The New Normal

Five shiny new gas masks hanging off my stroller.

Some nights I'll be sitting on our couch watching reruns of Seinfeld and eating a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and it feels like I'm back in California. We live in a nice house. I drive a Mazda 5. My kids have playdates. Organic free range eggs are a fortune. It's all the same as it was. And then I remember that my daughter goes to ballet lessons in a bomb shelter. Someone checks my bag whenever I enter a large building, like the mall. My kids have lice. My housekeeper is a Jewish man. I buy my fruits and vegetables in the West Bank. My seven year old has a cell phone. And I pay $8 a gallon for gas.

Not normal.

Last week I met a friend and her three kids in Ramle, a town outside of Tel Aviv known for its poverty and excellent kabob restaurants, to exchange our old gas masks for new ones. It was the first day of Passover vacation so I packed all the kids in the car and we drove to an elementary school downtown where a squadron of adorable soldiers took my two outdated masks and issued five shiny new ones. Everyone was friendly and professional and efficient. Someone from the BBC even interviewed me. When asked how I felt as a newcomer getting gas masks for my children, I was honest. I told the guy I had no intention of using these things. They will go into a closet until the next recall, a decade from now. And then we hustled our six kids back into our cars, drove to a nearby playground, worked up an appetite and then drove downtown to Halil where we snarfed down two plates of kabobs, a plate of fries, hummus, pita, pickles and malabi for dessert. Mmmmmm.

And so it goes. I shift back and forth between there and here, feeling used to it all and feeling shocked by it all, letting go of what I knew as normal and embracing what is now the new normal.



Gas mask tutorial


Playground in Ramle


My daughter stepped out into this parking lot and asked, are we in India?


Cutest ten month old ever

Where it all began

On Sunday we met up with an old and dear friend of mine and his amazing wife and two delicious daughters. They live on the Lower East Side of Manhattan about two blocks from the corner where my grandmother grew up and about eight blocks from where Mr. Rosen's grandmother was born and raised. In fact we told this to Grandma Rosen and she asked if we had seen all the pushcarts. She remembers it very differently from the funky, eclectic, bistro'plenty place it has become. But even though the vibe is very different now, it was easy to imagine what it looked like a hundred years ago when these women were born. The streets are still lined with five story walk ups (read: three million dollar tenements) and their ubiquitous fire escapes.The pickle guy is still there and plenty of kosher delis. Although now the neighborhood is peppered with Chinese grocers and organic juice bars.

It got me thinking about all of the Jews who came over from Europe at the turn of the century. My dad's parents arrived as kids from Poland and what is now Romania. Back then the country designation made no difference if you were Jewish. Your nationality was Jew and the authorities made it clear you were living on borrowed time.

All of this seems especially poignant right now as we prepare to cross the ocean and start our lives anew. While we like to complain that the process and the packing and the goodbyes and the schlepping seems never ending, we are most certainly doing it on our terms. No one is chasing us out of America. We are not refugees. We are not saying goodbye to loved ones forever only to land in a country full of hardship. On the contrary. We feel loved on both sides of this journey; we are dual citizens; we're making this move because we want to, not because we have to.  That feels incredibly fortunate to me. And we owe it all to our grandparents whose generation made terrible sacrifices so that we could enjoy the liberties they or their parents never had in Europe.

East of Eden

East of Eden

This was another one of the paintings from the retreat that started out as a giant mess of finger painting. What amazed me about the process was how much symbolism emerged for me without my realizing. I draw a lot of swirly things in my regular work, that are kind of a cross between leaves and eyes, like in this one and this one. And because this was the first day, I went to my comfort zone and started making more of the same on top of the background. But they took on the shape of a giant cactus - all spiky and poky and menacing. And standing in the shadow of this beast of a plant are five tulips. Interesting. A flower that can be uprooted and stored in the off-season and then replanted elsewhere, weather permitting. And a compass pointing east made its appearance on the last day of class. I only put everything together in my head once it was down on the paper.

One other thing to note about the class is that I think I may have figured out what to do with the many blank journals I have purchased and never used over the years. My friend Aimee over at Artsyville and I have often discussed how blank journals terrify us. She's found a cool way to get beyond the fear and expectation of those white pages. For me, I might try using them to wipe my hands when they're too full of paint. Then at least the white will be less intimidating. And I'll have a surface for experimenting with faces and shapes. We did a lot of that in class - wrong-handed, blind, fist-gripped painting and drawing. I found that the less I tried, the freer I got, the more I liked the outcome. Imagine that.

Sign of the times

A few weeks ago we got an email from the principal of our son's elementary school to let the parents know that the kids would be having a lock down drill the next day.

Lock down. Really?

And I thought, man we live in a crappy time. You know? Our kids have to have drills in case there's a SHOOTER on a suburban elementary school campus? I was whining about this with my grandmother the other day. She had asked if we were still thinking about moving back to Israel. She's not super fond of the idea. She thinks it's too dangerous. So I mentioned the lock down in Mountain View. And how the world sucks everywhere nowadays. And how much simpler life must have been when she was young. And she said, yes. True. Well, except for the war. And the holocaust.

Sometimes it's hard to have faith in humanity. That's when I have to open my heart wide and follow the sage words offered by the mountain lion warning sign at the Fremont Older Open Space Reserve in Saratoga.

1. Face (metaphoric) lion.
2. Back away slowly (or)
3. Be large.
4. Shout.
5. Keep children close. 
6. Pick up children without bending (at the waist - your back will thank you).

Win Win

So about that parenting lecture. Here's the thing. I find parenting to be hideously difficult. I do. Well I did up until two weeks ago. Ever since my son had an opinion which was from basically the time he could hold his head up, we have been embroiled in an epic power struggle. And I feel that, as the adult, I should win. And he feels that, as the cuter of the two of us, he should win. And this year, the year I envisioned to be full of story time and art projects and baking and wild imaginings and wonderment and merrymaking, has really been a lot of fighting and conflict and shrieking and time outs and hell. It hasn't been that bad but the bad moments color my memory because they are so bad.

And I have tried many techniques, none of which worked. We've talked to counselors. No light shed. We've read books or at least parts of books because I just don't like to read parenting books. They are all boring. I even considered that maybe he had a chemical imbalance. Or maybe I do. Well, for sure I do, but nothing that a little pita with nutella can't remedy.

But back to the lecture. We have friends whose kids are so well behaved it appears they are not actually kids but very small adults with smooth skin and high pitched voices. Turns out that these parents did a workshop some years ago in the Adler method of parenting (Alfred Adler, Viennese psychotherapist, long dead), the basic tenet of which is positive discipline. But not the "good sharing" "good pooping" bullshit that we heap on our kids from the moment they latch on. Good latching baby...In fact, I have basically stopped praising my kids altogether, but that's something else I'm trying, which is also working.

Here's how it plays out anecdotally. If my daughter won't hold my hand when we cross a street I say to her: You are such a careful girl! Thank you for teaching mommy how to be so careful crossing the street. She immediately grabs my hand. And when my son starts talking to me while I'm on the phone, which he ALWAYS does, I say: I really appreciate how patient you are being while I'm on the phone. He walks away. Win win.

The other really important piece is that, on the advice of a friend who had just gone to an Adler-based lecture on positive discipline, the very lecture I sent my husband to despite having to miss the Lost finale, I sat my kids down one morning and said the following: guys, I heard from someone who teaches mommies and daddies how to be better mommies and daddies that kids your age are old enough to be told something only once. They agreed. I now ask them to do something and nine times out of ten they do it without being asked again. Sometimes with a lag in execution but I am learning to be even more patient as they get used to my new M.O. I'm happy to report we are going on three weeks conflict free.

Now there is obviously much more to this than a few tips, but when tips work, I'll take them. This is why I don't have much to write about lately. I'm sure once these kids figure out I'm playing them they'll find other ways to get my goat. And then we'll be back in business. Until then, my posts are going to terribly boring. I'm just warning you.

Starting in the middle

You know how the hardest part of any project is starting? Of course. We all know this. I sometimes have trouble with the finishing too. And the parts in the middle when I want to quit. Or leave the country. Or eat a pita with Nutella. When we decided a few months ago that we were not going to move because we just can't afford anything else in this area, we said, OK let's manage the space we do have a little better. Starting with the garage room which doubles as my office and studio space. So my husband went online and quickly bought a kit to build a Murphy bed and has spent the last few weekends building it while I have been losing my mind trying to occupy our kids so he has time to build. Last weekend he finished the thing in record time and started talking about installing it and I'm like, wait, what about ripping out this hideous carpet and painting the walls?  This was not part of his plan. This was part of my plan. So he said, OK, we can start doing that next week. And something in me snapped. I needed to start painting a wall at that moment. So I took my son to buy some paint and we came home to paint the whole damn room test the color. We didn't move any of the furniture (except the futon) or tape anything or put plastic down. We just started. Painting.

Now, know that this is totally not my style. I plan everything. I am careful. I don't jump in usually. But I had to do it. And as we are painting and having a jolly time my husband is slowly coming unglued. And he's put together with epoxy so this is unusual. About an hour later I get a lecture about how this isn't how he does projects. Nothing about the room is ready. True. But I am ready. He understood the urgency and took the kids to the pool and I agreed to take everything out of the room while he was gone. That night we painted. And the next day I bought the wood for the floor, we ripped out the carpet and in one weekend the room was done. Almost done. Putting in shelves and installing Murphy next week.

Sometimes you just have to start. And who better to know this but my husband who, for months, has wanted to start a compost. We inherited the outside bin but not everything was aligned to get started. We needed some chicken wire to deter rats. We needed to mow the lawn to use the grass to get started which meant we also needed our lawn mower back from friends who had borrowed it. We needed a compost can for our kitchen. But none of this stopped him from starting to collect rotting fruits and vegetables in a salad spinner on our counter. For about a week. Eventually all of the pieces were in place but had he not started saving scraps and stinking up the kitchen, we might not have been so quick to figure out the rest.  I made this analogy for him and he rolled his eyes. But I have a new floor so I let it slide.

REMINDER: Still time to enter the cute little gift cards giveaway. Go here. Happy weekend!

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.

Yes, I'm the artist

The day before the show on Tuesday I read my friend Laamie's blog post on art shows that set the tone for my preparations. Which were minimal.

I did not print a ridiculous amount of inventory.
I did not bring all kinds of crazy useless shit.
I did not lug more than a big box and two grids.
I did not MacGuyver anything.
I did not spend a ton of money on a display.

Here's what I did do.

I saved up orders for about a week and brought those prints with me to sell so that if I didn't sell them, I could just mail them the next day. And then I brought a bunch of smaller things I had on hand anyway. I also bought those little mini-easels from IKEA that are so useful for display and cost $2 each. Nice. I borrowed my friend Melissa's grids and they were easy and sturdy and perfect. You could see my display from across the room.

Mainly I didn't kill myself preparing for this thing. So when I sold a few items I was thrilled. And when I gave out all my cards (~50) I was overjoyed. I was talking to people the whole time. Never a slow period. Lots of connections. And the lady next to me, who I incidentally met at my hair stylist the week before, bought me a giant falafel. Most importantly, I felt great. Especially when asked, are you the artist?  I felt like I could do these little gigs in the community without a lot of stress and get my name and work out there. And did I mention that the whole thing was in Hebrew? Hundreds of Israelis showed up to celebrate and I charmed every one of them with my accented misuse of their mother tongue.

The Sand Trap

My kids went to the beach with my husband this weekend to see their aunt and get out of my hair during my THREE HOUR QUICK BOOKS PARTY with my new bookkeeper. At one point before they left my husband came in to remark that all the laughing was making him wonder if we were really doing accounting.

They came home very late that evening after what appears to have been a terrific day, the highlight of which was a trip to the ocean. It's been pretty stormy over here the last two weeks so apparently the little beach near where my husband's aunt lives (and my brother too, when he's not dog whispering in Mexico) has had it's share of churn which meant my kids got to collect whatever finally landed on the beach.  Mainly neat looking rocks and shells (and one nasty looking piece of kelp).

So they brought their treasures home in bags and I found little clear containers in which to display them. Over the last two days they've showed me each and every item at least five times. Seeing them in the jars got me thinking about the story that apparently has been circulating the web and elsewhere, but I'd never heard it. And it goes like this:

A professor of philosophy stood before his class with some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks about two inches in diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full.  They agreed that it was full.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly and watched as the pebbles rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The professor then asked the students again if the jar was full. They chuckled and agreed that it was indeed full this time.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. The sand filled the remaining open areas of the jar. “Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this jar signifies your life. The rocks are the truly important things, such as family, health and relationships. If all else was lost and only the rocks remained, your life would still be meaningful. The pebbles are the other things that matter in your life, such as work or school. The sand signifies the remaining “small stuff” and material possessions.

And the moral of the story is not to put the rocks in first so you can pack in as much other crap as possible and still have time in the day to be on Facebook. The moral, the one I'm going with anyway, is to figure out what the rocks are and put them in first because if you put the sandy filler in first, there's no room for the rocks.

Unfortunately this only came to mind AFTER I had a huge blow out with my son about the damn pebbles and shells. I should have just agreed to help him put the ones he'd shown me back in the jar (after he showed them to me for the sixth time) because in the scheme of things, his momentary laziness was nothing cataclysmic. You have to help because I was showing them to YOU. Although it was only two days ago that I was sitting with my bookkeeper (who has teenagers) talking about how hard it is to raise grateful, humble, appreciative, hard working kids when you're not in poverty. The entitlement thing is on my mind a lot. So I couldn't let this argument drop. And he persisted, as is his way. And I held my ground, as is mine. And it didn't end well. Actually, if finally ended with everyone hugging and exchanging I love yous but there were a lot of tears and shrieking before we got there. And there was no dessert which, for my son, actually is cataclysmic. See what I mean about entitlement? And the thing is I push him on these things, especially lately, because he's actually showing signs of getting it. But then this happens and I wished I'd just given in or found some more creative way to diffuse the situation.

Like I should have dumped the rest of the shells and sand on his head and then offered to help clean up. I'm sure there will be a next time.

Someone old and someone new

Say it together with me.
Ahhhhhh....
I just came back from a much needed, too short and deliriously enjoyable weekend in Portland, a place I had never been, to meet one of my newest old friends and one of my oldest new friends.

Aimee is someone I met online. Huh? Yes, I met her online. I commented on her blog. And then she commented back. And then we started emailing. Very long emails. The kind you used to send in 1996 before people stopped writing in conventional language in favor of short phrases with no vowels. Yes, those kind of emails. And it just happened we were both artists with MBAs (so incongruous!) and mommies of small children and makers of ketubahs and well the list of similarities goes on and on. And so, one day, when we were both feeling the need to get away, we hatched a plan to meet in Portland. And that's just what we did. We flew in Friday night, I met her at her gate and we didn't stop talking until she left Sunday morning. And we wandered around freezing Portland and talked our heads off, drank coffee, ate amazing food, bought matching sweaters (well, different sweaters from the same woman at the Saturday market) and got lost in Powell's bookstore. It was like we had known each other our whole lives. And that is why Aimee is my newest old friend.




And my oldest new friend is Jenn. Jenn lives in Portland and is chef and owner of Lincoln Restaurant and Culinary Artistry. She is someone I worked with when I was 16 and a counselor at summer camp. We hadn't seen each other in nearly twenty years. About five years ago we were in touch briefly. And then about 8 months ago I saw a little blurb on her in Real Simple magazine so I nearly had a heart attack and looked her up to find that she had opened a restaurant in Portland. I immediately wrote to her and we even spoke on the phone. So when Aimee and I decided on Portland I knew I needed to see Jenn too. We ate dinner at Jenn's restaurant on Friday night and it was amazing to be in the company of two incredibly talented and creative women. Catching up. Getting to know each other. And eating the most delicious food I've had in a very long time. Maybe ever. Go eat at Lincoln if you're ever in Portland.

Aimee flew home early Sunday and I spent the rest of the day with Jenn. More talking. More eating. And even though in some ways it felt like we just slipped right back into the our old friendship, in many ways it felt more like our friendship, or at least this chapter of it, was entirely new.

So there it is. A weekend of grub and gab with two exceptionally inspiring and supportive women. It was just what I needed. Because, friends, I am not great at reaching out. I'm shy. I get intimidated. I assume no one remembers me. But I'm finding that the more I do it, the easier it is and the happier I am to be connected.

Pillow Talk

Well yesterday was day two of my sewing class. I decided I will use the blog to chronicle my progress. This time I brought in Grammy's old sewing machine and of course my teacher started every sentence with usually sewing machines do this but yours is different...but we figured out how to thread the thing and it does have a few attachments and a booklet that's sixty years old so there's hope. Incidentally, I posted a picture of last week's project here. Notice the precision stitching...

This week I came in with some fabric I bought at IKEA, a little stuffed tomato to hold my pins and a pair of scissors. And I lugged in my eighty pound sewing machine on a dolly. It should really come with wheels if it's going to be that heavy. I started out thinking I would make another knapsack since the pattern is very cute and easy and I could work on my stitching (I tend to forget that the thingy is up after I place the fabric and then I press the pedal and the stitches get loopy. Working on that.) But I wanted it lined. You know, like a nice bag. Because I am a master tailor after all. Of course I should be lining all of my pieces. I mean I have had ONE class already.

I cut two rectangular pieces and sew three sides, flip it inside out and then surge the fourth side (the surger is probably man's greatest invention next to Nutella). And then I was like, OK, what in the world should I do with this thing? I tried to think of how it would work as the knapsack and in fact it would not be lined at all or reversible (reversible? I mean, can someone remind this girl that she doesn't actually know how to sew?). It would just be like the one from last week but thicker because it's made of two pieces of fabric now. I started getting annoyed because actually this isn't even a class. It's just me and twenty retired people using the outlets at a community center and asking our teacher Sharon for some tips. TIPS! I need step by step tutoring not tips!

Anyway, I decide to cut the thing in half and make two pillow cases instead. I learned how to sew a zipper last week so I felt like sewing three sides and a zipper was within the realm of my limited abilities. I even thought I could do it twice and complete my pillow set. But the zipper tripped me up and ended up taking the whole class so by the end I had only one pillow. And it was totally lopsided. Note to self: bring measuring tape for next class. I left feeling like a total loser. I couldn't even sew a damn four sided pillow.

But then I got home and shoved one of our throw pillows inside and it actually fit and now you can't actually tell that it's lopsided. It kind of looks great! Which of course has very little to do with me and everything to do with the rad fabrics that IKEA carries. Next week I aim to finish the other pillow and master the zipper. Then, maybe, PAJAMA PANTS.

The Carpet Cleaners

Today I had the carpets cleaned. We have carpet in the two bedrooms and in the studio/office/garage/guest room. It needs to be done more often but I just never get around to it because it's a pain in the butt to schedule, get all the crap off the floor, keep everyone off of it til it dries and anyway I'm always a little nervous about letting strangers in the house. And for good reason. The first time I had the carpets cleaned, like an idiot I went to the corner store to buy some stuff while the men where doing their work and two days later I realized our camera and charger were missing (if it had just been the camera than it's possible I could have lost it, but also the charger?) Oops. And then there's my friend Dianna who the last time I was trying to schedule a clean happened to mention that she knew someone who knew someone who was assaulted (or worse, I don't remember) by a couple of carpet cleaners she let in her house. Great.

So instead of more often I do this once a year on average and by then the carpet is gnarly having just been through a recent potty training season and such. Then last week I get one of these robo-calls and it's a cleaning service and they're having a special in my area - four rooms for $99 etc. so I beep myself through to an operator and get set up to clean our three rooms for $69. A steal. Except I know well that after all is said and done this will be more like $200 because they come with their hoses and their steamers and their special fluids and they tell you that $69 only covers steaming and odor removal. But stains are more and deep cleaning is more and scotch guard is more and you can't really get anything clean unless you deep clean and is that a pet stain over there? No, a daughter stain. Hmmm....

But we set up a time and today at 10:30 I hear a knock at the door. It's the carpet cleaners. Two guys. A tall skinny white guy and tall skinny black guy. The black guy introduces himself and his partner. His name is Daniel and I detect a slight accent. Maybe Jamaican? Hard to say. The white guy doesn't say anything but his name is Joe and he shakes my hand. I'm already on my guard and let them enter the house while I stand behind them close to the door (for my speedy getaway). They ask where the rooms are and instead of leading them there I point around the corner. They go look and come back and then they go look at the garage room. And then Daniel asks if I want to have the deep clean which is an extra $1 per square foot blah blah blah. Exactly what I expected. So I ask him how much it will be and he starts measuring the rooms with his actual feet. 6x8 is....(long pause)...I chime in with 48. He does this a few times and more than once takes out his phone to do the calculation. Yikes. Finally I decide, you know what? Clean the whole place; it's a cesspool. Have at it.

So they go get their equipment and I stay in the office as long as I can before Joe comes in to clean it. I leave through the back door and come back in the house through the front door to make myself a cup of coffee. I'm feeling more relaxed around these young men now. They appear to be doing a nice job and they ask me for towels to wipe up where some water has spilled so I stop planning my getaway strategies and enjoy my coffee.

When all is done, Daniel and I figure out the the total is $278 and I'm feeling like that is actually FOUR TIMES the price I was quoted. So I say how about if I give you $250? Then Daniel says, well....OK. But first I have to tell you one thing and he motions me to come over to the front door.

Your mezuzah* is on the wrong side of the door.

This is what he tells me. The skinny black kid. Huh?

Your mezuzah should be on the right side of the door, the visitor's right, because your right hand is connected to your heart and God.

And I think, son of a bitch, he's right. We've lived here six years and hundreds of Israelis and Jews have walked in and out of our house, rabbis even, and the first I hear of this mezuzah misplacement is from the carpet cleaner? So of course, I ask him how he knows this. Turns out he's Israeli, of Ethiopian decent. And so is his buddy Joe whose real name is Yossie. Well Yossie's not of Ethiopian decent obviously - he's the white guy. Though that reminds me of a funny story when I was in college. I worked as a waitress at the Blue Nile Ethiopian restaurant in Berkeley and we had to wear these traditional dresses which would have been beautiful if they did not smell like turmeric. And one day as I was taking an order my customer asks me if I'm from Ethiopia. And thankfully I had on my polite waitress filter so I just said no and smiled. But I'm thinking, really? Because I am as pale as a ghost. And not albino African pale. I look Irish. With freckles and fine, wavy reddish hair. Just call me Shannon. And there were travel posters all over the walls with gorgeous Ethiopian men and women and I resemble none of them except maybe the dress. But I digress...

So we chatted in Hebrew about how hard it is to find work in Israel now and how Joe just got here a week ago because a friend of his used to work for the company (which is owned and operated entirely by Israelis). Apparently carpet cleaning is a quick study...and Daniel has been doing this for eleven months and he's not sure if he'll stay longer or go traveling or take his money back to Israel to start his own business...and now I love these two boys. And I'm happy for the reminder that most people are good and are just trying to get by.

And tomorrow the mezuzah gets switched.

* A mezuzah fulfills the commandment in Judaism to put the words of the Shema (central prayer declaring there is only one God) on the doorposts of your house.

Restroom Stall

Tonight we took the kids out for dinner to one of these all you can eat salad and extras places. They like going there. It's sort of cheap and no one cares when you spill. Or shout. Halfway through dinner my son turns to tell me he has to go poop. This is a rare occasion. This is a child who does not poop outside of his home. He NEVER poops at school. Or anywhere besides our toilet. So anyway we head over to the ladies' room and one of the toilets is overflowing so we go into the other one. There are only two. And after some minor insecurity about this whole toilet seat cover business (how will the pee get through? the poo poo is not going in the water!) he settles into his usual twenty minute transaction.

Meanwhile women are starting to line up because there's no other toilet and so I mention to my son that if he's done we need to leave quickly so that someone else can use the toilet. He's not done. Another five minutes passes as he's pushing and groaning and now I overhear women saying can we just use the men's room? And I'm starting to want to hurry him because I've been on their side and I know that time in a restroom is relative to which side of the stall you're on but I look down at this little boy hunched over this toilet while his face turns red and his eyeballs bug out during each push and I take a deep breathe (not too deep. It's a public restroom after all) and we wait. And I chuckle to myself having discovered that restroom stall is both a noun and a verb.

Abundance

Lately the blog has been focused on my growing frustrations with my son. It's pretty clear that he's working through something. And if he's working through something, guess who else gets to work through something. Thursday is his last day of school at the preschool he's been going to since he was two years old. Most of his friends have already left to start kindergarten. And while he doesn't talk about it much, it must be affecting him. He's been more clingy that usual even for him. He actually had a fit when my husband dropped him off at school on Monday after they biked over. He didn't want my husband to leave him. He's been going here everyday for THREE years and on his third to last day he still has a major come-apart at drop-off? And he loves these people. He hugs on all the teachers who just think he's so charming and delightful. Yes, Dr. Jekyl is all those things...

So I'm trying to cut him some slack. We're leaving at the end of the week for a much needed family vacation in Santa Fe and when we get back he and his sister will start their new school with shortened days. And in the interim, I'm just trying to focus on positive things. And creating idyllic childhood moments...

I came across a wonderful blog called Pecannoot by a woman called Jess, that's a kind of journal of uplifting images and messages highlighting our own abundance. Anyway she inspired me to share this picture that I took over the weekend.


It's my son holding three olallieberries. Not exactly abundant. But they feel abundant to us because they come from the neighbor's bush and only one branch falls into our yard, so when we get even just three, it feels like we hit the jackpot. The rest of the picture is him smiling his head off.

Noticing Moments

Well I got through a morning without blowing up at my son so I'm patting myself on the back. It's been that bad lately. I don't know what's going on but we are not in a good way. And I have said things I wish I could take back. Which reminds me, I was at my coaching workshop the other day talking to my life coach about my need for affirmation, likely linked to a host of things but probably having a lot to do with the fact that I've gone out on my own as an artist having had no formal training. Sometimes I'm afraid someone will pull off my mask and say, see guys? She's an impostor. She can't even draw a horse. So I seek validation in the form of web statistics, i.e. who's been on my website, how are they getting there, who's reading the blog, who's on facebook etc. It's really LAME. And a waste of time and energy. So she suggested I take a noticing moment whenever this urge arises and turn the urge into a choice point. Instead of defaulting to my usual behavior, I can decided to do something else, like do a sketch or make a cup of coffee, go for a walk or eat a pita with nutella (I just threw in that last one). So I'm trying that out for my work and I think I will give it a try with my son too. At those moments of heightened stress or exhaustion, after already employing my arsenal of situational techniques, it might be in everyone's best interest to take a noticing moment and turn my urge (to strangle him) into a choice point.

It's usually during a transition period, like bed time or getting ready to go somewhere, or leaving somewhere that our needs begin to clash. I think part of it is finding ways to communicate with him that are more succinct so that our discussions are shorter and I don't reach the end of my rope. I wish we could eliminate discussions altogether. I mean I don't mind discussing the merits of an 8-ink printer with him as long as it's not while I'm trying to get him to brush his teeth.

We did have some successes yesterday (which I think made it even worse when it all blew up during the very last minutes of the day). We had a great morning playing with friends at a park nearby that has a sprinkler area so the kids ran around and then we had a picnic. It was a lot of fun. When we got home my daughter went down for her nap and I explained to my son that he also has to lie down for a short while to rest. He was not happy about this. So I let him hang around with me as I tried to make sales calls but that wasn't working so I said, listen, when you stay at home with mommy there are rules. When your sister goes down for her nap you have to rest also. You will go in my room and lay down for thirty minutes and then you can watch a video. He was having none of that. He started screaming. So I said, decide how you want to calm down! Either lie down on your bed with your kitty, play with your dollhouse or sit in the porch swing! He chose the porch swing, stayed out there for ten minutes to calm down and when he returned he was ready to lie down in my room. He slept for two hours. And he was delightful the rest of the day because he was well-rested.

But then there's always something. We can't seem to have a tantrum free day. Even this morning he started crying because he was sure that Aba was picking him up early to take him to Jonathan's birthday party (which is Saturday). I have no idea where he got this notion. I would never have said anything like that. And then he started to cry and tell me I'm wrong. But luckily I had just bought his favorite cereal so I distracted him with frosted mini-wheats. We'll see what the afternoon brings.

Sad Women

I find myself without a TV show addiction now that Lost is off the air until next January. What is with these producers? Don't they know that EVERYONE would watch the repeats? And anyway now that my analog TV doesn't work it doesn't much matter. We have the converter but our antenna just broke. Thank god for broadband Internet.

So I sent my husband to the video store last weekend to get Mad Men, which I'd heard was really good. And it is. I'm liking it a lot. If you don't watch it, it's about Madison Avenue advertising agencies set in 1960 NYC and the misogynistic men who run them. It's a little slow, too slow for my husband, but I'm enjoying the history lesson. My friend Alice, who is 75, watches and says it's all true to a tee. We had lunch the other day and she was telling me that it's a wonder any of them survived the 50s and into the 60s. The smoking and the drinking and the categorical disregard for women and their needs. Or any minority for that matter. She said she looks back now and is ashamed that she didn't even realize the fog they were all in (and she was one of the less foggy ones). You think about the women of the 20s , 30s and 40s with all of their spunk and gumption. They had businesses and ran families and fought for their rights and questioned authority and survived incredible hardships. Then men came back from war and the country started to prosper again and suddenly you were meant to believe that your one true ambition in life was to have babies asleep and dinner waiting for your husband every night. I would have been a miserable failure.

Then of course my mind starts jumping around and I'm thinking about women in the Islamic world today made to cover themselves entirely and sometimes denied education and generally kept way down by the moral code of the land. And I thought, is it so much different from the 50s? Maybe just more overt. In both societies, women are sexualized. In Islamic societies they are covered up presumably to protect their honor. In the 50s they were made to wear pointy bras and high heals and cinched waists to exploit them for the amusement of men. Which scenario is more or less respectful? Sure, I'd rather be wearing a Chanel suit than a burka, but you can kind of see my point.

Anyway, it just got me thinking that even though we have so much more to do to achieve equal rights in America, we have made wondrous strides. So maybe there's hope for women around the world suffering through their own version of the 50s. Time will tell.

Nothing sticks

We used to put star stickers on a calendar for my son when he had a whine-free day or some such other amorphous distinction. And we'd give him a monster sticker if he was bad. Or we'd threaten the monster sticker. He used to completely come apart at the very thought of a monster sticker on his calendar to the point where I just didn't have the heart to ever give him one. Anyway, it never really worked, the whole sticker thing. Mostly because the reward was not for something concrete (really, is there ever a whine-free day? Let's be honest with ourselves…). I could see how stickers might work for making your bed or brushing your teeth—these are measurable behaviors. Not for the absence of whining. But we also weren't especially consistent, plus I could never follow through with the monster. Too damaging. I had wanted simple green dots and red dots but couldn't find any. The monsters were actually super cute. Mrs. Grossmans. Love that woman. What's my point here…

Anyway, a few weeks ago I turned around and told my son that he could give me stickers every time I did my workout video on a given day. It lasted for about three days. It appears that nothing really motivates me to exercise. Not even stickers. Plus, my two kids always felt compelled to do the exercises with me and I was often scared of dropping a weight on someone's tiny toes. But the site of the two of them, often naked, flinging their arms around and doing kicks and poses, looking from the TV to me and back to the TV—I could hardly contain my laughter. But even that's not enough to make me exercise every day.

Gray Morning

Yesterday morning I was in the shower and my son came in to tell me that he decided to wear grey socks today. GRAY SOCKS PEOPLE! GRAY FREAKING SOCKS! At first I thought I had misunderstood. How can this be? You don't wear gray socks. That's against everything you stand for. You stand for blue socks! Who are you? Where's my real son? He went on to say, all of my blue socks are dirty so I'll just wear the gray ones. His nonchalance was startling.

You won't believe me (you probably will) when I tell you that those gray socks have been rolled up for a YEAR in his socks box. I don't remember exactly when it happened but at some point he made it clear to me that under no circumstances would he ever wear anything but blue socks. And not just any blue socks. They had to be the kind from Old Navy with the letters and size on the bottom. I fought it for a while because at the time we only had two pair of those. And I thought I am not going to indulge this completely irrational behavior. But after the fifth morning in a row when I wanted to kill him I thought, this is not an important battle. I went to Old Navy and bought six more pairs. And in future weeks and months when he'd run out of blue socks, I'd just dig a pair of stinky ones out of the hamper because I don't give a rat's ass. They can smell like moldy cheese, in fact sometimes they do, but if he wants them, so be it. I've become very zen about the whole socks thing.

Which is why I was completely shocked, ALARMED, if you will, about his decision to go with the gray ones—gray ones that are identical to the blue ones, aside from the color. He's just growing up I guess. But just to be sure he wasn't growing up too quickly I asked him this morning when he came into our bed if he was too old for morning snuggles. He replied no, as if to say, mommy you have clearly lost your mind. As though I had suggested to his younger self that he wear gray socks.

More than a toaster

How can it be that a toy toaster costs as much as a regular toaster? I mean, you search for toaster in the toy section on Amazon and you get a whole mess of toasters ranging from about $10 to (this is not a typo) $130. And then in a row of images underneath the toys are the real toasters that cost the same amount and, get this, they actually make the toast.

But you know what they don't make? Time. Whoever is pricing the toy toasters clearly understands the underlying value of a toy that will occupy two kids in 30+ minutes of cordial pretend play.

I recently bought my kids a little wooden kitchen off eBay and then pimped it out with all kinds of wooden food and a blender and a cash register and whatever else I could find on the cheap. My goal was to create a little kiddie vortex in this oddly placed corner of our hallway and it appears to have worked. The two of them are in there making cupcakes and soup and whatever else they can think of for HOURS. Literally hours. And these are little people with little attention spans. This affords me the time I need to breathe for a second after work and prepare dinner which makes me endlessly happy. And this is a day after day phenomenon.

Which brings me back to the inherent value of the play toaster which is endless happiness for me and my kids. Don't get me wrong, my kids would happily play with a real toaster. And I definitely like toast. But not as much as I like endless happiness. And that is why I am willing to pay regular price for a toaster that doesn't make toast. Because my kids can play together and no one gets electrocuted. That's worth $25 in my mind.

PreK update

A quick update: my son is doing much better and so is his mommy. Let's just say he probably gets high proclivity for emotional outbursts from yours truly. I still feel pretty strongly that three and four-year-olds shouldn't be doing worksheets and cutting practice but moving him to a new school altogether would probably send him into a tailspin. And anyway these teachers actually do seem to care about our kids quite a bit. I had a pretty good conference with his teachers and the director and we came up with some separation strategies that appear to be working. Mornings have been uneventful for an entire week. So I'm grateful. My kid is amazing, what can I say.

The last week I've been trying to get him to tell me more about some of the kids he's getting to know in his class hoping that he's slowly reaching out. I also have an ulterior motive to figure out which two or three friends from his class I should invite to his birthday party in two weeks. I'm starting to understand the power of the playdate. For whatever reason seeing your schoolmates outside of school can really solidify the relationship. A few days ago he mentioned playing with a girl called McKenna so everyday I ask about McKenna. Yesterday I asked if he played with McKenna outside and he said no.

Him: I just talked to her
Me: What did you talk about?
Him: I didn't talk. Only she talked.
Me: What did she talk about?
Him: I don't know. I didn't listen to her.

He went from having no friends to being married to McKenna in one week. That's my boy.