Role models, King David, and Spiders

So I should be at the grocery store now, but I’m not. I’m waiting for Taxman to come home from Tel Aviv, where he went to work but got sidetracked at the health clinic.

Just so you know, googling “spider bite symptoms” and then having to call your spouse and say “You must seek medical treatment right away” is not even close to one of the most fun things you can do on a Tuesday.

(He’s fine. Two shots in the tush; he’ll nap for the rest of the day and be on the road to recovery.)

But how did this happen? A spider bit him. Of course. But the real cause goes deeper.

When Taxman and I were first married, he trained me out of killing spiders. Generally bugs and creepy crawlies are not my most favorite things. There is a scale, though.

• Ladybugs, butterflies, and lightning bugs: non-threatening and actually cool
• Grasshoppers, crickets, praying mantises, and beetles: ditto
• Spiders, ants, and mosquitos: really belong outside the house
• Bees, wasps, and yellow jackets: I have never been stung, therefore might be allergic, and therefore am petrified
• Cockroaches: Beyond gross. Hyperventilation, screaming, standing on chairs.

So anyway, Taxman told me to stop killing spiders and remove them to their natural environment. Which, ok, but it was the reason he gave me that was…unusual.

“A spider saved David HaMelech (King David),” he explained. (This is based on an Aramaic translation of one of the Psalms…that when David was fleeing Saul, he hid in a cave and a spider wove a web over the entrance, implying that the cave was unoccupied.)

This was clearly one of those places where his religious upbring and my not-religious one were coming from opposite ends of the universe. But, hey, it’s just spiders.

So for the past 12-and-a-half years, I haven’t (purposely) killed any spiders.

But lately I’ve outsourced the spider rescue, either to Taxman or to my children, who will immediately stop their whining or fighting and unite as a gentle, conscientious spider-removal team, aided by a plastic cup and a piece of paper.

The latest spider sighting, though, happened late at night on Sunday. (Kids asleep.) In the bathroom. After a long day, I didn’t feel like dealing with it, so I made Taxman do it. Rather than avail himself of normal spider-removal implements, he used…his hands. And got bitten.

And this morning felt like his face was puffy and his hand was still bothering him.

And sought medical attention. Whew.

I wonder if the spiders should steer clear of our place for a while. He might be out for vengeance.

Panties: Bunched

It’s been a long time since I went on a breastfeeding rant. Did you miss it? Ok, then, buckle up.

Like Ask Moxie, I am not going to link to the cover of Time magazine because it horrifies me so. Not because a little boy (not baby, boy–wearing camouflage pants and with a buzz cut) is nursing from his slender, blond, relaxed young mom, but because this! is everything that anti-nursing-in-public crusaders have been warning us about! You can’t look away, ha ha, it’s a magazine cover! And if you open the magazine, you might be faced with MORE pictures of…this woman’s tank top.

This pose is provocative, a way to generate buzz and will, probably, create even more vilification of nursing moms.  (I don’t want to link to DovBear either.)

But what REALLY infuriates me is that it is so incredibly staged. If you are nursing an almost-four-year old, unless they have some sort of developmental delay or extreme nutritional need, they are not going to follow you around and stand on a goddamn stepstool to nurse. Nursing a preschooler gives you beautiful bridges–from sleep time to wake time and vice versa, from hurting to feeling ok, from sickness to health. It is not the constant neediness of babies and the fraughtness of toddlers. It’s a ten-second hug in bed.

It’s not weird or provocative. It’s not pederasty. It’s not going to scar anyone. And there is a good chance that you (unless you are a close family member) are not going to see it. Because there are more interesting things to do at the park/museum/etc — even public transportation was a hell of a lot more fascinating to my 3 year old nurslings than my breasts. Buses and subways and taxis, oh my!

Time magazine is creating a distraction, because now everyone is discussing whether it is acceptable to parent in this way. That’s unacceptable. I don’t want Time or the American (or Israeli) public passing judgment on me as long as my kids are safe and thriving.

The distraction is what is hurting children and the parent-child bond. Why doesn’t the government support breastfeeding? Not with civil rights statutes but real, concrete help: mandated parental leave for months, not weeks, and for all moms (and full-time caregiving dads), not some lucky few, or some with the luxury (like me) to slam the door on a job/career and drop out to be “just a mom” (if only) for five years. Why are only some companies “family-friendly” and only some hospitals “baby-friendly” — why not all of them? Why can’t we admit that there are lots of different ways to raise kids, and why can’t we get along better?

Why?

Bonus confounding

Littering

I’m not talking about a tissue blowing away in the wind while you’re struggling out of the car with your baby and toddler. I’m talking about purposely dropping trash on the ground or tossing it out of a car  instead of throwing it in a proper receptacle.

Why do people do this?

And why do I feel like I am the only mean mother who makes her kids pick up all their garbage? (I have to assume that this is what my mom did to me…)

 

5 things that confound me

1. Night owls

Not owls being awake at night. Nocturnal animals make sense to me. Nocturnal humans do not. My circadian rhythm (function best in daylight) cannot be overpowered–even before kids my idea of “sleeping in” was about 10 9 8:30 in the morning. I spent four years earning two degrees at a university without a single all-nighter. I don’t say this to brag, it’s just that I COULD NOT. Usually at around 2 in the morning I would just grind to a halt and read the same paragraph 16 times, or rewrite the same sentence of a paper over and over again, then give up. Of course, if I really had to I could get up again a few hours later, by 5:30 or 6, and make some serious headway.

(I understand that larks confound night owls in the same way that night owls confound me. But once upon a time there were no electric lights and using fire to light your home was, you know, dangerous.)

2. Using Facebook for business purposes

Yeah, this heavy personal user of Facebook glazes over when it comes to both the technical aspects and the analytics. Which makes me sad, because Facebook is all about The Fun, you know? Not The Serious.

3. Sean Paul

I cannot understand his songs. I wish I could, because they are so catchy and bouncy. I am relatively convinced they are horrifically misogynistic and overtly sexual and they are nothing I want my kids enjoying. (I reached this conclusion from watching the video for his latest single.) It’s the proverbial can’t-look-away-trainwreck problem. But for listening.

4. Siblings close in age

The constant love-hate-love-hate cycle makes me crazy. I didn’t grow up with this; many, many people assure me it’s normal. Which is good, but doesn’t make it less jaw-dropping.

5. Men

Obviously.

Games redheads play, Part One

For a while now, AM has been into games. He wavers between playing fairly and some rat-like cheating, depending on his opponent and his mood. Mancala, pickup sticks, Monopoly, rummy, Rummikub, war, checkers–the usual suspects.

But of late he’s fallen in with a group of older boys at our synagogue. (“Older” = older than Miss M…so 3rd grade?) They gather on a strip of grass outside the building, trying to flip cheap cards made from flimsy cardboard and doing some complicated hand gesture-y thing that reminds me of “Rock, Paper, Scissors.”

I find the whole thing odd. The game, his obsession with it, and especially the other boys’ willingness to include him, a kindergartener. He holds his own in the game–whatever that means–so he’s not being used as a patsy. Do they need a fourth player? Do they appreciate that he won’t cry if he loses (I mean, usually)? I am kind of afraid to ask–not that I could possibly come up with something to say to them, even if my Hebrew or their English were better.

At least he’s not running into the street, I tell myself. Not that I haven’t trusted him not to do that for a long time. But it makes me a little crazy that this is his motivation to go to synagogue now–to the exclusion of all regular synagogue activities, like, you know, praying. Of course, saying this out loud makes me sound like an uptight ass: he’s 6; he can barely read; there’s time to learn how to sit and to read the prayers and to get familiar with the tunes.

But I’d at least like the level of interest he had a month ago! (The children’s service on Saturday; the melodic parts of Friday night’s service.)

By now, though, I’m pretty comfortable with my role as the parent who is “strict” and demands a certain amount of age-appropriate participation in…whatever. Synagogue services, housekeeping, table manners, etc. It’s a long list. This is how you learn!

So now I have to figure out some sort of bribe-reward system for how much tefila is required before he is allowed to play craps in the alley. As it were.

As for the 3rd grade boys who dress for Shabbat but never actually cross the threshold of the synagogue? It’s totally not my business, other than to try to inspire my kindergartener to make room in his busy schedule for games and for prayers.

You mess with the bull, you get the horns–you know what I’m sayin’?

Remembering the sacrifices for us and for our land

We can’t thank you enough.

Earth Hour

So did we participate in Earth Hour last night, where we were supposed to sit in the dark and commune with the environment?

No. Frankly, not using lights or electronic devices between 8 and 9 in the evening would mean that I can’t serve dinner (the adult version), or can’t get my kids to bed properly, or can’t work , or can’t catch up on the housework I’ve been pushing off all day.

So, no, we didn’t do it.

Instead, I thought about all the ways we’ve improved our treatment of the Earth in the past year. Greened up, as it were.

• Most of the lights in our new house are CFLs or LEDs. The few remaining halogens we hardly use; if we decided that we wanted to use them more we’d buy LED bulbs. In addition to using less energy (yay!), there’s been a positive impact on our electric bill.
• We installed ceiling fans. This didn’t happen until the summer was over last year, but I expect it is going to cut way down on our A/C use. We all sleep really hot, but the fans make everything comfortable.
• We separate our trash into wet and dry, the “wet” part going to compost, or…not sure. This is at the behest of the city, but over time this should have a cumulative effect. We don’t see the impact directly, but we’re happy to do it.
• We bought real dairy dishes for Passover. Still used disposable for meat meals, but on the whole we eat more dairy–but we had far less trash than previous years.
• We started using an eco-dishwasher, which means that every load is washed with only 6.5 liters of water. We try really hard to only run it full. Full-ish.
• I bought these adorable re-usable sandwich and snack bags. Which have yet to be lost, poo-poo-poo. So much less plastic and tin foil in the trash.

Overall, I think we’re coming out ahead of switching off the lights for an hour every year, yes?