Morning dose

I had the kids solo from Friday morning through Sunday night. We had beautiful weather and took advantage spending a lot of time with friends riding bikes and swimming. Today we even went to a lake and took out a paddle boat. But my favorite moments were the little ones at home. Like when I gave my daughter her gummy vitamins and she went to put them on a toothpick. Kids seem to know this instinctively - that all food is better on a stick. Then once I got the camera out the kids started hamming it up. And that's how my daughter got today's dose of calcium and I got today's dose of laughter.

ps. that's Julio wedged under her armpit.

Thirty minutes

The other day I was putting my sneakers on to go to the gym and my son asked when I'd be back.

Me: About half an hour.
Him: Is that how long you're supposed to go to the gym?
Me: It's a good amount of time.
Him: Is that because the lady in the exercise video told you?
Me: No, but that's how long she exercises too.
Him: How long is half an hour?
Me: 30 minutes.
Him: 30 minutes is a long time.
Me: It's not too long. I'll be back soon.

Pause. I actually thought the conversation was over.

Him: It's longer than 29 minutes.
That's when he flashed me a giant grin.

ee i ee i OH!

Things are heating up in Gaza and I feel compelled to write my opinions, however politically incorrect, but I just can't muster up the fire to do it right now. Maybe tomorrow. Instead some light-hearted stories about language missteps that months and years later still have us laughing.

We're raising bi-lingual kids so everyday we speak in a mishmash of Hebrew and English peppered with a little Spanish. It is California after all, si? Many of our friends are Hebrew-speaking and while most have an impressive command of English, now and again someone will have a funny story about a pronunciation, spelling or spoken error. And then we chuckle and remember all of our past mistakes from living in or traveling to other countries. I always tell the story of how, when I was house-sitting in Santiago, Chile I had my boyfriend over and some other friends and explained to them how I had accidentally fallen in the shower and that's why I was so grumpy. Silence. And then someone changed the subject. An hour later we're doing dishes and I mention how when I fell in the shower it totally knocked the wind out of me to which Diego, the boyfriend, replied I'm not sure you're using the right verb…he was being polite, like a good Chilean. I had apparently told all of his friends how I took a dump in the shower. Of course, they just figured that since I was American I must be very "open" and willing to share all kinds of weird and inappropriate details about my life with total strangers. Nice one.

Another favorite was about a friend of a friend who got on a bus in Israel and asked the driver if she could put her suitcase in his ass. As opposed to underneath the bus. She only missed it by one preposition. The driver was apparently very amused and happy to accommodate.

A few weeks ago Israeli friends of ours were packing up to move from Berkeley to Cambridge, Mass for a post-doc position and had been in the process of selling most everything and packing the rest. They told us that they'd posted a bunch of things on Craigslist including their changing table. Everything had sold quickly but still no one had written about the changing table (and matching sheet). So I could already tell where this was going because my husband and siblings-in-law are notoriously bad spellers and often insert an "i" in place of long "e" sound as if they were writing in Spanish (get it, mi amigo?). Apparently it was only after they reposted the listing that they realized they'd written: Changing table and pad for sale with matching shit.

And the more I thought about the context, the more I was tickled by the whole thing. It was Berkeley after all. Everyone's all about earth friendly and carbon neutral and thus buying everything second-hand. Less waste! Less power to the man! And then to ensure the authenticity of the second-hand purchase you have the matching shit as your proof. Sure, we got it on craigslist. See the matching shit? Organic. Oh, I kill me.

I also had a good laugh thinking about what the Chileans would have had to say (or not) about that one. Although they likely would have written it exactly the same.

The Schoolkeeper

After I picked up my son today from preschool we were pulling out of the parking lot and my he noticed the woman who cleans the school entering the building.

Him: Hey mommy, there's our Maria for the school.
Me: Oh, you mean, she's the housekeeper?
Him: No mommy, she's the schoolkeeper.

I stand corrected. I then had to explain that not all people who clean buildings are named Maria. I don't think he got it. But tomorrow he's planning to ask Miss Courtney what the school Maria's name is so we can clear up the confusion.

Today he also told me that he has to wear his feety pajamas to sleep because otherwise he will get goose bumps and turn into a duck.

How can I argue with that kind of brilliant logic?

Sense of humor

I have to just write down a few little goodies that don't really unfold into any sort of important lessons but I want to have some record of the funny light-hearted stuff to balance the pain and suffering.

We were in his room the other day getting ready for bed and he said, "Mommy, look what I'm doing!" And he was basically sitting so I just smiled and said,"Yes, sweetie, you're sitting really well," feeling a little ridiculous and thinking must I compliment every stupid thing he does? BFD, he's sitting on the carpet. In the world outside of preschool no one gives a rats ass if you can sit nicely on the carpet. Okay, I wasn't really thinking about all that, although sometimes I do hear myself complimenting inane things like his ability to take a dump (good job making the poo poo!) and I wonder if I'm doing him a disservice. Maybe he'll be crushed if his teachers in middle school aren't as enthusiastic about his prowess on the toilet. I read an article about that somewhere I think. Probably in someone else's silly blog. Anyway, back to my story...

So he says, "no Mommy, I'm sitting on the couch," at which point he pulls the couch from the doll house I bought him for his third birthday out from under his bottom! And I thought that's actually pretty funny bud. Good one.

And then this evening we got into another vagina discussion only he prefaced it by singing his new vagina song which sort of follows the "Farmer in the Dell" tune:

Mommy has a vagina.
Grandma has a vagina.
Hi ho the derio,
Mommy has a vagina.

Then he started asking again who has what and proclaimed that he has a vagina too. In fact, in his words, "I have a vagina AND a pee pee." And then he laughed, pleased with his funny statement. And I laughed too, grateful he didn't ONLY inherit my obsessive compulsive tendencies or my stubborn streak. He may have also gotten my sense of humor. Although he laughs at his own farts too, so he might actually have his father's sense of humor.