Tough as Glass

As it turns out, playing barefoot while your friend's family is unpacking is not the best plan. The night of our drive to Long Beach, while Jeff slept to prep for the drive, Marco stepped on glass. His foot was gushing blood, which could not be contained by a bandaid. He was sobbing and I couldn’t even see the cut. I finally got it bandaged and contained, but he couldn’t walk.

It was like traveling with the queen of Sheba. Since Jeff the pack mule (he’s very strong) was carrying two boat bags, his work bag and a case of wine, I was in charge of my purse, one boat bag and Marco (he’s heavier than he looks). Carried him home from Romioses, up to apartment, down to car, into Denny’s at 4 a.m., to the bathroom at Denny’s, into boat terminal, onto boat, on boat legs outside for fresh air when he wasn't feeling well, to dinghy and onto Poseidon. Oh and I held the bag while he yakked on the boat trip since the bathroom was full. I earned that 6 a.m. mimosa.

In Long Beach, we picked up some more appropriate bandages which we changed daily in Catalina (in case you noticed the constantly bandaged foot in the photos). It wasn’t infected, but he was still limping a little and it wasn’t really healing. We attributed it to swimming every day.

15 days later, back at the ranch…

Jeff looks again and sees the chunk of glass. He reached in with tweezers and just pulled it out. It didn’t bleed or anything, just popped right out. A fairly large, hole punch-sized, round piece of well-traveled glass. Marco didn't even wince.  “That feels better.”

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!