the pieces of my life

We have made it to Jerusalem. The final leg of our trip. And we are doing all the things one would expect to do in Jerusalem and a few you wouldn’t. Placed notes in the Kotel. Explored the City of David. Shopped. Sifted dirt in search of antiquities at an archaeological site. Visited Yad Vashem (for the adults; the kids went to the Museum of Science). Visited a family of Ethiopian Jews in their home. And we went on a tour of the tunnels of the Kotel.

And, this, my friends, is where we get into trouble. Because in the Kotel tunnels, the kids who are awake (note: this means Pie was not in that group, as she was fast asleep in Adam’s, then my, then Adam’s, then my arms–hey, she’s dead weight when she’s asleep. It’s hard to hold her for very long) went with the youth counselors while we grown-ups explored. Which was all fine and dandy until Doodles got to the place closest to the Holy of Holies. As the name implies, it’s the holiest spot in Judaism, but it’s somewhere under where the Dome of the Rock is, so Jews have no access to it today. The spot in the tunnels is the closest you can get to it and many people come to this spot to pray.

(For those who don’t know what that is, without going into too much religious history here, once upon a time, there were was a temple in the heart of Jerusalem (twice: first Solomon’s Temple and then the Second Temple. If you’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know that in the heart of the first temple was the Ark of the Covenant. It is the most sacred spot and by going through the tunnels, you pass the place it would have been).

When the grown-ups reached the spot, we all took a moment to close our eyes and make a personal prayer. But not the kids. As was reported to me by more than one person with the children, when they reached the spots, the youth counselors asked the kids what they’d like to pray for. They were reminded that they should think of greater things than “lots of ice cream” or “a new toy.” Apparently, my son immediately said, “Oh, I know what to ask for!”

“What?” the youth counselor asked.

“I want my mommy to have another baby. I want my mommy to have a new baby every day!”

And my friends, this will be the ultimate test of religion and modern science: God versus Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Care to place any bets?

Did you know that on Israeli Blogger, the username and password go from left to right? And they’re in Hebrew. But I digress. This post is clearly about the scariest thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve done a lot of stupid things. But the clear winner here is…

I let my 5 year old rappel down a cliff. Yes, that’s right. The materials were very clear: “Children age 9 and older and adults may rappel.” But this is Israel. And the rules don’t matter. And the guide said, “If he’s not afraid, he can go! I took down a 3 year old once.” And the boy was not afraid (thankfully, the girl was, because I couldn’t have handled that one).

“Rappel! Rappel! Rappel! Rappel!” he chanted all the way there (he’s the one in the red shirt on the right below). Halfway down, Adam had to give him a little hand because he didn’t want to let go of the rope, but he made it down, and while he thought it was a bit scary, he doesn’t seem to be harmed.

We’ve also: hiked in Mahktesh Ramon, eaten in a Bedouin tent, rode a llama (Pie), saw ibexes in the middle of the street on a run (Jenny), visited and lunched at the home of a Moroccan Jew, floated in the Dead Sea, had spa treatments (Adam and Jenny), saw camels, watched Strawberry Shortcake in Hebrew (Pie and Doodles), not slept much, ate way too much, and have generally had a very good time. Yes, there’s more to tell. But the Internet connection is costly and I’m on a borrowed computer. So tomorrow, off to Massada and Ein Gedi and then Sfat. Lilah tov!

I’m here, I’m here. I’ve got a whole bunch of saved drafts that I’ve abandoned because they’re outdated. I’m feeling a bit over my head right now. I’ve got a suitcase that needs to be unpacked just so I can repack it, Adam’s harassing me to look at closet layouts, I have a program at the synagogue that I’m running next week, I have to buy booster seats for my kids for the tour bus, the apartment has to be packed, our trip has to be packed, my son needs 18 valentines for his class, I have homework for my Hebrew class, we haven’t yet picked out tile for the back splash, the landlord is coming by on Tuesday and the apartment is disgusting, and I’m doing the only reasonable thing I could be doing right now: pouring myself a glass of wine, getting teary eyed over Chesley Sullenberger and his crew standing on the field of the Super Bowl, and baking the Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies, courtesy of Foodie at Fifteen. So here’s a brief hodgepodge of the saved drafts in Blogger.

1) As most of the Northeast did, we had a snow day last Wednesday. For once, I didn’t dread it. I had no work to do, the kids get along well, and it was, well, snowy out. Because I had a 5:30 a.m. boot camp class, I was a bit tired, so I set the kids up with salmonella-free chocolate peanut butter sandwiches and a stack of Legos. I lay on the couch, and took a nap. They actually let me doze, on and off, for about an hour. We read some books. I relaxed. They played on their own. It only went awry when we had a playdate that we had scheduled the previous week. I wanted the kids to get together, because they don’t know each other well (Pie is at the same school as the younger boy and she seems very fond of him), and we’ll all be going to Israel together. This family has a four-year-old boy, a six-year-old boy, and a nine-year-old girl. Perfect right?

Almost perfect. Because I don’t drive in snow. I just don’t do it. I refuse. I was about to call and cancel the playdate when I decided to play with Google Maps new feature, plotting out walking times/distances. Not too far. .8 miles. 16 minutes. Doable right? “Hey, guys! We’re going on an adventure! We’re going to walk to our playdate!”

Doodles immediately started groaning. “I don’t want to walk! I hate walking!” But Pie, in her naivete, was game. “An adventure! We’re going on an adventure!” She bravely kept this up for the first 15 minutes, when, with bright pink cheeks and the wind whipping, and snow drifts up to her knees, said, “I don’t like this!”

The 16-minute walk miraculously only took 45 minutes. Did I mention that this playdate was .8 miles… up a hill? On mostly unplowed sidewalks? And death-defying drivers careening on the streets? In snow that turned to freezing rain? I knew I had made a bad mistake with this walk, but it was too late to turn around; we were closer to the playdate’s house. Oh, the false cheer I kept up. “You guys are doing great! You’re doing so awesome! What tremendous adventurers you are! Do you guys know what adventurers get when they get home? Hot chocolate! With marshmallows. So many marshmallows. I think we’ll build you a pyramid of marshmallows! And TV! Adventurers get lots of TV. Lots and lots.” Guilt gets you nothing but hot chocolate and TV.

We made it. Soaking wet and chilled to the bone, we made it. We enter the house and I try fruitlessly to disrobe us without spewing water and ice everywhere. We come into the house and Pie, uncharacteristically, becomes clingy. She had been anxious to play with the boy, asking all week when the playdate was, so I didn’t understand her behavior. Doodles got shy and the boy his age went off on his own. I sat down to have a cup of tea and to chat with the mom, and Pie climbed up into my lap.

“Go play!” I urged her. “You love playdates!”

Pie shook her head, buried her face in my shoulder… and fell asleep. And I mean asleep. I mean snoring you could hear across the room asleep. Doodles ended up playing with the younger boy and I ended up quickly calling Adam (who was working at Panera in town, given that the apartment is too small for him to work from home) to come pick us up.

At home, Pie woke up. And why wouldn’t she? She got hot chocolate. With a pyramid of mini marshmallows. And an overdose of TV.

2) Let’s talk about clothes. Or lack thereof. Because my daughter is a nudist in a way I don’t ever recall my son being. The minute she walks into the apartment, she disappears into another room. And moments later, out she comes, sans clothes. She spends the entire afternoon (or morning or evening) naked. She dances. She plays. She colors. Naked. We do insist that underwear goes on for eating, as hands go all over the place, but other than that, the girl is naked. All the time. If you’re ever wondering what Pie is up to? Now you know. She’s naked.

Digression: Does the ad for SoBe Lifewater, with all the guys in white shirts, kind of remind you of the sperm scene in Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex *But Were Afraid to Ask?

3) Doodles has become a royal pain in the a**. No other way to describe it. He’s been moody, refusing to listen, negative on everything, greedy as all get out, and impossible to live with. Nothing funny here. Just me at my wit’s end with my normally adorable, fun-loving, cuddly son.

Bruce is on. You no longer have my attention. Gotta go, ‘cuz I was born to run….

What’s better than watching TV? Being on TV. The kids love to have “naked tushie time” to dance. “Rock n’ Roll, Mommy!” Doodles orders, and on goes AC/DC’s Back in Black. But the thing is, they cram in front of the (small, apartment-sized) television trying to see their own reflections. They try out different moves. Wiggle it up. Rock it out. But it always leads to fighting as they try to make room. So Adam rigged up the video camera so they no longer have to fight to see themselves. Let the dancing begin!

As I mentioned, I’m really enjoying a bunch of craft blogs. Universally, these women (always women) who create these blogs seem to have these lives that involve cups of warm tea, knitting while the kids make imaginary worlds out of scarves and cardboard boxes, and lots of nature walks. I’ve learned that when a child is home for the day, all you need is a pile of books, a few art projects, and the ingredients to make fresh bread or ginger molasses cookies.

Last week, Pie was home sick. Did I say sick? The girl psyched me out. On Thursday night, she had a 101.2 fever. The next morning, she woke up with 100.5. Within two minutes of my calling her sick into preschool, her fever dropped, and she spent the day hovering in the 99.1 range. You know. The not-sick range. So she was bouncing off of walls. On the coldest day of the year. When the high was 14 degrees. And the low subzero.

I had a lovely day for myself planned. On Monday, I had spent the morning in Pie’s preschool, making snowman pancakes with the class, because Pie had been jealous that I go in weekly to Doodles’s classroom (of course, a half hour before I was to go in, she said, “I changed my mind! I don’t want you there.” but she got over it). On Wednesday I was in the kindergarten (and I’ve told Doodles’s teacher that I can no longer work at his table, because it makes me crazy. I want to yell, “Stop being a Chatty Cathy and focus on your work!” But he’s not doing anything different from any of the other kids and I just need to work at another station). Tuesday is ballet; Thursday is ice skating. But as I promised all you people a completed draft of my novel, and I’ve actually been thinking about it and I have a ton of ideas and I have started working on it (and I’ve been reading Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore and it’s given me some good starting points; revision has always been a weakness of mine); I was anxious to dive into my novel. Especially because Monday is MLK Day so no school for the wee ones.

But the best laid plans, yadda, yadda, yadda. Pie was kinda sorta sick. The novel could wait. Alone time is overrated. I needed to take care of my baby. So Pie and I had a morning together, alone at home. And I’ve read my blogs. I know what to do. I set us up in the living room. I put her on the couch. I pulled a blanket over her. I made myself a cup of tea. And I turned on Noggin and stopped reading those blogs. I’m feeling much better now. Maybe I’ll even make some ginger molasses cookies. Or I’ll buy some from Wilson Farms and pretend I made them. See. I can be crafty, too.

My son, tonight, when he had the opportunity to choose any show to watch tonight, requested “a wedding show.”

And right now I’m selecting lighting fixtures and color and it turns out that Adam and I totally agree on the former and not at all on the latter. This should be fun, except that I’m just not a stylish person and I find the process painful and stressful. I want to hire a designer to help us, only the first one we priced gave us a quote that was higher than our entire furniture budget. So we may be on our own here except for the kindness of friends with good taste.

But I’m still giving my Martha side a go. The kids and I tonight made homemade tortillas for dinner. Do you have any idea how easy it is to make homemade tortillas? It’s so ridiculously simple I can’t believe how much I wasted on these mondo packs of tortillas only to toss them out when the family ate 2 1/2 out of 12. We made six–and they’re all gone.

Apropos of nothing, I love Carol Kane. We don’t see enough Carol Kane. And if you know why I said that, then you’re watching what I’m watching, so you can’t judge me.

And continuing this randomness, I hate winter marathon training. I have dreams of the Goofy Challenge, but it’s another January marathon and I’m so sick of running on ice and snow. I can’t wait for this marathon to be over so I can be a lazy ass again.

Did I mention that I hate color? I do. I think our new house will be all black and white. Just so I don’t have to pick any colors.

Doodles turned down a concert at the library because he’s just not into music. And he’s grown out of our yearly SteveSongs concert, which is too bad–he’s going anyway. He hates babysitters even more than he hates music.

Bed. I need bed. I’m scared of bed, though. Because I dream in color. But all the wrong colors.

I’d like to start tonight with a scene from Stop N Shop this afternoon. My three-year-old daughter is sitting in the cart. We’re shopping.

Pie: Mommy! Can I get more yogurt?
Me: Sure. Would you like grown-up yogurt or kid yogurt?
Pie: Um, grown-up yogurt.
Me: Okay, would you like strawberry or blueberry or peach?
Pie: I want the brown yogurt.
Me [I pick up the chocolate yogurt and check out the 37 grams of sugar]: No, sweetie, not the brown yogurt.
Pie: I WANT THE BROWN YOGURT!
Me [trying to distract]: How about a kid yogurt? I see Dora and Diego over there.
Pie’s eyes widen.
Pie: Hannah Montana! I want Hannah Montana yogurt! Please, Mommy, can I have Hannah Montana yogurt?

So, yes, my daughter is the proud owner of six (wait, she ate one already so make that five) Hannah Montana yogurts. I still don’t know how she knows Hannah Montana.

All of that, by the way, is completely irrelevant to this evening’s post. I had intended to write more about the Miami trip, but as the skies are clouding up and the air has that unmistakable smell of snow storm (what is that smell anyway? How is it you really can smell a storm coming in?), Miami seems years and years ago and I can only vaguely conjure up the peace of daily ice creams, on-call babysitters, sunshine on the boat, and the camaraderie of old friends.

Instead I am faced with a new year, but the same old me. Every year I make resolutions, and last year, I failed miserably on most, but made progress on a few. Not that I’d tell you all the resolutions, but I can name a few…

• More kid time: This one is going fairly well. I try to make time each day with each kid to spend one-on-one with. It’s harder with the school schedule–I definitely get more one-on-one time with Pie, but I’ve been working on it with Doodles, trying to read more with him, have him read to me, work on his writing. But I definitely get more time reading Eloise, playing Candyland Castle, or baking hallah with Pie. I need to make more of an effort on this.
• Get to and stay at 133 lbs: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! ‘Nuff said.
• Go greener: This was my most successful resolution. I kept bags in my car and cut our bag usage down by probably about 75%. I was disappointed that our remodel wouldn’t allow for solar panels (we had the house evaluated and were told we don’t get enough sun for solar), but I did convert both our house and the apartment to wind energy. Slowly converting our light bulbs over. Buying energy efficient appliances for the “new” house. Trying to teach the kids about conserving (“No, Pie, you don’t need a new sheet of paper–just use the back of this!” Which works about as well as you’d think it would). I freecycled an incredibly amount of stuff when we cleaned out the house–I was shocked at some of the stuff people wanted: half used tubes of joint compound, the paint samples we had from when we painted our house years ago, Adam’s old economic textbooks, car window tinting, a bag filled with odds and ends of paper. The only thing I couldn’t get rid of was a box of Barney VHS tapes.
• Close e-mail and the Web more: Um, this was the year of Facebook and Twitter. So obviously, a big fat X here.
• Run a four-hour marathon: Hey, I’m happy enough with 4:13:36.

This year, I’m keeping the same resolutions here and adding a few more. Again, many aren’t for public consumption, but a few additions this year are:

• Read 26 books this year: I know 52 is the logical number here, but hey, that is so not going to happen.
• Take advantage of the teachable moments: Too many times I let the great opportunities with the kids pass by, because we’re in the car, I’m cooking dinner, or because I’ve just been bombarded with questions for the previous twelve hours.
• Set a writing schedule: Because I did promise all of you I’d complete the first draft of my novel.

Is that all my resolutions? No. Not even all my public ones. But once again, I can hear the Pie from the other room, so I’m going to tend to my daughter. I’m still adding to the resolutions list, so any that anyone wants to pass on, feel free!

Here we are, sitting at Miami International Airport, waiting for our 9:45 p.m. flight that has so far been delayed to 10:15. The kids are exhausted. In an attempt to keep them awake, I made the smart and rational decision to pump them full of sugar in hopes of keeping them awake until we board the plane, because Pie already fell asleep once on the way to the airport and then again when sitting on Adam’s lap at the gate. I went in search of cash, but the ATM was out of money, I tried to buy a trashy magazine, but there were no People magazines in English, and I’m really not excited about going from mid 70s weather to sub-freezing temps. Call me crazy like that. Of course, once we get to Logan, we still need to get a shuttle to our off-site parking, drive home, and somehow transfer the kids upstairs to bed.

Our trips to Miami have a certain rhythm to them, a checklist of activities to be ticked off. Trip to Jungle Island and/or the Seaquarium? Check. Ice cream at the Frieze? Check, check, check. Stone crabs? Check. Spa day at the Standard? Check. New Year’s eve at my cousins’? Check. New Year’s day ride on my cousin’s boat? Check. Runs on the beach? Check. Pool time, alone time (as the kids stay with the Nana), lunch at Van Dyke, breakfast at Front Porch, cafe con leche, cafe con leche, and just to be safe, another cafe con leche. Check.

This trip was no exception. T Rex and Pad were in town (from California) as usual and they picked up with Doodles and Pie as if it had been last week that they’d seen each other, and not last year. There were a few tussles between Doodles and T Rex–Doodles has this annoying HBS habit of stating–with ABSOLUTE certainty–“facts” that are completely wrong, which upset T Rex to no end. But it all worked out well, and this year, Teener Tuna’s daughter, Billie (remind me why I call her that?), was old enough to peak Pie’s interest. Billie, however, had no interest in my daughter, but that didn’t stop Pie from chasing her, saying, “Billie! Do you want to play baby? Do you want to run? Do you want to dance?” Billie barely had the time to answer the girl.

I guess I’ll have to finish this post later, as my daughter is moaning that she wants to go to sleep (so much good the M&Ms; did) and she wants to sleep on me. So I’m off in that other parental role–mattress–and I’ll be writing you again from Boston… I hope.

Doodles may not care about his clothes, but he very much cares about his hair. Currently, as you can see, his hair is “way too long.” It’s in his eyes. It hurts his head. We better get him a hair cut, stat!

My son really, really loves Star Wars. Hasn’t seen it yet, of course. However, I’ve authorized the gifting of Episode IV for Doodles for Hanukkah. However, I’m a little fearful. Last night we woke up from a bad dream. In his bad dream, someone was out to get him. Who? you might ask. Well of course. It was King Antiochus. If a Roman king can keep him up at night, just think what Jabba the Hut will do for him.

***

Getting Pie dressed in the morning is always something of an ordeal. She has very specific ideas about what she wants to wear, but sometimes they can’t be formulated until she’s stood in front of her clothes for five minutes. “Today I want to wear… pants! No! A long-sleeved dress! No! A skirt! That one. With… not that top. No, not that top. Not that one either. Um, okay, that one!”

Doodles, of course, gets himself dressed in the morning. His clothes don’t always completely coordinate, but if he doesn’t care, I don’t care either. However, I noticed that he was wearing the same clothes week in, week out. The same five shirts. The same five pants. Which was surprising because he had so many other tops that I was pretty sure he liked.

And then, I realized something. Doodles wears five tops and five bottoms. On the weekend, Adam washes the clothes. He puts those five tops and five bottoms away. On the top. In the drawer. Of course. As an experiment, I went into the drawer, took the five tops and the five bottoms, and I placed them on the bottom of the clothes piles in the drawers. Choosing my five favorite shirts that he hadn’t worn in a while, I put those on the top. I also put vaguely coordinating pants on the top in the bottom drawer.

And, voila! The next week, we had an entirely new wardrobe on the boy. He cares so little about his clothes that he simply grabs whatever is on the top of the pile. So now I do a weekly clothes rotation, and he never knows that I’m choosing what he wears.

***

My sister-in-law will out of town the coming weekend and we’ll be in Miami Beach shortly after that, so we got together yesterday with everyone to celebrate Hanukkah early. My SIL gave to Pie a purse with a zipper that Pie loved. But what was even better is that in the purse was a bunch of foreign money, primarily Egyptian money, from a trip SIL took a couple of years ago.

Pie took the money out, put the money back in. She leafed through it. She held it close. Oh, money! But then when she got to the coins, she took one look at the Twenty Piastres piece, and declared, “Mommy, it’s broken.” She handed me the coin. “You keep it. I don’t want it. It’s missing a piece.”

Don’t you go trying to pass off any wooden nickels to my little girl!