Next Year, Right Here

Monday evening was the first night of Passover. (Don't be fooled by what most calendars say, Jewish holidays start at sundown on the night before the first day of the holiday.) Ellen graciously agreed to host this year, and we divvied up the cooking and other responsibilities.

For those of you not familiar with Passover, it is a bit like Jewish Thanksgiving in that both holidays involve foods and activities that vary from family to family, but which MUST be done for the celebration to feel complete. In the years since Chris and I returned to Portland, we have celebrated Passover with Ellen and Jiro, and it is our tradition that Chris makes brisket, Ellen makes a lovely vegetarian stock, and I swoop in at the last minute with matzo balls. (Great, huh? Ellen spends hours and days making stock, and I get to whip up a mix.) I usually make the charoset, but Ellen was kind enough to make it this year. Ada and I made a lemon nut cake on Sunday, so we didn't entirely shirk our responsibilities.

 

The traditional pre-seder jump-on-Jiro

No matter that the event was a little chaotic and messy, I had a great time. Maybe even more so because of the mess, which is, after all, my style. There was a little bump when we realized we did not have any matzo, but friends were sent out to retrieve some (thank goodness we don't live in a place with more Jews, or we'd REALLY be out of luck) while I conducted a short seder with the kids.

Last year I told the Passover story to Ada and Monkey Boy, and they were riveted by the plagues. This year was not much different. This year, Ada and MB were joined by Monkey Boy's One True Love. I recounted the tale to the kids, from the burning bush (Isn't that crazy? AND IT TALKED!) to the plagues (frogs EVERYWHERE, plopping on people's heads, landing in their soup!) and exit from Egypt (though I did change "slaying of the first born" to "the kids got really sick" and said the Pharaoh's soldiers were forced to swim downstream when the water closed in on them, instead of saying they drowned). The real highlight was the four of us running to the front door, throwing it open and yelling "Welcome Elijah! Come on in!" The kids asked lots of questions, got excited by my colorful commentary on the plagues, and even got a little heavily diluted wine to go with their ceremonial meal. When we were done, the kids ran amok while the grown-ups started the main seder.

This photo doesn't show it, but they were REALLY into the story.

A number of years ago I put together a hybrid hagaddah and every year since then I have meant to revise it. Let's just say, this was not the year that was going to happen. So we limped along as usual, but happily so. As commanded, we drank a lot of wine (pouring for one another as is the tradition of some good friends from the east coast) and kibbitzed a lot. When we talked about appreciating the freedom we take for granted, and recognizing the holy in the everyday, I read the footnote to Howl. (Reading this aloud to a group is definitely facilitated by drinking two large glasses of wine first.) At one point we somehow got into a heated conversation about men who are sub-par lovers due to failures that if discussed here will get the blog a lot of funky traffic. One of the male guests brought this up, in case you were wondering.

And we ate. We ate ceremonially (wow, love that horseradish) and for fun. We ate Chris' delicious brisket and Ellen's fantastic soup while we continued to drink. (hmm, maybe that whole b-x licking conversation wasn't so surprising after all.) I got to use my silly ancient rabbi-accent and laugh a lot.

The table, set. 

In the context of the holiday, it is traditional to say we will celebrate Passover "next year in Jerusalem." Literally this is about a return to a rebuilt temple (yes, the one destroyed 2,000 years ago, but who's counting?) but it also has metaphoric meaning. This year things are not as we want them, but next year the world will be healed. This year we have peace but there is war in the world. We are free, but others are enslaved. There is injustice, pain and sadness. The world is imperfect, but we can hope (and work) for change. 

As a secular Jew, the literal Jerusalem is not much of a draw. The wish for peace is compelling, however. I feel so lucky to be living in such a beautiful place, and one in which people have a strong commitment to social justice. For me, the wish is not so much next year in Jerusalem as next year in Portland. Life may not be perfect, but I have so much of what I have wanted over the years. My Passover wish is that others get to experience that fulfillment and joy as well.

Loving My Small Blog, Coast to Coast

A while back I mentioned that Mayberry Mom's Catherine proposed a Room Of Your Own session for this summer's Blogher. And now I am happy to congratulate Catherine, because the session (Little Fish in a Big Pond: Understanding, Accepting, and Loving Your Small Blog) was accepted! Catherine was kind enough to ask for my feedback when she put the session idea together, and I will be joining her as a presenter at the session. It is a little early for me to start worrying about what to wear, so for now I will just suggest that if you are going to Blogher that you stop by and say hi!


 

Aaand, the flip side of my whinging is my waxing rhapsodic

Like Clara of The Cheeseblog, I love a good list. Inspired by her list-related post, I offer my why it was a great weekend list:

• Most of the things on the long list of things I wanted to get done this weekend actually got done, including "make cake for passover" and "Ada goes biking" (but not "finish taxes").
• When the nice man from the Democratic National Convention called and I told him that I was an impoverished state worker who has no money to spare, he said he hoped things got better for me and wished me a good weekend.
• Fulfilling my commitment to myself to run errands by bike whenever possible, I pedaled Ada and myself to the store for strawberry starts, tarragon and bananas. Ada was a complete charm on our errand, which softened my heart to her pleas for fresh strawberries.
• Ada and Lila helped me plant strawberries without arguing about who got the better plant or which hole each girl should get. They dug holes, planted the starts, found "cozy spots" for worms and got really excited by a centipede sighting.
• The babies were adorable. Really stinking cute. They make one another laugh, which is beyond expectations at this point.
• Chris took Ada on bike-riding trips to the park twice on Saturday. I am amazed that any 4.5 year old can ride a bike without training wheels, but in Portland it is apparently totally normal. 
• While gardening I found the remote car door unlocker (what the hell is that called? keyless entry fob?) that I lost last summer. Even better - it still works!

Random Quote and Unrelated Photo of the Week

For a moment he stared at Blomkvist with an expression that was presumably meant to instill respect, but which made him look more like an inflated moose.

Stieg Larsson
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

We want to be, your crew of entertainment

Wow, '80s funk channeling Pirates of the Caribbean. Truly a musical (and video) treasure:

Q: When is a square not a square?

A: When I've sewn it.

As I mentioned the other day, all the child-related doing and re-doing has me wanting to do something that stays done. And, ta da! I acted on this urge by sewing a bunch of hand-drying squares.

Ada's school, like most places that deal with children, is concerned about germs. Ada often talks about how this or that "spreads germs" (though I have noticed this doesn't worry her when she wants a lick of my ice cream cone). The school is a typically Portland eco-friendly, so rather than replace a single cloth towel with lots of paper towels, the school bathroom features a basket of cotton squares on the counter. The kids wash their hands, then grab one or two squares to dry themselves.

Recovering from a cold as I am, the squares got me thinking. I realized that once we get into helping  Ian and Mira routinely wash their hands, we will have five people drying their hands on the same towel. Most of the time this is okay, but as I have direct experience with the lackadaisical hand-washing effort of the average child I thought it might be a good idea to give everyone their own squares. This will help avoid a germy towel spreading colds from one person to another in our house.

I have a ton of cloth scraps left over from various projects, several of which I grabbed for this effort. I looked briefly for a tutorial before realizing making these squares is so straightforward that instructions were probably unnecessary. Just in case you are interested in making this and are a novice sewer, here is what I did:

• I wanted large-ish squares, so I cut out rectangles that were 7 by 14 inches. This gave me a half inch seam on three sides (so I would have a 6x6.5 "square" when I was done). I could have measured 7 by 13, but I am lazy and it was easiest to have the long side be double the short one. 
• I folded the cut rectangle in half with the outsides touching. I then ironed the squares (okay, most of them) because the fabric had gotten wrinkly sitting in my fabric stash. 
• Next I sewed along the three open sides, but left a gap on the third side so that I could turn the squares right side out. I even clipped the corners so that they would lay flat, although this is a little fussy for something that is for hand-drying. (Stephanie would be proud of me, I am sure.)
• Finally I sewed a zig-zag stitch around the whole square. This closes the hole left in the previous step and makes the little squares look so snazzy. Using contrasting thread is nice. I used orange for some of these, and a yellow that is a minor color in the cloth once the orange ran out. 

Oh yeah. I cross-posted this over at Did You Buy That New? because Debbie sweetly asked me to start posting there again, and I can not resist a curly-haired girl.

One Little Thing

"I. Just. Can't."

I said these words in response to a request for cups with lids. It sounds so silly to me now but I just could not transfer the orange juice to other cups, could not argue about why putting orange juice in a water bottle is a bad idea, could not do another single thing.

The whole day had been either a series of frustrating and annoying events or perfectly nice, depending on your perspective. Ian and Mira were sick, they were and crabby in a completely understandable but nevertheless fairly trying way. Ada had a friend over, which is less work than Ada not having a friend over, but still not effortless. The girls made a wreck of the playroom (to be expected) and shredded paper which lay all over the rug (infuriating). They also played in Ada's closet and drew on the walls with a highlighter from my desk (completely annoying, especially because Ada knows that is not acceptable behavior). The weather was great, and the girls finally went outside for a while. I saw them digging in the garden, which is fine with me. Then I went outside and learned that they were planting peas. As in, planting them willy nilly all over the garden. I know this is really no big deal and we are talking about maybe $2 worth of peas, but for some reason this had me on the verge of tears. I managed to contain myself when I reminded Ada that the peas need support to grow and that planting them all around the yard was unlikely to get us many pods. (Luckily we'd already planted peas by the trellis, so some of the seeds will hopefully grow.)

I can't even type this little scene without wanting to erase the whole thing out of embarrassment about what a non-issue this is. Even hours later I see how uninmportant the loss of a half package of peas is, but in the moment it felt like part of some death-by-a-thousand-cuts torture. It isn't the peas, or any of the other little annoyances really. It isn't the babies' crankiness and general sickness-induced neediness. And by now I should be used to the all consuming boredom of feeding, changing, soothing and entertaining that is life with young children. It is all of those things together. There is no end to the work, and though none of it is very onerous, taken together it sometimes feels crushing.

This week I have felt a strong urge to make something again. The return of good weather has me considering a skirt for myself (I have some great octopus fabric I bought when I was pregnant) and this has me suddenly dying to make mustaches for myself and my family. I remember this feeling from when Ada was a baby. I was so tired of doing things only to have to do everything again. With babies there is no "done." You feed them, only to have to feed them again in a few hours. Clean diapers get soiled, noses continue to run after being wiped, naps begin and end, necks become food encrusted even though you just wiped them. You get the idea. I started sewing when Ada was a baby because once I finished a project, it stayed finished. The skirts did not have to be remade and stuffed toys stayed stuffed (for the most part, at least).

So here we go again. I am going to find myself a project and carve out a piece of the dining room table to make it happen. It may happen slowly, but it will happen, and once done, will stay done. Until the next project, that is.

 ** * ** * **

As I sat down to write this, I saw a woman walk up the path. My heart sank as she knocked, knowing that I would have to interact, that she would want something from me. I opened the door to a well-dressed woman introducing herself as a financial adviser who just opened an office nearby. "Are you familiar with Edward Jones?" No, I said, but I just put babies down and I have just 20 minutes to myself."

"No problem," she said. "I have three myself. Have a good day." And she waved and walked back down the path. That little thing might be enough to salvage the day. And it might be enough to go see this woman for the financial planning help Chris and I sorely need.

A Perfect Ten (Months)

Ten months is a good time.

First, let's get the monthly update out of the way:

• At their 9 month appointment, Mira was 20 pounds and Ian was 25. That's right TWENTY-FIVE pounds of drooling, crawling joy. They are both in the 90-95% for length and weight. Shocking, I know.
• Mira can get herself from crawling to sitting and back. Ian can too, but as with most physical milestones Mira did it first. I note this not to give Mira fodder for sibling squabbles later, but because I am sure I won't remember if I don't write it down. They are both pulling themselves to standing and doing some "cruising" around furniture.
• Ian is still commando crawling. He continues to practice hands-and-knees wiggling, but when it comes time to move he goes back to the tried and true. This means he is S.L.O.W., which is only a problem when he and Mira are racing after the same toy. Thank goodness that only happens, oh, fifty million times a day. 
• Ian has been working on getting his top two front teeth for what seems like forever. Today I saw the first little white bits poking out. I'm thrilled, because while he's been teething we've seen a lot of this: 

or maybe he was just pissed off that Mira beat him to the toy he wanted

• Eating was going really well until they got sick. Now they are pickier, but hopefully as they feel better they will continue to expand their preferred foods. 
• The illness sucked. It started with conjunctivitis (how the rest of us managed to avoid getting it, I am still not sure) and moved into a fever/stuffed nose snot-fest. Chris and I both got the cold, but thankfully not at the same time. We are steaming the heck out of Ian and Mira while they sleep.

Speaking of kids with colds and humidifiers, you may want to know that Chris and I have officially learned NOTHING from parenting three kids. When Ada was a baby, we used a humidifier when she was plugged up. One of the first times we used it, we plugged it in to an outlet located between her crib and the door. About an hour after she had gone to bed, we heard a loud and horrible beeping. A "your house is burning down" beeping. Turns out that we'd put the humidifier right under the smoke detector, and the thing was working so well that the waves of condensation read to the smoke detector as fire-related heat, causing it to alert us to impending doom. We ran into Ada's room, flipped on the overhead light and generally added to the scene. Ada did not move a muscle during this whole thing.

Of course you know what is coming, right? Despite putting the humidifier across the room from the smoke detector, we failed to consider that once it really got going the machine could still trigger the smoke alarm. Which it did. Once again, the babies (and Ada) were unperturbed, but it rattled the crap out of me.

believe it or not, he is more smiley than not

My girls (with Mira trying out to be a cupie doll)

A Last Minute Plea.

My stomach is in knots today as I wait for the outcome of the health reform vote in Congress.

My legislators are voting for it (after some wrangling about Medicare, but still). To my readers in the USA: if your legislator is on the fence, please call her or him. Congresspeople are working today and need to hear from you. A New York Times graphic from Friday will give you a sense of where your legislator stands on this issue. Check it out.

And please, take action. It is insane that this vote is so close.

Lunchtime Questions

Why is there no right answer to a child's "I am still hungry, what else can I have?" that does not involve toast or sugar?

Why does mac and cheese get darker after sitting in the fridge?

Is looking into a full refrigerator and thinking there is nothing to eat genetic?

Is it better to laugh out loud and have to explain your reaction, or to stifle the laughter when your daughter says: "It's a hooker quesadilla. I'm chewing hooker!"?

People For Bikes

Sometimes life pushes you for the good. Last weekend Ada and I needed to get over to Ellen's house to pick up a small mattress to complete her "ship" (this is another story, but I cleaned out her closet and Ada build a cozy ship-bed in there). It had been raining but wasn't at the moment, so we discussed how we would get there and back. Ada, the kid who routinely tells me that she wishes she could be driven to school instead of walking the eight blocks, suggested we bike. She initially wanted to ride her bike, but I wasn't entirely sure how I would keep an eye on her while pulling the mattress in the trailer. (Ada isn't ready for the street, but I couldn't see negotiating the sidewalk and curbs for her and myself and the trailer.) So we settled on me biking with her in the trailer, which worked well.

I should probably mention that Ellen only lives seven blocks from us, so it is not as if this was a heroic undertaking on my part. I was just so thrilled that Ada was not lobbying to be driven.

At dinner that night Ada, Chris and I were discussing the idea of taking Ian and Mira out for a ride. I mentioned that we have one baby helmet but need another. We talked about who should pull the trailer. (Chris suggested me, Ada thought he should do it.) We brainstormed what might be a good path for this first ride with the babies. All details settled, Ada chiped: "let's go!" When I mentioned that it was already dark, Ada countered that I have a bike light.

"Yeah, but you don't," I said.

"Well, you can get me one."

Chris and I agreed, but suggested we might also try to bike during the day instead. (For one thing, this was better for the babies' schedule.)

After dinner Ada and Chris told stories and watched the Blazer game. I plopped down in the living room for some blog-reading. I surfed over to Lauren's blog and found this:

I love this video, and all the more for the fact that I recognize Portland's streets and bikeways. 

Lauren, in addition to being a cartoon goddess, is a committed and enthusiastic biker. A lot of the sketches she shares on her blog are based on things she saw while riding. She signed the pledge, and I did too.

The pledge is this:

I am for bikes. I'm for long rides and short rides. I'm for commuting to work, weekend rides, racing, riding to school, or just a quick spin around the block. I believe that no matter how I ride, biking makes me happy and is great for my health, my community and the environment we all share. That is why I am pledging my name in support of a better future for bicycling—one that is safe and fun for everyone. By uniting my voice with a million others, I believe that we can make our world a better place to ride.

To sign the pledge, click here. At the site you can also check out the goals of People For Bikes and see the latest news about bike-related public-policy in your area.

Does it help to look away?

Two girls come scooting past me toward the bathroom. Ada yells out, "I have to use the potty!"

"Great" I say, just as the friend runs into the room saying, "me too! I have to go too!"

Ada (from the bathroom): "I really have to go NOW. You can pee on the carpet."

Jumping up, I run into the bathroom to tell the friend, "if you really need to go, you can come upstairs."

Friend: "No. I can wait."

Ada: "You can cross your legs and look away."

Recognition

My friend Susan is so smart. She says these things, these really deep and insightful things, and it is only later that they come back to me and I realize how right she is and how smart. She tells me things about her experience parenting and being a partner to her husband, and while I am hearing them I think that they sound good, but I don't necessarily think more about her observation beyond a description of what is happening for her. Like the time at my blessing way when she talked about her experience of fatigue as a defining characteristic of parenting very young children. She likened it to the native Alaskans, who have something like 50 words for snow. She has experienced being tired in many ways. She talked about being happy tired and angry tired. Being weepy tired and goofy tired.

Listing to Susan say this I thought I remembered the fatigue of parenting in the infant stage. I had done it once before, and as a heavily pregnant person I was already re-experiencing interrupted sleep. I heard her talk about being tired and I took it in as a part of my whole blessing way experience; she, and the other women at the ceremony, shared their experiences as mothers as a way of marking my becoming a mother to two new children. 

It was not until months later that I remembered what Susan had said and found it completely descriptive of my present life. Maybe remembered is not quite the right word. It is more like that I felt it. The experience of simultaneously remembering and recognizing that her words fit me was almost physical in its immediacy.

This weekend I had another "Susan is so right" moment. Susan and I have talked a lot about the stresses of parenting, and about how those stresses can affect our relationships with our husbands. We are both lucky to have wonderful partners who are active parents and very engaged on many fronts. But no one is perfect, and all the work and time and and and of parenting can make relationships harder. Add to that the tendency to ignore the need to nurture that key relationship, and both partners can find themselves drained and frustrated.

After a week in which I realized that our finances are such that I will have to work more in the coming months and make some other changes that will likely require sacrifices for both Chris and me, I have been feeling put upon. It wasn't something specific, it was just the reality of my life right now. I don't want to get into it, and I realize that even as things stand now I have a wonderful life with completely bourgeois problems, but things feel like a bit of a grind right now. I work. I plan, shop for and prepare food for Ian and Mira. I plan, shop and sometimes cook food for Chris, Ada and myself. I do laundry. I pick up toys, blankets, clothes, food, newspapers and plastic bags constantly. I pay the bills and fret about how we will keep up. I wash the babies, I wash Ada. I run through bedtime routines and wake-up routines and in-between routines. I recycle. I fight back the rising tide of stuff in our house by giving stuff to goodwill or the swap shop. In between I get to play with the Ada, Mira and Ian, but even that involves dealing with a lot of whining and crying and other age-appropriate but parent-soul-crushing behavior.

I do not mean to imply that Chris doesn't do this stuff too, because he certainly does. But this is my blog, so let's focus, shall we? I (and okay, we) just do a lot of stuff, and it goes on all day, every day. In the midst of this effort and stress and fatigue I have been feeling crabby. (Shocking, I know.) I feel crabby generally, and I feel less than generous toward Chris, despite knowing that he is facing the same pressures and is holding up at least as well as I am, probably better. In the middle of my disgruntled blah-blah-blahs, I remembered something Susan had said. She talked about how she and her husband get into this place where they are both tired and worn down and out of sorts. Then one person gets a break - gets to sleep late, or go out with friends or in some way gets their burden lightened a little. Let's say it is Susan who gets the break. This lightening allows Susan to not feel so tired and stressed, and once she feels better it allows her to turn to her husband and say I know things are feeling really hard for you right now. This in turn lets him say yes, things have been hard. Thank you. All I wanted was for someone to recognize that!

And this can be a release, allowing both partners to feel better and to more easily shoulder their burdens.

After days of carrying around low-level annoyance I realized that this is part of what I want. I want it recognized that I am shouldering this burden. I want Chris to point to it, and to tell me he can see its contours and recognizes its heft. I want all this work and stress and fatigue to be recognized, not so that I can give it to Chris to carry, but so that I can once again pick it up knowing that I am not doing so unappreciated.

Well, that and a lot more sleep. But I'll take what I can get at this point.

I am feeling kind of worn down and a little (okay, a lot) cranky, but I am enjoying this:

Random Quote and Unrelated Photo of the Week

One Party slogan described it as "A Village for Art, a Capital of Romance, a Place for Idleness."

Peter Hessler
Chinese Barbizon

Tuning Out

I think I am going crazy, driven there by the tunes spilling out of Ian and Mira's leapfrog table. The insanity caused me to start a review blog just so I could write about it.

I am not surprised they lost their appetites

Ada and Lila were eating dinner at our house. They started out pretending to be kittens. (Which by the way, yay! Kittens LOVE milk! These kittens drank several glasses.) After a bit they started talking about going to Disneyland with their children. 

Lila: I am going to have a baby. If you want kids you have to have babies, right?

Ada: But I don't want surgery.
(Why would she worry about this? Neither she, Lila or their siblings was born by c-section. Until today I wasn't even sure she knew that babies could be born this way.)

Lila: Everyone gets surgery at some point.
(See, this is what's wrong with the U.S. health care system.)

(some chatter about surgery and cutting and babies that went by too fast for me to understand, much less transcribe)

Lila: When your baby is inside of you it really really hurts. They don't want to cut too deep because it will cut your baby and it would be dead. It would cut your baby's head. And I don't think you can have a baby with no head.

(whisper whisper)

Ada: We aren't hungry any more.

Lila: Yeah. We don't want to finish our dinner.

** * ** * **

I love listening to them. Where else does dinner conversation range from Snow White to surgery?

Gray in February (what the hell was I thinking?)

Color Year, Month Two (Gray)

The random number generator offered up GRAY for the second month of my color-a-month, photo-a-day project. Gray, in February. Well, at least I knew I could get one day's shot by taking pictures of the Oregon sky. On the third or fourth day I was already wishing to be done with gray, silently thankful that February is a short month.

In January I was amazed by how many things are orange, and how interesting they are. This month I found that while a lot of things are gray, those things are pretty mundane: the sidewalk; concrete walls; sides of buildings... It took a little more pushing to find things I was interested in capturing. That is a good thing, as I was forced to think more about what was in the picture. So a picture of a bicycle rack (one of two racks I snapped this month) included Ada's scuffed pink shoes. The sky shares space with bare tree branches. 

Coming to the close of this month I have a better appreciation for gray as a subject, or more accurately, for using a gray focus as a way to expand my focus a bit. I am glad to be moving on (to brown, the color for March), but I must grudgingly admit that I liked gray a lot more than I thought I would.

Tired

I don't know if it is because she has a low level cold (possible), because she has been running around more (could be) or because she wakes up at 5 when Ian and Mira yell from their cribs (definitely a factor), but Ada has been wiped out by the end of the day. And by "end of the day" I mean often 7pm, but sometimes 5:30.

Whatever the reason,  we have been seeing a lot of this lately:

Due to sleepiness (either falling asleep before dinner or leaving the table during dinner because she can barely keep her head up, much less chew) Ada has missed a bunch of dinners and baths recently.  It doesn't seem to be harming her much. She wakes up ready to go, but not ravenous. (and only sometimes stinky)

Speaking of sleep, I'd better get to bed. Between Ada's new schedule and Ian's 4am chattering, I need to move up my bedtime a bit.