the family of five, all home again.

the boy is home, tan, happy, and in the bathtub.

abba bought a "new" vehicle (1988 chevy blazer) today, and we even got to have lunch with Grandma before we left "the big city."

all is well!

Best letter EVER.

i got a letter from razi!!!!!!!!
i don't think i can really express how thrilling this is. but!! i can quote him!!!
he says:

DeAR StReiFFS
its fuN!
AND GReAt!
FROM RAZi

(yes, he really does go back and forth between lower-case and capitals like that, only all his letters are generally the same height.

My oldest child is now at sleep away camp.

K! My day!
Woke up, left Joshua (who came home from work at 4am) in bed, showered, made lunches, brought girls to their synagogue/preschool camp, left car seats in hallway.
Came home, finished packing Razi's plastic "footlocker" thing (a small plastic trunk, really), printed out directions, hung out, ate food, wasted time till around 11:30 or so.
Got in car, headed off to the sleepaway camp.
Drove for a long time.
Realized the directions had confused me and turned around and went back about 5 or 10 miles.
Got to camp and saw they were turning people around. Got to front gate to get instructions. Heard that they are "too muddy" for us (and the gazillions of other parents) to park, needed to go down a bit and park at the little restaurant we just passed. A school bus will come get us.
Got to tiny restaurant and quickly saw this isn't going to work at all. Heard from other parent who is giving up that we need to go down the road to "some church at M-- and L--."
Headed down M-- a ways.
Saw a church at "T" of M-- and L--, and two dark-haired girls in matching purple t-shirts at the entrance to the lot. Felt sure we'd found right place.
We had.
We waited.
For a long time.
They put tags on Razi's stuff. He was going to be in cabin 11.
I knitted.
They got a lot of the girl's stuff.
We waited.
They came by again with a rental truck and picked up... girl's stuff.
Razi looked for bugs.
(We have a photo of us waiting by the van, but Joshua hasn't emailed it to me yet.)
Many more cars came in the lot.
A school bus took a bunch of kids and parents and younger siblings to the camp.
Razi and Joshua looked at a catalog that had come in the mail for us this morning.
Another bus left.
I knitted some more.
They told us that they would make certain that no one but them took Razi's things and we should probably go wait for a school bus because it wouldn't be long at all now.
Razi was shockingly patient.
We got on line for the bus.
A bus filled up and left.
The one right behind it did too.
I finished a row of knitting and went back to put my knitting bag back in the van.
The pair of busses filled and left again.
Razi was oblivious (we hope) of the conversation right behind us between two women talking about how one of them sent a daughter to some sleepaway camp and the kid was bullied and miserable and got into a lot of fights.
I cut in line a little hoping to get the heck away from them.
It didn't really work.
A bus came and filled up and then we were just about at the front of the line. (With just one teenage boy and his parents ahead of us.)
A bus came. We got on. Joshua sat with Razi and I sat alone.
Someone sat next to me and we chatted a bit on the way to the camp.
Her son had gone to a different Jewish summer camp but then they moved and her daughter started this camp and adored it. Today was the start of her 4th year.
We got there and went into what must be the mess hall.
It was painfully loud.
A lady had a microphone and was yelling at us to "Come over here! Here! The line starts here!" But her voice was coming from speakers in the ceiling and I couldn't find her. Even after we found the right place she was yelling so loud that I couldn't get Joshua or Razi’s attention without touching them.
They gave him a name tag.
They checked him for lice!
He didn’t have any.
They asked if he was nervous.
I said he wasn’t.
We talked to the nurse.
We'd left the Alavert in the car.
(We are so dumb.)
She was really calm about it. She put a note in a ziplock bag and told us to get the Alavert, bring it to the front gate and give it, in the bag with the note, to a counselor and say "for nurse Wendy."
We escaped the screaming building.
We asked directions three times, and finally found cabin 11.
Our shoes got pretty muddy but we couldn’t see why we hadn’t been able to park there earlier.
Razi has the top of a triple bunk bed!
Very, very cool.
A kid ran over and said "My name is Max. Do you want to be my friend?" Joshua and I pushed Razi to answer. He said "yes" and bouncing smiling Max took Razi’s picture.
Razi grinned like a madman for Max’s picture.
Razi explored his bed and the cabin and met two or three of the four counselors in his bunk.
Razi was about as happy as I have ever seen him.
I made his bed and put some of his stuff on his shelf.
I counted bunks. Fourteen 8 year old boys.
We talked to a couple of counselors.
Joshua helped Razi find the bathroom.
We found Razi’s flashlight and he put it where he would find it if he needed the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Razi escaped while we were finishing in the cabin.
Joshua got worried that Razi would wander off and get lost while he was at camp.
Joshua worries a lot.
Razi was right outside, wrist deep in mud, talking with counselor Evan.
Joshua and I think Evan is a junior counselor, about 16 yrs old?
We took a picture of Razi showing off his muddy hands.
Razi went back to playing in the mud.
We said goodbye, but I do not think he noticed.
We walked back, waited, caught the school bus, brought back the Alavert, went to Trader Joe's (because hey, it was there), drove all the way home (a lot of it in construction and rush hour traffic) brought in the groceries and walked over to get the girls from Becky’s house.
Lilah was a tired, miserable little grump.
Zora was extremely well behaved and slow as cold molasses.
I wrestled the baby beast into her pjs and she fell asleep in between demands for more food, more apple juice, more D, D, Dora and the dragon video!
I read bedtime stories to Zora.
We let her go to sleep in her big brother's bed.
Joshua went to work.

Whew.

creativity revisited

razi: (in the pink toy tent) Lilah! Privacy! I'm trying to wash my brain!
(to me) This is a brain washer.

Lilah: (singing) A brain washer, a brain washer. A brain washer!

the vegetarian version, of course

this morning my son made his own matzah with ketchup sandwich. then he sat at the table, bit into it and said: "mmm! tastes like chicken!"

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!"

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.

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.

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.

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.

can we get back to you?

So Zora and Razi were putting together a "show" which I, of course, was waiting eagerly to watch.

Finally they called me to come sit on the couch and watch it. Zora held a stuffed toy in front of her face and mumbled something incomprehensible while Razi danced around with a box on his head.

When I said to Zora that I could not hear her, she told me "Ima, we forgot to practice how the show goes."

ROFL!!

Something to say?

My mom has asked me to blog more often. Hi mom! ;)

We just had a lovely visit with my mother and father. They should come more often. the kids love to see them, and that makes me so happy.

Winter break starts really soon. The girls have school tomorrow but not on friday, and Razi has school on friday but then they all get two weeks off. I'm already panicking. I hate winter break. The kids get really bored and it's so cold I hate to plan outings. Play dates. I need to schedule a zillion play dates.

I did enough surveys to get another free CD. This time I chose "on and on" by jack johnson. I like it and so does Lilah. She and I danced to some of it yesterday. I love watching her dance. She's so incredibly cute.

Supposedly, I am writing a novel. I obviously need a deadline, because I've written a paragraph. About a week ago. And that's it. Yikes!

And this is why I don't blog very often. My life is dull, I have nothing to say. ;)

random stuff

after searching unsuccessfully for lapsang souchong at, what, three different kroger stores? i finally made the time to check the fancy-pants supermarket. yay! my favorite tea. mmmmmmmmmm. i've had some every day since i bought it. i have to be careful though, because it still makes me feel a bit... off, if i drink a great deal of it. it might be the caffeine. apparently it's a highly caffienated tea, for tea anyway.

lilah is doing GREAT with preschool. nowadays i bring her, i put her down, she walks in and doesn't look back or need a hug or even to wave goodbye. to quote my mother's favorite story about my childhood: "i don't need you any more, mommy."

on the other hand, i think she's begun to transition out of her nap. she's a touch under the weather today, and went to sleep easily, but this is the first time she's fallen asleep without difficulty in something like a week.

i hate nap transitions.

but by this age her sister zora was completely done with napping, so at least she postponed it, in comparison.

i still don't know where zora is going to go to kindergarten. or how i am going to pay for it. oh, she can go for free, but only half-day. full-day public school kindergarten will cost me $1800/year. full-day private school, which i would loveLoveLOVE to send her to, would be $4000/yr, before scholarships. but that is only if the private school gets enough children to HAVE kindergarten next year.

last i checked, the private jewish school was as likely to have enough kids for a class as i was to have $4000 sitting around doing nothing. now, paying for public school makes me angry enough to spit nails. but i still feel half-day would be a waste of her time. yuck-o. i want a fairy godmother to come fix this for me.

yesterday was razi's seventh birthday. wow. i've been a mother for seven years and a day. and he got a 100% on his spelling test today, just like last week. he's such a great kid. also, a massive goofball, but he's seven. it's part of the territory.

in addition to all that, he needs braces. my, how times have changed. apparently putting braces on six and seven year olds is all the rage in orthodonture these days. but i can't deny that his teeth are messed up. even if i hadn't seen the panoramic x-rays (and i have. yikes!), he's already got a tooth coming in very, very crooked. looks like he inherited his grandpa john's mouth, and if you've looked into john's mouth, you'll know why that thought makes me willing to get braces for my seven year old. for those of you who've never seen my father-in-law smile, i will allow you to imagine.

Snippets

Lilah has completely adjusted to preschool. She does scream in anger when she realizes I'm leaving her there, but she stops in a minute or two -- before I finish signing her and her sister Zora in, actually.

I've spent a few hours in Razi's classroom now, and I'm glad to be there. I go on Friday mornings from about 10:15 to about 11:15. Last week the teacher actually allowed me to grade the spelling tests. I felt so unworthy. ;)

A little girl named Autumn kept wanting to come talk with me. I told her she'd spelled every single word on her test correctly (hardly anyone managed the word "orange") and taught her how to spell totem. She'd spelled it todum. Spending time with first graders who are learning to spell reminds me all over again how evil English spelling is. Why isn't it "oranj," for goodness sake?!

I was in charge of set up and clean up for the Rosh Hashana reception and the Yom Kippur Break-the-Fast this year. And I came closer to fasting for Yom Kippur than I ever have in my life. I'm pretty sure I'm hypoglycemic, plus I've spent most of my adulthood pregnant, nursing or both, so I don't fast. But this time, I decided to drastically limit calories. So before the Break-the-Fast I'd eaten some milky tea, one hard-boiled egg, and some watery soup. I felt awful. I'm so glad the High Holy Days are over. I didn't feel spiritual at all. On the other hand, I feel like I did a lot of good work for the congregation and I was a good Jew. So, you win some you lose some, it seems, even with things like this.

Wow!

other local parents have been telling me about this great new playground in town. i kept thinking yeah, i should go there with the kids. we finally made it a few days ago.

i wasn't sure where it was, so i drove slowly through the park it is in, looking for it. it's a large park, with a golf course and then a long winding road with more than one playground. it must be an old park as well, because the trees are thick and huge.

anyway, i'd heard it was "completely redone". so when i saw a totally fancy new parking lot i thought okay, that must be it. the playground, however, looked quite ordinary and there were no children on it. but there was a large stone shelter with indoor bathrooms, and the stream was nice and the trees were nice and i figured well, i guess the playground that was here before was awful. we stayed a while and then i saw something through the trees. what was that? it was bright red... wait a minute... was that the REAL new playground, across the street and behind some trees?

we walked across the street to find what has got to be the best playground i've ever seen in my whole life. i took some pictures just to show it off. i love my town.
the playground has this thing children can climb up and two of the slides that come down are about three stories tall. look for the adults in the photos for perspective.it has a little play house, a section just for kids under five, a rope climbing structure i've never seen the likes of in the US (though i saw two in scotland years ago). it has lots of swings. one is almost like a huge plastic throne. two are these large saucers that can fit four kids at once. it has a huge long bridge/walkway that the kids love to run up and down. it has places to eat with tent-like covers to create shade.it's fabulous. we've been there three times in three days.