The kinderlach files

Barak is at the zoo with Ada, Iyyar is hanging out on a blanket on the floor, I don't have the koach to start cooking for Shavuos yet, and it's been too long since I've done one of these, so:

1. We went to the pediatrician on Wednesday for Barak's 2-year and Iyyar's 4-week checkup. I walked, with Barak in the stroller and Iyyar in the Snugli. It was something of a workout, but we got there okay. I do have a double stroller, but it is only for three months and up, so this is the intermediate solution. I think we'll be fine till August like this--I'm glad it's summer.

The visit went fine. Barak behaved himself very nicely, doing what I asked and keeping himself busy eating crackers while the doctor was looking at Iyyar. Both boys are around the 75th percentile for height and Barak is at the 27th for weight--much better than the 6th percentile he hovered at for a while. Iyyar, on the other hand, has shot from the 7 lb 2 oz he was when discharged from the hospital three weeks ago to 9 lb 6 oz. The pediatrician kept saying, "Wow, he gained a lot of weight. Wow, that's more than two ounces a day!" I guess all that nursing is doing something.

2. They are already so different in so many ways, besides the obvious one of Iyyar sleeping while Barak never did. Iyyar hates dirty or wet diapers and will wake up crying if he has one; Barak still couldn't care less if his pajamas are full of poop. If you heard a peep from a sleeping Barak at this age, that was it, he was waking up (and it was usually four minutes since you'd put him down); Iyyar will not only put himself back to sleep, but will put himself to sleep if you put him in his crib still mostly awake (assuming he's got a full tummy, a dry diaper, and is tired). But they look identical--pictures of Barak at this age could be pictures of Iyyar.

3. A few weeks ago, I showed Barak a short video clip from the Oregon Zoo site, titled "Recycling at the Oregon Zoo." It shows how the elephants are fed branches from the zoo's garden, which they then eat, and how the manure is then shoveled up, turned into compost and returned to the garden. I thought he'd like it because of the elephants; I didn't realize that it also involved a truck, a shovel, a wheelbarrow, and a small bulldozer. For Barak, all trucks are garbage trucks, and have been for a while, so it's understandable that when he sees a truck he says, "Garbage!" But people have found it surprising that when he sees a truck, he now also says, "Garbage! Elephant! Nanure!"

4. Toilet training is proceeding apace. Barak is very into the chocolate chip part of this process, and doesn't mind the sitting on the potty part either, especially if I let him take some toilet paper and flush it. However, actually producing has not really gone very far. Yesterday, however, he did in fact pish, which I told the pediatrician when he asked. The doctor said to Barak, sounding very impressed, "Did you pish in the potty? Wow!" Barak modestly concurred. "Choc chip."

5. Right after Barak was born, someone in the grocery store handed me a coupon for a free box of Breyer's fruit pops. I haven't really had them since, but in the grocery store on Wednesday they were buy one get one free, and I remembered how good they were, and it was really really hot, so I got four boxes. I've been letting Barak have one a day in the afternoon, after he's been playing outside. The other day, he started asking for something. "Muktza! Mo muktza!" He wants muktza? Huh? It's not even Shabbos. I couldn't figure it out, so I picked him up and asked him to show me. He directed me to the freezer and to the "momuktza!" Ah-ha. That would be popsicle. Gotcha.

6. Also after Barak was born, when he was about three weeks old--possibly on the same grocery store trip--I ran into someone I knew slightly. "Is he a good baby?" she asked. I didn't say anything, but found this fairly outrageous. He's three weeks old. Tell me, please, how a three-week-old baby could be bad. I always regretted not pointing this out. Last week, someone asked me the same question about Iyyar. I told her that all babies are wonderful, but if she was asking me if he cried a lot, the answer was no. Which is, B"H, true.

7. Does anybody out there who knows me want to come visit the third week in July, from the 9th till the 14th? MHH will be out of town for work and I'll be home by myself. If I don't get a visitor, I'll probably go somewhere, but I'm hoping to talk someone into coming here. We have central AC and a guest room...

8. If I ever mention anything on this blog about baking chocolate chip cookies, tell me not to. I have a reasonable amount of self-control when it comes to food. I can leave ice cream in the freezer and I can even keep diet coke in the house if it's not cold. But chocolate chip cookies that I made, forget about it, once they're made they're as good as eaten. This is salient particularly because I weighed myself while at the pediatrician's. I've lost twenty pounds since Iyyar was born, which means I have thirteen to go to get to where I was before I got pregnant with him and, er, twenty-three to get to where I was before I was pregnant with Barak, which is the goal here. If I can take lots of walks (meaning, if it doesn't get too hot too soon) and I can stay away from the cookies, I think I can get most of the way there by the end of the summer. But NO COOKIES. Hold me to that, please. (The ones already in the house for Shavuos are exempt from this. I'm not throwing them out, although I might give most of them away to my pregnant neighbor, if she comes to get them.)

9. Marika neni has left us for a better job with more hours and better pay. She's going back to Romania in the fall, which we knew, so it had to happen. I'm sorry to see her go, but it's definitely better for her. I'll miss the Hungarian practice though (not to mention the shiny floors--I've never waxed a floor in my life and I doubt I'm about to start now.)

10. Hmm, there has to be a number ten. Oh, right. The stove. I'm liking the stove. The Shabbos mode is very handy, although a little nerve-racking--nothing comes up on the display as you're setting it, obviously, so you just have to go on faith and hope you've done it right. Last week, I didn't--I set it too high, and then when MHH came home from shul Friday night and saw that I'd fallen asleep, he decided to be nice and let me have an hour before waking me up for dinner. So everything was in the oven on about 450 for about 3 hours. And dinner was reduced to speed cholent.

Huh, I seem to have veered off the subject of kinderlach. Well, what can I say, I'm tired. And our bedroom is a disaster, and I don't think Iyyar has a single clean and dry outfit. Why is it that no matter how you put a diaper on a newborn, they will pee right through or over or around them? Why why why? And why is it that one room in the house must always be a complete catastrophe, no matter how much time I spend tidying?

Well, anyway. Kitchen first, then laundry. Then bed. Or maybe I'll knit a little. Or something.