But I just wanted to post this, to get it off my chest.
First: I have a new double jogging stroller. (I bought it before they increased the price, fortunately--it's been in a box in the basement since last winter.) It rocks. It was not cheap, but since I don't have a car, and my stroller is how I get my kids everywhere, I can't deal with junky strollers. I had the same model single stroller for Barak, originally, and it was the best stroller ever. (Those of you familiar with the Stroller Curse narrative--this one got stolen.) It powered over snowbanks, broken sidewalks, anything, and rolled with so little friction that it came with a wrist leash so it wouldn't get away from you. And you needed that leash, too.
Anyway. Yesterday afternoon, MHH and his father put it together for me. Barak played in the box (actually scaring me slightly, because I didn't see it when he got in there, he pulled it shut after him, he was very very very quiet, and for a minute I really didn't know where he'd gone). This was at around 4, after MHH had come home from school (early dismissal because of the fast day).
At around 4:30, Iyyar started yawning and rubbing his eyes. I took him into the bedroom, nursed him, and tried to get him to sleep.
Let's just skip over the next three hours and say that at 7:30, Iyyar was STILL not asleep after three hours of effort on my part. Exhausted wailing, red eyes, but every time he was almost asleep he'd snap out of it. And howl. "Wait a minute! I know what you're trying to do! You're trying to make me SLEEP! AAAHHHH!!!!"
My nerves were, shall we say, frayed. And MHH and his father had to go to maariv. And I had to put Barak to bed. And I knew I could not deal with two howling children. Fine, I said grimly. We will take the advice of Grandma E. We will go for a walk. I bundled everyone into pajamas, supplied them with blankies and pluggies as appropriate, and asked MHH to take the stroller down. At which point we discovered that it did not fit through the back door (which is the only way to get from our apartment to the outside world with only one door). He and his father managed to get it out the front door (which means out three doors), turned sideways, with a lot of grumbling and banging. I buckled a still-howling Iyyar and a very excited Barak ("No night-night? No night-night, Imma, 'kay? Go trip? Go innair stroller?") into the double stroller.
Ahh. This stroller is great. This stroller rocks. This stroller also rolls! It is absolutely effortless to push, even with two kids. I can move! I can walk fast! Okay, there is no basket to speak of, so I can't do much shopping with it, but I can move again! Woohoo! Imma's mood starts to lift considerably, despite all the screaming still issuing forth from the rockin' stroller.
I follow MHH and his dad to shul. I walk up and down the main shopping street. I go into the kosher grocery to check that the stroller fit through their door (and once inside feel compelled to buy something, namely, a diet coke.) And then I figure, well, what the heck. It's a gorgeous night. Let's walk to the supermarket.
The supermarket, ladies and gentlemen (do any men read this blog besides my husband?) is two miles away. I had already wandered around for about a mile. I decided I might as well get some exercise, and started walking fast. I walked all the way there, bought a couple of things, walked all the way back. By the time I got home, it was after 9:30, and I had walked five miles and change.
And they were both still wide awake.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Random
1. I was wrong when I told the doctor that the cut on my hand hurt worse than anything since childbirth. The yeast infection I got when nursing Barak hurt worse than the hand. Just for the record.
2. You know what to do with limp celery, don't you? Cut off the bottoms and put the stalks in a glass of water, like flowers. Doesn't everyone know that? I thought so, but a big eater of celery did not know this so maybe it is a secret I should share.
3. Iyyar has not had a bath since Thursday. He smells like cheese. He smells like very smelly cheese.
4. Barak pooped in the potty yesterday. That part was great. The part that wasn't great was that he started pooping in his room. Without a diaper. Then he realized that he wasn't supposed to poop on the floor (my screaming "NO! NO! NO!" probably had something to do with that) and started running toward the bathroom. Pooping as he went. (How is that possible?!) By the time I got him up on the toilet, there was poop on the floor in his room, the floor of the hall, on my shoe, on the bathroom floor, on the side of the toilet and all over him. And oh yeah, it was Shabbos, so no hot water and no baths. By the time I got it all cleaned up (and bleached, and had changed out of my only shabbos outfit that fits, because I sure as heck wasn't wearing it anywhere) I was thinking dark thoughts indeed. That was when Barak slid off the potty, pointed inside, and proudly announced "Poop potty! Cookie please!"
What could I do? I gave him a cookie.
5. How am I supposed to have a spiritual experience on Rosh Hashana? Please tell me. Does anybody out there with little kids manage it? Shul is out of the question. You're lucky if you get to hear shofar. It's all about cooking, cleaning, trying to keep the kids entertained and presentable, and cleaning up after everyone too young or too, er, distracted to clean up after himself (um, I meant, themselves. Not pointing fingers at any particular gender or anything. Besides, the only female in the house is the cat, and to be fair, MHH deals with the litterbox, because he's holy that way. If distracted.) Where was I? Oh yeah. Does anybody out there with little kids, but no kids big enough to help with them, ever actually a) make it to shul, b) daven or c) devote any significant time or spiritual energy to, oh, teshuva or anything? Do you?
6. The ants are out of control. I need to get traps down. I got a few but they make me nervous with the kids. I have to figure out a way, because after we ate in the living room on Shabbos and I did not sweep till this morning, there were SWARMS of them on every crumb of challah. It was vile.
7. This is the cute thing Barak did after Shabbos lunch. Our guests, their kids, and the rest of us (me, MHH, his father and our kids) were all milling around the house, having benched but not quite moving on. The table was still set up, but mostly cleared. The basket of benchers and the kiddush cup were still there. Barak, quietly, so as not to draw attention to himself, climbed up into MHH's seat and took the kiddush cup. Looked at it intently. Opened a bencher, and intoned, "Shabbos. Ad'nai elokainu. Amen."* Then he slid down from his chair, ran off, and yelled, "Gotta go to shul!" I guess that's the kitzer version of his father's Shabbos, so far as he's concerned. (*Jacque: That's "Sabbath. God. Amen!")
2. You know what to do with limp celery, don't you? Cut off the bottoms and put the stalks in a glass of water, like flowers. Doesn't everyone know that? I thought so, but a big eater of celery did not know this so maybe it is a secret I should share.
3. Iyyar has not had a bath since Thursday. He smells like cheese. He smells like very smelly cheese.
4. Barak pooped in the potty yesterday. That part was great. The part that wasn't great was that he started pooping in his room. Without a diaper. Then he realized that he wasn't supposed to poop on the floor (my screaming "NO! NO! NO!" probably had something to do with that) and started running toward the bathroom. Pooping as he went. (How is that possible?!) By the time I got him up on the toilet, there was poop on the floor in his room, the floor of the hall, on my shoe, on the bathroom floor, on the side of the toilet and all over him. And oh yeah, it was Shabbos, so no hot water and no baths. By the time I got it all cleaned up (and bleached, and had changed out of my only shabbos outfit that fits, because I sure as heck wasn't wearing it anywhere) I was thinking dark thoughts indeed. That was when Barak slid off the potty, pointed inside, and proudly announced "Poop potty! Cookie please!"
What could I do? I gave him a cookie.
5. How am I supposed to have a spiritual experience on Rosh Hashana? Please tell me. Does anybody out there with little kids manage it? Shul is out of the question. You're lucky if you get to hear shofar. It's all about cooking, cleaning, trying to keep the kids entertained and presentable, and cleaning up after everyone too young or too, er, distracted to clean up after himself (um, I meant, themselves. Not pointing fingers at any particular gender or anything. Besides, the only female in the house is the cat, and to be fair, MHH deals with the litterbox, because he's holy that way. If distracted.) Where was I? Oh yeah. Does anybody out there with little kids, but no kids big enough to help with them, ever actually a) make it to shul, b) daven or c) devote any significant time or spiritual energy to, oh, teshuva or anything? Do you?
6. The ants are out of control. I need to get traps down. I got a few but they make me nervous with the kids. I have to figure out a way, because after we ate in the living room on Shabbos and I did not sweep till this morning, there were SWARMS of them on every crumb of challah. It was vile.
7. This is the cute thing Barak did after Shabbos lunch. Our guests, their kids, and the rest of us (me, MHH, his father and our kids) were all milling around the house, having benched but not quite moving on. The table was still set up, but mostly cleared. The basket of benchers and the kiddush cup were still there. Barak, quietly, so as not to draw attention to himself, climbed up into MHH's seat and took the kiddush cup. Looked at it intently. Opened a bencher, and intoned, "Shabbos. Ad'nai elokainu. Amen."* Then he slid down from his chair, ran off, and yelled, "Gotta go to shul!" I guess that's the kitzer version of his father's Shabbos, so far as he's concerned. (*Jacque: That's "Sabbath. God. Amen!")
Thursday, September 21, 2006
And I was supposed to be doing what during the month of Elul?
Last year, I was prepared. I cooked ahead. I froze. I planned menus. I had stacks and stacks of disposable aluminum pans in the basement freezer, all manner of paper goods, grape juice and gefilte fish bought on sale and pulled out when needed. It was calm. It was organized. It was good.
This year, I have a baby and I had stitches in my hand. Nothing happened ahead. And Marika Neni is back in R0mania, and her friend who was supposed to come yesterday did not show. Nothing has been cleaned. There is nothing in the freezer. Nothing nothing nothing.
So today, the day before Rosh Hashana, I woke up, thought about what I'd like to cook, went to the store, bought some groceries, came home, and cooked. I had already done the chicken soup and one batch of challah (okay, almost nothing happened ahead). I made two pans of stuffed cabbage, a big pot of rice and barley and onions and mushrooms for my macrobiotically inclined father in law, franks in blanks for the non-macrobiotically inclined children who will be here for Shabbos lunch, a bowl of bean salad, and, um, another batch of challah. Tonight, I made carrot salad. That was it. I had both kids here, and, well... it was one of those high-volume days. Meaning, a lot of screaming. Iyyar refused to nap all day, and since he wasn't kvetchy about it and I simply had too much to do to spend the whole day trying to get him to sleep, I let him stay awake. With the predictable result of complete hysterical meltdown by 5 pm. He was so exhausted that even when he finally did fall asleep, he would jerk himself awake crying every few minutes. I spent the hours of 4 till 7 trying, completely futilely, to get him to sleep (at least half of that time with him crying alone in the crib or bouncy seat, because he was just as hysterical in my arms and there seemed to be little point). Misery. Miserable baby, miserable Imma.
I tried everything I could think of, and then remembered something a friend had told me once. Sure, it's weird, but I'm desperate. So I ran a warm bath and got in there with him. Magic. He splashed, he wiggled, he thought, hey, this is fun! He pushed his feet around experimentally in the water, looked at me, watched for my response, snuggled into the water and into me. Maybe it's like the womb? All those tense little muscles melted. Happy baby. I changed his diaper, put on his pajamas, got into bed with him and nursed. Happy happy. And he finally... fell... asleep. And I put him down. And walked away. And he stayed asleep. And I exhaled. It was eight o'clock. Still time. Still time to send MHH to the store, still time to pull it off. Still time to do everything I needed to do before my FIL was expected, sometime around 10:30, and I could no longer reasonably expect MHH to be swabbing floors. Then I could finish cooking, and if MHH could clean in the morning when I'll be at work, maybe maybe, I think we can just swing it, I think...
And then...
The doorbell rang. And there I was, totally not dressed to open the door. And it couldn't be my father in law, because we weren't expecting him for HOURS. But it was. So I had to buzz him up. And we have the loudest buzzer on the planet. I closed my eyes and hoped, and buzzed, and
"aaaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
woke up the baby.
This year, I have a baby and I had stitches in my hand. Nothing happened ahead. And Marika Neni is back in R0mania, and her friend who was supposed to come yesterday did not show. Nothing has been cleaned. There is nothing in the freezer. Nothing nothing nothing.
So today, the day before Rosh Hashana, I woke up, thought about what I'd like to cook, went to the store, bought some groceries, came home, and cooked. I had already done the chicken soup and one batch of challah (okay, almost nothing happened ahead). I made two pans of stuffed cabbage, a big pot of rice and barley and onions and mushrooms for my macrobiotically inclined father in law, franks in blanks for the non-macrobiotically inclined children who will be here for Shabbos lunch, a bowl of bean salad, and, um, another batch of challah. Tonight, I made carrot salad. That was it. I had both kids here, and, well... it was one of those high-volume days. Meaning, a lot of screaming. Iyyar refused to nap all day, and since he wasn't kvetchy about it and I simply had too much to do to spend the whole day trying to get him to sleep, I let him stay awake. With the predictable result of complete hysterical meltdown by 5 pm. He was so exhausted that even when he finally did fall asleep, he would jerk himself awake crying every few minutes. I spent the hours of 4 till 7 trying, completely futilely, to get him to sleep (at least half of that time with him crying alone in the crib or bouncy seat, because he was just as hysterical in my arms and there seemed to be little point). Misery. Miserable baby, miserable Imma.
I tried everything I could think of, and then remembered something a friend had told me once. Sure, it's weird, but I'm desperate. So I ran a warm bath and got in there with him. Magic. He splashed, he wiggled, he thought, hey, this is fun! He pushed his feet around experimentally in the water, looked at me, watched for my response, snuggled into the water and into me. Maybe it's like the womb? All those tense little muscles melted. Happy baby. I changed his diaper, put on his pajamas, got into bed with him and nursed. Happy happy. And he finally... fell... asleep. And I put him down. And walked away. And he stayed asleep. And I exhaled. It was eight o'clock. Still time. Still time to send MHH to the store, still time to pull it off. Still time to do everything I needed to do before my FIL was expected, sometime around 10:30, and I could no longer reasonably expect MHH to be swabbing floors. Then I could finish cooking, and if MHH could clean in the morning when I'll be at work, maybe maybe, I think we can just swing it, I think...
And then...
The doorbell rang. And there I was, totally not dressed to open the door. And it couldn't be my father in law, because we weren't expecting him for HOURS. But it was. So I had to buzz him up. And we have the loudest buzzer on the planet. I closed my eyes and hoped, and buzzed, and
"aaaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
woke up the baby.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Pretend you don't know me
Hey, it's post number 201!
I have a knitting buddy on the other side of the planet with whom I email, er, let's say rather frequently. It helps that we both keep funny hours and she is 17 hours ahead of me. Every so often, maybe once a year, the question will come up: how much money would we have that we now do not have if we had never learned to knit (or spin or weave or...) The answer is usually something along the lines of "it doesn't bear thinking about," followed by, "besides, if we didn't knit we'd probably have found some other, equally expensive hobby."
I can't help but wonder: how much other, more necessary stuff could I have gotten done if I weren't spending time writing this blog? It isn't really bothering me--I like writing it, MHH likes reading it, and it continues to fulfill its primary purpose of allowing me to write something while not pretending to be someone other than myself. Besides, I'd probably have written half of what's here in some email or another anyway. Because my scores of daily readers (well, almost scores--usually about 37) are mostly people I know. Except for the person from Owings Mills, Maryland who spent more than an hour reading this yesterday, in the middle of the night. Who are you, and why weren't you asleep? I can't possibly be that interesting.
Anyway... about the title of this post. Could you, please? You might know who I am. You might have gone to school with me, you might knit with me, you might be the father of my children. (Hello, dear.) But in the comments section, could you please try not to post anything really really identifying of who I am or where we live? Because, you know, our jobs are such that it would be a lot better if you didn't. Thanks for the understanding and so on.
Okay, I'm going to go to bed now. Really. Because Iyyar is asleep, and Barak is asleep, and I must take full advantage of this.
I have a knitting buddy on the other side of the planet with whom I email, er, let's say rather frequently. It helps that we both keep funny hours and she is 17 hours ahead of me. Every so often, maybe once a year, the question will come up: how much money would we have that we now do not have if we had never learned to knit (or spin or weave or...) The answer is usually something along the lines of "it doesn't bear thinking about," followed by, "besides, if we didn't knit we'd probably have found some other, equally expensive hobby."
I can't help but wonder: how much other, more necessary stuff could I have gotten done if I weren't spending time writing this blog? It isn't really bothering me--I like writing it, MHH likes reading it, and it continues to fulfill its primary purpose of allowing me to write something while not pretending to be someone other than myself. Besides, I'd probably have written half of what's here in some email or another anyway. Because my scores of daily readers (well, almost scores--usually about 37) are mostly people I know. Except for the person from Owings Mills, Maryland who spent more than an hour reading this yesterday, in the middle of the night. Who are you, and why weren't you asleep? I can't possibly be that interesting.
Anyway... about the title of this post. Could you, please? You might know who I am. You might have gone to school with me, you might knit with me, you might be the father of my children. (Hello, dear.) But in the comments section, could you please try not to post anything really really identifying of who I am or where we live? Because, you know, our jobs are such that it would be a lot better if you didn't. Thanks for the understanding and so on.
Okay, I'm going to go to bed now. Really. Because Iyyar is asleep, and Barak is asleep, and I must take full advantage of this.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
The third thing
I just got out of bed, site of far too little sleep, and came back to the computer (if my husband were awake he'd kill me) to say that I remembered that the third thing that made me think of Jasmin was this movie. Which I enjoyed, even though the only words I understood were baba (daddy) and salaam aleikum (shalom aleichem), courtesy of a friend with an Iranian husband.
Okay, back to bed now that I've got that off my chest. Oh, and one other thing. This morning, I was kneeling on the floor of Barak's room, my mouth full of bobby pins, trying to affix his new kippa, adorned with 'cairy dinosaurs, to his head. And I feel like there must be something to say about that, but I'm not sure what. Except that his new word for the day is "terrifying!"
Good night.
Okay, back to bed now that I've got that off my chest. Oh, and one other thing. This morning, I was kneeling on the floor of Barak's room, my mouth full of bobby pins, trying to affix his new kippa, adorned with 'cairy dinosaurs, to his head. And I feel like there must be something to say about that, but I'm not sure what. Except that his new word for the day is "terrifying!"
Good night.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
As promised
So, over the last couple of weeks, three things have made me think of Jasmin. Her blog is the reason I started this blog. I've never actually met her, but she is a friend of a friend and now my friend as well, via email and mail and that kind of thing. She speaks lots of languages, she has a little boy, she likes chocolate--you know, my kinda woman. Unlike me, she's in the National Guard, on post somewhere in the middle of the desert--the American desert, not the Iraqi one, fortunately.
Anyway, here's the list.
1. The finger. Jasmin is currently working in the ER on post and at one point posted something along the lines of, If you find yourself with an urgent medical problem, go to your doctor or call an ambulance. Don't go to the emergency room if you can possibly avoid it. I was thinking this as I stood in my kitchen, dishtowel clamped tightly over hand, blood dripping on the floor. It was not a big cut--maybe an inch and a half, but it was deep, and definitely was going to need stitches. So, I thought, what on earth do I do now? Iyyar's in the bouncy seat wanting to be picked up (no way), Barak's in his booster seat finishing his post-nap snack, it's three in the afternoon and my husband won't be home for another three hours. And I can't use either of my hands. What do I do??
What I did, after some panicked blank looks at my kids, was call my husband's cell. No pickup of course--he was in class. Then I called my friend Chana across the street. No pickup, but she has a lot of kids and almost never picks up her phone during the day. I can't believe it--I'm going to have to call 911 over a stupid little finger cut. Just as I was about to feel like the biggest idiot in the world, Chana called back. She came over, and then I called the school office, and they pulled my husband out of class and sent him home. He took Barak over to Chana's house where they waited for her older kids' bus, and she put Iyyar in the carseat and took us both to the ER. Where we waited for HOURS, while Iyyar flipped out wanting to nurse the right way, and I could barely hold him at all. Maybe 911 would have been better? But I would really have felt stupid calling an ambulance over a three-stitch cut. But let me tell you, walk into a busy ER with a small hand laceration and oh BOY are you on the bottom of their list, along with the sore throats and sniffles. Starving baby or no starving baby.
Oh, well, I don't need to tell the whole saga, but it turns out that I just nicked some very sensitive nerve (the cut was at the base of my first finger, between finger and thumb--right across the side of my hand) which was why a cut that looked like it should have been nothing hurt more than anything I've experienced short of having a baby. That sounds melodramatic, but it's actually true. It derailed my entire week--I couldn't do anything, and I was constantly jumping out of my skin when one of the kids bumped or kicked it. The stitches came out yesterday, but it's still taped up and still pretty uncomfortable. Oh, and because I haven't been able to get it wet, and haven't been able to use it much, I have not even started cooking or cleaning for the chagim. Which are in, um, six days. Right.
2. Barak had his own balloon heartbreak this week. We went to Trader Joe's, where of course he got a nice helium balloon at checkout. It was yellow. I tied it to his wrist. (You can see where this is going, right?) He didn't like that. I moved it to his overall straps. He liked that less. So I tied it to something else--I forget what--and a moment later saw the balloon sailing up, up past the extended roof of the store, up up up into the sky and away. Barak was hysterical. "Bawoon! Bawoon up! Bawoon!" I asked him if he wanted another one, and he didn't. "Is the ballong going up? Is it going bye bye? Bye bye balloon!" He waved at the balloon, not wanting another one but still distressed--I think because in his mind, things do not get lost in the direction of UP. Things do not fall UP. It was a violation of nature, more than the loss of the balloon, that seemed upsetting.
Fast forward a week. We were walking down the street, Iyyar in the sling, Barak holding my hand. It was a gorgeous day. Barak looked up and said, "Sky blue!" Right, the sky is blue! Pause. "Sky white?" Right, the clouds are white! Good job, you know so much! Pause. "Balloon lellow. Balloon go bye bye sky. Up up sky. Sky blue!"
Indeed.
3. Oh my gosh. There were three things. There WERE. What was the third thing? Um. Uh. I can't remember. Okay, when I remember I'll come back and add it. Stay tuned.
Anyway, here's the list.
1. The finger. Jasmin is currently working in the ER on post and at one point posted something along the lines of, If you find yourself with an urgent medical problem, go to your doctor or call an ambulance. Don't go to the emergency room if you can possibly avoid it. I was thinking this as I stood in my kitchen, dishtowel clamped tightly over hand, blood dripping on the floor. It was not a big cut--maybe an inch and a half, but it was deep, and definitely was going to need stitches. So, I thought, what on earth do I do now? Iyyar's in the bouncy seat wanting to be picked up (no way), Barak's in his booster seat finishing his post-nap snack, it's three in the afternoon and my husband won't be home for another three hours. And I can't use either of my hands. What do I do??
What I did, after some panicked blank looks at my kids, was call my husband's cell. No pickup of course--he was in class. Then I called my friend Chana across the street. No pickup, but she has a lot of kids and almost never picks up her phone during the day. I can't believe it--I'm going to have to call 911 over a stupid little finger cut. Just as I was about to feel like the biggest idiot in the world, Chana called back. She came over, and then I called the school office, and they pulled my husband out of class and sent him home. He took Barak over to Chana's house where they waited for her older kids' bus, and she put Iyyar in the carseat and took us both to the ER. Where we waited for HOURS, while Iyyar flipped out wanting to nurse the right way, and I could barely hold him at all. Maybe 911 would have been better? But I would really have felt stupid calling an ambulance over a three-stitch cut. But let me tell you, walk into a busy ER with a small hand laceration and oh BOY are you on the bottom of their list, along with the sore throats and sniffles. Starving baby or no starving baby.
Oh, well, I don't need to tell the whole saga, but it turns out that I just nicked some very sensitive nerve (the cut was at the base of my first finger, between finger and thumb--right across the side of my hand) which was why a cut that looked like it should have been nothing hurt more than anything I've experienced short of having a baby. That sounds melodramatic, but it's actually true. It derailed my entire week--I couldn't do anything, and I was constantly jumping out of my skin when one of the kids bumped or kicked it. The stitches came out yesterday, but it's still taped up and still pretty uncomfortable. Oh, and because I haven't been able to get it wet, and haven't been able to use it much, I have not even started cooking or cleaning for the chagim. Which are in, um, six days. Right.
2. Barak had his own balloon heartbreak this week. We went to Trader Joe's, where of course he got a nice helium balloon at checkout. It was yellow. I tied it to his wrist. (You can see where this is going, right?) He didn't like that. I moved it to his overall straps. He liked that less. So I tied it to something else--I forget what--and a moment later saw the balloon sailing up, up past the extended roof of the store, up up up into the sky and away. Barak was hysterical. "Bawoon! Bawoon up! Bawoon!" I asked him if he wanted another one, and he didn't. "Is the ballong going up? Is it going bye bye? Bye bye balloon!" He waved at the balloon, not wanting another one but still distressed--I think because in his mind, things do not get lost in the direction of UP. Things do not fall UP. It was a violation of nature, more than the loss of the balloon, that seemed upsetting.
Fast forward a week. We were walking down the street, Iyyar in the sling, Barak holding my hand. It was a gorgeous day. Barak looked up and said, "Sky blue!" Right, the sky is blue! Pause. "Sky white?" Right, the clouds are white! Good job, you know so much! Pause. "Balloon lellow. Balloon go bye bye sky. Up up sky. Sky blue!"
Indeed.
3. Oh my gosh. There were three things. There WERE. What was the third thing? Um. Uh. I can't remember. Okay, when I remember I'll come back and add it. Stay tuned.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Ouch
In an act of incredible stupidity and flagrant disregard of fundamental rules of knife safety, I gashed my hand on Thursday. Three stitches, and it seems like it shouldn't be that big of a deal--but it still hurts, a lot more than I would have expected, and it's pretty hard to type right now (let alone change diapers). So probably no real posts till the stitches come out (Friday, I hope).
Just letting you all know. Next up: three things this week that made me think of Jasmin (yes, Jasmin, that would be you. And yes, the emergency room trip was one of them.)
Just letting you all know. Next up: three things this week that made me think of Jasmin (yes, Jasmin, that would be you. And yes, the emergency room trip was one of them.)
Thursday, September 07, 2006
We're back
An hour earlier than scheduled--I made it to the airport so early (I was worried about Boston rush-hour traffic and left much more time than I needed) that we were in the departure lounge two hours before our flight. Early enough that I heard the final call for the flight preceding ours, and managed to get on that one. We had a row to ourselves each way, and I got to take the car seat on. It was quite relaxed as these things go. Total travel time was 18 hours. We left at 4:30 and got home at 10:30. Not bad at all, really.
Iyyar was amazing. Really. It's not that he didn't cry, but he cried so much less than I expected. And he did a lot of cute smiling and flirting and, I hope, some cheering up of my friend. In addition to the shiva visit that was the purpose of our trip, we also saw a few friends very very very briefly--a former coworker, a former neighbor, another friend. It was nice to see them, although obviously I would have preferred a longer, happier, more relaxed visit. Maybe another time.
Iyyar is asleep now, after a nice bath (he loves baths. He also is the only baby in the world who loves diaper changes. Really.) And after I have a quick snack, I intend to be asleep too.
Iyyar was amazing. Really. It's not that he didn't cry, but he cried so much less than I expected. And he did a lot of cute smiling and flirting and, I hope, some cheering up of my friend. In addition to the shiva visit that was the purpose of our trip, we also saw a few friends very very very briefly--a former coworker, a former neighbor, another friend. It was nice to see them, although obviously I would have preferred a longer, happier, more relaxed visit. Maybe another time.
Iyyar is asleep now, after a nice bath (he loves baths. He also is the only baby in the world who loves diaper changes. Really.) And after I have a quick snack, I intend to be asleep too.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
The curse of the sleep-resistant males
It is 3:20 pm and my nerves are shot. Totally, completely shot.
I have spent the last four hours trying to get the boys to sleep. It is finally qu**t. I don't dare type the word, lest one of them wake up. Or both of them.
MHH is a resister of sleep par excellence. Before we were married, he had three roommates in a one-bedroom apartment. Two guys in the living room, two in the bedroom. For a naturally sleep-resistant person, this is hopeless; someone is always up, there's always something going on that one might miss by going to bed. He regularly went to sleep at 2 am or later. Next day, he'd fall asleep mid-sentence, or over a book, or sitting on the subway. I don't think he ever consciously put two and two together on that one. Really. He told me, very earnestly, that he just didn't need as much sleep as most people. His roommate said that he didn't understand how anyone survived on so little sleep, and that if he (MHH) ever got any sleep, he'd probably have superpowers. He (roommate) didn't seem to be aware that he (MHH) regularly fell asleep all kinds of places he shouldn't, without really realizing it. You know, like, in shiur.
About a week after we got married, when I discovered this about him, I (I thought reasonably) started suggesting he maybe try to go to bed a little earlier. (I was a 10:30 girl myself.) You'd think I had suggested he sleep naked on a park bench covered in peanut butter. It was the most freakish and disturbing suggestion anyone had ever made, and I was clearly just trying to get rid of him. Oh-kay, I thought, not the way to start on the right foot with the shalom bayis. I'll just keep quiet on this one. But a few months later, he had a job that required him to get up at 6 am at the absolute latest. He started having to get to sleep earlier. We had a few gentle wifely chats about this and he seemed to get it. He asked me, earnestly, to please try to make sure he got to bed every night by 11 at the absolute outside. He promised, bli neder, not to get mad at me for attempting to make sure he did not stay up all night, thereby falling asleep in front of [his own] shiur, losing his job, and impoverishing his new family. Etc.
Every night--every single night--I'd try. And fail. It didn't matter how tired he was. He could be literally falling asleep at the table, in his chair, walking around the living room staggering off course with fatigue. He didn't. Need. To. Sleep. Not tired! No!
I only really realized what I was in for when his father came to visit for Rosh Hashanah. And despite the exhausting trip, and the fact that he was almost too tired to talk--he didn't go to sleep. I came out into the living room in the wee hours to find both of them passed out on the couch in identical poses--heads back, books on chest, bare feet on floor next to four discarded socks. The same way MHH falls asleep every night, if he has the chance.
Then I realized. It was genetic. I was doomed.
And then Barak was born. Barak, whom even the pros at daycare despaired of getting to nap. Barak, whose most oft-repeated phrase is "no night night!" Barak, who discovered power naps at the age of two months, falling asleep after hours of refusal, sleeping for ten minutes, waking up bright-eyed and perky, and then screaming in exhaustion (again) twenty minutes later.
Iyyar is exactly the same. Exactly. Our babysitter, who started taking care of Barak aged seven months, says it over and over. "He hates to sleep. He fights it tooth and nail. He's just like his brother. It's spooky. He just... hates to sleep." And he does, except even worse than Barak--he won't fall asleep in a stroller. He'll scream himself silly first. No stroller, no carseat. NO NIGHT-NIGHT! Of course he can't say that yet, but you can hear it in the howling.
Today, playgroup started. Iyyar was asleep when we needed to leave, having nursed himself into a stupor about half an hour earlier. Rashly, I tried to transfer him into the carseat. No dice. He woke up, and started to howl. We got to playgroup with a distraught and, naturally, now starving baby, and I sat there nursing him and trying to calm him down. Eventually he did settle down, and watched the goings-on, wide awake. But then he started to peter out, and when I put him in the evil evil carseat for the five-block return trip, started to howl again. And howl. And Barak started to rub his eyes, and asked to be carried. Fine, I thought. It's noon. Barak didn't sleep much last night (he jumped around in his crib till 9:30 and woke up at 7). He could do with an early nap. So I put him down. And closed the door. And-
Barak fell asleep half an hour ago. That would be three in the afternoon. He just fell asleep. He was crying with tiredness, but would not sleep--he was climbing around his crib, asking for books, talking to himself, singing, playing, etc. I ignored it, until I heard "Imma change diaper!" I changed his diaper, which needed it, and tried to explain to him that he was dooming himself to an entire afternoon in his crib with his antics. "No night-night!" Sigh.
Meanwhile, Iyyar was fighting the good fight in our room. The eyes would droop. He'd be almost out, snuggled against me with the soft blanky on his cheek, being rocked, sung to, nursed. And then it would hit him. "Wait a minute! You're trying to make me sleep! AAAGGH!" And he'd be up again. After an hour I did get him to sleep--long enough to fold half a load of laundry. Then he was up again. And happy for ten minutes. And then he started to rub his eyes and cry. Again.
I'm sure there are fifty things I should be doing right now--I'm going to Boston for the day tomorrow for a shiva visit--but I don't even want to make the noise of walking around the apartment on our creaky floors. I think I'll just sit here and knit. Very very quietly.
I have spent the last four hours trying to get the boys to sleep. It is finally qu**t. I don't dare type the word, lest one of them wake up. Or both of them.
MHH is a resister of sleep par excellence. Before we were married, he had three roommates in a one-bedroom apartment. Two guys in the living room, two in the bedroom. For a naturally sleep-resistant person, this is hopeless; someone is always up, there's always something going on that one might miss by going to bed. He regularly went to sleep at 2 am or later. Next day, he'd fall asleep mid-sentence, or over a book, or sitting on the subway. I don't think he ever consciously put two and two together on that one. Really. He told me, very earnestly, that he just didn't need as much sleep as most people. His roommate said that he didn't understand how anyone survived on so little sleep, and that if he (MHH) ever got any sleep, he'd probably have superpowers. He (roommate) didn't seem to be aware that he (MHH) regularly fell asleep all kinds of places he shouldn't, without really realizing it. You know, like, in shiur.
About a week after we got married, when I discovered this about him, I (I thought reasonably) started suggesting he maybe try to go to bed a little earlier. (I was a 10:30 girl myself.) You'd think I had suggested he sleep naked on a park bench covered in peanut butter. It was the most freakish and disturbing suggestion anyone had ever made, and I was clearly just trying to get rid of him. Oh-kay, I thought, not the way to start on the right foot with the shalom bayis. I'll just keep quiet on this one. But a few months later, he had a job that required him to get up at 6 am at the absolute latest. He started having to get to sleep earlier. We had a few gentle wifely chats about this and he seemed to get it. He asked me, earnestly, to please try to make sure he got to bed every night by 11 at the absolute outside. He promised, bli neder, not to get mad at me for attempting to make sure he did not stay up all night, thereby falling asleep in front of [his own] shiur, losing his job, and impoverishing his new family. Etc.
Every night--every single night--I'd try. And fail. It didn't matter how tired he was. He could be literally falling asleep at the table, in his chair, walking around the living room staggering off course with fatigue. He didn't. Need. To. Sleep. Not tired! No!
I only really realized what I was in for when his father came to visit for Rosh Hashanah. And despite the exhausting trip, and the fact that he was almost too tired to talk--he didn't go to sleep. I came out into the living room in the wee hours to find both of them passed out on the couch in identical poses--heads back, books on chest, bare feet on floor next to four discarded socks. The same way MHH falls asleep every night, if he has the chance.
Then I realized. It was genetic. I was doomed.
And then Barak was born. Barak, whom even the pros at daycare despaired of getting to nap. Barak, whose most oft-repeated phrase is "no night night!" Barak, who discovered power naps at the age of two months, falling asleep after hours of refusal, sleeping for ten minutes, waking up bright-eyed and perky, and then screaming in exhaustion (again) twenty minutes later.
Iyyar is exactly the same. Exactly. Our babysitter, who started taking care of Barak aged seven months, says it over and over. "He hates to sleep. He fights it tooth and nail. He's just like his brother. It's spooky. He just... hates to sleep." And he does, except even worse than Barak--he won't fall asleep in a stroller. He'll scream himself silly first. No stroller, no carseat. NO NIGHT-NIGHT! Of course he can't say that yet, but you can hear it in the howling.
Today, playgroup started. Iyyar was asleep when we needed to leave, having nursed himself into a stupor about half an hour earlier. Rashly, I tried to transfer him into the carseat. No dice. He woke up, and started to howl. We got to playgroup with a distraught and, naturally, now starving baby, and I sat there nursing him and trying to calm him down. Eventually he did settle down, and watched the goings-on, wide awake. But then he started to peter out, and when I put him in the evil evil carseat for the five-block return trip, started to howl again. And howl. And Barak started to rub his eyes, and asked to be carried. Fine, I thought. It's noon. Barak didn't sleep much last night (he jumped around in his crib till 9:30 and woke up at 7). He could do with an early nap. So I put him down. And closed the door. And-
Barak fell asleep half an hour ago. That would be three in the afternoon. He just fell asleep. He was crying with tiredness, but would not sleep--he was climbing around his crib, asking for books, talking to himself, singing, playing, etc. I ignored it, until I heard "Imma change diaper!" I changed his diaper, which needed it, and tried to explain to him that he was dooming himself to an entire afternoon in his crib with his antics. "No night-night!" Sigh.
Meanwhile, Iyyar was fighting the good fight in our room. The eyes would droop. He'd be almost out, snuggled against me with the soft blanky on his cheek, being rocked, sung to, nursed. And then it would hit him. "Wait a minute! You're trying to make me sleep! AAAGGH!" And he'd be up again. After an hour I did get him to sleep--long enough to fold half a load of laundry. Then he was up again. And happy for ten minutes. And then he started to rub his eyes and cry. Again.
I'm sure there are fifty things I should be doing right now--I'm going to Boston for the day tomorrow for a shiva visit--but I don't even want to make the noise of walking around the apartment on our creaky floors. I think I'll just sit here and knit. Very very quietly.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
In which Imma sneakily gets what she wants
Barak is not a very cuddly toddler. I don't mean that in the sense that he isn't fun to cuddle. He is, oh, he is. It's just that he's usually too busy and has scheduled his time too fully with other things to have the leisure to just sit in Imma's lap while she inhales his scent and plays with his hair. And he's not so into the giving of kisses either. If I ask him for a kiss, he will, without quite rolling his eyes, usually offer me a cheek so I can kiss him. And then he runs. That's it. I never get kisses.
That doesn't mean he never asks me for kisses though. He does, usually when he's bumped himself doing something he probably shouldn't have been doing. He'll come up to me, eyes big, or sometimes crying (usually not though) and say, "Imma hurt. Imma kiss it!" and show me where it hurts. I'll kiss it, a few times if it looks like it needs extra therapy, and that will be that.
This afternoon, in the category of things Barak probably shouldn't have been doing, he started redecorating his room by pushing furniture around. Specifically, the toddler bed that has been there since his cousins visited last Succos. He doesn't sleep in it, but the occasional visitor does, and he'll climb up on it to read sometimes. Between the bed and the wall is the mattress that's been in there since bedrest; it's propped up vertically, held in place by the frame of the toddler bed. Got that? Good.
So, when Barak started pushing the bed away from the wall, the mattress started to tip over, gradually, since it was moving away from the wall at the same time the bed was being laboriously relocated. After a while the bed stopped, because it hit the rocking chair. At this point the mattress was at about a 30 degree angle with the floor, parallel to the bed the long way, if that makes any sense.
What does Barak have now? He has a slide. Woohoo! So he started climbing up it, climbing down it, climbing under it. I thought about this activity and decided that although he was inevitably going to hurt himself somehow, he was unlikely to hurt himself badly, so I didn't stop him. I did, however, draw the line at going down the slide headfirst.
After a few initial protests, Barak decided that if he couldn't go down headfirst (mean old Imma), he'd send a proxy. So he pushed the monkey down headfirst. And, as Imma had predicted, the monkey bumped his head on the wall.
"Imma, monkey hurt! Imma kiss it monkey!" Okay, fine. "Where should I kiss it?" "Imma kiss it head!"
I kissed its head. "Imma kiss it foot!" I kissed its foot. "Imma kiss it this!" "His tail?" "Imma kiss it tail!" I kissed its tail. This went on for a while.
Then inspiration struck. How I could get kisses out of this. I went to kiss the monkey one more time, and theatrically bumped my face on the monkey. "Ow! Barak, my face hurts! Can you kiss it please?"
"Barak kiss it Imma?" "Yeah, I need you to kiss me right here." I got a kiss on my cheek. "And here, I think my chin hurts." I got a kiss on the chin. "It hurts a lot, I need another one. " "Nother one?" "Yeah, I need another one." I got another kiss on the chin.
I didn't want to push my luck, so I stopped after half a dozen kisses. But now I know where I can get more.
That doesn't mean he never asks me for kisses though. He does, usually when he's bumped himself doing something he probably shouldn't have been doing. He'll come up to me, eyes big, or sometimes crying (usually not though) and say, "Imma hurt. Imma kiss it!" and show me where it hurts. I'll kiss it, a few times if it looks like it needs extra therapy, and that will be that.
This afternoon, in the category of things Barak probably shouldn't have been doing, he started redecorating his room by pushing furniture around. Specifically, the toddler bed that has been there since his cousins visited last Succos. He doesn't sleep in it, but the occasional visitor does, and he'll climb up on it to read sometimes. Between the bed and the wall is the mattress that's been in there since bedrest; it's propped up vertically, held in place by the frame of the toddler bed. Got that? Good.
So, when Barak started pushing the bed away from the wall, the mattress started to tip over, gradually, since it was moving away from the wall at the same time the bed was being laboriously relocated. After a while the bed stopped, because it hit the rocking chair. At this point the mattress was at about a 30 degree angle with the floor, parallel to the bed the long way, if that makes any sense.
What does Barak have now? He has a slide. Woohoo! So he started climbing up it, climbing down it, climbing under it. I thought about this activity and decided that although he was inevitably going to hurt himself somehow, he was unlikely to hurt himself badly, so I didn't stop him. I did, however, draw the line at going down the slide headfirst.
After a few initial protests, Barak decided that if he couldn't go down headfirst (mean old Imma), he'd send a proxy. So he pushed the monkey down headfirst. And, as Imma had predicted, the monkey bumped his head on the wall.
"Imma, monkey hurt! Imma kiss it monkey!" Okay, fine. "Where should I kiss it?" "Imma kiss it head!"
I kissed its head. "Imma kiss it foot!" I kissed its foot. "Imma kiss it this!" "His tail?" "Imma kiss it tail!" I kissed its tail. This went on for a while.
Then inspiration struck. How I could get kisses out of this. I went to kiss the monkey one more time, and theatrically bumped my face on the monkey. "Ow! Barak, my face hurts! Can you kiss it please?"
"Barak kiss it Imma?" "Yeah, I need you to kiss me right here." I got a kiss on my cheek. "And here, I think my chin hurts." I got a kiss on the chin. "It hurts a lot, I need another one. " "Nother one?" "Yeah, I need another one." I got another kiss on the chin.
I didn't want to push my luck, so I stopped after half a dozen kisses. But now I know where I can get more.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
It's not just for Shabbos anymore
As I type (and pump, of course) I am inhaling the delicate fragrance of chicken soup, wafting in from the kitchen. Yeah, it's Wednesday night. So what? We can add a little kedusha to our Wednesdays too.
I didn't have any celery in the fridge and was not about to go buy any tonight. So it's onions, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, parshnips, and a few mushrooms I found hiding in there somewhere. Salt and pepper. A ton of fresh dill. And chicken, of course. We also have a box of organic whole-spelt matzo meal in the cupboard, waiting to be made into matzo balls. Do not even ask if I make sinkers or floaters. I use seltzer to lighten them up a little, but there's only so much that can be done with whole spelt.
Forty-five minutes till I can eat it. Chicken soup. Mmm. Or as Barak calls it, kitchen soup...
I didn't have any celery in the fridge and was not about to go buy any tonight. So it's onions, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, parshnips, and a few mushrooms I found hiding in there somewhere. Salt and pepper. A ton of fresh dill. And chicken, of course. We also have a box of organic whole-spelt matzo meal in the cupboard, waiting to be made into matzo balls. Do not even ask if I make sinkers or floaters. I use seltzer to lighten them up a little, but there's only so much that can be done with whole spelt.
Forty-five minutes till I can eat it. Chicken soup. Mmm. Or as Barak calls it, kitchen soup...
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
not what I promised
No pictures yet--sorry.
Today was a work-at-home day, but since I had no babysitter, Barak had no playgroup, and MHH had work, it is going to be a work-at-home evening instead. During the day, we all went to the science museum and then Trader Joe's. And guess what? Iyyar didn't scream! At all! This is amazing--usually the second you start buckling car seat straps he screws up his face and starts to wail. "You're tying me down! You're going to torture me! AAAAGHH!!!" He sat contentedly all the way there, falling asleep toward the end of the trip. I thought he would wake up screaming when we got there and I moved him to the sling, but he didn't--just woke up for a bit, looked around, and went back to sleep. After a couple of hours I took Barak out to play in the enclosed yard while I nursed Iyyar, who was very cooperative about the whole thing. And then back in the carseat, still with minimal protest. How 'bout that?
The presence of three entertainingly active children in the back row of the minivan, right where Iyyar in his rear-facing seat could watch them, probably helped. Anyway, a good time was had by all, and stopping at TJ's (I was with a friend who decided on a little last-minute grocery shopping) was a bonus. Of course, I did come home with some unsanctioned treats (chocolate-covered pretzels for me, and peanut butter granola bars for MHH) but also lots of good healthy stuff for dinners and lunches. Mmm.
Today was a work-at-home day, but since I had no babysitter, Barak had no playgroup, and MHH had work, it is going to be a work-at-home evening instead. During the day, we all went to the science museum and then Trader Joe's. And guess what? Iyyar didn't scream! At all! This is amazing--usually the second you start buckling car seat straps he screws up his face and starts to wail. "You're tying me down! You're going to torture me! AAAAGHH!!!" He sat contentedly all the way there, falling asleep toward the end of the trip. I thought he would wake up screaming when we got there and I moved him to the sling, but he didn't--just woke up for a bit, looked around, and went back to sleep. After a couple of hours I took Barak out to play in the enclosed yard while I nursed Iyyar, who was very cooperative about the whole thing. And then back in the carseat, still with minimal protest. How 'bout that?
The presence of three entertainingly active children in the back row of the minivan, right where Iyyar in his rear-facing seat could watch them, probably helped. Anyway, a good time was had by all, and stopping at TJ's (I was with a friend who decided on a little last-minute grocery shopping) was a bonus. Of course, I did come home with some unsanctioned treats (chocolate-covered pretzels for me, and peanut butter granola bars for MHH) but also lots of good healthy stuff for dinners and lunches. Mmm.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
More kinderlach chronicles
1. Barak and his abba have just left for the park, Barak wearing his recently purchased (by me) raincoat, which is about the cutest article of clothing imaginable on a two-year-old. It's a blue slicker with a pattern of raining frogs. Why don't they make things like that in adult sizes? I'd buy them.
2. Iyyar is asleep (plus see above--ergo I blog). He is so turning into his brother--he already looks just like him, and now he appears to be developing a similar sleep-resistant streak. As in, will not fall asleep without hysterical screaming, has ten-minute power naps, etc. Sigh. He is also far less portable than his big brother, who B"H was an excellent traveler from birth. He absolutely refuses to go in the stroller or carseat--he'll sit in the carseat at home, but once you start buckling him in he gets very very ticked off and starts to scream. The Snugli is fine, of course--until he gets hungry. And even in the Snugli he doesn't fall asleep without a fight. What is it with the hating to sleep business?! It has to be genetic, because all three males in the house are like that. Me, I love sleeping. Not that I get to do it or anything, but on principle I like it.
3. Yesterday Iyyar started giggling. Not just a little half-laugh with smile, but real, sociable giggling at Imma doing silly things. This is the point where, MHH says, babies start seeming "human" to him--I wouldn't go quite that far, but I see what he means. The level of interaction just ratchets way up.
4. Barak has dropped his "ees." He used to precede almost all of his sentences with "ee." As in, "Ee, yeah." or "Ee, granola please." I have no idea why--it was just how he talked. No more.
5. Barak's speech is starting to get a lot more comprehensible to strangers. Certain words are just beginning to be pronounced in a much more, shall we say, normative fashion. It's now more likely to be "thank you" than "ta dum," and "gadawa" is slowly becoming "granola." "Yogurt" and "kugel" no longer sound like the same word-- it's "yeegert" and "kugel," not "gagar" for both. "Challah" is no longer "acha," "truck" is no longer "chuck." Some signature Barakisms remain: "innair" for "in there"; "hepoo" for "help you," generically used for requests for help of any ilk; and his habit of using "it" for every possible pronoun, as in "No Imma nurse it baby!", "Barak hold it!" and "Barak break it!"
6. As I've mentioned, I've been doing a lot of pumping lately. On Shabbos, this habit presents a problem; you can pump on Shabbos, but only for the immediate consumption of a baby who can't take milk any other way. If you want to express milk because you're uncomfortable, you have to dump it, which kills me. So on Shabbos, I tend to nurse Iyyar as much as I possibly can, and obviously he gets just floods of milk all day because he is not in competition with the phantom orca in the freezer. Shabbos morning, we both woke up soaked, his diaper looked like it had been dipped in the bathtub, and I have never seen such a happy baby. (Note to those who don't understand how these things work: when you are nursing, your supply adjusts to demand. If I stopped pumping, I would lose all the "extra" milk in a few days. There is plenty of milk for Iyyar on weekdays too--I'm not depriving him by the amount I'm putting in the freezer, in fact it's the opposite.) Of course, when he realized I was getting out of bed he immediately protested that he was still hungry--this was patently absurd, but since I was still kind of full I picked him up and sat down to nurse him again anyway. And he looked right at me and not only giggled, but started smacking his lips. I have never felt so much like an all-night diner in my life.
7. The work-at-home thing is up for consideration again, this time as a "pilot project" involving me and some number of other employees whose work is totally measurable. I'm not sure how long it would be for, but my boss thinks at least six months to a year. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much. But it would really really be nice to be able to take Barak to playgroup and pick him up myself... and give the pump a little bit of a rest.
8. The perk of working in the office(this is not really a kinderlach chronicles item, but whatever) is that I now have knitting time again. I knit while on the bus and while pumping. As a result, I just knit a sock in four days flat--the first top-down (as opposed to toe-up) sock I have knit in years. I was trying to knit it for Savta, but it's too small. Next one, I guess.
Coming next: more pictures.
2. Iyyar is asleep (plus see above--ergo I blog). He is so turning into his brother--he already looks just like him, and now he appears to be developing a similar sleep-resistant streak. As in, will not fall asleep without hysterical screaming, has ten-minute power naps, etc. Sigh. He is also far less portable than his big brother, who B"H was an excellent traveler from birth. He absolutely refuses to go in the stroller or carseat--he'll sit in the carseat at home, but once you start buckling him in he gets very very ticked off and starts to scream. The Snugli is fine, of course--until he gets hungry. And even in the Snugli he doesn't fall asleep without a fight. What is it with the hating to sleep business?! It has to be genetic, because all three males in the house are like that. Me, I love sleeping. Not that I get to do it or anything, but on principle I like it.
3. Yesterday Iyyar started giggling. Not just a little half-laugh with smile, but real, sociable giggling at Imma doing silly things. This is the point where, MHH says, babies start seeming "human" to him--I wouldn't go quite that far, but I see what he means. The level of interaction just ratchets way up.
4. Barak has dropped his "ees." He used to precede almost all of his sentences with "ee." As in, "Ee, yeah." or "Ee, granola please." I have no idea why--it was just how he talked. No more.
5. Barak's speech is starting to get a lot more comprehensible to strangers. Certain words are just beginning to be pronounced in a much more, shall we say, normative fashion. It's now more likely to be "thank you" than "ta dum," and "gadawa" is slowly becoming "granola." "Yogurt" and "kugel" no longer sound like the same word-- it's "yeegert" and "kugel," not "gagar" for both. "Challah" is no longer "acha," "truck" is no longer "chuck." Some signature Barakisms remain: "innair" for "in there"; "hepoo" for "help you," generically used for requests for help of any ilk; and his habit of using "it" for every possible pronoun, as in "No Imma nurse it baby!", "Barak hold it!" and "Barak break it!"
6. As I've mentioned, I've been doing a lot of pumping lately. On Shabbos, this habit presents a problem; you can pump on Shabbos, but only for the immediate consumption of a baby who can't take milk any other way. If you want to express milk because you're uncomfortable, you have to dump it, which kills me. So on Shabbos, I tend to nurse Iyyar as much as I possibly can, and obviously he gets just floods of milk all day because he is not in competition with the phantom orca in the freezer. Shabbos morning, we both woke up soaked, his diaper looked like it had been dipped in the bathtub, and I have never seen such a happy baby. (Note to those who don't understand how these things work: when you are nursing, your supply adjusts to demand. If I stopped pumping, I would lose all the "extra" milk in a few days. There is plenty of milk for Iyyar on weekdays too--I'm not depriving him by the amount I'm putting in the freezer, in fact it's the opposite.) Of course, when he realized I was getting out of bed he immediately protested that he was still hungry--this was patently absurd, but since I was still kind of full I picked him up and sat down to nurse him again anyway. And he looked right at me and not only giggled, but started smacking his lips. I have never felt so much like an all-night diner in my life.
7. The work-at-home thing is up for consideration again, this time as a "pilot project" involving me and some number of other employees whose work is totally measurable. I'm not sure how long it would be for, but my boss thinks at least six months to a year. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much. But it would really really be nice to be able to take Barak to playgroup and pick him up myself... and give the pump a little bit of a rest.
8. The perk of working in the office(this is not really a kinderlach chronicles item, but whatever) is that I now have knitting time again. I knit while on the bus and while pumping. As a result, I just knit a sock in four days flat--the first top-down (as opposed to toe-up) sock I have knit in years. I was trying to knit it for Savta, but it's too small. Next one, I guess.
Coming next: more pictures.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
pump YOU up
Gratuitous SNL reference there. Sorry, couldn't resist.
So, we're beginning my fifth week back at work, which means that Iyyar is seventeen weeks old-- although I had to think about that, since I stopped counting weeks a while ago. He's three and a half months old, nearly four.
I didn't go back to work until Barak was seven months old; when I did, since he was still nursing, I started to pump. The concept of pumping wasn't new to me--I'd had to do it for a while when he was born, while he got the hang of nursing the old-fashioned way. But when you start pumping when your baby is seven months, your body is a little bit less receptive to the idea. I never, B"H, had to give him any formula (well, except for the first week of his life and two tablespoons once in some rice cereal I was pretty sure he was going to reject and didn't want to waste breastmilk on), but it was not easy to get enough milk for his bottle every day. He only needed one bottle, but by the time he turned one he wanted it to be a good nine ounces. I never got more than three ounces at a time and usually much less; I pumped in the morning, at work, at night, and sometimes at 2 am after being roused to do so by alarm clock. In retrospect I might have done better with more rest and less pumping--who knows.
Anyway, the idea of nine months of pumping was sort of intimidating, especially since, until a week before the end of my leave, I had had hopes of hardly having to pump at all. I didn't start pumping until I got the bad news about working from home, which left me with three weeks till I went back to working in the office. That was a little over seven weeks ago.
I now have something like 70 3-ounce bags of milk in the freezer. I've taken to pumping first thing in the morning, right after Iyyar nurses; twice at work; and once at night after Iyyar goes to sleep. On a day that I don't go into the office I sometimes put nine ounces in the freezer. Today I think it might be as much as twelve. I have totally faked out my breasts; they are convinced that I have either twins or a baby whale.
Um, and I don't need you to tell me I'm going overboard. I know I am. But I'm not quite ready to cut down. Even if I never use all that milk, someone will (I gave away what I pumped for Barak in the early months, to someone who had, unknown to her, had her milk ducts cut during a breast reduction surgery as a teenager). And it is a much better feeling to know that even if I do run into supply problems again, with a freezer full of Lansinoh bags I am very unlikely to need to resort to formula--which is not, I know, the end of the world, but would personally make me very sad.
In the meantime, of course, I am faced with one problem.
Where on earth am I going to put all the food for yom tov?
So, we're beginning my fifth week back at work, which means that Iyyar is seventeen weeks old-- although I had to think about that, since I stopped counting weeks a while ago. He's three and a half months old, nearly four.
I didn't go back to work until Barak was seven months old; when I did, since he was still nursing, I started to pump. The concept of pumping wasn't new to me--I'd had to do it for a while when he was born, while he got the hang of nursing the old-fashioned way. But when you start pumping when your baby is seven months, your body is a little bit less receptive to the idea. I never, B"H, had to give him any formula (well, except for the first week of his life and two tablespoons once in some rice cereal I was pretty sure he was going to reject and didn't want to waste breastmilk on), but it was not easy to get enough milk for his bottle every day. He only needed one bottle, but by the time he turned one he wanted it to be a good nine ounces. I never got more than three ounces at a time and usually much less; I pumped in the morning, at work, at night, and sometimes at 2 am after being roused to do so by alarm clock. In retrospect I might have done better with more rest and less pumping--who knows.
Anyway, the idea of nine months of pumping was sort of intimidating, especially since, until a week before the end of my leave, I had had hopes of hardly having to pump at all. I didn't start pumping until I got the bad news about working from home, which left me with three weeks till I went back to working in the office. That was a little over seven weeks ago.
I now have something like 70 3-ounce bags of milk in the freezer. I've taken to pumping first thing in the morning, right after Iyyar nurses; twice at work; and once at night after Iyyar goes to sleep. On a day that I don't go into the office I sometimes put nine ounces in the freezer. Today I think it might be as much as twelve. I have totally faked out my breasts; they are convinced that I have either twins or a baby whale.
Um, and I don't need you to tell me I'm going overboard. I know I am. But I'm not quite ready to cut down. Even if I never use all that milk, someone will (I gave away what I pumped for Barak in the early months, to someone who had, unknown to her, had her milk ducts cut during a breast reduction surgery as a teenager). And it is a much better feeling to know that even if I do run into supply problems again, with a freezer full of Lansinoh bags I am very unlikely to need to resort to formula--which is not, I know, the end of the world, but would personally make me very sad.
In the meantime, of course, I am faced with one problem.
Where on earth am I going to put all the food for yom tov?
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
The kinderlach chronicles
1. Somewhat rashly, I decided to thumb my nose at the Stroller Curse. I bought a snap 'n' go, which, for the uninitiated, is a stroller frame meant to transport an infant car seat. I should have bought it a while ago--it makes it much easier to go somewhere when the baby's asleep without waking up the baby. I put it together yesterday and we all took a walk--Iyyar in the carseat, Barak holding the side, me pushing, MHH following along. With this arrangement, once we got to the grocery store, Barak found himself at unprecedented liberty--not in stroller OR top of shopping cart. Not surprisingly, he immediately scoped out the ice cream freezer, and with his sweetest, winningest smile, said, "Imma, Barak hold it ikeem, 'kay?" I don't want to eat the ice cream, no no, chas v'shalom. I just want to hold it. Really!
2. Saba and Savta left yesterday. My children are blessed and fortunate to have not one, but two sets of honorary grandparents; Saba and Savta means Grandpa and Grandma in Hebrew. When asked how many grandchildren they have, they count mine; pictures of my kids are on their fridge; when Barak was born, Savta was the one who sent me a whole baby layette priority mail. They rock. She and Saba drove 12 hours each way to visit us for Shabbos, and gave Barak and Iyyar the full grandparent treatment, including the aforementioned John Deere trucks, lots of attention, and lots of cuddles. After they left, Barak was, well, bereft. He kept peeking into their room, looking perturbed. He kept saying to himself, "Where Savta go? Find out?" and looking in the places where he himself had been hiding in recent games of "Where'd Barak go?" Finally he came up to me and said, "Where Saba Savta go?" I said, "They went home, sweetie." He looked sad. "Saba Savta home? Grandma home?" I know he doesn't really know that Saba Savta and Grandma actually live within walking distance of each other, but still...
3. Iyyar is starting to really really smile. He looks like a cross between a chubby toothless old man and a very happy garden gnome. Today, for the first time, he sat up just holding my fingers--he has the back strength and the balance now.
4. He still sleeps with me and nurses much of the night, but sleeps longer stretches, I think. Every so often, he will wake up, realize he's teetering on the brink of malnutrition, and wake me up by sort of scrabbling at me; if I don't wake up right away, he gets annoyed, starts to kick, and ends up pushing down on my stomach with his feet and rappelling up me until I get woken up by being nose-to-nose with a starving, enraged elf. This happens multiple times a night. It was a little unnerving until I got used to it.
5. B"H Barak has not been really jealous of Iyyar. He would like to get more attention than he gets, but he hasn't really been taking it out on the baby. The one thing he does do is get very angry if I sit down with the baby--because then I'm about to focus my attention on someone else. His usual response is, "No Imma sit! No Imma nursing baby!" Sometimes, in an effort to be polite, he will come up to me, attempt to haul me bodily out of the chair (fat chance--I have twenty pounds to go) and say, "Imma up! Imma 'cuse me PEESS!" I've been trying to explain to him that you don't go around telling other people to get up out of their chairs because you don't want them to sit, and even saying please does not make this behavior polite.
6. A few weeks ago, for the first time, Barak started with some really calculated misbehavior. It was just at a different level from previous experimentation--it was, hmm, what will Imma do if I totally defy her? So we started with timeouts. A typical exchange will go like this:
Me: Barak, come here please.
(No response)
Me: Barak, come here please. I said come here.
(No response)
Me: Barak, I said come here. Do you want me to count?
Barak: No Imma count!
Me: So come here, please.
(No response.)
Me. One. (Pause.) Come here, please. Two. (Pause). Barak, I said come here. Do you want to go into your crib? (Pause. Sigh.) Three. Okay, in your crib, two minutes.
Barak: NOOOOOOOOOOO! No night-night! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I deposit a howling Barak into his crib and close the door. Wails of misery issue forth. Two minutes later, I go get him, give him a kiss, explain to him that when Imma says come, he does what? Barak says, "Please!" and comes out. The next few times I ask him to come, he comes. Or not. And then we do it all again.
7. There isn't any number 7. But I'm done pumping for the evening, and I can only justify blogging while attached to my Medela, so I'm putting the milk in the fridge, cleaning up the kitchen, and going to bed.
2. Saba and Savta left yesterday. My children are blessed and fortunate to have not one, but two sets of honorary grandparents; Saba and Savta means Grandpa and Grandma in Hebrew. When asked how many grandchildren they have, they count mine; pictures of my kids are on their fridge; when Barak was born, Savta was the one who sent me a whole baby layette priority mail. They rock. She and Saba drove 12 hours each way to visit us for Shabbos, and gave Barak and Iyyar the full grandparent treatment, including the aforementioned John Deere trucks, lots of attention, and lots of cuddles. After they left, Barak was, well, bereft. He kept peeking into their room, looking perturbed. He kept saying to himself, "Where Savta go? Find out?" and looking in the places where he himself had been hiding in recent games of "Where'd Barak go?" Finally he came up to me and said, "Where Saba Savta go?" I said, "They went home, sweetie." He looked sad. "Saba Savta home? Grandma home?" I know he doesn't really know that Saba Savta and Grandma actually live within walking distance of each other, but still...
3. Iyyar is starting to really really smile. He looks like a cross between a chubby toothless old man and a very happy garden gnome. Today, for the first time, he sat up just holding my fingers--he has the back strength and the balance now.
4. He still sleeps with me and nurses much of the night, but sleeps longer stretches, I think. Every so often, he will wake up, realize he's teetering on the brink of malnutrition, and wake me up by sort of scrabbling at me; if I don't wake up right away, he gets annoyed, starts to kick, and ends up pushing down on my stomach with his feet and rappelling up me until I get woken up by being nose-to-nose with a starving, enraged elf. This happens multiple times a night. It was a little unnerving until I got used to it.
5. B"H Barak has not been really jealous of Iyyar. He would like to get more attention than he gets, but he hasn't really been taking it out on the baby. The one thing he does do is get very angry if I sit down with the baby--because then I'm about to focus my attention on someone else. His usual response is, "No Imma sit! No Imma nursing baby!" Sometimes, in an effort to be polite, he will come up to me, attempt to haul me bodily out of the chair (fat chance--I have twenty pounds to go) and say, "Imma up! Imma 'cuse me PEESS!" I've been trying to explain to him that you don't go around telling other people to get up out of their chairs because you don't want them to sit, and even saying please does not make this behavior polite.
6. A few weeks ago, for the first time, Barak started with some really calculated misbehavior. It was just at a different level from previous experimentation--it was, hmm, what will Imma do if I totally defy her? So we started with timeouts. A typical exchange will go like this:
Me: Barak, come here please.
(No response)
Me: Barak, come here please. I said come here.
(No response)
Me: Barak, I said come here. Do you want me to count?
Barak: No Imma count!
Me: So come here, please.
(No response.)
Me. One. (Pause.) Come here, please. Two. (Pause). Barak, I said come here. Do you want to go into your crib? (Pause. Sigh.) Three. Okay, in your crib, two minutes.
Barak: NOOOOOOOOOOO! No night-night! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I deposit a howling Barak into his crib and close the door. Wails of misery issue forth. Two minutes later, I go get him, give him a kiss, explain to him that when Imma says come, he does what? Barak says, "Please!" and comes out. The next few times I ask him to come, he comes. Or not. And then we do it all again.
7. There isn't any number 7. But I'm done pumping for the evening, and I can only justify blogging while attached to my Medela, so I'm putting the milk in the fridge, cleaning up the kitchen, and going to bed.
Bibi at his best
Translated from Netanyahu's Hebrew, not by me.
BBC interviewer: "How come so many more Lebanese have been killed in this conflict than Israelis?"
Netanyahu: "Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?"
BBC interviewer: "Why not?"
Netanyahu: "Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the war was caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima. I also want to remind you that in 1944 when the British wanted to bomb the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, your pilots missed the target and burned down a children’s hospital with 83 Danish kids in it. Perhaps you have another question?"
BBC interviewer: "How come so many more Lebanese have been killed in this conflict than Israelis?"
Netanyahu: "Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?"
BBC interviewer: "Why not?"
Netanyahu: "Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the war was caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima. I also want to remind you that in 1944 when the British wanted to bomb the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, your pilots missed the target and burned down a children’s hospital with 83 Danish kids in it. Perhaps you have another question?"
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Sunday afternoon chez Uberimma
I am in a much better mood today than I have been in in recent weeks. The Conversation has been had with my boss, and two of the worst speeches (in terms of how long it would have taken me to write them) have been offloaded to a freelancer, and an intern has been put on notice that she's going to be doing some of my research. Gyongyi came and cleaned, and the bathtub is no longer grimy. The heat broke, and the windows are now open. Both Barak and Iyyar are napping, and have been for an hour, during which I raced frantically around the house picking up.
But best of all, Barak and Iyyar's Saba and Savta are here, after a 13-hour drive on Thursday (good thing they decided not to fly, huh?) I talked to Ada the babysitter from work on Friday. "Barak is in love," she told me. And the living room is a parking garage of toy John Deere trucks and tractors--they brought a whole set, instantly blowing every single one of Barak's little-boy-truck-adoration fuses.
Details to follow, but I'm not wasting any more of my visit time blogging.
But best of all, Barak and Iyyar's Saba and Savta are here, after a 13-hour drive on Thursday (good thing they decided not to fly, huh?) I talked to Ada the babysitter from work on Friday. "Barak is in love," she told me. And the living room is a parking garage of toy John Deere trucks and tractors--they brought a whole set, instantly blowing every single one of Barak's little-boy-truck-adoration fuses.
Details to follow, but I'm not wasting any more of my visit time blogging.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
A poll
I really really really don't have time for a post, but it's been a while, and besides, I am sort of getting sick of looking at the picture that makes my stunning stunning curtains look like something that might hang in the windows of a Florida motel.
So, time for a question for all my fearless readers.
What reading material is in your bathroom, right now? Now, be honest. I don't read in the bathroom myself, but you can tell a lot about our household by what's on the floor of the bathroom. Especially Orthodox Jews, who read things in the bathroom they might not read elsewhere. Until I picked up the pile to bring it to the computer, we had:
The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturlusson, translated from the Icelandic by Jean I. Young (guess who this belongs to? Not me)
The Making of the Middle Ages, by WR Southern (see previous parenthetical comment)
an Astro City comic (see above, again)
Richard Scarry's Counting Book (a fine piece of literature)
and Cars and Trucks and Things that Go (another fine piece of literature, with Goldbug!)
Goldbug, by the way, is a little, um, gold bug, who appears here and there Where's Waldo-style throughout the book. Barak loves it. "Where Goldbug go?" "I don't know, Barak. Let's find out!" "Find out?"
Oh, and as a postscript to "night-night tomorrow," apparently I have a hierarchy of near-antonyms for "later." Depending on when I think I might do what Barak wants me to do, I might say "just a minute," "soon," "in a little while," "later," or "tomorrow." If Barak is campaigning for something I'm not planning on doing it in the foreseeable future--for example, taking the bus or going to Baskin-Robbins--I'll say, "Maybe another time."
Why do I now know this? Because lately, Barak has been trying them all. Last week, on the way home from a walk, he wanted to check that night-night wasn't next on the agenda. (It wasn't.)
"No night-night."
"No, no night-night now."
"No night-night soon?"
"No, not for a while."
"Night-night maybe another time."
So, time for a question for all my fearless readers.
What reading material is in your bathroom, right now? Now, be honest. I don't read in the bathroom myself, but you can tell a lot about our household by what's on the floor of the bathroom. Especially Orthodox Jews, who read things in the bathroom they might not read elsewhere. Until I picked up the pile to bring it to the computer, we had:
The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturlusson, translated from the Icelandic by Jean I. Young (guess who this belongs to? Not me)
The Making of the Middle Ages, by WR Southern (see previous parenthetical comment)
an Astro City comic (see above, again)
Richard Scarry's Counting Book (a fine piece of literature)
and Cars and Trucks and Things that Go (another fine piece of literature, with Goldbug!)
Goldbug, by the way, is a little, um, gold bug, who appears here and there Where's Waldo-style throughout the book. Barak loves it. "Where Goldbug go?" "I don't know, Barak. Let's find out!" "Find out?"
Oh, and as a postscript to "night-night tomorrow," apparently I have a hierarchy of near-antonyms for "later." Depending on when I think I might do what Barak wants me to do, I might say "just a minute," "soon," "in a little while," "later," or "tomorrow." If Barak is campaigning for something I'm not planning on doing it in the foreseeable future--for example, taking the bus or going to Baskin-Robbins--I'll say, "Maybe another time."
Why do I now know this? Because lately, Barak has been trying them all. Last week, on the way home from a walk, he wanted to check that night-night wasn't next on the agenda. (It wasn't.)
"No night-night."
"No, no night-night now."
"No night-night soon?"
"No, not for a while."
"Night-night maybe another time."
Thursday, August 03, 2006
In which I continue to not blog about the war
Hey, look! Pictures!
What's this? Well, this is the computer from which I am writing this blog. It's new. It came last week, because I finally had to give back the laptop I borrowed from work about a year ago.
But that's not what's exciting. What's exciting is what's behind it:
the beautifullest curtains ever, which look sort of, well, schvach in this picture. Here's a closeup:
Better, huh? Imagine totally saturated pinks and purples and turquoises, cut through with lime green and yellow vines. Now imagine that you have them in a west-facing window. Now imagine the afternoon sun lighting up the vines... mmm.
And did I mention the sequins?
Mmm.
These are the curtains Deb made for me from fabric she got at a sari shop while she was here. I had to clean up the entire guest room to do them justice.
More pictures:
Our cat, standing on the guest-room bed. You can sort of see in the picture that it has lime green walls.
And yes, she really can shoot laser beams from her eyes. She's talented that way.
And what's this stunning cable pattern? It's the sweater that is stuffed in a plastic bag in an apartment somewhere in Sydney, waiting for its turn. When it's done, it's going to be mine!!
Some of my knitting, pre-bedrest (no, those are not my feet):
And the reason why I'm probably going to wait a long time for my Aran sweater (none of those are my feet either):
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
More reasons not to blog about the war
Because Sarah does it so much better.
If you're not quite sure what's going on in Israel, and have a tiny little suspicion that you're not getting the whole story from CNN, maybe you should bookmark her blog.
If you're not quite sure what's going on in Israel, and have a tiny little suspicion that you're not getting the whole story from CNN, maybe you should bookmark her blog.
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