mornings are for the birds.

sometimes my husband works late. very late.

last night, he didn't come to bed till 5am. he snored like a chainsaw. he hasn't been doing that much lately and i'm not used to it anymore. i asked him to get up and put on a nosestrip. it didn't help. after half an hour i gave up, took my pillow and went to sleep on the couch. it was lousy, but i managed to fall asleep, unlike in my bed. razi woke me at 7:50, which was 20 minutes later than i'd intended to wake. i'd been having a dream that razi had completely destroyed the bathroom, water everywhere, huge, ugly, decorative stickers (that spouse and i had intended to do something completely different with) all over every wall... i was glad to see the real razi.

i stumbled upstairs and was seriously (and probably unreasonably) annoyed at my spouse. it did not help that he thought i'd simply woken up early and gone downstairs to be awake, the jerk! stumbled through my morning. razi started to complain of a headache but said he wouldn't take medicine. he pretty much never does, so i didn't expect him to agree to it. i just said if he was well enough to go without motrin he was well enough to go to school. but his father insisted on trying to get razi to swallow a pill. that went ever so well. not.

some vomit and a new pair of pants later (and why did i have to grab the pants out of the laundry? i was sure he had plenty of clean laundry in his dresser! how many pairs of pants does the little blighter wear in a day?) his father finally gave up on getting razi to swallow a pill.

oddly enough, i didn't get the girls to school late. that never happens.

how not to enjoy a gift

someone (many someones?) gave lilah a TON of gifts at one or both of her schools today. in addition to a candy cane in a little felt "mitten," and a lovely hanukah card, she got a bunch of care bears stuff: an actual purple care bear, a care bears ball, a packet of care bears stickers, a care bears book.... i think her teacher was very generous. most of the things weren't exactly signed.

so she wants to play with the ball with her sister. only she doesn't want zora to touch the ball. because the ball is MINE!!!!!!!!!! she doesn't seem too keen on letting go of that little bear, either.

this interspersed with squeals of joy and the refrain of "oh my darling..." over and over from the song "Clementine."

have i ever mentioned before that my children are from mars?

i need pictures of musical notes...

so lilah is singing and playing air guitar. on a toy godzilla.
"apple juice in a mug!! godZILLA!"

Apple Juice and Devious Plans.

Conversation I had with my spouse recently:

Me: “So. Your devious plan worked perfectly.”
Spouse: “Uh…” Blank look. “Devious plan?”
Me: “Yeah, you know. The one where you left the large open cup of apple juice perched at the edge of the shelf, where it would fall at the slightest provocation. Then, when it did fall, I’d be forced to clean the inside of the refrigerator. That devious plan.”
Spouse: “I’m so sorry. I was actually trying to prevent Lilah from knocking that cup over. I was trying to prevent a mess! What happened?”
Me: “Lilah wanted a hot dog.”

so razi and lilah both have a half day of school today. oh JOY. not. and this means i have to bring lilah to razi's parent/teacher conference. even better. they've closed all the elementary schools in the whole town for two afternoons in a row to schedule parent/teacher conferences. do other school districts do it this way, i wonder? this can't be a happy thing for parents with ordinary jobs.

at least lilah's preschool can keep her tomorrow afternoon even though they can't keep her extra today.

so anyway, i got home from bringing all my beasts to their schools, and as i was parking on the street well past the mailbox (so the postal carrier will deliver my mail. they won't get out of the truck unless they have a box they can't fit in there) two middle-aged men in suits and carrying briefcases walked up to my front door and rang my bell.

i wasn't excited about dealing with insurance salesmen or whatever, but i didn't want to stand there and wait for them to leave or go for a little walk or anything, so i stood next to my mailbox and called out "can i help you?"

turns out they were from some church. i cut them off very quickly with "thank you, but we have a congregation."

i have no idea what sparked it, but the one who responded sounded perfectly gobsmacked as he said, "you do?"

uhh, yeah. and we're deeply involved with it, you unpleasant man. what freaked you out? the fact that i'm wearing pants?

i don't think he got a look at my bumper stickers, because that would have actually made some sense. i've got a pro-gay marriage one, a "non-judgment day is near" and one that says "question gender" to name some of the less door-to-door-christian looking ones. but since i'm almost 100% certain he didn't see those, i'm stumped. i'm a 39 year old white chick in modest and ordinary cold-weather clothes with long dark hair who drives a minivan and lives in a suburban nightmare of a neighborhood. What’s unchristian looking here?

we have some pumpkins in the driveway. maybe that's it. some christians around here get very upset by halloween, and actually a lot of jews don't celebrate it either (because it is secular/pagan, not because it is "of the devil"). feh. i don't know. but it really got my goat.

her inflection was perfect...

I had a great conversation with Lilah this morning. I got her dressed in my bedroom and then headed downstairs. She lingered upstairs. I was making lunches when I heard her calling me:
"Ima! Ima! Escue me!"
“Yes, Lilah?”
“I dress!”
(This either means “I am dressed” or “I am wearing a dress.” I don’t actually know.)
“I know you are, kitten, I dressed you myself.”
Pause…
“Oh. Sorry, Ima!”

nachas

happiness is...

hearing my three children spontaneously break into the prayers, in perfect hebrew, for both bread and wine.

so what if they are singing them over chocolate ice cream.

Free time begins today.

so lilah is in public school. as in, i brought her and left here there and that's where she is right now! omg! and we had rather an adventure with registration.

on friday afternoon i found out i would need a birth certificate and shot record to enroll her. i wrote the info on a post-it, stuck it to today on the family calendar, and promptly forgot all about that.

then this morning i thought to look at the post-it. i found her shot record easily, but not the birth certificate.

thought it might be at the bank. remembered that i need to get some paperwork to the hoosier healthwise people to keep the kids enrolled in their health insurance. got the papers i needed for that. started to drive to the bank. realized i might have the birth certificate in my filing cabinet at home but was dumb enough not to look. turned around, drove home, left lilah in the minivan (door open, looking down on her from window while i went through the files) for about 8 minutes while i determined that no, i didn't have the birth certificate in there.

partway to the bank i wondered if maybe the hoosier healthwise people had a copy of the birth certificate. headed there. dropped off paperwork and asked for a copy of the birth certificate.

woman at front desk was thoroughly annoying. the case worker can't drop everything and go searching for something like that, she needs 24 hours notice and a letter requesting an appointment. spent next ten or twenty minutes pondering the rude shock said case worker would get if she were suddenly forced to work in the private sector.

wanted to stop at bank but realized lilah would be really late to her first day of school if i went there at that point.

drove to the school, dealt with spectacular tantrum when i took back her brother's hockey gloves (they are for his sword fighting club and i did NOT want them lost or damaged), brought lilah to her classroom where she promptly forgot all about the gloves and her terrible mood because omg COOL STUFF!!!, learned the woman who runs the program was in the hall and booked it to grab my own copy of her IEP, filled out a ton of enrollment paperwork (got a cramp in my wrist there was so much), pondered how many fewer phone numbers there would be on said paperwork if my cell phone didn't have them all memorized, and had embarrassing conversation about why i didn't have the birth certificate right then.

drove to bank to check the safety deposit box and, lo and behold, there was her birth certificate along with those of everyone else in the entire family. thought about banging my head against a wall in frustration at my own stupid self for not going to the bank first or even second, like i'd planned.

anyway, i have the copy now. and i leave to fetch little people in 25 minutes.

mars

my insane children are "cleaning" their bathroom. you see, razi dared to tell me, on the way home from school no less, that my ideas about what to do when we got home were "boring." i angrily told him that if he was bored he could clean the bathroom and zora turned that into the funnest idea of what to do, ever.

that child is from mars.

i can only hope they don't do anything purely revolting with the toilet scrubber or the toothbrushes or something like that, but i can't supervise, i just can't. i suppose this means i'm a wuss.

i can, however, go up and check on them occasionally. so, what does this "cleaning" mean? water all over the floor. every single washcloth soaked and dubious. zora covered with soap. razi running around in his underwear. me wanting to send them all back to school.

sigh.

preparing for school

this morning the kids saw a pile of backpacks that their father had set aside to check out. i have decided that two are going to charity but one will now be zora's new school pack. they got all excited about how they will start back to school soon, so this has become backpack morning.

lilah was wearing the old "Dora the Explorer" backpack i bought for her brother when he turned three (over four years ago. it's holding up well.) razi had me fill his brand new pack full of the school supplies i bought for him and zora has been stuffing her new pack with so many books and toys that she probably won't be able to carry it.

razi is still wearing his new pack on his back. he doesn't start school for two days. i wonder when he will decide to take it off. ;)

ahh, i was wrong. she CAN carry it. on the other hand, she's unbalanced!

hot stuff

i learned something tonight. if you cut up a hot pepper for your sandwich, you will want to wash your hands with soap before you touch your eye. yes, even an hour later.

cat love

me, holding the wacko cat. "isn't she pretty? (in cat-baby voice while scritching cat's head) she's such a pretty widdle lunatic, yes she is. (in my own voice) don't you think she's pretty, honey?"
spouse. "yes. she'd make a lovely hat."

i month and 1 day till public school starts again.

i officially hate summer. the kids are often bored, the heat takes a lot out of me, and everyone else i know can afford to send their kids to expensive day camps all summer long. (all right, that's a lie, it's much closer to a quarter than all.)

i finally fired lilah's speech therapist. i'd been resigned to just suffering through eight more weeks of chronic lateness and mediocre quality speech therapy, but i was kvetching to a friend about the ST and she told me to fire her. at first i was surprised and unwilling, but less than ten minutes later, she'd convinced me. it turned out to be remarkably easy. i called the first steps coordinator, told her what i wanted and why, she told me how to find the resumes of the available providers on the web, and i picked someone who (runs? works at?) the local university's speech and hearing clinic. i am hopeful that she will not only help lilah improve over eight weeks of therapy, but that she can help me navigate the scene of transition and what comes next. i am worried that lilah won't get into public school. if she doesn't, i have a huge array of choices to wade through. heck, even if she DOES get in i have choices to wade through. either way, i am going to want some guidance.

talking about dieting is boring as all get out, but i am finding it hard to diet lately. i read this article about these wacky weirdos who believe that if they limit their caloric intake (to levels that the article's author thought were insane) they could live to be 120 years old. i don't particularly want to outlive everyone i love or get a congratulatory letter from 2088's republican nightmare president (aren't i an optimist?) but, i usually eat about the daily calories that the people in the article eat. (from 1250 to 1500 a day.) at least, i did until i read the article. now suddenly i'm eating more again. maybe when summer is over i can exercise more and eat less. and enough of that boring topic.

if lilah gets into a developmental preschool i'll have a lot of time to myself. she'll ride the bus and her sibs will be in school till three. so i want to write that novel. we'll see how that goes. perhaps instead i will just have a much cleaner house and more clean clothes. as long as i manage to do something productive, it ought to be all right.

creativity blossoms

oh wow, lilah just plucked some of her hair up into "ears" and said "look mama, a rabbit!"

Yay.

I figured out where to buy a dress.
Goodwill.
Actually, I bought four.

Really, it's so odd. I went to a department store, and their dresses made me feel awful. I went to a discount store and they didn't even SELL dresses. I went to a thrift shop and felt fabulous and skinny and pretty and bought my whole summer wardrobe. How have the "real" stores gone so wrong?

Eh. What do I care. I have summer dresses!

disconnect

weird comment yesterday. i went to pick up the market day order, and the chick in charge asked why i bought 5 boxes of the big-ole pretzels that heat in the oven.
"we all just really love them."
"oh! that's great! i just wondered if you were having an affair."

uhhhhh.....

oh, right. she means a PARTY.

This morning my son jumped on my husband's side of the bed, pretended to sleep, and then pretended to snore. Then he jumped up and told me proudly: "Snoring is important for grown-ups!"
"Well... not exactly...."
"Only for boy grown-ups!"

my new chest

a very, very long time ago, a lovely woman i knew was moving out of her house to enter one of those nicer assisted living placed for older folks. Evelyn packed up everything she wanted, then her kids and grandkids cleaned out everything they wanted, and then she asked me if i wanted anything.

Evelyn gave me a freezer. an 8.3 cubic foot chest freezer. it is probably the most generous gift anyone other than my parents have ever given me.

yesterday i went into the garage to pull out some frozen bread, and found... mostly defrosted bread. uh-oh. the outlet still worked, that was easy to tell, because plugged in right above it was a little light-up plug, to let me know that the small appliance it was attached to was done charging.

so i called my husband at work, and he offered to try to fix it, but really, that wasn't realistic. the thing could have easily been twenty or thirty years old. we have no idea how old it is, but it was free and it worked perfectly for us for five years or so, and it was clearly done working now.

plus it had two or three hundred dollars worth of food in it.

so, spouse came home, emptied out his minivan, went to lowe's and bought a $268 8.9 cubic foot chest freezer. when it was cold inside, we emptied the old one and filled up the new one.

the stuff at the bottom of the old one was still frozen solid.

i love having a chest freezer. i hope this one lasts till i don't have kids in the house anymore. at least.

what does godzilla have to do with bedtime, again?

part of the standard bedtime routine around here is a "special extra story" that used to actually be special and extra. ;)

the two older kids start every day with an assumption of three storybooks at bedtime, plus the special extra story (which razi used to earn by reading a book to ME, but that sort of evaporated when his little sister who couldn't read at all got into the act).

one book is for staying clean and dry all day, which should be a given since zora is almost five now, but sometimes she gets lazy. argh.

the other two books are for cleaning up the two downstairs rooms in a timely manner at clean-up time. if they finish in under half an hour, they get both. if not, fifteen minute intervals come to take away the other two books and then the special extra story.

last night zora lost everything. then she had to lose something else even beyond the special extra story, so she lost the priviledge of drinking soda next shabbat. she was devastated. good. maybe she'll learn that screaming fits are not the best way to deal with disappointments.

razi, though, still got the special extra story. now, my spouse is a genius for making these things up on the fly, with prompts the children give him right before. our cats, hello kitty and godzilla are regular stars. but last night it was apparently my turn, so i told a story of godzilla rising from a laboratory at the local university and destroying the town we live in. of course, my spouse - genius that he is - saved the day with the judicious placement of a sleeping-pill-laced lean cuisine on top of a freight car.

everyone knows that godzilla's favorite snack is a train. ;)

yes, it was a goofy story, but razi seemed to like it.

may i interest you in a fine whine?

last night my spouse got home, took one look at me, and asked me if i wanted to go out alone for an hour to myself. i must have looked pretty bad.

of course, i really appreciated my spouse's generosity, but my neighbor/friend becky couldn't go out, so that was a bummer, and becky suggested TJ Maxx, and that turned out to be horribly depressing. because there i learned that i am a chestless wonder who can't afford decent shoes and whose taste in dresses is so far off the beaten path of normal that it might as well be martian. plus the only cute tshirts are in junior's sizes and would look ridiculous on me, so i am just broken.

then i ended up at the supermarket, which is where every mother of three wants to spend her last half hour of totally free-n-clear / guilt-free / alone / whatever-i-want-to-do time.

then this morning lilah had the most massive tantrum when it was time to leave her sister at preschool. of course, i realized after 5 or 6 minutes of her screaming on the floor that i, mother-of-the-year, forgot to FEED her, so no wonder the poor thing was a total wreck. sigh.

then when i got her home i was sitting here in between bouts of cleaning the front room for her always-late speech therapist (today: 36 minutes late and counting) and she brought me a copy of the cat in the hat and said, clear as you could want: "cat a hat" !!!!!! so i wanted to read it to her immediately. of course, she brought me a copy in hebrew. blasted spouse and his charming, useless ideas about learning hebrew with children's books. i tried to interest her in a different story but she asked for TV instead and i caved.

studio ghibli

you know you've shown too many japanese movies to your 2 and a half year old when she bows to you and squeals something that sounds suspiciously like "hai!"

(which is essentially the japanese for 'yes.')

driveways, garages and minivans

my driveway is really steep. we've lived here almost 4 years and i always park on the driveway because my spouse always has the garage full of computer junk. we already had to pay to have the minivan's emergency brake redone once and the other week i realized that it had suddenly gotten really loose again. so i started parking on the street - which is a pain - and my spouse started cleaning out the garage. this took a few weeks of intermittent effort. he's been working late nights at the shop and could really only clean the garage on weekends. i was getting very impatient to park in the garage.

today we finished cleaning out the garage. woot! so i pull my minivan in, and keep pulling, and get in as far as i possibly can without bashing into the deep freezer or the stairs, and lo and behold, the back end is still under the door. yes, my minivan is too big for my garage. argh! aaaand, it's back to parking on the street.

mammogram

my mammogram results came in. i don't need to go back for a year. that's nice to read. :)

Super Poopers

i've been meaning to do this for ages, but only this winter did i get the chance to enroll my son in an acting class. we have a "playwright's project" in our town and they have acting classes for a wide range of ages, but every class i saw for him until this one cost a great deal more than i felt able to spend. razi likes to memorize lines from movies, he's an excellent reader, and i thought acting might help him with focus and concentration.

so when i saw that the playwright's project was offering a class for first and second graders that lasted six weeks and only cost $60, i enrolled razi pretty much immediately. the four kids in the class all chose which superhero they wanted to be, and razi wanted to be "superstitch" - sort of from the movie lilo and stitch. he chose the superpower of "super-claws." lilo and stitch is a cute movie. i have no idea why razi got obsessed with stitch, but there you go.

the other kids were "superowen" - who could walk through walls (and other things), "megaeyes" - who could SEE through walls, and the evil villain "miss stare-a-lot" - who could freeze people with her stare and then steal their superpowers with a mere touch.

the acting teacher wrote a short script for a play with those characters and they practiced for about 6 weeks and then had the actual play.

we'd wanted to hire a sitter for lilah but were unable to, so joshua stayed home with lilah. but zora and i went, and i got almost the whole play on my digital camera, which can make little movies. it's hideously grainy, but it's on my computer for posterity.

the play was what you would expect, i suppose. one kid overacted horribly, one kid was basically fine for an 8 yr old, and two kids - including mine - mostly got their lines right but were pretty distracted and didn't really take it seriously. but it was cute and i'm glad he participated. he was the youngest actor and the only one who hadn't done the class last year, so i think he made a good showing.

i'm certainly not opposed to enrolling him in another class like this again in the future.

38 and counting

I've done plenty of things that have made me feel like I was growing up. Like I was "really an adult now." I finished school, got my first credit card, got married, had babies…. I’ve felt like a “real adult” for quite some time, now.

I seem to have graduated from the milestones that make me feel like a real adult, to the milestones that make me feel like I am aging.

Today I had my first mammogram.

It was… not as awful as I feared it would be. The films will be read on site, and the woman who did the exam told me that it is common to be called back for a second set when one gets a baseline. They won’t really know what is normal for me and what isn’t, and that may lead to questions. I was grateful for the warning.

Now, I wait.

Good thing patience comes with age.

harry potter: a prediction, a d'oh! and a squee

first the squee.
book seven!! this summer!!! july!!! OMG!!!

second, the d'oh: i can't believe i never saw this before, but an online friend pointed this out and i had to figuratively facepalm. how did i never see this before?
by putting the curse on the DADA position, Voldemort assured himself a bit of a free field. it's in DADA that students learn to defend themselves against the likes of Voldemort. no decent DADA class/teacher, for years and years and years, and Voldemort won't be facing a whole lot of true, effective opposition. smart Voldemort. and dumb Dumbledore for letting Voldemort into the school, where he was able to put the curse on the job!

third, the prediction:
draco malfoy and werewolves will somehow interact in book seven in a significant way. the foreshadowing starts all the way back in book one!

crazy morning today!

My seven year old son now has braces. Good heavens.

This morning was crazy. My four year old meandered and dawdled and wasted time and made us totally late. Late as in, when everyone else was ready to go she was naked, in the bathroom, and had eaten nothing. Argh! So I rushed her into her clothes and made her a sandwich (which I wrapped in a paper napkin and shoved in my pocket) and sped the girls to school. Then I left Razi in the car while I ran them in and didn't even bother to sign them in. I never leave the kids alone in the car like that! But I knew we were already late for his orthodontist appointment and I was freaking out.

So then we hurried over to the orthodontist, who is practically around the corner from the preschool thank heaven, and they started by cleaning his teeth. They said the whole appointment would take two to two and a half hours and I could run errands if I wanted; so when about twenty minutes had passed and they really didn't seem to need me, I went to the supermarket and bought some essentials. (How are we always out of chocolate milk and bananas?) And then I went to Target and bought him practically a whole new wardrobe. He's grown out of almost every pair of pants because he’s sort of tall and very skinny. He has my childhood body. I bought him four pairs of pants and two long sleeve shirts and a sweater. I only spent about $56 because I tried my hardest to buy only things that were on sale. Also we probably won't keep all of it. We'll decide what to keep and what to return tonight – with his father’s help. Joshua's gonna get roped in because buying the boy new clothes was his idea!

Then I went back to the orthodontist and Razi was almost done getting his braces on and wired and everything. The most relaxing part of my day so far has been sitting in the orthodontist's waiting room, reading People magazine!

When Razi was done we rushed through checking out because I had this stupid idea that I would get him all the way across town (a 15 minute drive) to his school, then drive 15 minutes back to pick his sisters up, then all the way back home another 15 minutes in the car to get the girls and myself home. But I realized, thank goodness, that I was being an idiot. So we picked his sisters up 15 minutes early instead of 20 minutes late. And I left him in the car again. There goes ‘mother of the year.’

Then I brought him to school and I had to go inside and sign him in and I just left both of the girls in the car while I went in and dropped him off. My goodness, what is the matter with me?! At least I could see the van from inside the school office. I couldn't see it at all from inside the synagogue/preschool. Then I brought the girls home, got them in the house, fed Lilah a lunchy sort of snacky thing while I ferried a ton of junk into the house, put Lilah down for her nap and closed the door on her while she screamed, and poked at the laundry with a pointy stick. Yowza, I need a nap!

Now I need to make Zora her pasta and peas, cycle through more and yet more laundry, and maybe catch a breather for a few minutes.

the colts, miami, and zora

Zora and I went to Miami, Florida last weekend. My oldest cousin’s two oldest children had a joint bar/bat mitzvah ceremony, and Zora and I went and represented the whole Indiana branch of the clan. Zora had a really marvelous time, and I could not be more proud of her. She stayed up really late both Friday and Saturday nights and she was a perfect little delight the whole weekend anyway.

We flew in and out of Indianapolis the very weekend of the playoff game, and wow, the fever over the football thing was everywhere. Not my thing, but it seemed to put everyone in a good mood, and that was a very nice side effect.

The weather in Miami was fantastic. I actually took a nap outside on Saturday afternoon. Considering that when I checked the weather for Indianapolis on the internet the next morning I learned that at home it was 27 degrees and snowing, that was a nice break.

But I’m glad to be home, even if it is cold and snowy here.

my girl

My four year old daughter needs to learn that talking about something, like heading to the bathroom or cleaning up her toys, is not, oddly enough, the same as doing that thing.

music

If my high school buddy Stephanie still reads this blog she should put down her coffee so she doesn't spill it while she laughs at me. We always had really, really different taste in music.

For Hanukah I got a couple of itunes cards. Thirty dollars buys twenty-eight songs when sales tax is six cents on the dollar. So, I took a bit of time and thought and bought myself twenty-eight songs. Quite a few of them were very contemporary songs, released in 2006. I bought songs from Keane, Snow Patrol, Placebo, KT Tunsdall, etc.

But. I also bought some stuff that was much, much older. No Stephanie, no Lionel Ritchie. ;)

I bought some stuff from the early 00's and late 90's that I never really got out of my head, even after my favorite radio station had long stopped playing them, songs like Self Esteem by The Offspring and Roll to Me by Del Amitri.

I bought some amazing covers of great original songs, like Placebo covering Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill, or the powerful and astonishing cover Johnny Cash did of Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nail's song, Hurt.

And I bought a song I had last heard when I was in high school. I’m lucky U2 even bothered to release it, frankly, but it might be the most memorable U2 song I’ve ever heard. It's called Trash, Trampoline and the Party Girl, and I only knew it existed because of this radio show I used to stay up far too late listening to.

Stephanie, do you remember KEGL? Stephanie and I went to high school in Texas, where the radio stations use call letters that start with "K" and "Q" instead of "W." I can't remember the show's name, or the DJs name, but he played the most alternative of new wave stuff late on Sunday nights, and I adored that radio show. He introduced me to a lot of artists I still love, and some I will never, ever be able to find anywhere again but in my memories.

I am almost completely certain the show was local to the Dallas area, as he played tapes from local bands fairly often. I still remember loving an electronic-style song from a band in Denton, Texas. Hey, it was the mid-eighties.

I also bought some songs that can only be called “old” by rock and roll reckoning. My parents, who only like music by dead people, would laugh at calling something released in my lifetime “old,” but rock is a little different than Mozart.

Superstition by Stevie Wonder is a pretty old song. 20th Century Boy by Placebo is pretending to be an old song, though of course, it isn’t really. But the oldest songs I chose were released by a man who is now dead. I wonder if that would make the songs more appealing to my parents?

One of These Things First and Cello Song by Nick Drake are lovely, lovely things, written by a man who died the year my little brother was born. If you haven’t heard his music, I strongly suggest you look him up. If you like folk music, rock music, what is often called “singer-songwriter” music, and/or guitar music, then you should give him a listen. I used to have his entire catalog, as I bought the box set. I haven’t been able to find it since my last move, which is making me a little crazy. I don’t usually spend money on the same thing twice, but I had to hear Drake sing again.

Really though, I think the point I started with in my mind when I started this post, was that it makes me feel a bit old to still love songs that were written and released so long ago. It’s that U2 song that really does it to me. It’s one thing to love an artist you discovered a decade or two after his death, but to love a song when it was new, and still love it more than twenty years later, reminds one that those twenty years have, indeed, passed one by.

Shake it off, baby. Life is great and you’re still young.

And for those who are still curious, here's the entire list. :)

This Is Us by Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris
Boom, Like That by Mark Knopfler
My Own Two Hands by Ben Harper & Jack Johnson
Loser by Beck
Girl by Beck
Trash, Trampoline and the Party Girl by U2
Self Esteem by The Offspring
Steady As She Goes by The Raconteurs
One of These Things First by Nick Drake
Cello Song by Nick Drake
Is It Any Wonder? by Keane
Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol
Superstition by Stevie Wonder
Chocolate by Snow Patrol
20th Century Boy by Placebo
Running Up That Hill by Placebo
Roll to Me by Del Amitri
Hands Open by Snow Patrol
Colorful by Rocco DeLuca & The Burden
Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall
Nothing In My Way by Keane
Everybody's Changing
Somewhere Only We Know by Keane
Crooked Teeth by Death Cab for Cutie
Soul Meets Body by Death Cab for Cutie
Think I'm In Love by Beck The Information (Bonus Video Version)
Other Side of the World by KT Tunstall
Hurt by Johnny Cash

socks

lilah loves socks and shoes. we often tell people that her favorite things in the world are shoes and phones. she will take almost any smallish rectangular or square thing, put it up to her ear and "talk" into it as though it were a phone. this part is cute.

she likes to put on her sister's shoes and walk around in them. she also has a pair of shiny red boots that i bought for her at goodwill that she utterly adores. she wears them often and has finally learned how to put them on (untied) all by herself. this part is also cute.

but she has a habit now of pulling her socks on, all the way up, and then getting angry when they won't go higher. and when i say angry, really what i mean is unmitigated screaming fury. when the sock is all the way up she starts screaming and throwing a huge tantrum. if she can manage it, she'll hurt other people. yes, intentionally. yes, over a sock.

it's funny and sad and ridiculous, all at the same time. and this part is not cute.

food.

I just read a blogger post from a friend where she talks about her ten favorite foods, and I got inspired. I don't think I have ten favorite foods to eat, but I am sure I can think of ten favorite foods to talk about. ;)

1: Lamb chops. you ask what my favorite food is, it's easy. My mom used to make lamb chops all the time when I was a kid and I would get grease everywhere, fighting with the bone to get every last molecule in my mouth. I never eat them anymore because I don't really buy red meat (except in sandwich meat I guess) but I can still almost taste my mom's lamb chops. yummmm.....

2: Cholesterol cake. That's what I call it in my head, anyway. it's a recipe I modified. it's officially called "strawberry yogurt pound cake" but when I double the recipe I add two eggs, making a total of ten. it also has chocolate chips, twelve ounces of yogurt, and two full sticks of butter. my kids call it "breakfast cake" and love it. I make it fairly frequently. why? because my son is something of an unofficial vegan. by which I do not mean he is philosophically choosing not to eat animal products. what I mean is, he has a short, short list of foods he's willing to eat, and eggs isn't on it. actually, protein is barely on it. we're still dancing jigs that he starting being willing to eat peanut butter, because until I "invented" breakfast cake he wasn't eating protein. now he gets it from peanut butter and breakfast cake. I’m actually pretty proud of it. :)

3: Avers Pizza. That would be a small, local pizza chain. they're amazing. I don't bother buying pizza from anyone else anymore. we have Avers every single week now. it's tradition. :)

4: Broccoli. For a while there it seemed like scientists were declaring a new reason broccoli was healthy every month or two. which was nice, but pure gravy, really, because there is no finer vegetable. I ADORE broccoli. I could eat it every single day.

5: I love tea. I even have a very handsome, and profoundly dusty, teapot collection. but really, it's all about the tea. what kills me is that as I age I find that certain teas bother my stomach now, and I don't know why yet. it doesn't seem to be the caffeine, it doesn't seem to be the milk.... I have to figure out what it is because I drink tea all day, and I’d like to drink more flavours!

6: Brown rice. I read somewhere while the Atkins diet craze was making the news that we talk about people having a "sweet tooth" or a "fat tooth" but really, a lot of folks have a "carb tooth." oh, yeah. give me carbs. rice, pasta, potatoes... and then more rice. and for dessert? ice cream would be nice, but could I have fettuccini alfredo, instead?

7: Indian food. Don't know how to cook it myself, so I only eat it in restaurants. their breads are so cool, and those stews... I love Indian food.

8: Canned pears. My older daughter gets intermittently obsessed with them. she won't ask for them for ages and then suddenly she would happily eat two huge cans a day if I let her. this lasts for a week or three, and then snap! and she's done again. it's a little weird.

9: Salsa. I love salsa. its calorie free, it's spicy, it's nothing but vegetables. the virtuous snack food.

I think I’ll stop at nine, because really, who wants to be like everyone else and have a list of ten that actually has ten things? ;)

Teeth

I took my seven year old son to the Orthodontist today. They do these things differently these days. I got braces at ten, and, at the time, that was remarkably young. But my dentist recommended orthodonture for Razi when he was four, if I recall correctly. That sounded insane to me, but as time passed it was clear that he had an underbite and perhaps some crowding.

Long story short, he needs braces. He had a lot of baby teeth pulled a few months ago, but he still needs braces. And, of course, it is going to cost a few thousand dollars.

Today alone was $330.

Luckily the girls seem to have good teeth. Which, considering that I was a metal-mouth for seven years, and his paternal grandfather never wore them but really should have, well, one out of three (if that is how it turns out) is awfully lucky.

The women at the Orthodontist's office are very nice. He needed two X-rays today, plus impressions of both the top and the bottom teeth. I was nearby while two of them worked to keep him still for the X-ray (panoramic X-rays are a real challenge for a little kid) and then I sort of watched while this nice woman worked her tail off to get Razi to cooperate for the impressions. Poor kid. He had no idea what was going on, but they managed to get both impressions. Yay! Hopefully he'll not have to do that again. But if he does, I am confident that those nice women will be just as patient and helpful the next time, too.