No It All

My friend Kristen loves to read Us magazine.  Unfortunately I’ve ruined one standing feature for her which is the “Stars– They’re Just Like Us!” page.  Apparently, up until I pointed it out, she’d never noticed how ridiculous the “Stars drink coffee– Just Like Us!” captions were.  Luckily she’s a good sport and now it’s a running joke.

I think maybe Baby Nate has been sneaking celebrity trash magazines.  He seems to be significantly more vocal than Jacob was at this age.  How that’s possible given the chatterbox we have from dawn till dusk is still beyond me.  In any case, Nathaniel has been telling me a lot about Lady Gaga.  I can’t quite make out everything she’s been up to, but he knows all about her.  I’d venture to say that he is predicting her next showstopping dress will be made of bubbles.

Jake loves being a lion… or yi-yon as he puts it.  More on lions sometime in the near future.  This is an important detail as I relay one of James’ latest stories. 

A few weeks ago we were bicuspid deep in our ten day biting phase.  James picked Jake up at school and was driving the car and talking to him about good manners and playing nicely at school.

“Jacob, why do you get so mad?  Why are you trying to bite people?”  He looks in the rearview mirror at Jakey in his car seat in the back.

“I have a yi-yon inside Daddy.  Yi-yon inside.”

My mom likes to reenact my preschool days by telling the story of when I was bitten at Joan’s house.  To hear her tell it, I informed her 10 times a day for the first 10 years of my life that “Matt bit me on the finner.”  (finger)  Apparently I was “mothering” him.  I do remember Matt, and I do remember that he was adorable and had a blond bowl cut.  I’m sure he was as irresistible as a doll baby.  How could someone not mother him?  In any case, that was my first experience with biting.

Over the years, I’ve had a few additional run-ins with biting including a “time out” inflicted by my grandmother, Sweetie, for latching onto my brother’s face.  This is probably most memorable because I didn’t grow-up with time-outs… I grew up with The Wooden Spoon.  Then there was the incident in fourth or fifth grade when my then best friend, shockingly, bit me while we were playing Nintendo.  I still have no idea why.  I was like, “WTF?!”  Only in more G-rated fourth grade language.  And I clearly remember my mom wrestling with my little brother as she attempted to put hot sauce on his tongue for biting.

Now… this entire preamble is leading up to, unfortunately, my present-day experience with biting.  It all began during Jake’s Sanibel week o’ meltdowns.  He was just so off-kilter being in a new place with no clear routine and spotty naps.  He bit my clothes two or three times that week and I had flashbacks of holding my little brother’s forehead while he snapped at me like a two-year-old pirahna, trying to bite my arm…  I think Jacob knew that biting skin is completely unacceptable and so he took his anger out on my apparel.

Then, that first week back from Florida, the unthinkable happened.  We were told he had “tried” to bite another child at school, but only bit their clothes… a daycare desperate working parent’s worst nightmare.  Fortunately he never got written up because no damage was actually done, but those weeks were pretty touch and go.  When asked, Jake was quite forthright, “I bite.”  “I bite Jhad.”  Emphatic nodding.  The teachers won’t tell you who bites who, but the kids sure will.

It’s been several weeks since the daily nail-biting conversations, “Jakey, did you have good manners at school today?”  It seems the negative reinforcement of “no Handy Manny if there’s been biting or hitting” has done its job.  Hopefully this was just a short two-week phase… and wouldn’t you know it, Jake actually likes hot sauce.

If Jakey says something to you that sounds like “paintballing,” he’s actually referencing his favorite hobby outside of catching butterflies and fishing poles… and that hobby is: skateboarding.  He asks me to leave his socks on so he can slip around on the hardwood floors, “Skateboarding, Mama.  Skateboarding.”  He says Miss Suzy taught him this game.  She claims innocence.

Every day I like to ask Jake what he ate for lunch at school.  Sometimes I mix it up and inquire about what was on the menu for breakfast.  I always get the same answer:

“Ummm, baaanaaanaaas, coookies…”

Mommy & Natesy’s last day of leave

Will we ever get four smiles?

New house colors: just this side of daring

The yummiest baby neck ever…

.

Jakey lounging at Happy Hollow

I can hardly believe today was Baby Nate’s and my last day together… just us.  No schedule.  No chores.  No lists.  We just went about our business… Hot tea and the Today Show (sorry Meredith, we won’t miss you), Oller Brothers, Home Depot, soccer jersey drop-offs, dry cleaning pick-up, Buy Buy Baby store visit (the store that will help me keep my promise to never set foot in Babies R Us again), special lunch with Daddy, Jakey’s second real hair cut at Baby Buzz, and shopping and dinner at Santana Row.  Whew… what a day!  Baby Nate and I are quite efficient… he even lets me try clothes on… unbelievable, right?

Our time together has been completely precious.  I miss it so much already.  It was almost as precious as his smile, which is the cutest thing ever and still almost impossible to capture on film.  There’s something about the camera lens and flash that brings out more of his startled, flared nostril self.

It’s now the beginning of a new era.  Baby Nate and Mommy on the choo choo… wish us luck.

It began with Mama’s “hot tea.”  Every morning I have one cup of tea and it is heaven.  Tazo’s Awake tea… even better than those expensive British brands.  In any case, it required significant Jakey training as he has always been highly prone to jostling, bumping, crashing, and spilling.  All of which are highly incompatible with stain-inducing, scalding hot liquids.  Jake knows to give me and my teacup a wide berth, “Hot tea!  Mama’s hot tea!”

We did have one cringe-worthy incident, probably about a year ago, when I was drinking hot water with lemon… perhaps that time when Jake’s infantigo (impetigo) gave me strep throat, twice, and I thought I was going to die.  Jake tried to climb into my lap, fiery-hot liquid went flying in a lava-like arch, a bit of which made angry red marks on his little baby arm.  I cried for half an hour and Jacob cried, only because I was crying.  One of my lowest Mommy moments.  Right up there with the 1-month-old Baby Nate’s baby thumb fingernail clipper incident.

So, “hot” is a very important and oft used word in our house.  Steam, fog, at times a shaft of sunshine, are all worthy of pointing and a cautiously excited, “Hot!”

We then added “cold” to the repetoire.  And finally “warm.”  I remember it was bath time and Jakey was in the tub, looking up at me with those big hazel eyes and he says, “Hot?”
And I say, “No, not too hot.”
And he says, “Rum?”
“What?”
“Rum?”
I’m thinking, what is he talking about?  All I can think of is the roaring 20’s and bathtub booze or something…

“Ahhh.  Warm.  Yes!  Waaaarm.”

Now his declarations have become less inquisitive and more dictatorial.  “Too hot!”  “Too cold!”  Last night, after ingesting five pieces of brakiki (broccoli), the next piece was, all of a sudden, “Too hot!”  It wasn’t even kind of hot.  I’d say it was lucky if it was room temperature.

“No Jakey, it’s not hot at all.”
The latest phrase, “Yesth it is!”

There’s just no arguing with our little Goldilocks.

Baby Nake drinking “hot tea.”

Our little Baby Cillos… am I seeing double?

I recently learned a special little tidbit about one of my dearest friends who I’ve known since pre-school.  She has pictures on her iPhone of what I’ll call “heart sightings.”  Jenny explained to me that one day she asked the universe for a sign and now she sees hearts everywhere she goes… in rocks, in the clouds, under a car on the pavement.  It’s a little bit like that buttered Jesus toast or a Virgin Mary water stain, but totally sweeter.  In any case, Jakey seems to get similar signs from the universe.

At first I would say the universe shows him hammers.  Though I’m afraid to think what significance that might have.  Then I thought that his karmic object was snakes.  He sees snakes when we squirt lotion into his hands at night… and during an unfortunate conversation about our neighbor’s dog… I won’t elaborate further.  But, I’ve decided the universe is not showing Jacob hammers and snakes; his serendipitous symbol is Santa.  It has to be.  And I think Santa represents something wonderful and magical.  I always think of a friend’s house where year-round they have a sign hung in their entryway, “I believe in Santa Claus.”

It’s hard to say when the kismet of the universe will appear.  On our way home from Sanibel, we watched the pilot of a small Florida Keys hopper as he loaded his plane with tourists and their baggage.  The pilot had a head of white hair and a perfect white Santa beard.  “Look Jakey, is that Santa?” Head shaking and furrowed brow, “Nope.”  Huh… maybe he’s too skinny?

Then we were enjoying breakfast at one of my favorite places in Santa Cruz a week or two ago (Kelly’s Bakery on the Westside, kellysfrenchbakery.com).  Two tables down was a very big guy with a head of dark blond dreadlocks and a short beard.  “Mama, Santa!”  OK, I guess modern-day Santa could have tatts… on his neck.

Yesterday I picked him up at school and always have to be sure to gather all his clothing… perhaps more on his wardrobe changes another day.  We find his sweatshirt, “Santa sweatshirt.  Me get it.  Santa sweatshirt.”  His Santa sweatshirt?  I’m confused.  Then I realize it’s his “Santa CRUZ” sweatshirt.

And finally, when we were in the pool in Florida for the umpteenth time, there was a very rotund, tan man swimming close by.  He had a distinguished gray beard.  You might say his cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry.  Of course as he rose from the water to ascend the pool steps, “Santa!”

“Santa’s naked, Mama.  Naked!”

Hmmm… now that I examine the facts, his signs from the universe may be au naturel.