No It All

Today is the last day of our 27th week… cauliflower week.  And tomorrow starts the highly anticipated… or dreaded, third trimester.  Cillo and I are starting to get a bit tired.

I’ve written before about Jakey calling me “Daddy” since he changed schools in June.  At least 4 months, maybe 6?  That was when James established a clear lead in the favorite parent department.  My son knew my name was Mama, and would always answer correctly when quizzed, but just preferred to call me Dadd-eee.

And then Mama started her comeback.

It started in October during my birthday weekend in DC.  Jakey and Mama spent lots of time bonding and Mama started to finally reestablish her previous dominance.  Flash forward to week 27:

4:48am

“Mama!  Mama!  Are you?  Are you? (Where are you?)”  Mama and Cillo roll over and pretend we don’t hear anything.

“Mama.  Get up.  Get up!”  I’m pretty sure Cillo groaned at this point.  When did Jake learn these new phrases?

It was so much easier not to feel guilty when the little voice from the other room was yelling “Dadd-eee!”  Obviously he wants you.

As they always say, be careful what you wish for.

We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Los Osos with the Fucillos and the Tasseys this year.  We had beautiful weather, except for one day of rain… so many things to be thankful for.

On Friday morning we went down to Morro Bay as Papa Vinnie was feeling like crab for his Turkey Day.  I was sitting on a bench looking out at the harbor, enjoying the sunshine.  Baby Cillo started kicking very forcefully so I had James put his hand on my stomach.

“Jakey!  Come feel the baby kicking Mama.”

Jake comes stumbling over, he’s kind of a stumbler, and starts dutifully kicking me in the shins.

What is happening?!  Then it dawns on us…

I may have mentioned that Jake has been in a phase of repeating the end of every sentence he hears, non-stop.  It’s crazy, but he can say almost anything.  He’s quite the little parrot.  Some of his more recent utterances:

James: “Can you scrape out the pumpkin guts?”
Jake: “Punkin guts.”

James (on using a fork to eat): “Stab it, stab it!”
Jake: “Stab it.”

James: “Would you like some more gnocchi?”
Jake: “Gnocchi.”  (I swear, we can’t even say gnocchi.  It was the most Italian sounding “gnocchi” I’ve ever heard.  A bit like his “crouton” which is “crew-Toh” with a nasally little French accent, I kid you not.)

The same night as gnocchi…

James: “Bellisima!”
Jake: “Bellisima!”

James: “Che Italiano!”
Jake: “Che Italiano!”

This could go on for hours…

Little Cillo is already almost 2 lbs. and as big as, quote: “an English hothouse cucumber.”  The weird baby dreams have also started.

I remember when I was pregnant with Jakey and I had all sorts of weird dreams.  Dreams he was as big as a GI Joe.  Dreams where he was born as a full-grown toddler.  Dreams where it was a boy.  Then a girl.  And dreams where I could see the whole baby through my stomach like a horrible alien movie.  My very last dream it was a regular-sized, normal looking baby.  They held it up and I said, “Who is it?  Is it Jacob?”  And so it was.  Like a dream premonition.

The little English hothouse cucumber has kicked into gear… leading to my baby insomnia and my first creepy baby dream.  I could feel a whole leg through my tummy… it sounds gross and I hate to say it… kind of like a cucumber?!  And then it was alien baby.  Sweet dreams.

I am drowning in toy catalogs.  Someone, somewhere in the universe has used sophisticated software to determine my age.  They’ve connected this information up with my name and address.  And now they’ve chosen the drop-down choice, undoubtedly labeled: kid.  I highly suspect Pottery Barn as the evil creator and commercial beneficiary of selling my hard earned demographic data. 

The only thing their little databases haven’t yet discovered is the gender of my child.  I know this because we’ve received countless catalogs filled with an unbelievable variety of light pink, dark pink, hot pink, fuschia, and purple clad baby dolls.  For the record, I’m currently in the market for a baby doll for one soon-to-be big brother, but shhhhh, they don’t know that… yet. 

On Tuesday morning, Jakey and I had the most amazing breakfast while perusing the American Girl catalog–Follow Your Inner Star.  It’s filled with all sorts of great vocabulary and to my astonishment, it is the epitome of little girl heaven.  Yes, that’s probably where their tagline comes from: Follow Your Inner Star, Straight to Little Girl Heaven (and Parental Dollbaby Purchasing Bankruptcy).  Honestly, you have got to get your hands on this catalog.  And I most certainly have to get rid of mine.

You can get a headgear for your doll.  A headgear.  They have little pets for your dolly like a kitty cat in a carrier with a mini fold-up travel bowl.  Teeny tiny soccer cleats, shinguards and matching hair ties (swoon).  Crutches.  Crutches!

But what sent me into pure dollbaby envy?  “Julie’s Fondue Set, $68.”  An actual fondue set that looks like it came from Williams-Sonoma with mini skewered fruit.

This catalog makes my Cabbage Patch Kid look like something I made out of cornhusks and rubberbands. 

I’m wondering what a rutabaga even looks like?  I recently had to Google “quince” as I also didn’t have a clear mental image of this mysterious fruit.  Frankly I think lemon-pear might be a better name, not unlike my favorite salad fruit, the pear-apple.  Now that I’ve Googled rutabaga, my life could be in significant danger if forced to identify the differences between a rutabaga and a turnip, at gunpoint.

So, what’s new with Cillo this week?  He/she is getting busier.  Lots of what I would describe as thumping, always on the right side.

Jake has also noticed the rutabaga in my tummy.  He has an irresistable urge to lift up my shirt and make loud, obnoxious noises by blowing on my stomach.  The wetter, the funnier… at least in his book.  He then takes his little hand, puts it behind his dad’s neck, and pushes his dad’s face into my stomach as a sign of zerbert encouragement.  The rutabaga and I are virtually defenseless.

Yesterday was November 14th… exactly two weeks since Operation: Bye Bye Nigh-Nigh began, as well as Jake’s 20th birthday.  The deadline.  D-Day.  Who can believe I’m old enough to have a child who’s 20?!  I know, I know… how do I look so young?

Under most circumstances, secret missions such as this are generally classified.  But, I think it’s time for me to come out of hiding.  To blow my cover if you will.  To date, this was my most difficult and dangerous mission, and now I’m thinking of retiring from this double life.  And so I reveal a glimpse into the classified details of this story of greed, passion and power…

Days 1-2: I snipped a little hole in the end of the nigh-nigh (pacifier).  It made a louder sucking sound, but pretty much went completely unnoticed.

Days 3-5: I made the hole bigger.  He didn’t bat an eyelash.  His dad decided we might as well also begin “Operation: No Getting Up Till 6.”  We all have a cold and the clocks are changing due to Daylight Saving Time.  Oh yeah, and Jake is probably getting his last set of molars as he’s leaking drool like a sieve.  Let’s do it all!  He’s got a tough love kind of style.

Jakey would wake-up, get very mad, cry and throw his nigh-nigh out of his crib in a fit of anger.  Then we’d listen to “nigh-nigh, NIGH NIGH” for up to an hour.  Sometimes he’d pull out all the stops and forlornly call “Mama, Mama.”  It was pitiful.  Especially since he still calls me Daddy most of the time.  James made me wear earplugs.

Days 6-7: I cut more off.  Jake started sticking his little digit in the hole and saying “feen-gr, feen-gr” (finger) and showing it to us.  He asked for his nigh-nigh every night and every morning.  It had to stay in his crib.

Days 8-11: Jake’s nigh-nigh didn’t seem to taste that good anymore.  It’s hard to keep a good hold on such a small piece of rubber.  I went out of town to Laguna Beach for two nights.  His dad reported excellent behavior and sleeping-in until 6 or 7.

Days 12-14: I can report 3 nights in a row when Jake went to sleep without his nigh-nigh.  Only 30-60 seconds of crying and then he’s zonked out.  He’s still asking for it, but I pretend I don’t understand what he’s saying.  Huh?  What?  Bedtime!  Plus he’s slept-in till at least 6 for the last 3 days.  Even if he fusses at 5, he goes back to sleep for an hour.

Mission Accomplished.

There’s some well-known reference to watching the Giants play baseball being akin to “torture.”  Apparently they can be inconsistent, letting the other team start to make a comeback before finishing them off.  Over the last three weeks we’ve had our fair share of torture.  Below, the evidence:

Exhibit A: James put on a brave face and traveled across the country, by himself, with a 19-month old.  It was like putting a wild caged animal in a shoebox.  Thank goodness for dried blueberries.

Exhibit B: On the way home, we ran into Jakey’s best friend from school, Helen, in Dallas Fort-Worth.  She was sitting two rows behind us on the plane home.  All he could do was stand on his seat and look at her longingly, “Hellen.  Hellen!”

Exhibit C: You know that scene in a Christmas Story where Ralphie has to try on the pink bunny suit his aunt made him?  That was Jake on Halloween at school when we put him in his ducky costume for the parade.  All tears and no’s and writhing around.  I have some thoughts on Halloween costumes that might deserve their own separate blog.

Exhibit D: For our Hawoween! (Halloween) party, I decided to make cupcakes.  Pumpkin with cream cheese frosting and lemon with chocolate frosting.  Jakey got to help me, mostly by watching from the confines of his high chair and licking his first set of beaters.  The cupcakes were cooling on the kitchen table all morning, before I frosted them.  They were truly haunting Jacob… pure torture.  Cupcake, cuuuuuupcake.  I wandered into the kitchen to find Jake had commandeered an orange plastic fork, deftly stabbing an unfrosted cupcake and dragging it over to the side of the table so he could reach it.  That was his first cupcake on Halloween.  His second was the “fear the beard” cupcake.

Exhibit E: On Halloween night, Shasta did not disappoint.  Seeing as it was a Sunday, we thought there might be fewer trick-or-treaters this year.  Perhaps.  We estimate we were visited by no fewer than 550 little princesses, Scream masks and a weird gorilla with a personal photographer.  We even got the headless ducky to put his head (hood) on for awhile.  His dad gave him a flashlight and he would shove it in his mouth, making his face glow in a spooky, chubby-cheeked kind of way.  He wore the yellow and orange striped leggings that went with his costume and some sandals I put on him.  Most people thought he was a girl.  We saw one other kid in the same exact costume.  She also looked cute.  Jake threw candy in bags (and many times onto the porch) for almost two hours.  He is our household’s most generous doorman, as he prefers to double-fist it.  The good news: He had no idea that “tandy” is edible.  Then my mom told him this weekend.  I think the gig is up.  After awhile the novelty wore-off and our tired, tortured little ducky laid down on the porch.

Exhibit F: Monday night, there were still some cupcakes left over that I’d left on the Halloween cupcake stand.  They continued to torture Jake from the other room as he ate his dinner.  He could no longer resist their taunting whispers and alluring gaze… his ears closed up, his vision was obscured with tears and his world would end unless he had… cuuuuuupcake.

After three cupcakes in two days, there was no better solution to ending our “October of Torture” than…

the trash can.

I’ve been sick for over two weeks… ever since we got back from DC.  For a few days I thought I was definitely on the mend, but now I’ve taken a turn for the worse.  In normal circumstances, people talk about coughing up a lung.  I think maybe I’m on the verge of coughing up a baby…

Or an ear of corn.

Halloween has been particularly eventful this year in the Fucillo household.  I promise to write more when I have a chance… but I only have one day until Cillo graduates from Week 23 to Week 24.

This year we dressed-up as follows:

Jake: Ducky.  Or more accurately, Headless Ducky.

James: Ducky Farmer.

Jaimie: Barefoot & Pregnant.  A slightly trashy take on the theme.  Jakey made sure my white wife-beater acquired some authentic looking stains over the course of the weekend’s festivities.

Cillo: Large Mango.