the pieces of my life

Many, many years ago, I wrote the Tweedle Twirp a song. I can’t remember what the occasion was–perhaps there wasn’t one. One thing you need to know about Tweeds is she’s little. I mean little! She’s still the Littlest Brown even though she isn’t the youngest. She shops Old Navy boys department because the clothes are cheaper but they still fit. She is the skinnest little thang out there and for a while I was accusing her of bulemia (which I knew wasn’t true) because the kid can eat. No holds bar kind of eating. The put-it-away-but-it-doesn’t-go-anywhere kind of eating. Other thing you should know is that she speaks with her hand in front of her mouth half the time.

So I started singing her this song, sung to the tune of “I’m a Little Tea Pot”:

I’m a little Tweedle Twirp

Short and thin

Here’s my dopey mannerism

Here’s my twin

If you see me eating

Don’t you shout!

Give me five more minutes

It’ll all come out

Funny right! I’m a real comedian. Only it all came back to bite me in the butt (I mean tushie). At a Waldorf play group last week, the kind, gray-haired, flowing dress leader led the group in “I’m a Little Teapot.” And I froze. Completely froze. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember a single line of the original song. I’m sitting on the floor with Doodles on my lap muttering “twin” “all come out” half under my breath.

Oh well, he doesn’t need to know every song out there.

Thanks to that new technology known as “the silverware tray,” I am able to blog for you now. Toys? Bah! Books? Who needs them? Music? Eh. But give the Doodles a full silverware tray and he’ll leave you alone for minutes–I say minutes!–at a time. He’ll carefully remove the pieces of silverware one by one and shove them into drawers and cabinets all around the kitchen. True, for the next week I’ll be saying, “Didn’t we use to have more spoons?” and “Huh, how did that knife get in with the cereals?” But for the few moments of peace it gives me, it’s worth it.

Last week was such a whirlwind of holidays and birthdays that I didn’t get a chance to blog about my big event of last week. My former college roommate, whom I mentioned when this blog was young, lives north of New York City. Unfortunately, the Boston-New York trek is a little farther than either of us can make. Me, because I’m lazy. Her, because she has two young children. So we do what any two responsible, respectable, adult women would do: we meet at the casino midway between us and we get silly drunk, giggle a lot, and gamble away as much cash as we can in a five-hour period. We’re trying to make this a yearly event–and we sort of are. We met last in January 2003 and then just now in December 2004. So technically, once a year. We’re determined to meet up a little earlier in 2006.

So after sending Doodles and Adam off for their weekly Saturday morning swim class, I got in the car and drove the two hours to Foxwoods. After making my way through the maze of fake city streets, Jax and I find each other. Just like last time, we both ended up in opposing lobbies (“We’ll find each other!”) and it took many cell phone calls to track each other down. But the minute we saw each other, it was like old times. Jax is one of those people who I can pick up with after six months or a year and it seems like it’s only been yesterday. There’s never any awkwardness or weird pauses; we just dive right in.

Our first stop, of course, was the buffet. What’s a trip to a casino without a buffet? After loading up on a winning combination of peel and eat shrimp, bbq kielbasa, spring rolls, corn on the cob, fettucine, and a hot fudge sundae, we were ready to hit the tables.

Jax introduced me to the wonder that is craps on our last trip. So this trip we headed straight there. Of course, in that time, I had completely forgotten how to play, so the cute croupier told me where to bet. Unfortunately, they rotate personnel pretty often so he left and I started to lose. I felt like an idiot shooting the dice. You’d think I’d love being at the center of things but when it comes to other people’s money, I prefer to simply observe. I tossed them out and yelled, “Baby needs a new pair of boots,” which actually was true as after swim class, Adam was taking Doodles to the shoe store for some winter boots. Jax was little help, having diminished her pile of chips and wandering off to figure out how some of the other games were played.

When my stack was looking too wee for me, I found Jax and we found our comfort zone: blackjack. Oh, I love blackjack. Luckily, Jax had her cheat sheet with her because I had forgotten the one Adam made me all those years ago for my bachelorette weekend in Vegas. The best thing about blackjack is just getting to sit next to Jax and shoot the breeze while being brought free drinks. Plus I was winning. Does it get any better? I was splitting, I was doubling down, I was “hit me, hit me, hit me!” Okay, so I was losing too but the winning happened more frequently, and in the end, that’s all that matters.

Of course, I’m not a responsible gambler. No way, no how. I forget that those pretty chips actually connect to real dollars. We were at the $15 minimum tables (the cheapest tables on a Saturday), but I’d just take a stack and stick it out. When it came to double down, the dealer would have to count for me because I never knew how much I had out. It was completely random.

By the end of the day–maybe a smidgen later; I did have to call home to tell Adam that I wouldn’t be home any time soon, never mind even close to when I had said I’d be home–I had made enough not just for Doodles’s boots, but for a few things for myself.

Hey, Jax, you’ve been blogged! See you next year!

Growing up, I don’t remember much Christmas envy. I’m sure it was there, but I simply don’t remember having it, at least not until I was about ten. Before that, we lived in Miami where the schools had teacher work days on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and the schools made sure that we all learned “Dreidel Dreidel” alongside “Winter Wonderland.” My best friend always invited me over on Christmas Eve to help decorate her family’s tree, which apparently was enough for me. At ten, we moved to Boulder, Colorado, where Jews in my school were as rare as a Red Sox world series win–we were there, but we weren’t easy to come by. But even then, I don’t recall caring that much. I’m sure I must have done the token “But why can’t we have a Christmas tree?” spiel, but it’s not something that scarred me.

So why is it that Christmas feels so much more overwhelming now? Has it always been so in your face and I just didn’t realize it? Or has the commercialism

of Christmas gotten worse since the ’70s? Because everywhere I turn with Doodles, Christmas seems to attack. At the mall, in late October, long lines for Santa. Christmas music piped into the supermarket. Elderly people walking up to us in the doctor’s office waiting room to ask Doodles, “And what is Santa going to bring you this year?” I’m flanked by Christmas.

So the dilemma? How do you tactfully avoid the situation? To the folks who mean well, I say, “Actually, Santa doesn’t visit our house.” But how do I explain to Doodles, yes, there is no Santa, but shhhhh don’t tell the kids who do believe in him. How do you handle those years when all he can see is Christmas everywhere but is too young to actually understand what it’s all about and why we don’t do it? I don’t believe in making Hanukkah into a full-blown affair to try and match Christmas… except that’s already what I’m doing. We have a cut-out menorah on our front door. Doodles has three Hanukkah books, a musical dreidel, a soft book of Hanukkah cut-outs, a plush menorah, and the Fisher Price Little People Hanukkah Set. I have eight nights worth of presents. I have Hanukkah music playing on the stereo.

Growing up, being Jewish was the absence of all (okay, most) things Christian. We didn’t have a Christmas tree. We didn’t visit Santa. We didn’t have stockings. Okay, we painted and looked for Easter eggs, but that was the extent of it. Yes, there was a Passover seder, but that involved my father seeing how fast we could get through the Haggadah. On Rosh Hashanah, when we lived in Miami, we went to my grandmother’s house. On Yom Kippur, my mother didn’t let us go to school (in Colorado) but that just meant we could stay home and watch TV. We lit a menorah. That was Jewish. When we moved back to Miami Beach, Jewish was no longer freakish, but it didn’t change our life much.

Once I was an adult, my mother suddenly found Santa. One Christmas Eve she announced, “I’m hanging a stocking by the fireplace. I wonder if Santa will put anything into it.” And she took an old sock and taped it up to the fireplace (yes, we had a fireplace. In Miami Beach. Go figure). My sister and I had to drive a ways a way to find an open 7-11 to buy charcoal to put into the stocking. We did write a note: “This is what Jewish people get in their stockings.” My mother was furious. I mean furious!! The next year to appease, Tweedles and I got her an actual stocking and filled it with tchotchkes.

And then there’s my father. There’s just too much there to even begin with my father. Suffice it to say, if my father had his way, there would have been egg nog, a tree, and lots of snow at our Miami Beach house.

So what to do about Doodles? I don’t want Judaism to be about what he can’t do; I want it to be full of rich traditions and memorable experiences. I want it to be about all the cool things we do as a family. And for eleven (okay, ten and a half; hmm, maybe ten) months out of the year, that’s pretty easy to do. But during Christmas season, I long for jingle bells and cute little ornaments that read “Baby’s First Christmas” (okay, it would be his second Christmas, but who’s counting?).

I thought this wouldn’t be a problem for a few years. But it’s creeping in this year and I see it as a full-fledged issue next year. What’s a nice Jewish mom to do?

It’s my baby’s birthday. Not the little one. The big one. Thirty-two. He thinks he’s old. Hah! Don’t get me started. What I don’t get, though, is he didn’t tell anyone! He made it through the whole day of work and didn’t mention to a single person it was his birthday. How did I end up with a guy like that? Just in case any of you were wondering, my birthday is six months, two weeks, and three days away. Not that anyone is counting or anything….

“Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart.” –Jeremy Bentham

• Adam wasn’t moving fast enough one morning, so I gave him a playful shove and said, “Go go!” Doodles chimed right in, “Gogo! Gogo!” Now, when Doodle wants something, he says, “gogo!” as he points.
  
• During morning cuddle time, Doodles, as is his want, had one hand at my belly, finger in my belly button, and the other to mouth, finger in mouth. He lounged on his back for about five minutes. Suddenly, he pulled his finger out of my belly button, rolled slightly over and shoved Adam. When Adam looked up, Doodles impatiently made the sign for milk, and servant properly beckoned, he promptly put his finger back in my belly.
  
• We said, “Doodles, time to brush your teeth!” He began to walk to the bathroom, but then realized his father wasn’t quite moving fast enough for him. So he turned around, got behind Adam, and pushed him all the way to the bathroom.