wild*life

Never a dull moment here in Balconia.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight.  I’m all hopped-up… on VICTORY.  So now you know this story ends happily.  However, about an hour ago…

Imagine Jake and I are reading books in the bottom bunk.  Tonight we read Little Blue Truck to emphasize the importance of teamwork.  I heard James cuddling, then coaxing, then commanding Nathaniel to sleep.  This is day three of The New Nate.  I excused myself from book reading to check on the situation, grabbed the knob to Nate’s room and it wouldn’t budge.  Panic welled-up from my feet.  “James, the door is locked.  How’d he get the white safety thing off?”

“I dunno, Jaim.  He must have ripped it off.”

This happens to be one of our only doorknobs that has a push button lock on the inside and a perfectly smooth knob on the hallway side.  No hole.  Nothing.  We uselessly shake the knob for fifteen minutes.  Nate is crying.

“Turn it Nate.  Turn.  The.  Knob.”  He still doesn’t understand “turn.”  After a few minutes it’s quiet.  I quick grab the baby monitor.  All I see is a black screen and a red dead battery light.  It’s now completely quiet.  I think Nate has given up.

I give up, too.  When faced with intense stress I like to freak out quietly and watch Modern Family.  Come to think of it, this was the exact predicament of the last episode I watched.  Maybe James will figure it out or it will magically resolve itself.  James is not appreciative of this approach and so I mentally review our options (this seemed to work well during my last life or death situation in the garage):

1) Get James to kick down the door and then pay our contractor, Sam, untold amounts of money to fix the damage while he’s here already making untold amounts of money reconstructing our kitchen.  It’d probably be $2,000.  These days, any house thing you need done is $2,000.

2) Go outside and break the glass in the window.  Then we have to sleep with Nate in our room, suffer through a wet and drafty night, and pay Sam $2,000.

3) Wait until the morning and hope that Nate wakes-up with improved fine motor skills and opens the door.  Lie awake all night and pray there isn’t an emergency that requires we implement option 1 in the middle of the night.

4) Hope James comes up with some unknown handy-dandy fix.  He’d already told me he couldn’t take apart the doorknob, that a locksmith couldn’t do anything (because there’s no lock), that he can’t take the hinges off the door because they’re on the inside, and that a credit card wouldn’t work on this specific door.  He seemed particularly resentful that these types of problems always fall into the “men’s work”category and so I turned to…

5) My last and only hope: Google.

I click on the very first link as it looks crazy promising “How to open a locked door the MacGyver way.”  Apparently written by a former BYU-Idaho dorm resident.  Perfect.  I have a plan.  It involves a piece of paper, dental floss, and a vacuum.  Serious problem: our vacuum is locked inside with Nate.

I swallow the rising panic and re-read what the vacuum is for.

James comes in from outside with his flashlight.  “The windows are locked tight.”

“OK.  I’m going to open the door like MacGyver.  Get me a cord from the garage.”  (I’ll leave out the requisite disdainful skepticism of my plan and follow-on hushed squabbling.)  James returns with an orange extension cord.

After two tries we had the cord looped around the doorknob on the other side of the door.  It particularly helped that I was able to peer in from outside, call James from my cell phone, and coach him as he lowered the cord.  Luckily I could also see Nate was sleeping soundly… completely oblivious to the freaky lady peering in at him through his window with a flashlight.  The whole reason we’re in this mess in the first place.  How ironic.

We tried and tried.  Looks like the MacGyver method isn’t for us.  Our doorknob is too slippy.  Our cord isn’t grippy.  How could we expect to fix a $2,000 problem with the October school lunch menu, a box of free dental floss, and a dirty extension cord?  The internet always makes everything look so good.

I went back to the couch and started reading about the credit card method.  I also researched the hammer method.

James convinced me to go back to the extension cord and give it the ol’ college try.  Just one more time while he shakes the knob.  Pop!  We did it.  WE DID IT!

Nate didn’t bat an eye.

Nate has conquered his fear of the plastic ghost.  He yells unintelligible profanities at it, shakes his little fist, and then hits it with the palm of his hand to show it who’s boss.  Unfortunately, the fear phase continues…

On our road trip last week (which was bliss… more on this later), we encountered a strange northwestern obsession with scarecrows.  Is it just autumn?  Is it a redwood forest, small town thing?  I’m not quite sure.  I do know there was a scarecrow in front of just about every shop, restaurant and house… in Ashland, in Jacksonville, in Fort Bragg.  Nate was particularly petrified of a woman in a white polyester dress guarding the kid’s playhouse at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens.  More of a haunted house if you asked him…

The worst though was at breakfast in Mendocino.  We were eating in the beautiful dining room of the MacCallum house and Nate had a nice view of the front door and a large coat rack, piled high with big jackets and an array of hats.  He was convinced it was some kind of 6-headed man.  Poor kid couldn’t keep his eyes off it and kept pointing and calling for help.  We finally moved him to my side of the table so he couldn’t see it and then he was able to polish-off a dinner plate-sized “bunny” pancake.

Last night, back in his own bed, the neighbor’s flood light woke him up in the middle of the night and he was inconsolable.  An alien spacecraft perhaps?  He was so completely freaked out by invisible dangers outside the bedroom window that I had to rock him to sleep tonight, which never happens.

The crazy thing?  We’ve caught him twice over the past few weeks with a live bee between his thumb and forefinger.  The first time, at our house, I thought surely it was a fluke.  But then he did it again during one of our standard weekend picnics at Happy Hollow.

The thought of pinching a live bee…

James?  I need you to rock me to sleep.

I’m afraid of grapes.  And hot dogs.  Mini blind cords give me pause.  Basement steps; restless.  And thoughts of unfenced pools?  I can’t even talk about it.

Yesterday we put plastic up in the two doorways to the kitchen.  Anyone who has remodeled does not harbor delusions of dust obstruction.  It’s symbolic really… slow the dirt down.  The only problem?

Nate is petrified.  Of plastic.  It’s been billowing a bit due to drafts from the open kitchen ceiling and floor.  Last night Nathaniel couldn’t even taste his spaghetti he was so scared.  He cried and struggled in his high chair to escape and needed an escort to get down the hall.  James put on his shoes and walked him around to the kitchen so he could see what was behind the plastic ghost.  We touched it.  We reassured him.  We yelled at it.  Nuh uh.

He watched us eat dinner from the safety of the living room couch, peaking over the back.  Probably imagining some monster would devour us at any moment.

I just recently read that logic and rationalization are useless, and little kids are not capable of facing their fears.  Tonight he still had a tough time enjoying dinner— he only ate three pieces of Maui Wowie.  He yelled, “Deedee, deedee!” pointing at the plastic and running to the safety of the living room.  But, he did get down the hall by himself with some verbal encouragement and by creeping along the opposite wall and then running gingerly past.

Maybe tomorrow we’ll throw some grapes at it.

On our honeymoon, James and I went to Rome and stayed at Hostel Panda for a night or two.  They seem to have changed the name to Hotel Panda, but let’s just be clear, it’s a hostel.  One of the nicer ones I’ve stayed at, especially in Rome, but that doesn’t negate the communal bathrooms.  Then when we were tired and grimy and desperate for pampering, we were welcomed into the warm, elegant embrace of Albergo del Senato, sipping prosecco from the beautiful rooftop, within spitting distance of the Pantheon.  Spitting at the Panda?  Sure.  Spitting at Senato?  No way Giuseppe.

One of the most important lessons we brought home from that trip (besides, if you aren’t eating gelato multiple times a day, you’re not trying hard enough) was that the lap of luxury is so much better, after the lap of austerity.  Clean sheets, towels, your own private toilet… all infinitely better.

So this entire Italian preamble is simply to announce: Today is D Day.  As in de-mo-li-cion.

Our kitchen has been reduced to a pile of plaster dust and numerous super-sketch wires protruding from the walls.  The number of fire hazards uncovered has me thinking about swallowing medicinal sleeping aids so that I’ll actually be able to close my eyes without visions of ripping out the drywall in our entire old house.

In my blissed-out state of envisioning the possibilities of the new kitchen: big, clean cupboards to the ceiling, a real-sized fridge, more than 4 inches of counter space, a microwave above the grasp of little hands, a white sink that is actually white, and drawers that don’t leave sawdust on our kitchen utensils when opened…

I was rudely awakened by reality.  (Does reality awaken you any other way?)  Remodeling involves packing-up all the things you’ve expertly wedged into every nook and cranny, a.k.a. MOVING.  Almost exactly three years ago I had a life-changing epiphany: I hate moving.

Plus, our food preparation facilities now consist of a microwave and a fridge and some boxes of plastic odds and ends in our dining room, a.k.a. FANCY CAMPING.  After our last kiddo camping trip, I swore-off toddler camping for an undetermined number of years.

So we’re in a place of moving/fancy camping.  If our old kitchen was Hotel Panda… this might be the hostel I stayed at over by the Stazione Termini.  The one with tons of cats that was so insufferably hot I had fitful dreams of ripping my shirt off until I realized I was sharing a coed room with acquaintances.  Ah, the joys of backpacking in college.

Si, bon giorno, Albergo del Senato?  Do you have any availability?  At least three weeks?  (dial tone…)

Last night I had the following exchange as I passed out pre-bedtime sippy cups of milk.

“Hey, Jake.  Here’s your baba.”

“Thank you Princess Mama.”

Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Today I received a text from Nate’s teacher telling me she needed to talk to me about his behavior.  Could I talk at 1?  Of course, I can talk at 1.

The whole morning I’m imagining what it could be.  It’s like the dreaded walk to the principal’s office.  At 19 months, he’s just transitioned up to the next classroom, which we fondly refer to as “Lord of the Flies Class”… ever since the era when it devolved into a crazy bitefest and Jake was admitted into a pack of roving, gnashing toddlers.

My mommy brain was churning.  Is it biting?  Pushing?  Hitting?  (Nathaniel bashfully hit me earlier this week.  Yes, bashfully.)  Maybe he’s disobeying everything they say and laughing in their faces?  (We wouldn’t be even remotely shocked if this was the case.)  Is he in trouble for standing on tables?  Repeatedly jumping in the air and landing on his bottom?  Spitting?  Throwing.  It’s totally throwing.  That kid is a sand-throwing menace to society.

She calls me exactly at 1.  On the dot.

So, what is Nathaniel’s call inducing behavior?  Sitting in another teacher’s lap too much and getting her to constantly hold him.

Honestly, I feel like I dodged a bullet.

When Jacob was little he spoke quite a bit of Spanish.  Some of his first words were musica (music), baila (dance), oso (bear), pan (bread) and agua (water).  He even pronounced agua with the right accent (sounds like awa), though now he’s somehow picked-up the non-native hard “g.”  Go fiyure.

A few weeks ago we were touring a house in Santa Cruz with Alesia, Charles, Eleanor and Gallagher.  Gallagher is the most polite, stately French bulldog you’ll ever meet.  I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if someone told me he is descended from royalty.  OK, so a few weeks ago, Jake is leading Gallagher around this old Victorian home and Gallagher is calmly taking all of the bossing and leash pulling in his usual regal nonchalance.  James overheard Jacob on the porch, “Come on Gallagher.  Andale!”

It made me happy to hear he’s still got some Spanish bouncing around in his vocabulary.  Then, one afternoon last week he told James they had pumpkins at school.

“You know Daddy, ‘jack-o-lantern’ is Spanish for ‘pumpkin.'”

“Really?  Isn’t that just what you call it when you carve a pumpkin?”

“Nope.  It’s Spanish for ‘pumpkin.'”

Bueno?  Mmmm, asi asi.

So today I went trekking through Garagelandia… a remote and generally overlooked part of Balconia.  I encountered numerous ruins.  The remains of previous lives such as golf clubs and mountain bikes…  And as I was sifting through the detritus, I felt the metal shelves begin to buckle.  I found myself bracing my entire body weight against shelves piled high with ceramic flower pots, fertilizers, paint cans, boxes of extremely heavy (and expensive) tile, and at the tippety top of the mountain, a menacing electric hedge trimmer.

I couldn’t yell for help.  There was no one to hear me, except maybe our eighty-year-old neighbor, Martha.  Sweat dripped in my eyes.  I felt my leather gardening gloves begin to slip.  Stay calm.  Evaluate my options:

1) Push with all my might and then run toward the open garage door, praying that a giant toothed blade doesn’t hit me in the back of the head as I flee.

2) Stand here, paralyzed, hoping James comes home early.

3) Use my super powers.

With all my strength I somehow channel the powers of Super Jake and bend the shelf back toward the wall, hoping it will hold long enough for me to sprint away from the forthcoming avalanche.

Fortunately, I was able to evacuate the area unharmed.  It reminded me of watching Mulan with Jacob the last two weekends in a row.  We’re both still impressed with the half naked Huns that emerge after an entire night spent buried under an avalanche of snow.  They pop up like daisies.

I did not pop-up like a daisy.  My heart was beating in my ears.  I couldn’t catch my breath.  I decided I better get some water and calm down.

That’s when I figured out one of the natives had locked me out of the house.

There was a benign looking bag of gardening “vine food” in the exact shape of this rusted hole.  Little garage of horrors…

Jakey and Natesy received long overdue haircuts today from Toni.  If Nate were to title his home salon experience, he’d definitely go with Death by a Thousand Cuts.

Little does he know, it could be worse.  His daddy has a Flowbie.

I’ve just arrived and as I’d hoped, Balconia is perfect this time of year.  Today I enjoyed the local offerings of various artisans and craftsmen, as well as a provincial eatery.  This is the life…