Fucillo Family Weblog

Nate has started “cruising.”  This is the word they use to describe the phase where babies walk from one end of the couch to the other in pursuit of your remote control.

I think he’s probably been doing it for about two weeks.  I know, I know.  The youngest kids always get the short end of the stick… parents can’t quite remember their baby milestones as clearly and forget to note them down the way they did for their first born.

If I could get my laptop open without four chubby hands that “want to type,” then maybe you’d have a point.  Just enjoy the fact that we’re already beat down and after not even three years are loosening our parental regulations and standards… didn’t you literally take a bath with your big brother tonight while he drank hot chocolate?  Imagine the things you’ll be doing in less than two years time… brushing your teeth with frosting no doubt.

Today, Nathaniel’s teacher Melissa told me there were several moments where he stood for a few seconds without holding onto anything.  Melissa is Natesy’s rockabilly teacher.  She has cute pin-up girl 1940’s hair and colorful tattoos on her arms.  She once told me she hopes she has a body like mine after she has a baby.  She was most certainly buttering me up in the most effective way possible.  Melissa is my new favorite.

After school today, Natesy made a new friend at the bus stop.  He started blowing kisses to a pretty lady named Mina who is expecting a baby girl in May.  Already picking-up the ladies in public…

Then tonight during hot chocolate bath time, Nate used the comb to brush his own hair.  Just the little curls in back since there’s still not much up top.

Cruising, standing, kiss blowing, hair combing.  Perhaps next week he’ll graduate to hot chocolate serving.

I’ve been meaning to post an update on my newest little nephew: Devon George Tyrone Purnell!

I know from personal experience, that will probably be a two-line name on his future driver license.  I’m sure the grandfathers are pleased as punch.

We’ve already crossed doctor off the list based on pumpkin guts.  And now, his future career as a fortune teller has already crashed and burned…  before it ever got off the ground.

Baby Zinger was born happy and healthy this morning via C-section.  Drum roll please… it’s a boy!  Somehow, despite being a surprise baby, his parents entered the delivery room, girl’s name in hand.  I have no idea whether they simply reached an impasse?  I do know that he may be spending his first night still known as Zinger.  I feel fortunate that in our experience, we came up with two girls’ names and two boys’ names and somehow never revisited the subject.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the longer you go, the harder it is to decide… and you don’t want to compromise just to get passed the hospital check-out counter, right?

When I got home tonight, Jacob was still in denial.

“Jakey, Baby Zinger was born today.  Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Her’s a ga-wol.”
“No, Baby Zinger is a boy!  Can you believe it?”
“No.  HER IS A GA-WOL!”
Honestly, he was not having it.  He had already had a similar conversation with his Daddy earlier today.

I showed him a picture of the baby on my iPhone and he softened his unyielding stance.  Instead of arguing with me, he became more interested in understanding why he had so many things on his little ankles.

Yes, the title of this blog is still blank.  I just can’t decide what to call it…

Tomorrow is Baby Zinger’s birthday!  If anyone is out there reading this blog, Baby Zinger is my brother Geoff’s very first baby.  Geoff’s wife Angela’s maiden name is Zing… thus the nickname.  Little Baby Zinger will be born on the 20th, just like its maternal grandmother and of course, favorite Auntie.

I love that the first time we came home after a Saturday at my parents’ house with Geoff and a pregnant Angela, Jake turns to me and with his typical shoulder shrug and questioning hand gesture asks, “Where Baby Zinger go?”  All the talk of some invisible baby had him a bit perplexed.

Ever since we found out about Baby Z, I’ve been asking Jakey to predict if it’s a boy or a girl.  In eight months, he has never deviated from his answer.  I change up my question, just to make sure he isn’t pulling that old trick where he just says the last choice presented.

“JJ, is Baby Zinger going to be a girl or a boy?”
“A ga-wol.”

“Jakey, is Baby Zinger going to be a boy or a girl?”
“A ga-wol.”
“A ga-wol?”
“No…a Ga-wol.”
“A Ga-wol?”
“No.  A ga-wol.”
“Ohhh, a girl?”
“Yeees, a ga-wol.”

This is my new favorite game.  We both find it hilarious.

Anyone who knows me can attest, I’m not very frou-frou.  I don’t like a lot of ornamentation and feel overly embellished if I were to wear, say, a necklace and dangly earrings.  I think it stems from a childhood of big hair.  (Note: I just searched the internet to make sure dangly is a word… turns out it isn’t.  Am I the only one who’s been saying dangly?)  Even when I was just a lass with little girlie-girl inclinations, I still eschewed characters on my clothes.  Sweatshirts with teddy bears?  Not this second grader.

And before I had kids, I’m pretty sure I thought to myself, “Hmmm.  When I have kids, I don’t think I’ll dress them up in little outfits with ducks and sheep.  What is this enduring baby barnyard fashion trend?  No, definitely not.”

I’ve totally changed my mind.

When it comes to picking out clothes for Jake and Nake, I encourage, I endorse, I depend upon apparel adornment.  I never knew I would be reduced to selling the virtues of donning duds based on product features such as:
“Do you want to wear your doggie shirt or your dinosaur shirt?”
“Come here and put these monkey socks on!”
(sing song voice) “Look, Haaaandy Maaaaanny pj’s…”

It’s pretty shocking how effective animals and race cars can be at getting clothes onto resistant, wriggly little bodies.  I still shy away from cartoon characters as they seem to promote unwanted whining and begging in public places.  But, sweatshirts with teddy bears?  Now I know why that’s all Gap Kids sells.

The last two weekends in a row I’ve been talked into visiting Whole Paycheck with one of the munchkins.  Talked into or perhaps, voluntold.  A new corporate-ism I’ve just added to my vocabulary… apparently it’s been in use for quite some time.

So, two weeks ago I took Nate and we were having a great time.  Then the stuff in the cart began to build-up until Nathaniel was able to lean back and reach it.  Every time I turned around, Nakezilla was tossing produce and baby food and other organic delicacies out of the cart.  In one aisle he got too close to a box of Lara bars and started conducting gravity experiments.  As I was quickly picking them up before someone noticed we were trashing the snack aisle, an entirely new box came crashing down on my head.  Nate’s arms are deceptively long.  He actually has eight of them.  Call the National Enquirer.

So last week I said, Oh no no no, Natesy has to stay at home.  I’ll take Jake.  We ended up with a seedless watermelon.  A bag of potato chips.  A cupcake.  I kid you not, I calculated the delta and Jacob adds a $30 premium to one’s epicurean invoice.  With Jakey as my shopping partner, things were flying off the shelves into our cart.  The exact opposite of his little brother.

Either way, tons of money flew out of my wallet.

Natesy’s a mess.  He’s got scratches on both cheeks, one across his eyelid and a new one on his forehead.  There’s a bruise under his chin and his first black eye is finally fading.  Looks like he’s missing quite a few teeth.

I just spent the last thirty minutes intercepting Bruiser as he breaks every rule in the book:

No banging the decoy remote control against the plateglass window!  Smiles and laughs right in my face.

Stop standing up on the torchiere floor lamp and dancing!  Smiles, laughs and beelines straight back to the lamp three times until I build an ottoman barricade.

No touching electrical outlet covers!  Grins and laughs in my face, again.

I thought he was bruised and battered from his resistance to man-manis and his current affection for  crawling straight into the jaws of danger.  Now I’m wondering if he’s sneaking out late at night for bar brawls and rumbles under the 280 overpass.  All these scuffles seem to simply be bolstering his confidence… I just gave him my most serious eye squint… again with the laughing in my face.  I think we’re in trouble.

Geoff and Angela have a dog.  And his name is Scruffy.

I’d say he’s the perfect dog.  Just like granddkids are the perfect kids.  Jakey can play with “his” dog, feed him dozens of dog cookies, get him all riled-up, and then come home.  Honestly, it’s genius.  No leashes, no plastic baggies, no whining and scratching in the middle of the night… why didn’t we think of this before?  There was one little incident where Scruffy chewed-up Jakey’s toy car.  Fortunately, Daddy was able to fix it and its only got one wonky wheel.  Plus, the perfect Scruffy teemed up with Santa in an effort at redemption and gave Jake three new cars over the holidays.

Jacob loved the new cars, but now Scruffy’s got some competition.  There’s a new “puppy” in town and he’s gaining on Scruff’s initially staggering lead.  The new puppy eats Cheerios from under the highchair (granted he may be the reason they’re there).  He follows Jakey around the house constantly– his most loyal companion.  Plus he comes when called and can’t get up on the furniture.  He also smells better than your average dog and there’s no pesky dog hair.  He’s even learning to play ball.  His only shortcomings may be that he is able to break through all puppy “houses” (barricades) and he’s fairly disobedient.  He also could eat wheels off cars.  If he could get his little paws on one for longer than three seconds before it’s snatched away.

And Jake gets Daddy and me to take care of all his puppy chores– feeding, bathing, cleaning-up.  Seems he’s got this pet parenting thing down pat.  Doggone.

Our life is all about trains.  And cars.  And airplanes.  Basically all modes of transportation.  Right now Jakey is yelling from his bed to “bring him all the cars.”  It’s like a bunkbed parking lot in there.  It seems your house can either be a princess explosion or in our case, a choo choo explosion.

So we have a lot of elaborate tracks.  And precarious bridges that seem to fall down if you breathe wrong.  Jakey is also at that age where he makes up stories while he’s playing.  I’ve got to try and record and transcribe one of these stories– they usually revolve around rescuing someone, cows on the tracks or looking for a cement truck’s mama.

And what’s more incompatible than little wheeled choking hazards and a 10-month old?  Not much.  Nakezilla wreaks havoc in an instant.  His knees don’t bend when he walks.  His big hands grab cars and then he eats them.  Little voices wail in fear, “No Nake, no!”  Tracks go flying.  He roars with delight.  Nakezilla can clear a play table in seconds, toppling bridges and flattening skyscrapers like toys.  Or toy skyscrapers.

Personally, I think Nakezilla has brought life to Jake’s stories– suspense, fear, action.  Jake thinks we’re saying Nate’s full name really fast– Nakecillo.

Sayonara Thomas.

Back when Jake was about Nate’s age, he had his two bottom front teeth and was about to get his top teeth.  One night he was “pole dancing” under our marble bistro table, took a dive, and lord knows how, chipped his little front tooth– before he even had a little front tooth.  I got in big trouble for once referring to it as his “Okie tooth.”  Luckily it’s not noticeable and these teeth will fall out at some point, right?

A couple of weeks ago I went in for my usual biannual dental appointment.  I got to talking to the hygienist and was asking questions about what would happen at Jake’s first dental appointment.  Fortunately, it sounds like the expectations are pretty low.  This is really good news as I’m imagining he’ll probably refuse to even open his mouth… though now I’m wondering why I signed him up for dental insurance if all that’s planned is a 15-minute appointment?  I think I’ve wandered right into yet another root cause of rising health care costs.

So, I was making conversation with the hygienist and said something along the lines of, “How many molars should kids have?  I remember hearing something about 2-year molars… I don’t think my son Jake ever got those…” and my voice trails-off as this freshly minted tooth cleaner looks at me as though I’ve just said I brush my toddler’s teeth with Coke every night before bedtime.

?!  Toddler molars are the least of my worries.  What exactly is the dentist going to do if he hasn’t gotten these teeth… put in an emergency call to the Tooth Fairy?  Let’s all just be glad that he sucks toothpaste off his toothbrush every night.  “Mama, I need to brush teeth.  My teeth are falling out.”  See?  I told him if he doesn’t brush his teeth they’ll fall out… so he hasn’t gotten it exactly right.

While we’re on the subject of teeth, as far as I can tell, the instant babies get them, they go from unskilled laborer to doctor of dental surgery.  Almost overnight.  The first week of December, I had a business trip to Beverly Hills.  I came home and Nate had upped his dental production by 100%, getting both of his top front teeth.  And now I can’t keep his hands out of my mouth.  He finds my pearly whites endlessly fascinating.  And Nate’s teeth are big, square and straight.  They’re nothing like the little tic-tac teeth Jakey has.

Just this week James noticed that Jacob is getting all four of his “second molars.”  Thank goodness he isn’t some sort of dental anomaly due to motherly neglect.  Call the Tooth Fairy back… false alarm.