Ari took his first steps!

I came home from hanging out with Rachael, was minding my own business, and BOOM!  Walking!  Thankfully the camera was nearby.  Here are his fourth and fifth steps, I believe. :)

I won something!!

I get the online newsletter of Jewish Woman Magazine, and I clicked a button to sign up for a free copy of this:

And now I'm holding it in my hands!  That never happens!  To say I'm jazzed would be a severe understatement.

As for what else is going on?  Nothing, really.  Husband.  Kids.  Packing.  Reading.  Friends.  I think this must be what relaxation feels like.

Mother's Day

All hail Jonathan.  He gifted me with...

Sleep.

Flowers and balloon.

My favorite food for lunch.

Graeter's ice cream.

Hours to read in the middle of the day.
And he took care of all the conflict with kids.

That was the best part, because we went to dinner at Amanda and Tom's house, and Erin and Batya came over there too.  The adult company was fantastic.  But the kid range was 1 (A), 3 (X), 4, 6, and 7.  Ari hung out with the adults.  X did not.  And he tried hard, and all the kids were nice, but you know, there's a really big maturity difference between 3 and 7.  And I didn't have to referee a thing.

I love Mother's Day!

Feeling grateful for the universe

No, I don't care that it's an ad.

Motherly musings

Jonathan is out with Xander this morning on a class field trip to some fancy gardens (my field trip last week was to see Elie Wiesel... both good, just different).  While they're gone, I'm at home switching all of Ari's clothes to the next size up, and packing up my office. 

I know I've written about this before, but I sometimes I get these moments where I still can't quite believe that I'm the Mom.  Last night it hit when I was cutting up watermelon and writing cute notes on napkins to put in X and J's lunches, just like Jan used to do when I was a girl.  I remember my dad cutting up the watermelon every night for post-dinner snack when I was in Israel, and Gwen doing the same with honeydew... I was always afraid of the big knives.  Now it was Xander's turn to be in awe of the knife and my turn to reassure him that no, he couldn't help, he wasn't a grown-up, and that if he ate all the watermelon for dinner there wouldn't be any left for the next day.

I picked Xander up from school yesterday and we went out for a treat afterwards.  He had fantastic behavior, and we both really enjoyed ourselves.  I told him, "I get to be with just you, out for ice cream!  Without Ari, without Daddy.  Just us.  It's like Mother's Day came early."  His response?  Deep thought, and then, "When is boy's day?" ("Every day," I told him.)

On that same mom theme, my lovely husband sent me this.  In my current mindset, it's the best ad EVER:

And, lastly, lately our house has had a heavy rotation of Wonder Pets.  It has an insanely catchy theme song.  Think kid opera with a large dose of repetition and a healthy topping of sap, with strange mixed-media images, and you'll have it down.  I like it... up to a point.  So when I faux-groaned at Xander's choice the other night and said that he could watch anything else, anything else, please, he was honestly bewildered. "But... Wonder Pets are great!!!  You love Wonder Pets!!"  Ah, my son, you love Wonder Pets.  Please stop confusing us.


Edited to add:  I just found these lovely poems that I thought I'd share.  The first one is pretty famous; the second one applies to me a lot more!

Cleaning and scrubbing can wait ’til tomorrow
For children grow up, we’ve learned to our sorrow
So quiet down cobwebs
Dust, go to sleep
I’m rocking my baby
And babies don’t keep

ADAPTED VERSION:

Websites and emails can wait ’til tomorrow
For children grow up, we’ve learned to our sorrow
So quiet down projects,
Phone, go to sleep,
I’m enjoying my children
And children don’t keep.

Quote of the day (from yesterday afternoon)

"Mommy, can you warm up my popsicle?  It's too cold to eat!"

Picture post

Playdate with Carlie.  She's holding the SIM card to her game on her neck (don't ask why, she insisted) 

Trying out the furniture at Costco.

 Do you want to get Costco pizza?  Maybe the parents will say yes if we both ask.

 Oh YAY thank you for saying yes!

Shabbat with Shabbi Dinosaurowitz, take two.

Shabbi's so funny!

Talk to the hand.

Family snuggles.

Woah, what's on that ceiling?

Ari chattering away.

Deep conversations with Shabbi.

Xander feeling cuddly.

The picture we ended up using. 

And there was also a playdate with Julian/Kaya and a big bouncy red ball, a Tot Shabbat beautiful handmade flower for Shavuot, and meeting Emory, Marc and Rachel's newborn.  But no pictures of any of that, sorry.

A sad, but growthful few days

I officiated at a very sad funeral on Thursday, for a wonderful woman.  The funeral went fine, on my part, but it was hard.  HUC students need a class on how not to choke up when the family gives the eulogy, or sobs at the grave.  It was pretty difficult to stay focused on the liturgy when everyone was in tears.

The next day Jonathan and I went to the Pompeii exhibit at the Museum Center downtown.  It was fascinating, but again, emotionally difficult.  They had body casts of people in the moment they died; i.e. the exact position of how someone looked two thousand years ago, immortalized in ash.  They need Kleenex warnings at the exhibit opening.

In less-sad but still slightly disappointing news, I was offered to teach a class at Cal State Sacramento.  As much as I wanted to do it, I went with pragmatism and turned it down - I don't want to be overwhelmed in my first months in a new job, and thought it would be wiser to stay focused on temple life.

And because I'm in a strange funereal mood, this image cracked me up!

Words words and more words

Xander likes to “collect” new vocabulary words and use them in a sentence.  He’s loved bizarre ever since he learned it, and last week’s was rare.  Yesterday, he learned mystery.  So today, it’s been “Where’s Daddy?  It’s a MYSTERY!”  “What are we having for dinner?  It’s a MYSTERY!”  etc. 

So this morning I came up with a sentence that made him laugh long and loud:

 

“Xander, I just saw a cat with purple fur.  It looks so bizarre!  I’ve never seen one like it, it’s very rare.  And I have no idea why it's fur is purple… it’s a mystery!”

He cracked up so hard that Simcha got spooked and went into the other room.  And Xander later repeated the whole sentence to Jonathan.  I was proud.  Of both of us. J

The questions and the answers

A very, very small sample of Xander questions from the past two days:

- How do light bulbs light up?

- Why do big trucks go slower than small trucks [on the freeway]?

- Why do fingernails grow?

- How do scoops on excavators move?

- Why are fire trucks adom [red] and not my favorite color verod [pink]?  (he’s been way into Hebrew colors lately)

- Why does snake start with "S" and not "C"?

- Why are some people's eyes blue and some brown?

- How do back wheels move on cars?

- What do ostriches eat?

- How do they make raisins?

And my personal favorite, after seeing someone outside a Cricket wireless store in a costume, and having me explain what an advertisement is: "I don’t understand.  Why does that green alien sell phones?" 

And we now have an answer as to why our basement flooded.  Turns out the pipe outside the house, attached to the hose, froze in winter and cracked.  So every time we've turned on the hose since then it's leaked a tiny bit of water directly onto the inner basement wall.  And when the plumber was here fixing it, he had even better news for us... we have to replace our water heater.   Arg!