From the Vista Academy Times, written by Chana and Mama

On November 6, our little friend Katie Jonis died. She was 7 ½
years old. She had a problem called a cerebral hemorrhage in
her brain. She was living with her parents, Jodi and Jon, and
her brother Jake in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia.

My mother and Katie’s mother have been friends since
elementary school, so I got to meet Katie when she was little.
When they were in the US this summer, we saw each other
twice. Katie was a very nice person who was fun. She liked to
do gymnastics and go rock climbing.

Katie was born in Singapore and lived in Massachusetts for a
few years, too. People all over the world knew Katie, and we
all miss her.

If you would like to sign the online condolence book, please click here
http://www.legacy.com/bostonglobe/GB/GuestbookView.aspx?PersonId=120053126

Katie

Katie, you little sweetheart. You will be missed so much.

She's a Polar Bear!

On Friday, our heat was out (thankfully, fixed before Shabbat). But Batsheva had decided on Thursday that she was going to set her alarm for 6 a.m. and take a shower. And when Batsheva decides something, there's nothing that's going to stand in her way. She could see her breath in the bathroom and she still went ahead with her shower! (the rest of us could barely get out of bed and Ilana refused to even take her pajamas off, so she spent the rest of the day with her nightgown hanging out among the other layers of clothes I put on her!)

As we say, "She's a polar bear, grrr!"

Yo!

Ilana and I are outside on the swing, waiting for PB to return from school. Ilana points to our lawn sign.

Me: "Who are we voting for, Ilana?"

Ilana: "Yobama!"

This is some dead turf (literally)

Batsheva, Chana and I have been spending our evenings phone banking from home for Obama. We're calling NH voters. This being the end of the election and we being johnny-come-lately volunteers, we're certainly not getting the cream of the crop with our turf.

So far, we've made 91 calls and contacted 10 people. 2 screamed at us for various reasons, 2 were "resident aliens" (I am VERY proud that my girls didn't laugh until *off* the phone!) and the other six had all died from between 2 all the way to 27 years ago! Where did they get this turf?!

Ilana gets political

Me: "The polls are now saying it's very close. What if McCain wins?! I can't take staying in America with another Republican administration."

Sam: "We can always go to Israel."

Me: "Okay. Fine."

Ilana: "We can't go to Israel!!!!!!"

Sam: "Why not?"

Ilana: "Because I haven't finished my toast!"

Ilana chews. And chews. 2 minutes later:

Ilana: "I done! Now we go Israel".

Carbon-free kids

Read this great article about our friend and cousin, Ruthie! I love these "go get 'em" kids!!!!!!

Chana's political cartoon

Very sudsy

We're a busy group of people around here! We've gotten a bunch of orders for pink ribbon soaps (20% going to breast cancer research funds), Halloween soaps, and the beginning of our yearly huge order for our friend in NY who gets personalized soaps for every one of her kids' teachers, doctors, coaches, etc. LOOOOVE it!

I've also figured out a way for Ilana to truly help out in the business. When I chunk soap (i.e. take the 20 lb. cube and chop it into small pieces), she takes the pieces and puts them into ziploc bags for me. It is really a big help and she loves doing it!

By gum, I did it!

Now I know what a widget is AND how to get one onto my blog!

Demo - Democratic Political Widget

She's gone, Jim

Betsy, I mean. Our poor, dear car. The thingamajiggy that is broken is so deep inside the engine (or something) that our mechanic doesn't deal with it, and the guy he recommended says it will cost $500 to even look at it.

Next up, between Shabbos and Yom Tov, buying a car. EEEEK!

The Contest Is On!

Following-up to my post about Yaldah magazine winning $10,000 by being a "Someday Stories" contest finalist:

The contest just started and you can see all the stories and watch videos of the contestants talking about their dreams. It's a really neat contest, and the finalists are wonderful! Check them out here: http://memelabs.com/somedaystories/ and don't forget to vote!

Brushing Ilana's Teeth

That's been a fairly big struggle since she's gotten teeth. We sing songs, play games, act silly. Mostly, though, I do all those things while I put her in a headlock and go to work....Recently, she's started letting me floss her teeth, which, according to some, is more important than brushing anyway, so we'll hope for the dental best.

Tonight:
Me: "Before we read another story, it's time to brush your teeth"
Ilana (almost 2 1/2): "Don' wan' brush teeth! I don' have teeth!!!!!!"

I've found my favorite snack food

Love at first bite. I just tried Trader Joe's Roasted Gorgonzola Oven Crisp Crackers. WOW. They have a base taste of regular, buttery cracker. And then a delicate POW of stinky cheese. Heaven. Absolute heaven. If these had been around when I was pregnant, we would have had to buy them by the case. Reasonably priced, too, at $1.99/box.

btw, O-U dairy certified. And if they can make gorgonzola crackers w. an O-U certification, would it be asking so much to find some good stinky cheese w. a nice hechsher?!

Ilana and PB play school

PB: "I'm the morah!" (teacher)
Ilana: "I'm the Torah!"

My parents' big trip

My parents are in Israel now! 2 1/2 weeks on a tour around the country. They have never been there. I am so excited for them. The (little) kids and I keep singing "Ye-RU-Sha-la-yim" ("Jerusalem") over and over. So far, they're not overwhelmed, but they've only been there a few days and see Tel Aviv (bleh, in my opinion), Jaffa and Haifa, where they are for Shabbat.

I hope they love Jerusalem as much as my family does.....There is nothing like the Old City....

Ye-RU-Sha-la-yim.....Ye-RU-Sha-la-yim

Shabbat Shalom!

I remembered to bring something to read!

Several of you emailed me expressing your concern over my not bringing anything to read when I went to the dermatologist. So I remembered the next time! I brought the book I'm in the middle of: "Bleak House" by Dickens, and every single member of the staff commented on what an, umm, interesting choice of reading material I chose to bring to surgery :)

btw, it's not all that bleak (at least yet!).

Way to go Yaldah mag!

Oh my goodness! I just read about Leah Larson and Yaldah magazine winning $10,000 (yes, that's the correct number of 0's!)! And they're in the running to win $100,000. I am just so impressed with this young woman's intelligence, business savvy and all-around neato-ness! Go, Leah!

For those of you reading this who only have boys :), Yaldah is a great magazine *for* Jewish girls and *by* Jewish girls. It's in its fourth year of publication and has kept to its publication schedule since its first issue (a major feat for any new mag, nevermind one run by a young teen). The only ad space 4 Sisters Soaps has ever taken out has been in Yaldah. Batsheva and Chana each were elected to the magazine's editorial board, and had a great year helping write and illustrate articles.

What I like best is that it's like American Girl, but with a spiritual angle, and written from a Jewish standpoint. How often do our girls get to feel mainstream? (well, if you live in Williamsburg, or some other Jewish enclave, maybe it's all the time), but for those of us out in the big, wide world, I think it's great for my girls, and all Jewish girls, to read articles written by other kids who daven, do mitzvot and dress in a tznius manner (my fave section is the one where they highlight modest clothes available at major clothing retailers for reasonable prices).

http://www.yaldahmagazine.com/ if you don't already visit there!

Willoughby, Wallaby Woo....

Now that Chana is just about 11, there are very few linguistic oopsies that occur. But last night, as we were reading "Sense and Sensibility" together, she said, "I really don't like that guy Wallaby".

And I cracked up and said, "Willoughby".

Then we had a rousing chorus of the kids' song "willaby, wallaby, Woo....An elephant sat on you. And willaby, wallaby, we. An elephant sat on me" :)

Wow--two teeth!

My big girl! PB lost her first two teeth and started kindergarten all in the same week!

Ilana and I are having a riot of a time playing "carpool". We drive our little plastic minivan all around the living room picking up Annabelle and Devorah and choosing which animals from the plastic farm are going to be each person in our family (although, honestly, is it better to be the cow, chicken or goat?!).

Car Talk: the Crunchy Version

I got my driver's license at 17, and my first car at 35. Yep, 35. I was able to do this due to a combination of living in mostly urban environments, taking public transportation, carpooling/car-mooching when possible/necessary, and, when it finally came around (and not a moment too soon), joining a car-sharing service for transportation by the hour (of course, the problem with car sharing is that it leads to "Domino's Syndrome" whereby one drives like a loon b/c it's 59 minutes into one's last reserved hour, and the parking space is still one traffic-light-infested mile away. And it's raining, so one can just imagine the next person waiting for the car getting sopping wet b/c, ehem, "one" didn't get the car back in time.....Theoretically speaking, of course).

So we moved to the 'burbs and bought a minivan. All in one year. It's amazing my sense of self-worth was able to remain whole. But, truly, I love my minivan. It's a 1997 Chevrolet Venture. However, much as I love "Betsy", she's got over 90,000 miles on her now, and we have to rent a minivan every time we go past our state border. This is mostly due to my parents being concerned about us taking an 11 y/o car on long trips, not any huge defect Betsy has (or, is showing that she has). Since I freely admit that I know just about as much about cars as you might expect from someone who didn't bother to own one until middle-age, I defer to my parents' judgment here.

Sure, Betsy's got some minor issues, who of us doesn't? For Betsy, this list includes:

--a driver's side mirror held on with electrical tape b/c to fix it they will have to order an entirely new arm thingy that holds the mirror. Ka-CHING. Even the mechanic told me to use tape!

--a muffler that, while it doesn't sound loud, shakes the car like the bed at a cheap motel.

--head- and tail-lights that are permanently fogged with water

--a driver's side lock/unlock button that doesn't work at all

--a rear passenger's button that rarely unlocks.

and, my favorite b/c it makes me look like a moron at parking garages and drive-through bank machines:

--a driver's side window that is stuck permanently about 1.5 inches down. In the early part of the summer, the window had been getting balky, and one day, it went down and never went back up. Due to a huge stroke of luck on my part, this happened to be right before a huge thunderstorm hit town. Panicked, I drove to the nearest car place I could think of: Valvoline (have I mentioned I don't know much about cars?). They told me that my oil was fine, they couldn't fix my window, and I had to go to the glass shop a few miles away. That sounded odd to me. I was thinking I needed a mechanic, but I positioned the diaper that was on the window sill to try to stop the rain from pouring in on me, and went off to the glass shop. They told me everyone was gone for the day anyway, but, even if they weren't, I needed a mechanic, not a glass shop, since there wasn't anything wrong with the glass except that it wasn't going up and down! So off I went to my mechanic, clear across town, now with an absorbent "piddle pad" across my very wet arm. They were able to pull out the door mechanicals, and, after a while of jabbing, poking and putting wires together, were able to get the window up. Until a few days later when another driver in my family forgot about the situation as well as the piece of electrical tape on the window control that says "NO!", and pressed the down button. It spasmodically went down a bit, but never went up again. I taped up the inside of the window the day after that, when it started raining again, and I began muttering about "not again. Oh no, not on MY shift!" and used my Scotch Tear-By-Hand tape that I carry in the glove compartment to close up the gap.

So we're waiting on the $300 repair b/c, hey, it might be someone else's problem soon!

But other than those few minor things, it's a great car. We love you, Betsy! Don't conk out just b/c I aired our dirty laundry in public!

Comin up soon: What kind of car to get? What size car do we need? Do they make a hybrid that doesn't cost as much as the remaining payments on my mortgage? And do we really need to clean four years of my kids' junk out of this car before trying to sell it?! That's almost as frightening as looking at car prices.

nose update

I'm doing fine. The surgery was on Friday and went as well as could be expected. Unfortunately, the second biopsy they took the previous week also came back as basal cell, so they needed to remove spots from two places on my nose. However, they only needed to do each spot once before the lab report came back "all clear". The dr. spent quite a lot of time figuring out how best to stitch me up so that I would have the least noticeable scars. So I have 25 stitches in my nose, but, in the long term, that should be helpful :)

The worst of the post-op shenanigans are over now (for the first 48 hours I wasn't allowed to look down or turn my head. Now THAT was annoying to deal with. Until Friday, when the stitches come out, I can't bend or lift anything, which compared with not bending, lifting, or turning my head, seems much easier to cope with!). Thankfully, Sam is working at home this week, so I keep asking him to help me lift stuff (hard to make soap when I can't life the mini-iceberg of soap base that I need to chop up!).

The Eco-Whatsium?

Today, Chana, PB, Ilana and I had a lovely time visiting the Ecotarium (www.ecotarium.org).

I loved it when PB said, "We're going to the EGO-Tarium"!

Later, she called it the "EGO-Quarium", which was definitely my favorite name for it!

Ilana and Aunt Sunny

A few weeks ago, during our "big summer vacation" (48 hours staying at my cousin's house on Long Island [which is in a very Jewish area and has fab shopping and restaurants, so it really is like a vacation for us), we visited with Sam's Aunt Sunny and Uncle Sydney, who recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary (!).

Aunt Sunny to Ilana: "You're just adorable!"
Ilana stamps her little foot, scowls and says, "I *not* DORA!"

Sam and I had a good laugh, as did Aunt Sunny, once we explained Dora the Explorer :)

Batsheva the Fab Typist!

She just typed 59 WPM with 100% accuracy! Wow. All I can say is that "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" has been well worth the $. Go, Bathseva, go! Type, Batsheva, type!

The nose knows

The dr. called w. the biopsy results of my nose, and, unfortunately, one of the two places is basal cell cancer (the "good" kind to get, if you have to have anything). He said it seemed "fairly superficial", but that I will need to see a MOHS surgeon. MOHS is what they did the first time I had the skin cancer on my nose--they take small amounts away and keep biopsying the tissue while you wait and do it until the results are clear. I am hoping this will really be a non-major thing, unlike last time where I emerged with a rather large part of my nose missing.....

Oww. My nose hurts....

I went to my primary care dr. b/c I had a spot on my nose that reminded me waaay too much of the first skin cancer way back when.....She referred me to a derm doctor for an appt. this morning. Good news: he didn't think that any of the freckles/moles on my arms, etc. were necessary of biopsy. Also good, although he wanted to biopsy two sites on my nose (bad), he thought that, if they were anything, it would be basal cell (the kind they can just remove and you're done).

So he took the two biopsies and, although he told me they would be very tiny when they're healed, at the moment I have stiches in and band-aids over, and am not having too happy a day....I have to go back in a week to get the stitches out. No sparring at karate until then.

And here's the real worst part: he was 45 minutes late to see me, after I was 10 minutes early for the appt and.........I didn't have......ANYTHING..........to read. I hadn't thought to bring anything, and his waiting room had nothing but ads and info brochures for Botox and other junk. It was horrible!!!!!!!!

The WORST Park

Blech! Only had time to take Ilana to the park right near PB's camp before going to karate this morning. I hate this park (and I try not to use that word much. As I tell the kids, there's enough hate in the world already....).

There is always a lot of broken glass and beer bottles strewn around. The small, "made for little kids" slide ENDS about three feet off the ground! And the spray fountains, which at most parks stay on for five or so minutes, stay on for about 40 seconds. And then the button to turn them on again is so hard to push that kids can't do it themselves, so it meant I had to hover over Ilana and keep pressing one of the two fountain buttons.

It's been about four years since I've been there (i.e. since I used to go w. PB after dropping off Batsheva at the camp around the corner!) and the return was none too soon!

Onward and upward :)

No nibbles?!

Sigh. Not even the teensiest of nibbles on the house and it's been on the market since after Pesach. Now I'm thinking that we should leave it on the market longer, and, if we move mid-year, so what?! I'll homeschool Batsheva and probably sign her (and maybe Chana) up for K-12.com so she'll do most of her schoolwork online through them. If we move, no biggie--K12 is covered by NJ so we could homeschool mostly for free.

The flip side of this is that I think we'd all like to know for sure that we will be here or not so that I can put a big non-refundable deposit down for the homeschool coop we got into (which, after being on their waiting list for months I had to turn down b/c I wasn't about to blow $300 if we moved). And PB has outgrown the toddler bed she sleeps in and is like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, with her feet literally sticking out the end. I told her months ago that we would either be moving over the summer and she would get a big bed, or she and Ilana would start to share the guest room (the guest room switching over to PB's teeny nook) and we'd buy her a big bed then. But I can't start moving furniture around and messing with the guest room NOW b/c, oy vey, we might have a house showing.

I really don't know what to do. I had no idea that, when all the experts said that real estate had tanked, it meant MY HOUSE too!

psst....hey you....

wanna buy a house? www.19Vista.com. You'll love it!

We've decided it would be a nice thing to all live in the same state again (Sam has been working in NJ and commuting from M-Th).

We'll see what happens. The market has totally tanked here. Boo! (It's supposed to stay nice where we sell and tank where we want to buy!)

May....

Yeah, nothing very much happened in May anyway! Let's just forget that month ever happened.....

I should have taken a picture....

I attained my goal! I donated 10 large trash bags of stuff to the Vietnam Veterans of America. Also, three boxes of books went to the MA homeschooling association's upcoming book sale. My porch looked fabulously full of tzedaka!

And, FINALLY, there is (some) hope for my school room. Tune is soon for "before/after" photos. THOSE I did take!

Ilana is 2!!!!!!

WOW! I can't believe two years has gone by since her birth! She has learned such an amazing amount in two years.

Today she was in her car seat singing parts of "Baby You Can Drive My Car" (the fun parts--"Beep, beep, beep-beep YEAH!"). She worked on "schoolwork" (a Hebrew coloring book that she swiped from PB's stash of stuff). Took a nice 1.5 hour nap (who knows how much longer that will happen for. Better record for posterity)....

Happy Birthday, Ilana. Ad Me'ah V'esrim (until 120) in good health and with much happiness in your life ;)

From Batsheva:
It's been 2 years since Ilana was born and she's been working hard! Working hard at singing, talking, walking, screaming(how can anyone hold their breath for that long?!), "reading" Calvin and Hobbes...But most of all, working hard at being the cutest little Ilana in the world! Happy Birthday!

Making Challah

So Chana has a few things that none of the rest of us eat around here b/c it's just too hard for her. Challah is one of those things. So for Shabbat during most of the year we eat matza. Except now that it is the Hebrew month of Nissan and we are not allowed to eat matza until Pesach begins in a few weeks.

So now, two weeks before Pesach, I had to go out to buy flour and yeast. But not just any flour. I had to get 100% whole wheat so that, although we non-SCD'ers would be eating challah, it wouldn't be "too good".

I've evidently totally forgotten how to cook challah in two years being an SCD family, so the dough came out terribly. It's 4 pm and it's not done yet. I am cranky!

Ilana wins!

Scene: our schoolroom

Personae: Ilana and me

Dialogue:
Me: "Ilana, do you need to make?"
Ilana: "Yeeeees"

She takes off and runs to the bathroom doing a loping, side-to-side Snoopy-Dance kind of thing. She enters the bathroom with her arms held high, triumphantly yelling, "I win! I win!"

PB's View of Politics

Last month, we were (like everyone else!) talking a lot about political primaries. PB age 5) got into it, too, asking about the primaries in Florida (where we had just come back from) and Massachusetts (where we live).

PB: "Wow. You mean they're running in Florida *and* Massachusetts?"

Me: "Yes, and there are several other states also having primaries on the same day"

PB: "But they're going to RUN from Florida to Massachusetts?!?!?!"

(I evidently did a decent job explaining how far it was from FL to MA!)

Batsheva, the famous writer!

http://tinyurl.com/2o6o7s

I'm so proud of her!

A few weeks ago, when I was emailing lots of Jewish newspapers about Purim soaps, the Jewish Woman website at Chabad came up as their "newspaper". The editor was excited to get a Purim soap sample and asked about us writing a piece for the site. Then she suggested that it would be very interesting if *Batsheva* wrote it from her perspective. Amazing! She didn't even know that we have a budding journalist at home!

Kids Say the Durndest Things

Ilana (20 months old) was in bed w. me yesterday. She put her hand on my face and lovingly asked, "I pick you' nose, mama?". I cracked up as I told her, "thanks, but no thanks".

Tonight, PB and I were reading "Grover Sleeps Over" and I told her about how that book had inspired Batsheva to throw a big fit when she was about 3 y/o. In the book, Grover has "spaghetti and meatballs and salad and milk" for dinner. So she, of course, wanted me to put milk on top of her salad. (With succeeding kids, we read that line as "salad with salad dressing and milk in a glass" :)

Back from FL

The first thing one notices after a week in Florida: how grossly dirty all the cars are here in Boston!

Anyway, the weather was nice and I thoroughly enjoyed taking long walks at night. --Batsheva introduced me to playing Dungeons & Dragons (I'm such a nerd, I don't know how I missed that in High School [actually, I do: back then, at least in "my crowd", only the guys played D&D]).
--Chana, my father and I spent over an hour doing a 100 piece puzzle on Shabbat (ages 5 and up. Isn't that embarrassing?!])
--PB loved playing shuffle board and Ilana grooved out in her new bright orange carriage (navy was $20 more, so bright orange it is!)

Getting home was difficult. We left my parents' house at 9:30 a.m. for an 11:20 flight, did pre-boarding, then sat on the plane for a looong time while a "small switch" tried to get fixed ("well, folks, we're just expecting this to take about 15 minutes"). So we "15 minutes'ed" our way until they pulled back to the gate and told us to deplane but hang around, as they were sure it would be fixed soon.

Much later, they canceled the flight and offered us the next one out: at 9 PM! NOOOOOO! I explained that the whole reason I had earned my kids' wrath by choosing an 11 a.m. flight in the first place and having them miss a whole day of vacation was b/c I was still traumatized by taking a 7 pm flight a few years ago. The flight had been very delayed, and we got in after midnight. I had three sleeping kids I had to get off the plane myself and take into the freezing Boston weather. Very unpleasant. And did I mention the huge tantrum PB threw as we were about to board? Like lying on the floor, kicking and screaming. Baaaad time for me.

So they offered the flight after that (i.e. the 11:20 the next day) and my poor father was so stressed from having us visit that, when I called him to say what was going on, he said, "tell them you need a hotel room"! I was laughing so hard (he called back about five minutes later and said he'd come pick us up).

We're back. It was lovely to be away. It's lovely to be home.

Yay, Uberima, Yay!

It's another boy for Uberima and Uberaba! That makes three. I heartily approve of many children of the same gender :)

You should have much nachas from him....

Ilana's first joke!

Today, Ilana looked into her bowl of cereal, smiled up at me and said, "O's 'timming'!" (swimming).

Comic genius!

Go, Uberimma, go!

B'sha'ah tova. Can't wait to hear good news....

I'm obsessively checking email and your blog to hear what's going on!

We're off!

I know, we're really always "off" around here, but, seriously! We....are...outta...here! I'm taking the girls to FL to visit my parents tomorrow. G-d bless them, I don't know why them invite us time and again because, frankly, with 7 of us in their (lovely and very large but still) 2-bedroom condo, it sure ain't much of a vacation for them.

Now, if only my darling, sweet, fabulous daughters will get along reasonably well and speak politely to each other, me and their grandparents. We....can....do.....this.....

I hope so, at least. I already told them (truthfully) that it was extremely unlikely that we were going back next year, that this sort of trip will require at least two years for me to recharge my batteries for. Since I said that two years ago after a rawther difficult trip to StoryLand ("Hey, look at those kids fist-fighting over there!" "Ah, that's just those Boston girls we saw fighting by the LAST ride"), they know I mean it.

It....will....be....great.......



to.....sleep......without.....socks.......on!

Homeschoolin' PB

We had a really fun homeschooling day recently! We've been working on Hebrew reading in a new kriya book (she's at the very beginning stages. Like identifying the letters and reading them with patach or kamatz under them).

Science: On her own, she found some big magnets and then started investigating what they stuck to. So together, we made a list with pictures and words of what the magnets stuck to.

She came with Chana and me to karate in the morning and played with Ilana, then went back to the kids' class in the afternoon.

And we made this super giant "Penina Batya". She was wearing a striped dress that day, so it was fun to find some old fabric and use that!

We're using a new Kindergarten curriculum book that I bought for Batsheva but never opened for either her or Chana, and it said to have your child glue gems to letter outlines on paper. This reminded me of why I never used it for the other kids (dumbing down), but I figured she might like it (and the giant PB was from that book too, and I *never* would have done that without outside encouragement of some type). So I outlined "PB" on paper, and even found flat jewels. Gave her a bottle of glue and told her to "go for it" while I cooked dinner. She got bored quickly and left her project half done on the floor. Where Ilana fell into it and got groovy glue dreadlocks in her hair. Oh, well, not everything works out perfectly in homeschooling!

SCD Birthday Cake Photo

Thought I had lost that photo forever. Boy, was I bummed out. I don't think I have ever been as proud culinarily as after making that cake!

The Joys of Freecycling

On Sunday I posted on Craig's List two items for free: a DVD player that, though only a year old, skips sometimes, and a vacuum cleaner that doesn't much like to do rugs, but works okay on hardwood. I listed their faults as above.

Almost immediately, "Bob" writes that he'd love the DVD player. Please call or email him with the address. I email him back right away telling him it's on the porch. It stays on the porch all day. At night it starts to rain. Still on the porch (now in a bag). I call Bob. Oh yeah, he didn't bother to go back online after telling me to email him....He starts asking me about the size of the player and if it has a DVD burner on it. Turns out he's not too interested if it doesn't have a DVD burner.

Fine. On to the next person. "Wind" has emailed me about both the vacuum and the DVD, but, by the next morning, still hasn't responded whether he'll take them or not. I email the next person who responded. Later, Windy writes back and says that he's at work until 11, and could I please save them until the next morning. Morning, of course, comes and goes and he's still not here.

Then he writes an email saying "if i will not find them there by that time i will get hurt in my mind so please save them up to that time". I tell him that, while I will not save it especially for him, only he and one other person knows the address where the DVD player is. He lives in the same city as me, and if was so important to him, perhaps he could find some time between Sunday and Tuesday to pop over and pick the thing up. No response.

Late Tuesday morning, the DVD player is gone. I email Wind and tell him. He shows up at 5:30 Tuesday afternoon and asks where the DVD player is. He gets very mopey when I tell him it's gone and that I emailed him this morning to tell him.

Then he looks at the vacuum and asks if I have a bag for it! I've had it. I shut the door as I tell him I don't. And, after the door is closed, I say "and I don't gift wrap either."

Sometimes, I have such nice experiences giving stuff away. It's kind of weird and obnoxious that only once has anyone bothered to email and say "thank you" after picking something up, but, other than that, it's nice to give things away to people I know want them. But this one was really a doozy!

I Can't Believe It's Not Oatmeal....

Tastes great. Even *looks* like oatmeal!

http://www.scdrecipe.com/recipes/print/493/

1/4 cup SCD yogurt
1/4 cup unsweetened appleasauce
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbl honey
1/4 tsp baking soda
butter for frying

1. Heat up about 1/2 tablespoon of butter in a small frying pan.

2. Combine all ingredients and add to pan, mixing them up as you would scrambled eggs.

3. Transfer to a bowl and add cinnamon to taste.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday's food:

lunch: "crunchy eggs": eggs fried in olive oil. Yum! Chana had (oy!) four (I can't stress about it....)
--frozen grapes

dinner: lentil soup w. onions, carrots and celery
--sauteed mushrooms of three kinds
--green salad

Monday's dinner

Sam's away on business this week, so we got to eat nice and early (no traffic for BH coming home from school!).

Onion soup: mess o' onions, some cabernet sauvignon, butter, water, s&p
--"yummy, yummy peas": frozen peas microwaved and doused w. olive oil, chopped dried onion bits, s&p
--green salad w. dressing
--fresh strawberries

Lunch: cheese plate w. cheddar cheese, black olives and sliced fennel.
--apple muffins made w. coconut flour (I didn't love them. Think I'll stick to the usual banana muffin recipe)

Breakfast: the traditional strawberry-banana smoothie and an apple w. peanut butter for Chana, bowl of cold cereal for the rest of us.

Shabbat Meals

Fun dinner! It was Leah's 15th B-day, and our friend Michel came to spend Shabbat with us. Richard stayed in Malden for Shabbat and joined us for dinner as well.

Menu:
Matza (no more challah b/c of the SC diet. Not that Chana is allowed to eat matza, but it's less psychologically painful that challah).

onion mushroom soup

fried baby artichokes (cut in half and sauteed in a cast-iron pan in olive oil w. salt and pepper)
gefilte fish (not scd) on salad greens

refried red beans w. salsa (not scd), yogurt (homemade scd), tomatoes, and hot sauce
long red sweet peppers stuffed w. farmer cheese, cheddar and monterey jack cheeses
baked butternut squash w. olive oil, salt and pepper

coconut flour carrot cake w. frosting
baked apples (no raisins in honor of Richard and Leah who don't like them)

---------------------------------
Lunch: lentil soup w. carrots, onions, celery in the crock pot
--salad
--cheeses
--for Chana: peanut butter mixed w. honey

Breakfast: for Chana: apple w. peanut butter

Kiddush at shul: fruit and some Diet Coke

Cousin Eli's Video

We were in NY this weekend, and here's what the crazy cousins (Eli, Batsheva and Chana) did with Batsheva's new iMac and its video-taking feature:

Diet Log

We're going away for Shabbat to NY. We'll stay with my wonderful cousin and her family in Lawrence. We LOVE staying with them. On Sunday, if the predicted storm isn't too bad, we'll head to NJ for Sam's company's office party.

Anyway, as Jen and I were discussing menus for this weekend, she said, "well, just tell me what you would make". And I hit a total blank wall! So it seemed to me that it would be good to keep track for a while of what we eat around here.

Breakfast today: banana smoothie
---apple with peanut butter

Lunch (on the road between piano lessons and an appointment): smoked cheddar cheese
--sliced apples

Dinner: Cheese enchilada stuffed with white beans, lettuce and tomato
----broccoli

I forget the snacks, but that's at least a start....

mikvah

Just got back from a meeting at our shul about the proposed mikvah. The architect showed the drawings and the samples of the paints, granite, etc. Wow. It's going to be soooo nice.

And the dish mikvah will make a welcome change from going to Revere Beach! (Did I ever blog about the...odd....experience of toiveling our new ice cream maker bowl at Revere Beach? It was weird to be doing something so foreign to the previous times I'd spent on that beach as a child/teen, yet at the same time, surrounded by a number of covered Muslim women, I felt like I wasn't unusual in the least!)

Latkes

I've come to the conclusion that a person can take just about any grated vegetable, fry it in oil, salt it, and have happy tummies on the other side of the fry pan....

The other day I made latkes out six small grated zucchinis, two large grated onions and two eggs. When friends stopped by unexpectedly, I grated half a butternut squash (!) in the remaining mix and added a few tbls. of coconut flour.

Last night, I grated the only veggies I had around that weren't cucumbers or tomatoes, and we had onion and carrot latkes. I forgot to add the eggs, but did add some coconut flour. They were very delicate, but sweet and yummy.

Happy Chanukah!

new website!

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted....Batsheva's bat mitzvah kept me awfully busy, let's just say.

Our new soap website is finally up! www.4SistersSoaps.com! Whee! Not all of the links are live yet, but we're almost all of the way there!

"That's it! No more....

riding your unicycle in the house!"

(part of the continuing series of "Things I Never Thought I'd Say to My Kids")

Bye Bye, Barbie!

I'm selling off my youth! Let's see what happens

http://preview.tinyurl.com/36eyg9

http://tinyurl.com/22l66c

update on Sam's foot

He's vindicated! The Physician's Assistant at the local Emergency Room is a shmo! It was worth my picking up the copy of his x-ray on Wednesday about 20 minutes before Yom Tov started!

Anyway, the upshot is that he saw an orthopedist today and he *did* fracture his foot. Thankfully, yesterday he started to finally feel better and like he could put a little weight on it. He's now allowed to walk with his foot down with his crutches for support, and wean off them as he feels he can.

Some days are reeeeally weird....

I should be cooking. Cleaning. Making soaps.

Nah. I think I'll blog instead :)

Here is what my day was like (probably with a few significant moments of lunacy left out b/c I can't remember them all!):

6:15: wake up. Batsheva has gotten out of bed, climbed down the stairs of her loft bed, shut off her alarm, climbed back UP the stairs and has fallen back asleep. Try to get Batsheva up. Not much luck....Get a proper shirt on myself. No time to get out of pajama pants. Ilana wakes up. Nurse her and get her fully dressed (at least one of us should be, right?). No time to take her to the potty.

6:30: drive Sam to shul (he usually takes Batsheva to the van, but, b/c of slichot services, shul starts too early). Hope for the best w. Ilana in her car seat without "making" before we left.

6:36: home. Find one particular darling daughter who is not dressed yet. Start making dire predictions of missing the van to school. Throw English muffin in microwave for her.

6:40: take patient Ilana to the potty. She looks relieved to be able to relieve herself :). Ilana in her morning pottying takes rather a while (quite "productive", though, so I'm not complaining). Ilana insists on taking off her pants, underwear, socks and shoes (which she always insists on, and is quite a drag when we're out of the house!).

6:52: Finally get a proper skirt on myself. Even manage to brush my hair! Make even more dire predictions to procrastinating child who is putting copious amounts of butter on half-defrosted English muffin. Kiss PB good morning and tell her we dont' have time to read "Ramona" at this moment.

6:57: Manage to get out the door with PB, Ilana and BH. Screech into shul parking lot at 7:01. Amusingly, we are behind another shul family's car as we come around the corner, and, as I am leaving, the last family shows up (thereby making this early morning a total success: "We weren't the last family at the van! We rock!")

7:ish: eat breakfast, check email, make long list of groceries needed for Yom Tov. Help Sam make coffee by spilling water all over the counter. Feed all the kids. Try to read the headlines of the NY Times. Reflect on 9/11. Make my bed. Get PB dressed properly ("No, you may not wear your too-small bathing suit in an effort to look like 'Kim Possible'"). Take Ilana to make again. Put spaghetti squash in microwave to use as base for pesto. Unclog downstairs toilet that clogs is you look funny at it. blah blah blah. Suddenly it's:

9:00 Davening with the kids.

9:40 Leave Chana at home doing her Chumash workbook while PB, Ilana and I drive back to shul again, this time to spruce up the guest room there that will have a family in it for Rosh Hashanah. We had started yesterday with putting a set of sheets we'd washed back on one of the beds, but since two more beds were used this past Shabbat, we washed those sheets last night and put them back on today.

10:10: zoom home, grab karate uniforms and Chana and head to class. Spar with the guy Sam was sparring with when Sam sprained his foot (one month ago and he still can't put weight on it, poor guy). Try not to pop him one (it wasn't his fault, Sam just landed "funny" from a kick). After class, PB goes home with my sister for a 45-minute playdate (their idea, not mine).

12:00-12:30: Nurse Ilana and she falls asleep. Help Chana get lunch and suggest she call Miss Julie and beg for forgiveness for being unable to locate the book her current piano piece is in. Luckily, Julie has another copy of the piece at her studio. Shove some lunch in. Check email. Get "proof copy" from invitation company for Batsheva's bat mitzvah in email. Try to look up about ordering tickets to the play of the "39 Steps" for Sam's birthday (umm, did I forget to say "beg MIL to babysit? Have to beg reeeally hard?" oy....). Call YMCA to sign PB up for class that starts this afternoon. Class is being cancelled for lack of attendance. Try to sign her up for three other classes, only to find the same thing. Finally get her into a swimming class Weds. afternoons. Pay for class with credit card. Geeently get Ilana out of her crib and put her in the car. It is pouring by now. Run to pick up PB.

12:40: PB not ready yet. I try to get her to understand how this day is one of precision timing. She could care less. Finally get her in the car. Drive to Brookline. Storrow Drive is overflowing, driving is super slow, and I have a police officer in back of me for about 10 minutes, causing me to *not* run every yellow light that, had I run, would have allowed us to be on time (or maybe five minutes late) for Chana's piano lesson (we were ten minutes late)

1:30 Find parking space less than one block from The Butcherie! Look in purse for quarter for the meter. Look REALLY hard in purse for quarter. Realize that not finding quarter is nothing compared to not finding wallet. DOH! I left my wallet on the table after paying for PB's class at the Y (wow, this had never happened to me before).

1:40: drive back to Julie's and let PB hang out on the rain in her boots and cow umbrella while we wait for Chana's lesson to end. Ilana, bless her, has remained asleep.

2:20: leave Brookline, drive home, and tell Chana she's got 10 minutes to grab a snack and get changed for her first gymnastics team practice (eeek! 2.5 hours twice a week!).

3:15: leave for gymnastics. Stay for the first half hour and watch the tweens be impressively limber.

4:00 Drive to BJ's. Let PB sit in Chana's seat, next to Ilana. Arrive at BJ's to discover PB has written on Ilana's face with pink marker. Just like in "Arthur's Chicken Pox", someone asks if she has chicken pox.

Ilana and PB are delighted that there is a cart available with one of those little red cars in front. But it's really pouring now and the thing is sopping, dripping, disgustingly wet. Luckily, I had a spare "piddle pad" in the car and that made at least the seat not so bad.

4:45: arrive home, unpack the perishables, and finally read "Ramona" to PB. Try to put some soaps in to set. Ilana follows me into the school room and dumps a small tube of soap scent on herself and the floor. The scent, meant to be used as a drop or two, is overwhelming. Clean her off the best I can. Make a zucchini casserole for dinner with shredded zucchini, farmer cheese, tomatoes and a few basil leaves. Begin making four liters of the special yogurt allowed on the SC diet. Ilana wants my attention. Badly. To get it, she bites my thigh (through a heavy denim skirt). *I* howl. She has broken the skin and left a nasty hickey-looking thing :(

5:00: Batsheva arrives home. Tell her she'll need to babysit while I go get Chana. Suggest she eat something so that she'll be on time to karate. Try to gently cajole and encourage when she says she doesn't want to go to karate ("how about you'll go tonight and you won't go Thursday?!" She saw through that one....). Tell her to please eat something and get in her uniform. Leave.

5:45: Pick up Chana. Arrive home to Batsheva howling "Mommmeeee! She needs to MAKE!". Ilana is standing in the hallway tugging at her pants and yelling too. Sam is at the top of the stairs, trying to get down in a timely manner on his crutches (not possible, btw). A loud CRASH is heard from the room he works in . I get Ilana into the bathroom, but it's a bad "miss" (actually, it wasn't really a miss. She was clear she needed to go. Sam and Batsheva just couldn't get her to the bathroom promtply).

While I'm trying to clear her up, Sam yells, "oh NO! El, come up here! Penina knocked my new work computer off and I think it's gone". I yell back that I'll be up as soon as I can (really, aside from emtional support as we clutch each other in anticipated-anguish of the hit our savings account will take from having to replace this thing, what can I do? And if I leave Ilana, I'm guaranteed a whole lot more work when I get downstairs). Sam throws down the flushable wipes. I use maybe one of those every month. Now, I use 6 just to get things back to normal.

Go up to Sam and find out that it might be okay. Still waiting on that, but it looks like it might~

6:06: walk in the door with Chana. Leave 5 minutes later to drive Batsheva to karate. Take PB and Ilana with me b/c it seems a whole lot safer than leaving them at home.

6:30 Finally make Chana the banana smoothie she asked for on the way home from gymnastics.

6:45 eat dinner. Leah comes over.

7:30: put PB to bed.

8: put Ilana to bed. NOW the real work can begin....

midnight: the yogurt finally gets cool enough to put in the yogurt makers. Usually I put the pot in the sink and dump ice cubes in, which cools it in 1-2 hours. Since the sink is full of dishes that have piled up since this morning, I just cover the pot with a towel, stir frequently, and leave it on the stove. This will present a problem tomorrow night when the yogurt is ready at midnight and I am sound asleep. Blurg.

Take apple soaps out of mold. Discover that mixing cup was not cleaned well enough when I made the red soap. The tiny bit of blue left in there from the "it's a boy" soaps I made earlier tonight has now turned out an entire batch of purple apples. I try to convince myself these look lovely. I fail.

12:48: bed. I quit!

Happy

Anniversary to....us! Wow--15 years! Really feels like nothing (which is how I always knew Sam was "the one").

We've "celebrated" (mostly by saying "Happy Anniversary" to each other and boring the children with stories from way back when we rode brontosauruses in to the ceremony) numerous times already this year. First there was the week that the parsha was Shoftim. Then the 8 of Elul. Then the day before Labor Day. By the time the 6th of September rolled around, it seemed like gilding the lily!

But that was before my mother called yesterdcay and asked it we'd like them to come and babysit tonight ("hell, yes, mom!") and before she sweetened the deal *this* morning by offering to cook dinner for the kids and bring it with her (double "hell, yes"!). By the time she arrived, she was so pooped from so much cooking that we took pity on them and took Ilana with us for a rocking dinner in brookline (she was actually a lot of fun).

Need a laugh?!

http://www.mom2my6pack.blogspot.com/
It's like the non-Jewish version of, well, CLKL and Umberima!

PB at rock climbing camp

PB went to rock-climbing camp last week. 3 hours a day they climbed (indoor, rock-wall stuff). She had a blast. She attended a homeschoolers' class last spring (along with Chana), and we'll be starting again in October.

Ilana loooves to be at the rock gym too, and PB and I found a hold that she liked to hang on. She could do about 20 seconds with no support, and even knew to put her feet on the wall and try to climb up! (I was a very bad "danger mom" for even taking this picture, but I couldn't resist....)

Batsheva goes back to school

Ilana and Grandma are cute

I am SO crunchy!

I know you all probably thought that my "name" just refers to my level of left-wing-ed-ness. And, of course, it does. But the super secret meaning of "crunchy" mostly refers to the sound all of my floors make b/c Ilana sows Joe's O's cereal everywhere and the rest of us are forever stepping on them.

Whew. I'm glad I came clean about that. I wouldn't want to have any misunderstandings :)

Twins!

Mazal tov to my old "Penn friends", Miriam and Andy, on the birth of twin baby boys last night! PB, Ilana and I went over and hung out with them on Sunday, so it was quite the honor to see her "almost ready".

And now I have an old friend with the same number of kids as me! (That was how she told me she was pregnant. Said she was "catching up". Took me a minute to get the drift).

Rosh Hashanah Soaps

Man, I am having a blast with these! http://www.4sisterssoaps.com/holidays.htm
Tonight, I showed Chana and Leah how to do the icing in top of the "honey cake". It's so fun (and now they know how to do icing on a real cake, too!).

We are getting a LOT of orders. Which is really neat and also kind of scary. People are forwarding my email, and that is so great. And it's great to get orders from people we have no connection to. And I just need to stop hyperventilating about it.

"No"

That's Ilana's favorite word these days. As in:

(me, from front seat of car), "Ilana, honey, stay awake. We're almost home! Are you awake?"

(little voice): "No!"

OR....Ilana reaches for the plum on the counter. "Oh, do you want a plum?"
Ilana reaches, takes, puts plum in mouth. "No"

She's a riot this kid, I tell you!

I....Will....Blog....Again

Gosh dang it, I will.....

Let's see if the power of positive thinking works.

Plumber?!

I hope the ending of this is as good as the first part....

Our garbage disposal has been really acting up lately. Seems that the stem-to-stern kitchen redo didn't include the contractor actually gettting a new disposal, just reinstalling the old piece of junk.

So I got a recommendation for a plumber today and he was polite, well-spoken, called me back when he said he would, and, on his own, said, "I think I could fit that in this afternoon. How would that be?" HOW WOULD THAT BE?! Umm, that would be beyond my wildest homeowner dreams.

HP7

Oooh! Can't wait for tomorrow night's read-a-thon! When the last book came out, we went outside after havdallah, at on the lawn, ate ice cream and read and read. How fun to do that again (with SCD frozen yogurt....And plus one more child....)

soooo....

busy....can't....find....time....to....blog.....DOH!!!!!!!

CLKL and Uberima: how on earth do you find time to do this regularly?! I need tips!!!!!

Food to pack to go away for three glorious days and two fabulous nights

Here's my list for our trip to Cousin Henry's bar mitzvah in NJ:

SCD things that everyone can eat:
--eggplant parm
--panfriend artichokes
--hard boiled eggs
--israeli salad
--tomato and cheese salad (dice tomato and cheddar cheese. Top with dried basil, olive oil and sal and pepper)
--cheddar cheese "crackers" (see one of my earliest posts, if so desired)
--mini mushroom quiches made in muffin tins (this is supposed to make it "lunch like" and possible to eat in the car. Yeah, right....
--grape juice
--fruit, carrots, salad
--apple crisp (apples, butter, noey, ginger and cinnamon)
--cheeses

SCD things with nuts (i.e. not for PB, Ilana or me [b/c I'm nursing a child who could also have a nut allergy]):
--peanut butter muffins
--Lara bars
--mandel bread made with almond flour and honey
--plain peanut butter, esp. for on apples or straight-up, mixed with honey

Non-SCD things (i.e. not for Chana):
--breakfast bars from Trader Joe's
--matza

Umm, can I just say, " WE'RE GONNA STARVE!!!!!!!"

Off to continue cooking.....

Monday (during which I lose our pets....)

As I was feeding Fred and George, our parakeets, I had the decidely less-than-brilliant idea to take their cage outside to dump the shmutz at the bottom of the cage. There is a slideout tray I clean several times a week, but the tray below that doesn't get done much, and it really needed it.

I went out on the porch, took the top cage part off and put it down on the porch, thus, I thought, keeping Fred and George in the cage. They were so happy out in the beautiful weather--chirping up a storm....

PB came out and asked if we could let them out for a little bit. I was leaning over the edge of the porch cleaning the cage bottom as I explained that they weren't cut out for "outside" life, and we must leave them in the cage. Then she asked why the door to the cage was open....

I turned around, saw that she was right, and tried to shut the door. I was so close I didn't even need to move my feet to reach the cage, but just as I leaned over, Fred and George literally flew the coop.

"Come back!" I yelled. "All is forgiven". "Come back, Amelia Bedelia". "Nooooo! Fred! George! Please come back!!!!!!!" Nothing worked.

They did look beautiful, flying down Vista St, heading for Boston. Or maybe someplace warmer.

We left the newly-cleaned cage outside with the door open (the door which doesn't stay shut well when off the base of the cage. Wish I had remembered that this morning), and extra food, water and treats nearby, just in case they're still local and want to come home. Sniff....When the kids went biking around the pond later, we looked for them in vain.

I just walked past the cage covering and thought, "I should put them to bed. It's really late", before I remembered. I can't believe I'm having a grief reaction over birds (well, it's a *little* reaction, but still....).

Our plan now is to give Fred and George a few days to come home, and then get new parakeets next week, since we're going to Sam's nephew's bar mitzvah in NJ this weekend, and won't be able to lavish the attention a new pet will need.

Fred and George: thanks for being such great pets. I very much enjoyed hearing your beautiful chirping, and I loved the nice way you went to sleep each night (throw cloth over cage. walk away. no "I need to do Shema". no "I need a drink of water".....). Bon voyage. I wish you good birdie lives. And, should you so choose, remember that there will always be a home for you on Vista St.

A.C. Moore (or maybe not)

What an odd evening! It started when I took Chana, PB and Ilana to the craft-supply store after we dropped Batsheva and Leah off at karate. There were a few things on sale I wanted to buy, especially t-shirts and transfer paper so that I could make us "4 Sisters Soaps" t-shirts. I found most of the things I was looking for, but none of the t-shirt supplies seemed to be on sale. Before checking out, I asked to see the sale circular, and was told that there wasn't one this week. I pulled my 40% off coupon out of my pocket and read the date on it. Valid! Then I noticed it was for A.C. Moore and we were in Michael's (still transferable, btw). This explains my grumbling about how I can "never find what's in the circular when I'm in this store". I guess I make this mistake rather a lot.

So we left Michael's with our purchases (sans t-shirt stuff) and I noticed it was 30 minutes past PB's bedtime, and 30 minutes before we needed to pick up the other girls at karate. Hmm....What to do....30 minutes wasn't enough time for me to get home, put PB to bed and get to karate on time for pickup (plus Chana hates being babysitter at night), so I suggested we go to A.C. Moore. The kids were happy to comply ("ooh, let's buy more goodies!").

I drove into a shopping strip mall and looked to where the store was. At least, where *I thought* the store was. The store that's really there is A.J. Wright (mild dyslexia regarding stores with two initials in them. Probably not a reimbursable condition from Blue Cross....)

I thought a minute and decided it must be in the THIRD mall that's within two miles of my house (have I mentioned I love my location? We live across the street from a beautiful 25-acre pond with tons of birds and wildlife, yet only two miles from every store you could want [as long as you can remember which one is where!).

We did, finally, find A.C. Moore and get t-shirt stuff. But I'm much too tired to try to actually do anything with what we purchased!

Redoing soaps. Again. And again....

We have an order for 50 gymnastics soaps for an end-of-year banquet. This is a double-pour soap. First we make a white, lightly-opaque layer, then finish the back of the soap with pink (the soap is of a gymnast on a balance beam).

On some molds (mostly the silicone ones), doing a double- or triple-pour is easy. The layers stick together beautifully and look great. This mold only comes in plastic, which I don't like to work with b/c it's very temperamental. So it's hard to get the layers to totally stick together, despite using soap-making tricks like spritzing each layer with alcohol before pouring the next one. With this mold, I have to pay attention and try to get the second pour when the first layer is not so hard they don't meld at all, but not so soft that the heat from the second layer causes a rupture in the first (that just happened to a set I made this morning, and it was an amusing soap--looked like the girl on the beam had fallen and gotten a HUGE boo-boo on her tush).

So, with this order, I have spent a fair bit of time ripping layers apart and remelting. My favorite redo happened b/c I found a feather from our two parakeets in an otherwise-perfect soap.

Which reminds me that I need to go pour the second layer....

One Year on the SC Diet

Look at that cutie! SO strong.

Able to resist birthday cake and cold cereal with milk.

Able to overcome urges for cookies and pasta.

Able to find the good in this difficult diet.

Able to make grain-free, sugar-free, mandel bread (with Uncle Frank's help) that tastes so good that *everyone* wants to eat it.

Able to make it through blood draws, medical procedures, general anesthesia, and hospitalization.

Able to make it through prednisone's totally nasty side-effects.

Able to keep up with karate through it all and be on track to be a black belt before her bat mitzvah.

Able to keep up with gymnastics prep team practice so that she's on track to join the official team in the Fall.

Able to be a great daughter, sister and friend.

Way to go, Chana. Enjoy your pierced ears! (And, no, you are not getting a laptop for staying on the diet for two years....)

Motherwear

Last Wednesday, I got an email from Motherwear (the best company for nursing mom clothes) proclaiming their once-a-year tent sale on Friday and Saturday in Northampton, two hours from here. EEEK!

Rhona encouraged me to go (actually, it was more like shame--she told me SHE'D surely have gone if she "only" lived two hours away). I was undecided. Finally, after my sister offered to watch PB in the early morning until my mom could pick her up, I decided to DO IT!

In an act of supremely-un-"me"-like "togetherness", I got everyone up and out of our house and Chana, Ilana and I were on the road at 7 am! This entailed sending all the kids to bed mostly dressed (leggings on, skirt out on bed), packing lunch the night before, printing directions, etc, etc....

I am so glad I went. I had been bemoaning the really horrendous state of my wardrobe. Like how many of my nursing clothes were from when Batsheva and Chana were born (you can just imagine). While I don't need to look so fabulous during my day, I don't need to look like I need spare change either.

So the sale was just wonderful. They advertised that nothing was over $15, but I only bought a few things that were even $10. I got something like 4 short-sleeve shirts, 7 long-sleeve, 3 dressy and one sweater! Chana and I played "personal shopper" for Rhona, and I bought a lot of new-in-package basic long-sleeve t-shirts to give as baby gifts, too.

I even managed to take the kids to the library as well as light Shabbat candles on time! The only major OOOPSIE I had was forgetting to leave PB's car seat for my mom. I didn't even realize until we were 30 minutes away. DOH! Bless my mom, when SHE realized what had happened, she went to Target and, for less than $20, bought another booster seat. Whew! Way to go, Rho!

Some days, it really does all (mostly) come together :).,

Mazal tov!

To Janet and Mark on the birth of a baby boy on Sunday, 6/3.

Do you think people who tell you of their baby's birth have ANY idea of how happy they make a person? Does Janet know that now, 5 days later, I still get a big smile on my face thinking about their newly-expanded family?

Such a bracha....

Going for 100!

Wow! Busy month for the soap company! Between birthdays, babies and end-of-year gatherings, we have orders for over 100 soaps!

Can't write any more now. Gotta go make soap....

Batsheva's Play

"What shall we buy, what present shall we bring?" was her big line that we all keep walking around singing. The play was very cute and nicely done (aside from the oddness of watching three grades of girls perform a play that was exclusively about men [Kings David and Shaul]). The townspeople (of which Batsheva was one) got to wear skirts and copious amounts of green eye shadow.

A good time was had by all!

The Groovy Mobile :)

More Things I Never Thought I'd Say as a Parent....

"Because I'm the parent" seems a perfectly reasonable thing to say. Benevolent dictatorship and all. However, some of the things that pop out of my mouth truly do surprise me:


"No, you are NOT going to mummify your sister" (to Chana)

"Markers go on the paper, not in your mouth" (to Ilana, after a market went SPLOOSH all over her teeth. She was distraught and wanted to nurse. EWWWW!)

"STOP READING!!!!!!!" (to Batsheva)

"You may not use permanent marker to write on yourself" (to PB)

"You may not use permanent marker to write on another person, especially not a mustache" (ibid)

Oh What a Night (part 2)

Backround info:

our car is in the shop today, so I'm driving my mom's car. Tomorrow (HOORAY!) my parents return from their 7 month self-imposed exile in Florida. At which point they expect to find their car in their driveway so they can do necessary things like go grocery shopping.

The night:

Tonight was supposed to be my big night out with my old friends (not that we're "old"), Heidi and Jodi. We went to elementary school together, and, despite being pretty different people, we have made it through thick and thin and still actually like to hang out with each other. Like it a lot, in fact!

Jodi went to college at UMass Amherst, then moved to Texas, and then lived for a number of years in Singapore (!). She moved back to MA about 1 1/2 years ago with her husband and two children, and now lives about an hour away from Heidi and me. Heidi and I see each other all the time. She and her son came over for dinner last night, in fact.

Last month, after working for what felt like weeks to coordinate schedules to find time for "Ladies Night", we had a great time together and got Heidi ready to testify (in 60 seconds or less) before a State Senate subcommittee on education.

This month, I felt way too swamped with preparations for the holiday of Shavuot and our friends who are coming to stay with us for 5 nights. So I bowed out of dinner but said I would meet up with them at Starbucks. After giving everyone dinner and putting PB to bed, I made it to BJ's with 20 minutes to shop before our meeting time. I even survived the horrendous checkout line without needing store personnel-assistance in self checkout (now THERE'S an accomplishment!).

I got to my mother's car in the lot (ours being in the shop) and the darn thing wouldn't start!

Well, off to put Ilana to bed. Tune in later for the ending....

One small step for baby....one giant step for....well, Ilana.

On Shabbat, Ilana took one teensy tinsy very wobbly little step. Chana and I, of course, flipped out and she fell down BOOM while smiling. Our wonderful friend Janet who was here for Shabbat with her husband, Mark, is our witness that the historic event really did take place :)

B'sha'ah tova to Janet (CLKL--remember her?), who is due with her first in about 3 weeks! SO neat!

What's new with Ilana?

Why, funny you should ask! Starting Saturday night, she began to stand up on her own without holding on to anything. Soooo cute to see. By the end of her practice time, she was even able to clap for herself for being so clever!

She can walk holding on with one hand.

She can (still) climb like a monkey.

She can do a terrific "Shema": covers eyes and says "ahhhhhh".

She can now say "Eva" for "Batsheva" (her first word was "Ana" for Chana).

Current signs: more, all done, "gotta make", nurse. We also use eat, drink, and "thank you" with her, but she hasn't done those yet.

"Happy Bratska Fartska Tushka Day"

A card that the "oldest of my girls" made for a certain 4.5 year-old who says that comment raw-ther a lot (actually, what she really yells is "you stupid bratska fartska tushka"). OY.....

Someone please remind me that she will (G-d willing, soon) get out of this phase!

SCD food as artistic statement

on left: homemade yogurt with a layer of baked apples in the middle and fresh blackberries on top.

next: black bean salad with shredded lettuce and tomatoes on a tortilla made entirely of cheddar cheese

next: the same ingredients, but the cheese is made into a folded tortilla (hint: melt cheese in a nonstick pan. wait for it to cool [put in fridge to speed the process if child is very hungry]. Blot oil off. Fold. Enjoy the fact that, gosh dang it, you finally made something that looks NORMAL.




Next:If child refuses to eat yogurt that took 30-something hours to make, put in fancy shmancy glass and artistically top with honey. Hope for the best....

Last picture: "SCD Mac and Cheese", made with spaghetti squash in place of noodles. Tastes pretty darn good, except nothing like what my kids really crave, which comes in a package and has flourescent orange powdered cheese.

Oh what a night....

It all started way back when, on Mother's Day (i.e. yesterday). Now you have to know that, although our house is really bonkers during most days, once we get the kids wrestled into bed at night, it's pretty calm around here. I've worked darn hard this year to get PB's bedtime to 7 pm. Still working on getting Batsheva and Chana into bed around 9. But I digress. Back to the wonderful day where mothers are feted and their children behave like little angels....

Sam was working on work stuff. I was working on soap company stuff. I needed help. By the time he could help me and we worked out what the heck was the problem with our printer, it was 1 am (hi Fern! Which explains why I was writing to you in Israel then. How could I pass up the opportunity to speak in almost real-time?).

And Batsheva was roaming the upstairs very upset about not being able to sleep well, and would we PLEASE come upstairs (needed her across-the-hall teddy bears, I guess).

So we finished and got into bed. Only to find that Goldilocks, er, PB was already there. And would not leave for love, money or threat of all potential for a goodie the next day being taken away. So Sam and I went into the guest room. But that bed was toooo little, being only a single, and had a lack of pillows. So we made our way back into our room and tried to move PB into her sleeping bag on our floor. Which worked for a little while, until she half woke up and discovered our nefarious scheme....

Then Ilana woke up. It was now 4 am. Nursed her, which took a surprisingly long time (maybe it was close enough to daytime for "first breakfast") and put her back in her crib at the foot of our bed (no room for her to stay since PB was already there). She wasn't having any of it. Have you ever gotten to the point of exhaustion where you find it totally possible to fall asleep with a screaming child less than three feet from you (I bet most of you have, actually....)? She finally stopped screaming and took a different tact. She stood up in her crib, looked over the edge endearingly and said, "All Done" ("Ah Dah"). So we smushed her into our bed and got the final 1.5 hours of sleep until it was time to get Batsheva up for school.

On the bright side: Chana slept the whole night. And the birds.

p.s. from the next day: in a totallyn pathetic display of exhaustion, I fell asleep on the floor of the YMCA during PB's gymnastics lesson (Ilana was having a snooze in her carseat, and Chana was only too happy to take a break from doing her math with me). Sure felt better after, though!

Standing

Saturday night, after working towards it for a few days (getting into a squat, but not being able to stand up), Ilana began to stand! She was so thrilled with her new skill that she did it continually for an hour, even progressing to being able to stand and clap for herself without falling over (at least at that moment).

Batsheva, Chana, Leah and I were there to cheer the big accomplishment on.

Ilana's busy, busy day

Today, let's see, she spent quite a while pulling out the "baby protective" covers on an electrical socket (and, EEK, trying to put them back in). Maybe I should give her some prescription medicine containers to practice on next....

She helped me unload the dishwasher by standing in it (I'm beginning to see why I can't get a handle on the mess in my house!). Is that a picture of a kid saying "I'm busted" or what?!

Climbed up the stairs a bazillion times.

Helpfully unloaded all the plastic forks onto the floor and then chewed on them (box of plastic utensils is now away inside a cabinet)

Was discovered trying to eat a screw that had come loose from the baby gate at the entrance of our schoolroom (I was only about a foot away from her when it happened, but she was facing away from me). The gate is now fixed :)

Tried to sit on Chana's skateboard scooter and fell off, getting her first-ever facial boo-boos.

Yelled "HIIII" at the appropriate moment at karate so that the teacher stopped what he was doing and asked "did she just 'ki ahp'?!"

Climbed into this small plastic chair that holds kids' books in our bathroom. Did I mention that she did it without taking the books out? That was one precariously-perching toddler!

Spent almost the whole day diaper-free at home (two misses at home [one she crawled into the bathroom and banged on the potty, but I didn't make it in time to help her actually get *on* the potty. I don't think that one really counts as a miss!], one when she was diapered at karate)

She also ate several spoonfuls of homemade organic apple sauce (see SC Diet posts below), opening her mouth reaaaally wide and then smearing it in her hair.

I'm exhausted!

Lactivism!

Wow. I am so amazed at the incredible "lactivists" (breastfeeding activists) on Mothering magazine's website (http://mothering.com/discussions/forumdisplay.php?f=25).

Recently, a mom posted there about how she and her sister are staying at the Ronald McDonald House in Houston while her sister's son is recovering from brain surgery. AND THEY WERE HARRASSED ABOUT NURSING IN THE COMMON ROOM! How insane is that?! The poor kid is 17 months old and healing from brain surgery and people are kvetching that they're "uncomfortable" with that baby nursing in "public"?! Have these idiots heard of turning away? Reading a newspaper? Not being so interested in other people's business? Leaving the room? Do they have a CLUE that this is what breasts are for?!

RMH has gotten an earful from pro-nursing folks (we live in a bizarre world that there can possibly be people who are anti-....), and today there was an article in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19nurse.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=slogin

Diaper-free Baby

Yay! We took the plunge a week ago. We have used Elimination Communiation with Ilana since her birth--listening to her cues (like getting squirmy or more verbal) and our intuition, and taking her to the potty or toilet to make. She has been in cloth diapers full-time, but as a backup to EC. She's been about 50% for dry diapers.

Well, it's a week now for us where she is diaper-free at home and in a backup cloth diaper when we're out, and I am so proud of her and us for doing this. She's doing great! And I am getting the hang of NOT putting diapers on automatically! It's nice that we really think about when we want her in diapers (like during dinner last night, when she hadn't peed in forever, it was late, and I was reeeeally hungry).

On Friday, I took her many times to make with nada coming out. Then she crawled to the potty on her own and did make! This happened twice and was very heartening.

I'd say we have about three misses a day, but with a fair bit of "communication" going on. Yesterday, for example, she was playing with her toys and stopped and looked at me with a very concerned look on her face. "Oh, do you have to make?" I asked, as I picked her up and carried a very pishy baby to the bathroom. Well, at least it doesn't happen too often!

She also sometimes uses sign language to say that she has to make. It's very cute to see. The sign is the letter "T" for toilet shaken back and forth, but she holds her hand in a very specific, curved way and shakes it. I love the inner genius in our very young kids :)

One Year Old....

Wow. This past weekend was Ilana's Hebrew birthday. So, while the right number of suns have not yet passed since her birth, the correct number of moons have! She was born on Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat right before Passover, and it's funny how I have such a strong connection to that time this year, and almost none to the date of April 7....

I love how this year the timing is very similar to last year (except I think that the first night of Pesach last year was a Tuesday, not a Monday like this year). No matter how late we stay up dealing with the kitchen, it feels like such a piece of cake (SCD Pesach cake?!) b/c we don't have a newborn, I haven't been ordered by the midwife to stay upstairs except for appearing at the sedars, and Chana is not sick!

So Miss Ilana celebrated by climbing the entire staircase with me in back of her, climbing three stairs (without me in back of her) and falling down (I was in the other room and a friend here for Shabbat lunch forgot to keep an eye on her 100% of the time) and getting her first facial bruise (aww, good for her!). She also ate homemade apple sauce and some rice cake crumbs. She can pull herself to standing and has six teeth now.

We all wore party hats for Shabbat dinner and Shabbat lunch. Batsheva, Chana and PB gave brachas to her on Friday night. It was so sweet to hear the blessings they said. PB said, "I hope you always have good sleep", while B and C wished her "another 120 years" with all good things in them.

Richard and Leah came for lunch and we all talked about last year, and how they heard about her birth. Batsheva and Chana went to shul to tell Leah, and B. tried to fool her that the baby had been a boy. Leah just insisted that it was a girl, though :). Richard remembered going over to Sam as soon as he came into shul and asking what happened. Sam said that he ignored everyone and concentrated on davening. Then, when it was time for announcements, he sidled up to Andy and asked him to announce a mazal tov to our family!

After Shabbat (last year), my brother and Sis-in-law, Jay and Kim, came over. Then, around 11 pm, Sam's mom, Chellie, and his stepfather, Joey, came over. I was so tired, but there's nothing like seeing a grandma coo over a new grandbaby.

The next morning, Kim came back with Joshua and Rebecca. Josh put Ilana on his hand and held her. (Which brings me a flashback of Jay holding Josh like that, except that Josh [who is now something like 6'3"] was in his little lamb coat with the ears and tail!). Later, Heidi came, and Nancy, Efraim and Chana Nasia. Chana Masha was just lying in bed next to me, kind of zoned out. Efraim (http://www.emk.jamminweb.com/) made a wonderful vegetable lasanga. Nancy and Heidi, who had just met, even bonded by going to Costco together.

I definitely have been thinking about how our friends and family saved us with their wonderful cooking. Rissy, Suzi, Tova R, my aunt Paula (AP)....So many kind people sent over kugel or matza lasagna or soup. AP even kindly accepted my family descending on her erev Pesach so that my kids could see her grandkids. Then, of course, they got hungry, which is really a bother erev pesach! But she dealt with everything with such grace.

And then Jen and Shmuley took the girls to the Big Apple Circus during Chol HaMoed....And Chana Milman and Menucha took them to the zoo. What amazing friends and relatives we have.

It's been quite a year. Couldn't have made it through without such great love and support.

What do I feed this kid?!

It seemed daunting way back when, but now it feels pretty darn normal to deal with the SC diet full-time. Here's today's menu:

Breakast: Peanut butter smoothie, made with PB, frozen banana, honey, apple cider and homemade yogurt (more about that later!)
Baked apples sauteed in butter and honey

Snack: poached egg

Lunch: breakfast redux (her choice)

Snack: umm, I can't remember, but I'm sure there was one

Dinner: artichoke with melted butter
organic broccoli
Taco Fillings (corn or flour tortillas are not allowed on the diet, so we came up with the idea of eating just the fillings. This is THE dinner that most feels like old times for all of us).

So we ate refried beans (red beans and black are okay on the diet, as long as they've been soaked overnight and then cooked for at least two hours. True confession: I know that I'd been a vegetarian for, well, forever, before this, but I had never cooked beans from scratch before--only used canned). Ate the beans with lettuce and shredded cheese. I've also become creative and begun to make "cheese tortillas" by melting cheese in a nonstip pan and then letting it get cool enough to lift out in one piece and roll. THAT, my friend, is a triumph of creativity over restriction :)

Dessert: homemade apple fruit roll and dehydrated orange slices.

I also made apple sauce, since Chana has trouble swallowing pills, but can do it with the pills mixed in apple sauce.

Food appliances I've used today:
Foley Food mill (for the apple sauce)
blender (twice. Once for the peanut butter smoothie and once for a soy butter one that Penina could eat).
immersion blender (for the refried beans)
yogurt maker (for the yogurt :))
dehydrator (for the fruit roll [made by dehydrating apple sauce. Came out great! Only problem is that it's like 9 hours since I started making the apple sauce] and the oranges)

I'm beginning to see why I'm so tired at night. And why I need help keeping my house from spiraling into utter chaos. And....

And Yet Another Follow-Up....

The upshot of all the "is it a flare or isn't it" is that it was/is, but is not a crazy, out-of-control one. I am reminded of being in nursing school and being told repeatedly to "trust the mom". That is definitely born out in this case, since the clinical evidence of Chana's labs being off is only now coming out, several weeks after I called and said, "I think she's having a flare".

I spoke with Chana's doctor 1.5 weeks ago when he called to tell me that one of her inflammation markers was very high (17.7 for C-reactive protein, when normal is less than 1). So now, instead of being on one pill a day, she's on 6 (well, 7 if we count the iron).

Labs get drawn again tomorrow, so, hopefully, we'll find out good news at her next appt. on Thursday. She seems totally back to normal, and I'm hoping we can ditch the extra meds ASAP.

Yeah...What She Said

PB comes into the kitchen, crying about her big sisters' treament of her:
"They're outcluding me!"

A follow-up

Weird what happens when one comes back and revisits old posts. I didn't even recall putting the "flare" post on here.

So here's what happened: Chana had labs drawn and....they were fine (whew) and the dr. said "go to Florida!". Cutting out the nuts and seeds did seem to be a big help, as her stomach eventually stopped hurting so much (oh yeah, she also went back on super-duper antacid, so now, should she so desire, I suppose she really could "eat the whole thing" like those old commercials used to say). Her iron count was still low, but the two main markers of inflammation were okay.

Had more blod drawn last week, and the iron count was eek-scary lower (add in iron pill [which, since it's very difficult to digest, is technically a no-no on the diet, which is why we didn't start it earlier]), and one of the inflammatory markers is creeping up. STOP!!!! Do not increase! Do not give my child a flare. Do not show even an inkling of my child having a flare.

Did I mention that the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA) sent both Chana and me separate fundraising letters today?! I'm totally disgusted. Chana's letter was already in the recycle pile when I fished it out. I want to know from them how they got her name. Does Mass General sell the names of the newly-diagnosed?! It's bad enough that when Chana was in the hospital, the Clinical Nurse Specialist (which is technically what I am, so I really wanted to like this woman) handed me this huge pile of info from CCFA including what felt like numerous membership appeals and donation opportunities. I didn't join. (Which leads to the question of why *I* am getting these letters as well, but I don't feel anywhere near as outraged about my getting them as I do my 9 year-old). And, yes, there is probably a bit of denial mixed in to these feelings....

I hate Crohn's disease :(