Work, children, and a message to my grandmother.

- Remember how a few weeks ago I spoke about Judaism at the mosque?  Well, last night I went to the speaker on Islam, which was held at a Protestant mega-church.  The speaker was fascinating!  He was eloquent and direct.  Best of all, he didn't pull any punches on the hard questions.  Islam in its pure form is a kind religion, he said, preaching generosity and love.  It empowers women.  Anything we see in other countries where that doesn't happen, according to him, is because of culture, of "backwards, barbaric culture."  The Taliban "corrupted the religion" and twisted it, and they and terrorists give Islam a bad name, so that he and his family always feel they need to defend it.  It was a really powerful talk, and gave me great insight into what it's like to be a Muslim in a post 9-11 world.

- Xander is at Camp Shelanu and loving it.  Ari is too young and is not handling it well.  We're trying to pick him up early from school, do things with him alone to combat his feeling of being left out.  It's not working.  He is left out because he's too young.  Any suggestions?

- Connor still doesn't have any teeth.  Sigh.

- We had to return the new laptop - I write this from a second new one.  The first one was a touchscreen.  And that was NOT child friendly.  Who knew the amount of times my kids touched my screen when I'm online?  It was waaaay more than I realized, they kept exiting my windows accidentally without saving things.  This current one is distinctly not touch-screen, so feels like a step back in a way.  But on the other hand, absolutely nothing has been deleted since I got it.  So all is well.

And lastly, Savta, I signed you up for a yahoo email account.  Go to "www.yahoo.com"  Your user name is lillianliss.  Password is your maiden name, with the first letter capitalized, and then the full year your middle daughter was born, all together with no spaces.  If anyone wants to email you, your email is "lillianliss@yahoo.com."