Ima Shalom

The Hanukkah Meme

2009-11-12T12:18:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Homeshuling for her Holiday version of the Jewish Mommy Meme. My answers below. Post yours in comments!

One menorah, or several? Hillel or Shammai? (just kidding about that part)
We have three. Oil for Abba, Candle for Imma, Stuffed for Chamudi.

Do you buy your children gifts for every night of Chanukah?
Yes, but many are small, and some are from grandparents.

Do you and your spouse/partner or any other adults in your life exchange gifts?
Yes, either we buy each other a gift or we go in together on something bigger for the family.

Special family chanukah traditions?
Abba makes latkes and sufganiyot, and we have at least one Shabbat meal that is unrepentantly fried.

Latkes or sufganiyot? If latkes, sour cream or applesauce?
We love both! We're more of an applesauce crowd for latkes, though.

Favorite chanukah book?
Runaway Dreidl

Do you actually play dreidl? If so, what do you use for counters?
We spin, but don't count with Chamudi yet. If with cousins, we use candy.

What relationship, if any, do you have with Christmas and all things Christmas-y?
None! Though I like the songs...

Women's Work

2009-11-06T15:38:00.003-05:00

So I've been working on a book chapter about Fordism/Taylorism (as in, the assimilation of immigrants through assembly line labor in America) and labor poets. So I've been thinking a lot about 1. what is "American" about certain systems of production and 2. why gender roles in America create so much grief for working women (that is, women who receive compensation for their labor by working outside of the home, as opposed to women who do not receive compensation because they work in the home).

The two concerns dovetail for me this week with the Publisher Weekly list of top ten books of 2009. Forget that we've still got 1/6 of the year to go before 2009 ends. What caught my eye is that there were no books by women listed among the top ten, and only 29 were listed in the top 100. This is the year when our poet laureate is a woman, the winner of the Man/Booker prize is a woman, the Nobel Prize in literature is a woman, and I could go on, but shabbat comes in early today, so I won't right now.

The reviews editors say they were "disturbed" by the lack of women, but they wanted the "best" books, without regard to gender. Susan Steinberg has an interesting and funny meditation on disturbance here.

But what I've noticed is that in recessions years, The New York Times Best-of list seems to exclude women, too. This was the case in 2001 and 1991. (In 1988 women were also excluded. This was the year of Stephen Hawkings and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, so okay, maybe).

I know there was a backlash after WWII, when women had to return home from factories when the men came home from war. And I know that men are disproportionally losing jobs in this year's economy. Especially since health care and education are relatively stable (despite the recent firing of 200 teachers in the DC district. Boo).

But I was surprised at the venom that has been poured on women who are protesting the PW picks. Maybe it has to do with the value we place on women in general. This is a country that has been listed as the second worst placeto raise children in the developed world, better only than Great Britain, according to UNICEF in 2006. It has the shortest maternity leave for women, and men don't have paternity leave unless their companies give it to them. Pregnancy is considered an illness, actually, in terms of maternity leave and health insurance. Ovaries are, in some states, considered "pre-existing conditions" in terms of insurance policies. Which is why women are more expensive to insure in some states.

I'm not sure why all this is true. But it seems to have something to do with our work ethic. This week's post is really just inquiry. I'm still thinking about it all.

I should also note that I do not dislike my America. I am only thinking about how it can be made better for women and children.

This probably isn't legal in America

2009-11-02T14:37:00.003-05:00

I love, love this wildly verbal stage my nearly-three-year-old daughter is in.
But it’s sometimes pretty weird. Like the time she asked me, “do you know how much I love you, Ima?” No, how much? “Twenty dollars!”
Uh… okay, then. But let’s not mention it out and about. It sounds like I’m employed in the oldest profession.
[note to the reader: she did not get that from me. Except the “do you know how much I love you part.”]

She did ask me once why I had to go to work and (sob) leave her alone. And I explained we needed money so that we could buy food and clothes.
The next day she asked me if I was going to work to get some money, and when I said yes, she explained, “Ima, we have enough money today. Please don’t go to work.”

So what I’m getting in the verbal torrent is that my daughter is negotiating work and home life. Which isn’t really weird, since that’s what I’m doing now that we have childcare 5 days a week instead of 4.

My daughter’s favorite game is currently “I’m going to the office, I’ll pick you up when you wake up from your nap.” Which is sweet, because I'm an academic, and having "the office" to go to makes me sound like I have a job with lots of power and prestige. She’ll shut the door of whichever room I’m in, take my purse, and disappear. Then she’ll reenter the room and announce, “I’m back!” at which point I’m expected to run into her arms and give her a big hug.
Why is it that a child with such a short attention span can play the same game for, I don’t know, an hour straight?

Sometimes I act like she does when I drop her off from work, and I’ll beg, “don’t leeeeeave me!” and she gets a really concerned look on her face, and, with a tone of voice that mimics mine to a T, she will say, “I don’t want to, baby, but I have to go teach students.”

Of course, this is also the stage at which my daughter considers “why why why why why why why why why, why why why why why why whywhywhywhy” a legitimate conversation. Indeed, I asked her, “Darling, are you trying to drive me crazy?” and she answered “no, Ima, I’m trying to talk to you.”

Thank goodness for the Nobel Book of Answers. If 22 Nobel Prize winners can’t answer the questions my daughter is asking, then I can’t be expected to answer them either. She can answer them herself and get her own Nobel Prize.

Of course, sometimes she is trying to drive me crazy: Ima? Mami? Mima? Ima? Ima!!!!
And I’m like, “what? What? What? What? What? What?”
And she’s “Ima! Mima! Mami!”
So then I go, “light of my eyes, love of my life, my pride and joy, mi vida, mi cielo, mi amor,”
And she laughs and says, I’m not your cielo!”

But if you plan to use humor to derail the mind-boggling repetition, it’s important to get in there before your brain goes numb. Which is always a danger in my house.

No Halloween Conundrum Here

2009-11-01T15:08:00.002-05:00

Last night I took my son trick or treating. I imagine that many of you will rightfully censure me because of my reluctance to take a hard-line against such an open embrace of goyishe culture, and it's not that I don't agree with you. I say no to treif food, to TV on Shabbat, to all kinds of things. For my family, I draw all kinds of lines. But this happens to be one line I am not willing to draw.

I grew up being sent trick or treating with friends while my house remained dark. For some reason, I see this as a compromise that is more stigmatizing than a real choice. To me, it said, "We will let you celebrate this ridiculous holiday, but don't want to be seen as endorsing it ourselves."

But today, I choose to let my son celebrate Halloween because I don't want to live in that divide, and I don't want to raise a child to be doubtful about where he stands. In this world of being able to be both and both, of whatever category that is, a little bit this and a little bit that, I want to make a clear statement that it is excellent to be a model of integrity regardless of what kind of Jew you are, what kind of community you belong to, and what kind of person you are.

So we gave out candy that was all hechshered, we went only after Shabbat was over, and we did not dress up in any way that would glorify death or violence. If I'd have been gutsy, I would have handed out little UNICEF boxes or something to help kids collect for UNICEF (but I'm not sure if that's done anymore?). We also ended the evening at a special Halloween havdallah complete with spooky incantations (brachot) and a flaming kos yayin (wine cup).

I see it as my job as a parent to help my son live a life of integrity. Sure, he's only a few months shy of 5, but if he smells any whiff of hypocrisy, he'll make sure to say it aloud. We make our compromises where we must, and others we embrace. It's this one that makes me feel good that I made it possible for him to be a part of something bigger, something fun, and kept it consistent with my values.

An exciting thing happened...

2009-10-31T20:42:00.002-04:00

...while I was on vacation. I got a phone call for a placement! I was in Miami at the time, and the little girl in question is younger than my license allows, so I had to say no. Nevertheless, excitement.

Perhaps someday soon there will be a little one in my life?

Signs and Wonders & sorrel soup

2009-10-23T12:47:00.003-04:00

All during Yom Kippur I prayed for guidance--what should I do this coming year? Should I accept the tenure-track offer at an Israel University, or shall I stay here in the States?
Let me tell you, signs are not for the thin-skinned or the weak of heart. I got my sign, all right. We're moving.

We're moving although my parents just lost their farm and livlihood and are coming out of cancer treatment.
We're moving although our significant other left us the first week of September (I say "us" because really, my daughter and I were a unit to him).
We're moving even though it might mean having to teach at both universities for six weeks, with me flying back and forth in the spring.
We're moving, though I don't know where we'll get the energy because both my girl and I are slammed with a bad cold? a flu? I don't know. Moving my body hurts...just think about how much it will hurt to move all of our effects.

We're going Israel citizenship route.

Let me just say that this has been the worst 6 months of my life (with the exception of the last six months of 2006). Each week there is some new gawd-awful thing to cope with, and for the last month my only goal has been to make it through each day. Honestly, if it's not part of my calendar or daily routine, I simply forget what I promised I'd do. I think it's a kind of shock.

Though it has sucked, at least the results have been okay so far. The custody case in May was awful, but it turned out okay--I mean, it's great to have the clarity and child support and permission to move out of country; the loss of the farm was awful, but it looks like my family be fine after they adjust. Uprooting from a dreamy community, after we finally got a 2-bedroom apartment this month and a garden plot in May and a place in a preschool my daughter loves to pieces is going to be really hard, but we're trusting that we're moving onwards and upwards.

Soon I'll be reporting from Tel Aviv. Anyway, I already feel like I'm in Israel: at my interview with the Jewish agency the interviewee couldn't help herself and started arguing with me about why I want to live in Tel Aviv and not a surburb, where it's cheaper.

Let me end this with a recipe. The sorrel from our garden inspired this, and our colds have made it useful. This is a sorrel soup, hearty, tangy, and wonderful. I adapted it from Claudia' Rodin. It makes you feel alive, in a good, earthy way.

Sorrel Soup:

1 lb potatoes cut into manageable slices
enough vegetable stock (I use bullion) to cover the potatoes and make it soupy
1/2 lb sorrel leaves
black pepper

Cook the potatoes in bullion until they are tender. Then half-mash them.
add sorrel, once it is washed and chopped. Cook for 5 more minutes

I used my hand blender and half-blended everything.

Rodin suggests you beat two eggs in hot soup, then add it to the mixture, cooking until it thickens, not don't let it boil, because then it will curdle. I did't do the eggs yet because my girl keeps asking for scrambled eggs and we don't have enough left. But it tastes great without the eggs.

But you know what, it's a new year.

Dreaming

2009-09-17T09:18:00.002-04:00

Last night I had a dream-within-a-dream.

For a reason that I don't recall but that was unrelated to foster parenting (hey, cut me some slack, do you remember all the details of your dreams?), I was at the local child welfare agency. Because I was there anyway, I stopped by my licensing worker's desk to get an update on my licensing process.

In that inscrutable way that dreams have of making complete sense while being completely illogical, I found myself with my licensing worker, her supervisor, and a few other social workers, being told about a little girl, 5 years old and very short (this was the first thing they told me). Apparently, in my dream, I was licensed already, but they just hadn't told me. So I showed up to ask, and it turned out that they had been about to call me with a placement.

That was the inner dream.

The outer dream was me trying to process the fact that they were telling me about a placement when I'm not actually yet licensed. (Update on that--maybe in about a week? Or maybe I'm just being naive. Probably the latter.) I wouldn't have thought that it was a dream except that I wasn't awake yet.

I learned something very important about myself from this dream: I have a hard time saying "no." Okay, I knew that already. But with all of the actual reasons in my life why today of all days I should NOT come home with a kid--Rosh Hashanah being in two days which wouldn't be a great situation for a kid I don't know, my apartment being a disaster area (I am not exaggerating...I have to climb over things to get in and out of the apartment), not having some of the necessities like a booster seat yet (the plan is to buy/find these after licensing but before kid)--I still was having a difficult time saying no. File that lesson away for the first time I get a call!

May the coming year bring you wisdom to know yourself and to say "no" when you need to.

Shana tova.

So close and yet so far... A brief introduction

2009-09-08T16:00:00.002-04:00

At this moment, I have both hands free for the first time in three months. Our new nanny is watching our precious little girl in the next room while I sit in our bedroom preparing to go back to work on Friday. She's not so far away from me, and yet I miss her already. I keep peeking in to see how she's doing (I hope I'm not annoying the nanny!).

I'm a new contributor to this blog, and to be honest, I'm not sure what my precise perspective will be. I had my first child in mid-June, and every day I am blown away by how fast she is growing up, how sweet she is, and how big her personality is already. Similarly, I feel oddly relieved to finally feel like a grown- up again and to try to reclaim my previous identity as a working professional. I certainly know I take a minority view when I say that I don't think I am cut out to stay at home-- the last three months have been some of the most trying and exhausting times in my life.

I'll break it down to three primary lessons learned:
1) Babies are born needy. After giving birth, I was also needy. It is extremely difficult to give when you need, but somehow you just have to power through and trust nature to sustain you both.
2) When she cries, she is not crying at me. I did nothing wrong. It is not my fault. She did not know how to express pleasure yet, she only knew how to express displeasure. And it was my job to learn how to figure out what she needed when.
3) It is okay to cry. Uncontrollably. Multiple times a day. With her, next to her, over her, because of her. Bonding takes a very long time sometimes, and even when you feel so close, sometimes there is just nothing else you can do that moment but cry.

And now, the three things I love most about my daughter:
1) The way she flings her arms and legs around and grins at me when I find her after a nap. I live for that smile now, and I look forward to it. Even at 4am.
2) I love how she is soothed by resting on me, how she leans in for a kiss, and how she has learned to have a conversation with me. I will tell her for the rest of her life that her first word was "How," and that she takes after her Daddy.
3) At least for now, I can solve her greatest troubles in life. I pray that I'll be able to at least help a little bit, no matter what's wrong, for the rest of my life.

Of course that list could go on and on and on. And perhaps at my first day back at work on Friday I will post again with more when I am truly away from her for longer than 2 hours for the first time in her life.

First Day of School

2009-09-01T14:35:00.001-04:00

Cross-posted to The Blog at 16th and Q

Today is a very special day at the JCC—the first day of school. For so many parents and their toddlers coming in with their new backpacks and nervous faces, it’s truly the first day of the rest of their lives.

My son started at the Washington DCJCC when he turned two last year. For us it was a BIG DEAL, and I’m pretty sure we were more scared than our son was. We’d put so much care and love into raising him and here we were, we thought, making him cog in a machine, just another child in a room full of children, getting 1/12 of his teacher’s attention. What if he hated it? What if he thought we weren’t coming back?

For the first week or two I spied on him to make sure he was doing well. A few days into the year I passed his door and he was in full, inconsolable meltdown mode. His cries gutted me, and I wanted so badly to rush in and save him. But I knew that I’d do more harm than good, and so I forced myself to walk past. And then I somehow made my way upstairs, called my husband and cried.

Fast forward 10 months. Today our son began his second year at the Washington DCJCC preschool. Instead of being one of the babies, he’s got three younger classes below his. He’s got more friends than I can count, has made connections with loving adults who care for him almost as much as I do, and has learned an immense amount—from the ABCs and Baby Beluga to kindness and empathy and the things we do and don’t eat (FYI: we don’t eat bugs). I have no doubt that he’s going to have a great year.

While it’s never easy to watch your children grow up and need you a little less, that difficulty is balanced by the joy of watching them flourish. I made the decision to send my son to the Washington DCJCC preschool for purely logistical reasons, and barely had a sense of what I was getting us into. But today, on the first day of my no-longer-baby’s Tzavim year, consider me a Washington DCJCC Preschool Parent by Choice.

Thinking in the Box

2009-09-01T14:32:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, my son was reading signs. We were making our way through Manhattan and he saw one of his favorite buses. The BoxM100. For those of you familiar with NYC public transit, that would be the cute way of saying BxM100, which would be a bus with the number 100 that starts in the Bronx and goes into Manhattan. But it got me thinking.

I recently had the pleasure of learning how to think creatively with a team of facilitators from a group called SIT, Systematic Inventive Thinking, located in Tel Aviv. Wow. They work with Fortune 500 companies all over the world, and with little people like me who don't do any work whatsoever with companies, let alone in the Fortune 500.

One of their basic principles is thinking inside the box (yep, reference back to that Box Bus above). We go too far out when we reach for innovation. Instead, we should think within the boundaries of what is familiar to us and most accessible, and think about how to use what is closest to us to solve problems and do things differently. You might not fully get this: it took me three full days to understand it and by the end I thought my brain was gonna explode.

And you're wondering now how this has anything to do with a Jewish parenting blog. Well, lucky for you, SIT has some pretty amazing applications of their work to parenting.

How do you soothe and distract a hurt child?
http://www.sitsite.com/blog/2009/09/innovative-aunt-ing/

How do you get your child to tell you how his day at school went?
http://www.sitsite.com/blog/2009/08/dad-you-wont-believe-what-happened-to-me-at-school-today-a-tale-of-father-son-and-sit/

Now that I've learned a few of their handy tools, I'm trying to apply them myself too.
Back on the bus...

How to Foster

2009-08-29T23:22:00.002-04:00

Since I don't have a kiddo living with me yet, I don't have adorable stories like Maya's. But in the interest of trying to make blogging here a more-or-less regular occurrence, I thought I would take some time to explain why it is that I don't yet have a kiddo living with me.

I began the process of being licensed as a foster parent in either June or September of 2008, depending on when you consider the process begun. In September I began the required training course, during which we were told that the average length of the process is four months from the beginning of the course. Um, it's been a few more months than that.

In the beginning, I was hopeful that the process would go smoothly. I didn't have the same trouble as others in the course in scheduling the fire inspector to come to my apartment (though by May? June? the licensing worker had lost the inspector's report). I filled out and returned all of the paperwork in basically the order that it was suggested and in the time frame that was suggested. But then the lead inspector came, my apartment failed, and thus began the saga.

The report from the lead inspector said (essentially) "next step: have a more detailed risk assessment to say what needs to be fixed." I went to Israel for a week and came back to a voice message from the the inspector: "Please call me so we can schedule a time for me to come and do the risk assessment." My conclusion from this was that the inspector would come, do the risk assessment, and then provide a report of some sort that I would then be able to give my landlord to give direction in what needed to be done.

Three weeks after the second inspection, I phoned the lead worker at the agency (I'll call her Priscilla, just to be fun) to ask about the report. (The inspector told me that his contract with the agency requires him to complete reports in three weeks.) We're now into February, though the initial inspection was in November. Priscilla tells me that the report will be mailed to me. I call a week or so later, am told that the report has been mailed to me. I call two or more weeks later, am told that my apartment had passed, and what was the problem, and they don't send the reports to the foster parent. (Actually, there were more calls and emails, and more back and forth, but I'm not referring back to my records to write this post.) Eventually I get clear direction that my landlord is supposed to make the repairs without any additional information. My landlord is fantastic and very graciously arranged to make the repairs as promptly as possible, even arranging for me to stay in an empty apartment for the length of the work. (Yes, the landlord is obligated to make the repairs, but the law gives the landlord 45 days--I think--and doesn't mandate any sort of positive attitude about it.)

I get the clearance report from the contractor and email it to my licensing worker. We're in early June now, six and a half months after the initial lead inspection. She forwards it to Priscilla, who loses it in her email inbox. I follow up with Priscilla who doesn't understand why I am the one making the calls to her; it is the licensing worker's job, yada yada yada. They can't accept the landlord's contractor's report; they need their inspector to come back; she'll have him call me to schedule. By a half hour later, under the influence of some sort of miracle, she has called me back twice and done a complete 180. The report is fine, my apartment is fine, and now I just need the home study. Because of course, while all this was going on, they couldn't do more than one step at a time.

Home study involves two visits to my apartment by the licensing worker; she is an hour late for the first visit because she got lost, but otherwise the visits are uneventful. At the end of the second visit, which was about a week and a half before the end of July, she tells me that the next step is for her to write the home study report, which she'll get to "this month" and then it goes to a supervisor for approval. (There was another issue introduced regarding back-up child care providers and background checks, but the saga is probably pretty boring to you all at this point.)

Well, just over a week ago, now towards the end of August, I get a phone call from the licensing worker. She doesn't introduce herself, which itself is a little odd, and I have to do some quick thinking to translate the caller ID's "Kimberly Williams"--not the licensing worker's name--to the worker. Anyway, the point of the call? She's writing my report (yes, a month later than she said she was going to), and, wait for it, they've lost my background check.

And here we are. I've gone in for a new set of fingerprints, because it's not like the whole system is electronic and it's not like fingerprints stay the same. (Ha.) But it needs to be done every year anyway (see sarcasm above--really, can't they just submit the same fingerprints to the FBI to get an updated report?) and it had already been 11 months (see: started process in September and did everything on their recommended schedule).

So now just waiting for the homestudy report to be written and approved. I'm taking bets for when that will be. Leave your guess in the comments.

Pre-School Open Night: How (not) to make an impression

2009-08-28T10:55:00.001-04:00

I used to wonder why I am so bad at putting names to faces. People always remember who I am, but I’m not so good at remembering them. Am I egocentric? self-absorbed? What’s wrong with me? Now I realize that I am usually dying of mortification when I meet anyone, and so people remember me more than I remember them.

Take last night. We’re walking past my girl’s new preschool on open house night. Carrying a clear plastic bag full of child poopoo because my girl just HAD to go RIGHT NOW and there's no garbage in sight. "Hi, I'm Maya, A’s mother. Oooh, don't shake this hand. And for godssake, don't look down or breath, okay?

Dog owners can carry little plastic bags with no shame. Parents should be able to do the same. And I should have them on my person at all times these days. It happens more than I’d like to admit, heeding the call of nature in nature. We’ve not been arrested yet. I’m sure it’s only because we live in DC and we’ve never yet held up the presidential cavalcade in the process.

Coincidentally, I really thought long and hard about putting my daughter in a Jewish dayschool. When your kid refers to every African American male she sees as Obama, you know you are spending too much time in the exclusive company of Jews.

Anyway, we left the open house 45 minutes before the poo incident because I was cranky. With my usual foresight, I had forgotten to eat that day, so when I noticed myself snarling at the poor membership office administrator because there was a queue, I realized we should go. Right NOW. Did I really want to be seen as “that Mom”? No, I did not.

To be fair, my daughter and I arrived early, and we were alone in our new classroom, with our new teachers, for approximately 78 minutes before that. (To my credit, I refrained from commenting on the teachers’ rhyming names). Just as we were leaving, others began to arrive. So we stayed. Then I had to carry a screaming child out. You know the back-arch, stiff-body sequence?

What were we doing between open house and poo bag? Grocery shopping. Always an iffy thing to do during low-blood-sugar, pms, end-of-teaching-week fatigue. But necessary for Shabbat. So I’m carrying my book bag, groceries, kid’s backpack, and then my child heeds the call of nature in nature. And it’s an unnatural amount. Then she wants to be carried.

Well, those parents will ALWAYS recognize my face.

I wouldn’t recommend this method for making an impression. Bringing cupcakes is probably safer.

Give me some advice, please...

2009-08-25T23:42:00.002-04:00

My marvelous 4.5 year old son is a real winner socially (yes, I know, it's not nice to brag...and it's likely to get worse as he approaches adolescence). He is friendly with kids of all ages and is a good and fun friend to his closest buddies. He is unfailingly polite to adults (even sometimes to his parents). I love him oodles and I think he's perfect and I just could go on and on.

And yet, there's one kid who treats him consistently like crap. She's mean. And we don't seem to be able to avoid her.

Here's the story, in short.

Shabbat morning kids' shul. Regulars include my son, Shmuley and Shmutzie. EVERY Shabbat.

Shmuley is the charming and funny but ever so slightly rebellious son of friends. He is a full year older than my son but they play together very well and enjoy each other's company. A nice Jewish boy. We like the parents. What more could I say?

Shmutzie is a girl 6 months older than my son. She was in the same nursery school class as Shmuley and they are inseparable when they are together at shul. They will be attending kindergarten together (not at my son's school), play together outside of shul frequently and their parents spend quite a bit of time together.

Shmutzie will not allow my son to play with Shmuley and with her when they are all together. There is a lot of "you aren't allowed to play" and "Shmuley doesn't want to play with you." There's even been some "we don't like you"s and some complete ignoring. She whines to her father when my son comes around to play during kiddush lunch or after shul, and makes herself positively obnoxious. We have tried to do afternoons in the park with the kids playing together, or rainy Shabbat afternoon playdates at our house so that my kiddo can have at least home court advantage. But it doesn't seem to work. It is clear that she is jealously guarding Shmuley's attention and doesn't want competition. I get it, but it is hurting my son.

My cutie now is afraid of her, doesn't want to be with them, and is feeling very sad and left out. He is not feeling happy about going to shul...I'm not so worried about this because tons of kids will be back to play with beginning after Labor Day, but still.

Worst to me is that none of the parents are willing to get involved. I engaged Shmuley's parents in conversation about it, enlisted their help in trying to remind the kids that "you can't say you can't play," and they were on board. For a week. Shmutzie's parents are clueless. Mom is never around and Dad is a big clown. No help there.

Please offer me some advice. Do I leave this situation, walk away and encourage my boy to make new friends? Do I continue to try? What would you do?

Walnut-almond cookies & a fear of the cookie monster

2009-08-20T09:05:00.011-04:00

I don't know why my daughter has become afraid of Sesame Street's inarticulate blue fuzzy cookie monster. C is for Cookie was a seminal song for us--it taught her the alphabet. We went through all the letters, like "I is for Ima, that's good enough for me" with the names of our friends.

Suddenly, she asks me to skip the cookie monster song on her Sesame Street CD. Unexpectedly during the day she races into my arms, whispering that the "cookie monstern" is hiding in her bed.

It's not even all monsterns, just the cookie monstern. For example, she can't get enough of Oscar the Grouch, and it's a hoot to hear her sweet husky toddler voice sing I Love Trash. Her favorite song these days.

So I'm making her cookies. She may be freaked out by the cookie"monstern," but she still likes cookies. But healthy ones. They're actually not really "cookies"--they're nuts stuck together with egg and a tiny bit of sugar. From Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food:

1 cup walnuts
1 cup almonds
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg plus 1 yolk

grind the nuts finely. Mix in sugar and egg, cover with plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge for 2 hours.

roll into the size of small walnuts, coat in confectioners sugar. You're supposed to place them in tiny paper thingies, but I don't have any, so I put them on parchment paper and bake for 14 minutes or so at 375. The cookies are ready when they crack on top and are golden brown (though I can't see the color through the sugar, so I just wait till they crack a little). They'll look soft, but they're ready. Leave them in the oven, open the oven door, and let them cool in the cooling oven.

These are supposed to be for Pesakh. But you know, since I've been eating whatever I find in the fridge, freezer, cabinet and garden, and only shopping on days I haven't spent anything else (still sticking to only-spend-money-once-a-day thing), I was happy to make these outside of Pesakh.

Also, walnuts are good for you. They make you smarter, especially in the aging process, which seems to be accelerated when you get a kid.

Basically, I consider Claudia Roden a goddess. All it takes is a tiny peek at The Book of Jewish Food and I am immediately inspired (and freakishly gifted at the moment). In this way, Claudia Roden is lot like Ima-Shalom. I am a total klutz with babywearing. Give me a wrap, and I can make it look like macrame with baby limbs woven awkwardly in and out in strange places. But put Ima Shalom in the room, and I suddenly have opposable thumbs. Luckily (though too late for me) Ima Shalom is now a babywearing consultant and is open for business. Meanwhile, Clauda Roden keeps cranking out cookbooks.

Most of all, I love Roden's stories. They're not overly-sentimental; they're informative, sweet, and smart. So it's a pleasure to read.

And I have a little extra time to read this week. When I ask my daughter why she's been staying awake for hours at night and waking up early early, she says her "eyes just keep opening like that." Which means there are a few more hours in our day these days. We ad-lib stories to go with the photos that illustrate the recipes, so we can both enjoy the book.

In two weeks she starts preschool (yikes), and next week I start teaching. So we'll see how we do.

Why Foster?

2009-08-16T19:47:00.002-04:00

Everyone who fosters has a different reason. Some were foster kids themselves, some know a specific kid who is entering care, some just want to save the world one kid at a time. I probably fall into that last category.

When I was in high school, I had a Huge Crush on a friend who I learned was in care. (It turns out he's gay.) He was perfectly normal, smart, and a few years older than me so I worried about what was going to happen when he turned 18. (He was normal, but his foster brother who I also had a bit of a crush on, I think only because another friend had a crush on him, was a little less so.) I've heard from other friends that he went to college and hasn't had any crash-and-burn moments, but can't find him via Google.

For a while, I was telling people that my experience with Foster Friend was why I was interested in being a foster parent. I did suggest to my about-to-be-empty-nesting parents at the time that they should be foster parents.

But then I remembered the real, and much more meaningful reason. I have no idea where in my memory it was hiding.

When I was in college, I volunteered at a home for young kids--early elementary--who had been removed from their homes but didn't have foster families. It was a clean but institutional place. After school, the eight 6-year-olds all sat on the tiled floor and watched TV. I would take two or three aside and read to them. They were heartbreakingly adorable. And it killed me that they didn't have families to live with. I even thought about how I could manage to move off campus to become a foster parent right then and there.

Obviously that didn't happen. But I've always since then known that I would someday be a foster parent. And now that's finally about to happen.*

*The licensing process--and the ridiculously long time it is taking for me in particular--is another story all to itself. Stay tuned.

My summer of frugal living (1 week of recipes and ideas)

2009-08-12T11:30:00.004-04:00

Long story short: Me + Budget = big mess. So here’s my new tactic: I spend money no more than once a day, and if I spend more than a certain amount at one time, then I don’t spend for two days in a row.

That’s it. If I pay a bill, I spend no more money that day.
For example, yesterday I got my haircut. I’m sure it’s gorgeous. I went with my girl, who was climbing the walls (literally) by the time we were done, so I couldn’t get it styled and last night I slept in wet hair. Next month, when I get around to styling it, I’ll love it.

Day before yesterday I put money on the metro card. Day before that, I bought a book from a friend whose press is in danger of going bankrupt.

Groceries? So far, not this week. I’ve been using all the food in the cupboard and fridge (and garden)—you know, that stuff you have but never eat? You don’t realize how much stuff you have in your cupboard from one Pesach to the next (and by “you” I mean “me.”)

Thursday night I went shopping.
Friday: I made vegetarian fajitas for a family with a new baby.
*pan fry slices of portabella mushroom/carrots/zucchini/onions (you can do the mushrooms in your leftover wine).
*Puree black beans with garlic, cumin, cilantro, salt and pepper
*cook brown rice
*use whole wheat wraps

from the leftover vegetables, I made Pizza for the weekend at the beach:
dough: 3 ½ cups flour, 1/3 cup olive oil, 1 cup warm water, I package yeast, dash of salt, teaspoon honey or molasses.
Knead, let rise twice, roll out.

I made one pizza with goat cheese, mushrooms, onions,
other pizzas I used garden tomatoes & broccoli. Also garden basil.

Weekend at the beach: CAMP outside. Just make sure you bring bug spray. (it’s way cheaper than therapy AND lodging. I don’t feel cranky anymore, and it’s nice to sleep to the sound of frogs).

Monday Eggplant/Tomato stir fry
Garden swap with a friend: Onions, tomatoes, baby eggplant, peppers. Stirfry well, puree, serve over brown rice.

Tue. Tofu, broccoli and garden tomatoes.

Evening snack: white bean dip & vegetables
white beans, pureed with garlic, lemon or lime juice, olive oil, salt.
I served it with celery and carrots and garden tomatoes.

That night I had girlfriends over for a
clothing swap
I’d also done a clothing swap at work the week before.
Now I’ve got chagim clothes, new work clothes, and the satisfaction of knowing people I love are wearing the fabulous things I bought but never wore, or will never be able to wear again. It’s great for accessories and shoes, too.

Wednesday—I was going to make oatmeal and espresso for breakfast. But since my espresso pot exploded this morning (you really should never forget to put in that little screen. Did you know that two servings of coffee can cover two rooms, floor, ceiling, walls, with a fine spray of grinds? Oh well, I can toss the sodden calendar. There’s only one more month on it anyway) my girlfriend who is spending the rest of the week with us, apartment hunting, bought some pastries and coffee. I’m not sure if I’ll count that as my having spent.

Tonight I’m doing salmon croquettes from those cans of salmon I never want to see darken my cabinets again, with celery, egg, shallots and matzoh meal.
remoulade—mix a little wasabi and chili paste in mayonnaise with lemon juice.

When I’m tired of water, coffee and tea I make Ginger-aide
cut fresh ginger into little pieces and pour boiling water over it. Steep for a couple of hours with honey (to taste). Serve cold.

Bon courage!

Introducing...me!

2009-08-09T15:15:00.001-04:00

Welcome to Ima Shalom readers! I'm a new contributor, so please allow me to take a few minutes of your time to introduce myself. I'm Foster Ima, a 30-something, single, hesitantly-modern-Orthodox soon-to-be foster mom in a Big City.

Before I say any more, because I'm constitutionally incapable of beginning anything I say or write without a number of disclaimers (including, as with this, a disclaimer about my disclaimers):

1. I confess to using the name "Foster Ima" despite knowing that "FosterEema" already blogs. FosterEema and FosterAbba are a same-sex couple in an unnamed state who recently adopted their daughter from foster care. They have some posts on religion (they have gone to different Reform synagogues over the years) but their blog is very much about parenting and not very much about Jewish parenting.

2. Because of confidentiality laws protecting kids in foster care, I ask that if you are able to discern my identity, please keep it private. I also ask that you let me know that you are reading, just because, well, I'm curious.

Now, back to me.

I started reading foster and foster-adopt blogs about a year ago. I was looking for blogs about foster parenting from a Jewish perspective, but with the exception of FosterAbba's, which at the time was private, I wasn't able to locate any. (I still haven't, in fact, so if you know of one, please let me know!) After reading for a number of months, I started blogging myself. My original intent was to be a resource for other relatively observant Jews who are fostering or who are thinking about it. I recognize now that along with that purpose, my blog may also serve as a bit of a way to seek feedback on my parenting, and to help me clarify issues that I face with my kiddos.

Here, however, I will try to be more focused. On what, I haven't decided yet. As I'm not yet licensed (after nearly--or over, depending on when you start counting--a year), I don't know what my experiences will be and what is worth blogging about. I may start with a post or three about the licensing process and about fostering while Jewish.

I welcome feedback, so please comment freely!

All in the family

2009-08-08T23:54:00.002-04:00

I always feel like I should be beginning a blog post with "Dear Diary." Ha.

What is it like to be a part of a dysfunctional family? (See Gluckel raising hand wildly and shrieking "Call on ME! Call on ME!").

I think I am a part of one, and also married into one. No, I'm certain of it.

This month, my father lost his job. It was expected for quite some time, and he and my also unemployed (but purposefully) mother don't seem to be too upset about it. They have a cushion, she is over retirement age and he is nearing it, and they have good health insurance. Woot.

But wait, you say, where's the dysfunction? My parents told me not to discuss it with my grandmothers. Fine, I can do that. a 90 year old and a 94 year old don't need to hear about it from their granddaughter. But when my grandmother and I speak and she goes ON and ON about how glad she is that my dad is doing well at work, that things are going smoothly, that she spoke to him just yesterday and he sounded so good....well, that seems pretty unacceptable. What would you have said?

Parenthetically, this is from the parental set who have always kept secrets... like when my sister was hit by a UPS truck on her bike, when my father had triple bypass, when my mother had a stent put in and it burst and she was hospitalized for a week (yes, heart disease, I get it). I didn't find out about any of this stuff till after it was a done deal.

Then, just in case you thought my family was disfunctional all alone, same thing happens on the inlaws' side. Grandma is hospitalized less than a mile from my house? Don't tell us till it's been more than 24 hours, because who would want to visit? More o' the same.

I wonder what purpose this all serves. For me, it's caused me to worry. Which is kind of funny because my parents have always said to me, "well, it'll all be fine, we didn't want you to worry, which is why we didn't tell you in the first place." I know that's why they're not sharing their bad news with my grandmothers...no need to worry them about something that might upset them.

But isn't it the responsibility of the people we love the most to be there for us when we need them? Isn't that why we surround ourselves with family and friends who can be there, comfort us emotionally and physically, give us a lasagne or invite us over for dinner, or just call us to offer words of support?

I know that many of you secret keepers out there might disagree with me. But I see it as my job in life to be a supportive person; it is my responsibility to every other human being with whom I have a relationship, even a tiny one. I fail regularly but that doesn't mean I don't try. And I resent not being given the chance to be the supportive, loving and concerned child, sister or friend that I can be.

So an open plea to all my relatives/inlaws, and all of you for that matter...
please, don't keep any secrets from me. I can handle the truth. Moreover, so can you. We're all tougher than we realize.

$5 Dinner, Kosher-Style

2009-08-04T10:33:00.005-04:00

When you come down to the financials of it, I'm poor.

Now, I feel kind of uncomfortable saying that, since when you come down to it I:

-have a 2-bedroom apartment in a posh section of town (thank you, rent control)
-have about a year's-worth of "just-in-case" savings in the bank
-can afford to feed myself and my family 3 square meals a day
-have cable tv, a car, a computer and lots of other "luxury" items
-have an expensive and high-quality education

So really...to call myself "poor" is kind of an insult to actual poor people, and I apologize for that.

But then again...there are those financials. I just make ends meet. Technically speaking, when your income and your expenses match exactly...when you are waiting for a paycheck to clear in order to pay your rent, isn't that technically "hand-to-mouth"?

There's also the business of the Joneses, whom for this forum I'll call the Schwartzes. The Schwartzes have at least one lawyer in the family, or maybe a lawyer and a consultant. The Schwartzes can afford a house. The Schwartzes go out to eat on a weekly, not quarterly, basis. The Schwartzes don't mull over small luxury purchases for ages...they go for it, knowing that it won't cut into their grocery money.

Ah, the Schwartzes. I envy them, it's true. But I'm also a little smug...after all, our small paychecks are mostly due to our choices to work in the non-profit-world and academia, respectively. We are a glamorous, bohemian kind of poor. We were recessionistas before it was stylish.

The good news is that besides being poor, I'm also pretty cheap. Even when I have money, I don't part with it easily. Which is why I am rather in love with this website, 5dollardinners.com. Of course, their recipes--while inspiring--can often be kind of traify.

So, in the spirit of $5 dinners, I submit to you our delicious dinner from last night, cooked by our very own Frugal Chef, Abba.

$5 Curry
1 onion, chopped, sauteed
3 sweet potatoes
2 cans of chick peas
1 can diced tomatoes
a bit more liquid and spices to taste (salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper, curry powder)
Cook in covered sautee pan until sweet potatoes are soft and delicious, stirring occasionally.
Serve with brown rice.

Cranky

2009-08-04T07:54:00.002-04:00

Dear friend,

I’m sorry I missed your birthday/engagement /welcome home /farewell/celebrate the new job party. I’m sorry I couldn’t go with you to the movie/the beach/cocktail hour/hiking the Inca Trail in Peru. I think I was washing toddler training pants in the sink at the time.

In fact, I’ve not gone out motzi Shabbat since 2006. Don’t take it personally. But if you stop inviting me I’m going to be really p.o.ed and I’ll blog about you.

Maybe it’s the heat and humidity that makes my hair go all crazy and I don’t have time to straighten it so I feel like the wicked witch of the west.

Or maybe it’s the stupid face-book news feeds in which my so-called friends casually note that “life is so tedious without the wine and cheese literati, so I went to the race tracks and bid on a horse called The Plot Thickens.” Or “I’m hopping on a plane to Sweden in ten minutes.” Or “5-hour work out, salsa dancing, and now I’m having dinner on the beach.”

Okay, so I’m window-shopping at the borders of tenure. Academic tenure is going to change my life and make me thinner, wittier, 5 years younger; it’ll make my hair straighter, my wardrobe stylish and my life much more exciting.

Until then, I’ve got to put up with news of friends who just bought 5 bedroom turn-of-the-century house in places where there is a social life for the price of my yearly rent of my tiny apartment.

Here’s what I think. If you don’t have a house and you’re not a wife, you shouldn’t have to be a housewife. I know there are lots of wonderful, exciting, happy and fulfilled housewives out there. Good for you. I’m just saying, housewife = house + wife. Those are the rules. I didn’t make them up. Who am I going to complain about being the maid if there’s no one for me to complain to? I can say “why do I feel like a maid” to my daughter, and she looks at me with an expression like, “duh.”

Here’s what else I think: I shouldn’t have to smell pickled herring and raw onions on anyone’s breath at 7 am. That’s 7 in the morning. Especially not on the breath of a 30-month-old. And G-d forbid, you shouldn’t have to smell it at lunch again, too.

Look, I never complained when my daughter had fallen into the 3rd percentile in weight last year. Did anyone hear me complain? No, they didn’t. Someone’s got to be in the 3rd percentile, right? Or the whole math system would be messed up.

Honestly, I didn’t mind. The grocery bills were cheaper. She was lighter to carry around. She fit into last year’s clothes, so I didn’t have to shop. I knew she’d eat when she needed to. She was still 3 lbs heavier than I was when I was her age. So why is it that when she eats like crazy now, she has to eat crazy food? How many other people make their two and a half year olds brush their teeth three times in the morning?

All I want to know is what a screwdriver is doing in my make-up case. I wouldn’t mind a liquid one, but this one’s made of metal. Where the rare, import CD that I thought about for 3 years before I splurged on it is. The cover was spread all over the living room floor when I got home. Why are my pearls are in the back of my daughter’s baby stroller. Was she going to barter them for stickers?

Today my colleague caught me in the hall and told me, Maya, this is all there is in life. Today. That’s it.

That’s easy for him to say. He’d just come back from a summer writer’s colony in Denmark followed by a vacation in Eastern Europe. He was tanned, relaxed, and his biceps were nicely defined from lifting steins of beer.

I know, life is precious. I'm so lucky to have my sweet, loving, adorable genius child. Whatever. I need a vacation.
I’m going to time-out now.

Love,
Maya

The Things I Can Manage

2009-08-02T16:01:00.002-04:00

I've been a little pre-occupied with freak tragedy lately. It may have started early in the year, when my half-sister and her husband, may their memories be a blessing, suddenly died in a massive car-crash. They had no children, but they had a life together which was wiped out in one blow.
A month or so ago a friend called me to share news of a young mother with a brain tumor. I'm not friends with the woman--there were times in my life (long past) that I might even have considered her my nemesis--but MAN that news hit me hard. Cut me deeper, I am ashamed to admit, than even the loss of my own half-sister. I cried, on and off for days thinking of what must be going on in her mind as she watches her young daughters play happily, unaware that the ground beneath their feet has shifted.

At a simchat bat today, running after my crazy toddler, I was taken aback when I was reminded just how many of the mother's aunts and uncles perished in the Holocaust. As she described how her grandmother managed to save her one aunt, recently deceased, I thought briefly about the torment of trying to raise a child in such a freakishly horrific time.

Accidents happen, illness happens, even Nazi Germany could happen again. Save a helmet and some good advice, I can't protect my son from something terrible happening to one--or both--of us. When I think too much about this, things feel very dark. Which is why, perhaps, I channel my worrying into "did he eat enough does he need another diaper don't let him run down the stairs." These things, I can manage.

What's Wrong with Being Sexy?

2009-07-24T10:25:00.004-04:00

I’m sure all you hip and savvy folks recognize the “Spinal Tap” mocumentary quote that is my title. It’s the question posed by one of the members of heavy metal band when his PR person tells him that the album cover, a woman on all fours wearing lots of leather and a leash, is “sexist.”

Well I bring this up because I just took the Facebook Quiz, “What Kind of Mother Are You,” and got…… the “Sexy Mom.”

The description is pretty cool:

“You have a keen intuition when it comes to your kids, and often you know what they're thinking before they even say it. You know how to take control of situations in a cool and calm manner, which only adds to your alluring and sexy character. Your children find you hip and up-to-date, and it's quite easy for them to relate to you.”

What I couldn’t quite understand though is the photo representing the “SEXY MOM” that accompanied the description: a long, lean blonde wearing a bikini top, cowboy boots and hat, and a denim skirt that was apparently mauled by bears because it shows almost all of her long, tan thighs. Also, she’s arched over the back of a sexy little car (or a truck?) I guess they photo shopped the beer can out.

I’m pretty sure that sexy means you have decided that “life is what you make it,” (question #8, “what life lesson would you like your child to take away from you”), and you make of it something beautiful because you are strong and you persevere (question #7). You don’t wait for someone else to make your life for you.

Sexist is objectifying, dehumanizing.

At first the only explanation I can think of for the photo was terribly unflattering to the creators of this particular facebook quiz. That they lacked imagination. That the only image of female power they could come up with is expressed in terms of its erotic affect on men. This would mean the designers of the “what kind of mom are you” quiz were sexist. Or adolescent boys who were raised by Barbie Dolls (happy 50th birthday, Barbie).

Although I am bummed--I wanted a Rosie the Riveter picture for "sexy mom"--I soon put my "keenly intuitive" mind to work to figure out how this photo representative of someone who “knows how to take control of situations in a cool and calm manner.” And sure enough, I figured it out.

The woman in the photo must have taken her kids camping, and while they were all swimming, a bear comes up and eats her blouse, then starts to eat her long denim skirt. Obviously, that won’t do. How can you chop wood in just a bikini? And what if the bear goes after the children? So you obviously, calmly, step in, give the bear a pie that you baked (because baking pie is way sexier and more alluring than making casserole, goulash and lasagna (question #6, what dish do you most enjoy preparing). And besides, you’re a vegetarian and don’t eat half that stuff in the list anyway). Eventually, the bear calmly leaves. You assume a yoga pose to rid yourself of the bad energy (though, it has been noted earlier, I do NOT endorse yoga myself).

Now don't get me wrong. I don’t regret wasting time on the facebook quiz, since it’s apparently the price I pay for being “hip and up-to-date,” and it will allow my child to relate to me more easily.
Also, now I feel better knowing that reading to your child (question #3, “favorite activity”) is intimate, a “warm” home (question #5, “your home can best be described as”) is alluring. Potty training a child “when they are ready” (question #2) is certainly intuitive.

All these things are sexy, of course.

But I have to admit, if my kid ever EVER dresses like the woman in the photo, she’s totally grounded for life.

Unless, of course, a bear just ate her clothes while she was swimming. Or unless she’s a high profile model who’s got a bikini photo shoot. Or she’s acting in a mocumentary.

Having Fun when you're no fun at all

2009-07-08T21:49:00.004-04:00

My daughter's Abba came in for the weekend last week, took my girl to the zoo, picked her up after shul next day and let her play all afternoon in the sandbox. Oh, she loved it. She loves hanging out with him. And I'm very glad it all seems to be working out. He might not be very into the nitty gritty, but he's a very loving playmate to her.

On the other hand, what has she done with me this last month? I've not been fun at all. After work we're in the garden. Then I'm cooking and feeding her, reading, going to bed. In the morning we snuggle and read, then back to the chores of getting us both ready and with food for the day.

You know what? She's the best. She has her own watering can, her own little shovel. She wears herself out pouring water (mainly on the footpath and not on the tomatoes, but who cares), carrying the can back and forth from the faucet to the garden. She digs until she's so dirty we have to strip her before we go inside.

At home she makes a game of playing cooking while I cook. We've got Ikea toy cookware, and I taped her hand-drawn oven knobs to the top of an empty shelf. That's her oven. I give her a couple of potatoes, a little water, and she's good to go. Then she stands at the sink and plays washing dishes. Should I feel bad that she loves her tiny broom? That she spends hours pushing around her babydoll stroller, even outside?

When I'm done, we paint pictures and read, dance and talk.

But I'm sorry that, even though I do everything around the home, the "everything" I do is so stereotypically gendered. Sure, I nail things, repair things. But on a day-to-day basis, it's the housework she sees and mimics. Well, everyone should know how to cook and clean for himself or herself, I guess.

We do talk about going to work. "I don't want you to go to work today, Ima," she says. Well, I explain, when I go to work I can get money so we can buy food and clothes. You will go to work one day, too, I tell her. What do you want to do when you go to work? "I want to do fun work when I go to work," she says. She's right.
The other day she asked me if I was going to work that day to get some money. Yes, I said. She told me not to go to work that day. We have enough money, she said.

In today's economy, I know I can't afford anything less than all I've got at work. But I know that my dearest girl is only going to be 2 1/2 once.

DC Tourism for Toddlers

2009-06-11T21:30:00.008-04:00

I had been planning to write this post about Touring DC with children for months, but after the sad and senseless, horrible shooting at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on June 9, I wasn't sure now was the time for it.

In the end, I'd like to help keep the Ima Shalom blog going, and this post is what I have. I will only add that I am very glad my very pregnant friend who works at the museum is okay, and that this city is a good place to be a Jew, despite what happened two days ago.

For the past year or so we've been poorer than dirt. We couldn't afford any big trips. Heck, I could only do nearly-full time child care. So we pretended to be tourists in our own city twice a week. Here are some of our favorites, and all are fun for toddlers, too.

1. The U.S. Botanic Gardens and Conservatory: I have never in my life smelled anything as good as the Conservatory. Don't know if it was the complete rain forest inside or the cinnamon and allspice trees, the orchid room, or what. And if that's not enough for you, its blue tile fountains inside, and the sand box, fountains, play house and other objects of childhood desire, in the very center atrium, kept my girl occupied until she fell over with fatigue. At which point we put her in the stroller and strolled through the botanic gardens outside.

2. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museumwill also keep a girl entertained for hours. We could hardly pull her out of the cockpits of all the cool planes. It's very hands on, considering how expensive all that stuff is. To be honest, the escalators are also entertaining for kids. But big people could fall for the homemade planes--complete with instructions. You could probably build one yourself if you had enough plastic wrap and a spare lawnmower engine.

3. The great thing about the American History Museum is that the Spark! lab (for older toddlers) and the Invention at Play lab (for kids, with play area for babies and young toddlers) are right next to Julia Child's kitchen. So when you're done looking at Dorothy's ruby slippers and Jerry Seinfeld's puffy pirate shirt upstairs, the fun can continue for everyone downstairs.

4. The Natural History Museum is such a no-brainer, I can't believe I'm writing it. So's the Zoo.

5. But if you get to the stunning Sackler and Freer Galleries which house Asian art, and if there are two of you, one of you can enjoy the art while the other douses herself and the kid in one of the two outdoor fountain/gardens. But seriously, my girl loved the Islamic art--lots of animals on pottery, even elephants. And the Sackler gift shop is incredible for kids stuff. Think about it, all the cool toys are made in Japan anyway.

Then we scoot over to the Carousel on the Mall. There may be better carousels, though this one is terrific. But what I like about it is that when the ride is over and the girl is crying that she doesn't want to get off, they give you a STICKER as you exit! How brilliant is that?

6. We also loved the Aquatic Gardensin Kenilworth. It was an easy metro ride, though people do drive. The Kenilworth Park is next to the gardens, but we ran out of time. Imagine DC before civil engineers--yep, virgin swamp, folks. But we got to see a real live beaver in the wild building his dam. (Beavers chew very loudly.) My girl loved running up and down the boardwalk and looking at the pretty flowers and chasing ducks. I wouldn't recommend it on a hot day, though. It is a swamp, and is pretty humid.

7. The only item on this list that is not free is Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown. It's $8 for adults and $5 for kids, and by "kids," they mean ages 2 and up (though it's free in the winter; very limited hours). But it's worth it. These are among my favorite gardens in the USA. The terraces are dreamy, the first orangerie in the USA (which, incidentally, smells almost as good as the conservatory) is adorable, the swimming pool is like something out of The Great Gatsby, but with less depression and booze. There is an amphitheater that makes clever use of a reflecting pool, a rose garden. Something is always in bloom. The daughter took off running in sheer bliss and didn't stop for two hours.

8. I'm not going to mention the Building Museum. You can find it yourself. But it's my secret. So don't go. I mean, it's got a free playroom with every fabulous toy connected to construction and building in it (The building zone). The interior is stunning, and the indoor fountain is tantalizing to the kids, but so far no one has fallen in. It's got the best gift shop for adults in the city, if you like architecture themed houseware, which I do.

We also did the Cherry Blossom Festival and Tidal basin, which the girl slept through.

The National Sculpture garden, which we got in trouble for because the girl broke free and tried to play tea party in the Lichtenstein house. Also, it frustrated her that the birds she tried to feed kept running away from her.

The Hirschorn fountain, in my opinion, looks like the blow hole of a whale, and is, therefore, really cool. I like the design of the museum itself, but never quite got into any of the exhibits there. Stay with the fountain.

What are your favorites?

May it Please the Court

2009-06-05T08:36:00.007-04:00

I've spent a lot of time in court this past week. Erev Shavuot was the custody trial for my daughter, and this week I had jury duty. There are certainly things more terrifying for a parent than going to trial for custody, visitation, and (for me less important) child support. But I'd humbly suggest that trial be ranked right up there.

The idea of strangers (judge) and near-strangers (babydaddy) having any say in the matter of the child I raised alone from birth is, to say the least, anxiety inducing. I had hoped to avoid this scenario by hiring the best and most ethical attorney in the area eight months ago. But after we had to resort to suing for custody, it was out of my hands to some extent. This is what we had to do to enable us to move to Israel and marry our guy.

It's not that I don't want Babydaddy in my daughter's life. It's obviously important for her to know that her biological father loves her and wants to be with her. It's important for her to know him. I am just concerned that 1. it be as positive (and un-traumatic) an experience as possible and 2. it not allow anyone to micromanage my life as I had good reason to fear, given the kinds of details Babydaddy wanted control over.

After nearly two months of mediation with mediators and attorneys, which cost me at least my entire month's salary each month, Babydaddy and his attorney sat on our agreement for a month. We got a response from them a day before the trial. Their response (a counter offer), I was surprised to see, contained bits that were actually unconstitutional (violations of free speech), as well as radically unworkable visitation schedules. While I was obligated to return to the States with my daughter for periods of time that were at least twice as many days a year as he had seen her in the 2 1/2 years of her life so far combined, he did not obligate himself to visit us at all.

I had to think long and hard--what was my motivation here? First, I wanted to avoid the split-custody things that children of divorced parents must, unfortunately, endure. I did not want my daughter to have a winter home and a summer home. She's had only one home so far, and I didn't see why this had to change. Especially given the amount of child support Babydaddy decided he wanted to pay once we went to Israel. It was financially unfeasible for me. Especially given he's never spent more than 8 hours at a time with her, and that was always on shabbat, while he stayed with others, as a guest.

But was I acting from anger? From hurt that all this time I've done all the work alone, and now he likes coming in and spending shabbat and vacation with my girl, when neither of us can work anyway? Did I think he was skipping the meal and just coming by for dessert? Yes, I did. And it's something that we had to work through.

So the night before the trial, after I put my girl to bed, I phoned Babydaddy and we worked till 1:30 am, focusing on the points of greatest contention. We got through the first page--visitation. That, for me, was the biggie anyway. Now I would accompany my daughter to the States for 21 days a year, including travel time. And Babydaddy wanted this in two trips. He could come see us in Israel for as long as he wanted, but in the town in which we lived.

Then I woke earlier, typed up our new agreement , brought it to my attorney who looked it over. Then I called Babydaddy as he was en route and we worked out one more issue. We typed that up. Whatever we didn't agree on, I wrote as it had been in our original offer.

My attorney and I met him and his attorney in the courtroom, and they agreed to everything but custody. Since Babydaddy had not paid child support until that week, I was losing the arrears leverage that I'd wanted to use to avoid going to trial for custody. But I signed an agreement on visitation and child support, just to keep visitation as easy on my daughter and me as I could.

We went to trial for custody. Our district is one of the few who privilege father's rights; our judge is known for an extreme reluctance to grant anything but joint custody. But here's where the attorney comes in. My attorney has a reputation for being guided by ideals and ethics, rather than cash (He's older and got a reputation. He can afford it). He simply won't take you on if he doesn't think you're acting with the best intentions, and he doesn't take you to court unless he thinks you can win.

In the end, we didn't need to go to trial. The judge told us how she was going to rule before we began to speak. I got full physical custody and joint legal custody with final decision making power, which is, in practice, the exact same thing as full legal custody. I just have to take his arguments into consideration when making an important decision. Something I'd want to do anyway.

After a week in court, I can say this--it's a crazy system. I don't understand how it works, and often it doesn't, I guess. It does seem to bring out the worst in people. But it also has the potential to bring out the best. And frankly, I don't see an alternative. (Although, as a potential juror, I can see how a professional, trained jury would be better than a regular ol' me type).

That being said, I never want to go through it again.

The Day School Debate

2009-05-14T21:27:00.004-04:00

I signed up for some local suburban Jewish listserves recently--mostly to hawk my Jewish Music Festival in their little suburban inboxes. My intention was to use it when I needed it, but before I knew it I was sucked in...reading it, following the debate raging hotly in my inbox.

The issue? The cost--and possible unsustainability--of the Jewish Day school model. Gluckel recently pointed out an editorial in the NY Jewish Week that explores the same question.

It's a difficult conversation for many--if not most--Jews trying to live a committed Jewish life. Jewish life is by definition not easy. If Kosher food became (hah!) prohibitively expensive, would we eat traif? If synagogue membership became exorbitant would we stop praying with a minyan? No...we find workarounds, support systems, we find a way to make Jewish life work, and even flourish, despite the difficulties and the cost.

But day school seems to be an intractable problem. They've become unaffordable to all but the most wealthy, and in these "difficult economic times" family after family that were just barely making it work before are seeking scholarships in record numbers. And that sky-high tuition is just barely covering the needs of the schools--the teachers are not in BMWs, the schools aren't pocketing massive surpluses...it's just that somehow, along the way, it just became that expensive to give a child a good-quality Jewish and secular education.

So how did it happen? Was it when we started demanding world-class teachers and facilities for our children? When we started trying to make our children as prepared for Harvard as they were for Yeshiva? Are we asking too much from our day schools when we ask them to be top-notch Jewish schools AND match and exceed the best that the private and public school system has to offer? Or is this really what we need to live and succeed as modern Jews in America?

We all struggle with the public school question. I myself went to public school for the first 8 years of school and it wasn't a bad experience for me. But I will say that despite the fact that there were lots of Jews in my school most of my friends weren't Jewish. That I learned countless Christmas carols and have fond memories of decorating trees and dying Easter eggs. And that at least one girl that I counted as a best friend was probably a little curious about my horns.

What do we lose when we send our children to public school? A body of knowledge, to be sure, but also a way of life. Within just a year of being at a Schechter school I had stopped dating non-Jews, by two years I had stopped eating traif meat. And that was with very little explicit pressure from my teachers and peers. My day school--an average one in most ways--showed me how--and maybe even why--to be Jewish.

These kind of influences on our children can be gained in other ways--in after-school programs, from mentors and tutors, in youth groups and summer camps (perhaps the brightest possibility) but can anything really compensate for the loss of year-round immersion? I'm not so sure.

And so I face down the cost, kind of frightened. Two years ago I figured that God--in the guise of the kindness of richer people--would provide. But now I'm not so sure. And age 5 doesn't look so far off.

But hey, I know this guy promising 200% returns on my investments....

What do Jewish mothers look like?

2009-05-10T13:34:00.004-04:00

The Jewish Women’s Archive has initiated a new community photo project on Flickr.com, called “Jewish Mothers: The Way We Were, The Way We Are.”

Please help build the collection by contributing photos of yourself or another Jewish mother (literal or metaphorical) in your life.

The photo can show a Jewish mother, now or in the past, in any context:

· Mothers at home or at work

· Mothers in the family and in the community

· Mothers of different generations and family constellations

· Formal portraits or candid snapshots

It's up to you. How would you like to represent Jewish mothers?

Happy Mother’s Day!

Mother's Day reflection, with thanks to Henrietta Szold

2009-05-09T22:54:00.006-04:00

Cross-posted at Jewesses With Attitude

Frankly, I’m too burnt out by a day spent with my children to offer much in the way of my own reflections on Mother’s Day. So instead I will share the words of Henrietta Szold to fellow Zionist activist Jessie Sampter on August 23, 1917:

“Deep down in the bottom of my heart I have always held that I should have had children, many children. It is only in rearing children that minute service piled on minute service counts. In my life, details have confused the issue; they have not gone to make a harmonious and productive whole. In a mother’s life, ability to lose one’s identity in details is the great thing for the future of mankind.”

Now, the cynic in me, the exhausted mother in me, responds, “Well, of course someone without children would think that. The grass is always greener, etc.” Or, “Great, yet another celebration of women’s sacrifice of themselves for the ‘future of mankind.’” But there’s also something about these words that rings true to my experience.

Please understand that I am in no way arguing that motherhood is the only worthwhile contribution one can make to society. And I certainly disagree with Szold’s claim that the details of her life’s work didn’t add up to a “harmonious and productive whole.” But I do relate to her sense that in motherhood the mundane tasks and minute details are often more rewarding – relentless, yes, but rewarding – than in other aspects of everyday life. So I’m taking some comfort in Szold’s words; when I feel mired in the frantic day-to-day struggle of balancing work/kids/marriage/myself, they remind me of the bigger picture.

At the same time, this quotation reminds me that there are many ways to be a mother. Though she never had children of her own, Szold was considered a mother to thousands because of her tireless work leading Youth Aliya, which saved eleven thousand children from the Nazis by bringing them to Palestine.

Happy Mother’s Day. May you catch a glimpse of that elusive “harmonious and productive whole.”

Sleep

2009-05-04T15:41:00.002-04:00

Well, here I am again. Thanks to all for your warm replies and agreement that we're not alone as mothers in this mess called life.

I noticed that sleep, or lack thereof, hit somewhat of a chord. I would continue this sentence, but I'm falling asleep. No, just kidding. No, just kidding, I am falling asleep, but I can continue to type!

I get between 5-6 hours of sleep on most nights. It just isn't enough. I have a 4 year old who goes to bed about 8:30-9ish and wakes up at about 7:30-8. And I know that you are saying what I should be saying....that is definitely enough to get your 7+ hours of sleep a night. Add to that the fact that I know I'm increasingly paranoid about life in general and many things specifically when I get too few hours of sleep, and that I'm mean and grouchy and jumped up on caffeine, and that I don't eat properly and well, the cycle keeps going.

So what is stopping us??

What's stopping me is that I LIKE ME TIME. No child, no husband, no dishes, no cooking for tomorrow, no sorting/folding laundry, no paying bills or calling friends or making playdates or writing thank you notes or checking email or finishing up the work I was supposed to do at the office. I like to be alone. And the only time I can do it is after everyone goes to bed and the day is done. I want to sit with a cup of tea and read the New Yorker or just fool around on Facebook or watch stupid TV. I want to be alone in the quiet. And that generally has to be done after 11pm. Or even after midnight. And I'm a nightowl, for sure. I get my best work done between midnight and 2am!

What is keeping you awake?

Weighty Matters

2009-04-28T16:01:00.003-04:00

I'm not really a bitch. I'm just small, and right now I don't fit into my clothes.

Before I had my baby I was fine with myself. And I want to be back to my physical self, or at least some semblance of it. If for no other reason than I can't afford a new wardrobe right now. And if it takes me 45 minutes a day to find something I can fit into, I may as well be using that time at the gym.

Let's face it, we all give up a whole lot of ourselves to become mothers. And, speaking for myself, I hadn't exactly been planning on doing so when I got pregnant. Some of the stuff I gave up was good for me to have quit: the stress smoking, the indulging in, shall we say, "artistic" moods. But some of it I really miss: the social and cultural events, the extra hours it takes to excel at a job I love, the ability to take a nap or read a book when I want to, the serious running I used to do.

So I decided, let the crocheted striped salsa pants go, let the running go (for now), and the beer-and-poetry group,the social smoking (yes please) but I will NOT let my figure go. Superficial as it sounds. No way. Anyway, it's only about 10 lbs.

I'm doing weight watchers on line (no time for meetings), and for that I had to buy a scale.

It nearly stopped my heart when my baby stepped on it and then said, "now your turn," to me, then insisted on stepping on it again and again. The second morning after we acquired the scale, she asked me, "Ima, you gonna step with the scale now?"

Like many, many, many women my age, I was anorexic as a teenager. For me, it was from about the age of 12-20. I didn't even menstruate until I graduated from high school.
Yes, I learned it from my mother, the earliest memories of whom involve (besides hours of reading to me), two-week fasts, scales, and a rather sensible swearing off of all processed flour and sugar for fifteen years.

Sure, my mother was 19 when I was born. At 22 she gave birth to her third child. I must remember her when she was that age. It makes total sense she would have been concerned about her figure.

But I don't want to do this to my baby.

It's already bad enough that she plays "exercises" with her friends in the park (sit ups).

I think that, dependent as weight-watchers is on, well, weighing in, I won't do that part. I am making a concerted effort to sit down with my darling when she eats breakfast. But that is an effort. I have no television, so breakfast is my equivalent of sitting the child down in front of a dvd to buy myself 10 minutes.

I praise her gorgeous round tummy (and her manners, and her ability on the potty, and her helpfulness).
Luckily weight watchers is pretty normal eating. But I need to watch what I do and say in front the two-year-old audio/video recorder that is my daughter.

Where have all the Imahot gone?

2009-04-27T22:46:00.001-04:00

I for one am hiding.

I feel lots of guilt for not posting, but it is certainly a significantly smaller and less significant kind of guilt than the guilt I feel on a daily and even minute to minute basis about all the rest of the stuff in my life. What would life be without some all consuming guilt?

Case in point. I fell asleep with my darling boy tonight. After we said the Shema, he went played with his babydoll in bed for a while, and I went straight to sleep. In his bed. Woke up half an hour later because my not so darling husband was poking my foot to try to wake me up. I missed doing the dishes, cleaning up from dinner, finishing my work for the night, and now I'm wide awake at nearly 11pm knowing that I'll be pulling another late nighter to get ready for the rest of real life.

I definitely can't handle it all. Won't even pretend about it. Whoever said that you could be a supermom didn't have a cape and was just totally wrong. I work full time, have a small child, and do a million other things I totally should have said no to because I'm a sucker and I like to try harder than "anyone else."

My bellyaching doesn't make for good blog posts. Neither does the challenge to my marriage and my waning physical and emotional stamina because of my lack of sleep and inability to focus on any one particular thing. So crazy that I ended up in the hospital a few weeks ago with a GI something that had STRESS written all over it.

Plus, damn it, I got a REALLY bad haircut a few weeks ago and my hair looks awful. My toenails look great, though, because I snuck out of work early (packed my flipflops, it was totally premeditated) and went and got a pedicure. I am not feeling that I'm at my (as Betty Crocker would say) moist, delicious best.

So I'll stop typing and try to go to bed by 11:30pm. Maybe I won't be so paranoid tomorrow and will have some time to write more. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll need a manicure instead!

Party on the Potty

2009-04-21T15:40:00.003-04:00

Every day, many, many times a day, my girl is showered with applause, hugs and kisses. She has received by mail a package of frilly underpants from Grandpa-Grandma. A friend hand-delivered two miniature rabbis reclining upon a pair of groschen, along with a pink and white necklace. She is permitted to eat bamba and cookies and to drink juice boxes while completely naked.

I figure it will be easier to teach her that normally we don't eat and drink our favorite delicacies on the potty than it is to potty train in the first place.

Anyway, my mother's method of training little boys by having them "water the flowers" wouldn't work in the downtown apartment we've got.

And so it goes. It's life altering. It's cosmic.

And I get a kick out of how excited and happy this little-big activity makes her. She's so proud of herself she can't stand it.

She stops neighbors coming and going through the apartment building to inform them that she went on the potty today. She greets complete strangers in elevators, on trains, with information about her potty, and inquires whether they, too, go potty and wear big girl panties.

I'm not worried about spoiling her. The other day we brought home a big box of hand-me-down clothing. After examining a few of the pretty dresses together, my girl paused--you could see all the gears turning in her mind--then suddenly exclaimed, "It's my birthday!" Then she sang happy birthday to herself out loud a few times, waving her "birthday dresses" around.

Don't you wish we could save up all this credit for when such useful activities aren't so exciting anymore? I'd like to cash my potty-training treats in right now for a nice pair of shoes or a bouquet of flowers, a day the beach...

We're starting to slack off now that she's becoming regular. Now she can have a juice box the first time she goes. Then we clap and hug. Soon, I guess, we'll stop even clapping. I'd like to hold on to the hugs for a little while longer, though.

Post-Pesach

2009-04-17T09:16:00.002-04:00

This was a terrific Pesach!

I usually like Pesach anyway. Since I'm a vegetarian and I don't like processed foods, it's usually a cleansing time. A salad and vegetables and fish time. I've usually got much more energy and am happier, as a result.

But this Pesach was even better than usual, even though I turned my kitchen fleischig in honor of my baby carnivore. Breaking out in horrible hives as an allergic reaction to detergents and spring--certainly not an auspicious beginning. But my lovely love took over the bulk of the cleaning and prep. The near-freezing temperatures and rain weren't so fun, but it meant I got to stay home and read books with my girl (among them our rabbi's manuscript, the blank back pages of which my girl "decorated for the rabbi.")

I know it's not good to let your child draw during chag. But it bought me some precious quiet (and after last week with ear infections and screaming, I needed it). It was gefilte fish for the brain. For instance, did you know that the Shema originally contained the ten commandments? That, in some circles, the first Pope, Simon Peter, is attributed with writing the Nishmat col hai? I didn't.

The reading/drawing technique also allowed me to cuddle and converse with my daughter for at least two hours each day.

As for the second days: At first I thought it was a disaster that the Dean of our college at the university where I teach invited an Irish poet to my graduate class--during second days of Pesach. But I invited the students and the poet over for dinner. It was amazing. The poet, a single mother of a nine-year-old, had never had an encounter with Judaism. I'm pretty sure she's drafting a poem about gefilte fish as I write, and she flies back to Ireland. Imagine serving people who are excited about matzah ball soup. The two Jewish students in class were happy. The conversation was charged, since the poet writes quite a bit about the encounter between Christianity and Paganism in her native West Kerry.

My love rolled with it all pretty well. Since he's accustomed to having the entire time of Pesach off in Israel, I know it was stressful for him to have to accommodate my work schedule and the unusual touches I added to a normal celebration. But it worked pretty well. And that's good enough for me.

Maxed Out

2009-03-25T21:28:00.002-04:00

The title refers to my capacity for having more children, not to my credit card, which I paid off and then shredded in August, thank you very much.

I adore my little girl. I leave work early, am dreadfully rude in my haste to catch buses and metros to get me home as quickly as possible--because every second counts, right? And when I’m home, my little wee one and I read and paint and dance and play, cook and sing, walk and slide. It’s not a question of love.

It’s like this: yesterday I spent the morning doing Pesakh shopping at Ikea with two friends who each have two children. Girls about my daughter’s age, and boys they still breastfeed. Who is the mother who lost a child during checkout? Who is the mother, who, upon having the child found for her, realized that she had also lost the child’s coat? And later, while lunching at Pita Plus, who was the mother who misjudged her daughter’s appetite and food preferences?

Why, moi, of course. The mother of one.

It’s not that I have more going on than they do, so I can’t say I was more distracted. My more fertile friends also balance work outside the home and childcare. And one of them has a husband who travels during the week, so she does the bulk of it alone. The other is remodeling the bathroom using contractors, and, well, need I say more?

Okay, I HAD just returned from a weekend with my parents in Texas, hanging with my daddy as he recovered from surgery (thank G-d) the colon cancer doesn’t’ seem to have spread). But it wasn’t like I was DOING anything. Since my parents went vegan to enhance their chances of remaining cancer-free (both of them are cancer survivors), I didn’t even have to worry about food and kashrut. I caught up on reading and chatting with my Dad, who was still very weak from surgery and hung out on the sofa.

And my girl? She played outside with her cousins, ages 2, 4 and 7, from the time the dew dried off the grass until the sun was about to set. All she needed from me was food, drink, potty/diaper stuff, and the occasional kiss to the booboo.

Hey, wait a minute…
No...

(And anyway, that doesn’t explain Ikea).

The Feminine Mystique, 21st century style

2009-02-20T17:08:00.002-05:00

This week marked the 46th anniversary of the publication of The Feminine Mystique – the groundbreaking book by Betty Friedan that helped spark the modern women’s movement. In identifying “the problem that had no name” – educated women unfulfilled by their lives as suburban housewives – she pointed out that this problem was not one of individual women suffering from neurosis but the result of a larger social structure that idealized domesticity and didn’t allow women to seek fulfillment in other ways.

As I sit here writing, I’m watching the clock to see how many more minutes until my kids’ nap time is over and I need to shut the computer. And frankly, though I am so grateful for the numerous ways that feminism has transformed American society, these days I am keenly feeling the incompleteness of this revolution.

The “problem that has no name” has morphed into several problems, with various names: “the myth of the superwoman” and “the second shift” among them. Take me, for example: an urban working mom with two kids, a husband, a PhD, a mortgage, and a senior position (albeit 4/5th time) in a challenging job. I was raised to expect I would have all these things, and yet juggling them is much harder than I ever expected. Something’s got to give.

What gives? Well, my ambition, for one, seems to have taken a hit. The egalitarian ideals that we wrote into our ketubah, for another, remain hanging on our wall, behind glass.

Sometimes my husband and I joke about how we really need a wife to make our lives feel more manageable; sometimes we say we really need a servant. The apparent interchangeability of the two makes me shudder. And I've noticed, in this Obama age of change, that my friends who have ascended to the most impressive jobs are almost entirely either men with stay at home wives or single women.

Don’t get me wrong. I love being a mother. It’s by far the most meaningful and rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And I’ve made choices – had the luxury to make choices, really – about my priorities, choosing, for example, to work outside of the home, but not full-time.

But it’s not all about choices. There are still structural inequalities that define the options. In today’s world, where two incomes are necessary to live a middle-class life, where nuclear families live in their own little, inefficient units without much help from extended family, where child care for toddlers costs as much as college tuition, where you're lucky if you get any paid maternity leave, where men still generally earn more than women, where the average working woman spends more hours per week on domestic duties than housewives did in the 1950s… we don’t choose freely.

My female friends and I talk about these issues frequently, usually at the playground. Sometimes the tone is joking and ironic, wondering how we ended up here. Sometimes it’s despairing. We all read The Feminine Mystique. We know that the personal is political. And yet we don’t know how to move beyond the playground conversation. We don’t know what the next step is, how to make change in our own lives or in the wider society, how to spark the next feminist revolution. And anyway, nap time is over.

Big Family Fun

2009-02-17T21:28:00.004-05:00

We just got back from a long weekend at my family's house. Chamudi loves these visits--he talks about them for days before and weeks afterward. They expand his mind and his heart.

For better or worse, we live hundreds of miles away from any immediate family. Most of the time our "family" consists of Ima, Abba and Chamudi. But every few months we pack up the car and join the clan and become part of something much larger.

My sister has five kids. They're all beautiful and sweet and they love Chamudi, especially now that he's talking and running and able to keep up with their nonstop fun and games. Chamudi is beside himself with excitement when he's with them, and more and more our visits are all about making sure the cousins get to play as much as possible. It's amazing to watch a whole new generation of kids in our family, and to see a child of my own take his place mong them.

Chamudi's also learning a lot about family relationships. Chamudi senses that they are complex, and he's constantly trying to work it out. The fact that Doda is also someone's Mama and that Savta and Saba are also Mom and Dad is tricky. And then there are those pictures on the wall--the ones that Chamudi is sure are Ima but are really Savta, and the ones of Ima when she was a Chamudi. All hints of a family history that far precedes--but also includes--my little boy.

Now we're back in our little apartment, with our little family. I'm happy to be home and unpacking. But I'm also reminded of how much Chamudi gains from being part of a the ganse mishpacha, and that I should probably make the trip a little more often.

where is my creativity?

2009-02-10T16:03:00.002-05:00

I have always prided myself on being creative. When I was little, my best friend and I would spend hours making up games to play. We required no summer camp, parental intervention, video games, etc. We lived on our imaginations. One time we recorded that entire Grease movie - on a little tape recorder. Another time, we wrote a book for her sister about the perils of tattle telling.
We even recorded our own pop song - Pay You Back, which bore an eery resemblance to She Bop, by Cyndi Lauper.

I always thought that this would translate beautifully into my parenting. And maybe it will. At this point, I admit that I am disappointed in my lack of creativity when it comes to interacting with my children. Where are the funky arts and crafts projects? the parsha skits? the silly games?

Now I realize that my kids are only 4 and 2. I didn't even meet this friend until I was 11! Still, I feel like even at this stage, I should be somehow be more creative. More imagination. Less TV.

I try to keep in mind that my own parents were pretty uncreative when it came to interacting with me. They pretty much left me to my own devices.

My job as I see it, is to give my kids the resources and space to grow their own imaginations.

Nonetheless, I still feel a bit boring.

Three-Ring Circus

2009-02-05T13:52:00.005-05:00

In the first ring you’ve got the little miss. She’s just finished “davening,” which involves placing my watch on her forehead, wrapping a shirt around her wrist, and rocking back and forth. Now she wants, simultaneously, her “moshu” (pacifier) her “daddymilk” (chocolate milk, in honor of her friend’s daddy) and to “brush the teeth.” I am fully aware that such wishes wreck the parallel structure of a sentence. I’m also pretty certain the kid has got a rather heavy oral fixation.

We depart from the eschatological perspective that would allow all three to happen simultaneously, and accomplish them chronologically. And it occurs to me that the phrase “three-ring circus” is redundant.

It’s my lucky day: after reading 10 books, the girl wants to play “sweep the kitchen,” and she’s also amenable to helping me put dishes away. In her babydoll stroller I discover the missing sippycup lid, the missing kiddish cup, my string of pearls, and a letter from my mother. I’m able to make pizza dough in between tasks (we did, after all, wake up at 6 am). Normally I like finishing one task before beginning another. For example, I prefer to empty the dustpan before rolling pizza dough. But today I do what I can.

It’s my morning “off,” which means I have no baby sitter while I prep for class. I must teach a graduate class in the evening (the second ring). And today little miss is coming to campus with me. Our normal Tuesday evening babysitter, our love, has been gone for nearly two weeks seeking clarity, or deciding whether the custody suit, the unemployment and, finally, the current hiring freeze in Israeli universities is going to be too much for him (ring 3, or is it ring three squared? Can you square a ring? oh will the circle be unbroken?)

By 10 am, little miss falls asleep from sheer exhaustion on my back in the ergo as I’m rolling pizza dough. I prep for class in my apron with flour all over the table and tomato sauce spattered. 40 minutes later it's done. And that’s about it for the nap today. My daughter sleeps like Thomas Edison did. About 4 hours every 24 hour cycle.

But her timing is perfect. The people we nanny share with have phoned and are coming over for pizza. They leave an hour or so later, and it’s time to play clean up.

Office hours are held in the presence of little miss, who has decided she wants to “work” too, by which she means press the keys on my laptop. Last time she did that I couldn’t reformat my screen and had to have professional help. Laptop is shut.

The arching of the back. The roar far too mighty to belong to a 22 lb girl-child.
The profuse apologies to colleagues currently holding office hours.

Are there trumpets and flowers falling from the sky? No, it’s just the lovely graduate student, who used to be a kindergarten teacher. She plops down on her stomach and draws pictures with my child using the washable markers she brought with her. I can go sola to class.

The assignment was to translate Rilke’s Duino elegy #1. The one that begins “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels hierarchies?”

Who, indeed? And Rilke didn’t even have children.

Go To Sleep Already

2009-02-03T21:08:00.002-05:00

It's past 9pm and Chamudi is in bed, quiet but not yet sleeping. I'm pretty excited--this is EARLY for him to be settled down.

Herein lies the problem. Most of my friends have their kids in bed by 7pm. The wild ones have them there by 8. But not us.

The problem really started when Chamudi began school in November. Now that I'm not paying by the hour I leave the house a little more slowly in the morning and get home later in the day. We're home by 6, pull together dinner, sit down and have a nice family meal and then start playing with blocks, trains, books, whatever.

Before you know it, it's 7:30pm. And Chamudi doesn't want to to take a bath, or get his jammies on, or read a book. He wants to stay awake. And the truth is, we want to spend more time with him. We miss him.

So we dawdle. And comment idly on the tie. And completely fail to lay down the law.

Somewhere around 8 or 8:30pm one of us summons the grown-up-ness to start the bedtime routine. If we're lucky lights are out by 8:45.

Then begins the massive stall. Water. Music. Tuck in. Tuck in again. And so on. We try to ignore him, but we're softies--both of us. And have I mentioned that we miss him?

I am completely embarrassed to say that it is not unusual for our toddler son to drift off to sleep at 10pm. Fortunately for him he's also able to sleep in (not one of those up with the sunrise kids). Most mornings he sleeps until 7:30 or 8--and he still gets a good nap midday.

He doesn't seem that much worse for the wear. So what's the harm?

One of the biggest downsides is that he's pretty much ceased going to synagogue in the morning with Abba. Up until 2 years old he was basically a regular at morning minyan and daf yomi--which was surely a hassle for Abba but also an amazing experience for them both.

For another thing, our grown-up time--to get housework done, or watch tv, or just be with each other--has pretty much been confined to the hour or so between Chamudi's bedtime and mine.

We do the calming routine thing. But no routine in the world will convince a toddler that he wants to go to sleep when really, he doesn't. And while I may be able to make him go to school, or put on his jacket or say please, nobody but nobody can make him go to sleep.

Maybe if we can just start waking him up and pushing him out earlier in the morning he'll naturally gravitate towards the earlier bedtime. But it'll take a few weeks of purposely starving him of sleep--a tough sell for everyone involved. Assuming it even works.

So there you go. Our dirty secret: we're bedtime failures.

To Facebook or not to Facebook, that is the question...

2009-02-02T19:55:00.003-05:00

I am a social being.
I love shmoozing (my husband complains that he can't ever get me out of shul - at least on the Shabbatot when I actually make it there).
I love big Shabbat meals, parties, reunions, all of that stuff.

I also love knowing what people are up to. Whenever I see a friend, I need to know not only how they are, but how anyone we know in common is doing. I love people information (not necessarily gossip, but some might classify it as such). I want to hear that the people I love, or once loved, or like, or maybe even just peripherally know, are doing well. I want to know where they live, if they are married, kids, work, EVERYTHING.

So "why?", one might ask, "why have you not joined Facebook?".

Well, there are a couple of reasons,

I am afraid that people won't friend me. Close friends say that's ridiculous, but I still fear not being friended. I remember almost everyone I have ever met- from grade school, through Israel trips and college. What if they all don't remember me?
I am a stay-at-home-mother. Many days I love what I do and I am proud that I do it. Some days I don't, and I'm not. Yeled and Yalda are my lives right now. They are the most interesting things in my world. I'm not really convinced that anyone really wants updates of my life on a regular basis- doctor visits, school runs, Mommy and Me, I just don't feel that exciting right now. Comfortable, boring, simple....yes! Exciting, not so much.
This is where I can get myself in trouble- I also feel somewhat apologetic that I'm a SAHM. I know that I shouldn't, but I do. It can be somewhat embarrassing that I have an Ivy-league degree, a law degree, and that I used to work at a top ten law firm, and now- I'm "just at home with the kids".

There, I've said it. Phew.

I'm sure I'll eventually give in to the pressure (even my parents have joined), but for now, I'm happy to stay a little bit anonymous on-line, and I will hopefully keep up my shmoozing off-line.

Pakistan Juice

2009-02-02T19:51:00.002-05:00

My just turned two-year old copies everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - her big brother says and does. No matter how absurd. Today in the car, they were both acting silly as always, and he started asking for "Pakistan Juice." And whaddaya know it? She starts asking for Pakistan Juice. My husband returned recently from a trip to Pakistan, which is how I think the word came into his head. So I spent the ride passing back cup after cup of imaginary P. J.

This past week, we celebrated her second birthday. My son demonstrated one of his first signs of attention jealosy! For once, his sister was the main event and all eyes were on her. He adjusted remarkably and surprisingly well to her entrance into the world and for the most part, has loved sharing the attention. But truthfully, the vast majority of the time, he is the king and she, his loyal subject.

My little girl just loved the party, and surprised me by how into she really was. But I also think it was good for my son to watch that and experience a role reversal of sorts.
After a minor meltdown, he got it together and settled down for a piece of cake and apple juice.
(I ran out of Pakistan juice.)

I'd Really Rather Not

2009-01-29T12:30:00.003-05:00

I like Facebook. It's turned out to be a great way to remember the names of the really nice people in shul who grab my child before she tumbles down the stairs, and arrest her wrist in mid-swing, as she’s about the toss a handful of cheerios from the balcony of the women’s section onto the bima.

You got your face. You got your name. And I’ve got a horrible memory for names, made worse by chronic sleep deprivation. (You’d think a two-year-old would be sleeping through the night).

I created my file for networking reasons—I do poetry, for Pete’s sake, and need all the help I can get. Plus, with a child, I can't attend the local poets' "drink and walk" sessions in which we talk shop over beers. But it’s really fun catching up with those fantastic beings I thought I’d lost forever in the act of perpetual moving, producing a child, and becoming a productive member of the labor force.

But the recent craze, “Twenty-five Things About Myself” has left me cold. The idea is that someone lists 25 things about themselves that you may or may not already know, then they "tag" 25 people who are invited to read the list, and create their own lists.
It's sweet to be among that person's top 25 choices. But I'd REALLY rather not.

I don’t know why I’d rather lecture naked than make a list of twenty-five things about myself and post them. It’s not like I’m particularly secretive or private.

The lists I have read have been thought provoking and heart warming. A colleague who has survived severe abuse (thing #6) is trying to decide whether to adopt a mixed-race child or to give birth to one using a sperm donor because her mixed-race partner has adopted a mixed-race child (thing #8). Her parents converted to Judaism (thing #3) and she grew up as a racial minority (thing #7).

I’m glad she posted that list. It’s a lot to think about; it raises all sorts of questions and challenges me to re-examine my idea of living ethically in the world. Obviously, I wish she and I could talk about these issues in person over coffee, rather than having me discover them on Facebook. But I’m glad I know them anyway.

Some of the twenty-five things people post are frivolous. I don’t particularly care what your first pet was called,what your favorite color was when you were twelve and what your favorite junk food is. But in the course of a physical conversation, a chatty person will say lots of things that you can pay attention to or tune out. At least on Facebook I can skim.

I guess it just seems weird to me to list 25 things, taken totally out of context. Yes, it seems incredibly self-aggrandizing. Yes, I’ve lived about 10 different lives so far, and it’s weird for me to reveal personal things to people I’ve friended for professional reasons—different kinds of relationships warrant different levels of intimacy.

But reading over my friend’s 25-things note about race, abuse, adoption, something really strikes me. This particular friend is really centered, really at peace with herself and incredibly comfortable in her own skin. There is nothing she would hide from shame, or even to save the feelings of those who have hurt her (surely some of her family members would cringe at her revelation of family abuse?) It must be incredible to live like that. She’s my hero.

But I still think it’s more fun, sexier, more exciting to discover someone bit by bit than to have them tell you 25 things all at once.

Hap Birt

2009-01-28T11:27:00.002-05:00

Well on Friday we will celebrate my Little Prince’s half birthday. Yup. He will be half a year old. Six months, is how most people will say it. I was really hoping to do something very very special to commemorate the day. My goal was to give him the gift of thank you note completion.

While he was still in the hospital my husband and I picked out thank you notes. We were so proud of the name that we agonized for months over that we found a website that made cards which would proudly display both his Hebrew name and English name (in a lovely shade of the orange, which in my opinion is the new blue). We spent hours adjusting the footprints that we chose to adorn said names properly and we called the printer just to make sure that our vision would come to fruition appropriately.

That was when he was in the hospital.

Now thankfully he was not in the hospital too long and we got to take him home. The thank you notes came in a week after that. And the meals and presents stopped coming in a month after that.

But I kept a list right by the fancy silver box they arrived in. I was going to be on those notes like white on rice. But you know, I did just have a baby so I did get a little break. First I said, I’ll write them once he gets on more of a schedule. Then I said, I’ll write them when he sleeps through the night. Then I said, well maybe once he goes to bed a little earlier and I have enough energy.

But nope. Just as he grew and grew so did the excuses. I was blaming everything from needing to spend more quiet time with my husband to catching up on all the Grey’s Anatomy I missed out on to just not wanting to write notes when I was on my 3rd gin and tonic of the day (it got a little stressful around 4 months or so). And about a month ago I decided that etiquette allowed me until his half birthday to complete the thank you notes without looking like a complete ingrate.

Well it’s a month later and still no notes.

Darn you passing time!

I guess part of my problem is that I like to make the notes personal and special. I am just not the generic:
Dear X,
Thank you so much for the beautiful _____. It sure is special! I can’t wait to use it/ grow into it/ be able to eat it soon!
Love, Prince Peanut
type.

But my valiant procrastination efforts have also made this hard because now he’s actually outgrown some of the things he has gotten so I am finding myself writing notes in the past tense which is just awkward.

Dear Aunt Joan,

Thank you so much for the sassy Michigan hat. It looked really great on me for a few days but now that my head is the size of a cantaloupe I have moved on to knit caps so I don’t outgrow them every week or so. I hope to meet you soon!
Love,
Mighty Muffin Man

I also am having issues coming up with appropriate ways to thank people for monetary gifts. Those were great but I always feel the need to tell the sender what the gift was spent on.

Dear Rich Uncle Todd,

Thank you so much for the generous present! Mommy and Daddy really wish they could have saved that money for my college education but instead had to spend it on Mommy’s lavish 30th birthday party so she wouldn’t have a nervous breakdown and abandon me.
Hope to spend a summer at one of your lovely vacation homes soon!
Love,
The Boy Child

Six months doesn’t seem like so long. It was not as bad when I made the 350 guests at my wedding wait for thank you notes. Then 6 months after I received the gifts I was still married and we were still using the bread maker/tablecloth/ coffee maker and since I was only 21 I could spend the money on furniture and that made for a lovely thank you message.

But in Baby Land 6 months is a long time! In that time he has tripled his birth weight and learned to laugh and smile and roll over and almost sit and eat solid foods and develop a fantastically annoying case of separation anxiety.

And it’s all extra nifty because he came early and wasn’t even supposed to be doing all the neato 6 month old tricks until March.

Wait wait…does that mean I have until March?

Cold and Colder

2009-01-27T22:05:00.004-05:00

Snow is coating the ground here in Washington DC and though my thoughts should be on warm things I'm just too excited about two dessert recipes I recently discovered. One is the ultimate in convenience and kosher chic, the other should appeal to the Martha Stewart and/or Earth Mother in you.

NY times columnist Mark Bittman (aka the minimalist) always has something interesting to say, but recently he rocked my pareve world with this sorbet recipe that uses silken tofu:

Super-Simple Sorbet

By Mark Bittman

1 pound frozen strawberries or other fruit

1/2 cup yogurt, crème fraîche or silken tofu

1/4 cup sugar, more or less.

1. Put all the ingredients in a food processor container along with a couple of tablespoons of water. Process until just puréed and creamy, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. If the fruit does not break down completely, add a little more water through the feed tube, a tablespoon or two at a time, being careful not to over-process or the sorbet will liquefy.

2. Serve immediately or freeze it for later; if serving later, allow 10 to 15 minutes for sorbet to soften at room temperature.

Yield: At least 4 servings.

I discovered the second recipe after googling around for a while for a faux "Mr. Yogato" recipe. Those delicious $5 bowls of sweet-tart happiness always make me feel like a sucker for paying someone else to freeze my yogurt. This recipe from the great blog 101 Cookbooks just about does the trick (though my kitchen's selection of toppings will never rival Mr. Yogato's).

Frozen Yogurt Recipe
By David Lebovitz, adapted by Heidi Swanson

3 cups strained yogurt (see below) or Greek-style yogurt
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

Mix together the yogurt, sugar, and vanilla (if using). Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Refrigerate 1 hour.

Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

To make 1 cup of strained yogurt, line a mesh strainer with a few layers of cheese cloth. then scrape 16 ounces or 2 cups of whole-milk plain yogurt into the cheesecloth [I used low-fat, with good results]. Gather the ends and fold them over the yogurt, then refrigerate for at least 6 hours. So, for the above recipe start with and strain 6 cups of yogurt.

Makes about 1 quart.

Inauguration Reflection

2009-01-25T22:33:00.003-05:00

Watching the inauguration, it was difficult not to be awed by how civilized the whole thing was. I don't know why this year more than any, I was struck by just how smooth and peaceful the transfer of power was. Both the Obamas and the Bush's acted with remarkable grace towards each other.

I couldn't help but reflect on the many places in our world where changes of power lead to extreme and brutal violence.

Neither Bush nor Obama are blessed with superhuman powers of calm and dignity. A respected system is set in place for them - and they merely followed this set pattern - perhaps a little better than most.

As a parent, my natural potential to lose my cool or remain calm is not significantly greater or weaker than most. This year's inauguration reminded me of the importance of establishing patterns and systems in the home that help to guard against outbursts of anger and impatience. And it's harder to establish those systems on our own - without the help of lawmakers and judges. Still establishing patterns such as prioritizing rest, not over-programming, asking for help, and taking time to reflect can help our family guard against the temptation to lose it when the kids drive me crazy.

Lexomatic Reading Freak (the Two-year-old edition)

2009-01-22T16:11:00.007-05:00

Our household is weird. We don't have a television. No reason. Just never got around to it. Besides, we get lots of invitations for such spectator sports and national bonding moments as the Inauguration (our apartment, twelve blocks from the White House, was wasted on us this year), the Super Bowl, and, of course, the Oscars.

But for quotidian entertainment, we read. My baby’s reading tastes have been changing so gradually over the course of the year that we’ve turned over most of the rather extensive library already. You see, the theme of our baby shower was books!

Here’s a brief list of current favorites. By favorites, we mean the books we MUST read at least once a day, or every other day.

1. When the Moon Smiled by Peter Horacek.
In general, Czech and Slovak illustrators are among my favorite on earth. This lovely bedtime book features a moon who does not smile because the animals on the farm aren’t behaving themselves. The ones who are supposed to be awake at night go to sleep, and the ones who are supposed to be asleep are awake, You can imagine the fun we have with it when the girl acts out what each animal does, the sounds it makes. We like to stop in mid-action and fall suddenly to sleep. The cut-out stars are fun to stick your fingers in, and the colors are breath taking.

2. The Big Orange Spot by D. Manus Pinkwater
This one was given to us at said baby shower. The message is probably too sophisticated for her—the “neat street” gets all funky as people start to paint their houses to resemble their dreams. But if you summarize some of the dialogue, the houses themselves are really fun to look at. Luckily, we have a toy alligator, a toy elephant, and other props to help us act out the fun.

3. Curious George by H. A. Rey
Again, slightly sophisticated (I don’t think she understands what “curious” means), but my girl adores this little monkey.

4. ABC books. We have Elmo and Richard Scarry
Though she likes the Scarry illustrations, they’re a little abstract at this point (we don’t juggle or talk about jack o’lanterns all that much). But she can proudly sing her ABCs all the way to L, at which point she starts mixing up the letters in adorable combinations, of course.

5. Ruff! Ruff! Where’s Scruff? by Sarah Weeks and David A. Carter
The pleasure here is the pop-up book, with the muddy dog, Scruff, hiding very cleverly behind various other farm animals. Really a cute and very smart book. And it’s fun before bathtime.

6. The Big Red Barn & The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
The girl is obsessed with animals. The first is sweet. The second is fun to play. We run away and catch one another, and it keeps us going for a long time.

7. How the Mole Got His Pockets by Eduard Petiska and Zdenek Miler
Another Czech illustrator. This one is hard to find in the USA, but once you do, you can supplement it with youtube video clips of various Mole adventures. Especially moving is the Mole and the Swallow and the Mole and the Snowman. But the Pockets book takes you through the entire process of making clothes. You start with flax plants, go to spinning (spiders help here) and weaving (the ants), you dye the fabric and cut and sew, and viola! Pockets!

8. In the Hebrew language category there are four.
Bo Elai Parpar Nekhmad by Fania Bergstein. It features scenes from a kibbutz, and some of the photos features songs we like to sing, like "Ha auto shelanu." It was originally published in 1945.

9. Vayhi erev, also by Fania Bergstein, is about a little girl who wants to tell the chickens good night, but gets into all kinds of trouble. It's also a mid-century book. Very sweet.

10. Ayn Arayot Ka-Ele by Ami Rubenger, (2005).
She likes this one much more than I do.

11. My favorite favorite of all is Yom Shel Tom by Rinat Hoffer. It's got lovely folding half-pages, and it's full of little surprise.

I’d love to hear what you read because, frankly, I’ve already memorized these the first thousand times we read them.

Read on!

Obama!

2009-01-20T21:52:00.003-05:00

Happy Inauguration Day!

DC is crazy--lots of traffic and drunk people and patriots--but it's fun to be in the center of the action...even if we did watch the inauguration from the warmth of a friend's apartment.

Like everyone else I feel excited about a fresh start, putting the damaging politics of the last eight years behind us. I'm hopeful that President Obama's administration can accomplish real change--or at least healing--and I think it's so important that President Obama stressed the importance of each of our contributions. I was touched that he mentioned parents in the same sentence as firemen.

Somehow I never noticed the swearing in ceremony is quite religious--Christian mostly, though the minister include a surpise Shma Yisrael and only mentioned Jesus a few times. As much as I tend to cringe at the blurring of the lines between church and state I couldn't help but approve. Because the national crises run so deep, and the responsibility over life and death so awesome, that perhaps only a person who is deeply humbled by his place in the universe and profoundly touched by the beauty and potential of creation can lead our country effectively at this time.

President Obama, b'ezrat hashem, with God's help, and with the support of all who believe in you, may you go from strength to strength.

Gender Bender

2009-01-18T20:16:00.002-05:00

This evening, my son announced that he was having difficulty pooping. You must be constipated, I said. Yes, I'm very complicated, he replied.

How true.

When I first found out that he was a he (after he was born), I admit I worried a little that I would not be able to connect. I am a fairly girlie girl. Would I be able to get into fire trucks, race cars, football, etc? A friend at the time said to me, maybe this boy will be the type you can share all your feminine interests with (books, movies, etc.)

Little did I know how right she would turn out to be. My son has never really gotten into typical boy stuff. His interests have always been more gender neutral and quirky (vacuums, haircuts, musical instruments are a few examples). But lately, he seems to be developing a more intense interest in "girl stuff." (princesses, dresses, the color pink, etc.) He has always shown an intense appreciation for beauty and it seems that now he wants to be more of a participant than an observer.

I admit that this makes me a bit uncomfortable at times. When we left the shoe store last week , he expressed some disappointment that he did not get pink shoes like his sister. I explained that it was too late - we had already purchased the shoes, which he seemed to like at the time. But truthfully, I would not have had the guts to be buy him the pink shoes from the girls section. It's just too much for me - and ultimately, I think, somewhat irresponsible. For what it's worth, he lives in a extremely color-coded gender world right now. I can try to neutralize it, but it's really hard go cross over completely. I think I will switch to Zappos for the time being.

I do allow him to dress up in girls clothes in the context of play and even to wear my pink scarf and hat to school. I am trying to give him room to experiment and explore while at the same time make more of an effort to show him that it's also fun and exciting and special to be a boy - even if sports and superheroes aren't his thing right now.

The experience is also challenging me to revisit some of my behavior towards my daughter as well. It is easier than I thought it would be to have a little too much fun dressing her up in cute outfits and gushing over how adorable she looks in them. It takes a certain discipline for me to tone that down - and I think it's really important for everyone (especially her!) that I do.

I find it difficult to be in the present with this - to not let my anxieties about the future get in the way. I am anxious, for example, that he will be teased at school. But I try to remind myself that no one is teasing him now. And even if they do, he will have the strength to get through it and the wisdom to grow from it.

I hope that I will learn how to be as supportive and helpful to him as I can as he continues on the journey.

Odd-Woman-Out

2009-01-15T21:29:00.003-05:00

When I was nearing the end of my pregnancy, and for those first three weeks of my daughter’s life, before I had to go back to work, I was just like everyone else, more or less. I was a woman who had just given birth. And that’s all. Like many other women, I spent my waking hours with my shirt unbuttoned feeding the girl. Or trying to get her to burp. I spent my sleeping hours awake, feeding the girl or walking up and down stairs with a screaming colicky bundle, patting her back, or whatever it took, to quiet her down. Like everyone else.

I’d never felt so much woman solidarity was when I was in my ninth month of pregnancy. Everyone from the post-office clerks to the checkers in the grocery store would smile and tell me about their kids. They’d guess the baby’s gender by the shape of my belly. Some even produced detailed horoscopes. The people on the bus talked to me and gave me their seats. The stream of pedestrian traffic individuated itself as random people smiled and talked to me in passing. Even the crowds in a couple of sweaty concerts took the mama in stride: “rock on.”

Babies are the common denominators of humanity.

A goodly portion of half the population has given birth, and the rest know someone who has. And everyone was once a baby. My body may have become a bizarre and ponderous formation I did not recognize, but I was just like everyone else.

But this past week was another story.

This past week I was the odd-woman-out.

Or rather, I felt how my difference caused discomfort and inconvenience to a greater community. For the first time.

What kind of person has to serve papers to Babydaddy in conjunction with her daughter’s birthday party? For reasons I won't go into here, I had no choice. The couple with whom I hosted the party was so uncomfortable with the idea we had to resort to more chancy tactics.
Justice was served out of sight and off-property,in a manner not unlike a Sopranos episode I’m proud to say no one else realized what happened, except the guy who got served. But I'm still queasy.

This week my place of employment was hiring. I sat through brilliant candidate talks that left me speechless. But I was too tired to ask intelligent questions. What does it mean to “queer the generative literary systems”? I'm not sure, but I suspect it’s too late for me to start thinking about doing that now.

Nope, I’m not like everyone else. Not like that nice family who shared my daughter’s birthday. Not like my nice family of birth. Not like my childless colleagues, or male colleagues with children and wives.
Not this week, at least.
Oh, well.

Nidah? I Hahdly Even Know Ya!

2009-01-14T10:44:00.003-05:00

When my husband and I got married we registered for 6 pages worth of stuff. Hundreds of household items, everything you could think of from crystal to striped roll pillows to a grilled cheese maker. But we did not register for sheets. No siree Bob.

We had an orthodox wedding and we shockingly had purchased a queen sized bed. Oh the drama. We didn’t register for our scandalous queen sheets so we wouldn’t shame my family. Some Jews are so judgmental (you know who you are) and since we weren’t so into the whole “we can only be pure if we do the whole Donna Reed beds pushed together thing” we just left that off our list.

But one cat, one dog, one daughter and one son later man oh man do I wish we frum’ed out and got the big bed...or rather two small beds pushed together to form one large bed.

We used to be so strict about the bed. It was our sanctuary. Our romantic hideaway. We had candles around and high thread count sheets. And the girl was never allowed in our special love nest. Even when she was a baby we would fight through the sleepiness and rock her to sleep in her room. It’s not like we didn’t share, we just had rules- she loved snuggling with us in the bed after the sun came up, would enjoy hearing stories on my pillow before bed time and don’t even get me started on the crazy games of tent she would play under said high quality sheets. But the nighttime was not the right time for her.

I am not sure what changed. Well I know what changed. First we decided to get the dog on anti-anxiety medication, so now rather than sleeping UNDER the bed she sleeps ON TOP of it. Which is fine and healthier for her self esteem and all but man, 60lbs of dog laying upon your toes sort of cuts off circulation around 3am or so. And then of course the cat got threatened by that, so he moved from the end of the bed to right on my pillow. And while I do find purring in my ear sexy, it is done most effectively without Meow Mix breath.

Then of course there is the whole added life form. He certainly drained our energy levels. Thanks to him, we simply do not have the physical or emotional strength to get up and give our Queen snuggles in her bed if she awakes from a bad dream, so she plops on in with us. And if the boy sleeps until 8am and she wakes up at 5:30am then we sure as heck aren’t going to do something silly like play with her and chance waking him, so into the playroom-formerly-known-as-sanctuary she goes.

The same thing goes with the new man in town. We really try to keep him in his crib, but the other night he woke up with a cold and after a few attempts to settle him in his bed we just brought him in with us. And then of course all his crying woke up the lady in our lives so she joined us (which was what the bringing him in our bed was supposed to avoid). Thankfully the dog was there because I was able to prop my one foot that no longer fit in the bed on top her snout to maintain some sense of balance.

So here is what hasn’t changed, my husband and me. We are still annoyingly lovey dovey. We spoon so hard that his arm tends to cramp when we somehow manage to get more than 6 hours of sleep straight in a single night. And while nowadays leaving candles about can be a bit of a fire hazard, we did get a mini fridge for our room that holds not only the morning’s bottle but the evening’s bottle of wine as well.

So maybe even if we don’t think there is ever a time of any month of any year where a husband shouldn’t be allowed to spoon his wife (forking is a different matter) or give her a hug or I don’t know, accept water from a cup she has poured into (gotta love the Yeshiva) maybe we should just do the twin push. That way we can give the kids one of the beds and we can have our bed-and sleep in it too.

Derech Eretz

2009-01-13T23:22:00.004-05:00

I just read this great article on good manners in the science section of the New York Times. Whhoooshh. It's by a pediatrician who recalls a particularly rude patient who bossed his mother around and generally was obnoxious. Oops, I hope I'm never that parent that gets talked about behind the pediatrician's doors. This week it would be the following: "Why isn't that child completely potty trained?"

The article quotes and frequently refers to Judith Martin's Miss Manners' Guide to Rearing Perfect Children. I think that the hook for me was the following:

I like Miss Manners’ approach because it lets a parent respect a child’s intellectual and emotional privacy: I’m not telling you to like your teacher; I’m telling you to treat her with courtesy. I’m not telling you that you can’t hate Tommy; I’m telling you that you can’t hit Tommy. Your feelings are your own private business; your behavior is public.
I have a four year old son. He never went through the terrible twos. There were no terrible threes and he's four now. I feel so lucky (I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M WRITING THIS DOWN, I'LL PROBABLY CURSE MYSELF) that I can barely contain myself. I'm sure there'll be some adolescent rebellion at some point, and I'll handle it very imperfectly when the time comes. No child is perfect (and no parent either) and just because my son takes after his two doormat, easygoing first born parents doesn't mean he won't lose it at some point.

My key to overcoming those terrible, tantrumy child episodes, however few and thankfully far between they've been in our house, is to remember that feelings are OK but not always necessary to share, but that behavior is public. Shall we remind some of our adult friends and maybe even our spouses about that?

I really love the part about respecting a child's intellectual and emotional privacy, though. Maybe we don't pay enough attention to what our kids are thinking, and how that contributes to their behavior. I think it is perfectly acceptable to be furious, and even sometimes to yell about being mad (for 36 year olds and 4 year olds) and grouse about being sad, but that hitting is never OK. I also think it is OK for a child to dislike a peer from school or shul...life is not a big playdate, and you don't have to have them over to play, you just have to suffer them politely. My mother in law seems to think you need to actually like everyone. It's even good, probably, to say that all feelings are OK, but that you just can't be rude. We all know that we don't like to spend time with those kids and parents who are OOC (out of control) but I don't always think about how my family might look or act toward others.

I remember years ago when I was a school administrator that I had to discipline a whole grade of boys who were rude, mean, and would physically intimidate others and especially the girls. So I worked and worked to craft lessons on derech eretz, "the way of the land," or the general rule of politeness and socially acceptable behavior...respect, or good manners. It was awful. I mean, I was not on my game, but they were just tough.They didn't get that it was important to treat each other with a modicum of respect, or even that Jewish tradition could have something to say about that. I never once thought of saying to them, "Jesus, it sucks to be a 5th grader. But what you gotta do is to remember that some things just can't be said out loud. It is perfectly cool to think them and even feel them, but you can't act on them. Just hold back. Being the bigger person,well, it feels damn good. And gets you points with the ones who really matter." Maybe acknowledging their feelings but requiring them to behave respectfully would have helped.

So I think I'm going to try this: have good manners. Both for me and for my son, and if we're lucky my husband too. Please and thank you always. A few others. Obviously no hitting--we're good with that--but life isn't one big play date. We might even tack on chewing with our mouths closed, shaking hands, saying excuse me when we fart, bless you when someone else sneezes and whoa--not interrupting! I guess I'm going to have to hold myself to the same standard...

A Taste of Vacation

2009-01-13T06:40:00.002-05:00

It's almost seven in the morning and I'm about to go away to a conference for two days--the longest I've ever been away from Chamudi continuously. Of course he chose last night to get a stomach virus...he was up from 3 to just a little past 5:30 and now has thankfully drifted off to sleep so he doesn't have to see me leave. I can't imagine how upset he'll be when he wakes up, though--all he wants when he's sick is Ima--and the guilt is already getting me.

Following Maya's theme of the healing powers of chocolate, I wanted to share with you the most wonderful chocolate chip cookie recipe, which I found on the back of the Hershey's chocolate chip bag. Over vacation Chamudi and I whipped up a batch to bring to Savta and had a great time of it, measuring and mixing (with our hands) and eating cookie upon cookie and making a big mess of ourselves. I could have done that forever.

So here it is, a taste of vacation:

Hershey's Classic Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups HERSHEYS milk chocolate chips

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large bowl with mixer [or clean hands!] until creamy. Add eggs; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips.
3. Drop by teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes until lightly brown. Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet onto wire rack. Cool completely. About 5 dozen cookies.

My Friend

2009-01-12T13:25:00.005-05:00

I am grateful for this is blog (and have missed contributing) partly because it is a space for me to write down things my children say that I want to always remember.

At least once a day, my 4-year old son tells me that we are good friends. "We're very good friends, aren't we Mommy," he'll say. Or when we walk to shul together he'll hold my hand and say, "Isn't it nice to walk together mommy? We're good friends." And every morning we snuggle for a few minutes and he comments, "You're my friend."

It's a big counter-intuitive (I'm supposed to be his mommy, right, not his buddy), but I've found that the friend language is also useful in terms of discipline. I find that the more I use the friend language, the more respectful he is and the more likely he is to listen to to my instructions gracefully.

Don't get me wrong. There are PLENTY of times when this does not work. Mainly because it is hard to switch into "affectionate friend mode" when I am frustrated at his behavior. And because when he is misbehaving, often the my stern voice gets me a lot farther.

But when we start the day talking about our friendship and when I remind him throughout the day how happy I am that we are friends, then he is less likely to be difficult.

What a good friend!

Dark Chocolate Mousse!

2009-01-09T09:19:00.006-05:00

Tonight I am hosting Babydaddy and his new girlfriend (who, I hope to G-d, is fertile) for Shabbat dinner. I'm not that nice. I'm just working all day and don't want to miss seeing my baby after 5 pm. And I also don't want the little miss taken out in the freezing weather in the middle of the night. This is a man I'm currently suing for custody. This is a custody case requesting that I be permitted to take my baby into a country at war. We won't even go into the war. I did that last post.

All I can say is, Mousse!

This mousse won't bring world peace, and it probably won't even make you a better person. But it will sure make you feel better. One little bite fills you with unreasonable joy. It can be parev, depending on the chocolate you use.

Dark Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients
12 oz. semi-sweet or bitter sweet chocolate. I use ghiradelli.
6 eggs, separated
1 tsp. instant coffee (dry crystals--elite coffee works well because it's fine, and who really wants to drink the stuff anyway?)
1-2 tsp. Chocolate liquor (or really anything you have on hand).

Separate eggs. Place the yolks in a bowl with the liquor.
Beat the whites until stiff

Melt chocolate with the coffee crystals in a double broiler. DO NOT allow even a drop of water on the chocolate. Do not overheat the chocolate. Melt, and then turn the heat off.

Pour the chocolate into the yolk mixture and beat vigorously.
Fold the whites into the chocolate.

Refrigerate and let set for at least 4 hours. It's better if you leave it overnight. It really just improves with age, up to about 3 days.

Ours Is Not To Reason Why. Ours Is To Keep Answering After 1000 Whys.

2009-01-07T10:21:00.002-05:00

I am slowly going insane.

Why?

Because I think my daughter wants me to take a long walk off a short pier.

Why?

Well she’s not really doing anything mean or evil, she’s just being a normal and inquisitive 3 year old.

Why?

Well she just wants to know a lot about everything I am doing and why I am doing it.

Why?

Well I guess it’s because that is the way that 3 year olds learn all the random stuff that there is to learn in the world. But man, sometimes I feel like she is trying to annoy me on purpose.

Why?

Well for instance she will start pondering why she needs to be quiet when I am putting her brother down for rest. Or start asking me why I am still wearing a shirt I slept in to school in front of her teachers. Or once I say I have to make dinner she asks me a 30 minute series of “Why?”s until I throw a jelly bean across the kitchen to distract her.

Why?

Oh I was just kidding about that last part. I could throw an elephant across the floor and it wouldn’t distract her.

Why?

Because she is so darned focused on why! Why why why! She MUST know! And once I tell her why she asks me a new why and if I give her an answer she of course asks why to that. And if I ignore her she just won’t stop “Why why why”ing until I have to say something.

Why?

Well I have tried replying with “Z” or “Try Bud Dry” or "Because I am taller than you" but that didn’t do anything but cause further confusion.

Why?
Because she can sniff out a fake response a mile away. And the whole “Because I’m the Mommy and I say so” doesn’t do squat for her. She is way too smart for that line.

Why?

Because she is from my genes and we all know I am a freaky genius.

Why?

Because I am smart enough to know that even though all I want to do is yell at the top of my lungs, “Oh Sweet Lord SHUT UP!” or maybe just give her a teeny tiny dose of a sleep aide, I know that this is part of the wonders of growing up. And one day when she doesn’t ask me about anything anymore I’ll miss when she wanted to know why I have to crack eggs. So I guess I’ll keep answering her insanely annoying, cyclical and always ill timed Whys.

Why?

I love her, so why not?

The Cheese Stands Alone

2009-01-06T10:02:00.003-05:00

Okay, I'll admit it...I was an "always a bridesmaid, never a bride" sort of single girl. Always greeted the announcement of engagement and ensuing wedding with an equal measure of public excitement and private bitterness. I'd like to say that I stopped when I got married, but the truth is that to this day when I attend weddings I get a little envious...thinking wow to be experiencing that blissful day once again, long before the realities of building a life together really begin.

So let's just say I have "though shalt not covet" issues.

Which brings us to today. One by one I've watched as each of Chamudi's friend's Imas hit that "two years apart" mark, popping out lovely new younglings to build their beautiful families. It was basically down to just two holdouts--one of whom is not currently married--plus me. I actually said to one of them last week, "God, don't tell me when you become pregnant....you're my saving grace (or my last hope, or something similarly melodramatic)."

Yeah, guess what? The cheese stands alone. It's all the worse because I'm not even a little bit confused--I know that I do want more children--and soon. I love Chamudi and I love little babies and I'm ready for more chaos and more excitement and more mess and all of it, I have been for a while.

And maybe at my old job we could have made a go of it. But my new job--which on most days I really like--pays $12k less than my old one. And Abba's still a year or two from finishing his Phd, though he's making great progress. So...there you go.

The day I realized this was a brutal one. It's a shocker to realize that sometimes you can't make your own future--that sometimes money really does matter, even if it shouldn't. Some of it is cruel circumstance, but to a certain degree I'm just eating the consequences of the choices I've made in my life--and would likely make again.

It's an Ima thing to yearn just a bit for the little ones, but I guess I'll just have to suffer through for another year or two. But meanwhile, perhaps I'll try and count my blessings, like Abba is always pushing me to do when I get melancholy about the children's table for one.

Top Ten Reasons Why It's Nice Having One Toddler, No Baby...For Now

1) I get lots of sleep.
2) My breasts never randomly spurt milk.
3) I'm not feeling nauseous or exhausted.
4) My son gets my full attention.
5) I don't need a double stroller.
6) I can go grocery shopping with ease.
7) I don't need a "family car."
8) I don't need to move to the suburbs.
9) I don't need to take unpaid maternity leave.
10) I can lend out all my favorite baby stuff to my favorite friends.

So there you have it. A little positivity for the road.

Divorce, Sister Style

2009-01-04T23:59:00.002-05:00

My sister is getting a divorce.

This could lead me in a number of directions. I have traveled in each direction, thinking through various anxieties and concerns. But it just occurred to me that I am missing something. Here are the different things that have leaped into my mind, and let’s play a game and see if you can figure out what’s missing.

How awful. OK, that was just for one second. So it turns out that I don’t—scratch that—have never really liked my brother in law. That isn’t a real surprise, but now I have permission to say it. I could go on for hours about this, but there’s really a big reason. Turns out that he was unfaithful to my sister within the first year of their marriage, but they promised to try to work it out. Two beautiful little children and 6 years of marriage later, and I don’t feel sorry for him. Cheating just isn’t OK, no matter what kind of spin you put on it, and I admire my sister for having made a go of it. Here’s what she said: “We just kind of fell out of love.”

How awful for my sister. Well, no. She’s the primary breadwinner, and a capable parent. And lives an hour from my parents, and my mother doesn’t work, so she’s a built in caregiver when needed. And she initiated it. It won’t be easy in this world to be a single mom, but we have great examples of how women with great support systems are amazing single moms (thanks Maya, for teaching us so gracefully). And maybe she won't be single forever.

How awful for the kids. Two beautiful little girls, and I do mean little (both under age 5). But is this really true? My personal philosophy, constructed as a work outside the home mother, is that a happy parent makes for a happy child. And it would seem to me that this applies as well to children of divorce, if the parents can make a go of it in a way that is amicable and productive. If they have a chance at happiness, then so will their children. And a miserable, unhappy home with depressed, angry parents who constantly fight is no good anyway.

In my family? I have a pretty emotionally healthy extended family. No divorce. My parents are married for almost 40 years. Their parents were all in healthy marriages, and for the most part, the rest of my extended family too. This is the first, so we have no experience, and that adds to the shock. At least we know that divorce happens to Jews, “unlike” rape, alcoholism, domestic abuse, drug addiction, homosexuality, etc. But just like that awful stuff, divorce happens too. So yes, in my family. But it could happen to any family, and it’s no stigma, because it can and it does. And better to take away the stigma, because then the children can learn to handle it better.

But what I did not leap to think about was “what if it were me/us?”

My wonderful husband and I have definitely had kinks in our relationship. In fact, I will fully confess that there have been a few hours that we have spent together with my therapist. We have a lot of issues. We don’t really get each other. I can be a horrible pain in the arse and he can magically become blind and deaf at the drop of a hat. Right now he is throwing the dishes in the kitchen around because he’s annoyed he has to clean up from dinner. But we both put a lot of effort and energy into our relationship (he clearly puts up with a lot from me) and we will celebrate our 13th anniversary in a few short months. We committed to making a home and a family together, and in every resolution to every argument, no matter how small, we both work to remember that in our own way.

But I did not think what it would be like if it were me. If it were me and my son, about to strike out on our own. I didn’t think about what life could be for myself as a single parent, nor did I feel the cold anger that one must feel to discover that your partner has been unfaithful. And I truly thank God for that. And my amazing husband.

I wish all those out there in difficult relationships the courage to fight for what is important to you, whether it is to strengthen your partnership or to choose to dissolve it, and the courage to do what is right for your children. And luckily this is an anonymous post, so my sister won’t know that I’m writing this for her…

Gaza

2009-01-04T23:19:00.004-05:00

Returning from my parents’ house in Texas last week, I was shocked and embarrassed to realize Israel was in its third day of air strikes on Gaza, and I’d not realized it. I can excuse myself, saying that I was so occupied with my father’s cancer and aneurysm, my Uncle’s unsuccessful brain surgery, and what was probably my last visit with him alive. But then I remember my student from Ramallah whose mother was undergoing cancer treatment while bombs fell around their family not so long ago.

But the second thing I thought was: damn! This was about the very worst week of the entire year to serve Babydaddy papers in order to sue for full custody of my child and a “reasonable visiting schedule” so that I can move with her to Israel. What judge on earth is going to award a parent permission to take a child into a country at war?

Babydaddy phoned the first night of the air strikes to discuss mediation. There have been no follow up phone calls.

I fully support Israel’s right and obligation to defend itself. And when I am face to face with my student, who has spent significant amounts of time praying that the last suicide bomber was not from her home town, I am at a loss. The West Bank is not Gaza. But even if it were, Hamas must still be made to stop its incessant rocket fire, whose only purpose is to provoke Israel and to prevent any two-state solution, any hope for peace.

But why is the world so screwed up that innocent civilians cannot move out of the way of fire? When she asks me this, I won't have an answer.

This student has sent me an invitation to sign petitions, and to subscribe to her blog that tracks the death of every civilian in Gaza. Before the strikes, she was awarded a national prize in Israel for an essay she wrote about her mother’s cancer treatment—a prize she received at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. She clings tenaciously to the distinction between the people and the politics of politicians. Or she used to.

So far the tactic we have both taken is never to lose sight of the humanity of the other. She is going to be in my class this spring, translating the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish who passed away late this summer. I really hope we can do this.

She has the assurance that most of the world views her and her people as the victims and Israel as the oppressors. She has the experience of having bombs fall all about her. She once wrote movingly about being unable to distinguish the broken jars of strawberry jam from the blood in the kitchen. I have the burden of loving Israel, and evaluating the student’s work, thereby, in the worst-case scenario, duplicating the political power structure in the realm of personal relations.

I hope the poetry we’ll be translating is elastic and profound enough to absorb the mental and emotional chaos. Because if two people who are invested in this situation cannot find the humanity in one another from a distance, imagine how impossible it is for those who are in the heat of it all, who face being killed or killing.

I hope that the war accomplishes all that Israel needs it to, quickly and with as few casualties on either side as possible.

I hope all of the soldiers that I saw daily on the bus between Tel Aviv and Bar-Ilan, new recruits who came in to pick up their uniforms and receive assignments, will be safe. They were boys who spoke to their mothers on cell phones in Hebrew, Russian, French and English; who teased each other and shared their snacks. Of course they annoyed me at the time, since I often had to stand for 45 minutes while I graded papers on the bus; they and their baggage took up all the space.

And if I have any wishes left, I hope that this war will not prevent my daughter from living with a man she loves so much she calls him Ima. That I can take her to Israel and she can grow up in a loving family.

Terrible Ten Minutes

2009-01-04T22:30:00.004-05:00

I did not think twice when our nanny called me last week at work. She often does. But as soon as I picked up the phone, I knew something was wrong. Her voice sounded too far away. Then I realized she was crying. She kept saying, "She won't stop bleeding." It took about 5 minutes for me to figure out where she was calling from. And those 5 minutes plus the 5 additional minutes (thank God it was close by) when a colleague ran with me to get her were no doubt the scariest of my life. Thank God a million times she was OK. She had fallen and cracked her head open - a classic little kid injury. When I finally saw her, I knew she would be fine. After a few hours in the ER and some glue, she was as good as new.

But I still can't stop thinking about how awful those ten minutes were.

I think they are going to haunt me for quite a while.

Darkness & Light

2008-12-29T16:53:00.003-05:00

My half-sister's father died in his early 30s, when my sister was only 7. She and my mother moved to New Jersey and, a few years later, my mother married my father and had me.

I grew up under the shadow of this man I never met. He was the reason that my father wasn't my sister's biological father. And he was the reason that my mother always got sad a certain time of the year. As I child I saw many many pictures of him and, despite the fact that his death was in fact necessary for me to exist, I felt close to him.

Because of him I understood at a very tender age that it was possible to die young--a harsh lesson that I learned several times over as several of my parent's friends, all in their 40s, all with with children, passed away during a few horrible years in the 80s.

Why am I thinking about all this now? I had a great Chanukah with Chamudi--the best ever--and am feeling happy and healthy and excited about the future. But a few recent tragedies are weighing on my mind.

First there's our friend's girlfriend, in her 30s, who had a brain anurism last month and in now convinced that she's in 2001--before she had her children, before she divorced her husband and met our friend.

Then there's the personal history I just read in the New Yorker written from the perspective of a grandfather raising his daughter's three young children after his daughter dropped dead of a rare and undetected heart problem. I wept through the entire thing.

Then there's a co-worker, a father, who died last week in a motorcycle accident.

Finally there's that poor Chabad couple, the Holtzbergs, z"l, so brutally murdered, and their 2-year-old son, just the same age as Chamudi.

All of this amounts to a bit of gratuitious contemplation of my own mortality as we finish the Festival of Lights and bring in the secular New Year, and heightened anxiousness over my time on this earth. What if my recent inability to call up some words is the beginning of some sort of premature mental decline? What if my muscle ache is more than a muscle ache? And the like.

Having children heightens our experience of everything in life, and mortality is no exception--my life matters more because it matters to him. And when I contemplate him living without me I hurt deeply--both for him and for me. What would his life be like? Would he ever be the same?

I'm just about ready to move away from these dark thoughts and embrace my exuberant preschooler at this end of his school day. Because the only bright spot in this kind of maccabre contemplation is that it reminds you--without the mark of tragedy your own life--to live and love as fully as you possibly can.

Happy New Year from Ima Shalom.

Crowded

2008-12-08T10:55:00.002-05:00

It’s embarrassing to have more than six people over for Shabbat dinner. Six is the Ikea fold-out table capacity; add the card table, and we fit nine. We’ve got four matching chairs and four miss-matched, and the roller desk chair. This Friday night we hosted eleven adults and three children. Yep. Four more people than we had seats for.

We didn’t mean to. People I adore accepted invitations, to my delight, and then asked if they could bring….other people I adore. Plus, I wanted to honor a friend with whom I had a bumpy start.

In fact, she’d asked to join a public pot-luck meal I was hosting last year, and I turned her away. I was already at 10 guests. I had a newborn. Though she’d been new in the community and my rejection had hurt her feelings, her kindness was undiminished. She’d proceeded to babysit the two times I needed it most, and has given me free tickets to a theater where she works.

I've never lived down the shame, and honestly, I wasn’t going to turn away any guests this time.

So we brought out the wood stool I made with my own hands in high school, and a jumbo-sized pampers box, cleverly disguised by a table cloth (until my daughter wanted to play with her “blan-keet” and revealed the ugly truth). Etc. etc.

By some miracle, everything worked out, except the main dish could have been cooked 10 minutes longer.

But what made the whole thing especially miraculous for me what that I had a sprained foot, and couldn’t do most of the prep on Friday. What would I have done without my love, who swept and mopped and cooked and took my daughter to services so I could prop up my foot and let the swelling go down and the advil kick in?

Let’s be honest, I would have managed it. But I would have been a lot less gracious (and a lot less clean). We would definitely have had a buffet. And I might have turned people away again. And I wouldn’t have enjoyed it.

Look, it’s embarrassing to have graduate school furniture three and a half years into a real job. Yes, I had a baby alone, finished, published, or had accepted for publication three books of translation and two books of poetry, and am almost done with a book of scholarship while teaching 9 new classes outside my area of specialization. You can’t do everything. Right? But having a home to which you can welcome those new in town, those visiting, and those dear friends you love, should have been near #1 on my priority list.

Lucky for me, I have a partner who is open to my need to feed people and fill the place with more love than it should (probably legally) contain. This, in my opinion, is the reason to be in a relationship—to have a partner that will help you be a nicer person.

So when we move, we are definitely getting a big table and lots of chairs. And not the folding kind, either. Grown-up chairs.

Now I just have to think about the foot injury. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but somehow I’ll have to find a way to stop running to catch the bus in heels. Look, when you’re 5 feet tall and have baby-feeding boobs, you’ve got to wear heels if you don’t want your students looking at your chest instead of pondering the extremely clever things you’ve just said. [When do breasts go back to their pre-baby size?]

And if you’ve got a baby, you’re probably going to be running to catch the bus. That’s just life. Oh well, I figured out how to seat 14 people on 10 chairs, now I’ll figure out the shoes-bus thing.

Keep Your Voice Down

2008-12-02T22:46:00.004-05:00

Over Thanksgiving at my parents Chamudi had his usual highjinx--"I climb this" "I jump that" "I dump this"--and I had my usual responses, including the all-time favorite "I'm going to count to 5" and the old-standby of just picking him up and moving him.

My mother and her childhood friend (Don't you love parenting as a spectator sport?) thought it was hilarious. "It's so different," they said, recalling--with what seemed like nostalgia--how their mothers used to yell and yell and how they'd go from one house to another trying to figure out who yelled louder.

Mom's a yeller too--no doubt the product of her own yelling mama. Like Nana before her she's also a loving, caring mother, so I, like Mom, just accepted it as part of the deal.

And then there's me. I've got it in me...I definitely do. When Chamudi gets naughty and super-willful all I want to do is rage at him. I feel so angry and so disrespected and mad...at this cute little two-year-old who I love more than life itself.

But I've got something else in me too. Maybe the memory of what it's like to grow up in a loud household and the knowledge that Abba--who grew up with a mild mama--doesn't see a place for raised voices in a happy home. Or the knowledge that by reasoning with Chamudi I'm both teaching and modeling self-control. Whatever it is I swallow my anger the best I can...and I'm always, without exception, glad that I did.

You Know You Have Made It When They Turn Your 30th Birthday In To A National Holiday

2008-11-26T14:57:00.002-05:00

OK, so here’s the deal. I am turning 30. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will wake up and begin my 4th decade of life.

I am not going to lie and say I am handling this well. No. I have asked my husband for a boob job and Botox several times. I spent an hour and a half searching for gray hairs. I broke down in tears when a normally very thoughtful friend was telling me about a date he had and mentioned she wasn’t going to turn 30 for SO long and how girls “in their 20’s are so hot.”

Yeah, when you are vain and changing decades, it’s not fun. Constantly worrying about what is sagging and what is no longer going to be considered attractive. And when you are vain and love being the center of attention on said birthday, turning THIRTY and sharing the day with a turkey is just awful.

I am in Mahotma Baubie and Zadie’s Land with my wonderful Mommy and Daddy. My amazing husband. Awesome brother. And of course, my perfect children.

But where is the big party? Where are all of my friends? Where are the cakes and presents and over the hill balloons? And seriously, how does anyone expect me to turn 30 without a keg?

Instead of a whole shebang about my glory there is a whole shebang about what we are grateful for. I just do not see how this is fair. Instead of thinking about me everyone will be thinking about themselves! Oh the horror.

I am turning THIRTY yes. But just because I am 30 doesn’t mean I know how to share.

So I guess that means I have to think about me. I will have to have to sing a song to myself about my glory. Think about what I am grateful for me for.

Well I am turning 30. I am grateful I am not turning 40.

No no. That’s not nice.

I am grateful I will never know what it is like to be 9 months pregnant and having to hire the announcer from the Price is Right to ask the baby to “Come on down!”

Oh and I am grateful for my husband. Who is perfect for me and with me.

And you know, I am really grateful I don’t have any unsightly moles. Which reminds me I am happy I don’t have any cancerous moles, which reminds me I am glad I don’t have cancer, which reminds me I am thankful for my health.

I am grateful for my teeth and gums. And the fact that my husband has a rockin job where we can get sweet sweet dental insurance (and helps pay for the special “I’m turning 30 so I get to buy myself the sassy new black nail polish from Chanel” presents).

And of course I am grateful for the awesomeness that my womb produced. And in particular, I am grateful that my daughter is finally potty trained and that my sons sleeps through the night.

I am grateful that we have a beautiful home with a kick ass kitchen. And I am grateful that in it I seemed to found an actual talent that I possess- I can cook. Who knew?

I am grateful that I am turning 30 and am sad that I am not with my friends. Because that means I actually have wonderful, amazing friends who always make me smile (even when they are talking about 20 year fresh meat being hotter than 30 year old rib roast).

Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. Look at me! I am 30! OF COURSE I should feel old. I have done more in 30 years then some people do in their whole lives! I am HAPPY and HEALTHY. I have friends! I am accomplished. I have been deemed smart enough to be hired by a Fortune 50 company and was smart enough to know that being a mommy is way more fun. And I have stuff! I have an awesome husband! I can spend long periods of time with my family and not want to jump off a cliff!

DAMN IT! Now I am all happy and feeling grateful. Darn turkeys and Pilgrims and Native Americans stealing my thunder. I wanted to wallow in my oldness for a while. You know how I love the self pity. Oh well. There is still the surprise birthday party that I am having in a couple of weeks. I will bitch and moan in between keg stands.

Seven Days of Sex

2008-11-25T20:40:00.002-05:00

Yes, I did write that. And now you can go ahead and wake up from your nightmares, because I'm not going to describe anything seamy or inappropriate (after all, some of you actually KNOW me).

Apparently, a pastor of an Evangelical church in Texas--at this point, many of you have stopped reading, right?--has put a challenge to his parishioners. Revive the intimacy in your marriage with Seven Days of Sex. Read the article here.

I mean, come on. I get the rationale behind this "sexperiment." I know that sex is an outstanding way to boost the level of intimacy between two people in a committed, loving relationship. And for what it's worth, it doesn't happen that often at my house. And I could give you a whole long list of reasons why, including kids, which the aforementioned pastor says stands for “keeping intimacy at a distance successfully.”

But honestly, I wonder more about what has happened to us as people when I read an article like this of all places in the New York Times. Isn't the NYT the newspaper of record in this country? And why on earth are we talking about married sex HERE??

So on a whim I decided to see if I could find out what folks were reading about way back in 1900. Because it must be way more impressive, about paradigms shifting and the world changing all around...

On November 24, 1900, a whole 108 years ago, the New York Times featured short reviews of plays showing on Broadway. Apparently, a Thanksgiving tradition was to go to the theater, not to gorge on turkey (that was perhaps in another article), and according to this article, it was a truly bad play that didn't do well around Thanksgiving. Probably the same goes for today's holiday season.

And on November 30 (here's a shoutout to all you football wives out there), there was an extensive piece on the football season, describing how Pennsylvania beat Cornell and Columbia beat some team called the Carlisle Indians. I think that school isn't an Ivy anymore...and they'd be the Native Americans, anyway.

And so fine. I am humbled. And perhaps tis the season to renew one's faith in the fact that there are things more significant in the world than the economy, politics, Iraq, Afghanistan, other 3rd world countries that are disintegrating before our eyes, disease and famine. Perhaps it is important, especially in this season of giving thanks, that we turn to our spouses and say thank you, thank you for being our partners and being our intimate companions and lovers.

Thanks for putting up with us and our snarky comments when you want a medal for emptying the dishwasher. We are actually grateful you did it.

Thank you for putting the kids to bed, even though you riled them up and it took an extra hour and three stories.

Thank you for making dinner, even if it meant defrosting something I cooked last week.

No seriously, I'll stop. I think that the way that I will say thank you to my spouse this year is by having Seven Days of Sex and following the guidance of my new friend, Pastor Ed from Grapevine, Tx. That will help me to refrain from any further complaints about the state of the world, the messy kitchen/children/desk/football, and return to the intimacy that was the hallmark of our life pre-children.

Good luck initiating your very own Sexperiment!

Kids' Night Out

2008-11-24T01:39:00.002-05:00

Last night, I went with my husband to a New York Knicks game. It was apparently "Kids' Night," which must have been someone's brilliant idea of getting kids into Madison Square Garden to spend their parents' money on $100 seats and copious amounts of junk food, not to mention foam fingers and jerseys of players who are no longer on the team.

I did not feel badly at all, not for one second, for not bringing my 4 year old son. Now, he's a huge Knicks fan (appropriately brainwashed by my husband), and he's been to a few Sunday afternoon games, but I'd never bring him to a Saturday night game. After all, it was date night, and I was paying for a babysitter. Because I foolishly thought that I was going out to where there weren't going to be a lot of kids.

I did say paying for a babysitter. And that meant that I did not want to spend the evening with 10000 other people's children. Alas, I was wrong on that one.

Let's return to the idea of Kids' Night. That meant that the Knicks City Dancers, generally wearing inappropriately skimpy and tight outfits while gyrating all over the floor, were wearing flowy micromini sundresses and go go boots, to "tame down" their look. And dancing to songs from the 80's instead of hiphop from the Naughties, but with lyrics that are just as sexy and misogynistic. That meant that the Star Spangled Banner was sung by a 9 year old from LawnGuyland who was being handled by her stage mommy and who was groomed within an inch of her life. I also had the pleasure of seeing extra action from the Knicks City Kids, a troupe of kid dancers who wear baggy hiphop clothes and dance all over the place, and instead of being too sexy are overly precocious and also being fawned over and spoiled by their stage mommies.

I promise you, I did have a great time with my husband (and the Knicks won). You just have to wonder, aren't there any places adults can go anymore where the kids haven't taken over?

Went home after the game. My son the light sleeper woke up just after the babysitter left, and we had the pleasure of snuggling him back to sleep. He's taken over our house...now that's appropriate. Not Madison Square Garden.

No More Moooooooooo

2008-11-22T21:08:00.003-05:00

It wasn’t the fact that my daughter’s nearly two and speaks in complete sentences that made me wean her.

It wasn’t even (when push comes to shove) the fact that she has been waking up at 5 am for her morning feeding and then not going back to bed.

It wasn’t the fact that my love is embarrassed when my daughter reaches her hands into my shirt when we’re in public and casually digs around until I feed her.

Before I actually gave birth, I thought that any single one of these would have been enough to make me wean my daughter. But at the end of the day, I loved the bonding too much. I loved her snuggling against me, her eyes gazing at nothing in particular, her hand around my fingers or on my necks and face.

And I appreciate the extra antibodies that keep my girl from getting sick.
And I loved the “100 elements in breast milk that can’t be found anywhere else”
and the idea that breast milk is perfectly fitted to the needs of my daughter at any age.

We were down to twice a day, so we could breast feed in private. And anyway, I told myself, my daughter refuses to drink cow’s milk, even milk with honey and vanilla. And I HAVE milk, so why not keep going?

But three times in the last week, when we were looking at cows (in Texas), reading about cows, or dancing with our fabulous, battery-operated dancing cow, my daughter stopped in the middle of it all, turned to me, reached into my shirt and said, “milk? milk?”

That did it. I refuse to be identified with a cow!
I mean, I certainly joke about feeling like a milk machine, but I'm allowed. No one else is. Not even my daughter.

She started weaning this weekend at my parents’, and now she’s (mostly) all done.

Not so painful. Though, to be fair, I’d started “trying” half-heartedly to wean a few weeks before, so at least the milk supply wasn’t urgently painful by the time we quit.

Her last gulp was on the plane, taking off in the Houston airport. Now we’re “all done. Bye-bye, mama’s milk” (mostly).

And for the first time in her entire life, she slept through the night last night (after a short crying spell at midnight).

Keeping Kosher in a non-observant family

2008-11-18T13:44:00.003-05:00

My mother allowed us to keep kosher, for an entire weekend, cooking for the entire family, using her kitchen. Yeah, okay, so what’s the big deal? First, my family doesn’t keep kosher. Second, to call my mother a foodie would be an understatement. She's the kitchen goddess incarnate.

She ground our own peanut butter, our own flour (from wheat berries or rice grains), churned our own butter, made our bread, made pizza dough from brown rice, even ground her own poppy-seeds for her homemade poppy-seed rolls and made her own dough for her own strudel (made from our home-grown pears) etc. etc. etc. all during my childhood. Ask her to please step away from that pot? Uh...no.

So how did we do it without driving her absolutely, completely and totally insane? And still manage to eat on porcelain? Well, it wasn’t easy, but it also wasn’t as difficult as one might imagine. For starters, we introduced new food that my mother didn't know how to cook in the first place, then let her help by chopping stuff up. She was happy to learn new, healthy and delicious recipes.

Secondly, my parents live in Texas, where real estate is relatively cheap, so they have space. I had some dishes in the attic I’d never used; Mama had a new paring knife and cutting board; I brought a soup pot from my kitchen, and I bought another soup pot on the way home from the airport, and a second knife and soup ladle.

I told my family that keeping kosher dishes at their place was an investment in our future relationship—a sign that seeing them was a priority. Eventually, I’ll build up enough (maybe I’ll buy a second soup pot and a frying pan next time) so that soon I’ll be able to visit without needing to bring any cookware with me. For now, though, triple-lining a regular baking pan with tinfoil allowed me to bake several lbs of fish (big family).

The second thing I did was to make sure they were included; I shopped for everyone and cooked a simple but delicious and hearty meal for Friday night. My mother lit candles with me. Luckily they like sweet wine. Who doesn’t like challah?

The biggest problem was reserving two kashered burners on the stove top. We’ll need to work on that one. The other problem was keeping my mother from poking in the soup pots with treif silverware.

Finally, be real. No, kashrut doesn’t make sense. It’s not supposed to make sense. Kashrut is NOT about logic. Yeah, it’s somewhat about making sure Jews and non-Jews don’t mix, which is hurtful to mention to my family. I just say that, aside from it being a commandment, it’s also a discipline to keep me mindful and attentive to my actions, my thoughts and the way I treat others, the way I treat the environment. That seems to work.

Also I introduced kashrut gradually, when I lived in Texas; at that time I’d cook an entire meal and bring it over. So it was seen as a treat, not as a weird and cultish habit or punishment I was subjecting them to. I started slow—we ate at first on their dishes, so as not to alienate. Or we ate on paper. And we talked about it. I avoided discussions that involved these words: truth, salvation, sin, right, wrong. And I acknowledged that what I was asking them to do for me seemed completely insane, as well as inconvenient, and I knew it, and I was really, really grateful.

I can’t say that it was easy for them. But luckily, they love me (yeah, I know it’s really all about the babygirl) and want to see us all again. Soon. And lots.

Blissed Out

2008-11-10T16:02:00.003-05:00

What do you call a man who tells you, “Let’s face it, you’re gorgeous, but your daughter adds a certain dimension to your beauty?”

What do you call a man who takes your daughter to the pediatrician while you’re at work, who travels to see family out of town and comes back with a doll stroller that your child has been wanting for so long that she’s turned her booster seat into a “croller”? Who asks if he can take your camera to a two-year-old birthday party because this particular two-year-old is your daughter’s best friend? Who calls you to tell you to go ahead and finish that project at work if you need to because he’s free and he’ll pick up the girl from the babysitter?

I don’t know about you, but around here, we would love to call that man abba.

Despite having just come from the new Woody Allen movie last night (my first visit to the cinema in about 16 months), filled with nostalgia for my previous, carefree itinerate existence, I am pretty blissed out. My love has been in the States for three weeks now, and frankly, I can’t imagine life without him. And judging from my daughter’s complete disregard for me whenever he’s around, she can’t imagine it either.

It’s so nice to feel there is someone who can back you up, support you, take turns being the bad cop, and who still thinks you’re pretty even when you’ve not washed your hair all week, and who still thinks you’re smart even when you’re sleep deprived and can’t remember the name of your best friend. It’s nice to have someone who speaks Hebrew to my daughter and who davens.

So now we’re preparing for a second round of negotiations with Babydaddy, trying to get permission to move with baby to Israel. Hopefully the quaint guiding principals of the court system in DC, which favors a woman in a relationship to a woman alone, will add weight to my side (or, as my love puts it, our side) of the table.

This weekend we’ll be in Texas to meet my family. I’ve made my five brothers promise to behave.

Yawn...Is it Shabbos Yet?

2008-11-07T09:09:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is Chamudi's birthday. Everything is in order. The trike is bought and assembled, the cake is baked. And I am dog tired.

Some days life feels so relentlessly...adult. And not in that wonderful "when I grow up I'm gonna..." way. More in that "I've worked till ten two nights this week and today I worked all day and sat through a meeting about layoffs and then came home and battled through traffic to the toy store and the grocery store only to return to dishes to do, Shabbos to help cook and a dire laundry emergency" kind of way.

I guess it's no suprise. After all, I'm over 30...at some point adulthood was bound to creep up on me. But somehow every time I have a week like this I feel kind of betrayed. Sure, I wanted marriage, children, a rewarding career. But I also really wanted to spend a nice amount of time staring into space, watching vapid television, IMing friends near and far. I think I assumed that leisure time was my middle-class entitlement.

I'd love to write more now...I am so bummed that I haven't had the time lately to share with Ima Shalom. But I've got to work, so, Shabbat Shalom for now, and more next week, when my baby starts preschool.

Teach a man to fish and he'll fish for a lifetime...

2008-11-03T11:52:00.003-05:00

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a meal.

Teach a man to fish and he will fish for a lifetime.

(Chinese proverb)

The highest form of charity is to help sustain a person before they become impoverished by offering a substantial gift in a dignified manner, or by extending a suitable loan, or by helping them find employment or establish themselves in business so as to make it unnecessary for them to become dependent on others.

(Maimonides' 8th level of giving tzedakah)

Wonders will never cease. We have decided as a family -- ok, my almost 4 year old didn't get a vote -- that we want to eliminate red meat from our at home diet. We won't buy it or cook it, but will eat it "out". So we're trying to eat more fish.

There is a lovely (and clean) fish shop around the corner from our apartment. I like it, it's a little off the beaten path, and it doesn't stink of old fish. And they keep the kosher fishes separate from those other treif ones. I thought it would be a fun treat for me to take my son over to to our neighborhood fishery to pick out fish for dinner. He adores lox, and knows that salmon is pink, and I hoped that this participation in the shopping might lead to participating in the eating, thereby diversifying his fruit-cheese-yogurt-challah diet.

So we walked in. Not a huge store but he was fascinated...by the lobsters in the tank, of course. We walked by the display case, and he asked all the names of the fish (except for "EMA! That's SALMON!!!"). Loved the idea of a fish called branzini - don't even know if it's kosher - or tilapia, they sound so funny. Each fish seemed more interesting than the next.

Then we got to the whole fish section. Basically, there's a bin, about adult-waist high, filled with ice and dead fish. You don't want me to pull any punches, right? They're dead. Glassy eyed. Ick. And wouldn't you know it, darling boy runs right over, climbs up on a milk crate and starts poking their eyes. Picks one up. Starts swinging it by the tail. I nearly passed out. He picked out his own fish, a whole shiny red snapper, and solemnly handed it to the fish man to be cleaned and gutted. He carried it home, where Abba had frantically spent the last 20 minutes searching for a whole fish recipe that didn't take too long. He even helped prepare it by sprinkling salt and pepper on it and watching while it sat in the pan.

I was expecting that to be IT. But no!
Turns out that he loves red snapper. He ate at least 6-7 bites, which seems like a lot to me. He couldn't stop talking about it and wanted to do it again the next day.

It is apparently true that if you involve your children in the shopping, selection and preparation of food, they'll eat it. I was a complete skeptic, but now I have a kid who eats red snapper. Let's see if it holds for other things; snapping the ends off of asparagus didn't get him to eat that, but it was helpful. I'll keep trying...this made it well worth the effort. It is not just the example of eating it around a table with others who are eating the same thing. I helped to provide my son with a tool (and an appreciation) for enjoying the process of getting food on a plate, and involving him in the process and enabling him to have a voice in the choice empowers him. Participating in the cooking was nice too, although there is still flour on the kitchen floor. It's just as empowering as the choice between the red shirt and the green shirt; it's a false choice (we were having fish for dinner, after all) but he perceived that he had a voice in the decision too.

I wonder what it would be like if we always thought of food preparation for our families like this; how can we involve our children in the process, and how can we ourselves be closer to the process. Maybe all our children will learn to love kale. OK, maybe not, but you might be able to substitute red snapper for a Dr. Prager's Fishy once or twice.

Like a Two-Year-Old

2008-10-29T09:09:00.003-04:00

She’s not two yet, but she’s practicing hard to be.

Which means I’m thinking like a two-year-old. I mean, I think parents’ brains must get re-wired, or else they’d go crazy. Now I can go crazy and it feels normal. You know the two second attention span? The sentence that starts “I want” and ends up with a list so contradictory it could be a political promise or a justification for war with Iraq? I want agua!, juice! shoes! socks off! go outside! book! up! walk! babydoll! DC! (that means CD), bubbles! bath! flaffle! (waffle)! poon! (either phone or spoon, depending on the context, which, as you see, isn’t always easy to tell).

Thank G-d for the group They Might Be Giants, and their album “NO!”

Now when my nearly-two tyrant makes multiple demands I can sing “Violin,” a song which, in our version, allows words to be paired with musical notes: violin-lin-lin, hippo, mop mop mop mop. That song has her running all over the house finding objects—luckily we have a stuffed blue hippo. I just wish they didn’t spend so much time on George Washington’s head. We make up our own words. Works well in a stroller, too.

TMBG also helps out with saying no. When I break out into the title song, “no means no, always no…” with its seductive refrain “fingers pointing, eyebrows low, mouth in the shape of the letter o,” denial is transformed into play—you should see my little tyrant’s eyebrows go low and her fingers point!

She's almost two. By the time we finish singing she's forgotten what she was insisting on in the first place (usually milk. I can't seem to get her weaned!)

Nevertheless, there are things that music can’t help with. And that’s what work outside the home is for. or pretending to be deaf (after five minutes of completely rational and entertaining explanation). Or earplugs and bourbon. Depending on the time of day.

Today I fled. I couldn’t take my girl’s clinginess (she wants me to hold her every second I ‘m with her. which is hard to do when you’re also stir frying her tofu or making her tomato sauce). I couldn’t take a tiny apartment full of three children (girlfriends' nannies get sick).

Yep--I left as soon as the nanny appeared. Which means I didn't brush my teeth, my hair or put on makeup. I was the first person in the office--even beat the Dean.

I feel like running for the hills.
There are probably lots of songs about that, too. But “Country Roads” (we’ve got the reggae version about West Jamaica) ain’t one of them.

Today's the Day (or "Real love advice")

2008-10-19T11:50:00.006-04:00

My love will be arriving from Israel in 8 hours. After a month of waiting for news, he sent me a one-line email a few days ago with the flight time, air port, and date.

My heart is in my throat, and my baby girl keeps saying “I want S_______!” If he’s not serious about us I’m going to have to break both his knees. I tell her, “when you wake up tomorrow, S____ will be sleeping on the sofa!” But I’m not really sure he will be. He might have already left for Hoshana Rabbah services.

Well, she HAS been waking up at 5am every day for weeks now. And I’ll be out the door to work before he gets back. When I return we’ll have an hour to be alone together, we three, before we rush off to services and dinner in a sukkah. I’m deliriously thankful for this whirlwind, for the inconvenience that comes with an observant life.

I must admit that I’ve not got the best track record with relationships. Let's face it: I'm an idiot, and I can use all the help I can get. I used to freak out at the idea of being tied down. Not being able to up and move to Barcelona tomorrow if I wanted, for example. In the first month of this relationship, I seriously thought of breaking it off because of his incorrect use of a punctuation mark (it wouldn't have been so bad if he'd not kept bringing it to my attention). Of course, the baby and the job have done much to settle me down.

And I swore to myself and my child not to get seriously involved in anyone unless it was with the intention of forever.

My love and I have never been together for longer than a Shabbat (with his family). And now he’s moved here. I hope to g-d he’ll think it’s worth it. I guess it’ll be worth it if we make it worth it.

Today I’m simultaneously planning a week’s worth of classes, searching for a youtube video of Sarah Palin meeting Tina Fey on SNL last night, cleaning the apartment and cooking for the final days of chag. And I'm racking my brains to remember all the good advice I ever heard or witnessed about how to keep love and have it grow. Feel free to chime in, dear readers, with your advice!

Babysitter is running errands with my sensitive, teething child on her back. And I can't think.

Of course, the second I washed all the sheets and towels last night, using the last $4.75 in quarters I had plus a French coin the shape of a quarter, my child got sick on my sheets and then on her sheets. So hand-washing it was. I was also baking a cake for the nanny share’s mother’s birthday (my nanny share mama just gave birth this past week), a quiche and soup, and also changing my hair color. I felt like I was in an I Love Lucy sitcom episode.

I don’t know how long he’ll stay, how long it will take him to find a job and an apartment (or to propose), so I cleaned out a closet, a chest of drawers and a bookshelf for him. To think that two years ago all this space in my 600 square foot apartment was nine. A year and a half ago I gave half my space to my baby. Now I’ll give another portion of it to my love.

The more compact my material life gets, the bigger the emotional life. Not a bad trade-off. Though it would be great to have a garden one day (like I had when I was a graduate student in Austin!)

Begging

2008-10-18T22:45:00.003-04:00

I am too classy to beg. But anyone who uses the word classy isn't classy, so...

I called both of my grandmothers who live in two different swing states to convince them to vote the Democratic ticket.

Good grandma, a south Florida voter who swears she accidentally voted--G-d forbid--for Buchanan in 2000, is in. She's been in a long time. She has arthritis, leaves the house only to go to Publix and Costco (now you know what swing state she's in) and she is all for Obama. I've put her on to convince her older brother, who says he can't vote for a black man. Call in Sarah Silverman and the Schleppers.

Bad grandma (and I say this with all due respect, but she has been pissing me off regularly since I was 3) says that she'll vote Democratic, but with hesitation. He doesn't have any executive experience, she says. Oh wait, she realizes, "McClain" doesn't either. I feel comforted that even if she were to vote, she would see that there's no McClain on the ticket and maybe vote for Obama. For her, I hope that the weather is good enough to go vote, and that there is a handicapped spot out front so that she can get in comfortably.

No matter who you support (really, at this point, I don't care), I want to urge you to vote. I hope to hell you've registered and that you'vemade a committment to exercise your right to vote. I'm sure someone will comment here that this isn't a politics blog but a mothering blog, and so I'll say it:

This election will decide your child's future.

Of course, every election will, but this one, more so than anything else. This election can decide whether or not your child will have a future of clean energy, reduced dependence on foreign oil and a cleaner environment, access to affordable health care and improved opportunities in public schooling, not to mention access to affordable higher education. Who would think that this isn't important to mothers?? Of course it is. And by the way, that's on either side of the aisle.

My grandmothers are both parents (obviously). But one is looking backwards, to the way it was back then when it was "better," and one is looking forward, to a way that it can be someday in the future for her children and grandchildren. I'm an optimist. Let's go with the future instead of with the past.

Last: please take your children with you to the polls. I attribute my interest in politics to one thing and one thing only, being taken to the polls with my parents. Going in that booth, with the curtain closed, with a sacred and private space to exercise my right to be a free person in a democratic country is a big deal. Do it with your kids and show them what being free truly is.

I beg you too.

Why I Dread Simchat Torah

2008-10-11T21:18:00.006-04:00

This is the most frightening blog entry I’ve made to date. The reason Simchat Torah, the most joyful holiday of the entire year, fills me with dread is that I am terrified of the aliyah. To be specific, I am terrified to say the Hebrew names of my “parents.” In fact, I have always managed to be out of town for every Simchat Torah except this one. And if I didn’t have to work erev chag, I’d be out of town this year, too.

I wasn’t born Jewish. There. I said it. When I was converted, before moving here and joining my present community, I was promised by my rabbi: now you can enter a new community seamlessly, and no one need know you ever converted. Well, that’s true as long as you don’t participate in women’s tefillah, attend a Simchat Torah service in your community, or get married. Then, everyone will know. Which is a pity, since I was told all my life that I looked like (the young) Barbara Streisand.

I know I’m being dramatic. I know there are many converts who are just as good, knowledgeable, and valuable to their communities, if not more so, than people who were born Jewish. Besides, I know there are plenty of born-Jews whose parents just happen to be named Sarah and Abraham.

But I’m touchy about it. My conversion experience was awful. It was worse than undetected placenta previa and an emergency c-section. It was worse than lying in a dark room for three days, screaming and throwing up pain-killers because the nurse in recovery made me wait until the pain killer wore off before I could leave the hospital after surgery on a shattered wrist (She didn’t believe I didn’t have general).

My conversion was, psychologically, worse. The superficial reasons were understandable—I lived 70 miles from the nearest orthodox shul. I begged to be given materials to study, only to be told, “conversion is not a college entrance exam.” I studied anything I could get my hands on--alone. I learned Biblical Hebrew for two years and Aramaic for one. The first time I came before the bet din, the rabbi (who told me I didn’t even need to learn Hebrew) opened the siddur at random and asked me to sight-read. I was able to do so, haltingly. Then he commented: “I thought you were a scholar, but you read like a child.” I was sent home because I couldn’t answer what to do when a fleischig pot was triefed by dairy. I answered, “I’m a vegetarian! This would never happen to me. But if it did I’d get rid of the pot.” Turns out, the correct answer was “ask your rabbi.”

Although I made dear friends for life in that community, and the rabbi was a lovely person, there were other circumstances, rotten luck, general naivte and other problems that made the experience so nightmarish. I’m glad it’s over. But I would be more glad if I didn’t have to announce that I’m a convert once a year.

It’s not that I was raised without religion. I have an MA in theology. I spent a year in a convent. It’s just that I wasn’t raised with THIS religion. And I wasn’t even looking for religion or to convert when I left my birth-religion. (It’s just “not done” if you’re Catholic).

Still, it was all worth it. Even though I went from being an expert in one religion to a baby in another.

And in general, I look forward to the chagim. I never pray as intensely, and am never as honest with myself and with G-d as on Rosh H’shanna and Yom Kippur. It seems that every year, just before this time, I am faced with what seems like the worst challenge of my life—conversion, one year. Getting a job, one year. Having a child (though, to be honest, in my prayers I asked for a husband first). This year it is a custody battle and getting to move to Israel, since Baby Daddy is now unwilling to negotiate my going. I suspect that if I did not have these challenges, I would not pray so intensely and so deeply.

I am looking forward, though, to the year that my biggest challenge is dealing with my feelings about Shimchat Torah. I understand that it’s my problem. It’s a stupid problem. And I suspect one day I’ll even get over it.

For the sin which I have committed before you...

2008-09-25T21:02:00.003-04:00

I was on the subway on my way to work this morning wearing my headphones and listening to New Order. I was running late and not interested in distractions.

Then a man started shouting from the other end of the car. I usually ignore it, as this happens a lot. Sometimes it is a speech, other times it is singing or passing around the hat. But I was in a kind of teary mood for some reason, and so I was listening both to New Order and to the yelling man. The subway car was quietish: the commute to work is usually much quieter than at other times of day. I guess it's because most of us are still asleep.

This is roughly what the man said.

"Sorry to bother you, ladies and gentlemen. But I'm really hungry and I hope you can help me. Do you have any extra food? Some food, a few pennies. I'm sorry to do this, but I made a lot of mistakes, I really messed up in my life, and I don't have anything to eat."

Then, he said loudly, but kind of plaintively: "God, I'm sorry. I really messed up."

By the time he reached me, my eyes were pooling with tears and I had reached into my bag and handed him the container which held my lunch.

I got off the train moments later feeling a deep sense of sadness.

This year, just like every year, I will read the Al Cheit and know that I have committed at least (if not more than) 90% of those sins...the sin of pride, of speaking ill of others, of running to do something wrong, of having haughty eyes, of eating and drinking too much. And all the rest.

God, I am really sorry. I messed up.

Every year, I cry on Yom Kippur. I have messed up in so many ways, I have so many people to beg for forgiveness. I have done so many rude, crude, hurtful things and I have really messed it up so many times. We all have; this is why Al Cheit is in the plural, because as a human collective (and as a Jewish people) we've done all this stuff.

But today I know that although I have a lot to say I'm sorry for and about, in all the ways I messed up, that I have a long way to go before I can make that public, heart pounding confession on Yom Kippur. I need to spend some really meaningful time (between driving matchbox cars around the living room and making applesauce as a project, and oh, working and preparing for the holidays) considering how I've missed the mark and how I'm going to work towards making it in the future.

It was easy to give away my lunch. It will be harder to do real teshuva.

Shana tova u'metukah.

And Now A Word From My Sponsor

2008-09-25T15:30:00.002-04:00

We all have our moments when we question our ability to parent.
Where we are sure we are focusing on the wrong issues.

I am having one of those moments right now.

I started writing about all these things going on…how it was my daughter’s birthday party, how my son just started smiling, how it makes me so happy that my children have fantastic Uncles and Aunts, while I grew up with none. I could write up something, slap a couple of penis or porn references in there and badda boom badda bing , I will have blogged.

But I can’t. I can’t write about all the things I should write about.

I’m too distracted thinking about what is going to happen with Derek and Meredith tonight.

And then I get all distracted knowing that I won’t be able to find out in tonight’s 2 hour Grey’s Anatomy season premiere.

Nope. I’ll find out in the Stretched Out Over 6 Hours and 2 Days season premiere.

Darn fresh child getting in the way of my vice.

I really have a problem. I am totally and completely addicted to the television. I find it soothing and funny. I don’t have a problem setting up an evening around a favorite program. And while I do tend to get up and out and do things with my life nowadays, it’s really largely due to the advent of Tivo.

And you know what’s worse? I don’t see a problem with it. Not at all. I surround myself with people who suffer the same addiction so I don’t have to feel guilty about my struggling. I try to go a few hours without looking at the screen, but then I will turn it on. Just for a moment. Just for a second. Just to check out that new ridiculous PC commercial. Just to watch the Bonus Round on Wheel of Fortune. Just to watch that movie on Lifetime with the really lonely woman who falls in love with a man who turns out to be her brother’s identity thief. That’s it. And then I’ll turn it off. I swear.

And it stinks because I love my children but sometimes I find myself longing for Sex and the City reruns on TBS (I mean they don’t even show the good stuff!) in the middle of dollhouse play time. I get bitter about having to wash dishes at the end of the day instead of sitting in front of a new Project Runway (which is probably why there is a pile of dishes 6 feet high in the sink right now). And I swear, I think the hardest thing about the new baby isn’t the lack of sleep or the lack of control or the lack of puke free clothes, but the lack of TV face time I get.

That’s not right.

And I can’t even defend myself. I need a support group. There are definitely better things I should be doing in my free time and weekends. But I LOOOOOOOOOONG for television. I need it. If I play too long with my daughter I have to sneak a peak on youtube just to catch a glimpse of something moving on a flat screen. And heaven help me when it is the holidays and all that good Orthodox brainwashing keeps me from turning on the new House on the second night of Rosh Hashannah.

Now let me do what all good addicts do and try and rationalize.

I have 0 me time nowadays. None. Even if I find a moment to sit and say-read a book, in the quiet I remember about the laundry that needs to get done. Or how all the fuzzy animals that are in the purple bin in the toy room got shoved in the plastic animal blue bin in the rushed birthday party clean up. That needs to get fixed. But if I turn on an episode of Friends? I laugh. I get engaged. I don’t have to get up and get dressed and out there. I am far too exhausted and busy to spend my free time expending more energy and being more busy.

And you know, I talk to my husband, he makes me laugh. He is engaging. I talk to my friends. I have play dates and date dates. I am not shut out. But when I need to turn myself off I turn the TV on.

Thankfully my addiction is not illegal. Or cancer causing. Or costly -unless I discover the joy of pay-per-view porn (phew-almost wasn’t able to squeeze one in). I’ll find a non TV related hobby when both the kids are in college….by then they’ll have figured a way to implant TV shows in my corneas and I can take them to go.

Update

2008-09-25T11:35:00.001-04:00

Thanks to all for your well wishes and support. Just an update: my dad came through the surgery, thank God, and is doing fine. As am I...

Going Back In

2008-09-23T05:31:00.005-04:00

I can feel the crazy nippy at my heels.

Today we head to New Jersey. A new cancer, a new surgery, more hoping and praying that Dad will once again emerge victorious.

I've been here before, more times than I care to count. Most recently when I was pregnant, though, and there our story begins.

My dad was in, I think, for emergency surgery to remove a section of his intestines that had become blocks by a hernia. All was going well and then he aspirated something, didn't get enough oxygen, went unconscious, and before we knew it he was in an ICU on a respirator. We needed to get back to DC for some reason...I can't remember what...so we left that day, unsure of what would come.

Days later I was standing in a grocery story with my husband when I got the call from my mom that my dad was off the respirator. I even got to speak to him, a huge relief.

And that's when it happened.

I had had a panic attack earlier in the pregnancy...the first in my life. I had at that moment felt like I was dying...my heart rate was like 160 and I could hardly breath. They had done some scans and concluded it was hormones, and I had moved on.

But this time was different. The floodgates had opened, and it would take months of pushing against the rushing water to reclaim my life.

It started immediately with lightheadedness and some fierce stomach problems. We got me home and I spent the next few hours hanging on to my husband for dear life...you see I felt like I was falling, even when I was sitting down.

I didn't sleep that night...and the next day was no better...I was exhausted and ill but my mind gave me no rest. I felt worse than I ever had in my life...I was in so much mental anguish that I just wanted it to go away...whatever it took.

By Saturday afternoon I was still lightheaded, still experiencing bouts of rapid heartbeat. Despite the fact that we had a roomful of people in our apartment we headed back to the emergency room. My husband was, by this time, losing a little patience, I think, but off we went. Another 12 hours, more scans, another conclusion that pregnancy was making me a little loony.

A few days and a few doctors appointments later I was on a few medications, trying to balance the guilt I was experiencing exposing my fetus to powerful medications with the knowledge that they were relatively safe and that the state of high-alert my body and mind was stuck in was not a good environment for him either. These were the first mental health meds I'd ever been on--and I've since weaned myself off--but I remember distinctly feeling like Alice in Wonderland when I took that first pill.

The next few months were an uphill battle. I've read that the biggest problem for people with panic attacks is fear of the attacks themselves and I guess that's what happened to me. Supermarkets were pretty much impossible for me, as was driving. My world shrunk down to a square mile. I worked from home, went, with great difficulty, to the corner store. Suffered through large crowds at kiddush. Repeated over and over to myself that my rapid heartbeat was nothing, that my lightheadedness was nothing, that I was not dying, that it would pass. Called my husband home from school, shul, wherever about a million times. And, except for my closest and most trusted friends, tried to keep the nature of my "difficulties" a secret.

Somewhere during the third trimester the fog began to clear and I started to reclaim my life. Supermarkets were still hard, but aside from that my symptoms were less and less and I was venturing farther and farther afield, pushing myself to do more, praising myself for small but important victories.

The doctors are pretty sure that it was really the combination of pregnancy and extreme stress that brought it all on. That I don't actually have these disorders in my non-pregnant life. And indeed, soon after Chamudi was born I weaned myself off the final medication and have been fine very since, thank God.

Until this summer.

It's been a stressful few months, and more than once I felt myself getting lightheaded for no particular reason. I acknowledged it, pushed on and tried to get more water, sleep, time to relax, whatever. I kept it at bay for long enough, and it receded with the stress itself.

But now we're heading back to the hospital. The scene of the crime. And, as I feel the outer edges of my sanity fray ever so slightly, I can't help but wonder if I'll be able to keep it all together.

When Chamudi was born I promised myself I wouldn't cry in front of him...I'd seen my mother cry so many many times and it was a difficult thing to bear. But I've already violated that about a hundred times over. Okay...children need to realize that their parents have emotions. But they also need to know that their parents are a stable safe place...and they don't need the burden of supporting a parent's emotional life or mental health struggles.

And so, with a deep breath, I venture back in. Wish me luck.

What's Best for My Daughter

2008-09-22T20:37:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow morning I was supposed to be sitting with my lawyer, discussing what is best for my daughter, and then drawing up something that Babydaddy and I could agree upon. If we were thinking about what was best for her today, it would be easy: it’s best for her to nap during the day, sleep on a regular schedule, get plenty of fruits and vegetables, read books, play outside, learn to pick up her toys, hug and be hugged, and laugh.

But how am I supposed to know what’s going to be best for her in 10 years? In 15? As anyone will tell you (and they frequently do tell me, especially Babydaddy) that it’s best for a child to have two parents that love her and are part of her life. Two weeks ago, when Babydaddy came down to discuss these issues with me, that’s what he said.

But it had been 8 weeks since he’d seen her. He wants to stay where he is and he see her every 6 weeks or so (because that’s all he has time for, he said). Is this being part of a child’s life? He realizes that he’s "not been prioritizing her right now, but it’s because she’s too young to need him yet.” Is this being part of her life?

He’s been thinking of moving here, so he can see her evenings during the week and sometime on weekends. Of course, he wants to find a wife first. I know that theoretically, this would be best for her. But this is the solution that freaks me out the most.

There’s nothing wrong with where I am. I have a great job, a great community and a great daughter. But staying here means I have just that: a job, a community where I can’t daven until my girl’s old enough to sit still during services, and a daughter.

As supportive as my university is, I have to continue my current schedule: up at 6, play with baby, give her to the nanny and work till 5, play, feed, clean, read with her till 7:30. Put her down to bed and work till midnight. Up at 6. At least until I get tenure.

What kind of life is that?

Obviously, if I take her to Israel, she’s really going to be far away from her Abba. But we’ll have travel funds (and the research need) to spend up to four months in the States every year. He says that longer periods of time are no so convenient for him as weekends. Do I stay here so he can see her 8 weekends a year? Or do I let her grow up with the man I want to marry and who wants to raise her as his own? A man who davens three times a day and teaches her what I don’t know.

She loves her Abba, though she hardly sees him. We’ve got photos of him, and when she sees a photo she says “Abba!” When he's here it seems as if he really loves her. It breaks my heart.

If it were just me, I’d go. My Jewish education is minimal. There I could learn for myself and for her; I’d live in a Jewish country; I’d have that support. I’d live in a place where everyone has children, and children are valued and loved by society. I’d have a job with half the teaching load, and a teaching load that was in my area of expertise.

In my current city, dogs are loved more than children. Honestly. I went walking with a friend and her dog, and for every one person who greeted my adorable child, 8 greeted her adorable pooch. And it wasn’t even a puppy!

How do I know what’s best for baby? How much do we have to take into account what’s best for Babydaddy?

The lawyer phoned tonight and said we would have to reschedule next week. Honestly, I’m relieved.

It's been a while...

2008-09-19T14:52:00.002-04:00

First of all, I apologize for being totally MIA for the past few months. I don’t have a real excuse (work, toddlers, exhaustion, blah blah blah). There are topics I’ve wanted to post about, but they’re kind of heavy, and the longer I went without posting, the harder it became to sit down and share something very serious.

But in the spirit of teshuva (which, after all, means returning), I think it’s time. So here I am.

In June, I found out some news that, while not exactly a surprise, has been monumental: I carry the genetic mutation known as BRCA1 that predisposes me to breast cancer. Both my grandmother and my mother are breast cancer survivors, so I knew already that I was high risk. But knowing that the risk is almost 90% is a whole other story.

So what is an Ima to do? I’ve made the decision to have a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy, which will lower my risk of breast cancer to about 1%. Drastic, to be sure. Probably shocking to many. But for me as a parent, a no-brainer. I want to do whatever I can to make sure I’m around to be an Ima for as long as possible, and to avoid putting my kids through what I went through as a child, watching my mother battle breast cancer. I’ve lived with the threat of cancer hanging over me my entire life, and soon I will banish that threat forever. Amazing. I feel lucky.

And of course, I also feel a lot of other things: angry, weepy, self-pitying, scared, anxious, to name a few emotions that course through me on a daily basis. Right now, I’m dealing by focusing on all the complicated logistics involved in having major surgery when you have two toddlers. I haven’t yet decided exactly which surgery I’m going to have (there are various options for reconstruction), and I’m spending a lot of time talking to other women who have gone through this to learn more about their experiences and their recommendations. Though these days my femaleness sometimes feels like a ticking time bomb – BRCA1 also raises one’s risk of ovarian cancer to about 50%, so I’ll have to remove my ovaries before I’m 40 – I also feel incredibly grateful to be able to draw on the strength and support that most women offer one another so freely.

The last thing that I want to say about all this today is that I don’t at all intend to be preachy about this. Surgery is the right decision for me now, but it’s not right for everyone. Everything about this is so personal, even the decision to get tested. Before I had kids, I didn’t want to be tested because I was already under surveillance as someone high risk and wasn’t ready to consider surgical options. My sister, who is single and childless, has decided not to get tested for now. I would never tell anyone that she should get tested or, if positive, should have bilateral mastectomies. But I do think it’s important for women – especially those of us who are of Ashkenazi background, since we are 5 times more likely to carry the breast cancer genetic mutations – to know about the availability of testing, the risks a positive diagnosis carries, the options for dealing with it, and the support networks (such as FORCE) that are out there. Knowledge is power.

Fancy-Schmancy Salmon Patties

2008-09-18T20:54:00.002-04:00

So last week I had planned an elegant menu for a small group of friends, among whom are some of the best cooks I know. One hour and nineteen minutes before sunset, I realized the fish I’d chosen was bad. No time for more shopping.

Thanks to my friend who recently moved, I had several cans of salmon on hand. I made this up on the fly, and it was wonderful. Obviously, it would taste better with fresh salmon, but you do what you can under these circumstances, no?

Fancy-schmancy Salmon patties from canned salmon

16 oz canned salmon, which I skinned and deboned
8 oz smoked salmon which I cut into little pieces
12 oz spinach, wilted in olive oil and crushed garlic
8 oz fancy mushrooms (shitake, portabella, etc.) chopped and browned
1 small onion, chopped and sautéed in olive oil till translucent
4 oz water chestnuts, chopped fine
chopped dill to taste
salt & pepper
2 eggs
matzah meal (enough to hold everything together)

put your toddler to “work” washing salad (if they need to feel involved)
mix everything up well, pat into little cakes and fry in olive oil until brown

dressing: mix mayonnaise with wasabi, chili paste and soy sauce, squeeze a lemon into it, and stir till well blended.

It’s nice served over arugula, or, for a more soothing contrast to flavor-packed salmon, romaine lettuce.

Serves about 6

Earlier this week I was so busted by my daughter. My child was playing with Ima-Shalom’s lovely son when chamudi’s Abba made a nice bracha over a banana. This sent my girl shooting into the dining room like a little arrow: “chuice! chuice!” Okay, its now obvious the only time this child hears food brachot is over grape juice, wine and challah. And the only time she gets juice is on Shabbat. So starting this week, I’m making an effort to remember to begin teaching my daughter the blessings over food every day. How embarrassing.

Shabbat Shalom!

What's for dinner?

2008-09-12T00:30:00.002-04:00

OMG! OMG! OMG!

We got an invitation for Shabbat dinner! We are going to our next door neighbor's, but it is an all adults (save my increasingly rambunctious 3.9 yo). And it is at 8pm. Hm. Look on the bright side. It will allow us to go to Kabbalat Shabbat, which we haven't been to in ages, and it's on the roof of the shul, so we're particularly excited!

This is bad news, though, for those of you who wanted a recipe from me for this Shabbat...

Luckily, I was asked to bring dessert and can do that since it is peach season (I don't much like parve desserts, but this one is good. All peaches are good cooked, somehow, and so this works!

Baked Peaches Total time: 45 minutes

2pounds apricots 1/2cup kirsch 4tablespoons sugar or more to taste.

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Wash the peaches, cut them in half and pit them. Put them in a baking dish.
3. Sprinkle with the kirsch and sugar and bake them, uncovered, for 20 to 30 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

(if you are like me and don't know what kirsch is, just dump some sugar over it and call it a day. they will be yummy)

I also made an optional syrup for this: I boiled 2 tbsp dried lavender in one cup of water and one cup of sugar, all mixed together. Strain the lavender out and drizzle it on top. Use left overs on top of plain yogurt (or icecream if you are desperate).

This is an adaptation of a recipe from the NYTimes a few weeks ago for baked apricots. But it isn't apricot season anymore, alas...

That Crisp Fall Feeling in the Air

2008-09-10T21:02:00.004-04:00

It doesn't matter what I was doing that evening. I don't remember.

But the next morning, I woke up really early, got dressed in my gym clothes, and my husband and I went to vote together in the primaries. I looked extremely shleppy, unshowered and ready to work out. The voter volunteer woman, an overweight Dominican woman, looked me up and down as she registered me. And then said, "Mami, you better lose some weight. Fat girls can't keep husbands." Was she talking from experience? Whatever. 7 years later and we are happily married 12 1/2 years, and damn, I am still fat.

We voted. Went to the gym. After the gym, I went to grab a cup of coffee across the street at Starbucks before I went to go home, take a shower and go to work. The barista and the cashier were talking about how a small plane flew into the World Trade Center, but the reports they got was that it was a small plane and that it was certainly an accident. I got my coffee and sat down at a table.

I called my mother. All circuits were busy. The only time I've ever heard about that happening was in Israel, after a suicide bombing. That didn't register till later. Finally, I reached my mom. She told me, from her vantage point near a TV 100 miles south of the Pentagon, was that I better get off the streets and home to the TV. And I did.

But when I got to my building, something in me snapped. I went up to the 12th floor, where not too many months before I had gone with my 5 year old cousin as we were walking up and down the stairs for fun. And I looked out the window. And those towers, stark in their angles, industrial and the epitome of 70's design, were burning. I couldn't see the fire, but I saw the smoke. I could already smell the acrid, burning scent that was to be the perfume of Manhattan for the coming weeks.

I went to the TV. I was one with the TV. For the next 48 hours, I slept in cat naps on the couch, and lived in front of the TV. I was paralyzed.

That day, my husband was already out, and chose not to come home from his relatively safe space on the urban campus of his graduate school. So it fell to me to try to find everyone, to find my father in law, who was on a plane at the time, and who ended up, oddly enough, spending the night with my parents because that town was the only place where there was an airport where the plane could safely land. I called everyone; telling them that we were OK, finding out where they were, if they were OK, if everyone was accounted for. One ear on them, the other on the TV.

Later that day, after reports that banks would be freezing accounts and that there would be food shortages on my island, I went to the grocery store. I never had more compassion than for the parents who stocked up on diapers, not knowing if there would be deliveries (ever again) soon The first grocery store, well, the lines were so long that I went to another one. I bought random things to eat, comfort food, thinking that it might be a while before we had fresh food again, and hell, what if the power went out?? Walking back from the grocery store, I went to the ATM and got out all the cash I could. Didn't know what to expect.

One of my very closest friends, a classmate of my husband, was a chaplain with the fire department. That day, while I was shopping, he rushed down and was a first responder. He went another time as well during that first few days, but when it became apparent that there were not survivors. Still to this day, I worry about his health. And I know that he probably suffers from PTSD in many ways, and I know that the experience changed him forever in ways I'll never understand.

I don't know why I am telling you this story. What I do know is that today was a beautiful, crisp almost fall day, with a bright blue sky with no clouds. Just like that day. And what I can also tell you is that I think about September 11 almost every day. Every time I see a plane flying over my head, and I live in the flight path for LaGuardia (so it's a lot). I think about September 11 whenever I see the Vote Aqui Vote Here signs that direct voters each primary and election day to the polls. I think about it whenever I think about first days of school; the kids whose first days of kindergarten were changed forever. I think about two little boys, born just before September 11, whose brises were smaller and more intimate than their parents had wanted, because no one could get onto the island, or because family couldn't fly in. And today, that weather. It hurts inside, honestly, to feel that kind of beautiful glorious weather, because it's ominous, and feels like violence inflicted on my soul.

Those planes flew practically over my head as they made their mad dashes to death. I was inside. I didn't hear a thing. I can't imagine what it would be like had I seen them. Thank God for sparing me that agony.

I think a lot about that Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, when I learned the real meaning of the words in Unetane Tokef, "who shall die by fire, and who by water." And when I went outside to take a walk on the first night of Rosh HaShanah and saw the fighter jets patrolling the skies. And the Profiles in Grief, the tiny piece in the New York Times about each person killed. I promised myself that the way I would personally mourn for each of those souls lost was to read just that tiny bit of text that illuminated their lives for me. Many years later, I bought the book that was made of the entries, as kind of a memorial to each of the victims.

I am not writing this column as a mother. I wasn't a mother then. But I certainly did think that day, and in the days that followed, that I never wanted to have a child. How could I bring a child into a world that was filled with such evil? So many conversations like that took place in my circles...for some, it was a sign to wait. For others, it was a realization that the only way to effectively stare down Death was to create Life.

I write this column as a proud resident of the Upper West Side, a taxpayer in good standing of the City of New York. Someone who smelled that smell. As one indulgent person wallowing in my own sadness. As someone who thinks that calling it Nine Eleven reduces the heartbreak to a slogan. As someone who still feels teary every time she sees a firefighter or firetruck, and who in her heart thinks the world of people so unselfish. As someone whose heart broke on September 11, 2001 and as someone whose heart breaks every day a little bit and as someone whose heart breaks over and over every September 11.

Yehi zichram l'bracha. May the memories of those who were lost be a blessing to all whose lives they touched.

R.I.P. N.A.P.

2008-09-10T18:11:00.003-04:00

We all have our things that if we had our way, we would do differently the second time around. Maybe you’d have picked a different shade of vibrant orange for your living room or thought a little harder before deciding to get that perm, or that third husband of yours.

If I had to do it all again, I would sleep more. I would just sleep. Have nice steady bedtimes. Focus entire weekends on how much sleep I could muster. Follow around a family of bears for a winter to get some tips on the most efficient way to hibernate. I would sleep until the pillow drool suffocated me.

I miss sleep. I get a surprising amount of it considering I have a newborn and an almost 3 year old. But I don’t get bonus sleep. I don’t get to sleep in on weekends. Or national holidays. Or because I stayed up late the night before doing keg stands.

I get the sleep I get and I can’t get upset.

But what I do get upset about is when people don’t appreciate how lucky they are to get all the sleep their bodies want. Seriously people-is watching that third episode of Golden Girls at 12:30am so important??? Or cleaning the house? Or spending time with your significant other? I think not. That is what dreams are for.

I am especially frustrated currently because it seems as though that my daughter has given up the nap. The sweet delicious midday nap. Ohhhhhh, just thinking about it makes my eyelids water.

I knew it would happen. She is the very last from all of her friends to slap on the awake patch and ditch the nap habit. And it’s supposed to be a sign that she is growing up, but I honestly think it’s a sign that she is losing her marbles. I try to explain to her how important her nap is. That one day when she gets older she will wish she had more sleep. But no, all she wants to do is bang on the drums all day.

I loved naptime. Her naptime was my naptime because we all know I like to vicariously live through my young. And I could nap or fold laundry or just sit there staring into space dreaming about when I could nap but chose not to.

Aside from that, her naptime became increasingly important once I had the newest youngling. He naps it up and if I could get her to nap when he napped, well glory be. But to at least have that only one conscious child to deal with feeling was pretty dreamy.

Now no more. No matter how hard I begged or bribed or drugged her, the napping had left the building.

At least I love her and I know that one day I will wish I spent more time with her when she was young…so more conscious hours helps with that. And at least she goes to bed easier at night. And best of all, at least she is still running around half naked. Ah, memories.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

2008-09-09T21:58:00.003-04:00

I'm emerging momentarily from the cave (by which I mean my office) to share some reflections. It's hard to believe, but it's been over a year since Ima Shalom began in earnest. When you get the chance, take a few minutes to read back over the old posts--it's amazing to see how we Imas and our children have changed and grown, and the many ways in which we have stayed gloriously the same. I love our diversity and our honesty. It's been amazing getting a glimpse into the inner worlds of such a cool group of Imas, and I look forward to another wonderful year of Ima Shalom.

Meanwhile, a shameless plus for our upcoming children's event at the DCJCC. Hope to see you and your children (and/or their nanny/babysitter/au pair) there!

Tuesday, September 16

10:00 am
Richard Michelson
A is for Abraham
FREE

Ages: best for 2–5 year olds accompanied by their teachers, parents or caregivers

Join the 16th Street J's Early Childhood Center for a morning of storytelling, creativity and fun all about A is for Abraham: A Jewish Family Alphabet. Become immersed in the sing-song rhyming language as the author reads from his beautiful book. Act out some of the stories in the book, create your own alphabet illustrations and join our Pre-K classes in asking Richard Michelson about why and how he wrote this wonderful book for children.

A is for Abraham: A Jewish Family Alphabet gives children the history of Jewish traditions and customs and explains how they are practiced today. This joyful celebration of family and heritage includes the meaning behind celebrations such as Hanukkah, Passover and Sukkot; important names and stories from the Old Testament; and how modern-day families continue to celebrate their heritage. This book is the newest contribution to a popular children's series that also includes B is for Bookworm, D is for Drinking Gourd, and others.

Richard Michelson is an award-winning poet and children's book author. His books for children have received a New Yorker Best Book Award, a Children's Book Committee Book of the Year and a Jewish Book Council Book of the Month. The Detroit Jewish News cited Too Young for Yiddish as "one of the best Jewish children's books published in recent memory, and one of the top 25 ever published." Clemson University named Michelson as the Richard J. Calhoun Distinguished Reader in American Literature for 2008.

Register Buy the Book

45 minutes

2008-09-07T21:44:00.003-04:00

No matter where you fall on the political scale, the sanity scale, or the bathroom scale, one surprising effect Sarah Palin has had on some of my most awesome fabulous mama-friends and colleagues is existential crisis. “It took me FOUR months to go back to work after the birth of my special-needs baby,” one lamented. Another chops her own wood, but she can’t field-dress a moose, though she can make hysterical photos of plucked chickens that she’s housed dressed (in fanciful garb). Another, a nuclear physicist, is so good at explaining calculus that I didn’t die of embarrassment on my GRE, plus she can do wicked cool stuff like split neutrinos, but she’s not been able to govern a State.

Some of my friends feel inadequate because they had to choose between high-power careers and children. But everyone is a little frightened that if, G-d forbid, something were to happen to McCain—were he to have been elected (the oldest president ever)—congress would expect all women to be as efficient as Sarah Palin. Imagine: “why do women need six weeks maternity leave? Our president gave birth to her eight child while on conference call to Osama Bin Ladin!” (Honestly, the first woman president, if she plans to have a child while in office, should try it. If she was like me, her yells would pretty effectively pair with her threats to kick someone's ass.)

I may have had to go back to work after a C-section when my child was 3 weeks old and no one was with me to help out. But, what with the stitches, blood loss, colic, breastfeeding, and sleep deprivation, I think tax payers would have been better off had I been paid to stay at home for a few months.

Ladies, if it makes you feel better, I offer myself as a humble example of how efficient this woman/mother is when she’s caring for her delicious daughter.

Personal Fitness—I like to think I’ve not cut back on the time I spend working out each week since my child was born. I’ve just made the following adjustment for a one-hour workout.
Before: I ran six miles
Now: I walk 6 blocks with my little future voter. (I’ve not figured out the exact mileage, but if you count retracing steps, climbing up and down neighbor’s steps and paths, it’s gotta be further than it seems).

Domestic
In 45 minutes I can fold and put away laundry, sweep and mop the apartment if no one else is there.
OR I can choose to devote that time to cleaning the pasta sauce out of my child’s nostrils and ears, hair, belly button and from between her toes.

In 45 minutes I can prepare a 3-course meal for 4 (or, if you count halved grapefruits for appetizers, a 4-course meal).

But unless I’m hosting a Shabbat meal, I don’t use precious babysitting (or baby bed-time)time for cooking, so usually in 45 minutes I can peel 4 carrots and crack and separate 6 eggs with my girl, who pours the egg yolks into a bowl and throws the shells away for me.

In 45 minutes with my daughter’s help I can make the bed—complete with a few games of hide-and-seek, peek-a-boo, and a couple of stories tossed in. But I guess this should be counted as “playing.” And one day, please G-d, my daughter gets a father and a sibling, they can play (and make the beds) together…see, just gained 45 minutes! If that happens, I might look into governing a small state like Wyoming (Just kidding Gov. Freudenthal).

Some things are actually faster with a child. Shopping, for instance. What used to take me an hour now takes me 20 minutes flat. Mostly because I feel guilty about the quantity of grapes my child consumes before we reach the check out. I’ve asked the checkers to add 50 cents or so to each lb of grapes, but they think I’m joking.

Professional
Well, for starters, it takes me 15 minutes each morning to find my “tick-tock,” cell phone, and keys, all of which my daughter had requisitioned for toys the night before.

I’m currently calculating how many classes I have to teach until my number of students equals the population of the state of Alaska. Stay tuned.

MmmmmmOffering

2008-09-05T08:32:00.001-04:00

Today is an important today.

Not JUST because it is my Mommy’s birthday (Happy Birthday Mommy!).

Not JUST because it is supposed to be my due date (you showed us didn’t you, uterus).

Today is the day I become self sufficient.

Well it’s not to say I wasn’t self sufficient before. This is just the first time I have to be a Mommy to two children, keep on top of the mess that is our house, try and work off those last few pounds of baby weight AND cook dinner.

Billions of women push out babies every day and the most they get from their friends is a nice card.

But those billions of women weren’t smart enough to be born Jewish. And in the land of Jew, food is what we do best. Food is a Jewish person’s Hallmark card.

I am not all that wonderful a person. I sometimes don’t even tell people if they have something stuck in their teeth. I certainly don’t think I deserve an outpouring of kindness just because my body pushed out a living thing.

But that is what happened.

And I don’t know if it’s because of the town I live in or because I am a nicer person now (I have started letting people know when their skirt is stuck in their undies), but I received FOURTEEN times the meals after birthing the boy child than I did after birthing the girl.

My friends created Google documents to organize the meals that people voluntarily made for me. And from very very close friends to people I knew only fleetingly created amazing meals for me. Some of them gave me dinner AND presents!

It was out of control. I felt like some sort of Maternal God with villagers bowing before me with their offerings of ziti, enchiladas, chicken and rice, rice with chicken and chicken stuffed rice in the hopes that I would look favorably upon them and wouldn’t curse them with flawed birth control methods.

But alas, the party is over. Tonight is the night where I have to cook for my new and improved with 25% more mouth to feed family. I am excited. Really. I kind of missed doing the cooking thing. I was getting jealous of whichever woman’s rice coated chicken my husband was raving over. And you should have seen me when somebody else’s roasted chicken with wild rice got my daughter to actually eat.

So in honor of all the amazing chefs that have made my life so much easier over the past few weeks I present to you my favorite recipe to make for new mommies. It’s really yummy, not too hard, and it is such a family favorite that my own Mommy made it for us so frequently that it wasn’t until recently that I realized that the Bubbie the recipe is credited to is not actually one of my own. And of course, it’s comprised of the two best ingredients to have in any meal: chicken and rice.

Bubba Rosa’s Chicken

3lbs of Chicken (with bone. Don’t even try to make it with boneless.)
1 ¼ cup uncooked rice
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups Coffee Rich or Soy Milk
4 tablespoons margarine
4 tablespoons flour
¼ teaspoon salt
½ package onion soup mix

Sauce: Melt margarine in a pan, blend in flour and salt to create a roux.
Pour in Coffee Rich all at once.
Add in onion soup mix.
Stir over low heat until smooth and thick.

Pour rice on bottom of a 9 x 13 baking pan.
Pour chicken broth over rice.
Arrange chicken on rice ( I like to season with a little garlic powder, onion powder and season salt prior).
Pour sauce over chicken.
Bake 45 minutes at 350, uncovered.
Uncover and bake another 45 minutes.

Serves 4-6 newly added to family members.

Mazal tov!

An Open Letter to Sarah Palin, because I know she'll NEVER read it

2008-09-04T01:45:00.003-04:00

Dear Sarah Barracuda,

I write you this letter today not to congratulate you on the occasion of your acceptance of the vice-presidential nomination (which is super cool), but to inquire about how you handled finding out that Bristol was preggers. I'm so glad you decided to share Bristol's pregnancy with the world. I mean, everyone was spreading rumors about how Trig was her baby...of course you wanted to stop those, so you had to share the one thing that would get our jaws to drop all the way to the floor! Mazal tov, by the way. That means both "congratulations" and "good luck" in Hebrew. And you're going to need it.

I'm guessing you were shocked. Especially since you support abstinence education...you must have thought that Bristol was in school that day. Where did she learn to have sex?? Who taught her how to do that?? Thank goodness they didn't use protection...that is ALL wrong. I mean, it is a huge shock that a 17 year old girl would have sex. And you are totally doing the right thing by forcing her to marry Levi. I am sure that their marriage was meant to be and they will live happily ever after. They're going to have to, because I'm sure you don't do divorce either. Oh, and I think they should name the baby Hensley. That's Cindy McCain's maiden name. She'll appreciate the nod, and I'm sure that it will guarantee you a lifetime supply of beer for the baby to enjoy. Should help Bristol with the breastfeeding, too.

By the way, I love that beehive thing you've got going. You look smokin' hot. And thanks for not wearing pantsuits either. Where do you shop? You definitely got your body back after Trig was born. Oh wait, I'm not allowed to say anything about this, because it would reduce my fan mail to being "all about gender." This totally isn't gender politics! No one is playing that card! Seriously, though. Do you shop at 5-7-9?? That's my personal favorite, although I haven't been a 5 or a 7 or a 9 since junior high.

But seriously, Barracuda, you've got me going. I think I'm going to change my political affiliation just to vote for you and that old dude, McCain. He must have a total crush on you. I mean, a chance to vote for a woman? Not to mention the fact that you are also a hockey mom. I mean, I'm a Jewish mom, and I am sure that means we have TONS in common because we are both moms. And you're such a great mom, too, raising those 5 strong kids with those supercool names. No sense in giving them a boring name like Sarah!! They must respect you a LOT. I mean, when was the last time you sat down with them and talked to them? I am sure they're all behind this "being in the spotlight" thing. Who wouldn't want to be?

I am just pleased as punch that you are the veep nominee. The family values you espouse are just exactly the way I hope to live my life. I have always aspired to be a hunter and know how to use a gun. Not just a rifle, either. Something big that will scare my neighbor next time he trims back the big maple out front just a little too much. Or leaves the roaches from his joints on my sidewalk. I mean, he has cancer, and he says it lessens his pain, but whatever. You know he is some leftie pinko just trying to get a buzz.

Thank goodness, too, you're all for drilling for oil in Alaska. I mean, isn't the whole state kind of like your own personal back yard? Who cares about the environment, anyway? I mean, you're so busy being the governor and worrying about the here and now that you couldn't possibly also be able to think about the future, right? That green stuff is crap anyway. I like driving my huge SUV and I have plenty of money so filling up for $100 a tank is no big deal. Must be the same for you.

OK, I'm signing off for now, but with a special message for Bristol. Please tell her even skinny 17 year olds can get stretch marks. And she can use Vaseline (hey, it's a petroleum based product) to try to get rid of them, but it won't really work. Stay away from that organic baby food (it's all a scam) and make sure she keeps up with her hunting while she's pregnant. And don't bother to do any of that prenatal testing. She's only 17, so I'm sure it will all be fine because she's as wholesome a girl as they come.

I can't wait to have you as my girls' role model. I'm going to hang up your head shot in my living room. I mean, like you said, this is America, and every woman can walk through every door of opportunity.

Thanks for being you, Sarah!

With a little help from my friends (and also random strangers)

2008-08-31T20:05:00.001-04:00

Nothing says “single mother” quite like this scene: a sleepy child in a stroller sitting atop a pile of canned goods, maztoh meal, olive oil and all sorts of sauces. A woman is pushing the stroller with her left hand. With her right, she’s pulling an urban shopping cart piled high with bags of beans, couscous, sun-dried fruits, enough tea for a year, and, at the bottom, a bottle of bourbon.

On top of the cart is a plastic bag, tied to the handle, with the overflow of spices and extracts. It’s nearly 9 pm. The woman is walking with a purpose, and fast (or as fast as she can carrying about 200 lbs for 25 minutes across the city).

My dear friend, the center of my social life (let’s face it, my entire social life), the one who’s apartment we often crash at Friday nights when we don’t feel like making the trek home, then returning for morning services next day—she’s moving.

We’re “doing her a favor” by shopping in her kitchen. With all the love in my heart, I must add that, though my kitchen will now be overflowing with her goodness for the next year, and everything we cook or bake will be seasoned with her spices and love, not to mention her impulses, her pulses and her grains, we haven’t made a dent in her kitchen goods.

I know it takes a village and all that, and I don’t have any family near, but I really wish I had something to offer in return to all the kindnesses. So many people have helped me out lately, and I’m still behind in cleaning, laundry, course prep, my own research. I don’t think I brushed my hair today.

My instinct is not to accept this help. But then I’m doing my child a disservice, because I’d be even more frantic than I currently am.

Sure, I’m taking care of everyone when I take care of myself. When I don’t take care of me, I don’t take very good care of her. This week, too tired to function, I let my girl walk with me home from shopping instead of making her ride in the ergo, except for intersections. Then I carried her on my shoulder to minimize her indignant yelps. Half way across the intersection, she threw herself off my shoulders.

If she’d been a football, it would have been a completed pass—she didn’t touch the ground, though she flipped in the air. I caught her with one arm, my foot caught our cart and the fall snapped it in half, and the elbow of my free hand broke the fall.

Luckily, elbow is a funny word, so saying “Ima got a boo boo on her elbow” eventually made her laugh. The strangers who saw the fall helped squeeze the cart into something pullable, collected my purse, steadied me to stand. They were kind and didn’t yell at me for risking anyone’s life.

So I started classes with a nasty, swollen, green and purple elbow, topped off with a big, dark scab. Of course, it was too tender to wear anything to cover the elbows. I guess students intelligently assume there are certain things you don’t really want to know about the people who give you grades.

I am thinking about what kind of volunteer work I can do for an hour or two the days I have off. Something I can take my daughter to, that requires no advanced planning. But maybe I should just bake someone a pie, write a card, bring someone flowers, talk to someone having a hard time. Something to make me feel better about all this kindness I can’t possibly repay

Oh Snap!

2008-08-28T07:55:00.003-04:00

Dear Baby Clothes Designers,

First and foremost thanks for making all the cute clothes. Seriously, you guys must have a lot of creative minds working there. Bear feet? Genius. Matching puppy hats to puppy shoes? Wow. And who knew dump trucks would make such appealing infant gear themes?

And also, really really appreciate the safety features you have installed in all your clothing. No toxic chemicals? Thanks! Flame retardant? That could come in handy one day.

My biggest issue with your products is not so much the look or the quality, it’s the application method.

You might not realize this because you spend your days thinking of fun and innovative ways to incorporate zebras into sleepwear, but Mommies are busy busy people. All Mommies want are ways to save time. Microwave bottle sterilization? Good. Hands free pumping mechanisms? Great! Soup On The Go? The perfect lunch. Taking 45 minutes just to get your son’s sleeper attached at the crotch? Not cool, dudes.

Also, parents are tired. Nodding off in the middle of your third cup of coffee, tired. Wishing your last name was Van Winkle, sleepy. Accidentally falling asleep while cleaning up toys on the floor because you are too close to horizontal, exhausted. We wake up at weird times of the night and want to get back into sleep mode as quickly as possible. This means that at 2am when you realize you need to change your child’s sleeper because he drenched it as he drooled milk down his chin for 10 minutes straight, (which you failed to realize because you fell asleep the instant the nipple was inserted in his mouth) you don’t want to spend half an hour snapping and unsnapping things attempting to get them lined up.

The snap thing is just not working for me. Half the time he ends up looking less like he’s in jammies and more like he’s in a fuzzy snowflake covered flannel loincloth.

Have you considered color-coding the snaps? Or perhaps simplifying things by creating three large snaps down in the bottom area-one for each leg and a separate specialty crotch snap?

And what about zippers? They glide up and down with such grace and ease. I get why zippers are not always the way to go, but would you consider just producing more of those?

And what about Velcro?

I really do appreciate all you do to help me clothe my child. It really helps all that mommying when your child is dressed head to toe in coordinating polka dots. And if I didn’t have you he would be wearing hand-sewn garments of shame that surely wouldn’t have bear feet. But there has to be a better, less mind numbing, annoying, make me want to rip my hair out just to focus harder, wishing I had a graduate degree in Clothing Afixment solution.

Thank you for your attention,
Mahotma Mama

It's a Potty!

2008-08-26T20:11:00.003-04:00

This week my little girl got a little blue potty.
She loves her potty.
She talks about what she has to do on the potty.
She sits on her potty for long periods of time,
“book” she says, and she retrieves them,
one after the other, reading each aloud
in her own language, while sitting on the potty.

Then every day this week she stands up and pees on the floor.
Or worse. On the floor.

So I guess she’s got the general concept:
you can do this without a diaper.
You know when you have to do it.
It involves a potty.

She’s just not connected the dots.

She's 19 months old. I didn’t really expect we’d pick up this skill from one day to the next.
Though, now that I think about it, she’s figured out how to work the CD player from one day to the next.

And she figured out the telephone (and had a 20 minute conversation with her grandmother
without me touching the phone once).

And she’s figured out how lights work and how to take off her shoes, how to climb in and out of her high chair and booster seat, what Ima keeps in her purse, that credit cards and money are fun to have.

The potty is far less abstract. It doesn’t involve computer chips or electricity, or nebulous concepts of supply and demand, interest rates, globalization, inflation and government subsidies.

Maybe the potty is simply too beautiful and glamorous to be utilitarian?
Like a dress I recently bought at an extremely discounted price?

Old Clothes

2008-08-21T21:53:00.002-04:00

If you ever need a reminder of how quickly your kids will grow up and leave you, try going through a box of your child's baby clothes. My daughter is only 18 months (still a baby really!) but it made me incredibly nostalgic to see and touch and smell her 3-6 month wardrobe. The green and white flowered dress. The pink denim overalls. The red velore jumpsuit. I could go on and on.

What happened to my little girl? I can only imagine how it will feel to try this exercise when she, God willing, is actually an adult! (or at least out of diapers.) The next day, I tried to pay special attention to the feel and smell of her 18 month body, face, smile, outfit - as if it were the future and I were given a precious opportunity to go back in time.

A friend of mine recently had an upshirin for her son. She told me how hard it was to cut the hair that he had had since birth and that the haircut was somehow a mark of separation. I understand that feeling completely. Just thinking that my little girl is actually too big for those old clothes makes me a little teary-eyed, as silly as this may sound.

Next time I find myself a little over-eager to move on to the next phase, I will go back to that box of old clothes and hopefully slow down a little.

My Milkshake Brings All The Boys To The Yard

2008-08-20T13:39:00.003-04:00

Moo, moo moo. Moooooo. Moo moo moo? Mooooo! Moo moo moooooooooo, moo, moo moo, mooooo. Moo mooooooooo, mooo moooo moo moooo.

Wait. I am not actually a cow. I just FEEL like one. And not because I look good in black and white. Not because I have 15 pounds of baby weight to go. And not because I would make fabulous patent leather pumps.

Men, you may want to avert your eyes because welcome to the milky milky cocoa puff blog.

With my daughter the boob department shut down at an early date. I have to say I made a valiant effort, but between her prematureness and my really not so insanely caring about how much formula she got, it didn’t really happen.

I KNOW breast milk is best. I get it. I’m just not opposed to a modern technology that developed formula that my husband was given. That I was given. That a billion babies every year are given and they turn out just peaches.

And yes there was a certain air of superiority from a lot of mommies I know who were able to breastfeed. Some claimed that I had it easier. Some were sure I wouldn’t bond with my baby. Some even went as far to imply that I was going to cause my child disease and give her a big case of stupid. And sure I felt guilty…but seriously the second I decided to step away from the whole breastfeeding process was the second I felt like I had control over my body again.

And you know what? We bonded just fine. Better than fine. And her Daddy loved being an equal opportunity bonder. And I didn’t have to worry about sneaking into undisclosed locations at inopportune times to try and feed her. And poo poo poo knock on wood, she is healthy healthy healthy and smart beyond reason. And I was sane and happy. And no boob juice in the world can possibly be better for a baby than a sane and happy Mommy.

So I was all prepared this time around to step away entirely from a boob to mouth relationship with the Prince. I told the nurse straight up I had no interest in breastfeeding.

But I did tell her I would try and pump and see what would happen.

Well Lord have mercy, because those things just turned on like, well imagine if the Little Dutch Boy took his finger out of the hole.

It’s like they sensed that Little Boy Blue was teeny weeny and needed extra help to get his barely there tushy out of the hospital. So they slapped on their super boober capes and goggles with their mission to deliver nutrients to the child in a single bound.

So I pump pump pump. And I don’t mind. Because now not only is he getting the manna from my booby heaven but we can have all those great nonbreast feeding benefits. Because you know what, I don’t care how “natural” and “beautiful” it is to feed our young from our teats, I do not think that the stock boy at Stop and Shop gets to see my tatas. Regardless of what is attached to them.

But yes, the pumping makes me feel like a cow. There is a big machine up in my son’s beautiful fishy themed nursery. I suction things to me for 12 minutes at a time, several times a day. And I just sit there and stare out the window, oddly soothed by the rhythmic pump pump pumping sound, resisting the urge to chew my cud.

And then I pour Mahotma Milk into containers with expiration dates.

Mootastic.

So I am a cow, but a hard working one. A happy one (so you know I’ll make the best cheese). And one with freakin awesome cleavage.

And would I change any of it?

Aw hell to the Moo.

66 Percent

2008-08-19T21:05:00.005-04:00

Another blog post from another tired Ima.

Yesterday I was at work for 12 hours. In a row. I don't think I've worked that hard since labor.

This new job has brought out something new in me--a work ethic.

I suspect it's mostly brought on by a healthy dose of terror--the festival will begin on September 14th whether I'm ready for it or not. But, motivation aside, I am truly shocked to find myself in the office at 8am day after day, skipping lunch, eschewing personal email. It's not a me that I know well.

The ugly truth is that, throughout my professional life thus far I've done good work instead of great work--under-delivery masked as good delivery. My 66% can pass for 100% percent if you don't know what I'm capable of.

But here I am working my tuchus off. And though my work is taking me away from my Chamudi more than I would like, it feels good to know that I'm giving him a positive example of hard work and its rewards--a lesson that was easier learned by the generations that pulled themselves up by their bootstraps than by those of us raised in a comfy world of middle-class entitlement.

As I watch Chamudi work to master each new step towards independence, I pray that he'll always have the desire to realize his highest potential. To be a self-made man.

Meanwhile, I'll put another pot of coffee up and get to know my inner workaholic.

Wrong Side of the Bed all Week

2008-08-18T20:44:00.006-04:00

I’m fantasizing-about-shooting-out-the-new-security-lamp-that-blares-light-into-my-
bedroom-window-all-night tired. (After all, handguns are now legal in DC!)

I’m wanting-to-hold-crying-baby-out-of-the-window-over-the-truckbed-of-the-truck-
parked-six-inches-from-my-head-into-which-someone-is-throwing-lead-pipes-at-
4-in-the-morning-and-yell-“see-what-you’ve-done!” tired.

I’m I-think-my-baby-is-having-nightmares-because-she-screams-bloody-murder-in-
intervals-of-15-minutes-for-a-couple-of-hours-each-night tired. (I really wish some Shabbat guests last year hadn’t been so specific about the ways in which the house I see through our bedroom window is haunted). I already did my time with colic. This isn’t fair!!

I’m we-must-squeeze-40-hours-in-the-office-into-4-long-days-so-our-fabulous-
nanny-only-has-to-work-four-days-and-then-I-work-from-her-bedtime-till-
midnight-every-night tired.

I’m my-baby-gets-up-at-6am-no-matter-what-time-she-goes-down tired.

I-feel-too-guilty-to-hire-a-babysitter-for-fun-or-for-napping tired.

I’m a terrible, awful, irritable person without sleep. I did okay the first 8 or 9 months of my daughter’s life. I knew the sleeplessness was temporary….but shouldn’t temporary mean it ends at some point?

The sleeping woes are paralleled by an amazing string of financial weirdness. In the span of 6 months (and I love Israel, but) I’ve:

1. been withheld pay at the Israel university for 3 extra months since “because of the strike” they enter the names in payroll “according to alphabetical order,” not according to which semesters you actually teach. My question is: do they use left-handed scribes and do it by hand?

2. once that was straightened out, I was only paid half my salary (how did they do that?) I’m still waiting...

3. been overcharged by 30% on my Israel apartment; it was corrected slowly over the course of the rental by bizarre accounting that made me suspect someone was cooking the books. I mean, even I, with my unique-and-one-of-a-kind-crazy-method of algebra couldn’t dream up accounting like that.

4. The last three times I’ve been to the grocery store the bill is wrong. You feel really petty making the cashier give you back $2.36 or something, but if this happens to you once a week….well, YOU do the math. I used to take a casual glance at the receipt…now I really look.

I hate math. I hate it. In high school physics I used to do the problems correctly and come up with the wrong answers because I’D PUNCHED THE WRONG NUMBERS ON THE CALCULATOR…..

5. Finally, one learns that the Amazon.com City Bank Visa makes it extremely difficult to investigate fraudulent charges on one’s credit card when one is in Israel… Also, one discovers that all their telephone support is snippy and unhelpful, and their online bill site was down for three months.

Worse than the sleep deprivation is having to stop being the impractical sort-of-flighty person I sometimes was in the past. It makes me so alarmed I’m going to lose all of my soul and funk (oh, I also got a horrible haircut this week….took off about 8 inches, and I only wanted a trim, and now it’s short, which means it’s poofy!!!). There was nothing to do but eat cookie-dough ice cream and cherries for supper. This grown up stuff is waaaaaaaay overrated.

When Grandparents Don't Meet Your Expectations

2008-08-18T00:33:00.003-04:00

So... my son does not have stellar grandparents.

Set #1 are busy, involved professionals at the top of their field. So that means every encounter with my boy wonder is accompanied by their Crackberries. Even on Shabbat, because they're not observant. And because they're not observant, they make treife lamb chops on Shabbat afternoon, and then wonder aloud why I am making cottage cheese for dinner. Their children were raised by a nanny so they have no memories of how difficult it is to be 3 and why 3 year old boys seem to wet their pants all the darn time. They adore him, but it is as if from a distance. Think Michaelangelo's David. You rock (and are rock). But I worship you from behind a velvet rope.

Set #2 are just clueless. Poor judgement and all of that good stuff. Grandpa is too distant to engage, and Grandma actually once pinched my son back after he was gently pinching the loose skin on the back of her hands. Yes, pinched. HARD. He cried. Luckily, they live too far away to do real damage.

I find it difficult--downright challenging, infuriating and exhausting--to manage the expectations that I had about my son's grandparents. I wanted them to have toyboxes at their houses, give teeny tiny presents even when it's not a birthday (but only every once in a while), and to be able to babysit even overnight every once in a while. Now, at every step along the way, I am overwhelmed with a kind of sadness when we spend time with them, because none of them are the kinds of grandparents I wanted them to be. Or that I wanted for my son.

I had 3 wonderful grandparents, at least 3 who were wonderful when I was a kid. One grandma got bitter and angry in my adolescence, and my beloved grandpa who always called me sweetie pie and gave very wet kisses died in 2000 (my son is named for him). My other grandma is to this day the kind of grandma every human being would want...warm, wonderful, the most loving person on the planet. We talk weekly and she often speaks to my son on the phone and they have the funniest conversations: "Grandma, I like mango ice cream best." "Mango ice cream? I never heard of that. Don't you like chocolate?" "No, mango. You should try some."

Did I just not see the ways in which they were not meeting the expectations of my parents? They babysat when they could (only one lived close by), always brought a little treat or sent funny cards, called all the time, and always seemed like my personal ally in the constant war against my parents, yet I have a sneaking suspicion that they annoyed the crap out of my parents just like my parents do for me.

Because the fight that I'm thinking of is not a productive one, or one that can actually solve any problem I'm willing to talk about, I'm going to have to manage this shortfall in expectations myself. My husband and I talk about it all the time. I want to shield my son from it, but don't know how to hold in my skepticism that they won't actually get him hurt or god forbid worse when they're alone with him.

Maybe that's because I recently discovered that diet Pepsi is a favorite of my son's...introduced by his grandfather. That was to accompany a lunch made of.......sheet cake. Mmmmm. Eaten while he sat in wet pants for a few hours. No biggie.

Perhaps meditation will work.

T Minus 24 Hours

2008-08-14T08:37:00.003-04:00

Have baby with sacred male genitalia-check

Date and time-check

Location-check

Oddly worded “Let’s Try and Not Make the Jews Look Too Insane” invite to non-Jewish friends and coworkers -check

Caterer- check

Figuring out how many people will actually wake up at the butt crack of dawn to attend so we can figure out how much lox and bagels to procure from said caterer-check

Gentle letting down of local caterer/grandmother to the Princess’ friend from school, but she really had much higher prices than the other guy -check

Hearing crazy "Woopsy, The Clamp Slipped" and "He Had to Go Get Plastic Surgery On That Thing 18 years Later" horror stories from a randomly high number of people-check

Mohel travel arrangements made-check

Decision on which cutting method should be used-don’t know, don’t wanna know, so we’ll hope that Mahotma Daddy figured that one out on his own, check

Obligatory argument over whose father should get to hold the child during the snipping process-check

Other Random Honorees selected-check

Figuring out how to explain what the heck is going on to Princess Peanut-no check

Using every friend for their hotel/ airport shuttling services who we will owe favors for the next 10 years- check

Name selected-no check

Perfect outfit in a size -4 weeks old- no check

Perfect outfit that is sure to receive at least one required “I can’t believe you just had a baby 2 weeks ago!” compliment-check

Purchase of industrial strength Spanx to fit in “I can’t believe you just had a baby 2 weeks ago!” outfit-check

Colors, theme, sick amount of money spent on balloons and paper tablecloths-check

Event planner hired to avoid nervous breakdown-check

Putting up of yellow caution tape to ensure that I never have to do this again-check. check. check.

E=MC Chamud

2008-08-12T20:23:00.004-04:00

The other day Chamudi looked up from his lunch and started babbling incoherently. Slowly we started to make out what he was saying...okay, letters...wait...the letters of his name!

He pointed to the alphabet blocks on the piano that spell out his name and once again "read" them aloud. We brought the letters down from the piano and he put them in order just about perfectly.

Did my 21 month old just spell his name? For real?

Abba and I wondered--like so many other first-time parents--whether maybe just maybe our Chamudi is a genius. "I'd rather not know if he is a genius," I said. "I'm afraid I would treat him differently." Become that mom who denies her gifted child the carefree joys of being a little kid.

We debated what it means to be a genius. Abba suggested that maybe, IQ-test-wise, he himself could qualify. Me--I'm not really interested in IQ tests. I'm looking for a different level of genius--Rambam, Einstein, Aristotle. Break a paradigm. Create a new world order. Then maybe we can talk genius.

But all of the sudden the whole conversation felt like a huge ayin harah. Chamudi's only 21 months, countless children older than him have suddenly halted normal development and receded into themselves and all this genius talk is just so...presumptive...dangerous.

So I put an end to all this talk of genius. "I just want him to be happy, healthy, and normal," I said.

And I meant it.

Toddler Tisha B'Av

2008-08-11T21:32:00.003-04:00

If mourning is stepping out of community, separating oneself from life for a while, so that slowly, gradually, you are able to reintegrate yourself, diminished from your loss, back into community and into life, then it is very difficult to mourn when you have a small child.

During Tisha B’ Av there is a strange sense of being both integrated in a communal mourning, and isolated in grief. Both at the same time. We do not greet one another, and we separate ourselves from the pleasure of company (at least I do, since I’m am a cranky and irritable faster). But we aren’t alone in our mourning. Everyone else is doing it too.

But this year was so…incongruous. Like most baby/toddlers, mine is happy happy happy all the time. And she insists that, when I am around her, I be happy, too. When I'm not she really loses it. She's fine when I take away dangerous toys, or say "no" to unhealthy but delicious food. She doesn't throw fits when she doesn't get her way. But she does throw fits when I'm not engaged in her good humor. And anyway, I can't stand greeting her little jokes and tricks with a heavy heart.

So while everyone else was commemorating the sacking of Jerusalem—and I’m always stuck on the image in Lamentations of the mothers and their dead infants–the destruction of the temple that has deprived us of a home for most of our history, I was swinging and sliding and climbing in the park.

I longed to be able to join in mourning, but my daughter is too young to understand.

Of course, I unplugged the CD player that she recently learned to operate, as I do on Shabbat. And, of course, I didn’t join her at mealtime. But otherwise, her day was no different than any other, since she doesn’t care what shoes I wear or if I put on makeup.

In the coolness of the afternoon, we walked through the community garden, and a nice woman who used to live in Egypt gave my girl all the raspberries she could pluck from the bush. She also snagged herself a few choice cherry tomatoes from another friendly gardener.

I don’t know if it’s because she and I have only one another, with my family far away, the fact I still breastfeed, or if all babies are almost telepathically in tune with their parents' moods.

I guess I just told myself that my mourning was physical, if not completely mental and spiritual—the lack of food and water creates a weird feeling. The senses shut down, my body feels fragile. And at the same time, I am so very grateful for this little life beside me, grateful that she is safe and alive, without a care in the world. This isn’t really what Tisha B’Av is for—developing a sense of gratitude, but maybe we’ll do better next year.

Is That A Penis Next To Your Umbilical Cord, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

2008-08-06T14:20:00.002-04:00

I take the round about way of things. If I have a grocery list with 3 things on it, it still takes me at least an hour and $100 to get through the store. My husband who does everything from painting my toenails to buying me stockings hates going to the mall with me because I can’t bring myself to go in any sort of logical order as I sort through the clothes.

I might be part German….but I seem to lack that German efficiency. Well at least I thought that until I met my uterus.

When my daughter was born 5 weeks early I was told it was a “fluke.” That it would probably never happen again. Apparently though, the uterus is not so flukey. It is efficient. And tends to spit out babies when they are *just* cooked enough.

I was home on bed rest. Everything was cool. I had the occasional contraction. And to be honest, I was sort of starting to enjoy the being forced to relax in bed when at 12:50am on Wednesday contractions started every minute. That’s right. Every single minute = big bad contraction.

By the time Mahotma Friends (who are awesome) made it to the house to be with Mahotma Princess and we were on our way it was 1:20am.We checked in to the hospital at 1:55am and despite some annoying emergency room receptionist who tried to get me to fill out papers when I was screaming in agony, I had Mahotma Prince at 2:07am.

WITHOUT an epidural.

I don’t cook shabbos without an epidural.

But I did it (even though I squeezed a nurse’s hand so hard she needed stitches…hey, you try going from 2cm to 10cm in an hour, push a living thing out of your hoo ha in 5 minutes and see what you break) and because he was 6 weeks early he’s teeny tiny but perfect and beautiful.

My husband looked at him and he counted-10 perfect toes, 10 perfect fingers and 2 perfect testicles.

I am so pleased to have the “complete set.” So pleased to have had a handsome boy that looks just like his Daddy. So pleased that even though my little man has to stay in the hospital a bit longer to help him grow up a bit from his 4lb 15oz, that he is healthy and strong.

Not so pleased about having to deal with the man parts.

The nurses tried to explain pointing the peanut down in the diaper. My friend got me a very fancy set of adorable fleece covered “pee pee tee pees.” I even have some of the washing and rinsing down because I have been able to help with his baths. Squishy.

So in theory I should be good to go when I have to deal with the wee willy winky on a daily basis.

But I am sorry. It is weird to have to deal with body parts that I haven’t had to deal with before. It’s a whole new ball of…balls. And we haven’t even gotten to bris care yet.

In the meantime I have yet to eat a baby carrot or a pilaf from my rice. I have a bad case of peanut on the brain. But let him grow strong and be healthy and I’m sure somehow between worshipping my Queen and new King, peanuts and cracker jacks will be the last thing on my mind.