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Somehow, AM’s winter coat smells of vomit. Or dog poop.

He does sometimes chew on the zippers, but to the best of my recollection, he has been near neither smell recently. The kids were in the care of my mother-in-law for several hours yesterday, and spent time on a city bus, but it is unlikely she would leave out a detail like bodily fluids.*

The bad news: It smells gross and needs a wash and will have to wait.

The good news: I figured out where the smell was coming from. Because boy, was it driving me nuts. I kept checking my shoes, his shoes, his diaper–although it did not smell like his poop.

But: Still completely mystified. Not enough No caffeine in my system to process further.

* She left a very detailed message on my voicemail yesterday telling me that Miss M had picked up a dime from the sidewalk and exactly where her jacket it was secreted for safekeeping. So, you see, not the type to leave out Big Stuff.

Thanks for your helpful comments on Wednesday’s post. Here’s something lighter for your weekend fare! 

A couple of months ago we spent Shabbat with friends. Their kids are 5 and 7 and offered us hope in the arena of being able to play and be around each other like civilized human beings, with minimal adult intervention. They even bragged about staying in bed until 9:00 on Sundays–the kids are allowed to serve themselves “treat” cereals and milk if they leave the adults alone.

So some day I am sure Miss M and AM will be in such a groove. In the meantime, I leave you with the following humorous anecdote:

AM approached me as I was, um, on the potty.* And indicated that he would like to sit on the potty. “Really? You want to sit on the potty?” He does, from time to time. Usually when his diaper is still warm from his most recent pee. He nodded, so I said, “Go get the potty ring from Ema’s bathroom.” He hesitated, so I told Miss M to help him find it. They dashed off and I heard the sound of the other toilet being fiddled with.

I managed to get there in time to see the potty ring in place and Miss M bent over AM, unfastening the tape of his diaper. “Um, what are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m helping AM. I’m taking his diaper off,” she explained.

“How is he going to get on the potty?”

“I’m going to lift him up.”

“Oh,” I said. Like hell! “You know, I’ll lift him. I think maybe he’s a little bit too heavy for you.”

So, we had a rockin’ good time singing the ABCs for a few minutes. No yield on the potty, as he was saving it for the shower, where he peed on my foot.

But really, did I need another situation where I had to contemplate the idea of someone getting hurt? Paging common sense! Maybe when she’s 5…

* It should go without saying that the bathroom door was open.

I should really be expanding my blogreading horizons. Not that I don’t love my little ‘roll to pieces, but some of you are too nice, some of you have full time jobs, and some of you are a little, um, busy right now because all that adorableness, I’m sure, wants to be nursed right this minute and no, you may not take a shower/eat a sandwich/write an email beforehand.

Plus some of my blog buddies who have a child born around the same time as Miss M have kind of disappeared. As we all know, a lot of people are only in it for the camaraderie of the comments, so clearly paying work and Life Responsibilities trump my need to have confirmation that other mothers’ sanity is also AT THE BRINK.

In a lucky moment today I linked to mothergoosemouse and almost cried tears of joyful recognition at this: “Would you believe that my three year-old cries more than my two month-old?” YES, YES, I WOULD! Would you believe that Miss M, at age three and three-quarters, cries so much more than the 23-month-old whose spoken vocabulary consists only of “muh” “usss,” “Ay-ya-ya,” “isss,” and “(ih)MEH”?* Would you believe that she cannot keep her hands off AM’s person or out of what he is doing or off his damn plate of food oh my lord I cannot stand this another day.

That she, who likes structure and reliability, cries, whines, or throws herself on the floor pouts upon being reminded of her daily routine and what it entails. Things like using the bathroom first thing in the morning and right before bed. Washing her hands with soap. Eating meals. Going to school. Taking a bath in the evening. Getting dressed. And don’t even get me started on the latest wardrobe fights around here. This morning we had the third pants/dress/a jumper is/is not a dress/if you wear that you MUST wear tights/no, it’s not warm out/Hashem makes the weather, not me! battle of the week. Followed by her insistence on wearing mittens with her fleece jacket. And crying when she could not find her mittens after school–because the fleece does not have pockets for said mittens, they went missing.

The whininess extends to me. I am not permitted to: take a shower, go to the bathroom with the door closed, eat something that varies from what the children are eating, drink tea, read my own book, talk on the telephone, or think, really, without inviting comment. Admittedly, many times I am guilty of tuning her out–because there is just so much chatter I can respond to when I am juggling the dozen or so things I am doing/thinking about at any given time. But really, it’s hard to be sunshiny when the first thing out of her mouth in the morning is a demand to nurse, usually followed up several minutes later with “But I don’t want you to take a shower.” This particular morning? Ever? So basically I am seething snit of a mother from about 7 in the morning.

I have been venting my frustrations with Miss M here for well over two years. I suppose it boils down to her penchant for seeking negative attention and my falling for it every damn time. Not enough one-on-one time for the two of us. Too much yelling. Too tired to change.

The thing that kills me is that I know she knows how to be reasonable, how to wash her hands without creating an enormous mess, how to play nicely with AM. All of those things happen all the time–at least once a day. And then they don’t.

I find hope in the fact that the other day she told a little boy at a playspace “Please stop doing that!” when she was upset with his actions, rather than knocking him to the ground and ripping the offending object out of his hands. (As an aside: you will never see adults move so fast as when they hear a preschooler raise their voice and say “Please!” It reeks of desperation in a way that screams and tears do not convey.)

I am not sure where this all is going. I wish I could see light at the end of whatever tunnel we all are in right now. But every day is just…tense. It makes me sad because she really is funny and whimsical and I spend my days frustrated and making bad impressions.

This should have been a letter to Ask Moxie, but it’s just too rambly so instead I am gifting it to the blogosphere for tea and sympathy. Where is my hanky?

* more, nurse, Ariella, ice, Ema

Yesterday evening, from the bathroom: “Abba, Ema! Is Shabbat over?”

Chorus of every adult in the living room: “No! Not yet!”

(pause) “But I want Shabbat to be over.”

Purim (We were about to go deliver mishloach manot–gifts of food and drink–to friends in our building. Many people, including some spirited adults, masquerade on Purim.)

In the words of Miss Doctor M: “AM is a firefighter; he brings people to the hospital, and I make them better.”

More of Sprouty’s 15 minutes. Hey, he’s better behaved than the kids.

Clearly the sign of someone with a serious problem: I did this in a freshly cleaned (not by me) kitchen.

Being deranged: Sometimes fun. And good for your plants.

project

sprouty’s new home

Purim is coming. (My hamantaschen lament here, in case you missed it last year.)

But tomorrow, the day before, is known as ta’anit Esther, the fast of Esther. No big explanation as to its origins; it’s right in the megillah. When Mordechai tells Esther that she must approach the king, unbidden (a potential capital offense), in order to save the Jewish people from destruction, she undertakes a fast to prepare herself. Her fast was three days, though. Surely, she was made of tougher stuff, so we fast for one day.

Anyway, I am skipping the fast. My status as “pregnant or nursing or mother of baby under 2″* is quickly running out. No plans to change it soon. For the past four years I’ve only fasted on Yom Kippur and Tisha B’av, the “major” fasts, 25 hours long and with additional restrictions.

I will still be nursing after AM turns 2, assuming he wants to continue–Miss M, of course, will have to be driven away with a sharp stick on the eve of her 4th birthday–but in the Eyes of the Law things will have changed. It’s true, they have changed. He is adorable and funny. We have the funniest half-sign conversations. And obedient! (Sometimes.) I can’t get over it. When I say, “Ok, it’s time to clean up your chalk/legos/books so we can go home/watch Signing Time/take a bath,” he usually just trots over and does it. Shocks me every time because I am so used to the “Huh? Me? I didn’t hear what you said. / I am completely ignoring you, bitch. / Ha! You say you don’t negotiate with terrorists yet you negotiate with ME!” of Miss M.

But I digress. Perhaps the return to a cycle of six fast days will signal a return of other things. Synagogue attendance. Spiritual feeling. Energy to attend to things happening outside the walls of my house. Who knows, perhaps I will even find work. (Although, as BrooklynGirl notes, that comes with its own set of challenges.)

When I first was excused from the minor fasts I felt like I was somehow cheating. As a religiously rebellious-yet-repressed 15 year old, fasting was something I COULD do. Couldn’t keep Shabbat, but wow could I not eat all day! Easy peasy. I even took on fasts I didn’t have to. (The fast of the first-born, the day before Passover, is only for first-born sons and has an easy out for anyone who attends synagogue that morning.)

But four-and-a-half years into the pregnant/nursing/mothering thing, I will tell you this: I need all the help I can get.

* I am not a rabbi, nor do I play one on TV. My Local Orthodox Rabbi (who is a total gadol ha’dor, if you ask me) is pretty lenient about things concerning pregnant/nursing women.

Apparently, the fame of my skill with potted plants has spread so far and wide it has seeped into the subconscious of my dad stepmother, who got me a huge collection of spring flowers-in-a-bowl as a birthday gift.*

To be honest, when we first took it out of the box, my reaction was along the lines of, “Am I that difficult to buy for that a simple gift certificate to [insert name of any book store] never crossed anyone’s mind?” But it’s growing on me. Within 24 hours we had our first crocus; now we have a passel of them, and daffodils besides. I love daffodils. Tulips are on the way, too. Kind of reminds me of having a yard and grass and things in my distant past.

But my heart still belongs to Sprouty. Sprouty looks poised to produce another bean, despite completely outgrowing and overrunning his little orange juice container and leaning over frightfully. I really must figure out what to do about that. In the meantime, I have become far too maternal crazy concerned about his welfare. To wit: Friday night the light closest to him stayed on all night. Our living/dining room lights are on a timer; usually on Shabbat we just keep on a small light over the sink for the entire day and night. But Taxman decided to put on the single overhead light at the intersection of the kitchen and dining area. At about 8pm, it occurred to me that we were potentially messing with poor Sprouty’s circadian rhythms. “He’s not going to rest properly!” (I had noticed that in the evening his leaves drooped in a sort of mimicry of flowers closing up at night.) 

Yes, I have officially Gone Too Far. Please send organic potting soil and a place to put him.

* My dad was included on the invoice, but this gift had my stepmom’s fingerprints all over it. My dad’s idea of a gift is along the lines of a 529 account. I am not complaining; this attitude towards life got me through a very expensive university education–not that I am using it.

Here’s a fuzzy picture of Sprouty’s bean.

Bordering on obsession, but somehow I feel proud of this.

While shopping at that child-friendly mecca, Trader Joe’s, my wee ones demanded that I make good on the snack I promised. (It had been originally, loudly demanded, natch, from the rear while I was driving highway speed.)

I had a large bag of raisins but no way to distribute them in small quantities.* I found some little cups over by the drink machine and snagged two. I guess they are supposed to be used for sampling the TJ product of the day, but nevermind. As I started to put raisins into the first cup, Miss M piped up: “Me first! I’m the mommy!”

“Oh, honey,” I said regretfully, “The mommy always gets served last.”

“But I want to be first,” she explained.

“I know,” I sympathized, as I gave the cup to AM, “but the mommy goes last.”

* Left to his own devices, AM would eat the entire bag and still ask for more, so I have to control the portion.

AM’s new DST schedule is wreaking havoc with my life. (By the time he goes to sleep I am too useless to do anything but watch the second half of The Biggest Loser: Couples. And then go to bed too late and hungry because I am too tired to make anything decent.) Therefore, an edict has come down–from me, because I am the Queen–that the 20 minutes that he napped in the car on the way to speech therapy will be the only nap he takes today.

Good news: He should go to bed at the “normal” time.

Bad news: He will be an enormous crank starting at 3:00. And 3:00 to 7:00 is a long time.

Update! Everyone was sleeping by 7:10.

I had a brainstorm–to take the kids out for Chinese food, at a kosher place 20 minutes away. Would kill time, get us all fed. My brilliant idea was threatened by the fact that I had a FreshDirect delivery scheduled from 4 to 6. But my buzzer rang at 3:35, so off we went! Of course, we were the only people at the restaurant 4:20. Did not care. AM got rice everywhere. Did not care. Miss M had to be bribed to eat the chicken. Did not care–she ate plenty of brown rice without complaint. Overpaid for truly mediocre chicken with mixed vegetables. But an entire afternoon’s activity? Priceless.

Dear Friends,

I love you dearly. Really. But I will not play Scrabulous with you. I have been a member of Facebook for 24 hours and already four of you (you know who you are) have tried to suck me in. Yea, if it is verily Teh Crack of Teh Internets, I am having none of it.

Unless you are willing to come clean my kitchen every day. Because, oy, is it a mess! (And while you are at it, can you give my kids a bath? Just not in the mood.)

With great affection,

One Tired Ema

• Eliot Spitzer: Can kiss my tush. Seriously. The most powerful man in one of the top 5 most powerful states in the US, brought down by his id. What is it about top political office that turns men into such idiots? Or were they always idiots, but now they are drunk-with-power and above-the-law (or so they think)?
• The secretary at the speech and hearing clinic: AM was supposed to have a hearing test today, as part of his whole speech workup thing. (We think his hearing is rather bat-like. But anyway.) I walked in at 12:40, dragging my tired baby, for a 12:45 appointment. She told me I was an hour early because the appointment was for 1:45. It was right there on her calendar! “Um, no,” I said, “I never would have agreed to 1:45. I have to pick my daughter up at school at 2:30. I was told that the test was an hour, so 1:45 would have been an impossibility.” I had to reschedule for April. Whatever, it’s not pressing. It just pissed me off that it must have been MY mistake. Incorrect, lady!
• Why nobody will make Friday night dinner for my friends who had a baby: I am arranging meals for them, and nobody will touch Shabbat dinner with a 10-foot pole. I always volunteer to make Friday night dinner for people because it is the one meal every week that I know I will be cooking! I just make more! Every weekday I throw whole wheat pasta at the kids, zap some corn and peas and call it dinner–but that’s not acceptable to bring to someone else. I would totally make them Friday night dinner, but I took tonight’s dinner slot (because I just started making calls yesterday and thought it was too-short notice), and I don’t want them to think I am stalking them.
• I joined Facebook. It’s weird. On the one hand, wow, I have like 21 friends already. On the other hand, I have no idea of the etiquette. People I don’t know want to friend me. I think I know how they got to me–they are “friends” with someone I know in person but I only “know” them from a Yahoo group that I have not posted to in about 18 months because it got so totally catty. Of course, that’s very different, somehow, from the fact that I friended bloggy friends who I have never met in real life. (What do I do about these other people? Ignore them? Friend them? Help!)
• Did I mention I joined Facebook in the hopes of finding freelance editing work? Wow, that is SO NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Sigh. Does anyone need me to edit their dissertation? I have references.
• Daylight Savings Time: Or whatever it is that is making AM’s new schedule look like this…wake up 8:00, nap 1:30, go to bed 9:00. This is, in a word, sucky. Must to fix before I am never able to pick up Miss M at school again.
• Miss M’s Why phase: At the normal “why?” phase time, she was going through an equally annoying “What’s that?” phase. Now we are in “WHY?!” with a vengeance. It leads to some stellar conversations. Take this morning. Me: “Ok, I am going to take a shower.” Her: “Why?” Me: “Because I would like to get clean and wash my hair.” Her: “I don’t want you to take a shower.” Me (to Taxman): “How am I even supposed to respond to that?”
• Starbucks: Weren’t they supposed to come out with a $1 coffee? Where is it?
• Sprouty watch: The flower is turning in a bean pod. Who knew I could grow things?

At lunch today I was the only adult, among six, without a paying job. Two professors. A lawyer. An accountant. A hotshit political consultant who is writing a book. I was tapped as the person who has a lot of time to do pleasure reading.*

But my children ate their lunches without prodding and were generally well behaved. (There were two rooms full of Someone Else’s Toys.) So there!

Maybe I should have mentioned that I have a devastatingly witty blog?

* Heh. I stay up late Friday nights and ignore the kids between 8 and 9 Saturday morning to achieve this. I don’t really read during the week unless I am totally sucked into a book.

• 4pm update: Number of kettles boiled today: 4. Number of cups of tea steeped: 0. (But none was wasted either. I guess that’s good.) 
• Sprouty: has flowers. C’mon! I can’t deliberately starve him now!
• The world: What is up with all the killing? Leaving aside the wars and stuff, shooting students? Doesn’t matter if it is in North Carolina or Israel. Murderers suck. Don’t these people have any moral compass? I am frighteningly close to 33 years old and I STILL do not understand how it is ok to take someone else’s life unless they are imminently threatening your life/your children/your loved ones.
• My neighbor: had her baby. (Yay! It’s a girl!) She told me she was going to get a manicure yesterday afternoon. Either she went to be induced instead or she did get a manicure, then went into labor. I’m betting on the former. Which makes me a little snitty, because I’ve been trying to run interference for her with the gossipy moms at preschool. I wouldn’t have said anything if she had told me the truth.
• (NSLS, you’re up next, I think. Of the people I know, anyway.)
• Now I am in total mother hen mode. I want to organize their meals (friends and people in the community make dinners for people who have had a baby) or stock their fridge or something, but I don’t have the go-ahead for that. Instead, we bought crepe paper so we can decorate their door on Saturday night before they come home. Now that’s useful.
• My kitchen skillz: totally off. Good thing it is just us for Shabbat dinner.
• My mothering skillz: Eh. I did figure out today, way too late in the game, that I just don’t understand the way 3 year olds think. But I recognized that it is not the way I think. So I apologized to Miss M for yelling at her for putting her pancake sans plate on the windowsill to cool off. Will it offset the lead paint/toxic dust/grit she ingested?
• My dishwasher: Does not clean properly unless dishes are rinsed well. It’s always been like this. I thought the point of new dishwashers was that you didn’t have to rinse.
• My husband: Keeps putting meat silverware in the (dairy) dishwasher.
• AM’s mouth: Last canine is finally close to poking through. I was finally on top of it with the baby Motrin last night. Much better. It’s been a long six weeks though, to get all of them into his mouth. Glacial paced teething, it’s his specialty. Next up? Two year molars. $&@#.
• Hope everyone has a nice weekend. I will be busy not sleeping enough. And getting old.

Meet Sprouty. He is a lima bean, lovingly sprouted and planted in a tissue-paper decorated juice container by one Miss M.

Prior to Sprouty, my success with plants was minimal. Taxman would love to personally regale each and every one of you with the sad embellished tale of Zoe. She was an aloe plant I bought to decorate our first apartment. I did not realize that Zoe was essentially a cactus. I killed her with love overwatering. (At this point in the story, Taxman will turn to me and say, “Murderer!”)

Last year, Miss M attempted this very same project. It did not go well. There was beanicide, on the way home, no less.

I applied my Lessons Learned* and carried Sprouty home myself. Miss M offers reminders for watering. I do it every 2-3 days.

But here’s the rub: a flourishing, although leaning, bean sprout, attracting bugs** (fruit flies? whatever they are–ew, they are in my house! in my kitchen!) and nowhere to put it. No garden. No yard. Just a preschooler very attached to school projects. In fact every scrap of paper she brings home, as well as the ones she produces here six days a week. I have learned, the hard way, that winnowing must happen when she is absent or unconscious or watching Super Why!

Taxman votes for a slow kill, withholding water. I think it might be better to rend the Sprouty-Miss M bond all at once. I just don’t know if I have the guts.

Could anyone use a lima bean sprout?

* Why, yes, I have worked for the government; why do you ask?

** Just to clarify, I have no issue with insects in general. Outside they do good work. But I don’t want them near my food.

Oh, and I have no idea why I have assigned genders/names to plants. I don’t mean it in a cute, Martha Stewart-y way. At all. ‘Cause ew, worse than the bugs.

I was going to write about the wedding we went to yesterday, but I realized that probably a lot of my readership has never been to an Orthodox wedding and there is so much explaining that it made me want to lie down and take a nap. (Or maybe I want to lie down because AM is cutting two more teeth, and Miss M has a nighttime cough that doesn’t bother her in the slightest, but keeps me awake for hours.)

(Although I cannot resist for those in the know. Chuppah: about an hour and ten minutes. I kid you not.)

Anyway. niobe tagged me for a book meme. Pick up your nearest book, turn to page 123, count 5 sentences in and reveal the next three to the world. Here goes:

We are about halfway through the crossword. My attention has drifted.

“Read that one again, child,” says Grandma.*

I have to say this is not the best representation of this book, which I love so much I put it down so that I would not read it yesterday–Taxman was at work and I had to take care of the kids, plus go to a birthday party before the wedding.

This is pretty much the least stressful meme in existence; if anyone cares to participate–I tag thee.

While I am at it, I had wanted my Leap Day post to be a tally of all the books I’ve read so far this year. May as well do it; better late than never.

The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud**

The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan

The Double Bindby Chris Bojhalian**

Mister Posterior and the Genius Child by Emily Jenkins

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson

An Unfinished Season by Ward Just**

* from The Time Traveler’s Wife  

** = For a book club