No It All

My friend Emily is from Boston and she claims the best, most authentic lobster roll in the Bay Area can be found at Sam’s in Half Moon Bay (www.samschowderhouse.com).  I think I even saw it featured on The Today Show.  She’s right, it is delicious, but I’ve found one that’s even tastier…

THE Best Lobster Roll in the Bay Area.  Sorry Sam.

At dinner the other night we were enjoying warm chicken souvlaki wrapped in flatbread.  Good stuff.

Jakey tells me, “I want sprinkles, Mama.  Sprinkles.”

I look across the kitchen table… I’m not seeing any sprinkles.

“This?”

“Yesth.”

“Olive tapenade with feta cheese?”

“Sprinkle it, please.  Sprinkling.”  Imagine little fingers pantomiming sprinkling over a plastic plate.

I love that Jake is lukewarm about hamburgers, can rarely be talked into potatoes and gives white rice a skeptical once over.  But bitter black and green olive tapenade with salty cheese?  Rainbow colored dinner confetti.

Jakey’s buddy Costa is infamous for his love of garbage trucks.  You might even call it an obsession.  He wakes up like clockwork to see them.  He has numerous toy garbage trucks.  He even watches garbage truck home movies.  Whenever we hear or see a garbage truck, Jake always asks if it’s going to Costa’s house.

Lately Jake has collected an assortment of ice cream scoops.  Several that were left over from some marketing James did and then of course, the one that I actually like to use.  Now when you want ice cream at our house, you have to look in every room, including the toy box.

A couple of mornings ago Jacob was playing and he says to me, “Ife cream ‘coops Mama.  They’re my favorite!”

I think I speak for myself as well as Costa’s parents when I say we have more ambitious dreams for our little sanitation engineer and frozen novelty distribution specialist.  But these little two-year-old hobbies are totally my favorite.

This morning the microwave timer rings, signaling my hot tea is ready.

“Jacob help you Mama!  Jacob open it.”

“Thank you JJ.  That is so helpful.”

“No ploblem!”

Natesy is a sock loser.  We’ve already lost a red driving shoe and two red cowboy boot socks.  We’re down to only one pair of red argyles.  This reminds me of a quote I will never forget from Carson on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, “My mom always said red shoes are only for hookers and babies.”  Personally I’m a fan of red shoes.  Maybe that’s why he doesn’t have a show anymore.

In any case, Nate gets this unique lost sock trait from his Daddy… of course.

One day James says to me, “Have you noticed that Nate rubs his feet together just like me?”
“Hmmmm, no I hadn’t.  You rub your feet together?”
“Yeah, you know how you hate the sound it makes?”
“Oh yeah… that is kind of weird.”
“Nate does the exact same thing.”
“You’re right, he does.  How can the way you rub your feet together be genetic?”

This sounds like a question for Research and Development.

Last night Jake went to bed with his flashlight and his little owl book.  Such a cute book because the kid owl wants to go to bed but the mommy and daddy owls make him stay up and play and read stories and drink water.  Anyway, all of a sudden Jacob is yelling and I send his dad in to go see what’s the matter… again.

James’ foggy recollection is that he entered the room in the dark and Jake said, “Daddy, monies?!”
And then Daddy said, “What money?”
And then Jake pointed a freightened little finger at his open mouth.
Daddy asked, “You swallowed it?”
And Jake answered sheepishly, “Yeah.”

I’m not totally sure that any monies actually went down the hatch.  I found a penny under him as I completed a frantic search and seizure of two pennies and a dime that were covertly smuggled into his crib.  So, we don’t know if any coins were ingested, but I’m guessing we’ll know soon enough…

Today on my drive up 280 I was following a Miata with the vanity plate: NUDST66

Of course I passed on the left and took a good long look.  Total disappointment.  He was wearing an ugly Hawaiian shirt.

Mother Nature makes sure that the sound of your own kids’ little voices is just the cutest thing you have ever heard.  Really.  On occasion, I’ll admit I’ve heard a little kid talking at a restaurant table nearby and thought to myself, “Oh my gosh.  That voice is like a cartoon adult pretending to be a kid.  Is that for real?”  But of course, that voice is not meant for me.  I’m sure it’s music to his mother’s ears.  That’s just the way it is.

And one of my most favorite, heartwarming voices… ever?

Jakey, doing his little self-important marching across the livingroom on his way out to school in the morning, “Bah-bye Mama.  I luyouMama!”

There is nothing sweeter.

So unfortunately, we’re still battling the carnal desire to bite.  It’s very infrequent, and mostly clothes, but still considered overly menacing for the civilized world.  We found out the cartoon movie Madagascar has a clear and apt message, “Don’t bite your friends.”  Just the message we’re trying to send!  The only problem?  Its star, Alex, is a lion.  And so Jakey is clearly torn between his desire to be a lion and his desire to have “good manners.”

After school I ask Jakey with bated breath, “Did you have good manners at school today?”  And he looks at me with his chin up, squints his little eyes, gets a big smile on his face and says in a high sing-songy voice, “Noooo biting!”  Clearly he can see right through our euphemisms.

We’ve also stumbled blindly right into the jungle of tall tales.  Just for the CPS record, Jacob says things that are completely untrue, and I have no idea why.  I pray this is normal for two-year olds?  I have asked him about little owies on his arm or scrapes on his shins and he’ll say, “Mama cut me.” 
“What?!  Mama would never cut you.”
Change of tune, “Daddy, hit me.”
“!?”
This is seriously troubling.  Hopefully this blog will not have to be used as evidence for the defense in a court of law.

Apparently Jacob poured his milk out at school today, just to look at it.  When asked about this incident, Jake now takes the Clintonesque strategy of complete denial.  In other cases, he turns the story around and continues to repeat, “Roxanna bite me.”  Though one day we did remove his shirt and found a huge bite mark on the back of his delicious, meaty little shoulder, courtesy of Justin.  Perhaps he is just caught-up in a preschool culture of mastication?

So we’ve been having talks about telling the truth and lying.  I’ve been trying to get creative in describing what is truthful and what is not.  Tonight it went something like this:

“Jakey, telling the truth is very important.  We do not say things that are not true.”
“What Mama?  Tooth?”
“No, truth.  The TRUTH, not tooth.  If I say, ‘Jacob is in the bathtub right now,’ that is telling the truth.  But if I say, ‘Jacob is in the kitchen,’ that is lying.  You’re not in the kitchen, right?”
“Yi-yon?  Alex the yi-yon?”
“No, lying.  LIE-ING, not lion.”

We don’t seem to be getting through to him.  Fall back to something Jake definitely understands?
“If you bite, no Handy Manny.”
Mr. Lion Tooth nods:  Message received.

It’s so hard to keep up with the pace of life… especially when “phases” can last a few days to a few short weeks.  A few little sayings that I know won’t be around forever:

• “Whaeezat?” and “Whoeezat”  (What is that? and Who is that?)
• “I deeyit!”  (I did it!)
• “Lay down nex to me, Mama.  Nex to me.”
• “I’know.”  (I don’t know.)
• “Jacob right back”… with a little pointer finger up in the air as in “just a moment”  (Jacob will be right back.)
• Right there!
• Look at that!