Accolades

- Hooray for HUC, who sent mom to a conference in Cincinnati!

- Hooray for Mom, who's here with us!

- Hooray for Sheryl, who made a bunch of really useful research videos to help us library geeks!

- Hooray for Chana, who's moving to seminary in New York!

- Hooray for Ari, who is cutting 4 teeth at once, oy!

- Hooray for Xander, who put on his feetie pajamas all by himself, as he will so proudly tell you!

- Hooray for Jonathan, who now leads his very own game at the comic shop!

- Hooray for me, who's finally getting it together: the house is almost done, my resume's on its penultimate draft, I thought of sermon ideas for High Holidays, and I checked out some library books for my thesis!

Say it with me:  Hip, hip, HUZZAH!

My very own Scheherazade

Every night at bedtime, Jonathan and/or I read Xander two stories.  Then it's time to hop into bed, pull the covers up, and go to sleep.  But lately, instead of reading stories, Xander has been asking Jonathan to tell them.  The most brilliant Arabian Nights has commenced.

The first night was an "origins" night: Xander wanted a story about Gerlal, the pink dragon, and Norbert, the baby dragon in his egg.  Did you know that Gerlal was one of 12 eggs, all in different colors of the rainbow, but she was the only pink egg?  And it was so scary, she got left behind when her Mommy and all her brothers and sisters fled because it turns out their dragon cave was in a volcano!  Luckily all worked out in the end, because the person who rescued Gerlal knew that she was meant for a little boy, and brought her to this big room with lots of stuffed animals so that she could look for her Xander.

The next night was Norbert, who had an equally compelling story - I forget the beginning, but he ended up being rescued by a man riding a donkey-pulled cart.  They drove all the way to a land called Florida, where Norbert was sitting with some of his other dragon friends when he was spotted by a Bubby, who knew immediately that Norbert in his egg was the perfect little dragon for her grandson.
We also learned about Bee (who's bigger than Ari): she was so big that she was kicked out the beehive because she was eating all the honey, but was so happy when she found her way to Xander, too.

A couple nights after that was the story of Smog, the mean dragon from The Hobbit.  Next was Hubert the Dragon and the Noble Knight.  Hubert is a very nice green dragon with shiny scales who was sleeping minding his own business when he woke up being poked by a knight.  The knight was very scared when Hubert opened his mouth, because he thought Hubert was going to eat him, but then Hubert explained that actually he prefers a good pasta, not people, for lunch, and that he wasn't going to harm any of the villagers around him, so could the Knight please stop poking him with that little sword because it was getting annoying.  The Noble Knight apologized for poking him, explaining that he hadn't realized that Hubert was a nice dragon, and that of course they could be friends from now on.  So off they flew, through clouds of butterflies and lightening storms and all kinds of things, having adventures and breathing fire whenever possible.

My personal favorite (and I think Xander's too) are the stories of Teddy and Dog.  Teddy is a very smart little boy whose parents happen (amazing, that) to work at NASA, where they build rockets.  And (what do you know) Dog is a curious dog who always gets Teddy into trouble.  A few nights ago Dog was chasing a stick around Daddy's and Mommy's workplace when he ran outside right into a rocket.  And when Teddy went after him, Dog jumped all around, pressed a button accidentally, and started the launch sequence!  Teddy and Dog had to strap themselves into the seats very quickly (Teddy was all strapped in when Dog barked and so Teddy had to unbuckle his own seat belt, buckle Dog, and then go back)... and bedtime.  The next night they re-strapped themselves and the rocket took off with them in it!  (At this point Xander made the cutest rocket launch noises ever).  They went all the way past the birds, past the clouds, into space, were floating and having space adventures, then.... bedtime.

The next night, Teddy's Daddy and Mommy talked to them on the intercom and helped them land. Jonathan listed numbers one by one as the ignition sequence (8-5-2-6 etc) and his cell phone served as the rocket computer.  Xander, as Teddy, punched each number into the keypad, and the phone was set to speaker so each number gave a satisfying beep!.  Teddy and Dog came back down to earth, the parachute opened, the door popped off when the landed, and Teddy's Daddy and Mommy were the first among the cheering masses to give him and Dog big hugs.  They all decided to go home for lunch, but then right at naptime Dog darted past the open door and went into the garage, where Teddy's Daddy had been fixing the car.  Would you believe he had been adding buttons to that car to make it go super-fast?  And of course Dog pressed one and OY! smoke came out of the exhaust and that car shot straight out, through the garage!  "Where did it go?"  Xander asked, but ahhh... bedtime.

This has been going on for over a week now, and Xander knows that if he wants to hear the end of the story tomorrow night, he has to be still and quiet and get a good night's sleep tonight.

For the past week he's gone to bed with nary a complaint, and has slept straight through til 7am.    

You know you're in rabbinical school when...

I wore my Gryffindor shirt to school today, and at lunchtime it sparked lots of conversation.  A group of us started to discuss who would be in what house and why.  Then someone said that Ron should have been in Hufflepuff, and Hermione in Ravenclaw.  They were both put in Gryffindor, she reasoned, only because Harry needed sidekicks.

Then the kicker:  "Exactly!" agreed someone else.  "They're just like the Levites!  Their position gave them assumed authority for everyone else in their house!"

The prodigal son returns

Simcha showed up at the back door last night!  He was dirty, smelled terrible, and lost about two pounds, but he's home.  He even purred through his bath and brushing/nail-clipping session.

I still don't know where he went, or why he chose that particular moment to come back.  I'm just thrilled that he's inside again. :)

Biscuits and Big Bertha

Shabbat Friday evening commenced with making biscuits.  Blueberry!  Xander copied Jonathan's every move.  Note the parallel cutting boards and biscuit dough-cutting.

The next morning was ROCKETRY!!!  We are the only family I know that sees a football field and thinks that would be a great place to launch a rocket, in this case "Big Bertha."  Who needs sports?!

Xander is wrapped in Jonathan's arms, holding the launch button.  You can see his feet under Jonathan's knees.  Ari is in the carrier as I took the video; unlike Xander, he did not like blast-off.

Rocketeers ho!!

The first and second blast-off were amazing.  The third... let's just say the wind changed at an inopportune time.

It was about 30 feet up.  Xander and Jonathan walked to the fire station a couple blocks away to borrow a ladder.  They got a tour of the fire trucks to boot!  I, on the other hand, hung out near the tree guarding our stuff and catching up with family and friends via cell phone.

  My intrepid husband stood on the ladder, hauled himself up to the lower branches (15 feet above ground), and shook the tree desperately in an effort to free it.  To no avail.  Big Bertha was so entangled he finally had to break off the branch.

Hot, sweaty and tired after a long day of rocketry.  We headed home for lunch and a well-deserved nap.

Fascinating article on education

Why Are Finland's Schools So Successful?  Because all of their teachers have Master's degrees, they focus on play, especially outdoors, they only start required school at seven years old, they don't care about standardized testing, and they have an unbelievable student-teacher ratio.

The good and the bad

It's been very eventful.

Simcha ran out four days ago and hasn't come back.  Our neighbor told us he saw a "fat Garfield-like cat" in his bushes yesterday, but I haven't seen him at all.

I got in a car accident; just a scrape, no one was hurt.  But it was in a friend's car.  Sigh.

We're trying to sell the house, so in preparation for listing it we're selling things, de-personalizing every room and moving boxes of chotchkes and furniture into the basement.  Plus packing up boxes and boxes of books so my library won't look too cluttered, clearing away shrubbery in the front and back yards, and hiring someone to fix up the front and back porches.


 Landscaping 1, weeds 0.

One funny thing, the mail at our house today was comprised of the following: a letter for Jonathan.  A credit card offer for Deborah, the woman who lived here before us.  An ad addressed to my sister.  And then two other ads addressed to someone named Neil and someone named Thomas, all with our correct address.  The mail went crazy.  Either that or the ad people are way outdated.

I also feel terrible about this, but I'm switching from cloth diapers to disposables for both kids.  It was a heart-rending decision, because I care so much about the environment and really want to do the right thing.  But with selling the house, raising two kids, doing private research (I've been at the AJA every day this week for clients), and then as of Monday going back to school full-time and working at the AJA 15 hours a week - something had to give.  I just couldn't deal with laundry.

What else?  Let's see... we went to the HUC welcome-back picnic and had a great time.  The new second-year rabbinic students and grad students seem like wonderful people.

The kids are unbelievably awesome, so that's good:

 Xander celebrating weeding success with chocolate.

Our Steak N'Shake pirate.

And would you believe, next week Xander is going into move into the 3 year old room at preschool?  It's still play-based learning, but they have an actual focus on literacy and knowing numbers and such.  And the baby is going to be five months old!  I keep thinking of Sunrise, Sunset.  Swiftly flow the years, indeed!

My childhood, revisited

My mom loves to tell the story of how she knew she needed to stop swearing in front of me when I was a child:  I was three years old and cleaning my room, and taking forever. I didn't put a book back unless I read it first.  I couldn't put a puzzle away until I'd put it together. My mother, after being with me for over an hour, finally said, "Michal, I have a life to lead.  It's time to be done."  Three year old me, sitting on the floor with a puzzle, didn't even look up but said, slowly and casually, "In a minute.  I only have three more f*&%-ing pieces."

The way my mother tells the tale, she was at least happy that I used it correctly!

Flash-forward to today.  Jonathan and I have curbed our use of all negative words in front of the kids, or so we thought.  Until Xander's teacher pulled us aside today to report an "incident":  another child wanted to play with a toy that Xander had, and the teacher told him that he needed to let the other child have a turn.  Xander was not happy about it.  And as he handed the child the toy, he very heatedly told him, "You suck!"

And what did his teacher say to us?  At least he used it correctly. :) 

(For those who are curious: that's what Jonathan tells bad drivers instead of cussing them out.)

Really interesting slideshow

Called "Where children sleep" - the article is okay, but what I thought was fascinating was the slideshow with the pictures of the rooms.  Part exploration and part social commentary: they're all so serious, it makes me think that what makes kids feel happy has more to do with feeling loved than where they sleep. On one hand, if a Bedouin shack is all you know and your family has lived there for generations, it's your culture.  On the other hand... it's still a shack in a desert.

Crazy crazy crazy

Our real estate agent scared us silly last week by saying that we had to list our house on the market ASAP if we ever wanted to sell it by June.  Then Nicole's husband, another real estate agent, pretty much told us to de-clutter in a major way if we wanted it to show well.  Get rid of furniture, take down all personal pictures, remove any decor with Judaism, etc.  So last night I drew up a list of stuff to sell.  This morning  I posted on Facebook and sent an email to the Cinci homebirth list and the HUC listserve.  And the day was insane.  Six different people came in and out to buy things and take them off our hands.  Our basement is much emptier, which is fabulous because soon we'll have to move down our bookshelves and book boxes.

Also this evening, our new tenant arrived!  Her name is Rebecca, she's an HUC student, and she's going to be staying in our guest room all year in exchange for childcare and light cleaning.  I think it will work out beautifully for all of us.

A productive but insanely busy day.  And I will admit, exciting but emotionally tough at the same time.

Hooray for a fabulous day!

Finished the last of my spring Incompletes, fit into jeans one size smaller, cleaned the house, chocolate fondue with Nicole and David, Tot Shabbat at temple, children both asleep by 9pm, and now blogging and Mad Men on Netflix. Even the cats are purring contentedly. :)

10 minutes of yesterday

Sammy Snake was hungry, Xander said. 

His new home.

My mom had sent over some stickers in the box.  Here Xander's "sharing."

Arcane abbreviations, books, and Xanderbug. In that order.

Today I've been "chasing footnotes" so that I can write a paper and finish up my very last incomplete.  I love doing that... I feel like a super-sleuth.  Today's joy:  Seeing the reference "Yad Hil. Ishut 13.5" everywhere.  I had no clue what it meant.  My best guess was on the last word, with "I" meaning and, and "Shut" meaning Shealot v'tshuvot, literally "questions and answers," probably responsa from the Middle Ages.  But after some serious searching, I found out that Maimonides' 1170-1180 law code Mishneh Torah is subtitled "Sefer Yad HaHazakah," "Book of the Strong Hand."  And "Hilchut Ishut" is a section of it!  I still didn't know why the book was subtitled that until I talked to the head of library, who knows all things Jewishly esoteric.  He told me that Yud Dalet, the letters that make up the word "Yad," stands for the number 14 in gematriya, Jewish numerology.  And of course... the Mishneh Torah has 14 sections.

In terms of fun reading, I finally finished all five books in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.  It took me a while since each book was over a thousand pages.  For spoilers' sake I won't say anything except that it was an excellent fantasy series, and well worth reading if you like that genre.  After such immersion in a magical world I needed a dose of reality, so along came Stephen Bloom's Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America, all about the Hasidic Jews who founded the AgriProcessors kosher-meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa.  It felt more memoir than journalism, and was nice to read, but didn't leave me with much lasting impact.  I'm now currently on Catherine Hezser's The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine, which is admittedly slow academic reading but which I find really fascinating.  I've already talked to my thesis advisor about possibly including some of the articles in his syllabus the next time he teaches the World of the Rabbis class.

And lastly, something cute:

This morning Xander was screwing up his face and making ppbbthhht noises.  

"What are doing?"  I asked.  

"I have a hair on my tongue," he told me.  He stuck out his tongue as far as it would go and tried to scrape off the hair with his fingers. 

A minute or so later he took his fingers out of his mouth and resumed playing.

"Did you get it?" I asked.  

His reply was perfectly timed, so matter-of-fact: "No.  I ate it!"  

The circle of life

Last night one of the fixtures of my Long Beach Jewish community, Andi Joustra, passed away.  I still can't believe it.  She co-taught with my mom for 21 years, I carpooled with her more times than I can count, and I grew up with her daughter.  I think I'm still in shock, it hasn't quite sunk in.

The circle of life is constant, however, so even while I reel from the death of someone I loved, I must also welcome to the world someone who I may come to love - a hearty mazel tov to Rachel and Evan on the birth of their new son Jack Henry.  Xander and their oldest son Liam are old friends, and Rachel and I get together as much as we can.

Another school year is about to begin: I've finished three out of my four spring incompletes, we just got invited to the HUC welcome-back-picnic, and I'm figuring out a schedule for my school and work hours.  Summer went fast.

A few pictures to mark the passage of time....

Ari's inspiration to roll over was Pumpkin, the little orange kitty cat.

Xander playing on Daria's bike this afternoon ("Mommy, her bike is PINK!!").  I met Daria's parents at the park a couple weekends ago... I was pushing Xander on the swing and all of a sudden heard a couple speaking Hebrew behind me.  Turns out they're Israelis new to Cincinnati, and we hit it off wonderfully.

And finally, here is Jonathan on his 41st birthday wearing the gift I got him, a Utili-kilt.  He got very strange looks from everyone that day, but he and I were meant to be together... he didn't bat an eye, and wore it proudly.

Book technology

Check out this article on the University of Chicago's new library system.  In addition to the regular stacks, millions of books are kept underground, and robots do all the retrieval.

 A High-Tech Library Keeps Books at Faculty Fingertips — With Robot Help

And if you don't want to read the whole thing, here's a video of how the system works.

You'll never catch me with a Kindle... but this kind of technology is more than welcome in my book!  

[yeah, bad pun, but I couldn't resist!]

Now this is my kind of class

I found this class description in the HUC course catalog from 1973-1975:

Human Relations/Contemporary Jewish Studies 2

            Sexuality, Judaism and the contemporary Jew: an examination of data on sexuality available from interdisciplinary sources; consultations with physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists; ethical and religious implications of the new sexual research; relevant Judaic sources (in Hebrew and English); course will draw on materials and films prepared under medical school auspices dealing with the general theme of “human sexuality.”

            For students who elect to do at least half their readings in Hebrew sources, this course will qualify for required hours in Hebrew reading, as indicated in the new curriculum.  Other registrants may complete the course for general elective credit.

Sexuality with a Hebrew credit?  I so went to rabbinical school in the wrong era.

Indian food and spit-up. The highs and lows of life.

We had a very full weekend, complete with Jonathan's birthday get-together at an Indian restaurant, kid socializing with Yasha and Eden, a visit to the Mini Cooper dealership to see the newest model, swimming with the kickboard Auntie Tasha gave Xander, and a bounce house with Keren and Dalia at the J.

Unfortunately, pictures of all that have to wait.  I'm currently at home with two sick kids.  Socializing = sniffles, apparently.  And the baby's deep in the throes of teething.

Which would all be fine, I don't mind that at all.  I just feel sorry for them.

Except.... I have spit-up in my hair.  :(  And Jonathan doesn't get home for another two hours, so I have to wait to shower til then.