speaking about guilt...

Okay, now my guilt for not wanting to play has gone public. Check out my comments in this month's Parenting Magazine article about Mommy Guilt.

learning to play

A couple of months ago I got a flyer in the mail about a class a supposedly well-known psychologist was teaching about learning to play with your children. I almost threw it away with the junkmail, but then stopped to read further about how because play is so important for a child's growth and development, that as a parent, it is also your responsibility to learn to nurture this activity and play with your child. And, that being a "good player" and letting your child lead helps them develop confidence and leadership skills.


Seriously?


I believe I'd do pretty much everything to make sure my kids are well nurtured, cared for, loved, and educated. They play sports, love art, music, and they're learning a second language. I work outside the home, I work inside the home, I make lunches (okay, that doesn't always work out perfectly), read them stories and books while cuddling, and I tuck them lovingly into bed 6 out of 7 nights a week.


And now I'm supposed to feel guilty because I don't play with them? Or rather, I don't play with them correctly?


I do play with them sometimes. I love playing outside and running around the jungle gym pretending with them that the grass is hot lava. I love hide and seek (for at least a bit), and I love wrestling on the rug with them in tussles that usually end with a lot of tickling. I don't mind dressing up baby dolls sometimes and I get a kick out of Samuel's storylines when he's pestered into playing Barbies with Talia and ends up having his stuffed animals and action figures force Barbie and her gal pals out of their Dream House and onto the playroom street. There are games I love to play with them. So why should I have to learn to play the ones I don't?


The pamphlet said learning to let the child lead and even be bossy is a good thing, and that the parent should go along with them. Or when playing a game that involves winning and losing, you should wean your child gently into losing by letting them win fewer and fewer games. What about learning consequences? What about learning that if you can't play by the rules, your friends won't want to play with you, nevermind your mom and dad? What about learning that everyone likes to win sometimes?


And the literature repeated a couple of times that when your child is grown, s/he won't be remembering how clean the kitchen was--that playing with your child is much more worthwhile. I'll buy that. And I practice that for the most part and don't really work or do many chores while the kids are up. But even that seems questionable. Isn't it okay for your kid to know that chores aren't always fun and that the sparkly dishes fairy doesn't come in the middle of the night to do them? And, to be perfectly honest, tonight, after getting Naomi to bed and Tali was at her t-ball game, Samuel wanted me to play this story game he'd created with his K'nex and all I really wanted to do after a long day was process the day and do the dishes... very... quietly... without... talking.


"Please, Mommy. We're never alone," he says to me. Okay, I'm a sucker. So I sit down to play with these figures he's made and I can't for the life of me figure out how they're supposed to look like people and robots, but I do admire his creativity. The storyline is that this one robot has gone from good to evil and his suckers will suck up anything, even little K'nex boys. We scream and make the little figures run and it is fun. For exactly 1.75 minutes. And then I'm done. I can't think about what to make my guy say and all I want to do is the dishes. Or anything else.

"Maybe we can play something like Scrabble?" I suggest. Samuel is an incredible Scrabble player for a seven year old.


"Mommmmmmyyy... Just play this," he says. He wants me there. So play or not, I hang out with him for a while longer.


The thing is, I know he knows I don't want to play the game, but that I want to be with him. And I can tell he's okay with that, which makes me feel proud of him. We stay like that until Boaz and Tali get home from the game and the house is loud again. But for awhile, we sit silently, Samuel moving his figures along to a story in his head and then sometimes just looking up and smiling while I just sit with him. And we're both getting something we need.

naomi at 22 months...

Here's a photo Boaz took of Naomi last weekend at 22 months. Too bad she's got veggie booty residue all over her yummy cheeks, but that girl loves her some veggie booty. La.

Oops, I did it again...

I couldn't resist the silly Britney pun, but damn, I did it again last night! Another lunch, another pot. I need to invest in some new cookware and a timer with the volume of a bullhorn.

why i hate making lunches...

There are, of course, worse experiences to experience, but that said, making lunches has got to be the most painful, expensive, and loathsome task. I wish I could love setting out their lunchboxes and lovingly installing in them wholesome and delicious snacks and lunches that they would then devour during snack and lunchtime, and that afterwards, they'd feel refreshed and energized and ready to learn (or ready to learn to share, sing new songs, sit in circle, and play nicely with their friends). Also, they would use the napkin I'd carefully folded and included with their lunch and not the hem of their shirt, dress, or sleeve.



This is pure fantasy.

First there are a lot of restrictions. All three schools (yes, three schools and I don't want to talk about it) are kosher and lunches need to be dairy. Also, no peanuts because of nut allergies. So already, we're little stuck. Plus, Samuel doesn't like cheese or dairy or tofu. Or bread. Just meat and peanut butter.

Usually, I get to daycare and Naomi's teacher will say something to me like, "Hmm, so strange... Naomi ate absolutely nothing today except for a few bites of yogurt. And she seemed to totally hate her sandwich." (Nevermind that during the weekend she gobbled down two of the exact same sandwich, but I digress...)

Tali will politely say, "You know, I just didn't have time to eat everything." Which is sweet, and I can take pride in the fact that the girl has some good manners developing, But she managed to have time to eat her chocolate chip cookie (baked with bran and flax seed, mind you. I'm not sending complete crap in their lunches). Just not the avocado and cheese sandwich that she loves at home.

And I've tried thermos bowls of soup or noodles or rice and veggies... I've tried veggie sushi, burritos, bagels, everything. But when you get all that hard work returned to you at the end of the day untouched, except that it's now sort of smelly and squished, it's just degrading. Maybe that's too strong of a word for it, but it's just not nice.

Samuel is my one lunchbox success story. I've found out that the one way to get protein into Samuel for lunches is to give him eggs. The kid has never met an egg he didn't want to eat (and this has actually been an issue when we had to discuss why hardboiled eggs should never be stored for "just in case" in your backpack). The kid has a good appetite and if I give him two eggs, or an egg salad sandwich, he's really set. However, that means that I have to make the egg salad or hard boil the eggs, which isn't all that difficult, but at the end of a seemingly endless day, sometimes this happens:







These are eggs that have been hardboiled for two hours while I got distracted by watching "You Suck at Photoshop" videos on YouTube with Boaz and then folding laundry and then answering some email and then working on a deck I needed to do for work. Note the fact that all of the water has been boiled down. Note the fact that the pot has burned profusely and is pretty much ruined. Note the fact that I used the last four eggs from the carton.

Samuel had a cheese sandwich for lunch today. I can't wait to see it again tonight.

tali and her babs in all her glory cake

Becky's Barbie birthday cake reminded me that I never posted a photo of Tali's Barbie birthday cake. That cake was a turning point in both our lives (mine and Tali's). She was a bit terrified, but also quite entranced, and she and her friend Lily loved (eating while) decorating the cake with little candies and frosting. And well, I got the cake I always wanted as a kid. So there.

camp runamucka--next gen

My cousin, Becky, and her son, Ben, came to visit us last week from Madison. Becky and I have always considered ourselves half sisters since our mothers are identical twins and since Samuel and Ben were only born weeks apart, they're practically quarter brothers, or something. Anyway, it was so great to have them around and so wonderful to give our kids the family bonding time known in our family as Camp Runamucka...

Oh wait... It was so squishy in that tiny booth with six people... Here's one with all of us (sorta):

During this camp session, our campers participated in a number of different activities. Here are some we may add to the brochure for next year:


Here we see Ben practicing the fine art of eye rolling. Samuel is doing it, too, but you can't tell since all you can see is his head.



Here Becky and Tali participating in a favorite camp activity. Note Becky's fine, fine hairdo... Hair-doing is a fave of camp sports, especially for Tali. Here's a close-up of Tali's work. She would've gotten an award for this talent, except that we never got to our camper awards this year.


Pretty do...

Here are Tali and Noemi playing charades. Noemi was surprising good even though she really can't tell the difference very well between a television show, movie, or book. Still, she was quite enthusiastic. She also played very fairly for both teams.

The grownups (at least Becky, Boaz, and I) were allowed one survival trip out into the wilds of Seattle's downtown... on Saturday night... all by ourselves! We were overwhelmed by freedom... (you can see the fear in our eyes!)

But mostly, it was an amazing chance to see our kids bond with each other. It was so incredibly wonderful to see Ben and Samuel playing and conspiring and giggling with each other in the same way that Becky and I did as kids.

We all woke up the morning after Ben and Becky left feeling like our house was way too empty and we're still missing them. I loved Camp Runamucka and can't wait for the next session. La.

taking over the legacy--play ball!

Talia is playing T-ball. And, she likes sports. This makes me so happy...
I can't believe I've become a proponent of team sports, having been a miserable failure at them myself. But I feel that I've missed out on something having not played them. It seems like such a great idea--learning how to work together as a team to achieve success. Surely, it's a skill that can take a kid a long way. And as a side benefit, you get lots of fresh air and exercise.

When I asked if she was interested in playing, Talia surprised me by saying she absolutely was. She'd gone to her big brother's games and she didn't like hanging out on the sidelines. Plus, she has so much energy and nothing makes her happier than running around outside. But her friends have been talking up ballet lately and Tali was thinking about trying it again. And at the last minute, she went the way of T-ball because we'd signed up Samuel--she didn't want to be left out.

"I want to play, Mommy. I want to be a Maccabee," she says, referring to the one team in our league that doesn't play on Shabbat.

Alright then. But I totally flashed back to the time I was nine and tried out for Little League with my brother. Through sheer luck, I managed to hit the ball and catch a few balls and landed myself onto the Mustang league (which was, to my delight, a higher level than the Pinto league my brother was playing on). But during the first game, I blanked and after hitting the ball, I ran the bases the wrong way. Everyone laughed and I walked out out of the game for good. Baseball was not going to be my game.

But, Tali... She's my second chance and I know you're not supposed to live your lives through your kids, but she's so strong and determined... I know she's going to be great.

So after the first practice, I was excited to hear about how it went. Boaz said she had an impressive arm. (Is that how you even say that?)

"What did you do at practice?" I asked. "Did you catch the ball? Did you hit?"
"Well," she said excitedly. "It was so much fun. I threw and catched the ball, but I didn't hit because we didn't use bats yet--we only played with balls and mittens."

"Mittens?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said with obvious disdain in her voice. "You catch with them, Mommy."

Ah, the legacy continues...

happy #5 to tali...

I can't believe my girl is five today.





Five is a totally new world. She is no longer a baby, but a strong girl who loves to run, play, draw, and learn. She is so determined to be bigger, smarter, faster, stronger and all of that seems so far away to her that it makes her want it even more. She can't wait to start school next year, can't wait to read chapter books, can't wait to be in the next gymnastics class, and while I'm so proud of her energy, and I know it makes her the strong person she is today, my birthday wish for my girl is to slow down.

I know that is an impossible thing to tell a kid, and especially my kid who hasn't really had a slow day since she was born. (This is the kid who was born less than ten minutes after we got to the hospital...) I want her to enjoy how magic five will be. I want her to enjoy this year where she'll start kindergarten, probably finally lose that already loose tooth, meet new friends, and all the amazing, new things she'll do this year.

It's a lost cause, I know. Already she seems older and it's absolutely intentional. This morning we stopped by Top Pot for a birthday doughnut treat and she started to ask for her usual favorite pink rainbow sprinkle and then stopped.

"Now that I'm five, I'm going to try something new. I'll have that one," she said, pointing to a chocolate with maple frosting. And then she added "Please!"

But after we got it and she'd taken a few bites, she put it down. "Don't you like it?" I asked.

"Actually," she said. "I don't like it. It smells like coffee--it doesn't taste good." And then she took a breath. "And because I'm five, I'm not going to get really mad about it. But I am really sad about it."

At this point, I was ready to go back and get her the tried and true pink rainbow sprinkle, but knowing that I'd blow the whole thing, I held back, too.

However, maturity of the day was forgotten when at bedtime, after a deadly boring Dora video (according to Tali, that's actually a birthday treat) and ice cream, she had a fit when I turned off the television.

"What happened to behaving like a five year old?" I asked as I lifted her up from the floor where she was freaking out.

She stopped crying and looked at me. "I am behaving like a five year old." she said frankly. And then laughed.

Touche.

So then I took her suddenly snuggly five year old self to bed where she promptly fell asleep.



Happy Birthday to my dear, dear five year old. I guess we'll both learn this year how fast and slow can play nice with each other.

real sisters...

I think it's finally happening... It's that turning point where siblings aren't just the older one and the new baby, or the big kid and the little one who always gets into your stuff and turns your favorite Legos and Polly Pocket accessories into their own lethal weapons. I think that Tali and Naomi are finally becoming friends. At least a little bit.



Last night as I was asking, then telling, then telling her for the last time, and then yelling at Talia to hang up the dress she'd tossed onto the floor after changing into her jammies, Naomi just looked at me like I was insane. She then picked up the dress and stuffed it into an open drawer. Then she looked at the two of us as if we were the biggest morons on earth ("Geez, even a baby can put the dress away!"). Tali jumped up and hugged Naomi.



"Noemi! You stuck up for me! And you cleaned up for me! We're going to be best friends!" And Naomi, of course, was thrilled to be given that kind of attention from her big sister.



That night, after I put them both to bed, I heard them giggling and talking in the dark. It was the first time they'd ever done it, and it was terribly sweet. I sat on the floor in the hallway listening to them until I could tell Naomi had fallen asleep and then went in to say goodnight to Tali again.



"Look, Mama... I put her blankets back on her and tucked her in snug." Tali looked pleased with herself. "Do you think that she'll clean up for me every night?"

noemi loves socks

I've got another girl who is very into what she wears... Specifically, Naomi is obsessed with socks, and not only her own socks, but Talia's socks. Yesterday she dug out her sister's ladybug knee socks and refused to take them off, or to cover them with pants. This is the outfit she wore for most of the day...

(Try to ignore the toothbrush under the piano bench--we seem to have become the sort of household that keeps its hygiene items in odd places.)

overheard from the backseat...

...while driving Talia to school in the morning:

(sung to the tune of "Let it Snow..." or something sort of close to that tune, but not really super close)

"Oh, the weather outside is freezing...
And now our Lord is wheezing
Oh, He has to cough a lot
Oh, He has a lot of snot so we should go to the ER and fix Him up..."


Not sure what to make of this. Maybe cold season has officially begun?

enough said...

the tests have begun...

Last week, Samuel took his first real test--a spelling test--the kind you have to study for. And because I wanted his test taking career to get off on the right foot, we studied for it all week until Thursday morning. I say "we studied for it" because really, it seems clear to us now that second grade homework is for the parents, as well.

The spelling list had all of the regular beginning of second grade words like "hat," "man," and "pat," but then it also had the bonus words that were taken from their math lesson and included "equation," "digit," "addition," "probability," and "addend."

Apparently, practice does make perfect (thanks, Franklin!) and though S wasn't completely sure he needed the constant drilling from his freaky mom, he went along with my madness. And when he came home at the end of the day, this is what he had to show me:

And this is the proud boy:

one of the last sunny days...

you never know what you'll find in a diaper...

Naomi is not really one to complain when she needs a change. Maybe that's because she's the third or because she's just an easy going kid (heh heh), but today after services, while trying to get her into her stroller (a task that is becoming increasingly difficult since she now wants to push the stroller--with an older sibling in it!), she had a total fit so I figured I'd better change her before we left.

The bathroom was crowded in the synagogue and the changing table is close to the door so that everyone coming in greets whichever baby happens to be getting changed at that point. It's an odd spot, because even I find it hard to coo over a baby who is having his/her dirty diaper changed.

So as I was changing Naomi's pants, an older women I didn't know began cooing and fussing over Naomi while I tried to hold her down and all of a sudden the woman looks a bit concerned and says, "Oh my..." I look at the diaper I've just opened and in addition to the usual, there is a 4x6 index card with smiley face on it.

"That must have been very uncomfortable," the woman says to me, giving me a look that pretty much says, 'what kind of a mother hides pictures in her baby's diaper.'

"Yeah, wow. Very strange," I say.

Just as I'm finishing up with Naomi, Talia comes hopping in and I say, "You will never guess what I found in Naomi's diaper--a smiley face drawing!"

"I knew that, Mommy," she says giggling. "It was a surprise for you!"

Nice. Who doesn't love a surprise?

regret starts early

It’s been two weeks since she’s nursed and she didn’t even seem to notice or miss it, but this morning, Naomi climbed on top of me and looked at me questioningly before hesitantly pulling at my shirt.
“Mama?” she asked.
“There’s nothing there, Baby,” I said and her completely and clearly distraught expression made me realize she truly understood, though she rejected the bottle I’d made for her.

Apparently the ability to feel regret starts so early that even a fourteen month old can feel that sort of loss. We’d both moved on so quickly—me looking forward to having my body to myself again (and maybe a bit more sleep) and my daughter eyeing that fat, warm easy bottle—and as we both sat there silently, I knew that what we shared at that moment was regret at the fact that greediness got the best of us.

At least we were in it together.

doogie howser says wear SPF 50

Since skin cancer runs in my family, yesterday I went for my annual skin check to make sure none of my moles have taken on a melanomic look to them. Actually, the truth is that it wasn't an annual visit, but more like a tri-annual (is that right?) visit because I haven't been to the dermatologist for a skin visit for more than three years, despite the fact that everytime a different doctor looks at my history (and since I had a baby a year ago, that has been quite often), they say "Wow, with your history, you should get yourself checked yearly."

But I digress... Sort of. Because it had been so long since I'd been to the dermatologist, I couldn't remember my doctor's name, and even though I looked in all of my old phone books and online at the clinic's site, nothing sounded familiar. So when I called for an appointment, they assigned me to whoever was there and that's how I met Doogie Howser.

I was sitting there in my underclothes and one of those gowns when the door knocked and in came a fifteen year old guy in a white coat. Seriously, he looked so young I don't know how he could possibly be the resident he said he was. It was such an odd experience because I'd heard my parents talk about how odd it was to have doctors younger than you, and I'm not so young that the situation couldn't have happened to me. But all of a sudden I was pretty sure I would not be able to lift up my gown to show this young guy all my icky moles on a body that has birthed three children. I never thought I'd care whether or not my doctor was male or female or what age, but I guess that's changed and maybe I'm old. Or just vain.

Eventually I pulled myself together because it had taken me three years to get there and I had pretty much talked myself into a nasty case of melanoma with a mark on my arm, so I pretended he was a seventy year old woman and tried to forget that I was wearing a nursing bra, and the only real rough spot was when he saw the scar below my ribs (from a previous excision) and said, "Wait, isn't your appendix on the other side?" Oh wait, maybe the rougher spot was when he said it was his first day...

But either way, I walked out with a clean bill of health (a nice, older doctor did a final check) and big bottle of SPF50.

Free for another year...

naomi is 1!

Naomi is one year old... It's unbelievable how fast this year went by and I can't believe the baby is one. On the one hand, it's so exciting because she's doing all of these new things. She's trying so hard to walk and to talk and we're all getting to really see who she really is, which is this sweet, sweet, funny, smart girl who loves to laugh.

But it's also the tiniest bit bittersweet because I keep trying to hold on to the little things that just fly by. All of a sudden, she doesn't want to be cuddled for long because she has so many new places to go and new things to try and stick in her gummy mouth (where oh where are my daughter's teeth? how many one year olds don't have any teeth???). She wants to feed herself and push the stroller and hold her own cup. They're all good things in creating a strong independent person. But still, I feel the tiniest bit sad even though the trade-off is so good.

But mostly, it's sweet. I wish I could can the sound of her laughing when her brother or sister tickle her under her chin, or the way she yells "Ta Ta" or "Ba Ba" to them when they walk in the room.

And luckily, I don't have to try to remember how happy she makes us all feel. It's amazing to have this little person that we're all in love with all the time.

(hey, it's a birthday... i get to be sappy.)

a new look at spring...

“That is so unbearably cool,” Samuel says as he watches me get driving directions from an online site. “Is that the map of our city? Where’s our street? Can I do it? Where can I go?” And then he sighed, "I can't believe you can do this. It's so amazing."

He is obsessed with computers. We’ve given him our old iBook and it is very definitely his most prized possession. He loves the video games, especially Club Penguin, which is now my favorite game, too, because it’s so interactive, free from adult marketers and marketing (so says the marketer), plus he gets a kick out of going to the coffeeshop, picking up one of the books on the shelf in there, and settling into a good story. It makes him feel grown-up, which I suppose, is definitely a part of growing up.

And today, right after asking about how our bodies know to breathe, he asked how wireless connectivity works and what a router is. He's learning how the world works, how our bodies work, and while computers were a hobby when we were kids, it's now an integral part of our lives. They're everywhere in his life. So along with "Why is the sky blue?", we're getting "How does Bluetooth work?" And once when wondering about G-d, Samuel even suggested googling for more information.

It's definitely a new world. The Charlie Brown Encyclopedia better come up with a new edition.

We're working on our answers and setting screen limits and installing safety software, and urging him not to respond to his desire (at least for now) to take the computer apart to see how it works .

It's finally spring. The flowers are coming up, it's gorgeous and amazing outside, and the days are long and getting longer. All of the excitement of being a kid and playing outside until bedtime is still there. And though I love Samuel's intense interest in all things networked and digital, there's a lot to be said for getting outside, pretending the playset is a fort, and scrambling up the slide to avoid the "lava grass." There's a lot to be said for just feeling the new spring grass on barefeet and dripping popsicles all over you.

There's a lot to be said for disconnecting.