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! :)