Play dates

Our social circle is widening by leaps and bounds. Last weekend we went to Deann and Justin's and played with their three year-old. Today I went to Maria's and hung out with her and her two year old, and then Messa came over with her two little ones. It felt very surreal to be the "mom" of a 4 month old, sit next to a pregnant woman who has a 2 year old, then be with another mom with a 2 and a half year old and a 3 month old baby. Like, when did this happen, and how did I grow up?! That said, they had some great advice on how to put Xander down for naps, I got a preview of what life will be like in a little bit, and Xander was so absolutely fascinated by these big kids that he forgot to nurse, ask for a diaper change, and/or nap. Which means that the moment we came in the front door he cried hard, wanting all three at once.

I should also mention that our road is still a big sheet of ice, and I cancelled my Hebrew class this morning so my students wouldn't have to drive over. I was going to cancel the playdate as well, but Maria's husband is sweet and came to pick me up so I could still go. He's lived in Ohio all his life and is used to driving in this weather... I don't even want to start the car! Thank goodness Ari came over with extra salt last night for our driveway, because otherwise Jonathan wouldn't have been able to leave the house this morning.

Now I must be off to vacuum, since Batya and Erin (rabbinical student friends) will be here soon for Shabbat dinner. And the house is covered in cat fur. And cat toys. And baby toys. And random schmutz. Sigh. I am so NOT a housewife.

Baby picspam

Serious boy.

We call him Buddha baby when he sits down in his wearable blanket sleeper.

Hanging out on the sheepskin.

He can't stand on his own, but he does support himself!

Daddy's job of feeding him on Sunday mornings is getting easier.

Bottle close-up

Comfy with Mommy.

I just realized there are no photos of him smiling in this batch. He does smile and laugh, quite a lot in fact. But lately he's been so fascinated by the camera he stops smiling the moment he sees it in front of him. Jonathan and I need to get better at capturing the facial expressions.

Snow day, part 2

To answer Savta's question, a snow day means that not only is it snowing, but that it's snowing too hard to do anything. Jonathan is working at home because twenty minutes north of us, in the county where he works, there is a "level three snow emergency" and any vehicle not authorized to be driving is being ticketed by police. There's about six inches on the ground right now, and the roads are pretty much big sheets of ice. HUC was closed yesterday and today "due to weather and road conditions."

Tara, per request, here are some pictures:

This is taken from Jonathan's office window upstairs. We knew we needed to shovel the driveway yesterday, so that it wouldn't be absolutely horrible to shovel today when more snow came in. My lovely husband volunteered to do it, but I said I wanted to do it instead (to tell the truth, I was very much tired of childcare and being outdoors seemed stimulating).

This shoveling thing is harder than it looks! The snow was quite heavy because of the freezing rain that had come down on top of it. Halfway through the driveway Dave across the street came out with his own shovel to help. "You have too big a driveway and walk to do all by yourself!" he said. I felt like a pansy for accepting his help, but it really did take a while, even doing it together.

Kids across the street sledding down what used to be their front lawn. The two horizontal lines you see between the car on the left and the two cars on the right? Those are tire tracks on the road. This is after the roads were plowed a few hours before.

The side of our neighbor's house. Pretty icicles!

No wonder people are without power across the Midwest.

Osher looking out the window. At one point he meowed to go out, but then when Jonathan opened the door he took three steps and darted right back in.

Snow day

HOORAAAAAAAAAAAAYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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..... That is all.

Addendum to inauguration post

After speaking with Nicole, I just found out that HUC-Cincinnati isn't as cool as I thought. My philosophy professor cancelled class, yes, but he had to be asked to do so. Apparently at HUC-NY the school rearranged its whole schedule so that everyone could watch the inauguration together. And Sheryl told me that HUC-LA even provided food! Hmph.

Also, in terms of books to read, do NOT pick up The Passion of Artemisia. As anyone who follows this blog knows, I like historical fiction. The premise of this one sounded good, about the 17th century Baroque painter Artemesia Gentileschi. I remember learning about her in art history classes in college, she was a feminist icon, the first woman to be accepted into the Academy of Drawing in Florence. She left her husband and earned her own way at a time when that wasn't done, and she was friends with Galileo and the Medicis. But the book watered her down into a two-dimensional rape victim with Daddy issues. To make matters worse, it wasn't even especially well-written. I read the whole thing and kept expecting it to get better, but it never did. The good news: at least it was only a dollar at Half-Price Books!

Funny anecdotes of the past few days

1) I was sitting in a corner of the couch in the HUC main lounge, nursing Xander very discreetly, when a male rabbinic student comes and sits down next to me. He strikes up a conversation, and while talking, starts to stroke Xander's head and says how cute he is. This is a bit disconcerting, but I go with it. Finally, after a couple minutes, I say something like, "Yeah, it's so easy to nurse in public. If I don't use a blanket and just arrange my layered shirts right, no one even knows!" It took him a second, but he realized that Xander was nursing at that very moment, and his hand shot off of Xander's head like it was on fire! The look on his face was priceless. He kept apologizing over and over. "It's okay!" I told him. "I'm flattered. Apparently I'm better at this than I thought!"

2) Yesterday when I got back from class I wanted to be an industrious housewife. I decided to surprise my husband. What would surprise him most? Me cooking, I thought. So I baked him chocolate chip cookies! I looked up his favorite recipe and put all the ingredients together, dragged out the mixer from the shelf, and... the mixer died. Do you know how hard it is to mix cookie dough by hand? Well, I was determined, so I did it. But then the cookies didn't come out right. They were only okay, not the way they usually taste when he makes them. When I asked Jonathan, we realized what had happened. Whenever he makes cookies he alters the written recipe, changing the amounts of sugar and butter, but he had never written it down!!! The nerve. Here I was actually following the recipe, to my ultimate detriment. But he professed to love the cookies anyway, and I was mollified.

3) Last weekend, before the cookie escapade, Jonathan went to the Detroit Auto Show. A few days ago he downloaded the pictures of all the cars. I have since looked at them all. There were a lot of cars. They were not all fascinating. This proves how much I love him. Though to be fair, I know how much he loves me because even though he was in the car for ten hours that day, he did a load of diapers when he came home, and still put the baby to bed.

4) Months ago, I was asked to officiate at a Bar Mitzvah on Labor Day weekend. A few weeks ago I was asked to officiate at a wedding on guess when, Labor Day weekend. I had to say no. And now? A friend of mine told me to mark my calendar, she's getting married on.. yep, Labor Day weekend. How is it that I'm triple-booked nine months in advance?!

5) I asked my mother when I started teething. She couldn't remember, she said. "But seeing as we [she and my father] took pictures of you every other second, I can look back at the albums and I'll bet I can track it." I would have laughed, but I understand her. Jonathan and I are the exact same way.

With that said, here are some more baby pictures. :)

Playing with his Skwish toy.

Lunchtime fun with Sarah

Inauguration photos!

Cast of characters on Tuesday: me, Xanderbug, Stephanie, Ari P. (guy), Ari B. (girl), and of course, President Obama.

























For more formal photos of the day go to the Boston Globe's day in pictures.

Politics and presents

HOORAY for our new president!! My Modern Jewish Philosophy class meets from 11:35 to 12:50, and I was all set to go. I packed Xander up and dropped him off at Stephanie and Ariel's, who had agreed to babysit him. But when I got to their house, the TV was on showing the pre-inaugural coverage. And then I found out that Ari from my class was coming over too. And I decided, you know what? This is history. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the first African-American sworn in as president. I'm never going to remember what we covered in class, but I'll always remember this. So I borrowed Stephanie's computer, wrote my prof an email that very moment, and stayed at their house to watch the inauguration. I even called Jonathan at work at around 11:55 and put the phone on speaker so he could share the moment.

In terms of the inauguration itself, I thought his speech was perfect for the times we're in (not too flowery, but very realistic). I also liked the fact that technically, Biden was president for six minutes. Biden was sworn in and Bush's term expired at noon on the dot, but the musicians kept playing til 12:05! Obama only spoke the words after that. But we can forgive him his tardiness. It wasn't exactly his fault, after all. :)

Anyway, to make a long story short, I found out that we didn't even HAVE philosophy class that day. Apparently there was a mutiny and the students who had shown up (which was only 3/4 of the class in the first place) asked the professor if he was really going to teach. He said no, he wanted to watch it himself, and he cancelled class and scheduled a make-up. I love HUC!

[Many many pictures were taken of Xander with Stephanie, both Aris, and Obama on the TV, but they were with someone else's camera so I'll post them when I get them later on.]

And in seeming celebration of the new president, new tooth, and new melting of the snow, we got some wonderful gifts in the mail! Chana P. sent an adorable outfit, Sandra and David mailed the cutest baby books ever, and my friend Krista (who runs the home birth meetings, and who will be the teacher for the bellydancing class I'm starting) found But God Remembered: Stories of Women from Creation to the Promised Land in a thrift store. A feminist Christian, she thought "ooh, women and the Bible" - and then read the flyleaf and realized the author was Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, the second woman ordained as a rabbi and the first rabbi to become a mother. The best part - the book is signed by the author! Krista came over to scope out our living room to see if we could host the dancing classes here (verdict: too small), and she gave me the book just for fun, because she thought I'd like it. Isn't that nice?

An even bigger surprise was the amazing package from Mark and Cathe from Long Beach. Cathe made Xander two quilts! She's a fabulous quilter [ETA: thanks Rachel!] and is the woman who made the "Tree of Life" tapestry that hangs in my office. Here is the baby on the two quilts.

Beautiful blue-ness




Colorful balloons

And to end, here are a few random pictures.

Tummy time!

Focusing on the rattle during a diaper change

Mom (and anyone else): yes, there are videos, but they take so long to upload that I only do them in big batches. You're gonna have to wait til the weekend when I have more time! :)

First tooth!! And other baby developments.

The title says it all. For the past two weeks Xander has been drooling all over the place and munching his fingers. Then last night he was really grumpy, and we noticed it - a tiny white, sharp, toothbud poking out from his lower left gum! (Technically his left central incisor.) No wonder he was crying, the poor babeleh was in pain. I have such mixed feelings; I'm excited for his new milestone, but at the same time, at three months?! I'm ready for him to be an "infant" for just a bit longer. I mean really, even the baby Oragel to put on his gums is only supposed to be used for four months and older. (We called the pediatrician and she said it was okay to use). This obviously comes from Jonathan's side - I didn't get my first tooth til I was nearly nine months! But then again, the kid is also 14 pounds, so maybe he'll develop physically early in all ways.

To change the subject, Friday night services was quite nice. It was "Rock Shabbat," and the family service. In the middle of the Amidah Xander needed his diaper changed, so we waited until the prayers were done and the rabbi calls people up for the birthday blessings. Then Jonathan got up... and as he's standing in the back of the sanctuary, about to open the doors to go out, Rabbi Coran calls from the bima (with her microphone): "Xander, don't go! I was just about to call you out!" She then proceeded to introduce him to the community! It was very thoughtful of her, and at the kiddish afterwards (where we bless the wine and the challah) lots of people came up to meet him. And Xander, the big flirt, ate it up and charmed them all.

This is the boy winning over the students in the HUC lounge:

He was held by almost everyone in the picture at some point. Stephanie had watched him when I was in class, then I came back and began to pack up. Someone asked where I was headed, and I said I had to do a few HUC errands first: buy books in the bookstore, sign a form in the administration building, and check out a book in the library. About three separate people then chimed up at once offering to hang out with him while I left. So instead of schlepping him all over campus I got to do my errands alone (and therefore much more quickly), and he got to schmooze and be social.



Here Osher has decided that the changing table is really just a large cat bed. The framed art above the changing table (there is a third piece to the set above the two you see) were made by Jonathan's grandmother, and hung in his nursery. They're mixed media prints, and are of a lion reading a book. How perfect - now we know that Jonathan came by his lion fetish honestly, and I love that it encourages Xander to read! He looks up at them every time he's getting changed, the colors must be fascinating.


And to end on a note of blanket-grabbing: here the boy is learning to coordinate his hands. After I stopped the camera, he managed to grab the blanket fully.

Friday report

My Adult Hebrew class is turning into more of a general Adult Education prayer class. They really like it when I go over historical context, so we've been doing less grammar and more history. Yay! That's much more fun for me.

It's 2 degrees out today. Two. Even Osher decided to stay indoors. I must admit, while I complain about winter, the cold really doesn't bother me all that much. I don't like it, but I can deal. What I hate is the ramifications OF the cold - like dry skin and absolutely no fresh produce. I'm not a fan of cooked veggies, so while I have some frozen vegetables, it just doesn't do it for me.

So I was proud today when I tried to make a salad. At the store the tomatoes were dry (and Xander doesn't like it when I eat them anyway), the cucumbers were shriveled, the peppers sad-looking, the carrots scary looking, the romaine brown, etc. The only robust vegetable in the supermarket was the display of onions! So, I made an unconventional salad: following Holly's recipe, I made my own dressing at the bottom of the bowl with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, lemon juice, and salt/pepper. Then I added bagged lettuce, onion, a hard-boiled egg, cheddar cheese, and dried cranberries. Even though it barely qualified as vegetables (bagged romaine?) I still felt like I was a bit healthy.

While the baby napped I got to read some homework, part of Modern Jews Engage the New Testament, and it's fascinating! The book is written by our professor, which would usually turn me off, but I actually really like it (and the professor is quite funny, so it makes up for a lot). It discusses why Jews know next to nothing about the Christian Testament, and how we only shoot ourselves in our collective feet when we remain willfully ignorant. Aside from the book, class itself is interesting. It's an "e-learning" class, so we sit in a high-tech room wired with microphones and cameras, and people on the New York campus sit in a similar room and we can all hear and see each other. It's part of a program to integrate all three campuses, so that anyone in LA and NY can take classes with the profs at Cinci and vice versa. Nicole in NY is taking the class with us, hooray, so yesterday was the first time I got to "see" her since her wedding.

I'm almost finished with Around Sarah's Table: Ten Hasidic Women Share Their Stories of Life, Faith, and Tradition. Chana P., you'd like it. The book centers around Sarah's weekly Torah study group, and each chapter discusses a different woman's life and how the Torah portion and/or Hasidic teachings relate. Think of a Joy Luck Club or Ya-Ya Sisterhood for ultra-Orthodox women, and you'll have a good idea of what it is. I like the plot, but occasionally the religious teachings can get a bit heavy-handed.

Off to fold laundry...

Two week's worth of videos

Whiny Xander. I had set him down on the carseat as I was putting on my wrap, hoping he would fall asleep in it. This is what he sounds like when overtired.

This isn't really a video, I meant to take a picture but the camera was on the wrong setting! It's cute anyway. Jonathan fell asleep when he got home from work, and Osher took advantage.





Another conversation while making dinner. Halfway through, his cries become more shrill and we could tell he needed a diaper change.





Hanging on to Jonathan's sleeve. This was almost two weeks ago - he'll grab onto anything now.





Singing along to "The Wheels on the Bus"

Three months old

Achievements of the week: Scooting himself down in his bouncy chair. Perfecting the side-roll. Winning everyone over in the HUC lounge. (Somehow I don't think that finding a babysitter will be a problem!) Grasping our fingers, hair, noses, and sleeves.

Posing with Mommy

The family bed.. occasionally there's room for the parents





I'm so tall!

My new hat, aka accidental blindfold

Videos to follow whenever YouTube decides to cooperate.

This week's GLBT class

Class was absolutely awesome. We started off by learning a whole bunch of terms in their sociological context: how do you define gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, transgender, male/female versus man/woman, etc. We talked about what being "inclusive" means, how to do liturgy for a gay wedding, and learned all kinds of practical things about being inclusive in our congregations (ie. talking about Pride Day in a newsletter column, changing Sunday school forms to say parent/parent instead of mother/father).

We did text studies on David and Jonathan, and had a whole half-day on interpretations of Leviticus 18:22 (Thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman). We even talked about rabbinic categories. Did you know that the rabbis in the Roman times recognized FOUR categories of gender, not two? They had male, female, tumtum, and androgynous. The first two are obvious, but a tumtum is someone who is neither a man nor a woman, and an androgynous is both. The Talmud acknowledges gender deviance! Of course, they do it in the context of how to best limit those people back into the main two categories, but hey.

And since the class was taught by a rabbi in Atlanta as well as by the professor I mentioned earlier, we spoke a lot about congregational life and the things we might encounter. Like, what do you do when a man married to a woman with two children comes to you and says that he thinks he's gay and is love in with another man, but doesn't want to leave his wife and destroy his family?

The final was on various case studies. The one I chose was: "A couple's five year old son, Daniel, has acted like a girl since the age of two. He has severe behavioral problems when forced to act and dress like a boy. At the age of five his parents decide to support his wishes and begin to call him Daniela. His behavioral problems stop. After meeting with the child's psychologist, you decide to support their decision. You begin to get concerned calls from Temple members. Outline your response." It was a fun essay to write, I discovered some great resources!

Other final options I considered were what to do with the first lesbian couple in your congregation, what to do when two male nursing home residents are found in bed together, to write a sermon when Yom Kippur and Pride Day fall on the same day, what to do when a young Jewish boy wants to receive his Eagle Scout award at temple and the gay and lesbian people in the congregation object (due to the Boy Scouts' politics), how to address when a 4th grader calls another student a [insert gay slur], and to write a ritual when someone comes out. The last half of the last day was everyone's presentations.

All in all, it was a wonderfully fun, enlightening class, that tackled a serious subject in a new way. AND I survived having the baby in daycare all week! Thank you to everyone for your support. :)

Most adorable moment ever

Dinner with Carl and Anne. Xander is getting his diaper changed, and is VERY unhappy about it (ie. having a meltdown). He's lying on the changing table in the girls' room.

Ella comes over to me. She looks concerned. "The baby's sad," I say, as I finish putting on a new diaper. "He'll feel better soon."

She thinks a moment, and then fishes in her pocket. She takes something from deep within its recesses, then reaches up and offers it to me. In a shy voice, she asks, "Do you think he'd like a sticker?"

She then proceeds to look him over very carefully, and with a look of great concentration, places her sticker right in the middle of his jumper.

I love little kids. :)

First day of class

I survived it! Or, more specifically, I survived my very first day of putting Xander in daycare. He's staying with a friend of ours while I take an "intensive" 9am-4pm course this week. He did fine, drinking from the bottle and enjoying his day with new people. I, on the other hand, was a bit trepidatious and went and visited him on my lunch break. I can't even explain my worry, it had nothing to do with the care he was getting; he just wasn't with me or Jonathan, you know?

The class itself was great, at least. Entitled "Judaism and GLBT Issues," it's taught by the director of the Institute for Judaism and Sexual Orientation, and so far our class discussions have been dynamic and very enlightening.

Now off to do homework....

Tidbits from the week

Apparently I'm grown-up now (aside from that whole "being a mother" thing). Gwen and Sylvan sent us some money for Hanukkah with the instructions to "go do something fun" with it. Hmm, Jonathan and I thought. Movie, dinner, concert? Eh. They all sounded so-so. Instead what we decided to do is to call Molly Maids. Our house is filthy!

This past week we've been getting The Tudors from Netflix and I'm really enjoying it. It's a soap opera, non-historically accurate version of King Henry VIII, but it's quite pretty with the costumes and sets and beautiful people. My nursing book the past two weeks (sigh, I can't believe it takes me that long to get through anything) is The Last Jews of Kerala: The Two Thousand Year History of India's Forgotten Jewish Community. Quite interesting, I know literally nothing about Jews in India.

Since it's the beginning of the year and all, I bit the bullet and stepped on the scale. And... drum roll please... I've lost 40.5 pounds! Woohoo! Only 20 more to go. I've set a goal for myself that I think is somewhat realistic: I want to fit into my fancy black dress for Mara and Mark's wedding. That's in June. That's six months, I can do that, right?

Oh! And I almost forgot - we have plane tickets! The three of us will be visiting California in April to spend Pesach/Easter with family. My poor sister arrives from Israel two weeks beforehand... I hope she won't be bored here alone.

Xander news is also fun: he's started to roll over! He can now maneuver himself from his back to his right side, and occasionally his tummy. His other new trick is sucking on individual fingers now, not just the whole hand.

Some new pictures:

Xander and Daddy

Smiling at Mommy

Simcha has been jumping on our backs to get attention. Poor neglected kitty.

New Year's

Happy 2009, everyone!

Our New Year's was great. We went to Carl and Anne's, and it was us, them and their two girls, and Dave and Elbie. We drank eggnog and cider, ate lots of fabulous treats and talked about everything under the sun. Their house is the only place I know where we can discuss the merits of the classic book "The Big Red Barn" (complete with people doing moo noises), swap cookie recipes as well as talk about the evangelical definition of "grace" and whether or not Michel Foucault was more known for his thoughts on power or for his risque personal life. At midnight we counted down and watched the ball drop.

Was going to post pictures, but the baby's crying... more tomorrow!