Books on teamwork, cartoons emphasizing teamwork, modeling and praising and time-outs for un-teamwork-like behavior.  And then the crisis was over… phew.

Now it seems JJ’s new most favorite thing in the world is to do chores.  He has to make milk sippy-cups in the morning, make my hot tea, and fold laundry.  He washes dishes, he sets the table, he puts toothpaste on toothbrushes, he cleans the entire living room, he cleans his room.  Every night he wants me to think of dozens of chores he can do so as to prolong his bedtime.  A tempting proposition.

I’m getting pretty good at inventing age-appropriate chores… as I see it, I better enjoy this phase while it lasts.  And I certainly know it won’t.  If only I could give him some real chores like finding out where and how to recycle all of our e-waste.  Or oiling the teak chairs out back.

Last night he was laying on the floor in his pj’s, pouting, “But Moooom.  I will be sad for a yeeeeaaaar if you don’t give me more chores.”

I can’t wait to pull this one up for teenage Jake.  “You know son, the word chore used to have a positive connotation in this house.  You used to beg me to give you more chores.”

For now, I’m grateful I have someone who delights in flinging clothes… and someone else who delights in throwing them in the hamper.

Back before Jacob was even three, there was this one Saturday where I popped into Flower Flour to pick-up a picnic lunch.  Honestly, I was craving their pancake salad which is unbelievable.  Yes, pancake salad.  I’d almost completely forgotten about this particular picnic except that of course, Jakey remembers it like it was yesterday.  “Mama, remember that time you bought me a chocolate sandwich?”

“Vaguely…”

So the reason I bought a chocolate sandwich was because they didn’t have any kid-friendly peanut butter sandwich-type options, everyone was waiting for me in the car, and basically, I was desperate.  After scouring the options, the lady says hopefully, “Nutella?”

And of course now the grilled Nutella sandwich will go down in history as the best sandwich I ever made the mistake of buying.  Which isn’t exactly the same kind of history-making sandwich as the leftover salmon sandwich my dad made me in seventh grade…

I was reminded of chocolate sandwiches during our recent adventure in Los Angeles.  Also the name of Jake’s “new” wife, by the way.  So I had my week-long work meeting in downtown LA and it went swimmingly.  Then all the boys joined me for a long weekend where we swam our way across SoCal.

First we dominated the pool at LA LIVE during BET weekend.  Tormenting Beyonce fans with our speedy and difficult to control motorized orange squid.  Then we hit the Verdugo pool in Burbank, aka little kid water playground heaven.  Unless maybe you’re Nate and then it’s, “Too deep.  For me!”  But then again, everything is currently, “Too sunny.  For me.  Too hard.  For me.  Too (s)picy.  For me.”

After the most delicious and relaxing dinner in the Kellums backyard where Jake and Jack ate all the visible strawberries, and a short but sweet visit with Emily, we swam our way to Pasadena with two-day-old Baby Eve(!) and the rest of the Hampton family.  Yes, Baby Eve and Eleanor are insanely darling and I pray the boys’ wrestling, roaring, and turtle handling left Evie unscathed.

And where am I going with this?  Good question….  Oh, right: chocolate sandwiches.

In Pasadena we stayed in a grand hotel called The Langham which had a lot of crystal vases and burnished leather reading nooks and of course, afternoon high tea.  Now what does James Patrick the lover of British accents and June birthday boy love more than sandwiches, cookies, and other delicacies?  You guessed it: chocolate.  And on Sunday afternoons The Langham presents their afternoon chocolate high tea, complete with giant chocolate fountain.

We’re totally going.

So we change out of our swimsuits into something slightly more presentable and make our way to a little upholstered settee and glass-topped table completely covered in fine china, silver, and crystal glassware.  The rest of the tables were occupied by baby showers and ladies in sundresses.  I brought three Crayons and a couple of pieces of hotel note paper.  This is really an opportunity for us to teach table manners and good behavior and polite conversation, right?

Five minutes in, Jakey and Daddy return to the table with the first course: serve-yourself bites on sharp skewers bathed in a pond of chocolate from the 4-story fountain.  Did I really wear white pants?

We made it through course one with only a few drips on Jake’s shirt.  I’m positive that one chocolate stain on the yellow settee was there when we sat down.  Then the lady tells us she can bring kid-friendly tea sandwiches, but then we find out the non-kid-friendly tea sandwiches involve smoked salmon and shrimp, which is actually kid-friendly in our family so we stick with that.

We wolf down cucumber sandwiches and chocolate eclairs and little chocolate macaroons and mini tarts and the boys add sugar cubes and cream to our tea and we guzzle champagne and… it is awesome.  We even got several compliments on how well the little ruffians behaved and there was no broken china or puddles of chocolatey carpet when we left.  Just a handful of balled-up chocolatey wipes.

As expected, the smoked salmon finger sandwiches were a hit.  They had a white chocolate spread which doesn’t sound that great but… it worked.

And so my dad’s inspired seventh grade salmon sandwich mistake and my grilled chocolate sandwich mistake came together in perfect harmony…

I guess two wrongs do make a right.

In the last three or four months, Jacob has actually started coloring.

I mean, he’s always used markers to draw on paper and the surface surrounding that which is intended to be colored, but this is different.  This is real, quiet, sitting still, absorbed in concentration, coloring.  The kind of coloring you see little girls of all ages doing in quiet restaurants.  I’ve actually left him in the kitchen, taken a shower, put my clothes on, and found him exactly where I left him.  It’s like striking parental gold:

Crayons, they’re not just for snacking anymore!

And his pictures are now treasure maps and personalized sumbarines [sic].  By the way, I’ve always been slightly unsure about the use of the bracketed sic… seems this little writing gem should really be making more frequent appearances in this blog written in toddlerease.

So this weekend we went on our first real evening family date… ever.  Dinner and a movie.  I know… that was our old standby every weekend four and a half years ago.  James and I had seen just about everything in the theaters.  We were experts on what was out and who was in what and what was playing where.  Now we’ve lost any shred of expertise and can barely participate in cocktail reception conversations.

We went to see Monsters University, followed by dinner at Jakey’s favorite restaurant, Pacific Catch.  It was Nate’s very first movie and I got to hold him in my lap the whole time.  We scarfed down kettle corn and practiced whispering.  Natesy covered his ears during all of the scary parts.  A couple of times he’d look behind us in a paranoid, startled kind of way based on sounds from the darkened audience.  At one point I heard Jacob starting to whimper (this sounds worse than it was).  I had to nudge James to snap the kid out of the movie trance.  When JJ is scared at the movies he shakes uncontrollably, like he’s shivering.  Sometimes it helps if I cover his ears so he can cover his eyes.

As we left the movie theater Nate told me, “Gooood big teebee.”  I guess that’s a solid positive review.  I liked it, too.

At the restaurant they have little chalkboards to keep kids busy while they wait.  These and the magnetic drawing boards they have at Blue Line Pizza are the creme de la creme of table entertainment.  Jake just used to scribble two circles, drop all of the crayons on the ground one hundred times, and then try to escape from his chair unless distracted by piles of bread and pesto dipping sauce.  I really thought this whole concept of crayons and kid menus was the biggest waste of perfectly good trees and colored wax I could possibly think of.

But this weekend, dinner on Jacob’s side of the table was almost civilized.  He’d eat his prawns, draw a cat, grab a bite of broccoli, write his name.  I almost enjoyed a full glass of Chardonnay.

Meanwhile Nate holds a piece of red chalk up to me, “Look at me!  Lollipop.  Lollipop!”

“Nathaniel.  Not a lollipop.”

I turn away for a moment, only to glance back at my high maintenance companion to see pink drool dripping down his chin, “Oh yucky.  Mama.  Yucky.”  And we wipe his tongue off with my linen napkin.

Four years forward… two years back.

When I was younger I had a lot of binders.  Most people who know me can attest to this.  And what was in those binders?

Pictures I had ripped out of magazines and catalogs of things I liked: interesting travel articles, pretty bathrooms, a cute haircut.  I still remember a conversation just after college when a friend of James’ professed in a moment of newlywed angst, “She has binders of magazine clippings!”  This friend was totally shocked when James simply nodded, knowingly.

And let me say, those ripped out pages have served me well.  Yes, I had to dig through a mountain of binders to find a picture the size of a postage stamp that was burned into my memory of a beautiful flowering tree.  But I did in fact find it and that Vulcan magnolia is still the crown jewel of my old front yard.  Totally worth it.  I like to know what I like, and I like to reference it when I like, have money.

Then the Internet came along and I tried a couple of things that I thought would solve this mountain of reference materials problem I had.  Real Simple’s solution never worked and they abandoned it.  Online scrap booking just didn’t seem like the answer— I gave up scrap booking after high school and I’m never going back.  Scrap booking is dead to me.

And then the world of “social media” barfed-up an elegantly simple solution: Pinterest.

For the record, I have a completely dysfunctional relationship with Pinterest.  I love it and I hate it.  You feel it too, don’t you?  This strange draw… like ice cream in the freezer.  And then that slightly sick feeling after you’ve been pinning… for all of nap time.

I feel like I must get these feelings about Pinterest out on the table.

Why do I love it?

Let’s be honest.  The ultimate draw of Pinterest is that it lets you shop without spending any actual money.  You can pin these pictures of things you like, food you want to make, or places you want to visit and it’s almost just as good as actually redoing your home office, or visiting Botswana, or delving into that stack of banana French toast.

You can fantasize about how you want your life to look or your clothes to look and even if that pair of shoes stocks out, you still feel like they’re waiting for you in your closet because you pinned them down on your little board to have and to behold for all time.  Plus, you no longer need piles of magazines and catalogs mucking up your house to remind you of what you like… nirvana!

But then why do I hate it?

I’m sorry, we aren’t allowed to say hate in our family.  As Nate would say, “I no yike it.  No yike it.”

Well, first of all I think Pinterest may be driving the homogenization of art and design.  What?

I’m getting this sense that we’re all starting to like the same things.  Pretty objects displayed on white, artfully shadowed backgrounds.  Seem familiar?  Now everyone likes gray and white chevron throw pillows.  We’re all fans of eclectic-industrial chic.  We browse and pin and re-pin the same things from one virtual board to another.  Our tastes become one and the same and you show-up to brunch and everyone’s wearing this year’s Pantone color of the year: emerald.

Of course Pinterest isn’t the only reason for this, but it still makes me wonder.   I’ve noticed they’ve rolled-out some “secret board” feature which is just further evidence supporting my case.

I’m not so much worried about everyone buying the same thing I have— I still remember a time in second grade when my friend came to school in this three piece tank top, button-up shirt, shorts ensemble that was to die for.  I had to go to Mervyn’s to get the same thing.  She was totally cool about it.  I find having the same jacket/lamp/prom dress is really an opportunity for bonding.

But still, where is the diversity of thought?  Of design?  There is still a mystique that we crave from the hard to find, the hole-in-the-wall, the back door source.  Pinterest meets my needs for creativity, but leaves me feeling empty.  I have a similar relationship with Krispy Kremes.  Plus, it’s the ultimate materialistic escapism… which is all fine and dandy as long as we recognize why we like it so much and we don’t find ourselves amassing hundreds of pins when we should be updating our resumes or putting together our tax documents.

So a few weeks ago my brother came over and saw that I’d had these two big canvas pictures made of Jake and Nate, at their dirtiest.  Nathaniel is almost unrecognizable, his face covered in shaving cream.  Jacob is eating a chocolate ice cream cone in Sanibel.  And the genius of this idea is that I hung them side-by-side over the bathtub.

Geoff comes out to the living room after visiting the facilities, “Ha!  Those pictures above the tub are so funny.  How did you come up with that idea?!”

Me: “I just thought of it one day.  Most people would hang pictures of them in the tub with tons of bubbles, but I thought our dirtiest pictures would be better.”

Geoff: (skeptical) “Really, you thought of that yourself?  Oh, I bet that’s something you saw on Pinterest.”

I NO YIKE IT.

Now if you’ll excuse me…  I have some pinning to do on my fantasy backyard. 

Bath Time

I write a lot about the conversations we have at bedtime in the bottom bunk.  In part because I know we’ll look back fondly on this time and wish we hadn’t spent so much time trying to extricate ourselves from the master of slumber deferment to get back to our laptops and episodes of The Americans (but oh, how I miss them).

The king of shuteye subterfuge has developed a litany of tactics including one more trip to the bathroom, more agua, warming up his bean bag (my old microwaveable neck cushion), finding some stuffed animal (rarely the same one twice), laying with him “for two minutes”, and the mother of all stall strategem: telling him a “story with my mouth.”

He literally is trying to talk to me from his room as I write this… “Mama, you forgot to check on me.”

This whole process began years ago when we realized that Jacob takes an eternity to wind down.  His brain turns off over the course of two hours and turns on like a switch, usually in the six o’clock hour (a hard-won parenting accomplishment).  Early on we realized that if we didn’t limit our bedtime reading to two books, we’d be held captive until our own bedtime.

I’m very strategic about the books I read.  One book of substance and one “chick lit,” if you will.  I also now give specific “guest” reading instructions after he almost coerced Miss Dulce into reading him the entire Wizard of Oz… A serious tome that I’m sure is about a three hour task when read aloud.

We used to read two books and then “talk yes-er-day.”  That meant talking about what actually happened yesterday, or more generally, something of interest in the past (as in three years or three hours ago).  We then graduated to telling a “story with my mouth” which means I need to make up a story and do not have the luxury of mindlessly reading illustrated words on a page.

I started with stories of Super Jake.  Then it evolved into stories about The Three Little Pigs or Golidlocks and the Three Bears.  In my pig story I like to name them Flopsy, Mopsy, and Curlytail.  I always make the hard-working and strategic brick house building pig a girl.  She never tries to cut corners.

Then I received requests to tell stories about The Three Little Pigs but with the Big-Bad-Wolf-Nonna or the Big-Bad-Wolf-Papa.  Don’t be alarmed.  I was told this made the story way better, they aren’t actually bad, and no wolves were ever harmed in the telling of these stories.  In most instances, once the wolf gets to the roof of the brick house, Super Jake or Santa Claus comes flying in to swoop them up by the armpits and drop them in a nearby lake.

One time I told a riveting version of the Three Pigs but with ants named Antsy, Pantsy, and Francey that quickly outsmarted the Big-Bad-Anteater that snorted and slurped and burped their house down.  Honestly, I wish I’d captured it on tape.

Ultimately my creativity waned after telling 3 pigs and 3 bears spin-offs for months… I then bought one of my newest favorite books, Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems.  This is a must read.  Even the inside cover is a hoot.  Goldilocks and the Three Monster Trucks?  Nah.

So then we went through a phase of “listening to my beat” which involved listening to each other’s heartbeats and the sounds of my stomach digesting dinner.

Now we’re into a phase where I have to tell him stories about when I was little, specifically involving my pets.  Fortunately, I remember a time in second grade when I had 21 pets and we have not yet exhausted all my material.  And now when I’m done, he likes to tell me about his work which is actually a farm and all his animals and “the new wife” because “the old wife is in the heaven.”

And the material just keeps on coming…

When I was in college I had this little plastic ID holder the size of a credit card attached to a key ring.  It held my license, my Visa, a couple of bucks, my house key, and my car key.  I’d put it safely in the back of my jeans pocket and I was off.

To hear James reminisce about it, this is the number one reason he even considered asking me out.

Well sir, things change.

This morning I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the new trend away from large handbags toward smaller “more glamorous” purses.  Honestly, it was the WSJ.  If you dig deep enough they do have articles that don’t involve the latest internal government investigation, health reform study or complex financial instrument threatening to collapse the system all over again.

So the gist of the story was that designers are luring us back toward a world of small purses where we will feel freer, more streamlined, and less weighed down by all our… possessions (you thought I was going to say something else, didn’t you?).  British accessories designer Lulu Guinness is quoted as saying a small bag is a “badge of being organized.”

The article opens with Ms. Wagner of Oklahoma:

Referring to her new sapphire-blue leather clutch, “I told the kids they were in charge of their own junk and started carrying it around full time,” Ms. Wagner, a freelance writer, said.

I want to be Ms. Wagner (well, except for that part about Oklahoma).  But I’ve got a lot of work to do to get within spitting distance of this bandwagon.  So here’s my plan:

Nate’s in charge of carrying his extra diapers and the wipes (we may all benefit from those wipes but look… you know what they say about possessions rolling downhill.)  Maybe some extra baggage will increase his interest in the commode.

And Jake’s in charge of the sunscreen, snacks, swim towels, change of clothes, and swim diaper.  I think the key is dressing him only in cargo pants.  The surprise benefit is that the towels muffle the whining.

The article goes on to evangelize the latest aspiration for all American women: “Monday to Friday, I’m surrounded by stuff.  Let me be a minimalist on the weekends.”

Amen.

 You’re in charge of your own junk now.  I’m too glamorous for this. 

We’ve been a family of loyal swim students for the past 15 weeks, and in that time, we’ve had our ups and downs… our victories and our infinitesimal, I mean incremental improvements.

I’m happy to report that last Saturday JJ graduated from an o-fish-al Seahorse to an o-fish-al Jellyfish.  Woot-woot.  I’m not exactly sure what the test entailed, but I know it involved an unassisted circle-swim in the deep end: a critical water safety/mommy-can-now-kind-of-sleep-at-night maneuver which involves jumping in and getting back to the side without sinking to your death.

The test may have also included sitting on the edge of the pool and splashing your neighbor by kicking your feet like a maniac, while Coach Justin tests the other potential baby boulders in your class.  I saw Jake and a new boy passing this skill with flying water, uh, colors.

Nathaniel continues to excel at climbing out of the pool and repelling Coach Ali.  I felt better a few weeks ago when a friend at work told me her son used to jolt when he touched the surface of the pool, like it was filled with lava.

Over the course of the last month or two, Nate’s achieved the following advancements:

• Beginning to assert “No agua.  No agua!” while getting into his swim trunks… at home.
• Only starting to yell “No agua.  No agua!” at an embarrassingly loud volume as we enter the swimming facility.
• Smiling and not crying except when Coach Ali gets near him.  Pointing at her and emphasizing via wild arm waves, “No dat.  No dat!”  (“Dat” being anything that involves allowing her to touch him.)
• Smiling and laughing in the water, except during the welcome song.  Screaming only when we sing “Nate is in the pool, Nate is in the pool, Heigh-ho a-derry-oh, Nate is in the pool.”  He does not want anyone to know that he is in the pool.
• Only yelling, “No unner, no unner!” periodically.  That means no under (the agua).
• Actually saying, “Yeah agua, yeah agua, fun!” last weekend.  And then waiting until he was in the pool to scream at the sound of his own name and insist “no dat” and “no unner.”

Natesy and I basically follow our own curriculum which bears very little resemblance to what Coach Ali and Coach Andrea are trying to teach us.  We don’t do the slide.  We don’t climb around on the floating platform.  We don’t monkey-walk.  We definitely don’t dive to the bottom to pick-up rings.  We do retrieve balls and throw bath toys.  Sometimes we’ll do some big arms and kickers.

Last weekend we did lots of back floating (“Foat, foating!”), and then I let his face go under multiple times when he flipped over, followed by a lot of positive reinforcement high-fives.  It’s my very, very slow patented water immunization process.  It’s even resulted in smiling while being tossed in the air and splashed in the face.  Plus, he’ll let water run all over his head and in his eyes in the sha-sha (shower).

I’m sure it’s totally not PC to force rank swimmers in the Barnacle class, but since this is my blog and we have no qualms about our placement, I’ll put it out there:

1. Shiaya & her dad (The super star, A student, teacher’s favorite who has no fear and is a water-loving dolphin girl that most certainly was born under water.  She doesn’t talk, and if she could keep her head above water in the shallow end, I’m sure they would’ve graduated her by now.)
2. Daniel & his dad (He might be the oldest in the class which is good.  We like having bigger kids in the class so as to divert attention from us.)
3. Ruthie & her mom (She gets better every week.  We always have to get out of her way as she is following the prescribed curriculum and we are blocking the activity sequence.)
4. Rafael & his mom (I still see him crying sometimes which makes us feel better.  You know what I mean.)
5. Charlotte & her dad (One of the most beautiful babies I’ve ever seen.  She should be a model.  She’s so little she can’t really follow directions or talk back, but she just bobs along and under and seems cool with it.  She’s only near the end of this list because she’s maybe a quarter of Nate’s age and the size of his left fist.)
6. Nate & Me (Honestly.  This is not an exaggeration.)

This past weekend Nathaniel had an insanely great time playing with Jake in the new blow-up swimming pool I bought at Target, which has the added bonus of functioning like a cushioned Slip’n Slide.

And in a week we switch to a new earlier swim class… I’m coaching Nate to seize this opportunity for us to completely reinvent ourselves.  Shed our past and embrace our inner water babies.  No one will even recognize us.

Maybe we’ll both get new bathing suits.

He waits nervously in the lobby as employees stream through the front door of the modern steel office building.  His new dress shoes feel stiff as he tries to fold his Wall Street Journal back into a neat square but only partially succeeds… iPads are so much better.

A young woman passes through the glass security turnstyle, introduces herself and leads him up 5 floors to her manager’s office.

He runs his finger inside the back of his collar, looks up from under his eyebrows and gives the hiring manager a winning smile and a firm handshake.

“Good morning, I’m Will.  It’s great to meet you.”

“Good morning, Will.  Margaret.  Please have a seat.  I’m in a bit of a rush today… I have 15 minutes when I thought I had 45, you know how it is.  So, why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself.”

The sun streams in through her standard-issue mini-blinds.  He squints from the glare.

“Sure, sure.  Well, I’m very interested in the open role on your team.  As you may know, I’ve just finished grad school right across the bay.  My current role is in operations, but I’m looking to use my new industry knowledge and skills in more of a strategy capacity.”

“I see.  Terrific.  You’re familiar with behavioral based interviews?”

“I am.”

“Excellent, then let’s get to it.  Can you tell me about a time when you influenced a policy with which you did not agree?”

“Sure.  An example that comes to mind was in my previous job.  We had a policy that required customers to purchase a service agreement for each of their locations.  I successfully negotiated both internally and externally to adjust this policy, resulting in one consolidated agreement that saved both the company and the customer significant time and money.”

“I see.  Good example.  Just before you got here I was doing a bit of background Internet research on you and came across your mom’s blog… She calls it sKIDmarks?  Memorable title.  I thought perhaps you were going to tell me about rebelling against your preschools’ ‘no biting’ policy… Guess that turned out OK in the end, right?!”

“You found my mom’s blog, huh?”

“OK, Will.  Can you describe a time when you were faced with stresses that tested your coping skills?… and I’m not hinting for you to tell me what led up to that incident when you were two and defecated on your mom’s friends’ carpet— though I’m sure there’s a story behind that one, am I right?”

The room was beginning to get hot.  He shifted in his chair.

“Wow, you, uh, really read back a ways…  so, um, what was the question?  Oh, I remember, a stressful time that tested my coping skills…  not including this conversation, right? (nervous laughter)

Well, in grad school I worked in a group of four to complete our final project, a detailed strategic business plan analyzing the future of Pinterest.  One week before it was due, we found out that a key team member had a family emergency and hadn’t finished her piece.  I quickly convened the team, we evaluated the work done to date and agreed what was most critical.  I then led the team to divide the remaining section and complete the project on time.  The final result was an “A” and an invitation from our professor to present our findings at the next on campus student summit.”

“Good, good.  Just one more question Will and then I’ve got to scoot to my next meeting.  So, we all make mistakes.  Tell me about a time where you made a mistake and what you did to resolve the situation.  Of course, I’m thinking that incident at Starbuck’s when you were three and inappropriately rubbed your mother’s backside probably wouldn’t be the best example to share.” (inappropriate guffaw)

“What?  You read that on her blog?  I’ll tell you about a mistake.  My mother having access to a computer and the ability to chronicle my every childhood embarrassment.  Now that’s a mistake.  I’m sorry I have a phone call to make.  Thank you for your time.”

(laughing uncontrollably)  “Thanks for coming by… needless to say, I don’t think this went that well…  I’d shake your hand, but I read about that time you dropped your pacifier in the loo and then popped it straight back in your mouth…”

This past Sunday I was attempting to languish in an old and lavish pastime from my youth I like to call, “reading magazines.”

When I was younger, my mom and I would spend entire afternoons laying around the living room.  And my dad would always come in covered in dirt and debris and the smell that can only be described as “Chainsaw Dad” and say, “Are you two just reeeeeading maaaagazines?”  And of course we’d melodramatically mock his disdain for such frivolous leisure (pronounced lezjher) so as to drive him swiftly and permanently from the room.   We still savor any opportunity for nostalgic reenactments of our melodramatic magazine reading.  I especially relish my signature teenage eye roll…

So this weekend I curled up for about 3.5 seconds before You-Know-Who’s up in my grill, trying to get in on the latest J Crew catalog.  It just so happens that their most recent photo shoot was in Africa and so the wild animals had the unfortunate side effect of attracting unwelcome preschoolers.

“Oh, that’s the mommy elephant and that’s her baby.”

“Mmmmm.”  (The “mommy” is huge and looks like a daddy to me, but I’m not going to argue this point… I need a new pair of black flats.)

“Mom, is she a doctor?”

He’s referring to the beautiful Ethiopian model, Liya Kebede.

Picture credit: J Crew

First there was the bunk bed conversation several months back that if men work really, really hard, they too can be doctors.  And now this… clearly, we’re doing one thing right.

OK, OK… and perhaps Doc McStuffins deserves a smidge of credit (accompanied by a bit of melodramatic inaudible Queen Elizabeth clapping).

Nate can talk.

I know, I know.  I’m always proclaiming this.  But every time I do, it’s because it’s like he can actually talk now.  Each time he crosses some invisible developmental speech level, it’s just so… apparent.

There are very few times when I can’t tell what he’s saying anymore.  Although, just this Saturday morning Nathaniel was pulling his favorite blanket over my lap on the couch and he kept saying “Eagle.  Eagle.”

Me: “What?  Eagle?”

Nate: “No, Eaaa-gle.”

Jake: “He’s saying ‘Here you go.'”

Me: “He is?”

Jake: “Yeah.  I speak Nake.”  (Nodding knowingly, hands on his hips.)

Me: “Glad someone around here does.”

Despite this indecipherable example, Natesy is busting out significant vocab, real sentences, and dare I say it?  Near paragraphs.  Mostly he says things like:

No, I want it.  Yight saver.  (That’s the uh, light saber.  We have four.)

No, I do’ed it.  Squeegee.

No, I make it.  Agua.

No, I drive it.  Car.

No, I need it.  Sauce.

Mmmm, I yike it.  Yummy.

But then just last weekend he tells me as he’s feeding me a wooden ball in a small play mixing bowl, “Eat it, Mama.  Chockit chip cookie.  Eat it.  No chockit chip i’cream, I said.”  Everything is now followed with an emphatic, slightly perturbed, “I said.”

At school, Miss Ixchel told me how surprised she was when he said, “Roll-up my sleeves.”  And then, “Other one.”  Extending his arms toward her.

I told him he was Jacob’s little brother and he told me, “No beeg.  Beeg.”

But, tonight I heard a couple of old standbys that have been out of rotation for awhile.  “Mama, UpOrDown.”  He likes it when I put him on my lap and then flip him over upside down and backwards… thirty-seven times.

“Mo.  Mo!  Again.”

“Moe?  I thought you were Curly.”