Bonus pictures

I had completely forgotten I had taken these on my phone.

Very proud Bubbe.

Two out of my three boys.  

And no, we don't do anything for the mohawk.  It's completely natural. :)



Also, from the depths of my laptop, a picture just for fun: numbers in an internet age. Click on it (even twice) to magnify.

Labels have such different nuances

I've felt like I've had two kids before: childbirth helped with that, as does having both kids need something at the same time.

I've felt like a Mommy before: when Xander calls my name, or Ari reaches out to me with a plaintive look in his eyes.

I've even felt like a Mom before: when I fill out permission slips for Xander's daycare, or take either child to the doctor.

But yesterday was the first time I felt like a Mother:  I found myself standing in front of the open refrigerator door at ten o'clock at night, wondering why the watermelon and cantaloupe were slowly going bad.  Then it occurred to me that they were going bad because no one was eating them, because they weren't cut up into pieces in a bowl.  Then I realized that I would have to be the one to cut them up.  So I found myself standing barefoot in the kitchen after the kids were in bed, cutting up melons.  Not only that, I was removing the watermelon seeds.

Not only did I feel like a mother...  I think I just became my mother!

Watering, tractors, and brotherly love

Ari and Simcha post-nap smiles

Happy to help water the lawn.

Focused on spraying.

Hi!

Brushing teeth at the end of a hard day of playing.

We visited my friend Rachel's parents' farm:

 Xander liked the animals, but he loved Liam's toy tractor.

Farm dog.

Taking turns pushing each other.

Climbing up the fence to better see the cows.

And lastly, a dinner party with Mom and Nancy that saw some awesome brotherly love:

Kisses!

And then Jonathan suggested I turn on the flash, and what do you know, the pictures were clear:

Lovely laughing boys.

You notice there are no pictures of myself or Mom with the kids?  Yeah, we noticed too.  After she left.  Sigh.

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!