Of Firefighters and Messy Floors

We'll start with the messy floors. See, clumsiness + difficulty bending = more POC than ever on the floor. Just yesterday, I was trying to get something out of the pantry. As I did, several other food items fell out. "Huh," I said, staring down at them, all forlorn on the floor. "Sorry about that, guys." I walked away. They just stayed there, the bag of animal crackers, package of rice and potato chips. Donny was no help, because he doesn't even notice that there are contents of our pantry spilled out onto the floor. (You know how Stephen Colbert doesn't "see race?" Donny doesn't "see mess.")


So unless the bag of rice jumped up and bopped him on the head, or perhaps texted him, no way he's even going to see it's there. I was finally motivated to (OY!) bend down and put the stuff away when Yaakov came home, made a beeline for the mess, and said, "Ooooh! Animal cwackahs! Do you know what, Mommy? [Actually, that comes out, "Dohwha, Mommy?"] In a vewy vewy vewy long time I didn't eat any animal cwackahs. Kaihavesome?" At that point, I grumblingly swept the mess into my arms and threw everything back into the pantry. Until next time, guys.


Meanwhile, Purim has started early in our house. I always debate whether to buy the costumes early, thus ensuring a good selection, instead of picked over itchy clown wigs, or later, so as to avoid weeks of "Can I wear my costume NOW, Mommy?" But it is physically difficult for me to push things off to the last minute, so yesterday afternoon, we headed out to Kfar Shaashuim, "Your Purim Headquarters." They truly have every gun, tiara, fairy wings, sword, mask, and hat you could ever dream of. If you've always wanted to be a firefighting ninja pirate cowboy, complete with glossy lipstick, you should totally check out KS.


PS I was amused by the selection of "adult" costumes in the back. Which were truly, uh, "adult." If you catch my drift.


I tried to interest the kids in the racks of costumes that were outside - i.e. cheaper. They had soldier and policeman costumes, but Yaakov was not interested in reviving Pajama Soldier Boy. So inside we trooped. After about 15 minutes of browsing through the racks, attempting to move through aisles that were about five inches wide, we settled on Fireman for Yaakov, and Supergirl for Ariella. The fireman costume - "kabai" in Hebrew - is awesome. It's a jacket and hat with tons of accessories - a hatchet, hose, walkie-talkie, and fire extinguisher (which you can put actual water in, which I will not actually do). So at least it's a toy investment as well. (As the package so insightfully points out: "The new field for the children to play, and they can find pleasure in it naturally!" Um, my thoughts exactly.)

And Ariella's costume was a remnant from last year's stock, so it was "on sale." No, these costumes are not cheap, and if I was a good parent, I would make something really creative instead of blowing money on costumes every year. Like take a piece of tape, a paper towel, and a shopping bag and somehow create a dazzling princess costume. Complete with tiara.


But then, if I was a good parent, would I be authoring a book on child-rearing called "Leave Me Alone So I Can Read the Paper?"


And when they were each really little, I did not buy little tiny baby costumes for them. I think we put a duckie towel on Ariella for her first Purim, and Yaakov got a "cape" made out of a pillowcase that read "DestructoBoy" on it for his. So I did my part for "creative Purim costumes." (By the way, check out the chapter in my book entitled, "Buying Purim Costumes: Save Your Creativity for Something Really Important, like Explaining the Feminine Product that Fell Out of Your Purse.")


Tonight the kabaim came out in full force (Ariella joined in as well), and they ran around extinguishing fires. Phew. I feel safer with them around, truly. Now if I can only get them to pick up that pile of napkins that fell on the floor....

The Poster: An Addendum

As I was putting the finishing touches on Yaakov's poster today, I realized something.


It's backwards.


I arranged all the pictures chronologically, starting from when he was a wee little bairn, and continuting to the strong, strapping boy of three-and-a-half that he is now. But the pictures "read" the English way. From left to right. If you look at it the Hebrew way, it seems that he first played golf, then had his bris, and then was born.


Whoops.


I guess you can take the girl out of America, but you can't make her think backwards. Or something.

Kappayim L'Ariella!

Next week, Yaakov is Yeled HaShavua. I'm sure you seasoned parents of school-age children have alarm bells going off in your heads right now, because whenever your child is "chosen" for something, this means you will have to "do work, probably involving glue and permanent markers." In this case, we need to create a poster with various pictures of Yaakov, complete with cute captions.


First came the pictures. This is not like the olden days when you would ransack your old photo albums, steal pictures you needed, and then forget to return them, so that years later, as you're nostalgically leafing through photo albums, you start wondering aloud why the only pictures of you as a baby are blurry or have a big thumb on them. No, no, we are technologically advanced. So of course it took two adults - one of whom is even more tech-savvy than Dadz - a solid hour to figure out how to print things on our specialized photo paper so that the kids weren't missing the tops of their heads.


We got the pictures, thanks to "crop." Now, ladies and gentlemen, we arrive at the hard part - writing the captions. Although I was a teacher in my former life, it is one of my greatest shortcomings that my handwriting is abysmal. I don't have that nice, loopy, handwriting you recall from teachers of your youth. And that's in English, the language I actually write in. This, naturally, has to be in Hebrew. Print Hebrew, if you please, because it looks much nicer. I think the last time I wrote in print Hebrew I was wearing a charm bracelet and watching Jem.


So we called in special ops - Ariella. After a few false starts, we got into a good rhythm: We spread out on the floor, I drew lines for her, wrote out the caption if necessary (in script, of course) on a piece of paper, and she wrote them in beautiful print on the poster. Yaakov helped by occasionally adding his two cents ("This one has to say Yom Huledet Sameach! I'm having a birthday!") - although if his ideas were too wordy, Ariella and I nixed them. He also climbed on me a lot, since Mommy on the floor = jungle gym.


But the final product is beautiful, if I do say so myself. And I do. It looks really nice, and Yaakov was kind enough to say afterwards, "Thank you Ariella for doing that for me."


Samples below:

A Dance Performance: A Review

First, welcome to a new link - some of you alert Loyal Readers may have noticed that you can now access JRNS directly from aliyahbyaccident! JRNS is, of course, the world-renowned Jonathan Rose News Service, your (only) source for all the latest and greatest updates about Jonathan Rose! (My brother-in-law, for those keeping tabs on the family tree.)

Some recent reviews of JRNS:
"If you want to know what Jonathan will be doing for Shabbat, this is the place to turn to!" (Me)
"I am number one in Google search for 'JRNS'!" (Jonathan)

So please hop on over to his site and take a look around. Those of you out there who always wanted to know what Jonathan Rose's friends think of his deli roll, you will find your answers here!
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Tonight I had the privilege of attending a very unique performance. It took place in my living room, and I had a front row seat, ticket courtesy of the performers . What is truly amazing about this show was that the dancers had only one night to practice, and I must say, they pulled it off flawlessly.

The performance was a choreographed dance routine, set to the music of a Jewish holiday tape. (Sorry, CD. Can you believe I still say tape?) There was much spinning, twirling, rolling around on the floor, and high-flying leaps onto the couch. The dancers coordinated their moves in perfect unison. My personal favorite was the Yom Kippur forgiveness song, where the dancers shook hands and hugged each other. I also enjoyed the dreidel song, during which the dancers spun each other around, then fell gracefully onto the floor.

Occasionally, the Head Choreographer would pause to helpfully explain the symbolism of the dance moves to the audience. ("We're pretending to shake a lulav.") Also, there were some snack breaks in between, and sometimes during, the songs. ("I'm going to have a bite of my sandwich now.")

During the second half, however, the beauty and precision of the choreography fell a bit. The routine became a rather frantic, hectic jumble of running around, shrieking, and bumping into each other. The performers began pulling each other around in a laundry basket, then tipped each other over onto the floor. As a spectator, I was, of course, nervous they would harm themselves. Luckily, the dance ended with the performers intact.

Overall, I was wowed with the choreography and beauty of the performance, despite the laundry basket incident. If anyone happens to be in our apartment over the next few days, and is able to catch a few snatches of this one-of-a-kind dance routine, I am sure you will be similarly impressed.

Tarjan!

Thank you to all readers and commenters for your b'shaah tovahs! Nothing like announcing a pregnancy to get people to comment! I highly recommend this tactic to all bloggers out there.

Some updates:

Yogurt, Yogurt, Everywhere and Not a Drop of Bread
Yaakov has been enjoying his "lechem-free" lunches. Now, of course, he's pushing for chocolate yogurt.....

In Which We Get a Visit From Tarjan!
Yaakov came home yesterday singing a lovely new song: "Mi hamelech hakofim? Tarjan! Tarjan! Mi hamelech hakofim? Tarjan! Tarjan!" He's never heard of "Tarzan," naturally, but he now knows allll about "Tarjan!" Well, actually, all he knows is that he's "melech hakofim" (king of the monkeys) and that he only wears tachtonim! How awesome is that! In fact, today, when we bought our own Melech HaKofim some new undies, he insisted on stripping the moment we got home, donning his new skivvies, and dancing around the house singing "Mi hamelech hakofim? Tarjan! Tarjan!" Sing along!

Who Wants Some Strawberry Shortcake? I Know I Do!
So Ariella has been in desperate need of some little elves. Her shoes (all of four months old) have massive holes in the bottoms. We laid out the shoes every night, for the little guys, but to no avail; come morning, the holes remained.

Probably the elves had spent hours trying to figure out which floor we're on (because, as you know, in Israel, we don't name our apartments something sensible, like "5A," thereby letting visitors know that it is on the FIFTH floor. Rather, they are simply assigned numbers - "18" - and visitors have to first figure out how many apartments are on each floor, and then divide the apartment number by that the number of apartments, and then possibly subtract one if there's a remainder. This is why Israel has yet to send someone to the moon. We only get as far as the lobby.) So anyway, elves, never the brightest dudes, probably they got all flummoxed and frustrated and just gave up.

In any case, she needed new shoes. So today, off we trooped to the shoe store. We were looking at all manner of pink and purple sneakers, when Ariella's eyes lighted upon two gobs of Pink Frosting. No, sorry, they were actually shoes, but in the pinkiest pink you can ever imagine. And there was little Strawberry Shortcake, in all her strawberry loveliness, on the velcro.
Now, normally I am very anti-character anything. Clothing, shoes, backpacks, pajamas, etc. I don't even like toy characters to have characters. But then I saw that the Strawberry shoes were NIS 60 cheaper than the other shoes.

And suddenly I was a HUGE fan of Strawberry Shortcake. I mean, come on, she's adorable! With that big old puffy hat and everything! I love that chick! Characters rock!

So Ariella was thrilled she got pinkedy pink pink Strawberry Shortcake shoes. Yaakov was happy he got Tarjan tachtonim. And I saved NIS 60 to put toward my Ice Cream Fund. A good deal all around.

Lunch; or, Mah Pitom???

All year I have been force-feeding my son sandwiches for aruchat eser. This is because I learned my lesson last year. At the beginning, when we were fresh off the boat, I tried to send Ariella to gan with rice cakes, or pasta, since she's not much of a sandwich kid. I was told, "Mah pitom?" Aruchat eser is to consist of a sandwich, a fruit/veggie and THAT'S IT. I think I even blogged about it at some point. It definitely made an impression on us.

This year I have tried to be a good gan parent. I know that Yaakov's class washes and does birkat hamazon, so I assumed (and there's where it alllll goes downhill) that the same rules applied. You MUST bring in bread for washing; you CAN'T bring in anything else.

Now, I should have been a little wiser, having been introduced to the Theory of Random Gan Rules. (In first grade, things seem to be pretty standard, across the board. Ariella, and her first grade Chashmonaim counterparts went on the same tiyul (Goose World) and had the same Letter Party.) However, the each gan is a kingdom unto itself, with the head ganenet reporting directly to the Prime Minister.

To wit:
"You must bring a lunchbox to school."
"Do NOT, under any circumstances, bring a lunchbox to school!"

"Only ONE parent may come to the party."
"Both parents MUST come to the party."
"Parents MAY NOT attend the party, under pain of death."

"The parent of the Shabbat Abba/Ima is expected to come in and talk about the parsha."
"Parents attending when your child is Shabbat Abba/Ima? MAH PITOM??!!!" [Insert Israeli "tsk tsk tsk" here.]

But I did not learn my lesson. So all year I've been trying to find something Yaakov will eat on, with, or next to bread. Jelly. Various cheese spreads. Plain sliced cheese. A hard boiled egg. (He already hates peanut butter and chummus.) I actually had to receive this note in my child's lunchbox, "Please stop sending cheese. Yaakov does not eat it." Which, of course, I read as, "You twit. Don't you know what your own kid likes????"

Finally, in desperation, I started giving him a piece of plain bread along with his fruit/veggie. And even that, he would only deign to eat one circle from the middle and no more. The only sandwich he gobbles up with gusto is his Friday chocolate sandwich, but though I have been known to let him eat cookies (on occasion) for breakfsat, I couldn't lower myself to a daily chocolate sandwich. At least with jelly I can pretend there's some nutritional value. So I relied on the old standby - if he was really starving, he'd eat the damn bread.

And that's how it came to be that on a clear, sunny Sunday morning (5 months into the school year), when I dropped off Yaakov, I innocently asked the teacher, "So they have to bring bread to aruchat eser, right? Because you all wash and bentch together?"

The reply?

"Mah pitom? Send him what he likes to eat! We all say the brachot together, but he doesn't have to bring bread. We've been meaning to tell you, in fact, that he doesn't like his plain bread."

So now, a whole new world of food is open to us. Today he brought a Gamadim to school. And, I believe, ate it.

Well, as the saying goes in our house right now, "At least we'll get it right for little Punja." (Don't worry, it's just a placeholder name, created by Yaakov. Check back in May - God willing - for both the real name and to see how, despite our best efforts, we continue to bumble our way through parenthood.)

Sponga Bottoms

First, I thought I would share an excellent Random Bag experience today. At Rami Levi (where I met LISA and we shmoozed in the fruit aisle while simultaneously holding up shopper traffic), I was bagging my stuff, as usual, and the kupait was sitting there, watching me, as usual. (PS what happened to the baggers they had at RL? Haven't seen them in a while. Miss them I do.) So the last bag, the result of my frantic bagging efforts, had the usual eclectic assortment of goodies: Tu B'shvat fruits, garlic, pears. And a sponga bottom. And then I thought - to quote the inimitable (but whom I've made it my life's work to nimitate) Dave Barry - "Sponga Bottoms would be a great name for a rock band."
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So Yaakov returned to gan today, baruch Hashem. It turns out he wasn't quite cured on Thursday, so spent another day at home on Friday. Shabbos he was feeling better and today he (read: I) was rearing to get back to gan. Actually, Yaakov would have liked nothing more than to stay in pjs at home, so getting him dressed in the morning required a feat worthy of She-Ra, Princess of Power. He was not happy to go to gan, but when we got there, the teacher told him that there were treats leftover from the birthday parties on Friday. Turns out everybody had the "shilshul" and a whopping 10 kids were out! Now, in a class of approximately 517, maybe that's a drop in the bucket, but still. He was mollified by the treats, thankfully, and forgot all about me as I said goodbye and slipped out the door.

This afternoon, Yaakov had an "activity" at tzaharon, to which parents were cordially invited (i.e. forced) to attend. The activity started at 3:30, even though tzaharon ends at 4:30. I was feeling very snippy about having to attend an activity during working hours, especially because Sunday is my Crazy Day. In addition to the dreaded Food Shopping, I tutor in Shoham, about 15 minutes away, and finish at 3:30, then rush out to get Ariella and pick up Yaakov. In order to attend this "activity" (note: the continued use of quotation marks is because I'm still feeling snippy) the following arrangements had to be made:

1. Rearrange my tutoring. I told the mom I would leave 30 minutes early, at 3:00, and add on the missing time to other days.

2. Ariella. I couldn't find a playdate for her, so another mom and I decided we'd bring the girls (who have brothers in the gan) and let them play at the park outside gan during this "activity." This involved the following:

2a. Ariella's pick-up. In order to avoid the 10-minute affair that is picking up Ariella (park, go in, drag her away from her coloring/homework/friends, have show and tell - "this is my new seat, this is what we did in science, this is a picture I drew," etc., then pack up, forget the sweatshirt, run back for the sweatshirt, get in the car...), I told Ariella I wanted her packed up and waiting for me. She wore her watch, and I wrote her a reminder note that said, "3:15, pack up - tik, sweatshirt. 3:20 Wait outside on the turtle."

2b. Prepare the Stranger Speech. I was more than fine with her playing at the park right outside with her friend, but we had never had the Stranger With Candy and a Car speech, so I prepared a very serious talk to have with her on the way to gan.

So we were ALL PREPARED for this blessed event. Tutoring, check. Ariella, check, check, check. At 2:00, I arrive in Shoham for tutoring. My phone rings. The Caller ID says Gan Almog. Never a good sign. I panic - oh god, is he sitting in a puddle of poop? (Sorry for the indelicate phrasing, but it does have nice alliteration). It's the morah. "What happened? Is he okay?" I bark.

"Yes, hakol b'seder," she replied tiredly. Clealry this was not the first time today she had answered this question. "The activity for today is cancelled. We wanted to let you know." (Imagine having to call 517 parents in the middle of the day, all of whom greet you with, "Ohmy god is my kid okay????")

So all our planning, fwoop, out the window, down the drain, in the toilet. Ariella was devastated that she lost her hour of playing at the park; Yaakov blithely carried on, never having totally understood what was flying in the first place.

The worst part is not that all my Carefully Laid Plans were for nothing. It's that they are going to reschedule this "activity." And then I will have to do all. This. Again.