The phrase "Sleeping like a baby"

Means you can sleep through incredible noise, like your brothers screaming in glee, or the clank of your father on the elliptical while an action movie plays in the background.

It means you fall asleep easily, without much crying, but you wake up every two to three hours. Until the one night you sleep for five hours straight and freak out your mother, who keeps checking to make sure you're breathing.

Yet you are 13 lbs and amazingly alert and strong, so all that sleeping and nursing is definitely doing something right!

In your wearable blanket PJs... distinctly not sleeping.

Woohoo, my name made a list!

You know how people with more traditional names can usually find their name on mugs and keychains and souvenir paraphernalia?

I never can, no big shock and surprise.

Until now!  Read here: Michal was the 10th most popular Israeli girls' baby name in 2012.

Yay.

New meaning to the term "baby gymnastics"

Xander jumps back and forth over the baby.

Jonathan: "Xander, please don't jump over your brother."

Xander: "Why not?"

Jonathan: "Because you could accidentally fall on him and hurt him.  At the very least he'll make a lot of noise."

(pause)

"Think of him as a land mine."

Mr. 8 week-old Land Mine himself, fitting perfectly into his size 6-months outfit.

Art afternoons

Pajamas for Xander, my little homebody.  Ari got dressed because he chose to go do errands with Jonathan earlier that day.  As an aside, I love them having a table their size for meals and arts & crafts - they feel so empowered to reach everything plus there's no mess on the main table.

 Xander's very first book!  Complete with title and byline: "I Luv Stamps, bi Xander Loving"

The first page is a map of California.

 Random sample page from the middle of the book.

Second random sample page.

The back page, with an additional (differently-spelled!) title.  He obviously ascribes to Mark Twain's theory, who said, paraphrasing, that anyone who only spells a word one way has no imagination.

The afternoon ended with the opening of an amazing package from Savta containing individual kiddush cups for the boys.  Here they are responding to my request to "please hold up your kiddush cups so we can see how beautiful they are."  The package also had a gorgeous necklace for me and a ceramic camel and tree for Blackie's cage, but the kiddush cups were the most popular by far.

Ari wanted to sleep with his that night, and asked if we could have Shabbat RIGHT NOW!! :)

Yesterday's green, green, green, green afternoon

My perspective:

I'm very excited because I finally perfected a green smoothie recipe that the kids will eat: lots of lots of spinach, banana, a few strawberries, pineapple, vanilla yogurt, and apple juice.

I have Ari help put everything in the blender, and he presses the buttons to turn it on and off.  The smoothie whirls and whirls, and is finally finished.  I lift off the top, and then....

CHAOS.

SMOOTHIE EVERYWHERE.

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Jonathan's perspective:

He's in the shower and hears pounding on the bathroom door.

Xander knocks and knocks.  "Daddy, Mommy really needs you."

"What is it?" Jonathan asks.

"Um...  Ari turned on the blender with the top off."

(Ari screams in the background.)


---------------

Did you know that it is actually possible to be covered head to toe in smoothie?  Literally.  From one's hair to one's toes.  On both myself and the two year-old.

There is still enough left over to cover the counter.  And the floor.  And an entire two-foot area around the kitchen.

Ari starts to scream from shock at the same time that I lose it and start to yell and curse.

Then the baby wakes up and starts crying.

----------------

How do single parents do it?  I clean the kitchen and put my and Ari's clothes in the wash while Xander entertains Connor, and Jonathan holds Ari and calms him down.  Apparently he'd been scared of the noise and flying green liquid everywhere, and hadn't made the connection that he'd been the one responsible for it.  Hence the screaming.  I was too pissed to recognize that at the time, hence my yelling.

Thankfully, all is now clean.  Ari forgave me for the yelling.  I forgave him for the causing of the mess, which was accidental.

And the smoothie?  The two ounces I got to drink of it was quite good. :)

Best tour ever

Jonathan and I participated yesterday in something called "Journey and Discovery" at the kids' school, where we pretended to be kids and teachers gave us the lessons.  It was amazing to learn in the Montessori method like that; visiting the 4th-6th grade classroom, for the first time I actually understood the way the sun's rays shine on the earth and what the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer are. I saw a lesson on square roots using beads and suddenly the abstract was made tangible.  Jonathan spent a really long time on something on geography and rocks, and then went to the periodic table and the microscope.

Now that we've gone Montessori, I don't think we can ever go back to having our kids learn though traditional schooling.   I can't recommend it enough.

Huh.

Somebody just asked me what I do for fun.

I said, "I blog, I read, I watch sci-fi movies."

He seemed very unimpressed.

Then I followed up with the unequivocal truth:

"I don't have hobbies.  I have small children."

Life with three

Playing with the baby.  The older boys' layered tie-dye was all their idea.

Ari shaking the rattle for Connor's amusement while Xander looks on.

The newest addition to the family: an elliptical machine, thanks to Craigslist.  

Xander wants to know how it works, of course, while Ari jumps right on.

Spider boys hugging/wrestling next to one of the Spiderman library books.

Babeleh bathtime while his brothers are in the main tub.

 And we have a smile!

Unexpected parenting sources

In stark contrast to his mother's childhood, my oldest son is extremely popular with his peers.  Kids want to sit next to him at lunch, they copy the silly things he says, and they follow his game ideas on the playground. His teacher says that one child in particular is "obsessed" with him, and constantly asks if they can work together.

Last week, Xander and this child got in trouble multiple times in one day for having a food fight at lunch, and then later, for going to the bathroom 5 times in a 20-minute span. They were also banned from the 100-Board, a math teaching tool, for not using the pieces appropriately and for throwing them at each other.

Obviously, after getting this news, Jonathan and I sat Xander down for a talk.

Not so obvious were the parts of our talk that he resonated with the most:

"With great [social] power comes great responsibility" from Spiderman

and

"Use the Force for good [behavior], not bad"  from Star Wars.  

Thank you, pop culture!  His choices the next day were ever so much better.

Fairytale Town a couple weekends ago

Ahoy thar, matey.

My brother's Captain!

Up the treehouse ladder.

Siblings on a slide, part umpteenth.

On the "Crooked Mile," a super-twisty road.

All hail the Spider Boys!

Climber One.

Climber Two.

Sliding down.

Hula hooping.

How Spider Child the Third spent his day.

Friday fun

Ari discovering static electricity at the park.  It's pretty dry outside!

Pointing to someone unexpected, who followed us all the way here...

Osher the guard-cat!

For context... sniffing around.

Coming to play on the slide.

Robin and Connor.

 Contemplating life.

Exploring Dead Sea mud

Playing dress-up with friends: pirate Ari!

We call him Darth Spider.

Baby selfie

I am a powerhouse.. for the moment

Jonathan's out of town today, so I took the boys out of school because I couldn't bear the thought of fighting with them to get to school, and I knew Connor would cry the entire two hours of the car ride (1/2 hour there and back twice, for drop-off and pick-up).  So I declared a "Mommy mental health day" and instead, I and the kids (and Robin for part of it):

- went to the park

- made brownies from scratch (no mix!)

- made mac'n cheese (most definitely from the Kraft mix)
- read books

- after reading a book about Israel, put Dead Sea mud on our faces and let it dry

- had a playdate with Mateo and Eva and their mom, and cleaned the living room before and after

- did beading and made necklaces

- went to Panera to get challah, and Rite Aid for assorted sundries

- ate 3 meals and 2 snacks, and then I loaded, ran, and put away 2 dishwasher loads

- ran and folded 3 loads of laundry

- organized all the kids' puzzles

- nursed and nursed and nursed

- changed at least 6 diapers

Question of the day: why did I get 4 mosquito bites outside when Robin and the children got none?

Ari was really hard today and fought everything I did, from getting dressed to eating lunch to washing his face.  I was so ready for bedtime, and started to get really mad the third time he'd come out of his room after lights were out.  But as I started to be cross with him and he began to cry, I heard him say, "stay with me, Mommy," and all of a sudden a light went on: he's still feeling insecure about his place, and this time nothing was at stake except bedtime, which was nothing in the grand scheme of things.

So I finally did something right with him, instead of losing my patience: I gave Connor to Robin and carried Ari to his bed and laid down with him, and stroked his hair and told him every single thing I could think of of why I loved him.  And he was quiet and didn't say a word.  And after 10 minutes when I was done, I whispered in his ear that I was leaving, and he just nodded and reached out his arms for a hug.  And he hasn't gotten up since.

I'd been really dreading the day, but it turned out to be quite nice.

I still can't do this full-time though. :)

We should be ashamed

Source:  NY Times

Life lessons

I strongly believe in life lessons.  For almost every situation, I think, "What can I learn from this?"  Sometimes, it's easy things like "never put banana peels in a garbage disposal" or "giving warm chocolate milk to children before bedtime is not the same as giving them warm regular milk."

But generally, the lessons are broader than that.  For the longest time, especially before I had kids, I believe my lesson was to let go of fear.  I had to learn to make decisions based on my heart as well as my head, and not to let fear of negative outcomes dictate who I was becoming.  One of the bravest things I feel I've ever done was saying yes to Jonathan's marriage proposal after two months, because it was such a divergence from my life plans at the time and I didn't know what life would like look afterwards.  It was my very first real leap of faith.

The leaps continued, especially as I had kids.  The author Elizabeth Stone once said,  "The decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide to forever have your heart go walking around outside your body."  I read that quote well before I had children, but I only understood it once Xander and the other boys were born.  It felt like every day as they developed I was (and am) forced to let go of fear, fear of something happening to them, fear of not providing what they need, etc.

This week, the life lesson has morphed a little, in a very tangible way.  While closely related to the general "fear of not being a good enough mother," I've realized that this lesson is less about fear, and more about acceptance: acceptance of who I am, and letting go of who I want or think I should be.

It began when I took two self-quizzes I found linked on Facebook. On one of them, I scored 16 out of 16 for being Type A.  On the other, I scored 3 out of 23 for being an introvert.  I was actually a little surprised by both, as I hadn't thought of myself as having those extremes.

It started a ricochet of self-reflection.  Yes, I'm Type A and an extrovert.  I thrive on being with people in groups, interacting with others and having adult conversations.  I love being with my children... but I also can only take the 2 and 5 year-old bickering for so long.  I've always known this; that's the reason why Jonathan is the stay-at-home parent and not myself.  He has more patience and enjoys it more.

My not-so-new epiphany is that I have trouble with that.  Apparently I know who I am, but want to be someone else, someone like the home-birth circle women I knew in Cincinnati, or my Mormon cousins, or even a rabbinical friend who owns chickens and does craft projects and makes homemade yogurt.  I'm not that person and never will be... but part of me still thinks that person is the better mother than the Type A extrovert who honestly enjoys late-night Board meetings.

The next few years, then, must be about self-acceptance.  It's one thing to say I have a good self-esteem and have a lot to offer my children, but quite another to beat myself up because I want to be the primary parent and hippie-granola in theory, but not in reality.  I can't have both.  I am NOT that person.  Maternity leave has been hard because "caring for a baby" is a really difficult goal for me to enjoy, no matter how much I believe in its value.  (It's also at the root of much of my marital conflict, too, I'm realizing - I have very firm ideas about how to address kid conflict, what to make as a healthy dinner, etc, but then I don't want to do it and so criticize Jonathan for doing it wrong.)

So my next life lesson?  To let go of my ideal of who I should be, and what I should do, in order to be what I consider a good mother and wife, and just accept who I really am.  If I can do that, I think I'll be much happier with my life.  And most likely, that means my husband and kids will be happier with theirs, too.

Unbelievable

A full-size Hershey's chocolate bar has 24 grams of sugar and 3 grams of protein.

A generic Raley's (supermarket) brand 6oz cherry yogurt cup has 26 grams of sugar and 6 grams of protein.

What is this world coming to when the nutritional value of yogurt is about the same as that of candy?!

And here I thought we were giving the kids healthy lunches.  I guess not.

Starting to calm down

I don't know if we've hit a groove, so to speak, but we're definitely not in panic mode anymore.

- Connor's six weeks old, and (knock on wood, plastic, metal, glass, whatever) is the least fussy baby of all three of them.  He definitely has his preference of wanting to be walked around in the evenings, but overall, he wails only an infinitesimal part of the day.

- Xander got a library card.  Because Ari had one, duh, so he too needed one desperately.  I love it, my kids want to read!  We let them check out what they want in the interest of individuality, so Jonathan and I have been reading all about Spiderman, Batman, Iron Man, and other superheroes.  Xander was so cute, he insisted on sleeping with his library card the night he got it. 

- My sister was here for a week and went back home.  I worked with her on her resume; wish her luck in landing a new job!

- Our children will never be obese.  I think I've mentioned that at our house if a child doesn't like what's for dinner and refuses to eat, they have to take one bite before we would consider making them something else.  Well, when they refuse that bite, they don't get anything else and we save their plate. Hours later if they say they're hungry, they get that plate back and still have to try the meal.  Xander refused CHICKEN NUGGETS AND CARROTS and had a huge tantrum, so went without dinner.  In the end Ari ate it.  I still don't understand what happened.

- I had my first public appearance with temple people since the baby naming, at the shiva for the woman who passed away last week.  I brought Connor with me and he was immediately lifted from my arms and passed around from person to person.  It was like the HUC lounge all over again but even better, because this time, almost everyone there was a parent and automatically went into that hip sway/arm bouncing mode.  He never even cried once.

- Although the kids will continue at their current school next year, just to be educated about what's out there we've toured the public charter Montessori, a non-Montessori charter in our neighborhood, and the local elementary down the road.  And as a result, we found out something interesting: despite the fact that Xander's doing addition and subtraction, reading, and handwriting, and his current school considers this his kindergarten year, if we were to switch him to any public school, he would have to repeat kindergarten or officially skip a grade - according to the new law he's too young to be in first grade.  

- Lastly, it definitely feels like the babymoon is over and I've rejoined real life.  It's good progress, as I go back to work in less than a month on February 9th.  But oy, right now I just want to cuddle with Connor and not think about it yet!

Connor smiles!

Real smiles, not gassy ones.  He's happy to see me!

Hooray. :)

Not a smile, but just cute.

Money, midwives, and municipalities

Money
On the first of the year we gifted Xander with a Berenstain Bears book about money and a Moonjar Moneybox, a piggy bank with three sections for Share, Save, and Spend.  He's getting one dollar a week allowance now and oy, do I feel old, having a child old enough to get an allowance.

Midwives
Call the Midwife is a great show, and one I highly recommend.  Great character and historical piece, with a look that makes it seem like it was shot in the 1950s.  Scandal, on the other hand, is reminiscent of West Wing in dialogue and pace, but is even more addictive.  It's like watching Battlestar Galactica, there's a cliffhanger every last scene.  Thank goodness for Netflix and binge TV watching.

Municipalities
One of my Hanukkah gifts was a subscription to the NY Times online, which is awesome.  Even better is that I just downloaded the app on my phone and the access is incredible.  I love that I no longer have to choose which of the 10 free articles to read, but can now be as informed about the world as I want!

Also: bonus video in the form of what has got to be one of the worst interviews Fox news has ever done: the scholar Reza Aslan wrote a book called Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.  And no matter what you think of the book, the interview is hilariously horrible - the interviewer completely ignores his book and focuses on why a scholar of religion who happens to be Muslim, would write a book about early Christianity.

More family love

Mom with her oldest and youngest grandsons.

Middle children through the generations.

Just call her the baby whisperer.

Falling asleep on Doda (Auntie) Odelia.

The boys have my L.A. genes

It's all about the cars and the shades. :)

Sad news

Sylvan Finestone, the husband of my other mother Gwen, passed away last week.  He was kind, generous, sarcastic and funny (oy the puns), and always really listened to what we had to say.  Even though we weren't related by blood, I always felt that he cared deeply for myself and my family.  He will be missed.

And then today I just heard about the death of an educational colleague's mother, who is also the mother-in-the-law of our temple administrator.  Last time I saw her at Yom Kippur she seemed robust.  How sad.

Life goes by so fast, and the years really are fleeting.  I say this while ruefully acknowledging that I don't always appreciate that fact, as this winter break each individual day has seemed to last forever, and I can't wait to get the kids to bed most nights.  Life is ironic, no?