Yet another list.

1. This conversation was related to me by Ada, our babysitter, when I got home from work on Friday.

She had Iyyar on her lap, and he was playing with her necklace. She told him no and got it away from him, he went for it again, and she told him no, don't do that. Barak was watching this.

"Ada say no no, don't do that."

"Right, I told Iyyar no."

"Also Imma say no no."

"Right, Imma says no sometimes too."

Pause.

"Abba don't say no."

Ooh. He noticed.

2. Barak wore underwear all day yesterday, with pretty good success, and today, as of 3:15 pm, was still all clean and dry. Abba took him to the bathroom when we got back from our walk and a good three hours without a potty trip. Still dry! Abba gave him a high five, while I was in the other room nursing Iyyar and listening in.

"Barak, are you the man?"

"No, I not the man. YOU the man."

"No, I'm not the man. You're the man."

"No, you! You the man!"

And so on.

3. Iyyar has discovered the hall. He is very good at crawling now and has decided that his room is just, you know, so last week. So every time I put him down on the floor he immediately rotates toward the door and heads out to explore, making funny little "ha! ha! ha!" sounds as he goes.

4. After checking fifty billion heads of lettuce and spinach and whatever for bugs, without ever finding anything (this is supermarket produce, not organic farmer's market stuff), I finally found a genuine bug on Friday in a head of Romaine. It had legs and everything.

5. I had guests for Shabbos for the first time since, um, Iyyar was born I think. And really, I have to remind myself of this--it is not as bad as it seems on Tuesday night. I made gefilte fish, mock chopped liver, chicken, rice, sweet and sour celery, a vat of a Sephardic vegetable dish I can't remember the name of (guvetch? something like that), challah, chocolate chip cookies, guacamole, green salad (see "Romaine with bug," above) with homemade Caesar dressing, cholent, challah kugel and, um, that may be it but I'm probably missing something. I started at 8:30 on Thursday and was in bed by midnight; I also did another two hours or so Friday afternoon. I did have my faithful dishwashing assistant helping me, but otherwise I did it on my own. And it was fun. I forget, in the craziness of making dinner every night, that I really do like to cook. And we liked our guests (people we didn't know, that a friend of my husband's had asked if we could host) and it was all good.

6. Last week, my friend Chana came over and helped me organize my loom/guest/computer room. It has been a wreck, off and on, since we moved here--it is the only room off-limits to kinderlach, and so inevitably it is where everything gets dumped. One trip to Target, an unconscionable amount of money spent on Sterilite boxes, and three late nights of mad organizing later, it is transformed. The closet now has shelves, the floor is naked and bare, and everything I own is tucked away in neatly labeled and stacked plastic boxes. Or that's how it feels, anyway.

7. Iyyar is getting quite good at feeding himself, after resisting this useful skill for quite some time. On Friday I came home from work to find him in his high chair chowing on a bowl of grated cheese, literally shoveling it into his mouth with both hands. He was so into the cheese he didn't even care I was home. Who needs Imma, when I have cheese?