sharonaf

News!

2009-07-14T19:17:44Z

Ok, so I didn't post instantly...
But I am pleased to announce that my daughter, Ilana Henya, was born on Thursday morning at 10:04 a.m., at a respectable weight of 7 lb. 4 oz. and 20 inches tall.

And, despite my doctors' concern when they sent me in to be induced (so far I have never gone into labor on my own except that scary incident when I was 23 weeks with Shlomo...), she did not show any signs of distress when she was born. During the labor at one point she appeared to be in trouble and I wound up on oxygen trying to keep her going, which was not reassuring, but all turned out well!

So, she's adorable--obviously!--a good eater, and very curious about the world. Phillip posted a picture on OnlySimchas with her beautiful eyes wide open, which makes me smile. Shlomo's an excellent and very affectionate big brother so far (must work on not taking baby out of her chair without help from Ima and Abba...) and does not appear to be suffering serious jealousy yet. Hope he won't! Phillip is a very proud Abba, and I'm quite happy as well, and feeling better than expected for just 5 days later.

We came home Saturday night, and I discovered that my computer had died in my absense, which explains why I haven't posted this yet. hoping to get someone to look at it soon.

So, mazal tov, all! We're hoping to arrange a kiddush for this Shabbos at the YI of Ave. J--let me know if you're in the neighborhood and I'll get you some more details!

Worrisome News from Boston

2009-07-07T01:49:13Z

The Bostoner Rebbe, the religious leader in whose synagogue I grew up and who has advised my family and me for the last forty years and more, is currently in the ICU of an Israeli hospital, having suffered a heart attack and now facing deteriorating liver and kidney function.
I found out during work today, but managed to block it while I was there. Only now, having spoken to both Phillip and my mother about it, is it really hitting me.
The Rebbe is a very special person. I can only say that I pray he'll recover fully and be himself for many years to come. But I'm definitely scared. He is not a young man anymore.
Thanks, Yehoshua--his name is indeed Levi Yitzchak ben Sara Sasha. I appreciate the thought!

Also...

2009-01-23T16:09:42Z

I thought it was appropriate to place this in a separate post, so as not to call up mixed feelings in people.

I know that often people don't talk about this until they hear of it happening to someone else, but I feel like that removes a certain support network from others. Additionally, I feel it's important that people know these things happen, and that they are very common.

Therefore, I feel prepared to mention what happened during the later part of the summer. I made on my LJ another cryptic reference to having to take it easy for a while, stating that my medical condition was not scary, it just Was.

We had initially hoped to welcome a new member of the family in April. Sadly, that baby had been created to have a very short lifespan, and we lost it over the summer. The miscarriage was not objectively dramatic, although obviously it had a huge emotional impact on us. It was a complete miscarriage, thank God, and I did not need to undergo surgery. Nonetheless, for the weeks thereafter, I was supposed to avoid overdoing things, in order to guard my own health.

Obviously I will always remember that pregnancy, and that baby, and I will miss having a chance to raise it, but I know that it was neither intended to nor capable of living more than those few weeks inside of me. I have come to terms with that--told myself I had to before I tried to become pregnant again! That was its full life span, and the baby we are looking forward to meeting in July is a completely separate entity, and its own person. And we are thrilled. At the same time as I still miss the other baby.

Who, me?

2009-01-23T16:02:00Z

*flutters eyelashes*
When have I ever made cryptic references before telling people what I'm talking about?
*is innocent*

Thank God, as it happens, we are looking forward to welcoming a new member of the family in early July (due date July 7), and are very excited about it! I've discovered that for me pregnancy is not in fact any easier the second time around, despite the oft-cited statement that, "You don't notice the exhaustion as much, because you're too busy running around after the older child!"

So I'm coming up on 17 weeks, starting to get my energy back, and a whole lot more rounded than I remember being with Shlomo at this point. I understand one shows a lot faster after the first child... Dr.'s visits so far have been good, kid looks and sounds healthy and active. I'm looking forward to those first few kicks!

Is this the little boy I carried?

2009-01-22T16:06:05Z

My little boy has used the potty!
He did it for the first time last week Sunday, but I thought perhaps it was a fluke--he occasionally sits on it and perhaps it just happened.
We're off from school this week, and today he requested to go to the potty before his nap. Then he just sat down, and went!
So proud!
He's napping now, though.
My big boy... every time I think about what he couldn't do even six months ago, I'm amazed. He's 22 months old now, appears to be potty-training himself and recently helped me: shovel snow (all right, he wasn't much help, but neither was I till I was much older than he is now, and he had fun!), bake cookies (he helped mix and managed not to drool in the dough, with some assistance from me), sweep the pantry floor(believe it or not, it actually was useful to have someone available to carry the full dustpan to the garbage, even if he spilled some along the way), sort coins ("BIG ones!" vs. all the rest), repair a cabinet (I am never taking out the tool box while he's awake again...), and make up a grocery list (it is very distracting, by the way, to have a little voice intoning, "Onion... Carrot..." while you're trying to remember how much rice is left in the bag. And our onion and carrot supplies are quite healthy, in case you're wondering). And he's learning how to play, or not play, with the baby downstairs, which should be useful come July. Oh, and he's discovered his sense of smell, and now requires me to let him smell every spice jar before I season our food.
*shakes head* When they say time flies... they mean it.
I'm just glad that my philosophy throughout has been to appreciate every stage of his life and not restrain myself from sproinging with glee when he does something amazing or just adorable. Even though I have to send him to daycare for so many hours a day, I don't feel as though I've missed important parts of his life. I wish I'd been with him the whole time, but I know I've been enjoying him nonetheless.
And would you believe that neither "Loving" nor "Proud" count as moods in the list?

Purely theoretical question, of course...

2008-10-12T01:09:10Z

If there was a guy who lives in a car at the corner of the block who wears a kippa, has a tallis bag in his back seat, and seems very pleasant and embarassed through the filter of a foreign accent, and no one had yet been able to do a background check on him, is it stupid to leave food on the roof of his car for him?

Stir-Crazy

2008-09-10T02:41:45Z

Due to a frustrating health issue, I have not been permitted to do serious exercise in nearly two weeks.

I would never have expected this to be a difficult instruction to obey.

However, I'm going mad! Apparently being forbidden from doing something, even sit-ups, make that something look awfully tempting. I wouldn't say I'm anxious to start jogging or anything out of character like that, but I'd really really enjoy doing my pilates video or dancing or going out for a nice long walk or /some/thing. I hate this inactivity. Also, of course, the stress of having the frustrating health issue makes me want to work out. Apparently that's how I react to stress. Who'd'a thunk?

*sighs*

At least I run around a lot at work, this time of year. And the frequent panics over children's dismissal procedures probably count as aerobic exercise...

(BTB, I'm fine, really I am. It's not a health issue to be worried over. That wasn't the point of the post. ;-))

Exhaustion

2008-08-26T14:45:11Z

When a toddler was up from 11:00 p.m. to nearly 4:00 a.m., here are some things the parent does not want to hear from the daycare provider in the morning:

-Oh, he must have been teething. You should have done something about it.

-You gave him tylenol?! Why would you give him tylenol? Every time you give him that you destroy his liver and his kidneys more! You should have done something else. Give him a drink or something to chew on. (Oh, yeah, like I didn't do that for the three hours before in desperation I reached for the tylenol?) But, *sighs* you're the mother.

-No, no, we won't give him extra nap time, it'll be much better for him to play. We'll take him outside to keep him up. (I did win this argument eventually and they backed down to, if he seemed tired, they'd let him sleep, they just wouldn't put him in for an extra nap if he didn't seem tired, and that's what they'd meant all along...)

-When he finishes his rice milk, we'll give him juice, right? (note of explanation: Shlomo drinks enriched rice milk and calls it juice--long story. No one believes us that he is never served apple juice at home)

-Water? But what if I give him water and he pushes it away? He says he wants juice!

I believe in response to that I said if he asks for juice he wants rice milk and they don't have any, so he's stuck with water. If he pushes it away it means he's not thirsty and he'll take it later.

Look, people, I slept about three hours last night and about five the night before (when we returned from Canada). Some people can function like that. I cannot. I was practically crying with frustration when I was trying to convince them to let him nap when he needs to. Why do they feel a need to fight me every step of the way? Who is paying whom?

Tomorrow is his last day in this place and next Weds. he'll return to the staff daycare here. Not a moment too soon.

Mazal Tov!

2008-07-30T02:19:25Z

The baby is named (Hebrew) Ora Chaya and (English) Clara Alice. Nis and Andrea seem inclined to call her Clara but do not object to others of her names being used. She looks frighteningly like Nis and even more like our cousin Naomi, but with darker hair and, unlike Nis, no scar--they're a mite obsessive about covering her hands, knowing the history of Nis's scar.

While we were in Atlanta, Shlomo weaned himself, which got a little complicated and uncomfortable as I wasn't /quite/ ready for it. I think it's getting there now.

(Special comment for people who have nursed/are nursing babies: I thank God for creating the cabbage. It is the most marvelous and underestimated vegetable on the planet. However, it does smell pretty bad.)

Gender Expectations

2008-07-24T16:02:35Z

It appears they are natural to me, though I wouldn't have predicted that.
I had to go to Town Hall (or whatever they call it, Borough Hall maybe?) today to get something done. On the way, as is my usual nervous practice, I ran through how the conversation with the clerk would likely go.
When I got to the line, I noticed that the clerk was a middle-aged person of indeterminate gender--either a not-particularly-attractive woman with very short hair and an uncommonly masculine voice, or a man wearing feminine jewelry and a woman's shirt.
Oddly enough, after my first reaction of, "Oh, this is New York, all right..." I found myself disoriented. It seems that my practice conversations all depended on knowing what gender the clerk would be. Not that I was going to say anything specific, but just... the image in my mind had either a female clerk or a male clerk. Not knowing about the person I was talking to really felt strange. I couldn't formulate how the conversation would go
This is not something I'm particularly proud of or ashamed about, I just found it interesting. Although I admit that my husband came up in the conversation, and I felt very bad about that--what if the person was a homosexual man cross-dressing and he doesn't appreciate hearing about other people's husbands since he is not allowed to have one in this state?
In any case, the clerk was very professional and helpful, and the paperwork got done amazingly quickly.

sharonaf @ 2008-07-17T10:13:00

2008-07-17T14:15:20Z

I'm an AUNTIE!
Actually maybe I'm not an auntie, maybe I should be a doda. Or a Tante. Oh well, I'll hash it out with Andrea's sister and we'll sort out who gets called what.

NIS HAD A BABY! A beautiful little girl who takes after my mother's side of the family so far. 19 inches long, 6 lb. 3 oz., and the most perfect baby in the world. Born at 5:30 this morning.

*sproings*

*wants to cuddle her right now*

Lesson Learned, check.

2008-07-14T02:58:38Z

When it's early in the morning and you're in bed pretending to be asleep, and your baby keeps walking over to you and bringing you used tissues, do not assume you are suddenly such a terrible housekeeper that your floor is covered with dirty tissues. Assume instead that your baby has located the garbage can.
Ok. Lesson learned. And sheets, hands and baby thoroughly washed. Oh, and spoon removed from the trash.
Now then, where does one get locks for garbage cans? ;-)

A kind thought unappreciated, a cure for thunder-phobia, and something else

2008-06-29T18:12:39Z

1) We share a washing machine and dryer with the downstairs neighbors. The other day, I was not able to pick up my laundry from the dryer before they needed to use it. Our MO has been that in such cases we'll leave the clean, dry laundry in the cloth bag inside the machine (in our case) or in a plastic garbage bag (theirs) near the machine. I guess my neighbor needed something for her kids to do, so they folded my laundry and came up the stairs and knocked on my door, giggling, for me to come pick it up.
A sweet thought, but it does bother me. I guess it's my privacy thing... I don't /need/ my neighbor's grade-school children sorting through my laundry. If it was the baby's stuff, fine, but this was mine. And I don't need them seeing my nightgowns and suchlike. Also of course now I have to fold theirs when they can't get to it in time. :-\ Trying to sort out how to ask them not to in the future.

2)Yesterday we had a very dramatic thunderstorm--and I think we're due for another one in a few minutes. The baby howled with every crash of thunder... until my brainstorm. I prepped him by saying a few times, "My goodness! How loud! BOOM! CRASH!" and after maybe twice he started giggling. Then with every crash of thunder I shouted, "BOOM! CRASH!" and after every flash of lightning I'd tell him to get ready. The first few times he laughed a little nervously, as though he knew I wanted him to relax and was trying. After a while he started laughing and shouting, "BOOM!" himself. It was adorable, and we were both disappointed when the storm ended. Plus, now I feel like a parenting genius. ;-)

And now I can't remember what the third thing was...

sharonaf @ 2008-06-18T15:54:00

2008-06-18T19:58:10Z

THEY'RE GONE!
I love the last day of school... the kids bounce off the walls, the teachers are cheerful and a little dazed...and then everyone goes home and I don't have to worry about them for two whole months. No more, 'Make sure Joe doesn't get lost in the playground'. No more, 'Where's the bus?!?' No more, "Bettany is going to Alfred's house after school today, no one will be at home for her."
The responsibility for the safety of nearly 400 children has lifted for two months, and I really do feel lighter.
And even the day-to-day school necessities are gone. No more newsletters, memos, letters home, reminders, classroom events, etc. It's a beautiful feeling.
I always say, I could run a really efficient school if there weren't any kids. Over the summers, I get to. :-D

sharonaf @ 2008-06-12T21:12:00

2008-06-13T01:39:36Z

The kid now speaks as well. Want to talk about sudden developments! Two weeks ago he was crawling and saying not a word but woof. Now he's running, crouching, standing up without the aid of the wall, and instructing us he wants 'more' 'apple' and 'banana' and 'Abba' and 'Amma' (We're pretty sure that's me) and 'ball' and 'balloon' and 'fla' (he's developed an overwhelming and slightly scary obsession with flags) and several others I'm not thinking of just now. It's incredible!

In other news, I've been spending an insane amount of time for the last, oh, /years/ feeling like a pretty rotten person because Iam not being good about keeping in touch. Everyone who reads this is someone I care about; everyone who reads this is also someone I have not been calling or emailing or spending time with. And lots of other folks are too. Please believe me that I think about each one of you frequently and fondly, and wish I was in better contact! Please also believe me that about twice a week I vow to spend more time actually following up on my good intentions to call people.
I just... always feel overwhelmed. And this started before the baby, I think. I always feel like I'm only /just/ keeping it together: Job, house, family, writing... and I can't ever seem to get ahead or, indeed, any less far behind. With all of it, I can't seem to get ahold of the psychic energy to act on any of my good intentions. Once I'm home from the office, supper is made and consumed, baby's in bed, dishes are washed, lunches are packed for tomorrow, the only thing I can bear to do is curl up and space out for the remaining, say, fourteen seconds until bed. There can be a week that goes by without my even working on my book, ashamed though I am to say it.
I guess on some level this time I /am/ looking for reassurance, of the 'We love you anyway, and please do get in touch!' variety. I'm also looking for advice. A person might be tempted to say, well, there's a lot on your plate, no wonder you're overwhelmed. But plenty of people have all of this and more and seem to handle it well! Why is it that some people seem able to handle work and homelife and still have energy for other things, whereas I feel as though I'm just hanging on and if I have to go out of the house in the evening more than once a week ,my entire world will collapse? Or if I don't have my Sunday devoted to laundry and baby-playing (and our requisite Sunday trip to the park!) I'm just not going to survive to the next week?

One of my big fears is that people whom I fall out of contact with will assume I fall out of contact deliberately, and those people who call or email or visit me will assume my friendship is lukewarm because they have to seek me out... I can completely imagine that's how a person might think of it, and likely how I would think of it if I had to be the one seeking out someone all the time. And I don't know how to explain, but it's truly not the case. I think about my friends constantly, wonder how they are, what they've been doing, what they'd think about x, y, or z... and wish I could speak with them. Why don't I? I don't know. I'm not too busy--as I keep telling myself, housecleaning and talking on the phone go together beautifully, as long as one doesn't drop the phone into the dishbasin! I'm just ... too tired, and I don't really know why.

Is it because I'm in the unhealthy environment of NY and just unhappy about being here? Will it be better when we leave? I've started mentioning to my husband a little more frequently how much I'm looking forward to leaving this city at the end of our as-yet-undetermined stay. We'll be out by the time the baby's ready for first grade. I just hope it'll be sooner. I don't think being here is doing me any good, whether or not it's related to my being a very poor correspondent.

The biggest milestone yet...

2008-06-02T11:20:02Z

He WALKS!

Recent Highlights

2008-03-19T13:39:14Z

Not having posted recently, I've nonetheless been keeping track of things I want to post about. Let's see if I remember any of them:

--Having decided that it's been far too long since I had good Indian food (*grumbles about the /one/ thing Sfardic halacha is more strict on than Ashkenazic being kashrut certification of non-Jewish-owned restaurants--they'll do the certification, but the requirements are more complicated and many restaurants don't bother*), I took it upon myself to fill this lacuna. On Tuesday night, for my very first trick, I made palak paneer. It was Really Good. I hunted down recipes online till I found one that used ingredients I had (when I included a couple of spices I bought last week with the intention of trying this) and which Phillip enjoys (silly man thinks he hates tomatoes). It's not even all that hard, but it is time-consuming. I will have to start much earlier, or make the paneer part the night before, next time. But it was delicious, and really very reminiscent of the stuff I used to get at my favorite Ashkenazi-certified Indian restaurant (Dhosa Hut, if anyone reading this is in midtown NY). Phillip was delighted. Now I'm on the hunt for other favorite Indian food recipes... if only I can remember what they're called...

--Shlomo appears to be continuing his pattern of early teething and is, we suspect, in the throes of growing molars. This is not what we'd call fun. When he's just sitting there sucking his fingers as though the shop's about to close, I have a great deal of sympathy for him. When he's crying from 2-5 a.m., I have significantly less sympathy.

--Shlomo actually /says/ "Boo-hoo" when he's crying. This came as a shock. I always wondered why people express crying by saying boo-hoo.

--The second issue of the magazine I run for work has come out. Hooray!

--My classmate who had that terrible accident a couple of months ago appears to be truly on the mend. She has been sent home as of a week or two ago, has had the removed piece of her skull replaced, and is slowly gaining energy and strength. :-D

--I'm in the middle of a serious dry spell with editing my book, which makes me sad. I do feel an idea germinating, a theme I'd like to work with in an independent short story... I'll probably try to write it soon, but I have no idea where I could possibly get it printed. Meanwhile I hope my writing partner will finish her thesis soon and we can get back to prodding each other into editing.

This is certainly not all, but it's a few things that have been on my mind. Oh! The last thing:

--I'm going to be an AUNT!! *sproings* My brother and sis-in-law in Atlanta are, iy"H, expecting a baby in July. MY birthday's in July! I might get a birthday-baby niece or nephew! I might want to learn how to spell female child of my sibling. Somehow niece isn't looking right, and neice looks far far worse.

sharonaf @ 2008-02-11T16:12:00

2008-02-11T21:12:22Z

View Poll: #1136902

An entirely different topic...

2008-02-07T23:05:18Z

On another note, I'm beginning to think about why people complain so much about the current generation of students and children, and wondering whether the following theory, which seems generally well-accepted has anything to do with it:

Only the parents and teacher have the ability to discipline their child.

Let me illustrate: The other day, a girl in maybe 3rd or 4th grade burst out of the lunch room, running into an adult who was clearing up in the hallway. The girl extricated herself and ran around the adult. The adult said something like, "Watch out!" and the girl shouted, "Watch out yourself!" and ran off. I saw this, but was so shocked that I did not respond as I feel I should have, and don't know that I'd have had the bravery to do so if I had.

It strikes me that if I had done such a thing as a child, any and every adult in the vicinity would have been horrified and I would have been taken by the shoulder and marched right up to the adult to apologize. It would thereafter have been strongly impressed upon me that this was an utterly inappropriate way to behave. (I do recall that at one point in elementary school I was in synagogue and acting in a way a man there felt was inappropriate--I believe it was something minor, like yawning and continuing to read the prayers while I yawned--and he told me that was disrespectful and I should finish yawning before I continued to pray. I was very upset and weirded out by this instruction, but I remembered it.)

However, I feel that in this era, it would be considered terrible for me to take this child to task over her behavior. Not only that, but I'm sure she would have been at least as disrespectful to me as she was to the first adult, and that's starting up a battle I'm not ready for.

One time at my synagogue a while ago, a little boy was having a hard time behaving properly. He was playing in the stairwell (this is standard, and perfectly acceptable), but came into the shul during kedusha to pull on his mother's skirt and try to get her attention. She kept indicating to him to wait a moment, and he drew back his hand and hit her on the leg. This time I didn't think to keep out of it, and my eyebrows went up and a shocked expression came to my face. The little boy saw me and immediately stopped what he was doing and hid behind his mother and waited the requested moment until she could speak with him.

Children actually /do/ care what adults think of them, and not just their parents. In a society in which responsible adults felt they were allowed to teach other people's children, perhaps there would be less of this gross disrespect. I don't know how to fix the problem, but I'm wondering if I have correctly identified at least part of it.

Come to think of it, this isn't entirely different from the Compare People application I discussed in my last post. In that, people ask to be 'disciplined' by their friends... in this post I discuss that many children would perhaps benefit by being 'disciplined' by adults, even ones they do not know.

Facebook

2008-02-07T22:43:36Z

I received an email from Facebook today (I have an account there, primarily to share photos of the kid, which I haven't done in a while *blushes*). It seems that a lot of the people I'm linked with on Facebook have a 'Compare People' application, and have been comparing me to their other friends.
Sounds cute, in theory. In practice I'm a little taken aback. In some cases, I'm flattered--receiving no votes for 'Most Likely to Skip Class' is a compliment, in my book--, and in others...not so much. (What's wrong with my hair? I /like/ my hair!) And, by the way, who on earth would I win a fight against? Finally, if I'm more fashionable than /any/one, I feel very very sorry for that someone. I think I'm doing well if my clothing doesn't clash. Fashion...is beyond me, and I don't usually mind that much.

And then I'm thinking, wow, it's the 'knowing what people think of you' phenomenon again. Does it really help anyone? It is flattering to know the positive things people think, but I don't see that it improves me as a person in any way. And considering that the negative things people think of me make me sad, I don't think I deserve to hear the positives, either!
When you log in to look at your results, you're offered a list of your own friends to compare as well. My first one was asking who is more 'cuddly'--my uncle or a high school classmate. No WAY am I answering that! Most of the questions, really, were things I wouldn't be comfortable saying to my friends and relatives.
Of course, then I'm ALSO thinking, am I taking this way too seriously or just slightly too seriously? These things are probably meant to be lighthearted.
I'm very curious, and though I saw something that I think means I can opt out of being compared, I probably won't. I'll stick around for a little while, at least. The bug's gotten to me, and I just /have/ to know what folks think of me. It's very self-involved, really.

It's just...I feel like the purpose of such things is to build a friend by committee--they think I'm not outgoing enough, ok, I'll have to change that, they think I don't know enough science, I'd better study, they think I have a nice smile, how sweet, etc... I just keep trying to remember Aesop's fable: If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. So why don't I just opt out?

Quote from an 8-year-old child

2008-01-13T13:31:22Z

"My mother says, we shouldn't watch any videos, because even if we watch a video that isn't bad, maybe later we'll watch a video that is bad."

*feels self to have been remarkably restrained in not saying, "I think your mother is making a very foolish decision."*

Way to not teach your children how to make judgements.

It seems to me rather like God telling Adam, don't eat from the tree, and Adam telling Eve, don't touch the tree. When Eve touched it inadvertently, she assumed she was already as bad as she could be, so she ate from it too.
If this kid, at some point in her life, sees an episode of Sesame Street or a Charlie Chaplin movie, she's going to figure she's totally off the derech and watch Beavis and Butthead, Knocked Up, whatever inappropriate films there are out there.

You could replace 'videos' with almost anything. I once offered to bring these kids to the library, and their mother mentioned quietly that she doesn't let them go to the library, because there are books there she doesn't approve of. O...kay.

Way to not teach your children how to make judgements.

But how about replacing it with 'people'? There are unpleasant people in the world; perhaps one should not speak to any people, because even if you first speak to nice people you might end up speaking to not-nice people! I have yet to hear anyone espouse that particular view, thank heavens.

At the same time as being horrified by the restrictions placed on children in this community, I'm impressed with the courage of the parents in letting their children be exposed to me. Here I am, the girl with a BA, who *gasp* DATED her husband before getting engaged, who met him *double gasp* independently, who *triple gasp* watches TV and movies, AND reads BOOKS!, judging for herself which ones are appropriate and which ones are not, and even more so, HAS INTERNET!!! The horror!
And yet the people here are very friendly, and my neighbors seem to have no problem in theory or in fact with their children spending time with me, even solo. I try to be the voice of moderation when such things come up--I don't agree with the idea of not watching any videos, but I also don't say what I'm thinking. I instead, to a child of this age, say, "That's one way of handling it," and then give a brief explanation of my way of handling it.
Scary.

And then, I think, gee, in the MO community they /do/ let their children watch videos; and it doesn't seem to prevent them from watching inappropriate movies and shows later on. So maybe encouraging the children to make judgements doesn't work either.

My hope is that the reason those MO children are making what I consider to be poor judgements is that as children they were allowed to watch /any/thing, and never told, "No, Mommy doesn't like that movie. It has things in it Mommy doesn't like to see." So that the right-wing kids never learn judement in the never-seeing-anything way, and the MO kids never learn judgement in the allowed-to-see-anything way.

I cling to this hope, and hope that if I teach my child that some things are fine, and good, and valuable, and some are not, he will learn to make judgements.

Be forewarned: Serious post below

2007-12-18T03:06:20Z

Late last week I received some very sad news.
Friends of ours, whom we each knew independently and with whom we were quite close with as a couple when they still lived in our area, had a baby just over three months ago. The baby died last Sunday. He was their first child.

From what I've put together from various sources, the baby (Elyakim) was diagnosed with a heart condition in utero. He was scheduled for immediate surgery, but upon birth was found to be strong enough that it could wait--and when you're talking surgery and babies, you want to wait as long as possible. At 11 weeks, they brought him in for the surgery, which was as routine as infant heart surgery can be. The surgery went fine. But he didn't wake up.

There's no need to go into how heart-breaking it is. How devastating. How painful. Any words are just cheapening what our friends are going through, what they've gone through. What they /will/ go through, as they get to the ages their baby would likely have hit milestone after milestone. I know that they have many friends and devoted family, and that we will also be there for them--if Shlomo's existence doesn't twist the knife for them every time they see or speak with us.

I know, of course I know, that this is totally about them and Elyakim, and that my emotions in the case are not important. So in anything involving them I'm trying to avoid I and We statements, unless it's a We that includes them (in our condolence card I wrote my strongest feeling on the matter, which is that Elyakim's absence leaves a hole in all of our lives). Even a, 'We were so sorry to hear about...' seems like it's stealing their grief.

And yet for whatever reason I'm feeling this so badly that I can't seem to get beyond it. Today I've cried over it four times, once right now as I type. I was trying to sing Shlomo his lullabies and I was thinking about my friend and my throat closed and I had to stop for a calming-down break. I was cutting up vegetables for a soup later on and just crying and crying. At work my boss's daughter came to visit, and she was also friends with the mother, and we were talking about it, and I started up again.

What's going on with me? I suppose it means that I'm not a calloused person, which is good, if painful. It means I'm empathetic, I guess. I have not yet let myself get to the point of imagining my own feelings in such a situation, and intend not to--that way lies madness--so it's not /that/ type of empathy. I just keep imagining her face when they told her, and the shock, and imagining her standing there with a book of Tehilim (she would be, I know her. and I know the expression she'd have on her face, and the exact way she'd stand and sway, as she read them) over the bassinet while he was 'recovering' from the surgery.

On some level, is it because I'm also a new mother? It hits home for me more because I see what my baby does and I think about what Elyakim would have done? I know that as Shlomo gets to various ages--preschool, bar mitzva, graduation--I will think about Elyakim. They were going to go to school together. They were going to be friends, just as we are. It really is a hole, a huge hole, in our lives.

I still feel as though I'm trying to adopt their tragedy, and I don't really feel that's right or understand why. I simply can't seem to get over it or past it. True, I only learned about it on Friday, so I haven't had much time to get adjusted to the idea, but... Phillip keeps saying he still can't believe that it happened--it isn't real to him yet.
It's very real to me. I never even saw Elyakim or even spoke with them since he was born, but it's so very, very real. They are parents without a child.

*hates self for being so self-absorbed as to put this many 'I's in a post about a friend's baby dying*

Anyone heard of this guy?

2007-12-09T15:18:42Z

When I was in Israel in 1999-2000, I was present at an outdoor performance by an Israeli storyteller, whose name, I believe, is Avi Rottman. I was extremely impressed--the guy is talented and engaging, and his story grabbed the attention of a very large group. At the entry to the fair he was performing at, a few recordings of his stories were on sale. I bought a copy of 'Sod HaBayit HaSaruf' (The Secret of the Burning House) and found it charming and enjoyable. I listened to it several times.
I have now had the opportunity to lend it to someone else, and have discovered that while I still have the case, I no longer have tape. Can't think where it went.
Has anyone else heard of Avi Rottman and/or 'Sod HaBayit HaSaruf'? Anyone know where I can buy another copy of that story and perhaps some others? A brief Google search did not yield anything terribly likely, though it did tell me that someone named Avi Rottman who lives in Jerusalem just got engaged. Which might be the same guy, if he's marrying fairly late in life--I got the impression at his performance that he was in his forties or thereabouts.
Anyhow, I know this is a long shot, but for anyone with kids or an interest in improving received spoken Hebrew, it would be worth knowing about anyhow!
*hopes someone's heard of him*

Am I good, or what? :-D

2007-09-30T02:38:08Z

So some friends of ours, who have in the past been a bit on the ... I suppose you'd call it flaky ... side, have been even more so lately. These are the people to whose apartment I went, seven months pregnant, to watch their newborn so the mother could catch a sleep of more than a half-hour duration, and never got inside. Instead I stood on the doorstep for forty minutes, desperate for a bathroom (seven months pregnant, remember?) and a snack, and wandered the neighborhood for an hour or so before coming back and ringing again, before walking (!) the two miles or so back here.
However, in comparison, their recent flakiness has been even worse. That original indignity was the result of the husband neglecting to tell his wife I was coming. More recently, we've arranged to get together Saturday night, gotten a babysitter, brought her to our house, and called them to find out they'd decided they weren't available after all--she was tired. (And yes, some of you are familiar with that babysitter. ;-)) Other, similar things have happened as well. We've taken to simply assuming that these are not people to be depending on, and to try to protect ourselves--not to decline contact with them, because we like them, but never to arrange things such that we're going out of our way to get together with them without a guarantee they'll be there (e.g., her parents have invited us over, or something). We haven't seen them since early to mid-summer, I'd guess.
A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I turned to Phillip and said, "OH! She's PREGNANT!" He thought I was crazy--their baby's only a little older than Shlomo--and I shrugged mentally and told myself I was definitely right, and we'd see soon enough.
Today we finally saw them--they came walking by in the afternoon, and though we weren't waiting for them, we'd arranged to be home in case they came. And she's in a maternity shirt. ;-)
Phillip says he saw her at the door and thought, 'That's it, it's over.' She was stunned when I told her I'd told Phillip she was pregnant weeks ago. "But you hadn't seen me in months!" And I explained my reasoning, about her being tired all the time, both of them lying low socially, about her switching to formula-feeding their baby. I didn't mention that the fact that baby #1 had come along within 10 months of their marriage supported my suspicion that the next one would come along earlier than most people might expect.
My next prediction--I suspect this is not just one baby. I think she's got twins in there, or possibly even more (though for their sake, I hope not). This isn't a huge leap, as Phillip for some reason during the conversation said, "At least you know it's not twins by now," and there was a silence and I turned to the father and said, "Unless you don't--do you?" and he looked antsy and changed the subject quite determinedly. After that, I remembered how earlier in the conversation she'd said something about having a feeling that 'the next human being to come out of me is a girl'. The normal way to put this is, "This baby is a girl". This peculiar phrasing makes me think either they're not convinced this baby is going to come out (chas v'shalom, and we did not get any impression that this is in any way a high-risk pregnancy) or that there are multiple babies, and she just has a feeling that the first one to be born will be a girl.

So now I'm on record, and we'll find out some time in March!

I've got to say, though, their oldest is a bit of a handful already. I don't envy them having another or others so soon. Much though I tease Phillip by reminding him how much I love children (Looking at Shlomo in his crib: "Boo-ba! Cute Boo-ba! More Boo-bas?"), I don't particularly desire to have them a year apart. Or even a year and two months. Except sometimes, when I think how much I've always wanted a big family...

Anyhow, I'm rather pleased with myself for calling this one, without even seeing her or hearing her voice since I think before she got pregnant.

PS Boo-ba is Hebrew for Doll, and is sometimes used as a rather cutesy nickname for babies. I confess to sometimes using it on mine. ;-)

My little boy...

2007-08-27T16:38:09Z

Is going out with another woman!
*grins*
That's right, folks--for the first time, Shlomo's with a babysitter today.

The good news is that on Thursday Phillip was offered a position in the field of venture capital (to my understanding, his company works on arranging conferences between start-up companies and potential investors), and he started today!

The less good news is that the school's daycare for faculty and staff doesn't start until next week, and our at-home dad is no longer at home. Missed by /that/ much! I made some frantic calls and crazy plans on Friday and Sat. night, and on Sunday thought of asking my cousin if she knew anyone.

The next set of good news is that she recommended a woman very highly, and she seems lovely. She is very competent, punctual, and knowledgeable and clearly likes children and babies. Shlomo took to her right away (although, being five months old, he takes to just about anyone right away, which does worry me sometimes...), and she likes him too. And she has no problem with a week-long job as opposed to the more permanent jobs she usually takes, so that's a good thing.

He did whimper when I got home for lunch and kissed him, but I suspect this was his usual "You're not going to let that person give me a bottle, are you? You're not that evil, you'll feed me yourself, right?" routine. He calmed down after the babysitter gave him the bottle, and ate quite a lot.
And now they've gone out to the park and I'm finishing my lunch before returning to the office.
Oddly freeing, yet oddly disconcerting.

I'm definitely having separation anxiety!