The picture I wanted

This is the picture I wanted. Well not exactly but pretty close. I wanted a picture of my little boy with his crown of flowers, next to his cake, with his one candle, surrounded by adoring friends and family with their mouths in various states of half open singing Happy Birthday to him. I wouldn't have minded a smile too. But this picture is close enough. And it almost didn't happen.

I hit a low point last week right around the baby's birthday. On the actual day of his birthday we didn't really do anything. By the time Mr. Rosen came home from work (which was pretty early actually) and made the cake with the big kids, it was already nearing bed time and darkness. I hadn't had time to make his crown. We barely put up some construction paper garlands. And it was just us. No other family or friends. Entirely my fault. It was midweek and everyone was busy and anyway we thought of having family over on the weekend so I just let it go. Then on the weekend the plans got miscommunicated and suddenly there was no party. Not even family. And I started feeling very sad to be far away from my family knowing that had we still been in California I would have just gone to Michael's, picked out some streamers and napkins and whatever, some cake decorations and made him a little party with our closest friends and cousins and everyone would have found a way to come.

Mr. Rosen felt partially responsible for having downplayed the importance of this event. Indeed I downplayed it myself. But I was secretly wishing the party would plan itself because I have really reached the upper limit on sleep deprivation and plus there's no Michael's here so I don't know where to buy party supplies.  So Mr. Rosen made some calls and in fact a few of our closest friends planned to drop everything and come.

Except they didn't come because the next day Mr. Rosen contracted some nasty stomach bug and spent most of the day throwing up. So I cancelled the party. But the baby's aunt and uncle still popped over with some treats including the blackberries from their garden which I used to decorate his cake. The kids had all spent the night at their grandparents so I actually slept eight hours and finally had the time and brain functioning to make his crown out of the bougainvillea in our yard.

So in the late afternoon Mr. Rosen's parents arrived with the kids and we celebrated our little boy's first birthday feeling grateful for all of the people in our lives and everything they have done and continue to do to make us feel at home here.

And I got the pictures I wanted.

So long McMiserable, hello McFerrin

Hangar 13, Port of Tel Aviv

Twenty years ago I saw a rising Israeli singer named Achinoam Nini play at the Berkeley Hillel for $5. Soon after that she sang Ave Maria for the Pope and launched herself into international stardom. Last night Mr. Rosen and I left McMiserable and the other two in the capable hands of Mr. Rosen Senior to see Achinoam Nini play with Bobby McFerrin and a few other Israeli artists at the Port of Tel Aviv. Hangar 11 to be exact (my picture of hangar 11 is not as nice as this pretty one of hangar 13 at dusk). We almost didn't go when the baby spiked a 103 fever an hour before our estimated departure. But I looked into his watery eyes and said, listen baby. Don't worry. Be happy. Or maybe I said that to myself. Or maybe Mr. Rosen Senior said that to me. Either way, we bid our threesome farewell and headed off to the big city.

I think I've mentioned that we kind of live in the sticks out here in the Judean Hills. Sounds pretty rustic and biblical, which it kind of is. But an hour away is an oasis of culture, style and traffic. The Port of Tel Aviv was completely overhauled starting about ten years ago. Not quite sure when they finished but it's basically a long boardwalk on the Mediterranean and a series of hangars filled with shops, cafes, restaurants, and concert venues big and small. We don't get out much, for the obvious reason that we have three small kids and fall asleep in our clothes at 9:00 every night, so this felt like a real treat. Plus it's always fun to watch city folk being their stylishly awesome selves. And my hair volumized to twice it's normal girth with all the humidity.

And the concert was amazing. Bobby McFerrin is pretty spectacular and Achinoam Nini was equal parts adorable in her admiration of this musical legend and astounding in her own vocal virtuosity. They could definitely be a superhero duo together. Form of an iceberg!

We ended the evening with a delicious pastrami sandwich, fried spicy potatoes and apricot soda at Delicious Deli Bar (that's calling a spade a spade in my book) in the hangar across the street and then headed home happy and full in every sense.


The part where he invited people to come dance on stage. 


I might have to head back today for Spain Week at the Port Market which looks like it will feature a lot of meat. Me gusta.

Five

Dear Sugar Bee,

You're five today and I can hardly believe I just typed that. What a year it has been for you, for all of us. We started off on the wrong foot with pneumonia and you are still talking about the shot of antibiotics you got in your butt. You might never forget that one. And then you got a baby brother. And then you went on a month long road trip. And then you moved to a new house. And then to a new country! Talk about resilience and an almost heroic flexibility. It hasn't always been easy. And you've had some rough spells. But you have an understanding of yourself that frankly startles me sometimes. You get upset; we all do. And then you remove yourself, set up your dolls and clear your head. That's your process. And soon you are back to your shining spunky self. And then you like to talk about what all just happened. How you were mad and crazy, how you calmed down and got back in control. How we can talk about it after and still love each other. I appreciate processing these outbursts together. I hope we can always communicate like that.

Probably the biggest event for you this year, even bigger than moving to Israel, was becoming a big sister. Even though I know you'd prefer to still be the baby, as you have made clear in words and actions, you are a fantastic big sister. And that little boy is bonzo about you. Everything you do makes him giggle and you know it. He gets flooded with joy when he sees you. I admit, I feel that way too sometimes. What a lucky boy he is to have a sister as animated and intuitive as you. And as much as you and your older brother make each other nuts, I know there is a closeness between you too. Not every brother would take the time to pick out his sister's birthday outfit for preschool. Thankfully he can put together an outfit.

Your Aba continues to think the sun shines from your tush. He's right. You are a lovely, lovely girl and we are so lucky to have you as our daughter. Watching you grow has been one of the universe's greatest gifts to me.

many many kisses,
Mommy

Namesakes

Grammy Edythe Kutlow and Grandma Helen Sachs

As read at his bris...

Dear Idan,
You’ve only been in our family a little over a week and already I can’t imagine my life without you in it. You are so tiny and yet your arrival on the 49th day of the Omer, the period of great anticipation before God gave us the Torah on Mt. Sinai, has profound meaning for our family. Like your brother Shalev, you showed up a day early for the big party. He was born a day before Simchat Torah and you, the day before Shavuot. I guess that’s how you get the best seats. Nonetheless your birthdate appears to be very auspicious. You were born on 6.6.11 at 10 to 10 at night. And I’m no gematria expert but when you multiply six and six you get 36 or double chai. It’s no wonder that you are a Gemini, the sun sign of the twins.

Your arrival is really the beginning of the next chapter in our lives, the one that’s set in Israel, and your name, Idan – meaning “era” in Hebrew – is meant to signify this new adventure. You are also named to honor two important women in our family. Idan is for my Grammy Edythe Kutlow. Your second name, Hillel is to honor your Aba’s Grandma Helen Sachs. Both were incredibly strong women who faced significant challenges in their younger lives but both lived to be well into their nineties. Edythe Kutlow, born in New York City, would have been 101 years old this year. She lived for several years in an orphanage when her own mother was unable to provide for her financially. A resourceful and beautiful girl she lived to find a life partner in Benjamin Kutlow, have three terrific children, nine fantastic grandchildren (I'm the ninth) and now her eighteenth great grandchild. She was incredibly gifted with her hands and made beautiful heirloom baby blankets, kippot, needlepoints and afghans. She even crocheted the kippah that your Aba is wearing today for our wedding nine years ago. She was 92. Aba’s Grandma Helen Sachs was born in Leipzig, Germany and managed to escape the Nazis with the help of her brother in 1939 to resettle in America. Many of her family members could not fathom the evil of the Shoah and stayed behind, including her mother who died in Auschwitz. Helen resettled in Worcester, Massachusetts and along with her husband Julius, had two wonderful daughters and three incredible grandchildren – one of whom was your Aba. You would be her sixth great grandchild Idan. Her lineage was meant to perish in the holocaust and yet here we are, celebrating your new branch on a family tree that only continues to flourish.

The name Hillel also honors the great rabbinic sage who is known for having said,
Im ein ani li mi li. If I am not for myself, who will be for me.
Uch sh’ani l’atmzi ma ani. If I am only for myself who am I.
V’im lo achshav, ematai. And if not now, when.

He is also known for his ethic of reciprocity, or "Golden Rule":
That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.

You’ve come into a world with many challenges and you belong to a people, both Jewish and Israeli, that has faced and continues to face some of the greatest manifestations of hatred the world has known. And yet we are hopeful that you and your generation will be the ones to usher in peace, acceptance, compromise and love. That yours will be the “Idan Hillel” – the era of mutual respect. That is our greatest wish for you, for our family and friends and for the whole world. So you have a lot of work ahead little guy.

One last bit. Idan, you are our third and, it’s safe to say, our last child. Like you, I am also a third child. It’s not always easy Idan. The older two will be in cahoots a lot of the time and you’ll have to make up your own games and use your imagination a lot. You’ll make up for it with very close friends though and when you’re older the age gap between you and your siblings will fade and you’ll forget about how your big brother and sister teased you. Well you won’t forget, but you’ll forgive. Mostly.

And so today we welcome you into a family and a community that already loves you very very much. And we wish you a long and wonderful life shared with the ones you love.

Purim Shpiel

We're celebrating Purim this week, a Jewish holiday filled with storytelling, masquerade and drunken antics. It celebrates the story of Queen Esther, a Jewish girl in Persia who was chosen to be Queen and single-handedly saved the Jews by telling King Ahashverosh that his Prime Minister, Haman, was planning to kill them all. There's a lot more to the story but it shares a similar plot to most all Jewish festivals.

1. They tried to kill us. 
2. We won. 
3. Let's eat a lot of food. 

Customs include making hamantaschen - three cornered cookies to symbolize the bad prime minister's hat (or his Spock-like ears) - making a lot of noise every time his name is mentioned in the ritual reading of the story, dressing up as a character from the story or as anything you like and giving baskets of treats and goodies. And adults are commanded to get so drunk they cannot tell the difference between King Ahashverosh and Haman. That's pretty friggin drunk.

Purim was never my favorite holiday for many of the same reasons that I never liked Halloween. I was embarrassed to dress up. I worried that other kids would laugh at me. I never liked my home-made costumes. And having to do this twice a year instead of just on Halloween made it all the more painful. Mr. Rosen felt exactly the same way growing up in Israel, though he was spared the extra torture of Halloween.

And that is why I was especially proud of my son yesterday because yesterday morning, last minute and possibly against my better judgment, I signed him up to go to a Purim workshop at an Israeli woman's house in the next town over where they would hear the story of Purim, make hamantaschen and goody parcels, play games, sing songs, all while parading around in costume. And mostly with kids he doesn't know. And no parents. And all in Hebrew, which he doesn't always understand. When I told him after school that he and his friend were going to this party and that he could dress up, he was nervous. What if the other kids laugh at me? You see, he was having second thoughts about his costume, one he'd been planning since Halloween. He wanted to dress up as Miss Viola Swamp from the book Miss Nelson is Missing.

Miss Viola Swamp is the alter ego of Miss Nelson, a school teacher who can't command the respect of her students. One day she comes to school dressed as her own substitute, Miss Viola Swamp, an ugly, mean witch who is so terrifying that the kids will do anything, even behave, to get Miss Nelson back. Excellent book. The costume is a big black wig and a giant nose and black fingernails and striped tights and a black dress. Yesterday we bought all of those things, except for the dress. Instead we belted one of Mr. Rosen's black tee-shirts. My son was delighted with his costume but he was concerned (his word) about how other kids would react. He asked me what I would do if I were him.

This is where I lied because if I were him I would have just worn the lion costume from Halloween. But instead I told him straight up that I would be Miss Viola Swamp if that's who I really wanted to be and as long as I was happy with that decision, then no one else would care. And that's what he did. Amidst a sea of pirates, Iron Men, Bat Men, Skeletors and Buzz Light Years was my son, Miss Viola Swamp, dressed in yellow and black striped tights and a belted black tee-shirt. And either no one said a word or he was too happy to notice. Either way, despite a genetic predisposition for hating costume holidays, we might just have a kid who loves Purim. And himself.

Four

Dear Sugar Bee,

Today you're four years old and pretty much a real person. It all kind of came together this year. You finally could hear and speak and now you don't stop talking and you have many opinions about your clothes and your hair and your friends and your brother and us. Many many opinions. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Your baby brother should be named either Toilet Head or Boy Beauty.
2. Mommy has a stinky mouth in the mornings and so does Aba.
3. Your big brother is nice.
4. You never want to talk to your brother ever again in the whole wide world.
5. Mommy doesn't know how to brush hair. Only Aba does.
6. Mommy is the only one who can brush hair because Aba doesn't know how.
7. Only your teacher makes good ponytails.
8. You hate baths except most of the time when you don't.
9. You don't like socks except with hearts or stripes. Or plain. Or dots.
10. We can always love each other, even when we're mad.

The truth is, for all of your opinions, you are a happy-go-lucky, funny, funny girl. You're a classic middle child - willing to share, easy-going, considerate, self-assured. That's why we had to have another baby, so you could fulfill your destiny.  As I write this you are rushing to clean up the Play Mobile castle set you just got for your birthday so that none of our baby friends will choke on any of the zillion bitty pieces. You're already such a good big sister.

Enjoy your special day, special girl.

I love you,
Mommy

Chicken swinging is way better than confessional

It was Yom Kipur, the Day of Atonement, on Saturday and I repented. Not really. I fasted and that sucked. And I wished I'd had some time while I was fasting to examine my life and talk to God. Or at least take a nap. But parenting duties continue on Yom Kipur so my guess is the next 8-10 Yom Kipurs are going to suck the big winkie. 

Leading up to Yom Kipur I tried to read a few stories and get the kids to understand this whole idea about repentance and forgiveness which I boiled down to feel bad and say sorry.  A little of that might have sunk in. Or not. My daughter was unusually bristly it turns out. She told each member of her family that she didn't like us and that she wasn't our friend anymore. But since she couldn't say Yom Kipur and instead called it Yom Kipod which means Porcupine Day it seemed to make perfect sense.

We did start a new family tradition this year to try and give the kids something to remember for next year. There's custom called Kapparot which literally means atonements. And traditionally you swing a live chicken over your head three times (I'm not making this up), recite a blessing to transfer your transgressions to the dizzy chicken and then you kill the chicken thereby eliminating your sins. You can read all about it here. Apparently only ultra religious communities still do this and under strong opposition by animal rights groups.

We didn't slaughter a live chicken for the obvious reasons. We did take stuffed animal chickens, whispered our sins and secrets to them, tied a shoelace around one wing and flung them around for a while. And then I took my daughter, dressed her up like a chicken, told her I was sorry for all of the yelling and mean things I've said and swung her around too! Meanwhile my husband was making a delicious lentil salad, chocolate banana bread and fresh lemonade to bring to my brother's house where we broke our fast in the most gluttonous way possible. We can atone for that next year.

Goodbye to summer

A few pictures from our trip to Santa Fe. It was another great trip, with some interesting twists. Namely that my sister-in-law was put on bed rest at 32 weeks with her third child. In Albuquerque. Which is 60 miles away from her home Santa Fe. Not ideal. But we all rallied. My other sister-in-law and brother-in-law cooked delicious vegetarian cuisine all week. The kids spent a lot of time exploring the arroyos, finding treasures, and rigging ways to haul their treasures home. We went to a dia del nino festival one morning and dressed up like senoritas and conquistadores and built adobe houses. We celebrated my niece's fourth birthday with unicorn cake. The kids gave themselves many many tattoos and painted several hundred coats of nail polish on their hands and feet and legs and everywhere else. There were also many water fights between siblings of all ages. And a few family visits to the hospital. It was a great end to a great summer.

But now I'm ready to hunker down for a little quiet and reflection. Hopefully autumn weather and spirit are around the corner.

Having my cake and sharing it too

 

I woke up this morning to a beautiful and tasty breakfast of fried eggs on toast, chopped salad and chocolate. Because today is no ordinary day friends. Today is MY BIRTHDAY. And, since I lowered my expectations for my birthday by several orders of magnitude based on last year's fiasco, SO FAR SO GOOD. 

And coincidentally this year my birthday is also the birthday of the WORLD. It's Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starting this evening. Some of you may know that I have a thing about sharing my birthday. I don't like to share. Thank god I'm not a twin. But then I had to go and marry someone whose birthday is five days after mine and he has a brother with a birthday a week after that and now suddenly all of my birthdays are shared occasions. Which I hate have come to accept. But this year is especially communal because this year I have to share my birthday with the WORLD. And that's also why I shared my birthday with son's kindergarten class. 

I went in after recess to do a little Rosh Hashanah presentation for the kids and it was a AWESOME. I am now Miss Susie, loved and revered by 26 five-year-olds. Most importantly, I even managed to blow the ceremonial shofar which is like blowing a trumpet except it's the horn of a ram. Seriously. And we all had apples dipped in honey to signify a sweet new year but only after I made the kids sing happy birthday to me. And then I asked if any one had any questions and several kids raised their hands to tell me when their birthdays would be and one kid told me his grandma was 87. Love kindergartners.

On tap for the rest of this wonderful day:

1. Make dinner for mine and my brother's family.

2. Drink latte.

3. Revel in my facebook birthday wishes. 

4. Go to post office.

5. Buy heavy cream so my husband can make me a cake tonight.

ALSO, in the spirit of sharing my birthday, I'm offering BUY ONE GET ONE FREE (of equal or lesser value) through the end of the day tomorrow midnight (pacific time) on all items in my ETSY shop (except ketubahs - why would you need more than one ketubah?) Write BIRTHDAY in the message to seller and I'll reimburse you via paypal for the second item.

Happy Day everyone!

Stuff

Has it really been more than a week since my last post? Jeez. I don't even have much of an excuse. Except that I have been completely obsessed with the LOST finale and spent much of my time looking at videos and listening to podcasts and figuring out how I was going to watch it since I inadvertently signed my husband up for a parenting lecture on the same night. What on earth was I thinking? More on this parenting lecture later. We may be on to something.

And in fact my mom was visiting to help me watch the kids while they had a few days off from school for Shavuot, the holiday where we celebrate Moses getting the ten commandments by eating blintzes and cheesecake which doesn't make a ton of sense but I think over the generations no one has questioned this odd custom since it's so delicious. Incidentally my son told me the other day that his sister took one of his toys and with tears in his eyes, perhaps fearing the fate of her soul, explained how that's breaking one of god's commandments. Oy.

PLUS we were camping this weekend and happily out of range. It was our (now) annual trip to Big Sur with a few families from our old preschool. Two of the other families also watch LOST so last year on the trip we spent a lot of time theorizing about Jacob and the Man in Black. This trip was all about wondering how it will end.

Here's how it ended for me. Sobbing in front of my monitor the day after it aired since our digital antenna couldn't get ABC to work. And thinking about how we struggle as adults to work out all our stuff. And knowing that I'm simultaneously helping to create the stuff my kids will have to work out. Stuff can feel weighty.

Fire when ready

On Sunday we celebrated Lag B'Omer which is a sort of obscure Jewish holiday, at least for Americans. But it's a day off school in Israel so it's a pretty big deal. It's the thirty-third day of the Omer which is the seven weeks between Passover, the physical emancipation from slavery in Egypt, and Shavuot, the spiritual emancipation when Moses received the ten commandments. Why the thirty-third day is so special is a little unclear. Feel free to chime in if you know why. Something about the end of some terrible plague that wiped out 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva's students back in the day which came about because his students weren't nice to each other. If they'd been Catholics it might have been a wrap on the knuckles. But no.

Anyway, the Omer is a period of mourning. Wandering directionless in the desert darkness kind of stuff. But the thirty-third day is a little reprieve. People can get married on that day which is quite popular. It's when my in-laws got married. It's so popular that we once attended three weddings in a twenty-four period when we lived in Israel. That's a lot of rejoicing.

And what do we do on Lag B'Omer? We light bonfires. Kids start collecting wood about two weeks before. You never want to be building or renovating your house during the Omer because a group of teenage punks will sneak by your home and steal all of your wood. You see ten year olds lugging giant tree branches across town and two by fours. It's hysterical. And lord knows why but you also shoot bow and arrows. You can't even make this stuff up, it's too random.

So a few families got together on Sunday and we had a BBQ and the kids made pita to bake on the taboon which I can only translate as the underside of a wok. It was an epic day for archery too. My husband stayed at home to finish putting in the new floor of my studio because he's the most wonderful person in the world and also to guard the wood. Plenty of Israelis in Silicon Valley. You can't be too careful with your wood around this time of year...

Kid-colored lenses

My son loves to play in our car. When I allow it, which is to say when I have time to keep an eye on him from the kitchen or garage, he's happy to play in there for long stretches. When he's done invariably I have to put everything back to its off position - wipers, seat heaters, indicators, hazards - but it's a small price to pay so I indulge this simple pleasure. I wish I could take that much pleasure out of being in my car. Maybe if it wasn't so filthy. Or if I was five.

So recently I've been trying to see the world through kid-colored lenses. Last weekend we took the kids to fly kites. As we were setting up the string and trying to get these things up with little wind, it occurred to me that I had never flown a kite. Or at least I don't remember ever flying a kite. And I found it to be completely exhilarating. At one point I was actually running with my kite (no wind can be a problem) and I'm sure I had one of those golden retriever with his head hanging out a car window kind of grins. Just running with my arms up in the sky waving my kite.

And this weekend I took the kids up to San Francisco for the day to give my husband time to build our murphy bed (more on that later). My son bugs me constantly to take trains. He loves trains. He is enchanted by transportation. So we got on a 10:15 train to San Francisco and he talked the entire seventy-five minutes it took to get there. The color of the tracks. The naughty boy who was skateboarding at the station. The back hoe loader that was next to the tracks. The south going train. The man who collected tickets. He enjoyed every part of the trip especially getting to the final station where there were dozens of trains. But it gets better. I took them on the Muni - the light rail system in San Francisco or the "electric train" as he calls it. So now that we've taken Muni I figure all I need to do is get a trampoline and I can hang up my hat until he goes to college, basking in my "greatest mom on earth" title. Right? We took it five or six stops to the Ferry Building and got off to get some kettle corn at the farmer's market.

We sat at the wharf and ate kettle corn and strawberries and watched the seagulls and the boats and the zillion people buzzing about. I wish I'd had my camera. There was even a guy who writes poems for you on his old school typewriter while you wait. You just give him the topic (and a few bucks is my guess). I wanted to catch the 3:15 train back home (by this point I was back to wearing my mommy-colored lenses) so we didn't stop for a poem on the fly. But the next time we have transportation day I will absolutely take a moment to ask for a poem about taking a moment to enjoy life's simple pleasures.

Corner View - Spring

Happy Passover everyone. Traditionally in Hebrew you say Happy Spring Holiday. It's the holiday that celebrates deliverance from slavery (when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt way back in the day) and the rebirth and renewal that is spring. These are pictures of our seder plates - the ceremonial plates that are the centerpieces of the seder table. One was the real deal, a beautiful plate that my cousins got us for our wedding from the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, and the other was a clever art project my mother-in-law brought from Israel. On it you find the most important symbols of the holiday, many of which symbolize springtime  - the egg, the parsley, the charoset, which is chopped apples and walnuts...so springy! This holiday is the best. There's so much involved. I was leading the seder and trying to tell the story of Passover to the four kids at the table and trying to make it snappy because kids at a table generally want to eat, but there's so much to the story and so many themes and characters. They should really make a movie. Oh wait! They did.

But by far the best part of the evening, and the part that the kids had been anticipating since, well, last Passover, was a visit from the Prophet Elijah (Eliyahu). It's kind of our version of Santa Claus, but without the gifts. Toward the end of the seder we open the door to let in Elijah who drinks from Elijah's cup, a special goblet (read: holy grail) that's in the middle of the seder plate. So for the last four years we've made my brother Aaron dress up in a white sheet, a tallis, a rasta hat, sunglasses and a white beard and dance in while we sing his song. He twirls in, takes a sip of wine and leaves before the kids start to suspect that Uncle Aaron is not at the table. The kids are simultaneously terrified and captivated by Elijah and the adults think it is HYSTERICAL. Later on I went outside to get some mint to make tea and my son was concerned that Elijah was still out there and would get me. Love it. We might have one more year before the jig is up.

For more spring in your step, head over to Spain.

Three

Dear Sugar Bee,
Today you turned three. How lucky I am to have you in my life. Here are a whole bunch of things that I love about you:

1. the way you hug my neck
2. how you share with your big brother
3. your voice
4. how you sob when Aba leaves the house
5. how you snap out of it twenty seconds later
6. your sense of style
7. your belly
8. the way you know how to calm yourself
9. the way you dance
10. when you say I love you so much mommy
11. how you potty trained yourself (that was really considerate)
12. the way you march
13. your silly words
14. your curls
15. how you worry about your brother
16. the way you skip seven and ten when you count
17. your indiscriminate love of stuffed animals
    
18. the way you snuggle in the mornings
19. your willingness to try new foods
20. your ability to forget what you were crying about
    
21. your friendly demeanor
22. your love of tiny things and tiny places to keep them
    
23. the intensity in your eyes when you run

Every day with you is a blessing. Even the days when you draw on the walls or change your shirt six times or won't let me brush your hair. Those are the days that I learn the most from you. To have fun. To be patient. To let go.

all my love,
mommy

Love at first site

I get those ETSY emails EVERY. FRIGGIN. DAY. And I usually just scroll down and then delete. But I saw this amazing piece just in time for Chinese New Year and I thought, be mine. And so it was.

Originals

I've decided to put some of my originals up for sale in my ETSY shop. I'm slowly getting them listed but if you sign up for my newsletter (which I send out every 2-3 months) you'll be ready to go snag one before they get shipped off to New Hampshire for the Enormous Tiny Art show next week. Exciting! You'll also find the code to get 20% off anything with a tree in it. And find out why I'm doing such a silly sale.

Sign up here.

Corner View - Holiday

The holidays seem like a hundred years ago now. We celebrated each night of Hanukkah with different friends. The kids lit candles, opened gifts, spun the dreidle, sang songs. Now that they're older we're really enjoying the holiday. Although I think I may have to re-evaluate my gifting strategy for next year and reverse the one present per night policy. My son would wake up every morning and pester me about his gift the entire day. Can he have a hint? First letter? How big? That got old. But it's hard to compete with Christmas. Not that it's a competition. But Christmas never backs off. The commercial part of it anyway. It's always bigger than life. Even during a recession. This year I finally got questions like, why can't we have lights on our house like everyone else? And so it begins. We're not like everyone else. We make our own light. And our own chanukkiah (that's what we call a menorah)! The idea for the rocks covered in tissue paper came from Aimee. By the eighth night it felt like an inferno. And for Christmas we did like all good Jews. We went to the movies while my mom babysat.

To see how holidays were spent around the world, visit Jane and take the tour.

The last day of the decade

On the last day of the last decade I somehow got wrangled into selling these silly glow-in-the-dark 2000 glasses. You know, where the two middle zeros are for your eyes? Seriously. I was living with my boyfriend in Israel at the time and a guy I knew, the boyfriend of a friend, had this idea to make lots of money selling these things around the country and he convinced me to be his "Southern Region Representative." I don't even remember what the split was but maybe I made a buck for every pair. So imagine this American girl standing in front of the mall trying to pawn these things off. I won't even make you imagine. Here's a picture.

I mean people must have thought I was a total lunatic. Toward the end of the day I called the dealer guy and told him I was still sitting on a giant stack but I was done because this was not how I was spending the last day of the friggin decade. The MILLENNIUM, for the love of ginger! And he was annoyed. And I was like, back off mon frere (he was French). He actually wanted me to stand outside the clubs downtown at night and sell these things. Um, no. I made one final attempt to offload in bulk at one of the clubs to no avail. So I washed my hands of this venture, went home to finish making my dance mix CDs for the party that my future brother-in-law was throwing, and, freed of my obligations, I partied like it was 1999.

Flash foward ten years. On the last day of this decade (a great one by the way) we decided to take our kids skiing for the first time, an equally ridiculous notion. We piled on the clothes, piled them into the van and drove over to rent our equipment. Except there's a giant line and no one has our reservation  and it's a hundred degrees in there and unfortunately the 12-person family of first-time skiers from Mexico has walked in before us. Fantastico.

We finally get our stuff and go out to the van except my brother-in-law can't find the keys to the other car (we took two cars fully expecting my son to hate skiing and want to come home). We look everywhere. No keys. So we drive home in the van. As he walks in the door he realizes the keys are in his boot. Apparently he missed his bib pocket and the keys slid all the way down his ski pants. I'm not sure how you don't feel something like that but ok. We fuel up on protein and carbs and pile the kids back in the van.

Finally around 2:00 we make it to the slope and, after some initial concern, both my kids learned to ski. It was actually totally incredible. My daughter went down a few times held by her armpits but my son actually learned how to ski by himself and stop by himself (more important). We were completely amazed. I love when that kid surprises me.

Later that evening we went out for dinner and ended up at cocktail party discussing New Mexico's budget crisis with the State Secretary of Finance who was very interesting but could not pick up on social cues, like the one where you look at your watch and yawn. We also had lively conversation with a sexologist and his partner who does PR. Get me out of here! The evening ended with me going to sleep at 11:30.

Flash forward another ten years. I'm sitting with my husband at our favorite restaurant in the yet to be determined place where we finally settled down. Our son, who is FIFTEEN is at home watching our daughter, 13 and our twins (just kidding chamud, only one more...) because we paid him $300 since the going rate for babysitters is now $50/hour (holy crap). We're celebrating the success of my third book (a novel about a mom who has a very active imagination - somewhat autobiographical) and my husband's most recent invention (a hearing aid that wraps around your head like a turban because after years and years of devices getting smaller and smaller, giga is the new nano).

Can you hear us giggling? It's because we still feel like we're 26.

Thankful

Much to be thankful for this year. The list is long. But near the top of the list is New England style foliage at the end of November when it's 67 degrees outside. No joke. This is where I live. It's not paradise by any stretch of the imagination. A block from our house is a street with like forty-five car dealerships and ten big box retailers with a curious mix of Craftsman bungalows and downright ugly apartment complexes. And there's no open space between towns - just one long stretch of suburban sprawl. But sweet surrender, the weather here is unbelievable.

And of course, the three things I'm most thankful for are these characters. This is our annual Thanksgiving Day tradition of raking the leaves and dumping them, along with our kids, into the yardage bin. They appear to enjoy it.

I'm also thankful that my sister-in-law made Thanksgiving dinner this year because she has a special way with a bird. We actually went over there a few hours early for the first of hopefully many family band practices. It's true friends, I have a wonderful husband, two diabolical delicious kids, a newly refinanced home where it's 65 degrees at the end of November, flexible and creative work that I love AND I'm lead singer in Uncle John's Band. Watch for us on You Tube.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Suppers in the sukkah

I am telling you there is nothing that erases a five year old's one hour tantrum about something so RIDICULOUS I can't even bring myself to write about it on a blog that I created explicitly to purge these kind of incidents, than dinner in the sukkah. How rad is a Jewish holiday where you're commanded to build a fort in your yard and eat all of your meals out there for a whole week? You're even supposed to sleep out there and don't think we didn't consider making the kids do it. Alone. You know, to fulfill our religious obligations. It happens to coincide this year with my son's birthday so of course we are enjoying many birthday celebrations out there in the sukkah. We even put balloons up. And the kids made paper links and other decorations. My brother thinks we should throw on some drywall and call our place a 3/1. The only rules about the sukkah in fact are that is has to be temporary. And it has to have only three walls. And you have to be able to see the stars when you look up at the sky. Amazing, right? And you thought Hanukkah was the best gig in town. Hanukkah's got nothing on Sukkot.

And this year is no exception. We've had people over basically every night this week. Our son made is clear that he didn't want a birthday party so we decided to just schedule various friends and relatives to kick it with us in the sukkah all week. And on his actual birthday I emailed the mom of a close preschool friend that he no longer sees much (switched schools) to invite them over and they are so great they just came with no notice. I love when people just come and don't worry about what should I bring and what kind of gift blah blah. Just bring your people over to the sukkah and sit back for spaghetti and star gazing. Next night my brother and niece came. Tonight, two more families. Tomorrow, more friends. I'm a little exhausted to be honest but then I just sit back in the sukkah, look up at the stars through the palm leaf rooftop and I'm at peace. Everything melts away. Even the one-hour Super Nanny stumper. Gone.