Shopping Pal

I like having a boy.  I've accepted they're high energy, smelly and gross, but I'm glad that Marco is a boy.  However, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm a little jealous hearing what great little shopping pals all those little girls are!  Shopping with Marco is as bad as shopping with Jeff. 

Jeff immediately gets a headache and his back hurts - he needs to sit down.  Sometimes I can satiate him with a chair near the dressing room and his phone. 

Marco touches everything, insists he neeeeeeds everything because "he's never had this before," and sometimes I can satiate him with a chair near the dressing room and my phone.

At Michael Kors in Vacaville, Marco had teary eyes and cried to me, "How come Grammy gets to buy something and I don't?  Can I please have that watch??" 

Other recent in-store meltdowns have included neeeeeding weights, wire clamps and these glasses.   "I need these because I've never had them and I want to be a teacher!  Please!  I'll never be a teacher if I don't have these glasses!  Is that what you want?"

The Facts of Life

Sometimes a parent has to put a foot down, even when it might border on arranged marriage. Playing “wedding” is a high stakes game folks, and when Marco and Brooke wanted to marry each other, they told Niko he had to marry Olive. Niko burst into tears. “But I don’t want to marry Olive! Mommmmm!!!”

And there was born an adamant new parent rule: “Niko can’t marry Olive! Niko has to marry Brookie! Marco will marry Olive!”

Someone take a note.

Critics' Picks

With the weekend to ourselves, Marco designed a Saturday just for us, requesting “a movie in the movie theatre with popcorn and candy, lunch and swimming in the hot tub and cold pool.”  He planned a fantastic day. 

We saw Hotel Transylvania – a movie that Marco INSISTS is called “Frankenstein.”  He describes the movie as “about a vampire and his daughter and a lot of monsters.  There’s a real boy though that says he’s Frankenstein’s cousin that the vampire puts in a costume.  The chef wants to make him into soup.  It was so funny, but there were scary parts too – the vampire’s face gets red and mean!”

We had such a lovely day on Saturday, that on Sunday, when Marco requested that we do exactly the same thing, I couldn’t quite figure out why not.  So, we did it again!  New candy, more popcorn, same theatre, new movie – Frankenweenie.

In my most recent parent-of-the-year submission, I didn’t really do any research on the movie.  It was a cartoon, check.  BUT, it was black and white ala Citizen Kane, it was dark and macabre ala Edward Scissorhands and, honestly, truly, petrifying.  Think squeaky door, silent room, “Is someone there?” and huge, ugly, petrifying dead family pets coming to life as monsters – jumping out at every turn.  Petrifying.  Add the screaming damsel in distress next door -check- and it was clearly a nod to classic horror films.  To give you an idea, a girl a little older than Marco was CRYING behind us.  Darn scary Tim Burton!

I even pulled out my phone to double check the rating to make sure I was in the right place.  (PG.)  I whispered to him that we were so lucky that this was such a scary make-believe Halloween movie. He agreed.

Lucky for me, Marco is tough.  He loves creepy things and loves to be scared.  Proving that he’s a better parent than me, at the pinnacle of the fright fest, he leaned over and said, “Mom, this is too scary, we should go home.”  I didn’t want to leave before they resolved everything – which thankfully did happen, eventually. Finally, the film (yes, film) wrapped up the scary loose ends – darkly, of course.  Sigh of relief.

In summary, we highly recommend Hotel Transylvania for your Halloween viewing delight. 

And here's the proof:

Lolo's

As part of our ongoing trek for travel and fabulous hair, Marco visited the historical Lolo's Barber Shop in Avalon.  He was even shorn by the infamous Lolo! 

The barber shop was opened in 1964 when it had less sports paraphenelia on the walls I'm sure and has been a local mainstay since then.  Lolo was very friendly and slightly taller than Marco.  He gave Marco a baseball mitt (that Jeff insisted he sign) and a bazooka bubble gum (possibly from 1964). 

Another successful haircut on location!

Hook, Line & Sinker

Once again we (to read: Jeff) drove through the night so we could catch the 6 a.m. boat to Catalina to spend a week on Poseidon.

Boat Papa bought Marco his first real fishing pole, a beautiful, red, lightweight spinning reel. It was love at first sight. I’d say Marco spent about 70% of his waking hours fishing. Hooked. He caught a couple little sea bass (not keepers) and then started bringing in the bait fish. His bait went onto Jeff’s hook. Jeff’s hook went into halibut’s mouth (keeper!) and we ate sushi, grilled fish and fish tacos. See? It’s easy! Marco was BEYOND excited about his role in the sushi catching. And he really took advantage of bringing in the bounty – he ate three WHOLE halibut rolls.

We also had the incredible pleasure of having Uncle Mike and Mariesa and Uncle Brian and Elizabeth. The girls got “Aunt” added occasionally too. ;) These might be four of the most easygoing guests you can imagine. And since it was Mariesa’s first time to the Island, we had to take her to the Chi Chi Club. Obviously.

Jeff also caught a big bat ray and a little shark.  Marco had a litany of questions about do bat rays eat people?  Even little boys?  What about little boy's toes?  Do sharks eat people?  Will that little shark get bigger?  Then will it eat people?  Luckily, his curious nature only made him doubt the ocean, he still braved it.  :)

We kayaked, tubed, snorkeled, swam, ate, drank and enjoyed ourselves immensely.  Here’s proof of thee most fantastically relaxing vacation in the world:

 (Note Marco and Uncle Brian)

 Love this one of the boys.

 So sad to see them go!

 But we quickly got over our sadness.

 Marco adored spending time with Papa.

Dad and I cooked together one night as is our tradition.  My part of the meal was tssk'ed, respiced and grimaced.  Also a tradition. 

Good night Catalina.  See you next year.