Where have the past few days gone?

I blinked and it's Wednesday night. I have lots of pictures to upload. And no time to do them.

In the meantime, here's an article I've been meaning to link to for a week.

Success and Scrutiny at Hebrew Charter School

The difference between a weekday and a weekend

Weekday, specifically this Friday:

Xander is up and raring to go at 6am. Jonathan gets up with him first while I doze half in and out of consciousness. Yentl and Simcha come in the room to cuddle and purr. We all go down for breakfast around 7. Play puzzles, Lego, and stuffed animals.

8am I leave for the hospital.
8:30-9:30 impromptu group session of all the students.
9:30-10:30 Outpatient chemo ward. Talk to people in various stages of cancer. Offer comfort.
10:30-11:30 Accompany another chaplain to the oncology ward. Speak with patients about their losses. Some conversations have nothing to do with why they're in the hospital; the woman with COPD wants to talk about her son's death six months earlier. The woman who can't breathe talks about finances.
11:30-12 See a patient on the detox unit. Talk about prayer, faith, sponsors, AA, falling off the wagon, self-esteem.
12-1 Lunch. Decompress with other chaplains.
1-2 Visit on the Cardiac ICU. See patients who were in the ICU yesterday but were now moved to different floors.
2-4 Regular room visits on the cardiology floor.
Go home, make Shabbat dinner with Jonathan.
6pm Jeffrey comes over. We sing, eat, and laugh as Xander's eyes go wide at the realization that tonight he gets grape juice!
7:30 Xander goes to bed. 1 or 2 regular books, then Goodnight Moon. Adorable because he mixes up his "ss" and "sh" sounds - so when he repeats that the old lady who says hush in the book goes "sssshh," it comes out as "sss." And then whenever he says "sit," it comes out as... yep.

In contrast, behold my schedule for Shabbat:
Xander up at 6. Breakfast is challah French toast. We all play til 8. Jonathan takes him for boy bonding while I go back to bed until 11. I get up, play more, we all eat lunch. Everyone naps from 12-3. We visit with friends in the afternoon (this time some new friends from Tot Shabbat, who have two kidlets). We eat dinner there, come home, put Xander to bed. Jonathan and I watch our new DVD addiction, Dollhouse, from Joss Whedon of Buffy and Firefly.

And today:
Xander up at 6. We all play. Swim lessons at 9:30, then more pool fun til 11ish. Picnic lunch there, then drive home. (We learned the hard way to eat before we leave, because Xander falls asleep the moment we get in the car, no matter whether he's eaten or not). Then home, transfer the boy to his bed for nap. Nap ourselves. Wake up, play outside or inside. Maybe check email, maybe not. Webcam with family. Dinner, bathtime, bedtime rituals. Do some of the writing for CPE, some editing for my AJA job, relax a bit, then bedtime.

Is it any wonder that I really like my weekends?!

God Save the King of Beasts

A friend sent me this article:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/23/smallbusiness/world_cup_lion_burger/index.htm?hpt=C2

It's both interesting and disturbing. My knee jerk reaction to the idea of lion burgers made from lion meat is total disgust. Not because I think it would have a particularly nasty taste, but I feel like eating a lion would be like eating a unicorn. They are too precious to be used as food. But now that I think about it, I seem to have a general aversion of eating predators in general. I can't really explain it, but it just feels wrong.

I must ask if I'm the only one that feels that way. Has any of our blog readers ever eaten a predator of any type? Would there be any type that you would consider eating?

That all said, what makes this story even more disgusting is the fact that none of this meat is USDA inspected. Who knows what's in it. There could be bullets from killing it, or bacteria/worms from unclean conditions. Simply gross. What is most disturbing of all though, is that the men involved didn't even question its quality or source. I'm not even sure if they are just lying to the reporters or to themselves. They looked no further than the profit to be made. I would never eat at that restaurant again.

This is exactly why unregulated capitalism would destroy America - but that's a discussion for another day.

Further proof I am an academic geek

My fun reading this evening, after following links: an article from the journal Sex Roles.

Gender Differences in Mother-toddler and Father-toddler Verbal Initiations and Responses during a Caregiving and Play Context

(The link is to the main article, so you can choose to read it in html or as a PDF.)

I admit I skimmed much of the numbers-heavy first part. Here's a summary of the results, from the end of the article:

"Perhaps the most noteworthy finding of the present investigation is that the number of significant differences between mother’s and father’s behavior was greater in the play context than in the caregiving context. Specifically, mothers and fathers were observed to differ in the number of leads, polite commands, and imperatives they offered to children in the play context, whereas there were no differences between parents for these verbal communication strategies in the caregiving context. This pattern of findings supports arguments from social role theory that certain contexts amplify or suppress the manifestation of gender differences between females and males (Eagly 1987; Eagly and Diekman 2003). The findings also are consistent with previous evidence that males and females display similar types of caregiving behavior (LaFrance et al. 2003), and that mothers and fathers engage in similar types of behavior when caring for children (Feldman 2003; Bonny et al. 1999). Thus, it appears that caregiving is a context that constrains the manifestation of gender role differences between parents. In contrast, play seems to be a context where mother’s and father’s interaction with children take on gender-typed patterns.

The specific pattern of differences in mother’s and father’s behavior during play suggest that fathers model higher levels of instrumental and assertive behavior, whereas mothers model higher levels of facilitative or cooperative behavior. Not only did fathers make more overall initiations to children than mothers, they specifically issued more imperatives and polite commands than mothers. In contrast, mothers gave more play leads to children than fathers. In their responses to children’s initiations mothers were more likely to comply than fathers, whereas fathers were more likely to reject or ignore children than mothers. It is interesting to note that these gender-typed patterns of behavior are similar to those observed in previous studies of parent-child interaction (Aldrich and Tenenbaum 2006; Black and Logan 1995; Leaper et al. 1998). The fact that they were observed only during play, and not during caregiving, support theoretical arguments that social cues and situational demands have a significant role in shaping differences in mother’s and father’s behavior.

Although purely speculative, the pattern of gender-typed behavior observed in the play context is consistent with the proposal that parents may contribute to children’s formation of gender schema regarding particular behaviors (Beall 1993; McHale et al. 2003). That is, to the extent that children use the different frequencies of father and mother behavior as examples of what constitutes typical male and female behavior (Grusec and Davidov 2007; Renk et al. 2003), parents may be teaching children to link certain behaviors to male and female gender roles. Specifically, the fact that fathers were more assertive with children than mothers may contribute to children’s development of a schema identifying assertiveness as a component of the masculine gender role. In contrast, mother’s use of more indirect initiations (i.e., leads) and greater compliance to children’s initiations, may lead children to link such behaviors to the feminine gender role. Future research using multi-method designs, including interviews to assess children’s gender schema regarding verbal and emotional communication strategies may help to elucidate connections between parent-child play and children’s formation of gender schema."

Interesting, no?

CPE

Stephanie asked how it was going. So far I've talked to a lot of people in their rooms and in the ICU, been in the room during a code and counseled the family after the man died, and spent two hours up on the psych ward with a delusional patient. Whatever else it's been, it sure hasn't been boring! It's very meaningful and rewarding work. But admittedly, it's exhausting. All in all though, I'm enjoying it and I know that the skills I learn will be helpful to my rabbinate.

We have no idea how he has this much energy

Xander loves his new steam roller. This series gives you a good idea of what consists of playtime in our world.


































Jonathan comes up with a new game of hiding a toy inside the boxes. Watch for the cats in the end.







His new adrenaline rush is to fling himself onto cushions and mattresses. In this one he decides when the video shoot is over.

More Xander-ness

Driving is serious business.

Pit-pattering along.

Jonathan got him a new steamroller. It was the highlight of his week.

The polar bear had to come to breakfast. He ate all our meals with us that day.

Trying to catch the bubbles with the water bottle. He wasn't very successful.

Playing with the train set at a local bookstore.

.... and in non-babeleh news, everyone in my chaplaincy program likes my homemade trail mix. Vanilla granola, cashews, almonds, peanuts, dried dates, Craisins, and M&Ms. Yum!

Mazel tov!

To Holly and Dan on the birth of their son, Asher Everett. And happy big brother-ness to Gregory!

Being on-call

I am sitting here, in a hospital room, waiting for the pager to beep. It hasn't beeped yet. But I'm still waiting.....

A midsummer night's nightmare

Shabbat in the air

Remember when I said that my husband was wonderfully amazingly creative, and thinks up field trips that I would never have even considered without him? Well, last night we went to a car and plane show at a local airport, hosted by MiniCooper/BMW and Cirrus aircraft. We ate great BBQ, schmoozed with salespeople, checked out the hugely expensive cars and planes, and - best of all - got to go for a demonstration flight!! It was my very first time in a private plane (or, as Jonathan insists I say, a single prop passenger plane).

Here are my top five, below.

Plane posing.

Walking out to the tarmac.

Sitting in the cockpit. (Note: the lines on his cheek and black on his nose are leftover kitty costume from earlier in the day).

The plane being moved is the one we flew in. He signs "more" at the end.

Getting all settled before take-off.

It was a really, really wonderful flight.

The rest of the pictures are in a slideshow. Click here to see.

The Harry Potter park opens on the 18th!

And it looks AMAZING. Read the NY Times article here.

Antonio and some other Whittier College people are going together as a big group, but the timing and finances don't work out for us so we won't be joining them. The next time we go on vacation, though, it's all about Florida!

I am officially...

a chaplain on the Cardiology floor of Good Samaritan Hospital. This includes the Cardiac ICU.

We meet 8:30-11:30 in class, then an hour lunch, then 12:30-5 on the floor. It's fascinating, but I admit I'm enjoying the interfaith group dynamics of the morning more than I am visiting patients in the afternoon. In fact, while I can be good at this, I don't think I'll ever be truly great.

You know who would be, though?

Jonathan.

I told him that I think I'm doing this internship so that HE can find his calling!

CPE so far

Equals me, another HUC student, a Pentecostal minister, a Baptist preacher, a gay Unitarian Universalist, and a Catholic seminary student who wears the collar every day. We're meeting the last member of our team today, Father somebody.

Lunch conversation yesterday revolved around anointing oil. Is it okay to baptize or anoint somebody if they believe in the words, but you don't? How far does "interfaith chaplaincy" really go?

Also, I decided to splurge on really comfy shoes (before I only had non-comfy heels). I thought it would take over an hour, but Jonathan suggested we go to a department store. We went to Dillard's, the saleslady brought out five different options within five minutes of hearing what I wanted. I bought a cheaper version of this shoe from Ecco's, and they're amazing. THE WHOLE PROCESS TOOK LESS THAN FIFTEEN MINUTES. I was amazed. I'm used to shopping at Payless!

Crazy weekend

Rabbinical school friends are now ordained, and grad student and rabbinical friends have MAs and PhDs. It was a very celebratory weekend. Other things of note:

1) It was great to hang out with Anne and Carl. Their youngest can now say my name! She was barely talking last time we saw her. Time goes fast.

2) We now know NOT to keep Xander up past his bedtime when other children are involved. Let's just say it's a good thing that Anne and Carl's girls are so good-natured. We felt very embarrassed when 8pm rolled around and Xander kept hitting them with LEGOs.

3) Laundry sucks. Not that that has to do with anything, it was just on my mind so I thought I'd throw it out there. It feels like we just did 5 loads and already the darn basket is full again. Does it never end?!

4) I finished my summer class! At least, all the classwork part. I still have to write a long final paper. Oh well. It's progress.

5) It's a good thing I'm done, too, as CPE, my chaplaincy internship, starts tomorrow. 8:30-5 five days a week. It'll be just like being in the working world again. I just bought new comfy shoes for the occasion. Next up, I'm thinking, is some new business casual clothes. I'm looking forward to learning, but am a little scared at the same time. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Happy Sunday!

Xander's day

Getting dressed in the morning (before I brushed my hair, obviously)

The white towel you see on the couch is to decrease the amount of fur in our lives. That's Simcha's favorite spot, so we change the towel every week and replace it with a clean one.

Bubbles quickly morphed into a falling game.

And bouncing commences!

Animals, swimming, and kickin' back

Xander LOVES our new daycare arrangement! Jonathan and I love it too. Angela, the nanny, is awesome, and it's great to see him in the day but be able to go back to our offices to do work. He adores being with his friends, we hear them laugh and play all day. There's nothing like toddler giggles to warm one's heart.

Before Xander left the old place, however, they had graduation! This is the speech his teacher gave when handing him his "graduation diploma."

Afterwards there was a petting zoo outside. A pig, sheep, goat, rabbit, duck, chickens... I know there were more animals, I just can't remember them now. They were a big hit with the kids.

Fluffy bunny.

"Quack, quack" goes the duck.

(Not of Xander, obviously, but this was too cute!)

Brushing the pig.

Saying hi to the goat.

The next day was swimming. The indoor swimming pool at the JCC is awesome! It's like a whole water park, complete with slide. The normal pool is good too... but man, I am out of shape. I swam 5 laps and nearly collapsed.

Having a serious talk with Jeffrey.

I have a TURTLE and a BALL!!







I think the below video is kind of boring, but Mom, it is long, as you requested.

And how do we relax when we hang out at home? Here Jonathan and Simcha are playing a video game.


I, of course, read. I just finished a book Gwen sent me, Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul, and now I'm onto the Emotional Life of the Toddler. Next up I think is The Yiddish Policeman's Union.

And Xander.. he just chills.

More videos to come. Tomorrow.

Not as applicable now that he's older. But I still love it.

Toddler emotions

At 5:58am Xander got up, walked into our room and climbed into our bed to snuggle. This didn't last very long, because Simcha joined us, and Xander wanted to pet the kitty. Simcha then jumped off the bed. Xander was sad.

He told us he needed his diaper changed. We changed it. He signed "thank you" and was grateful.

Next was time to get dressed. He picked the blue shirt over the yellow one. He was joyous.

A minute later he got very upset when I said that he couldn't wear his winter boots in the upstairs carpeting. But he was mollified when I suggested his kitty slippers instead.

When we went to the bathroom to brush our hair, he climbed up the step next to the counter to wash his hands. He giggled with glee. This again turned into a crisis a minute later - he was NOT happy when we had to leave the water.

We went downstairs for breakfast. I asked what he wanted: he requested banana, eggs, and yogurt. Eating was great. But face-washing afterward was painful.

We did a puzzle. He couldn't fit one piece in and got very frustrated. I offered to help and his eyes lit up. We completed the puzzle. He clapped with joy.

Dropping him off at our friend's house, he saw Yasha and squealed. They gave each other hugs and immediately started to play with trucks. But when we left, we could hear him cry through the door.

All in all, it was a very typical morning.