Monthly Archive

Our neighbor and Miss M’s pal, Ariella (of “Ay-ya-ya!” fame), is a frequent visitor in our house–although Miss M prefers to go upstairs to get into the doll house and princess dress-up clothes for which Ariella is well known (at least downstairs in our apartment).

Yesterday, I picked the girls up after school (Ariella’s mom is at that point in her pregnancy when she has to go for doctor’s appointments approximately every five seconds), sliced up an apple for them, and turned them loose with a stack of construction paper, markers, and stickers. They were drawing contentedly, with occasional squabbles over the stickers and markers, when I overheard Ariella seemingly dictating a letter to Miss M.

“Can you write, ‘I miss you, T [her sister]. I wish you were here.’ ?”

Miss M obediently wrote “I,” then followed it up with her usual “writing,” which is something along the lines of “R I A N C A Y D D I C V W X.” As she did it, she slowly recited, “I wish you were here.”

Ariella studied the paper for a moment with a puzzled look, but came away seeming satisfied. 

My baby. I don’t know whether to be proud her or if I should sell her to the GOP.

AM does, in fact, appear to be saying his friend T’s sister’s name. He yelled “Ay-ya-ya!” (let me translate for you: “Ariella!”) across a vestibule crowded with 3-year-olds and their accompanying din at preschool pickup.

This very morning he and Miss M were bickering over a toy in the kids’ bedroom. She started chanting “mine, mine, mine.” Then we heard a little voice pipe up: “mi, mi, mi, mi.” I scuttled down the hall from the kitchen and Taxman poked his head out of our bedroom. We looked at each other quizzically, as if we had just dropped in from Mars. “Is he saying ‘mine’?” Uh…maybe?

In speech therapy today he was a total pill. Ornery and uncooperative pretty much from the word go. Finally at the end of the session, I was getting him into his outerwear and telling him we were going to go to the store. “And what do we buy at the store?” (This is a whole routine. He acts it out by himself at home, complete with a shopping bag and/or cat backpack. We’re taking it on the road soon.) He signed “banana” and then, deviating from the script, quickly followed it up with “orange”–he is rather addicted to clementines. The grad student said to him, “Oh, you’re getting bananas and oranges?” And he started babbling “ba, ba, ba, ba.” “Is he saying ‘banana’?” she asked. “I didn’t know he can say ‘b’!” I confirmed that he does say ’b,’ but as for the rest…I don’t know. He never does this.

Anyway, the funniest thing coming out of speech therapy recently was when the grad student asked me if it was ok for her to try to get AM to say “no.” “Professor L specifically wanted me to get your permission.” Which is so funny to me, because Professor L has told me that she has kids–twins, no less. I laughed and told her that he has plenty of ways to express no without actually saying it. He shakes his head, he makes disapproving noises, he “goes boneless,” he throws himself on the floor, he ignores you entirely, giving you a vision of him as teenager. A week later, I still think this is so funny–I mean, what 21-/22-month old only has one way to say no? How about a random sample? Michaela? B? CCW?

Ask Moxie is hosting a 60-day challenge, starting tomorrow.

I am participating and one of my goals is to cut down (NB: not “eliminate entirely”) things like high-fructose corn syrup and “bad” fats. I have basically been taking breastfeeding as license to eat whatever I want to, whenever, and not have to pay the price because people are sucking the calories and cholesterol out of me. Eventually, probably sooner rather than later, I will have to watch my diet again (for health reasons, not weight reasons). So I may as well “practice,” as it were.

The question is…do I make one last stop at Dunkin’ Donuts?

Although, frankly, the bigger challenge for me will be to quit eating Nutella at the drop of a hat, since it’s actually in my house.

• File this under “things I now know that I wish I didn’t”: If your order at Lands’ End is more than $200, you pay a flat rate for shipping.
• But I did get really good deals on parkas for the kids, hopefully to fit each of them for the next two winters. Although I could not find a “boys” sale parka I liked for AM, so I wound up with a “girls” one for him. In green. I figured why not, seeing as how I bought Miss M’s parka in yellow (excuse me, “honey gold”) fully intending that he will wear it when she outgrows it. What are the styling differences at this age, anyway? Just the zipper on the opposite side? It’s not like a 3T parka is going to come with a pocket to secret away a lipstick and a tampon!
• I seem to have survived a week of preschool vacation. Barely. But whoo-hoo!
• Honestly, last week would have been a wash anyway. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (if I were adhering to the school “health policy”) would have been sick days, and Friday surely would have been a snow day.
• AM’s progress in speech therapy is, well, slow. He says “more” now, and “in” (sort of), but it’s a struggle to get him to focus beyond the toys.
• He did appear to imitate one of his little friends saying her sister’s name the other day. Her mom–my neighbor, who knows almost as much as Taxman about the current ins and outs of my life–was here when he did it and she (all 39 weeks pregnant of her) just about fell off the couch in surprise. I spent the next two days attempting to get him to repeat it.  
• The most fascinating thing about therapy for me is that he totally knows the score. As in, he can walk all over the grad student, but when her professor pops in to offer advice, he snaps to attention. Looks her right in the face, tries to imitate her facial movements. Then she leaves and he goes back to his own agenda: ”Cars, cars, I want more cars!” How he understands the power balance in that relationship I have no idea. But clearly he was not born yesterday.
• Am I a crappy mother because I don’t cut Miss M’s grapes? (And only cut AM’s if he’s going to be wandering around with them instead of eating them directly in front of me?) She bites them. I don’t let her have chewing gum or hard candy, if that changes your opinion. I ask because I saw a kid who’s over four years old having her grapes cut for her. And this was with everyone sitting around the table, including Taxman (the EMT).
• Finally, I have to link to the funniest thing I have read lately: Amalah’s description of pregnancy hunger. Language is R-rated, if you care about that sort of thing, but it is beyond hysterical. Excellent riff on Girl Scout cookies included. (CCW, in case you have extra boxes to sell?)

Stolen from Dani. Doodle by Lee.

My life. Just about every other day.

Doodle by Lee. The code for this doodle and other doodles you can use on your blog can be found at Doodles.

Scene: Parking lot of a suburban grocery store. 5pm. Two tired, hungry kids protesting that they have not yet received their promised bribes (banana for AM; small orange juice–with straw!–for Miss M). One tired Ema fishing for keys in her coat pocket in order to open the minivan that will convey the three of them and $37 worth of food, medicine, and sundries home.

As I fumbled with my key fob, a mom with two young kids passed by my cart. The older of the two, who was maybe six or seven, came out with the following stunner not four feet from me:

“Mommy, are they Amish?”

I am still attempting to formulate what would have been an appropriate response, had it fallen to me to do so. My mouth is still kind of hanging open, though. Maybe I should have just gestured to the frozen pie crusts in the bag and said, “No, not Amish.”

(What I need is a second opinion from Chichimama, who actually saw me–and what all three of us were wearing–today.)

BrooklynGirl tagged me for a go-round of the “six things about me” meme. I have a “regular” version floating about in my archives (here), so I thought I’d do one focusing on my quirks regarding things edible and potable. ‘Cause I am fun like that.

Oh, I am supposed to post the rules.

1) Link to the person that tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least 3 people at the end of your post and link to their blogs.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6) Let the fun begin!

1. I will pretty much eat any (kosher) chocolate. I am not snotty about milk, dark, butterfat, cocoa percentages, what have you. Certainly some are better than others, some are more “special” and reserved for celebratory occasions (or when once of us passes through Grand Central), but overall I don’t discriminate. But I draw the line at cherry cordials. Those things give me the creeps. Gooey and alcohol-y and gross. Blech. But I won’t judge you if you like them–I like coconut, so different strokes and all that.

2. I am a total snob about certain ingredients/condiments. Like mustard. And soy sauce. Because they are strong tasting and quality makes a difference. There are certain brands that I use and lots that I don’t.

Here’s a telling little anecdote: a neighbor once came to borrow soy sauce. He said he’d need a lot of it and took what I had. He returned (weeks later, when I had long replaced the bottle he took) with a bottle of Kikkoman soy sauce. I sneer in its general direction from time to time.

3. I think eating a vegan diet would be excellent for my health and excellent for the environment. (When the kids get older I think I’d seriously consider vegetarianism.) But I think without dairy in my life I’d be a royal bitch.

4. Variety is the spice of my tea shelf. I have about 16 kinds: black, decaf black, decaf green, herbal, rooibos. I’d have more but I can’t do caffeine as long as AM is nursing. What I don’t get is people who ask me for tea and then don’t have a preference among the 16 choices. Chamomile isn’t the same as Lady Grey, you know?

5. It sounds ridiculous, but there are some brands of bottled water that I just can’t stand. It must be whatever minerals are in them, but I hate the taste. Like Evian. Fiji. Yuck.

6. I have never made cholent. It’s hard to explain why this is so weird, but this is a staple Shabbat lunch food item in my Ashkenazi, Shabbat-observant world. (It’s like a Jewish cook not making chicken soup. Which I don’t do either, really. I can, but I prefer to make vegetarian soups. And my mother-in-law’s chicken soup is very good, so why fight it?) I like to test-run my shabbat main dishes for Taxman and myself before I serve them to company and there is no way to make cholent for 2. It makes a whole crock-pot full, and what if it’s awful? Dude, I have a reputation–I think I am a fairly good cook, or so my husband tells me. (Read: I am a legend in my own mind.)

BONUS TIDBIT: I don’t think I’d ever get sick of eating a croissant every morning for the rest of my life.* Not that I do, or would, but I wouldn’t mind.

* As long as I am occupying a fantasy universe in which eating a croissant every morning won’t kill me or make me fat, Pesach has ceased to exist.

As for the tagging, I am curious to hear from Caramama, B, and Grandmere.

But, wow, I’ve had better weeks.

Let’s just say that the mouth sores due to my little dance with the plague a virus left me rather, uh, disinterested in food and beverages. My son, however, lost no interest in nursing during this same time period. By Thursday evening, when I consumed a single English muffin with strawberry jam, about a cup of leftover (homemade) tofu fried rice with veggies, and one-and-a-half banana oatmeal pancakes in a 12-hour period,* I was feeling like hell. A couple of hours later we were discussing if I was really dehydrated and would need to go to the hospital for IV fluids by myself (because of course somebody would have to stay home with the sleeping children). I was so tired I just wanted to sleep, but I was nauseated and panicky and blech I don’t want to even write about this any more.

Friday, I managed to get Miss M to school while pushing AM in the stroller. Without passing out. I managed to get home from school (more difficult, because it’s up a hill) without falling down and move my car (alternate side, natch) without passing out. Very big achievements.

But once I ate a reasonable dinner I began to feel more human–especially since we were in bed last night at approximately 8:34. No joke, I think Taxman was sleeping before Miss M. It took me my usual 45-60 minutes to turn off my damn brain, but that made for some quality horizontal time, even with all the usual interruptions.

So here I am. I apologize for neglecting most of your blogs in the recent days. I will rectify that ASAP. Although Miss M is on vacation this week, so no telling when the ASAP will turn out to be…

And I have got to get my hands on some chocolate. It’s been way too long that we’ve been apart.

* I normally eat way more than this. It’s not necessarily at regular times, and it’s sometimes real trash, but calorically speaking this day was essentially mouse food. Not fit for a lactating human.

• Weather: biblical rain with a side of flooding. Snow last night. Icy slush. Yum.
• Gear: Maybe one of these days I’ll invest in one of those pairs of rain boots. I love my Lands End All-Weather Mocs, but on a day like today they just mean wet socks. Actually, today hip waders would be more appropriate.
• Sinuses: uuuuuuhhhhhhh. Ouch. Yesterday morning the relative humidity was 54%.
• Fear of Fire Alarm: meant Miss M had to accompany AM to speech therapy. Her behavior was better than I expected and she wasn’t even that distracting to him.
• Disenchantment with Preschool: I got a call at 11:30 that Miss M was inconsolable. A plumber was doing work somewhere in the school building, making smoke, and causing the fire alarm to go off. Miss M has a well-documented fear of said noise. By 11:30 it had gone off twice and had the potential to go off again. I agreed to pick her up on my way to speech, because I don’t have a solution. What I did not need to hear were the addenda:
• a. That they are short staffed today and the teacher just could not handle this (!) in addition.
• b. That we’re going to have to figure out a way to “work on this” (!) because you can’t even say “fire drill” around her. I don’t know why my 3 year old isn’t allowed to have an irrational fear of loud noises. What if it were a more traditional phobia, like snakes or spiders? Then would it be ok? Her friend A is afraid of sharks. Do you think the teacher even knows? I’d bet no, because sharks don’t come to school and disrupt the classroom.
• I gave in to educational television programming (see how defensive I am?) at 3:00. See above points for explanation.
• Oy, it’s already past 3:30. If you need me, I’ll be hiding under the covers.

Getting a cheesecake, free, delivered to my door…

…and having it taste like cotton balls, with the texture of a sponge.

Sigh.

I was describing my bizarre viral symptoms to my mom: a fever that segued into a sore throat, rash on my hands and feet. What about in my mouth, she asked. “I have a mouth full of canker sores,” I told her.

“You know,” she said, “this sounds like Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease.”

“Well, all I can tell you is that it isn’t Fifth disease and it isn’t chicken pox.”

“You should look it up. Although you had Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease. I remember your pediatrician called his whole staff in to look at you, because he said most parents don’t bring their kids in for just a rash* and some of the younger doctors and nurses hadn’t seen it.”

“I will look it up.”

“But I thought that once you had it you can’t have it again. Maybe I’m wrong. Anyway, feel better. I hope Miss M doesn’t get it too.”

So, yeah, I looked it up. And yeah, this is what AM had, caught from our 23-month-old neighbor (they are Teh Cutest–they play, they hug to say goodbye, and AM protests when we leave the elevator without her–but we live on 2 and she lives on 4). And gave to me, the devoted slave mother who wipes his nose and his drool and his tush. It usually occurs in kids under 10. One strain of coxsackievirus is responsible for most incidences. But let’s say I had that one in the ’70s…AM could have brought home some other viral goodie.

Of course between the two pediatricians** who saw the two kids, neither of them diagnosed it as “HFMD,” but rather just a virus. I guess there’s really no difference–it’s not like you can treat it with anything. Really, though, just ewwwww.

And I must drink some more water.

* Honestly, I think this dates the whole episode. I’m guessing it took place somewhere in the 1978-1979 range.

** Although I don’t know I would have taken him to the doctor for just a rash. But with the fever and crankiness and sleep problems I wanted to make sure to eliminate ear infection or strep throat. This is where speech would be really helpful–although he did tell me (in sign) that his head hurt when he was feverish and emphatically denied an earache.

• Thanks for all your get well wishes.
• I did kick the fever.
• It was replaced by some weird, weird stuff. A sore throat so bad I can’t really swallow. Not scratchy and raw, but swollen-feeling, like I have a golf ball stuck in there.
• Oddly enough, I can’t drink without a lot of pain, but I can eat fine. So apparently I will dehydrate but not starve.
• I also have the same rash that AM had last week. Mostly on my hands and the soles of my feet. It is TEH ICK. I feel like I am infecting everything I get near.
• The rash + running water makes me feel like my skin is sloughing off. So I feel like the Worst Mother in the Universe because I bathed AM when he had this rash. He really didn’t seem to mind. But oy, the-4-days-later-mommy-guilt, how it sucks.
• Also sucky: my GP is in a different state. A neighboring state, but still. I think I will have to try a new doc who is two blocks away–I hope she a) takes my insurance and b) has an appointment that does not conflict with speech therapy.
• I didn’t sleep last night. Literally.
• (Taxman is working from home today, probably because he feared for all of us by leaving us alone. And then he let me lie down with AM and took Miss M out for bagels.)
• But I did fold laundry at 2am while I was watching my latest Guilty (very, very GUILTY) Pleasure.
• Anyone who I had a potential playdate with during presidents’ week? Can I let you know on Thursday or Friday? I don’t want to bring a pox on your house.

One of the hardest parts of parenting in general, but stay-at-home parenting in particular, is that there are no sick days. My HR rep won’t take my calls on this point, so I am sort of stuck.

All I want to do is crawl into bed. Barring that, I’d like to watch the television programming of my choice. Neither is realistic, although my father-in-law did me the tremendous favor of fetching Miss M from preschool today so I could rest while AM napped–and I didn’t have to wake him up, as usual. (His naps have been completely screwed up by a 12-1 therapy slot and a new 11-12 music class on Thursdays.) He slept for 3 1/2 hours.

I realized that it’s been a while since I’ve run a fever. Headaches and colds are kind of par for the course, but there is a kind of distinct crappy feeling that comes with a fever. I’ve been in this body long enough to know when I’ve got one–when I lifted AM from the floor at the end of music class, I had a certain ache in my legs; by 9pm I had chills and was a general mess.

Unfortunately, the nursing juggernaut has no breaks for the feverish, despite Taxman’s best efforts to run nighttime interference. At least I can do it in a reclining position. Most unfair of all is that I am sure I picked up this virus from AM, who was slightly feverish and very rashy at the beginning of the week. But the breastmilk, I’m positive, took the edge off of his illness and within a day he was back to his regular personality. Of course, he insists on sharing my pillow. So he bought himself one cranky Ema.

The good news from speech therapy: AM is getting comfortable. He spent only the first two minutes of the session on my lap.

The bad news from speech therapy: AM is getting comfortable. He spent part of the session today lying on the rug and lining up toy cars, which is exactly what he does at home with his vehicles. He asked for trains (his preference over cars) about a dozen times. And he would like to direct his own play, thank you very much. What do you mean no more bubbles today? What is this ridiculous insistence on saying “more”* before being allowed to acquire something? And if push comes to shove, could we just play with the video monitors in the control room, where all the clinic sessions are taped? He likes it in there. Fun times.

But really, he must think the adults in his life are idiots. One of the cars in the room today was an ambulance. So I said, “Who drives an ambulance?” And he signed, “Abba.” And then I said, peering into the tiny, blacked-out windows, “Is Abba driving the ambulance? Where is he?” And AM looked at me as if I were thick and signed (around the ambulance in his hands), “Work.”

Well, well. At least someone is paying attention.

* He came out with something that sounded like “meh” maybe three times over the course of an hour. No huge gains yet.

AM hasn’t let me sleep in three nights. Or four?

But also:

• How is it acceptable that the candidates have essentially deserted their jobs in their quest to have another? I can’t think of another type of job where this would be ok, but apparently it’s fine in politics. But only at the highest level: When someone we know ran for city council, he took a leave of absence from his job. Senators? Eh, who really needs them to be on Capitol Hill anyway? For 18 or so months of a six-year term they are allowed to seek other employment? Again, why are we paying them?
• I can’t even talk about politics with people, not that I would really want to, but I seem to be surrounded by single-issue voters. “How is Candidate X for Israel?”
• Not that I want to dismiss the importance of that, being a religious Jew and all, but for the time being I live here, in the US. And on the earth at large. (Um, Kyoto?) And vote accordingly.
• The comparisons of Obama to JFK. I don’t get it.
• The fact that Romney actually has to defend himself in Massachusetts. Excellent. But shouldn’t that TELL people something? Like “he was so disliked that even in a primary he has to really campaign”? Romney, as far as I can tell, is the ultimate in job desertion–apparently halfway through his term he decided he was SO OVER Massachusetts. Or so my friends from Massachusetts tell me. They are all Democrats, as far as I know, but apparently the Republicans are also feeling snitty.
• I thought I had more to say on this. But I haven’t really slept since last Thursday.
• Go vote if today’s your day. Duh.

And:

• I know it takes time to print the ballot cards and whatever. But my choices included Biden, Kucinich, and Richardson. Even though I mostly get my news from Mamapop, I knew they were already out of the race.
• I have been a registered voter for almost 15 years. I hope this is why I don’t recall ever presenting proof of identity, age, or citizenship in order to vote. But at some point I must have, right? All I have to do now is give my name and sign the register–I assume the signatures are supposed to match. But let me say that when I originally became a NY voter, I had just changed my name and the signature was really new. So now, eight years later, I do a lot more of the “scrawl.” Nobody says a word.
• Madeleine 4 Prez! You’ve got my vote.

Last night AM was tossing and turning and coughing next to me. Before I figured out that he really was sleeping and I could let him pull that crap in his own bed, I had a startling thought.

I had responded to NSLS’s (newest) post about baby gear last night. I knew that I had mentioned a funny story about AM. But, I believed, I had used his real name. Oh dear*, I thought. What do I do? Do I email her and ask her to edit her Haloscan? Is that idiotic? This is my just desserts, I further thought, for having blog identities so close to the real thing. I was bound to screw up sometime.

But seeing as how it was 1:30 am and I was supposed to be sleeping, I decided to deal with it in the morning. Especially because I realized that many of NSLS’s regular commenters…are people I have emailed with often or met IRL…and already know AM’s real name. Ah, the Internets. How they totally mess with my mind.

And the “of course!” ending to this story? I had used his blog identity after all.

* The G rated version of what I was actually thinking.

In the bath

Miss M: “Ema, look! I’m wearing soap clothes!”

(Aside to anyone who gets it: Could I market these in Beitar, you think? Lakewood?)