40 things about Barak

1. Instead of "won't," Barak says "willn't."
2. He likes to stash sippy cups of water on the top of the window, where he can reach them but Iyyar can't. Sometimes he's got two or three of them up there at once.
3. Before he goes to bed, he piles all his toys and blankets, except for the purple comforter he sleeps under, on the top of his train bed. He doesn't want me to put them away in drawers--they need to be on top of the train bed.
4. If he is saying that someone forgot something, he says "he got forgot."
5. He takes a very, very long time in the morning to make a bathroom trip and put on underwear.
6. He usually forgets to put his mitzva notes in the yellow pushka at school, and ends up with a stash of them in his backpack.
7. He can get himself completely dressed, with the exception of shoes and socks. He can get the socks on, but they're usually upside down.
8. If he's wearing pajamas with a snap tab on top of the zipper, he comes and asks me to button his snap for him.
9. He likes to come downstairs to check the mail with me.
10. He hasn't had wet underwear since September--K"AH. But he still sleeps in a pullup, and they're usually soaked in the morning.
11. He can brush his own teeth.
12. He can recognize about half of the aleph-beis, even though I really haven't been working on him with it at all lately. I don't think he knows any English letters.
13. If you tell him a number, he will try to show you the correct number of fingers and ask, "This many?" Any number larger than ten usually becomes "a hundred."
14. The past, for Barak, is divided into "esterday" and "esterday, a long time ago." Sometimes things that actually did happen yesterday are categorized as happening "esterday, a long time ago." I'm not quite sure why.
15. Whenever Barak is going somewhere in his car, or is flying a plane somewhere, or driving a train somewhere, it is almost invariably going to California.
16. He still, every so often, tells me that he wants to go to Morah Chana's school (where he went last year.)
17. He still drinks out of sippy cups or covered cups with straws. Sometimes I give him cups without tops, and they almost invariably spill.
18. He likes to sweep. If he sees me sweeping, he wants to help, and sometimes actually does. But I can no longer get away with sweeping myself and then handing me the broom, because he will complain that there is "no more schmutz" on the floor.
19. The only kind of meat Barak will eat is bologna and salami. Most kinds of fake soy meat are fine too.
20. Barak no longer insists on only wearing shirts with trucks or scary animals on them. The one he picks most often is a striped long-sleeved t-shirt from LL Bean.
21. He can make a bracha on his tzitzis by himself, and on most foods. Anything yummy, however, defaults to being a mezonos, even if it's not--I guess he has that established in his mind as the treat bracha.
22. He is convinced that the baby is a girl baby.
23. He likes wearing a tie on Shabbos.
24. His favorite cereal is Puffins either cinnamon or peanut butter. He gets a few in the morning if he gets himself dressed with reasonable speed.
25. Whenever I make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (which is every morning he has school) he asks me to remove the peel (crust). If I just take a knife and remove the outer 1/16 of an inch, he is satisfied with this.
26. Barak doesn't sleep with his special monkey in his bed anymore, but likes to know where he is at night.
27. He also often spirits Iyyar's special puppydog (which Iyyar couldn't care less about these days) on top of his train bed at night. I think he's much more attached to it than Iyyar is.
28. I've noticed him diapering the Cabbage Patch Kid we inherited from a friend quite a lot lately.
29. He is convinced that when I go to the hospital to have a new baby, there will be trains for him to play with.
30. He is starting to get the concept of taking turns and considers this a fair way to resolve some toy conflicts. Unfortunately, Iyyar doesn't, so it doesn't help a whole lot most of the time.
31. He remembers every home we've ever been a guest in by which toys they had for him to play with. "They had dinosaurs for me to play with."
32. He loves being allowed to open and close the refrigerator by himself. He usually remembers to ask first.
33. He's better than he has been about tantrums, but still sometimes explodes for no obvious reason.
34. Logic is sometimes a little shaky too. If I tell him that I can't do something, his response is often "but I want!" or "but I need!"
35. He's been spending a lot of time singing about makkos lately (last week's parsha and all). We've been hearing snatches of "avadim hayyinu" and "no no no, I will not let you go!" Of course, I hear "I will not let you go!" and my 80s upbringing wants to sing back a la Queen, "Let me go!"
36. If you ask him about the makkos that Hashem sent the mitzrim, he tells you about the frogs first. "Where were the frogs, Barak?" "Jumping on Paroh's bed and on his head!" "Did he like that?" "No!" Pause. "But I like it." He probably would--briefly anyway. He also likes the wild beasts one, and the idea that the beasts were coming in the windows. Very scary, etc.
37. He actually has some idea of where matzo comes from, because he knows that when I make pizza dough or challah dough we have to let it rise. If it doesn't rise, it doesn't get nice and fluffy, and instead it's all flat. I'm thinking we might do a rise-no rise comparison on Sunday.
38. When he comes home from school with pekelach from birthday parties (FULL of candy, you would not believe what people send home with three-year-olds!) he will cooperatively, if not enthusiastically, hand them over unopened to be returned on Shabbos. If I'm lucky, he forgets about them and has Bamba or strawberry yogurt for a Shabbos treat. Even when he remembers, he has not yet registered that there is never as much candy in the bag as there once was, and some raisins and whole-wheat pretzels are there that weren't before.
39. When Barak was a baby, and when Iyyar was smaller, I used to sing them mizmor l'David (also known as the 23rd psalm) at bedtime. Lately, Barak has taken to asking me to sing it to him again, with him in the rocking chair, the way I did two years ago. He says, "Imma, I want you to rock me and sing me the baby song." Who could say no?
40. Lately, Barak has been all-Imma, all the time. If Abba goes to him in the night, and I stay in bed, I hear a sad wail, "I need IIIIMMMMMAAAAA!" In ten years, he probably won't, so I'll just enjoy it now.

Big boy

Barak loves Clementines. Every couple of weeks, I buy a big box of them at Trader Joe's or the supermarket, and he can easily eat four or five of them a day if I let him. He can peel them himself if I peel off the very top for him, and knows to put the peel in the trash.

There is one small problem with his Clementine consumption, however. Barak is very particular about how he eats them: he likes to take one section at a time, and have the rest of the orange (okay, tangerine, but he calls them oranges) stay intact. It has happened on more than one occasion that a split-in-two orange has had him in tears. "I want it to be stuck! Can you make it stuck, Imma? I need it to be stuck!"

Barak did a good job on a lot of things today. He went to mincha with Abba, and by all accounts behaved very nicely. He hung up his own coat, without asking, when he got back, and ate a dinner full of "green" without protest (okay, he didn't eat much, but he didn't protest). At bedtime, he was quite pleased with himself. "I'm a big boy," he informed me. "I did lots of mitzvos today!" And then he told me, apropos of nothing,

"At school today my orange broke. I was peeling my orange by myself and it broke. I wanted it to be stuck, but I din't cry, 'cause I'm a big boy. I just ate it."

Now that's a big boy.

Hmm. Yes. Well.

1-2 cm dilated, mostly effaced, baby -1 station. I'd rather have that all be two weeks from now, but I'm not particularly worried; with Iyyar I walked around 3 cm dilated for what, three weeks? And I was this dilated at around 33 weeks, and didn't have him until 37.5. So. The midwife said "try not to have the baby in the next two weeks, okay?" and I agreed to do my best. There was a suggestion of keeping my feet up for a few hours a day, which I can actually do--that telecommuting thing, you know.

Further bulletins, as always, as events warrant.

Nope

No baby, and I still don't think I'm really in labor. Going to the midwife tomorrow just to get checked. Stay tuned, as always, to this exciting channel.

Perspective

Today could have easily been a lot worse. Nobody is injured or seriously ill, nobody lost a job today, and... yeah.

It could have been worse.

That was that I started telling myself when I woke up this morning with such intense abdominal cramps I couldn't stand up straight. It was what I told myself while checking Iyyar's temperature and finding that he had a fever for the third straight day, meaning I really needed to take him to the pediatrician--a mile away by foot. When Barak got out the door with only minimal protest, I told myself reassuringly, see? It really could have been worse.

The baby who normally shares our babysitter with us was here today, even though there was no babysitter and I was, theoretically at least, working. But, fortunately, baby #2 had just gotten back from a different time zone with his family, and slept most of the morning. So while I was waiting for both the midwife and the pediatric nurse to call me back, I put both of them in their respective cribs with some toys (Iyyar complained, the other baby passed out instantly) and went to take a long hot shower, which made me feel no longer completely convinced that I was in labor. Picking up the phone when the midwife called back and describing what I felt like, though, it was a little harder to convince her. She thought I should come in. To the office that's a 30-minute drive away, because there was no one to see me in the local office today. The two 20-month-olds, one of whom is feverish and the other one of whom is asleep? Well, isn't there someone you could leave them with? Um, no. No, there isn't, and even if there were, two 30-minute cab rides are not on my itinerary for today.

So now I have an appointment for tomorrow, for the local office, but in the middle of the afternoon, when I will... do what exactly with my already-born kids, I'm not sure. The pediatrician's office called back, and said to bring Iyyar in to walk-in tomorrow morning at 8 am at the latest. That would have been flat-out impossible, logistically, without having MHH take a personal day, and since he's only got three of those we aren't about to use any of them now. So I made an appointment for 4:40 PM, called MHH and asked him to come home early. Which he did. And then Barak decided to go along too, so all three of them went.

Now we are having thunderstorms.

I didn't mention a few other things, like the lady from the Consumer Products Safety Commission who showed up to photograph Barak's broken and highly dangerous front-end loader, which has been hiding in the basement since small choking-hazard-sized pieces starting coming off it in August. "Iss my front end loader! Imma found it! Yay!" I had emailed her this morning to say that we needed to reschedule, but she was already out on her dangerous toy documentation rounds and didn't get it. (But how impressive is it that we have a government agency that does these things?! I mean, really!)

The doctor thinks that what Iyyar has is viral, did not see any signs of an ear infection and says to bring him back if he is still feverish on Wednesday. So that's good. I'm glad we don't need to give him antibiotics, especially since on Friday I filled two prescriptions for the first time in (B"H ) a long time and discovered that the two totally ordinary drugs that MHH and Iyyar had been prescribed each had a $50 copay PER MONTHLY SUPPLY. We are not talking expensive drugs for which generics are available, or fancy new recently-developed drugs. No. We are talking allergy and reflux medicine here.

Anyway. MHH and the boys stopped to get French fries on the way home, mostly to get out of the incredible downpour. They made it, B"H, in the dark and the rain across two very scary intersections, which is the main thing--MHH had the covered-in-reflective-tape jogging stroller and the geeky-in-a-cool-way flashing-lights high-visibility backpack. Like I said... nobody is really sick, nobody is hurt, nobody lost a job today, and even if I am going into labor, that could be worse too--I'll be 35 weeks on Thursday, so we're not talking major terrifying prematurity or even the potential for weeks and weeks of bedrest. And it's MHH walking the kids home in the pouring rain without a raincoat, not pregnant and possibly contracting me.

Perspective, right? Perspective.

What color are their hands now?

Two points to anyone who gets the Muppets reference.

I think I might have mentioned that my husband's parents visited last week. This was a fairly momentous occasion, since my mother-in-law, generally speaking, does not travel, and had not flown in something like 15 years. The visit was very nice and I think they enjoyed themselves. It is worth mentioning, however, that there is nothing like a weeklong visit from macrobiotic in-laws to make you want to eat an entire bag of Pepperidge Farm cookies and wash the whole thing down with Diet Coke.

They got here on Wednesday and by Thursday night I was already plotting my sugar orgy. I bought the cookies and a 20-oz bottle of caramel-colored phosphoric acid and aspartame, and hid them in the back of the cupboard and the back of the fridge, respectively. Friday morning I had a midwife appointment, so the babysitter was going to be here and I was going to have couple of hours out of the house. Mwa ha ha ha.

I woke up on Friday at some ridiculously early hour, for the fifteenth or so bathroom trip of the nightg. I was too achey to go back to bed (the hallmark of the tail end of this pregnancy) so went into the dark kitchen--it was just barely dawn--for a drink of water. Then I remembered. Ooh. Cookies. I could have a couple cookies right here in my own kitchen. Everyone's asleep. I got a couple of cookies and took out the Diet Coke, intending to indulge in a swig. The first cookie was halfway to my mouth when, as if he'd popped up through the floorboards, my FIL materialized at my elbow.

He was too polite to say anything, but looked reproachful. Cookies! For breakfast! While pregnant! The horrors! I decided to just pretend I was holding a handful of celery sticks. We chatted innocently about the plans for the day, quite as though I were not clutching a fistful of refined poison, and he continued on his laps of the apartment (morning walk and all). I put the cookies back in the bag. I slid the Diet Coke into my backpack. Then I reached over to put the cookies into the bag. I literally had them on the counter and one hand on the zipper when I heard,

"Imma, what are dose?"

What are YOU doing up?!

"Dose are cookies, Imma!"

Sigh.

"Yes, Barak."

"What are they for?"

"They're for later." True enough. They're for later for ME.

Barak looks at me, not quite accusingly, but... hurt. Surely you're not going to eat cookies without me, Imma... are you?

"You put dem in your bag."

What could I do? I took his lunchbag out of the fridge. I put in a cookie. Barak decided to push his luck.

"Can I have one to eat right now?"

"Barak, do I usually put cookies in your lunch for school?"

"No."

"So, what do you think... do you think you should ask a lot of questions, or do you think you should just enjoy your cookie when it's time for your snack?"

"I sink I should just enjoy my cookie when it's time for my snack."

"I think you're very smart."

From the mouths of, etc.

Iyyar has realized the utility of words. I think up until now he regarded them as something of a party trick, with which to occasionally delight a particularly fortunate parent. He's been saying a little bit more here and there: "doh pih" for "drop it," "ball," "cat," "car," "cheese," etc. This past week, he said "blankie" ("gahgee!") for the first time. And then a couple days ago, he was sitting morosely on the bedroom floor, looking sadly at the blankies that I'd folded in his crib too far from the accessible edge for him to pull through the bars. "Gahgee," he mourned. "Gahgee."

"Do you want a blankie?" I asked him. He looked startled. I was sitting on the floor and didn't want to get up, so I reached behind me and pulled a clean blankie--with a nice clean tasty tag on which to suck--out of the drawer, and handed it to him.

You could practically see the light bulb switch on. Heeeeyyyy. That was a neat trick. I said I wanted a blankie and like magic she gave me one. Why didn't anyone tell me I could do that?

* * *

"Thank you" was one of Barak's first words. He said "ta tam," which Israelis heard, naturally, as "toda" and Hungarians heard as "koszonom." Iyyar says "gay goo," which is, if reports are accurate, apparently what I myself said as a baby. It was, not surprisingly, my first word. Now that Iyyar has worked out that he is more likely to get things by saying "please," snack time is replete with "peess!" and "gay goo!" and "shee! shee!" ("cheese!") Yesterday (did I blog this already?) he was sitting in his high chair, nobody was really paying attention to him, and suddenly MHH and I heard, clear as a bell, "All done now." We both gaped. Then we stared at each other. "Did he really say that?" Judging by the look on his face, yes, he did.

And now that he's figured out that words let him communicate what he wants, he's started using them a whole lot more. Instead of shaking the gate to the kitchen to communicate the desire for a snack, he stands there shaking the gate caroling, "ungee! ungee! openih!" I'm HUNGRY, Imma, that's why I need you to OPEN THE GATE!"

* * *

Barak, of course, has lots and lots of words, and I try very hard to encourage him to use words and not behavior to express what he's feeling. "Barak, if you need attention, come tell me you need attention. Throwing toys and doing things you're not supposed to do isn't a good way to get attention. Tell me you need attention and I'll try to pay attention to you, okay?"

Tonight, I got home late with Iyyar from the allergist (more on this later) and MHH was home with Barak. I gave Iyyar dinner, busted out the new pajamas I got them from the LL Bean sale (blue with white polar bears, very cute) and Barak was totally delighted to match Iyyar. He danced around for a while, spinning on one foot. "Look, Imma! I can do a trick! I can do dis!" [Demonstrates one-footed spinning.] "Look!" Eventually we got both of them into bed--they've B"H been doing really well with that lately--and Abba and I repaired to the kitchen, for me to recover from the miles-long arctic trek with jogging stroller. Fifteen minutes later, we heard a familiar wail.

"IIIIMMMMMAAAAAA..."

"Barak, if you need me, you don't need to yell. Come tell me what you need." The door opened and a squinting little boy in polar bear pajamas peeked his nose out. "Imma, I need you to pay attention to me."

What could I say? "Okay, come over here and sit in my lap and I'll cuddle you a little bit." Really I should have gone into his room, but I was too tired to get up. He came out into the kitchen and climbed into my lap, head snuggled into my shoulder. "I needed some attention, Imma. I didn't have enough attention today." Pause. Sigh. "I had a long and crazy day today. That's why I need some attention now." Sounds like a good enough reason to me.

Things Iyyar Has Done This Week

1. Put both hands on his diaper, looked up at me sorrowfully, and intoned, "Boopy. Boopy." And he was right.

2. Learned to say please. Pizza is a powerful motivator.

3. Found the little pink plastic chair, dragged it over to my bed, and used it as a stepladder to get up there and attempt to pet the cat. That last part was not successful. She'll be faster than him for a long time yet.

4. Started to say "blankie" ("gangee!")

5. Realized that it feels good when I put vaseline on his chapped cheeks, and come up to me with face up requesting to be shmeared.

Let the record note

that yesterday, for the very first time, Iyyar called me Imma! He says "Amma" just like Barak did.

Various

1. Iyyar has moved from being obsessed with balls to being obsessed with the cat. Whenever he sees her, he points at her, looks at me, and crows, "Cah! Cah!" Then he points again and looks at me again, meaningfully, to check that I got it. The cat is pretty predictable in her habits and is usually to be found sitting on Abba's side of the bed. This morning, she wasn't, and when Iyyar came looking for her (direct from crib release) he was perturbed. And started picking up the blankets to peek under them, in case she was hiding in there.

2. Barak does things with toys that I can't even pretend to understand. Yesterday, he had all the Little People animals carefully arranged on the xylophone, which was attached to a dump truck by the xylophone's mallet. The dump truck had a few dinosaurs in it. When it was time to clean up, he carefully brought the entire apparatus back to the toy boxes, and explained to me, "Dey can come off now because dey went to da hospital and dey got medicine and now baruch hashem dey feel better." Okay then. Baruch Hashem.

3. The house is still moderately clean. I'm trying really hard not to let it slide, because it's just so nice like this. My favorite part: the nakedly exposed top surface of the triple dresser, on which I can now fold laundry.

4. I washed sweaters last night. I do this in the washing machine, but stopping and starting the cycle by hand (the reason why I bought a top-loader). My original intention was also to wash the fabulous maternity-sized Rogue my friend Cecilia made me. Then I realized that it would in fact require a load all of its own. Even though we have an extra-large-capacity washer.

5. I would just like to announce to the whole world that my husband rocks. Yesterday he put back two light fixtures and assembled Iyyar's new stroller (our seventh, if anyone's still counting). This from a person whose un-handiness was once legendary, and who still deeply resents the need for anything to be fixed, assembled, reassembled or otherwise, you know, dealt with on a physical plane. But he does it. Last night I told his father that he (my husband) had caulked the bathtub. There was a short pause of disbelief. "Caulked the bathtub?" Another pause. "Are you sure?"

6. Last night I took a foray into amateur shoemakerhood and fixed MHH's broken Crocs with a tapestry needle and about ten inches of silk noil. It worked, and hardly even shows. More reasons to knit, or at least to marry someone who knits.

7. The LL Bean sale page is up, which is usually the mainstay of my year's clothing shopping. Not much appealing this year though, at least to me--no women's skirts (!) and no heavyweight fleece pajamas in toddler sizes (although they did have boys' small, which I got for Barak).

Back to work. I think the whole office has taken this week off--it's the middle of the morning and I still haven't had a single call or email, which must be a first.

Please tell me it is normal

for three-year-old boys to be obsessed with all things scatological. The poopy humor ("humor" here being extremely loosely defined) has gotten to the point where all mention of things poopy has been banned from all parts of the house other than the bathroom (for obvious reasons) and the kids' room (where diapers are changed). If Barak starts shrieking about poop while, say, at the kitchen table, he is asked to relocate his one-person conversation to one of the permissible sites of poop discussion.

It's a phase, right? Right?

Still no new babysitter--T minus about a week and a half. I'm off today, but Barak and MHH are at school, so I have a rare quiet morning with Iyyar. We ran some errands this morning (in our 'hood, hardly anybody cares what day today is so almost everything is open, except the Russian stores of course), came home and played a bit, then made carrot pancakes for a mid-morning snack. Said pancakes will also serve as dinner for Barak and Iyyar; right now, Iyyar's napping, and I'm about to make some chicken soup for dinner tomorrow night and Shabbos. MHH's parents are scheduled to arrive tomorrow evening, and I want to have something ready for when they arrive. Stay tuned.

A brief shining moment

There are no dust kitties under any of the furniture.

There is nothing in any of the dishracks.

All the toys are in their proper bins.

There are no little fingerprints on the walls or doorframes.

There are clean sheets on all of the beds.

All of the laundry is done, folded, and put away.

All the closets are clean and organized.

So far as I know, there is not one dirty tissue hiding anywhere it shouldn't.

It hasn't happened since erev Pesach 2006. Who knows when it will happen again?

But for one... beautiful... moment...

My house is clean.

RFP

Further to the subject of food, can anybody think of anything I can cook for dinner that Barak is likely to eat? It seems like we are eating doodles cheese about four times a week, which, given that two other nights a week are, practically speaking, Shabbos, means an awful lot of doodles cheese. It's seeming a bit much.

There is nothing wrong with doodles cheese. I use whole-wheat noodles, I add a lot of spinach, and the only other ingredient in cheese. But... enough is enough. Sometimes I make carrot pancakes. Sometimes I make carrot muffins, which, ingredient-wise, are the same thing, with walnuts. Sometimes we have parve chicken nuggets and corn, and sometimes I make pizza, but since Barak won't touch it if it involves anything but dough and cheese, I might as well make him a grilled cheese sandwich. When I make doodles cheese I also make a big pot of vegetables, which he is required to leave in front of him but I do not force him to eat. Whatever I am cooking, he has a plate of sliced cucumbers/peppers/carrots to munch on while he waits, so it's not like he isn't getting anything. Still.

On Friday nights, Barak will happily eat chicken soup with knaidlach, and I tell myself that some of the nutrition from the vegetables must surely be in the broth. Saturday night, it being Shabbos and all, I usually let the kids have cereal and yogurt.

Suggestions, anyone?

In other news, Iyyar has an appointment with an allergist on Thursday. Twice after eating a certain brand of hummous, and then twice on subsequent Shabbosim, he's broken out all over with a bright red rash. He eats just about everything with no problem, so I'm thinking the problem must be legumes, which we tend not to eat much of during the week. He never had a problem with cholent before, but the last couple of weeks I switched from beans to lentils--maybe that's doing it. Anyway, we'll see. We've got major allergies on both sides of the family so I'm hoping we're not in for anything major here.

Trying not to panic

Asnat called last night. She is not coming back from LA. Too sunny there.

And our new babysitter called this afternoon. She has found a new job, with more hours and relevant to what she wants to do as a career.

So, that leaves me with eight hours a week of childcare (when I work twenty-five hours) for the next however many weeks of work (possibly as many as eight, although given precedent probably more like six). And then, IY"H, eight hours a week of help at home when I'll have a brand-new baby, a 21-month-old, and a currently rather volatile 3.5-year-old. MHH gets three personal days, which will probably get used up between my actually having the baby and being in the hospital. So chances are very high that I will walk in the door with the new baby and immediately be on my own with everyone for every waking minute, less the eight hours of the week that our original (fabulous) babysitter will be here.

I need to get something else figured out. Really, really soon.

Observed reality

As I've mentioned here before, one of Barak and Iyyar's favorite walk destinations is the mat room. The mat room is located inside the J, which also houses, among other things, a gym for grownups. Last Sunday, we were talking (we being me and Barak) about all going to the J so we could go to the mat room, but Barak opted instead to play in his pajamas all morning, and letting him do so seemed to me an option infinitely preferable to forcing him to get dressed so I could go push a stroller for a mile in the snow and freezing cold. Abba, however, wanted to go work out, so after davening he headed out to the J on his own. After the door closed, Barak felt a pang of regret.

"Where's Abba going?"

"He's going to the J."

"Hiss going to the J by hisself?"

"Yep."

Pause while Barak considers this.

"Why?"

"He wants to go to the gym."

"He wants to go to the gym by himself?"

"M-hm."

"Why?"

"He likes going to the gym."

Another pause.

"I sink iss not gonna work."

"What do you mean, it's not going to work?"

"I sink Abba is too big."

"He's too big? Why is he too big?"

"I sink hiss too big for da tunnel."

Ohhh. The tunnel in the baby play equipment in the mat room.

"No, sweetie, Abba's not going to go play in the mat room. He's going to the gym. That's in the J, but it's different. You've never been in there."

"What's Abba gonna do dere?"

"He's going to work out. He's going to..." How do I explain "work out"? "He's going to lift a lot of heavy things, and then he's going to run around a lot and get hot and tired."

Barak stared. Then he burst out laughing, because clearly I was just messing with him, because Abba NEVER runs around. Abba sits on the couch. With books.

Explanations

I love it when Barak explains things to me. He goes into earnest toddler mode, with lots of expressive hand gestures and much brow-furrowing. "Because dis, Imma, dis one goes dere," he informs me, punctuating his sentence with an emphatic point.

Yesterday, he closed his hand in his pajama drawer. I could tell right away he wasn't badly hurt, despite the full-volume howl--I asked him a question mid-wail and he stopped to ask, "What?" Then he came over and showed me his hand, upon my request.

"Where does it hurt? Show me."

"It hurts here. Dese ones hurt. See, dis one and dis one and dis one and dis one. But not dese ones. Dese ones [indicating un-squished hand] are okay. But dese ones [indicating hand of Tragic Drawer Injury] are all pinchy."

* * *

Lately, Barak has taken it into his head that he wants to sleep in underwear, not a pullup. This would be fine with me if he a) made this decision sufficiently prior to bedtime for me to enforce a fluid intake limit, and b) could actually stay dry during the night. He did really well one time, but the other two or three times--not so much. Last night he woke up at about 10 soaked and howling. "Imma! I pished in my unnerwear! IIIIIMMMMAAAAAA!!"

I got him up and changed, putting him in some plaid flannel pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt (the better, I thought, for unaided nighttime potty trips.) Barak was not immediately convinced. "Imma, dose are not pajamas," he informed me. "Dose are for dressed in da morning."

"Sometimes," I said. "But they can also be pajama pants. Like Abba wears. Abba doesn't wear fuzzy pajamas with a zipper, right? Abba wears pajama pants and an undershirt. See, like you're wearing. Abba wears pajama pants just like that." Barak considered this and decided he agreed. And went back to bed with no problem.

This morning, though, he woke up again soaked, and smelly. He definitely had to have a bath before school, so I herded both boys into the bathtub as soon as they woke up. I helped Barak peel off his wet pajama bottoms. He dropped them on top of MHH's pajama bottoms, which were slouched in a pile in the corner of the bathroom floor. "Imma, look!" he exclaimed. "Dose are Abba's pajama pants and my pajama pants! Dey match!"

* * *

When Barak was Iyyar's age, and up until pretty recently, he really wanted approval. If I asked him to do something, he would do it more or less immediately, with a big grin on my "Good job!" If he saw that I was annoyed, he got upset, either inwardly or outwardly. By eighteen months, his response to "Barak, no!" was "ooh--busted."

Iyyar's response to "Iyyar! No!" is, "Hee hee! Gonna make me?"

It doesn't help that Iyyar has a partner in crime, but I think most of it is just his personality. Yesterday, Barak and Iyyar decided to make a mess. I was in the living room listening to them play in the bedroom, and heard, "Iyyar! Let's make a mess! Let's make a mess, Iyyar!" I came in to their room to find that they'd completely emptied the whole bookcase, other than the unreachable top shelf, of all books and toys. "Barak, did you make a big mess?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay, so now we need to clean it up." I helped, but I made Barak pick up all the toys and all the books, put together all the puzzles, and get everything back on the shelves. So far, so good.

Until Iyyar remembered how much fun it was to make a mess, and with a gleam of determination in his eye headed back to the bookshelf and started ripping all the books off the shelves. At 31 weeks, I was not so into the idea of crawling around the floor picking things up again, and he was about to undo all of Barak's hard work. "Iyyar!"I shrieked, in a serious "DO NOT DO THAT!" tone. "Iyyar, NO! No, no, no!" Iyyar just laughed, and pulled them all off the shelf until I grabbed him away.

He completely ignores most no's and also all requests to come here--I remember that at this age Barak didn't come reliably, but he did come most of the time. (Do not compare children, do not compare children, do not compare children... ) Iyyar only comes if he thinks I've got something good for him--lunch, for example, or a ball, or socks. Did I mention that Iyyar loves having his socks put on? Sometimes he'll even take socks out of the drawer for himself, and try to put them on on top of his existing socks (and shoes). It doesn't work so well, but he'll never know if he doesn't try. If he starts dropping things off his high chair tray and I say no, he'll look me right in the eye and drop one more thing--now, the first time he drops, I just take his whole tray away and that's it. Ditto with hitting--one hit and he goes in the crib alone for a minute, which sometimes he minds and sometimes he really doesn't. Would it be mean of me to take all the blankies out of his crib before putting him in?

* * *

I think I may have mentioned here oh, forty or fifty thousand times that Barak has never been a good sleeper. Last night, he had one wakeup because of a wet bed, which was understandable. But he also woke up, at 1 and 2 and 5, with much less urgent requests. "Imma! I needa book! IIMMAA! I need you to get a book for me!" I told him to go back to bed, of course. "I don't wanna shluff. I needa book!" I refused to get out of bed, and tried as hard as I could to sleep through his pleas. Eventually, I got up and put him back in bed, where he stayed, howling.

I don't remember what the problem was the second round, but it involved Barak screaming in his room and then coming into my room to scream some more. The third time, he started out screaming about needing a truck or whatever it was, and then segued into screaming that his eyes hurt. MHH really doesn't like it when he does that, because he feels it's crying wolf--one of these days, he really will be hurt and we'll ignore it. "IMMA! IMMA! IIIIIMMMMMAAAAA!" He screamed and screamed and screamed, and this time did not wake up Iyyar. I started to get worried, not about him, but about Iyyar--how could he possibly be sleeping through such volume.

I nudged my husband. "He's screaming for me, so I don't want to go in there, but can you make sure everything's okay? I don't know how Iyyar can be sleeping through this." MHH heaved himself out of bed and trudged in there. "Barak, it's late. Imma needs to shluff. If you wake Imma up at night, she'll be grumpy tomorrow and nobody will have any fun. Go back to sleep." I was asleep again by the end of the sentence, and the next thing I knew my husband was back in bed. "I told him to go back to sleep. Iyyar was snoring."

I guess he's adapted.

For the record

two of them turned up; the tractor kippah, which was under the couch, and the excavator one, which mysteriously appeared right in the drawer where it should have been all along and categorically wasn't half an hour earlier. Not that I'm complaining.

Still hunting for the firetruck and the aleph-beis. Speaking of aleph-beis, last night Barak identified all the letters on the dreidel, even distinguishing between a gimel and a nun without prompting--not so easy, especially with the fancy type on that dreidel.

And I'm almost afraid to ask this question, but, um, how long does it take for small boys to stop gleefully inserting the word "poop" into almost every sentence? For a while Barak was shouting "Vayishlach tummy!" which I never figured out at all, but now he's returned to the liberal scatological references. Right now he is running around yelling "Iyyar! You poop! Iyyar! You poop!" Which, while technically accurate... anyway.

Iyyar's new thing is trying to attach his toothbrush, which has a suction cup on the bottom for sticking the toothbrush to the sink, to every possible surface (and some that really aren't possible at all, but he'll never know if he doesn't try). He was amazingly cooperative during yesterday's pre-Chanuka-party latke-frying marathon (ten pounds of potatoes, one borrowed food processor, and one--ONE--frying pan, capacity six latkes. It took three hours.) Toward the end, MHH came into the kitchen and saw Iyyar yelling gleefully at the top of his lungs while banging my entire set of milchig measuring cups and spoons (which are steel) on his high chair tray. "Is he supposed to have those?" he asked. "I gave them to him," I said. "What do you think goes on here every afternoon you come home to find I've actually cooked dinner? "

How?!

Barak has four kippot. FOUR. He has an excavator kippah, a firetruck kippah, a tractor kippah, and an aleph-beis kippah. Kippot one through three were custom made for him by my friend, with his name and favorite heavy machinery. Kippah number four was bought from the man with the truck. As of this moment, ALL FOUR of them are MIA. I am pretty sure they are all in the house somewhere, because I would have noticed if Barak had left the house with a kippa and returned without. Wintertime is hazardous for kippot, I know, because they get stuck in hoods and the like, but I really do think they're in the house. ALL FOUR of them. But where?!

Food

Iyyar, these days, still eats just about anything. The only things he doesn't really like are raw fruit and vegetables, and I think that's a texture thing--he'll put them in his mouth, suck on them for a minute, and then spit them out.

Barak, on the other hand, is still a pretty seriously picky eater. I don't worry about it from a health perspective, because he eats a wide enough range of nutritious food that I know he's getting what he eats, but it would be nice if he'd branch out a little--and it is a little difficult that he will hardly eat anything at your average Shabbos table. If there's some noodle kugel or apple kugel or pumpkin kugel, he's good, but otherwise, it's challah, grape juice, and off to play. But he'll eat just about any fruit I give him (he doesn't like peaches or kiwi, but other than that he'll eat it all). He happily eats whole wheat or brown rice pasta, plain brown rice, all of our sugar-free whole-grain cereals, granola with unsweetened yogurt, whole-wheat and natural peanut-butter sandwiches without jam--etc. Of course, he'd rather eat strawberry yogurt and waffles, but he knows that those are treats.

Vegetable-wise, he'll eat plain sliced cucumbers without the peel, carrots when grated and inserted into carrot pancakes or carrot muffins, and spinach when mixed into doodles cheese. I can't ever give him doodles cheese without spinach, because if I do it once it takes ten mealtimes of misery and struggle for the spinach to be acceptable again. But it's been such a long time since he's had the spinach-free variety--since early September, I think--that we've now gotten to a point where there's almost as much spinach in there as there is noodle, and he'll eat it perfectly happily.

In general, Barak and new foods don't really get along. A teaspoon of tomato sauce gives a whole pot of noodles the cooties. Latkes? Forget it. The only way to eat a potato is French fried. Meat? Straight-up bologna or hot dogs, or never mind. Pizza? Cf. "tomato sauce" and "cooties," above. Anything with any ingredient he doesn't immediately recognize is immediately dismissed from consideration.

So I was a little bit surprised when, while cooking dinner and munching on carrot sticks earlier this week, I got a request. "Imma, c'I have a carrot stick please?" Um, okay. I handed him a carrot stick. He ate it. "C'I have another one?" I handed him another one. He ate three.

Tonight, I was making dinner, which consisted of brown rice spaghetti with, you guessed it, spinach and cheese; peas; and a pot of zucchini and red peppers with garlic. Barak watched me slicing the peppers. I thought I'd try. "Barak, do you want a red pepper stick?" "Umm, yes please." I handed him a pepper stick. He ate it. "C'I have another one please?" I handed him another one. He ate another three. "I like pepper sticks. Pepper sticks are the best!"

Hmm. What else can I slip him while this phase lasts?

Seven things

1. The kids, for 90% of this afternoon, were great. This is highly notable because Barak's behavior for the last, oh, month or two has been really, really challenging. As in, really REALLY challenging. This morning was OK, and apparently he had a rough start at school (I got two phone calls) but once he got home he was just great--as in his old/normal sweet self.

He was being so cooperative, in fact, that I wanted to find something fun for him to do, so I found an empty Sterilite box (I use those to store most of their toys, so I always have a few extras around), filled it about a quarter full with the odds and ends of pasta that were hiding out in my cupboards, along with a couple of handfuls of rice, and put it on the kitchen table along with his box of Matchbox trucks. I told him that he could bulldoze and build what was in the box as long as he kept everything on the kitchen table and didn't make a mess. Could he do that? Yes, he could.

So I closed the baby gate into the kitchen and went to clean up the living room with Iyyar. Barak not only spilled next to nothing on the floor, he entertained himself happily and quietly for at least an hour and a half. During which time Iyyar enjoyed a rare spell of undivided attention, and I got to put away laundry, organize toys, and do all that fun stuff. Wow.

2. I have a tichel storage solution! Thanks for all your suggestions. I checked out the links and pondered the possibilities, but being as I didn't want to spend a lot of money on this didn't really want to buy 10 scarf hangers for my hundred-tichel collection. But they gave me an idea. As I may have mentioned here I think that the best investment ever created on the baby toy front is the $2.99 package of plastic linking rings I got Barak at Target. Well, as of now they have a new role in life. I linked them all together, hung the chain from my closet rod, and threaded a scarf through each hole. Presto--nearly instant tichel storage. All I need is another 3 packages of them, and I'm set.

3. If you have been expecting a package for me and have despaired of its ever showing up, take heart. There is a stack of packages like you wouldn't believe piled up on the bed behind me, and if all goes well I intend to mail them all tomorrow. Stay tuned.

4. A few years ago, when I first started toying with the idea of selling my loom, I asked my knitting buddy Cecilia what she would do with a $1000 yarn purchasing allowance. I wasn't seriously intending on using all the money from the loom to buy yarn (because as I may have mentioned I do have some already) but I felt it would be reasonable to put aside some portion of the proceeds of a loom sale for future unjustifiable purchases of a woolly nature. I don't remember her initial list, but a lot of Noro and a complete set of Clover needles were involved.

I did sell my loom in August, and set aside half of the money for future fiber-related purchases. I thought this was reasonable; I was selling the loom because I needed the space, and using the proceeds to fund more fibery stuff was not actually purchasing anything, just trading, right? Anyway, it went into my PayPal account, and there most of it stayed through the autumn--when I got into my third trimester.

I don't know about anyone else but I now have a three-pregnancy track record of serious fiber activity in my third trimester. As in, nonstop obsessive knitting, and yarn acquisition completely out of proportion to any hope of knitting time. When I was pregnant with Barak, I remember several sizable Webs orders; with Iyyar, it was Elann.com and sock yarn. Well, this time around, I actually had a budget to do some damage with. And... well. I now have an Ott-Lite, a greatly expanded stash of Socks that Rock mediumweight, a pretty good collection of Opal (already diminished by recent knitting activity), some new sock knitting bags from my favorite Etsy shop, and, um, quite a lot of new knitting needles.

5. And speaking of knitting needles--well, I could try to blame Grandma E for those, but that wouldn't be quite fair. She did, it is true, turn up on her last visit with a set of the new KnitPicks nickel-plated Options needles. She did sing their praises and tell marvelous tales of the smoothness of their joins and the sharpness of their tips. However, she did direct several pointed looks at the open closet door on which is hung my entire admittedly expansive collection of circular needles. And perhaps, when I murmured something about possibly wanting some Options needles of my own, her seemingly straight-faced reply of "Because you don't have enough needles," might have had just a touch of, oh, I don't know, sarcasm. Probably not though. Right?

Anyway, I did buy some of the Options needles in the laminated wood, along with some of their DPs in size 0. And I must say that they are now my favorite needles ever. They are smooth, they are sharp, they are warm and they are light. With a few sets of tips and cords, you suddenly have almost any size circular needle you could need, other than the 16" ones (which I don't often use anyway, since I prefer DPs.) And speaking of DPs--their DPs come in sets of six. Six!

AND, so far at least, they do not bend. Usually after a mere two pairs of socks my bamboo DPs are C-shaped. I've had these for a few weeks and they have been in pretty much constant use, and there is nary a sign of warping. Plus, they are very lovely to look at. I only bought them in the 0s, and now I am eyeing the full set of sock needles in sizes 0-3. But I will resist. Really. I will. Even though Cecilia already bought them and had them sent here for me to send on to her in Australia, where KnitPicks does not ship, and I have been gazing at them longingly for quite a while now. I will resist, because I have completed my fiber shopping for this pregnancy--even though Grandma E is right, and I don't have enough needles.

6. Iyyar is talking more and more now. He is quite fascinated by Emese and points at her with exclamations of "Cah! Cah!" He also is very into socks, for some reason, and not only sticks his foot out for me to put socks onto, he occasionally gets himself more socks out of his sock drawer and tries to pull an extra sock or two on top of his shoes. It doesn't work so well, but he enjoys it, and that's what matters, right?

7. I had been gaining weight faster than I wanted to so a few weeks ago decided to banish white flour and white sugar from my diet during the week. I'll eat it on Shabbos (which includes Saturday night, because otherwise how would I eat pizza?) but have been pretty vigilant about not touching it otherwise. No white pasta, no white bread, no trips to the bakery, but other than those two banned ingredients I eat what I want. Tonight, dinner was brown rice spaghetti with spinach and cheese, a big pot of onions and mushrooms sauteed in butter, and latkes. Clearly, I am not starving myself or anyone else around here. Yet to my shock and delight, at my last prenatal I found out I hadn't gained any weight all month! Baby, B"H, is growing fine, but I didn't gain any weight. Woohoo! So far I've gained 20 lb, with officially 10 weeks to go (although I've never gone past 38 weeks before, so it's probably more like 7 or 8 weeks to go) so if I can make it through Chanuka without tripping up too badly, I might actually have this baby at the same weight I was when I had Barak, even though I started out this time about, oh, 15 lb up from my starting weight then. Even if I gain close to a pound a week, which right now I'm not doing. That'd be nice, wouldn't it?

Tichel storage

Does anybody out there have a good way of storing tichels (headscarves)? I currently have a pretty large drawer crammed with them, courtesy of my friend who spent the summer in Israel, found a place that sold them for 8 shekel each, and brought me back thirty--that's right, thirty--of them. (But as I like to point out, my entire expansive tichel collection still costs less than one good sheitel. Or even one cheap one.) When my tichels live in my drawer they a) get wrinkled and b) hide from me when I'm looking for the only one I own that matches whatever it is I'm wearing. Besides that, they're pretty, and it's sort of a shame to hide them all in there. I googled "tichel storage" and, oddly enough, came up with nothing.

Ideas?

Hard day

Sometimes, Barak has a hard day. A hard day means lots of counting, lots of misbehaving, lots of Imma mentally counting to ten, lots of time outs. At night, when I'm putting the kids to bed, I'll ask him if he had a good day or a hard day. Usually, even if he had a good day, he'll say he had a hard day. Then he'll sigh an age-old sigh and tell me wearily, "I don't like having a hard time."

Yeah, well, Imma doesn't like it either.

I could give a recap of the day, but I'd rather just let it be water under the bridge. Three and a half is the hardest, right? Right? Right? (Don't start telling me about the teenage years. I'm not even thinking about that yet.)

And he's frum too

My husband and I occasionally joke about what will and won't be mentioned in his Artscroll biography. I'm not sure where this came from, but I think it started with his sister, who likes to tell her kids Uncle MHH stories (like the last time their family ate in a non-kosher restaurant--the cheese pizza they ordered had a piece of pepperoni hiding under the cheese and my husband, aged ten or so, apparently flipped out magnificently). "That's going to go in your Artscroll biography," she tells him.

Anyway, here is something that isn't going in anyone's Artscroll biography, but should: to wit, what a serious yirat shamayim does when a woman starts nursing her baby next to him in an airport.

Discipline

I am beginning to find out just why it is that discipline is hard. Because I am used to being the center of my kids' universe; because I want them to like me; because I want to be their friend; for all those reasons that, sometimes, you just have to get over.

We tried the sticker chart, and it worked great for the first three days. Yesterday--not so much. It was not entirely Barak's fault; I'd been out all afternoon helping out a friend, and he and Iyyar had been with Abba, which meant lots of fun but not so much structure. When I came home, after bedtime, they were all still eating dinner (peanut butter and crackers and yogurt). Baths weren't happening at that point, and Barak was starting to get his post-bedtime hyper-wound-up look. The one in which he squinches his whole mouth over to one side of his face, and you know you're in for it. What I probably should have done was move Iyyar, who is generally really easy to get to sleep, straight into bed, and taken my time with Barak. Instead, I moved right to bedtime with both of them, which in retrospect was a mistake. Barak did not want to go to bed. He refused to go to bed, in fact, and even after I'd put them both in bed, turned out the light, and left, he came out and screamed. I put him back, calmly. He came out. I put him back again and counted, giving him time between counts along with plenty of reminders that there was going to be a sticker tomorrow morning if he could go to bed nicely but if he continued screaming he would lose the sticker. I got to three, he lost his sticker, he didn't CARE about his sticker and didn't WANT to go to bed. I closed the door.

And he did what he hasn't done since the last time I got scary in his face--picked up the biggest, heaviest toy he could find and started swinging it against the door. Hard. That I couldn't ignore, because a) he'll break the door if he keeps it up and b) if he ever does that with another child behind him, we could be heading to the emergency room. I had to get him to stop. So I opened the door, got in his face, and calmly but forcefully (I hope) told him that what he was doing was NOT OKAY and he had to stop it and get into bed. He said no. I said it again. He said no again.

What now? I couldn't think of anything good, so I said, "Barak, if you do not get into bed right now I will take your whole sticker chart and put it in the garbage."

Ohhhh.

I think it was a combination of the scary face and the incredibly mean threat but he fell apart sobbing and got into bed. Once he was clearly getting into bed, I went over, gave him a kiss, and tucked him in, as he told me, hiccuping and mostly unintelligible, that he didn't want me to put his sticker chart in the garbage. He went to sleep. I went back into my office feeling like the Worst Mother Ever. How mean was that to say I was going to put his whole sticker chart in the garbage? Um... very? But I couldn't think of anything else.

Bleah.

Today has been great, though. Barak was fun, Iyyar was fun, Barak played nicely with Iyyar and not only that, he spontaneously cleaned up a couple of times. He also did a couple of things I thought were so cool. One was display again the fact that he has a memory that borders on what a certain friend of mine would term "freakish." To wit...

Last year, just before Chanuka, I bought a big box of Clics, meaning them for a Chanuka gift/activity for the boys and their visiting cousins. Once I took the box out, though, it was clearly a mistake; six kids, three of whom were still putting things in their mouths, and the pieces were instantly going everywhere. I tried taking them out a couple of times and then just put them away. They've been on top of the armoire ever since, never mentioned, barely visible. Today, since Barak was being so cooperative and Iyyar was being so mellow, I thought I'd try it again. I took down the box and f0und an empty plastic box, and sorted the pieces into choking hazard/non-choking-hazard sizes. While I did this, Barak cleared up the rest of the toys. Then I put away the box of little pieces and set the big pieces down on the floor for the kids to play with. Barak looked at them. "Clics are for Chanuka," he informed me. "They're for Chanuka when Tanta Sara is here." Which was a year ago.

And tonight, while I was cuddling with Barak in the rocking chair at bedtime (striving desperately to avoid a repeat of last night) we talked about the sticker chart. "How many stickers are on your chart?" "Three!" "And how many do you need to get a treat?" "Five!" Then I asked, "How many more stickers do you need for your treat?" "One, two!" Mental math! Wow.

Oh, and I didn't mention Iyyar's time out. This happened on Thursday, I think. I took out the box of what we call little Lego, which is actually the medium-sized Lego--between "choking hazard" and "little baby" sized. Barak built what was an actual recognizable crane, using pieces of fence for the crane's arm. Iyyar saw it and started stalking it. We had a few rounds of Barak howling no, Iyyar lunging for the crane, and Imma running interference. Yes, we share our toys, but Barak is by no means expected to allow Iyyar to come destroy his Lego creations. I talked to Barak about how to tell Iyyar no, how to make a "no no" face, etc. There was no question that Iyyar knew perfectly well that he wasn't supposed to grab Barak's crane, but he kept grinning and trying it anyway. Again, and again, and again.

Eventually, Barak sat building with his Lego pieces between the wall and the dresser and his back to Iyyar, while I tried to keep Iyyar distracted with other things. Then, over the space of just a minute, Iyyar found a toy plastic orange section and started tossing it around; Barak got interested; the orange section went in the air, both of them went for it on all fours, and Barak slammed his head hard into the corner of the armoire, giving himself a big bump on his forehead. Ohhh.

I sat down with a wailing Barak, while Iyyar squatted on the floor with his trophy (he'd gotten the orange wedge) and watched. And then remembered the now unguarded crane. And went over, grabbed it, and broke it. Gleefully, while looking right at me. Ha ha, Imma! You weren't fast enough and I got it!

Barak, naturally enough, started howling at an earsplitting pitch. I went over, picked up Iyyar, said "NO! Iyyar, you don't touch that! You're going in your crib." I picked up the remnants of the crane, went into the hall, and beckoned to a suddenly silent Barak to come with me. We went into the kitchen while Iyyar screamed his protest, and reassembled the crane.

"Iyyar broke my crane. Dat wasn't nice. He's not sposeda do dat."

"I know, sweetie. You're right. That's why Iyyar's having a time out. He didn't listen to Imma, right? And when you don't listen to Imma and you keep not listening, then you get a time out."

"Also Iyyar gets a time out?"

"Right, also Iyyar."

"Oh."

The day had been a little bumpy until then, but after that point I had a magically transformed happy cooperative little boy for the rest of the day. Oh wait--there isn't a double standard where Iyyar gets to do whatever he wants and I get time-outs! Iyyar gets time-outs too! How about that...

And since this post has been mostly about Barak, I will mention that yesterday, when I came back from my friend's house, I came back with her eight-week-old baby in a car seat. We were only a few blocks away, she'd had to take the car seat out of her car, and it was faster for me to walk back with the baby than it would have been to put the car seat back in. So in I walked with a tiny little baby. Iyyar stared. "Ba," he said. "Baby," I said. "Ba ba," said Iyyar. "Baby," I said. "Bah bee!" he said, grinning and pointing in total, obvious delight.

Let's hope he's still as excited about bah bees about two months from now...

On screaming and hitting

You already know it's going to be a good one, right?

So, Barak is three and a half. He has tantrums. He tests limits. He does a whole lot of things he shouldn't do. I remind myself, through gritted teeth, that this is a normal developmental stage. I try, very very hard, to be patient.

Iyyar is one and a half. Mostly, he's still a baby. He's way easier than Barak in a lot of ways. He's mellow. He's happy-go-lucky. But now he has a temper. He's starting to experiment. And he wants to do everything Barak does.

When Barak was Iyyar's age, if he did something like hit me, I would just say "no hitting!" very sternly, put him in his crib, walk away, and close the door. I'd come back a minute later, say "no hitting" again,and carry on. Barak didn't hit much.

When Iyyar hits, I say "no hitting," very sternly. But Barak laughs his head off. And Iyyar sees Barak laugh, and he giggles, and then the two of them reinforce each other. If Iyyar hits Barak, Barak thinks it's funny.

I've tried explaining to Barak that if he laughs, Iyyar thinks it's okay, so he shouldn't laugh when Imma's saying no. But he does. He just thinks it's funny, so he laughs.

To be fair, the only time either of them hits is when they're really, really frustrated or hurt. Iyyar banged his head on the side of the dresser today and got mad enough to hit the dresser. (Both my kids do this--they get mad at inanimate objects. I once saw Barak bite his Lego because they wouldn't stay stacked the way he wanted.)

Now, I know that they are boys and they are brothers, and I don't think any two boys ever grew up together without whaling on each other every so often. My friend Chana has three boys, aged 4, 6 and 8 (or so), and her policy is that she only interferes when she thinks there is about to be a medical emergency. I don't think that that's completely unreasonable, and understand its sanity-preserving attributes, but I also have a deeply entrenched attachment to the "We. Do. Not. Hit." policy that is currently in place.

This evening was pretty difficult. Iyyar didn't nap enough, and both kids woke up way too early. They did pretty well throughout the afternoon, considering, but by bedtime, we had reached meltdown. Iyyar clearly needed to go to bed, and was happy to get into his crib with his blankets. Barak, however, decided that he was not going to bed. He kvetched, he protested, he did everything at a snail's pace, he procrastinated and whined. And when we finally got there, he simply refused, point-blank, to get into bed. What are you going to do now, Imma?

What indeed? He's not in a crib anymore, so I can't just put him in there and walk away. I did not want to get into a situation of trying anything physical. I wanted to stay calm. So I said, Barak, it's time to go to bed now, and I just turned out the lights, closed the gate into the kitchen, went into my office and closed the door, leaving a hysterically screaming Barak in the hall outside his room. I got some chocolate pretzels and started reading the Education section of the Times while Iyyar started wailing too. Barak was howling that he needed a toy (the latest in a looooong stream of bedtime-delaying tactics) and Iyyar was howling because Barak was howling. I ignored it. MHH came home and told me about his day. The howling continued. I asked him to go and make sure nobody was actually hurt. He left. I heard quiet, then the distinctive creak of the glider rocker. He came back. "I gave Barak the stuffed sheep and rocked Iyyar. Why was he so upset?" "He was upset because Barak was upset." "Why was Barak upset?" "He didn't want to go to bed." "Oh."

I wonder if it's time for a bedtime sticker chart. But when he gets like this, there is no motivation or threat that works--he just hates, hates, hates going to bed, and always has, and judging by his father and grandfather's attitude toward bedtime, probably always will.

Maybe we'll do the sticker chart anyway. Can't hurt, right? But I am open to other suggestions.

and yesterday

Asnat turned up looking both dreamy and troubled. I asked her what was going on. Silence. Then, "I met a boy..."

So now she's thinking about staying here instead of moving to LA. Barak was sitting at the table eating breakfast. "Barak, do you want Asnat to stay or do you want her to go away?" Barak, bless him, looked up in alarm. "I want Asnat to stay." Good boy.

So, we'll see. I told her I needed to know for sure this week, so as to give the newly hired backup babysitter enough notice. I think she's staying though.

On the subject of Barak (sort of), what is it about three-year-olds and reality? This morning Barak woke up (too early) and started asking Abba for the Commander Salamander book (otherwise known as Commander Toad and the Space Pirates, by Jane Yolen--probably tied in Barak's worldview with Hershel and the Chanuka Goblins for world's best literary work). Abba, who was finishing up caulking the bathtub and rushing to get ready for work, stopped what he was doing to look for it but couldn't find it. He told Barak he couldn't find it. Barak's response was to remind Abba, again and again and AGAIN, that he wanted the Commander Salamander book. Abba told Barak he didn't have it. Repeat. Then Barak came into my room and told me he wanted the Commander Salamander book. I attempted further reason, which usually works with him (but not this time, clearly):

"You want the Commander Salamander book, right?"

"Yeah. I wanna Commander Salamander book."

"Does Imma have the Commander Salamander book?"

"No."

"Does Imma know where it is?"

"No."

"Can Imma get it for you, even if you ask lots and lots of times and kvetch a lot?"

"No."

"So is it going to help if you keep asking and kvetching? Is that going to get you the Commander Salamander book?"

"No."

"Does it make you feel good to kvetch? Does it make Imma happy?"

"No."

"Okay, sweetie. So let's stop kvetching and find another book."

Pause.

"I needa Commander Salamander book please."

Repeat. Eventually, I got up, got dressed, got Iyyar dressed, and started getting breakfast, with Barak still tailing me pleading for Commander Salamander. It was a little too early in the morning for this so finally I said, "Barak, if you really really have to keep kvetching, please go do it in your room. I don't like listening to kvetching." And of course he fell down on the floor screaming and crying.

I know that three-year-olds are not fully rational, and I know that it is a developmental stage to think that wants can influence reality. As in, I want to turn on the light/play the xylophone/listen to Uncle Moishy, so it isn't Shabbos right now, or alternatively, I want to eat cookies/go to shul/not have Imma go to work, ergo it IS Shabbos right now. But, gah! I will admit, somewhat shamefully, that I did see several Commander Toad books on the top shelf out of sight, but decided not to give him one, lest he come to the conclusion that if he kvetches enough what he wants will miraculously appear. I don't think anyone (except possibly Barak) could blame me for that one.

Something interesting

Before we moved to where we are now, we lived in a small community in Massachusetts--a one-shul town with no eruv, no mikva, hardly any kosher food, and barely a minyan. The people there were really nice (hi, Ellen!), but there weren't many of them. About a year after we left, the shul's director did too--except that instead of heading to a bustling metropolis like we did, he decided to go somewhere with even fewer Jews and even less kosher food. Specifically, he joined the Army, and is now the only Jewish chaplain serving in Iraq. He's also really funny. He was home recently for a couple of weeks and gave a talk at the shul, which you can see here. It's kind of long, but really worth watching. The sound quality improves after the introduction.

From the mouths of the not yet grown up

A month or two ago--maybe more now--I realized that both Barak and Iyyar do much better with a 6 pm bedtime, not the 7 pm bedtime that had been in place for a very long time. They go to bed more easily, they fall asleep more easily, there are fewer evening meltdowns. They even wake up later in the morning, and generally in better moods. The drawback to all this improvement, of course, is that with a 6 pm bedtime they barely see Abba during the week. He leaves just as they are waking up (he usually gets an Iyyar diaper change in before he leaves and that's it) and comes home to kids who are either already in bed or in the last stages of bedtime.

So we try, a couple times a week, to visit Abba at work. He teaches till early afternoon and then he's in the school's beit medrash, where it's considered acceptable for abbas to spend half an hour here and there learning aleph-beis with their kids. So, when the weather is nice and Barak is having a good listening day, that's what we do. Barak sits and learns with Abba for a while, and I follow Iyyar around the halls and try to keep him out of the gym (the gym! the gym! there are balls in there! I can HEAR THEM BOUNCING!)

This afternoon, we went to learn with Abba. On the way out the backyard, Iyyar starting saying "Dai dai dai" in the stroller. I, of course, started singing "Dayeinu" to him. Barak stopped me.

"Imma, what are you singing?"

"I'm singing Dayeinu." I sang a few more verses.

"What's that song?"

"It's a Pesach song, sweetie. You'll sing it at Pesach. You'll probably learn it in school before Pesach and then we'll sing it after the Seder."

Barak looked up me, mildly indignant. "Imma, I don't know that song now. I didn't grow up yet."

* * *

I don't know why exactly but I find it hard to remember the sounds that both Barak and Iyyar have made at various stages of baby- and toddlerhood. Right now, Iyyar is just starting to say words and realize the utility of saying words. He'll come into his room, where one of the all-exciting balls is stuck under the armoire. "Bah!" he'll inform me, and I will promptly pull the ball out and give it to him. He will cackle with delight at his success ("Heh heh heh,") lift the ball over his head, drop it ("Dah pih!") and watch it go bounce, bounce, bounce. Then, of course, he'll chase after it, and repeat from step 1. He'll stand up and say "up!" and then sit down and say "dowww." He says thank you ("ta taw!") and Abba and Barak, sort of ("Ah yah!") Imma? No, not so much. He does, of course, say Bamba, every time he sees it and whenever we go into the Bamba-carrying store. Bamba, as I may have mentioned, is big around here (although neither Grandma E or I really see the appeal.)

He also, of course, carries on long soliloquies in Iyyar-ese. "Ai dai, dai dai dai. Ai dai, dai. Ai dai." And then. "Aye bai bee ba bee! Ah bee! Ah bee bee bee!" Then, when he sees that I am eating something that may look identical to what's right in front of him on a plate but he knows full well is vastly superior, "Ah bee bee be AAAAAAAAHHH!!!!" When he wants to come out of his high chair, if I've taken off the tray but been too slow to remove the actual child, he'll point at his seatbelted tummy with both hands. "Diss! Diss!" Take THIS off, Imma, and LET ME OUT NOW.

If I ask him for his bowl or cup, so as to refill it, he'll usually hand me the requested item. If he's playing with a toy car or bus, he'll say so, with a strangely Bostonian accent. "Cah," he intones. "Buh. Buh." And for some reason, whenever I take him out of his crib, he wails piteously for something on top of the bookshelf (which is next to his crib). But then I can hold him right up next to it and he's not sure what it is he wanted--I think it's just that he was in his crib looking up at that out-of-reach top shelf, the contents of which seemed so much more appealing from a little bit farther away.

Muttons

(Just so you know, a feature of Barak's speech these days is that when words begin with "b" he usually turns the "b" into an "m." So basement becomes masement, baking soda becomes making soda, buttons becomes muttons. Etc.)

I think I may fairly say that I am a reasonably accomplished knitter. I learned to knit when I was six, and I got into knitting in a serious way at the age of 20 or so. I spin my own yarn, I design my own garments, and I have done everything from gloves on 0s to a cabled Lopi coat on 10s.

However, these days, my knitting is very stop-and-start, which does not lend itself to serious Thinking Knitting. Since Barak was born, I've made a lot of socks, mittens, hats, and gloves--small and portable bus knitting. I've made plenty of sweaters, but they involve an awful lot of circular-knit stocking stitch. Not a lot of color patterns, unless it's in a yoke. (I did one allover color pattern and it took me MONTHS, arriving to its recipient at least three months behind schedule. Sorry, Sarah.) One lace shawl. A few spiral-yoke pullovers, a couple of raglans. The only cables I've done, I think, have been on the baby hat I made for Iyyar out of one skein of orange Koigu--and that took me months to finish, because I never had the time for any knitting I had to look at.

This doesn't mean that I can't knit the kind of thing that's impressive to non-knitters, just that I don't do it much these days. However, I am fortunate to have knitting friends, some of whom have stepped right into the breach and supplied my kids with some truly stunning knitwear. Tanta Cecilia, particularly, has made my kids unbelievable cabled hoodie cardigans which they wear more or less all the time (scroll down for a picture of Iyyar's if you missed it).

Of course, what happens when I take my kids out in matching cabled hoodies, when everyone knows that I knit? There are oohs. There are ahhs. And then, "I bet you made those, didn't you." At which point I have to confess, well, no, I didn't. But, I try not to add, I could, if I had the time. I try not to add this because although it may be true, it sounds awfully... lame.

And usually, when I say that no, my friend made the sweaters, the response is along the lines of "Wow, that must be some friend" (to which of course I agree,) and then either "Boy, she's a REALLY good knitter," or something along the lines of "Could you knit something like that?"

Sigh.

Which brings me to the topic of muttons. Barak has gotten pretty good at doing his own buttons. Shirt buttons are usually too small and too hard for him, but the big cardigan buttons on his hoodie he can handle. Now, even when I had time to knit I rarely made cardigans (meaning, of the I've-totally-lost-count-of-how-many sweaters I've made I may have knit twenty cardigans). I don't usually wear them, and I like to knit things in the round, which meant that I do more pullovers. I have never made Barak a cardigan. So, one evening this week, I was running a bath for the kids. I had Iyyar on my lap and was getting him undressed as Barak worked on getting his own sweater off. I complimented him on his skillful button-opening.

"Barak, who made that sweater for you?"

"Imma!"

"No, I didn't make that one. Tanta Cecilia made that one."

"Tanta Cecilia madea sweater?"

"Yeah, Tanta Cecilia made that for you. Wasn't that nice?"

"Yeah. I like the sweater. It has muttons. Did Tanta Cecilia makea muttons?"

"Well, she didn't make the muttons--I mean, the buttons. I think she bought the buttons in a store. She made the button holes, though, and she put the buttons on there."

Pause while Barak considers this. "You don't make sweaters wif muttons."

"No, I don't usually. I like to make sweaters with no buttons."

"You don't know how to make muttons?"

Sigh...

Various thoughts I've had today, which I'm sure you'll find endlessly entertaining.

1. There comes a point in every pregnancy, or at least in all of mine to date, where you sort of stop thinking about the fact that pregnancies are designed to produce an actual baby. Right now I am just so used to being pregnant that I feel like this is just how my body is shaped, and it's totally normal to have something wiggling and jumping around inside me after every meal and late at night. I was just looking at my work calendar and realized, wait, by then I should have... another baby. The mind sort of reels.

2. Have I mentioned lately what a stunning difference being tired makes in the behavior of children--at least in my children? In the half hour after I got Barak from playgroup today he had no less than three meltdowns, one of which turned into an out-of-control screaming and throwing fit. I managed it reasonably calmly, but I also decided that like it or not, he was taking a nap. Since you can't (no matter how tempted you might be) tie a three-year-old to his bed to nap, this is a lot easier said than done, but I did get him--and, miracle of miracles, Iyyar--to nap, at the same time, for well over an hour.

The difference was stunning. Barak spent the rest of the afternoon being incredibly sweet, delightful, and charming. Of course, I paid for it later. Two hours past their usual bedtime, they were both standing in their respective beds making each other laugh. Party time in the boys' room.

3. If you have ever been to my house you know that my husband favors bathroom reading that is more cerebral. Me, I like the Patternworks catalogue. This afternoon, Barak disappeared into the bathroom for a potty trip (totally unprompted by me! and this happens a lot now! woohoo!) Then I heard a suspicious thump.

"Barak, what are you doing?"

"I'm pishing potty."

"What was that noise?"

"It's okay."

"Well, what was it?"

"The magazine fell into Emese's poop." Ohhh. Patternworks catalogue in litterbox. Yecch. Mental note to remove catalogue and put it in trash.

Barak comes out of bathroom. I look in litterbox. No catalogue. "Barak, did you put the catalogue in the garbage?"

"No, I didn't need to."

Because the litter-coated catalogue had been neatly returned to the pile of books.

4. One of the house rules around here is that Barak is not allowed on the cooking side of our eat-in kitchen while I am in there cooking. There is an invisible line on the floor that he knows he is not allowed to cross. This afternoon, when they woke up, I had been cooking something, but after both Barak and Iyyar woke up, I finished what I'd been doing. Barak was on his way across the kitchen when he stopped.

"Imma, are you all done cooking now?"

"Yeah, I'm all done."

"Okay. Den I can go on dat side of da kitchen, 'cause you're all done cooking."

I just found that incredibly sweet.

5. Late this afternoon, I took the boys to the grocery store for a long-overdue shopping trip. I told Barak he could pick one Shabbos treat and after much consideration, he picked potato chips. Have I mentioned lately how much I love our local independently owned kosher grocery? I'd called right after I got home to see if they could do a delivery today, and was told yes--but before I got out the door, Barak had had his last and most dramatic meltdown and the trip was put on hold. Four hours later, the person who had told me yes was gone, the owner was on his way out the door, and nobody seemed able to deliver anything. So the the owner went around checking with all the employees figuring out how I was going to get my groceries, asking me when I needed them and when I'd be home, and finally decided that the person who closed the store tonight would drop them on his way home (at midnight! I assured him that someone would still be up.) Can you even imagine that happening at a big chain supermarket?

6. On the way back from my ATM run this morning--I ALWAYS forget, every week, to get cash to pay Asnat with--I ran into the daughter of a friend. I crossed the street and we chatted a little bit as I hurried back home. "You don't know anyone who is looking for a babysitting job, do you?" "Well, I just quit my job. I'm looking for something else, but when do you need?" So she's going to cover us in the short term till we find someone else--at least till winter break, when MHH is here, and maybe even till my maternity leave. Of course, that will still leave me with no help when the new baby comes, but at least it takes care of the immediate crisis--no small thing.

Gah

Asnat just quit, with many apologies. She is moving to LA in three weeks. I now have babysitting only two days a week, and about three weeks to find someone new.

I know, believe me, that there could be many worse things to have happen. But I don't really need this today.

Without getting into too many details, there is an awful lot of uncertainty in our lives right now--we don't know where we'll be next year or where MHH will be working, I don't know how I'm going to manage at home when this new baby IY"H comes in the winter, I don't know what to do about Barak and school for the fall (nothing is within walking distance, and everything is expensive, and deposits are substantial, and cf. "don't know where we'll be next year," above.)

I know that in the scheme of things these are all relatively minor issues. Nobody is sick, we are not bankrupt, we both have educations and are unlikely to get evicted or starve. Logically, I know that we are not in any worse a position than we were in when Barak was born and neither of us had a job and we had a new baby. With two and potentially soon three kids, though, and a mortgage, and the real estate market so in the tank we could not possibly sell if we had to without losing an unthinkable amount of money, it's all a lot more... distressing. I am a planner, and I know all about what God does when man plans, but... yeah. But. It's hard to relax when you're lying awake nights calculating how you would manage various doomsday scenarios.

One way or another, IY"H, it'll all be good. It will all work out for the best.

Tantrum management

For the last couple of weeks, Barak seems to have been experimenting with tantrums as a way of either expressing his frustration or getting what he wants. The golden rule of tantrum management, of course, is never to let there be a positive outcome to throwing a fit. I've got that one down. Once you know what you're not going to do, of course, you then have to figure out what exactly what you are going to do with the kicking screaming three-year-old on the floor. That part is more of a challenge.

When I can, I walk away and ignore him. Sometimes he escalates what he's doing so he'll have to get my attention, by doing something so totally illegal that I won't just let it slide. A favorite for a while was, when put in his room for a time-out, picking up the biggest, heaviest toy he could get his hands on and slamming it into his door. I ignored that too until I saw what the inside of his door looked like. Earlier this week, he tried that one. I went in there and told him, scarily, to STOP. I left and he did it again, and I didn't quite lose it but I certainly used more volume and anger than he's ever heard before to tell him "That. Is. Not. Okay." He hasn't done it since.

But I don't like the idea of escalating my response to match his. I try, I really do, to stay calm. And last night, I actually managed it.

We went over to my friend Chana's house last night. She had a baby a few weeks ago and I'd told her kids I would make them pizza this week. So at around 4 we trooped over there with a big bag of pizza dough, a jar of sauce, a bagful of vegetables and some cheese. (I forgot, and had to run back for, my pan and the parchment paper. A manifesto on the fine art of home pizza-making may be forthcoming--stay tuned). A fine time was had by all; much pizza was eaten (Barak held out for the sauceless vegetableless albino version I made last), and Iyyar ate more than anyone else, as usual. Barak spent about two and a half hours making trouble with Chana's three older boys, the youngest of whom is about a year older than Barak. Bedtime around here is usually around 6:15. By six, I realized that Barak was so worked up, and so wound up, that going home was liable to not be so easy. And I had a lot to carry. So I called MHH (this is why we have cell phones) and asked him to stop by and get us on his way home (we live across the street, so this is not a big deal). He did.

MHH got there at around 6:15. I handed him Iyyar and Iyyar's hat and fuzzy suit, and got Barak's coat and hat. And I tried to get them on Barak, but Barak was not interested in anything but running around in circles being silly. Never mind that all the resident children were already in pajamas--Barak wanted to jump around and scream some more, not go home. I managed to get him into his coat, with minimal cooperation from him. Then it was time for shoes.

"Barak, go get your shoes please." No dice. I was sitting on the floor and had no interest in getting them myself, so I asked one of Chana's kids to get them for me (the shoes were behind the couch, where they had been discarded for semilegal couch-jumping activities.) He did. "Barak, come here and put on your shoes."

Barak stopped what he was doing, looked at me, and instantly collapsed into a fit of hysteria. "I wanted to find my shoes! I wanted to find them! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!"

There are a few categories, I think, into which tantrums fall. There are the tantrums of pure frustration that cannot be expressed in any other way. There are the tantrums of experimentation and trying to get one's way--one might call those the manipulative tantrums, although I don't like that word. And then there are the tantrums that happen when a kid is so tired or so worn out or upset about something or not feeling good that the tiniest little thing will set him off. This was one of those.

"I WANTED TO FIND MY SHOES! I WANT TO DO IT! AAAAHHHHH!!!!"

Sigh.

I gave MHH all the stuff, and he carried it all down to the stroller. Then I gave him Iyyar, and he took Iyyar down as I manhandled Barak into his shoes--the size differential between the two of us is such that I can still do things like that. Then I picked up my coat and walked out the door. Barak, still standing there screaming, suddenly stopped, and a look of alarm spread over his face. "I needa pish potty." Good for you! I thought. Usually when he gets that worked up, he loses control and pees himself. "Okay, go potty. I'll wait for you." Barak went to the bathroom, came back, and started screaming again. "I WANTED TO FIND MY SHOOOOOOOES..."

I started down the stairs, and Barak came after me. "Barak, do you want to go in the stroller or do you want to walk?" "I wanna go in the stroller. I'm a baby." However, being a baby did not prevent him from wanting to buckle the seatbelt himself, which he was too worked up to do. I did it for him.

"I WANTED TO DO IT! AAAAHHHHH!!!!"

Barak at this point was kicking and screaming and flailing, but I was pretty sure he couldn't get out of the stroller by himself. We went home. I asked MHH to take Iyyar inside and get him ready for bed. "I'll take care of Barak. Don't worry." I parked the stroller and sat down on the back steps in my coat. And waited.

"Barak, I'm going to wait right here until you're done screaming. You let me know when you're all done."

"AAAAHHHH I WANTED TO FIND MY OWN SHOES!!!"

Then I took my knitting out of my bag. And started to knit a pair of gloves in sock yarn on size 0 needles.

Barak stopped. He looked at me. Clearly, he was thinking, this could go on for a while. And it's really pretty cold and dark out here.

"Imma, I needa find my own shoes."

"I know, sweetie. Are you all done screaming now?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

The power of knitting, right there.

Why is it

that when presented with an extensive tasting menu of woollen hats, mittens, scarves and gloves packed away for the winter in the back of the closet with only herbal moth repellent, moths will ignore everything but the handknit baby hat made in cashmere and baby alpaca (what else do you do with one 50g skein?) with patterning in Koigu? I guess the cashmere didn't taste as good, because they just chewed out the Koigu. In five places.

Sigh. I fixed it, of course, but there's something about a darned cashmere baby hat that just seems... wrong somehow. Especially given how long it takes to knit a baby hat, and the size of my stash.

More knitting

Not mine, though. Check out the green cabled hoodie, courtesy of Tanta Cecilia in Sydney. And the hat. That picture had to get taken fast--I put the hat on and Iyyar turned around, ran a few steps away, and pulled it off. You can see his hands poised for the hat-yank right there.

This sweater used to be Barak's. It was a gift for his first birthday, and he wore it right through last spring. Now, though, it's really too small, and has been passed on to Iyyar. But is Barak hoodieless? No! Because Tanta Cecilia sent another, identical handmade sweater--identical except that it is two sizes up, and in bright purple. (I tried to get a shot from the back of Barak wearing it, but he is too wise in the way of cameras--he kept turning around and posing.) And yet another cabled hoodie (a Rogue, for those in the know enought to be impressed by such name-dropping) in size XXXXXXXXXXXXXL for me, designed for maternity wear. When we all go out together, boy are we styling. :)

Random

1. There haven't been many posts lately because we just had a lovely lovely visit from Grandma E. Housework was neglected, laundry was left to pile up, and much knitting was accomplished. Oh, and perhaps a doughnut or two were eaten. Iyyar was fairly mellow despite a raging diaper rash that is just now starting to go away after almost two weeks. Barak, on the other hand, was on the worst tantrum hairtrigger I've ever seen. Every time anything went even slightly not his way, he was down on the floor screaming, including his first-ever public tantrum (brief, but still) at Target. He lost just about every treat I had planned--we didn't go to the zoo or even the doughnut store. And in addition to the tantrums there was a significant amount of just general obnoxiousness--like, when he was ignoring my telling him to do something, I told him to look at me, and he turned his face to me with his eyes squinched shut. Charming.


Grandma E was very nice about it and genuinely does not seem to have left with the impression that I have raised a monster, but... when you have a child who is sweet and charming 80% of the time, why does the entire other 20% have to happen when you really would like him to be at his sweetest and most charming? I know that all small children have phases like this occasionally. I know that he is really a great, wonderful kid, that he is not spoiled and not a brat. And I know that it is unreasonable for me to expect him to behave perfectly all the time. Rationally, I even know that he wasn't actually screaming the whole time Grandma E was here, and she did get to see the sweet and charming Barak I insisted does exist. But... sigh.



2. Did I mention that knitting was accomplished? Yes indeedy. Grandma E made a lovely Fibonacci baby blanket out of Plymouth Encore (which, I will note, she felt was too thick for a baby blanket and also noted was hard to weave ends in on). I need to block that before I take pictures. I made the most ridiculously cute spiral yoke sweater I have ever seen, out of a mere 79g of Opal Hundertwasser:




I cannot even tell you how much this picture does not do justice to the sweater. I should have put something in the picture for scale (other than the cord of the iron I was using to block it). It is about a 3-month size, and possibly the cutest thing I have ever knitted. If I saw one that someone else had made I would have to instantly drop whatever I was knitting at the moment to make one for myself (well, not for myself, but for a baby of my acquaintance. You know what I mean.)

Before Grandma E got here, I had just finished a pair of socks made out of the skein of Trekking I bought while on the baby doctor/yarn store expedition with Barak a few weeks ago (because, you know, I don't have enough sock yarn etc.)



And what did Grandma E find in her bag but this very terrifying crocodile scarf that Deb made for Barak. Roar!

While I was taking crappy pictures of lovely knitting, I also took a couple of the Eris sweater I finished a month ago and which I got to wear once before I was too big for it.





Neck detail:

Knitting I can do. Knitting photography... not my strong point. Sorry.

3. In a general Iyyar update, I should mention that Iyyar is currently obsessed with balls. The box of little balls that usually lives in the armoire has not been put away in a week, and the two playground balls (one blue, one red) that I bought at Target a week or two ago are in pretty regular use. Iyyar's favorite thing right now is to pick up his ball, carol "Upf! Upf! Upf," carry it a few steps while cackling maniacally, drop it, and then chase it to pick it up again.



And as predicted by my babysitter, Iyyar does indeed appear to be progressing directly from nothing to complete sentences. Well, sort of. The thing I hear from him the most right now is "I don't want it!" which sounds sort of like "Ah na wa na!" But believe me, his meaning is clear. We are also hearing "Drop it!" (from his high chair, usually); "Open it!" (regarding the gate to the kitchen); and "Ah yah!" which means Barak. And yesterday, Ada reported a very clear "Abba's books," pertaining to those books which he is forbidden to pull from the shelves in the living room.



4. I mentioned above that Iyyar had the worst diaper rash I've ever seen, caused by a couple weeks of diarrhea that left him happy, perfectly well hydrated, but pooping all night long. I tried the usual--zinc oxide, BRAT diet, acidophilus, multiple nighttime diaper changes, baking soda baths. It helped, but not enough. The second day Grandma E was here he was walking around he house miserably grabbing at his tush and wailing. Desperate times, desperate measures--I took his diaper off and let him walk around the kitchen (linoleum floor, how bad could it be?) commando. The difference was immediate. He was just so much happier. At bedtime, I smeared him up good with zinc oxide, put a clean diaper on him, and put him to bed with just one of Barak's shirts and his diaper, so that I could check if he was dirty without waking him up.


Iyyar, it seems, saw his opportunity and seized it. When I went in to check on him, I found him in the classic sleeping baby position--on chest, knees tucked under tummy, tush sticking straight up in the air. Tush, in this case, completely bare--he'd pulled off his diaper and was happily sleeping naked. Grandma E had just gone to bed but I couldn't let her miss that. I knocked on the door. "Are you asleep yet? You need to come look at something." She peeked in and laughed. "If it wouldn't wake him up, I'd say we'd have to take a picture." I was tempted, but not badly enough to risk a crying baby at 10 pm. Around 4 am, he woke up wet and cold, but not poopy (fortunately). And the rash was much better.



5. Oh, and one more thing--Barak can now tell the difference between a gasoline and a diesel engine by the sound it makes. I taught him that one, which I know courtesy of a friend who has driven a lot of tractors and can imitate a diesel engine with uncanny accuracy. Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch.