The C word

Hearing about someone's cancer that has returned with a vengeance and the proposed course of treatment is a lot different when it is not your own immediate family member, even if that person is so close that she might as well be. And I hate that I was so detached in my emotions when I heard the rundown. It was not shocking since we knew she was having serious problems and the initial symptoms have been so awful that the patient required an inpatient hospitalization for one of the procedures to handle those issues [more of a band-aid really for the real problem than an actual solution].
I really want to hear my sister in law's in-depth take on the situation, but I don't want that to be the only thing we discuss at length on our upcoming family trip to visit them - so I'm gonna have to carve out the time to hear it all with my mom, and out of earshot of big eared children who would need to have a million and one questions answered before they could comprehend the seriousness of it all. At this stage, the doctors are optimistic with several variations of new therapies they could try since the last round of chemo did not go so well on this person's nervous system, however, I kinda get the feeling (without having met with the dr or the patient all that recently) that it is only a matter of time before they exhaust their various options and I wonder if the patient will be strong enough to endure. In all truths, I know that we all eventually wear out this body that we are given, I just hope that she has enough courage to muster the strength to go throught the treatment and all it entails. I know that her yet unborn grandchild might be a good motivator as well as the fact that her family and her children and grandchildren still need her daily. Now in writing this piece I realize what a(nother) cancer diagnosis can do to a family, even though my mother went through hers not so long ago. Mothers truly are the glue that hold a family together. Even when their children are grown and living independently. Daughters depend on mothers and that is just the way it should be.

Favorite Faces

These are some of my favorite faces that I see daily, and they're not always smiling, or doing exactly what you would want or expect them to do. But that's the best part.

Things that make you go hmmm

So at the Lag B'Omer party that was held outdoors at the closest shul to our location with a full on loud DJ and 2 or 3 hair cuttings and an amazing BBQ (amazing because when do I ever get to eat kosher steak cooked outside by someone else???)
The party was ok, tons of Israelis, boisterous and noisy, just the way they like it...
So Yael is coaxing her little brother who is fearless to play on the wooden play-scape (which had undergone some obvious updating by the color of some of the newer boards (yeah safety)
This is before the party is even really in full swing, most of the men folk have been bidden by the Rabbi in charge (there were a multitude of rabbis on the premises) for mincha services.
So Benjamin is trudging up the bridge to get to the slide (as he passes the littler slide) that is obviously made for bigger kids with Yael encouraging him from behind. Before he found out he could get bounced along in the bouncy houses on site for the occasion. As he is going up, he trips on his shoe and falls on the wooden slats - on his face. And he gets a bloody nose for his efforts. Again, thanks to safety, I cannot reach into the wooden bridge thing to get my shocked but not yet weeping child because the wooden slats are placed just far enough apart that I can't get my hands in there. Thankfully, there were a few other children playing around the area, but none on the slide he was headed towards, so I sprang into action (after what seemed like an eternity of trying to coax him toward me) and climbed up the slide in 2 steps and scooped up my now bloodied and crying child (I think he was crying cause he tasted the blood more than anything). What made me go hmmm in this situation is that I had to carry my bloodied child down a hallway of classrooms and directly in front of the sanctuary to get to the ladies room to clean him up. It is really a matter of how you perceive things. Since I had swooped in and scooped him up so quickly and because I had my hand in front of his face so as to shield him a bit from onlookers, he was no longer crying or screaming. I was comforting him, but wasn't really alarmed and he was not really in pain. But I still had quite a few onlookers who didn't offer to help. That is what made me curious. Normally, someone would have gotten a cup of water ice or SOMETHING. Maybe because we were both so calm? I hurried along, but was not running, calming him but not freaking out myself.
Or maybe it was just because it was a bloody nose that obviously did not require stitches or what have you. I expected people to fawn over him to make sure he was ok. Nothing. Sure the place was pretty devoid of menfolk, and the party hadn't really begun yet, but there were plenty of people around. And it is just now that I am mulling it over, since it didn't impact his evening or mine more that the initial crying and cleanup in the ladies room, where I stuffed an extra few paper towels in my pocket in case the bleeding occurred later in the evening (which it didn't)

The other thing that made me go hmm was one of the other rabbis who is rather youngish, but has been here for a good 6 years or so with his family. He asked me how Benjamin's (he meant Jonathan's) lungs were. It reminded me that he visited us in the hospital when he was new to town and brought coloring books and bubbles (which we and he didn't know were verboten at the hospital at the time-a fall risk I am sure) And it reminded me too that I had been pregnant with Yael when Jonathan went through all of that. How our lives have changed. I can't even imaging having to go through something like that (G-d forbid) with one of my kids again at this stage of my life. He was young, we were younger than we are now (thank G-d) and it all turned out like it should; It amazes me to think of all that we went through. I did not really process it then (just in the 2nd week when I already "knew" we were going to have to have surgery -mother's instinct, psychic intuition, whatever- waiting that extra week and a half for the doctors to try and exhaust all their options was excruciating. And at that point, we didn't have or know about Skype so the calls from Israel were frantic and I couldn't even translate what the drs were saying for Eran who was in the room, much less for his frantic mother and father.
Just makes me realize how far we've come, and how much I really need therapy, if that's a part of our past that I can brush over so easily. Remember Brenda, most children don't need lung surgery for complications of pneumonia before their 2nd birthday. And Captain Oblivious, most kids don't spend the first year of their life throwing up nightly. That is not normal. Ignorance really is bliss...and pregnant-brain-fogged, first-time mommies can only deal with so much.

Just putting it out there

I sometimes start posts and then don't finish them and then don't post them  - sometimes cause I wanna keep things to myself and sometimes cause I never finish the thought and sometimes just because.
But for my friends who are blogging daily for a month straight...more power to ya!

Today I got to thinking about a few things. I have been rather on the downtrodden side (critical of myself as musicians and artists tend to be) lately. Then I realized something while reading Miriam the Mommy's post about her daughter's school sending home a weekly newsletter. Her 3 year old was learning about counting the omer (the time between passover and Shavuot when we were wandering the desert and awaiting the big reveal of the Torah and our eventual entrance into the Promised Land) Granted my kids are learning about it too, but it is not something that I process on a daily basis as I most likely should. It was also maybe more apparent because I started seeing the inevitable Lag B'Omer invitations reminding me that we are indeed counting the omer. But I digress (as usual)...

What it reminded me was that I am a proud possessor of a Jewish neshama (a Jewish soul) and sometimes that soul knows things that even my conscious, day to day consciousness is unaware of. Apparently, my inherent soul is having a hard time with the omer. (In addition to being hard on myself mentally for a lot of little things, I am also feeling poorly physically - my BP is high and I am not caring as much as I should about keeping the sodium levels in my diet low (I have been eating popcorn lately which I know is a bad choice for me, and I haven't been drinking my requisite amount of water to keep me properly hydrated [I drink easily 2 liters during a typical workday, but really don't find the time to do so on my days off or over the weekends] - so when that falls off, my body starts freaking out a little bit)

Not to mention the round and round discussions we are having about what to do about education for our kids next year and eventually down the line. We know we want to have a Bar Mitzvah (B"H - the kid is only 8 now) in Jerusalem, but how is that gonna happen - we haven't worked out the details...This topic is another one that I wish I wasn't faced with making all important decisions right now...Seriously.

A teachable moment

Sometimes I am aware enough to see a teachable moment unfold and sometimes they sneak up on me and have a ripple effect like tossing a pebble in a still pond.

Last night we had both.

The big kids and I went out to celebrate a friend's birthday at a fancy restaurant and some of the food that arrived at the table was not kosher. This is obviously a big deal for them since we walked out of a restaurant not so long ago. But these were people they know and respect and it was a bit of a conundrum.And a bit embarrassing to me that they would judge the adults for the choices they made and in such accusatory tones. Yikes. But upon relating the story to my husband, he was proud that his message had made such an impact. I have to agree. They ordered cheese pizza and were fine to skip the lasagna when they found out it had meat and cheese together.

Then, since Eran had stayed home with the twins and had been doing a massive cleaning and rearranging for Pesach, he requested that we bring him a schwarma on the way home from the fancy restaurant. I was happy to oblige even though it added more time [at least a half hour] and not an unconsiderable expense [about another $25] to the outing, and especially since he truly had a yen for this taste of home from just down the street.

The story of my Hebrish conversation that made the fresh off the plane from Israel waiter (if you can call him that - the guy that built the lafa for my husband) could be a whole other post so I'll save it except to say that I made him chuckle when I told my kids that one of the ingredients lined up to add to the sandwich was charif. My exact sentence was "No that's not Amba, it's charif." Does charif even have a word in English? Spicy sauce or schug is just not strong enough. Here are some of the schug ingredients, start with some hot peppers, and adding garlic is never a bad thing...see a story and recipe here

The teachable moment in this case was when Yael saw the line of pushkes (tzedah boxes) [can you see why this guy must have thought I was the schizophrenic one?]

She asked for a few pennies to put in the tzedakah boxes. Normally I wouldn't oblige, but I knew I had a few coins, mostly quarters, and so I pulled out the wallet and handed them to her. Then of course Yoni wanted to make his donation too, so I pulled out a few more coins. So Yael says that she needed another penny to add to the last box and so did he. I pulled out the wallet for the third time. This was all taking place because the kiosk is so small that he can only do one order at a time and there were several orders that were before ours. I should also mention that it was hot as blazes in the small store even after the sun had gone down on what was a pretty cool day. The schwarma spit put out lots of heat as did the beverage coolers that offerered Prigat next to their coke and bottled water and dr pepper. Last week as a treat and on a whim I bought a liter of strawberry banana juice for the kids and they were hooked. When I saw that he had some cans of it there in the cooler I indulged my son who I normally don't get to indulge.

So as we were waiting for the food and they were sipping on their juice, I explained that I was happy they were enjoying the outing and that the reason I "let" them give tzedakah is because they were fortunate enough to be able to have that drink when they wanted it just becuase they wanted it and that some people weren't able to do so and that is why we give tzedakah to help those who need it more than us. And just for good measure to drive the point home I reminded them that sometimes we park a little farther away because G-d gave us good legs to carry us those extra steps to the door and that is not always the case (and that it is ok that they park closer when Bubbie takes them places)

Updates on previous posts

Update to Post 1:
We will never again darken the door of the restaurant where they had to call the paramedics a few weeks ago. We tried again this time with the whole family on a night where if you order an entree, a kid's meal is free. The place was packed but we found a table toward the back. The twins were all over the place and made E very anxious. Then we invited some friends to join us to help fray the toddler factor among more hands that were less tired of dealing with it. So we are now 3 mistakes in...1 busy night, 2. restless toddlers and anxious parents and 3. waiting (never a good thing no matter how long with twin toddlers) for our friends and then drinks/chips to arrive.

The next part was a genuine good-hearted attempt by our friends to help us that backfired in a big way. When we eat out (which is less and less so at this point) we do so kosher style. That means we'll never have a cheeseburger [we are trying not to mix milk and meat at the same meal (although we were at a Mexican restaurant)] And we don't do seafood at all so as to avoid shrimp, oysters, etc. Another thing that we do is to try to avoid pork. But at a steakhouse, I'll eat a steak - just not covered in garlic butter or with a sour cream laden baked potato. Our friends and family are aware of this issue. Our friend was trying to be sure that the beans did not have pieces of bacon floating in them so he asked if they use pork in their side dishes. The poor unsuspecting server enthusiastically assured him that they do use pork in their beans - both the soupy kind and the mushed up kind) AND in the rice as well. Well that was the end of our dinner that night. We had just finished ordering the meal and when we heard that [on top of the fact that our oldest had dropped and broken a plate, the girl child didn't want to come in becuase of the last time we were there and the restless twin toddler nightmare] That sealed the deal. We couldn't get out of there fast enough. We paid for the drinks and the chips and beat feet. Poor server. She didn't know what she had said and our friend was concerned that he had ruined our night.
I on the other hand completely see the writing on the wall that this was just a very big wake-up call that we need not frequent this establishment. It is Kosher Month here in H-Town after all [another irony not lost on me, either] The fact that we left the restaurant without dinner raised a lot of questions for my kids and I was glad that Eran was in the mood to discuss the matter with them. He explained without mincing words that he was not about to compromise his Jewish beliefs now that he was informed with 100% certainty that the food contained non-kosher pork.
We went home and I made them quesadillas (Mexican theme) with the kosher pizza cheese that I had bought over the weekend.


Update: Sibling speak
Ben calls his sister Aya which could be a mix of my Ya-Ya or La-La nomikers that I gave her.
He calls his brother Loni which is close to Yoni which is what we call him in the family. Poor kid, they call him Jonathan in English, Yonatan in Hebrew and we all call him Yoni - split personality much? At some point I guess he'll get it all straightented out.
Daniel seems to speak a little different than Ben. As was the case in his previous class setting, the teachers adore him and speak highly of him (other than his biting) But Ben is the one who steals all the thunder at home.

Helpers

Purim is over and Pesach is coming and I have 2 of the cutest cleaning helpers ever. Need proof...here it is. But they don't really speak English too well. And they're not for hire.

 Help a brother out, man ;)

Shall we dance?

Torah Tidbit

When children call their parents in the middle of the night, they just cry. They don’t even call, “Mother, Father….” They just cry. How does it feel when your baby cries at night? It’s a taste of how G-d felt when the High Priest was calling His Name on Yom Kippur.

attributed to (Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach)
Receive a short teaching of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach posted on your facebook wall once a day. Sign up to www.facebooktorah.com I'm not gonna tell you I'm promoting this site cause I don't know anything about it and it could be spam bots or otherwise annoying. Just ask my dad. His name and email recently got sold from a list he was on that he donated once to the Sierra Club - I'm sure my Earth Science teacher mother probably wanted the poster that was the free giveaway with the donation for her kids :)  Since this kind of thing is generally annoying and particularly so for the one who lives in front of the computer, I refuse to add more spam/junk mail to the system. Off my soapbox for now...Then again, one man's trash is another man's treasure - but that's how hoarding starts and that's a WHOLE other soapbox post.

What I really wanted to say was this:
This tidbit really spoke to me today, especially since I have not had a full night's sleep (in several years, probably) due to one or another of my kids crying at night. Of course I wake up to comfort them and sometimes I wake up and find them in my bed even if I didn't hear their cries. Most nights it is one of the toddlers that doesn't have the words to ask for comfort for what really bothers them. They cry outright and start to wander the house looking for me if, for example I haven not yet made it to bed and/or am crashed out on the couch. Other nights it is a whimper from my daughter's bed that has me running to check on her especially since she is usually so stoic and only has meltdown and crying fits when she is REALLY tired or upset about something. And some nights I don't hear anything at all, but wake up to find my oldest has wrapped himself around our legs and did not cry out, but still searched us out for comfort. I don't usually mind the sleeplessness until it is a culmination or I am fighting off an illness. It seems like the least I can do for these kids who spend most of their waking hours away from me, so at least I can comfort them in the still of the night. And since it is never completely dark in my house, I always leave the lights on somewhere, they will always be able to look for me.

Daughter-Date Drama

An emailed note to my daughter's pre-school Montessori teacher: 

On our mother daughter date last night, Yael and I had quite an adventure – maybe too much for such a tender age. (she's 5 going on 35 if you don't know her personally)

A gentleman at the next table fainted or something from what I can only assume was a diabetic shock since they had him sipping orange juice. That and that the woman who eventually turned up - pretty quickly, actually, even before the paramedics - in a bathrobe and slippers to help him was going on about insulin.

One of the people at the table (or maybe it was kitchen staff, hard to tell with my hurried glances) was holding the gentleman up so he wouldn’t crash to the floor with his arms over his head and his head bobbing about. Yael alerted me to the situation before I saw what was happening. She claims she saw something white on the man’s chest and I SO hope it wasn’t that the man was foaming at the mouth or something and that maybe it was an insulin port or something of the like.

In any case, one of the staff called 911, despite the gentleman’s friends not wanting to have them called. During the time she was making the call I moved Yael to the front of the store and faced her toward the door so she wouldn’t see any more of the dramatic scene. I bought her some candy from a machine at the door (the whole reason she likes to go there) and assured her that help was on the way. The paramedics arrived in a fire truck with lights blazing (and thankfully no siren) and as soon as we saw them calmly entering with their rescue gear and paperwork, we took the M&Ms and left.

At this point she was both scared and maybe a little more than vaguely curious and I was glad to see from my quick glances that the man seemed to be conversing from his prone position laid out on the tabletop. I was able to assure her wholeheartedly that he was in good hands and being well taken care of and would probably go to the hospital. I finally remembered our 911 game. We took the opportunity to play – and I assured her that YES, this was definitely a situation in which 911 should be called and I tried to make it as normal as possible. She had a million questions as to why the fire truck showed up instead of an ambulance and I tried to answer as straightforward as I could, including a discussion about paramedics and firemen and a bed on wheels in the ambulance called a gurney. Such curiosity!!!

We continued on to a different place and she still seemed to enjoy her (late) night out. So if she’s tired or has a million questions today, please be patient and let her talk out this really dramatic (and I hope not too traumatic) experience. 

Then again, it may just be a regular day in the life of Yael.

Sickies

Having twins it seems like whenever one is sick it is impossible to keep the other one away from getting whatever it is. For example, Ben caught the stomach bug that was going around a few weeks ago. (TMI alert - I'm sorry) He was vomiting a lot and then we couldn't keep a clean diaper on him since he had such terrible diarrhea. It was awful! About 3 days in, Daniel started with the diarrhea. He must not be a puker because I remember it being much less violent with the vomiting from Daniel - despite the one day where I had them both puking on me one after the other and almost at the same time.
We finally saw the end of it, after Zofran and pedialyte and a few thousand diapers...and now we are battling a new set of illnesses.

After this long President's Day weekend where we spent it mostly outside in the sunshine of a Mardi Gras parade, Daniel came back like myself, pretty well sun burnt on his little cheeks and forehead. Ben had a little redness in his cheeks that went away (kinda like wind burn)

Ben has been coughing pretty bad at night, waking himself and me up. So I give him the cough medicine he has from the trip to the clinic when I was sure he had pneumonia. But then in the morning there is maybe a short coughing spell and then he is on his way, playing, eating what he wants which is not necessarily what I want him to eat, and generally making mischief as he does.. I am so confused, why they don't present with the same symptoms...What is up with that???

Daniel has been waking up with goop in his eyelids (sometimes gluing them shut) and a stuffy nose for a few days now. He is teething - getting in the 4 or more teeth that are left, simultaneously - and he has been biting other kids at school (despite the oragel they have and the teether I just sent in and the cold milk and juice they keep giving him) so I would also expect some of his inflammation to be from that. But the allergens are also very bad and he is not coughing so I give him some allergy meds and send him on his way.

So today I get a text message from school today that BEN has pink eye (at 3 PM) mind you when he is supposed to be coming home soon anyway. I message back that I am calling the dr and that someone is on the way to get him - both of which are true.

But it kills me - did we move them too soon from their previous daycare situation? It seems like on the one hand they have had a lot of illnesses that they didn't have previously and there are also the issues of the biting. But on the other hand. I expected some of this even though Yael is exposed to a lot of the same germs being at the same school

And so I dub thee, etc...

Ben the Bold

Daniel the Daring although that doesn't fit his personality as well as Ben the Bold does.

I guess it could be Daniel the Delightful or Ben the Bodacious or Dainty Daniel and Brazen Ben....I could go on and on, but I'll spare you.
Ben in most definitely into everything. He stands up on chairs, shrieks to test out his voice, etc.

I saw someone on-line calling their 5 year twin daughters twincesses. Does that make my boys twinces?
In Hebrew they are teomim or they have an ach teom. Maybe I can come up with a rhyme for that...

In other news, today is White Tiger's birthday. It feels so stupid to refer to him as that although that is what he is, and he seems to like the nickname.
Which means that the oldest child's birthday is less than 2 weeks away and I haven't thought about what to do for him as far as a present or a party with his friends. I keep telling him that he needs to make the list of who he wants to come to his birthday, but I have yet to see it.
I can remember only one of my own childhood birthday parties...We went to putt-putt golf which was in the neighborhood. But then I really only have a smattering of personal childhood memories anyway. A lot of the others may be antecdotal...

For instance, I tell Jonathan about the time he peed on the wall when the mohel came to see him the first time to verify that he was indeed born with a bris. So I think he doesn't remember that actually happening, but it did and I told him about it. Yael was in need of a similar bathroom story so I told her that she wiped poop on the walls out of her diaper, She latched onto the story and it could have happened since I have brown walls in my bathroom.
Another sadly true bathroom story comes from this latest round of Benjamin being sick, He was throwing up and had diarrhea all at the same time. :( Giving Zofran to your kid is not fun. Diaper blowouts, carpeted living spaces, diaper rash...all in all not a pretty picture. Thankfully we are on the other side of all that now.
And twins who share everything really do share everything, including germs and an instinctive knowledge of when their sibling is not feeling well.

Daniel's special songs

So I made up a special song for each of my kids using their name.
Jonathan's is set to Battle Hymn of the Republic, and all the others have simple tunes that are interchangeable. I used it to teach them who they are and what their name is when they are small [and sometimes just because,I think I must have read somewhere that it is important that the child be addressed by their full name often - plus why do we give them names and then not use them?]

For Daniel, I just noticed that he knows how to say love...
I often tell the kids "I love, love love, you." and he has started to repeat it back. It sound more like Luh, luh, luh, but it is super cute!

And then there is the Huggy Buggy Bear song. Another nonsense song that I just made up on the spot one day, that has become a daily staple in the hug department. As I sing it, I rhythmically pat their backs as well so it is a combination of song, swaying to the rhythm and hugging - all high marks in the scary world of a toddler. Daniel will sometimes say "luh" at the appropriate time if you pause in the singing

The huggy buggy bear song goes as follows:
Huggy Buggy Bear
My huggy buggy bear,
I ...(pat back twice) Love ...(tap twice) You ... (tap 3 times)

Huggy Buggy Bear
My huggy buggy bear,
I ...(tap twice) Love You Too ooo... (tap 3 times)

Huggy Buggy Bear
My huggy buggy bear,
I ...(pat back twice) Love ...(tap twice) You ... (tap 3 times)

Huggy Buggy Bear
My huggy buggy bear,
I ...(tap twice) Love You Too, doodle doodle doo... (tap 3 times)

Twinspeak-toddler version, part II

Night-night=obvious, no? And sometimes they will put their head down on the bed  pretending to sleep.
Light - can refer to the light fixture or the light switch that Ben is climbing on the edge of the couch to reach the switch
Go-gur=Yogurt is their favorite snack followed closely by cheese and grapes. All of these are in my refrigerator at all times in order not to incur the wrath of the toddler dictators that run our house.


Hallo=usually on the telephone, pretend or real or when you first see them
Yummy=includes rubbing the tummy and a huge grin on the face

No
Mine

Twinspeak:

Umma = mommy
Abba = Daddy
Agua = water to wash his hands in the faucet from the sink
Boo-boo = embarassingly this is what Ben calls it when he lifts my shirt to nurse. At this point it is more of a comfort / habit than a nutritional benefit for them, but other than times when I am already tired, I can't see this as a bad thing. I am not ready to drastically change my eating habits and therefore whatever calories are being burned to keep me as a milk machine I am not ready to burn off by exercise. Path of least resistance...

Touchdown = they raise their hands over their heads and it is recognizable as the word they are saying whenever sports are on TV. Amazing! This shot is in mid motion but now they both say it

Ben is actually naturally talented at throwing a ball and he even wants to be lifted to dunk the ball in the basketball hoop outside our garage on occasion.
Is it ingrained on the Y chromosome or something???
Here's a shot of Daniel at school.

There are obviously more that I can't think of at the moment but I will add them as I do. Feel free to remind me of more of them in the comments if you wish.

It pains me a bit that the twins don't have a recognizeable name (to me) for their siblings yet. Not Yoni, not Yael, and not their other twin or themself. They are not really communicating solely with each other with a twin languauge as far as I can tell either. There have been a few instances of catching them babbling to each other but it has been inconsistent and not repeatable at recognizable intervals.

Daniel will however, take good care of his younger brother. This pic was taken a day before Ben got really sick with a stomach bug. Daniel woke up a bit early and cuddled with him on his cot at naptime. I'm not sure if Ben would reciprocate if the tables were turned or would be busy with his own agenda.

second chances

After my last fiasco with cooking rice too spicy to eat (many moons ago I double spiced the cooking water) my children finally gave me a second chance and were plesantly surprised that it was indeed edible. They mentioned that it didn't taste like Abba's. But maybe that is because Abba uses white rice and I am slyly changing the family over to brown rice. Last night's mixture was 2/3 brown and 1/3 white. Made in a brand new non-stick pot that was amazing and with some Marak Oaf - vegetable flavored to add some zest.
Then I made some turkey meatballs that fell apart in the cooking. Oh well, I am dubbing the recipe "inside out sauce" since I added the tomato paste to the turkey mixture before I cooked them. Then added the sauce part at the very end.
Jonathan was very impressed and it was ready in less than a half hour since the turkey was defrosted and the kitchen was clean to begin with. I think I'll try it again some other time. :)
And I discovered the secret to making my cake ball truffles a success. It may lie in putting the cuties in the freezer for awhile to harden. Can't wait to give it another try.
Love my love bugs!

Timing is everything!

True story:
Playing in the kitchen, the big kids were hiding to try sneak up on me (not very well, mind you) and to jump out and scare me. I was pretending to ignore them - looking in the pantry for something or other. Dad was in on the joke...
Then, I literally shrieked and jumped, just the reaction they were looking for, only I intended to fake it. I didn't have to.
At just the moment the big kids were getting ready to "scare" me, one of the babies banged the metal loaf pan on the ceramic tile floor at the very moment the kids jumped out.
Haven't laughed so hard in ages. I doubled over laughing so hard. It was a good day.

A Boy and his Ball

place holder post

I will never in a million years be able to erase the memory of my boy standing on the side of the road - traumatized - and crying for his new ball

Update:

This was the scene after I ran over a large branch in the road just outside of our cousins's house in Bossier City in north Louisiana. The branch had a rather large root system attached that was hard to see at dark-thirty (it was only 7:40ish at night, but it was after a long day outside and there were no street lights at the intersection where I was trying to merge onto the Interstate)
Nevertheless, I dramtically poked a large hole in the oil pan and with a smoky flourish we swept all the kids out of the car (just in case there was more damage that wasn't obvious that might have ignited something under the hood or in the car - too many action films I guess)
We were stranded on the side of the road for about the longest 20 minutes ever. We were literally 5 minutes outside the subdivision where my family lives, and out of the courtesy of strangers, a couple who saw the accident turned around and came back to make sure we were all ok. I think they were shocked to see 4 kids on the side of the road and out of the vehicle already...They were the ones who called 911 and reported the incident since I had no idea where we were.
We had earlier in the trip stopped to get birthday presents and bought a couple of plastic balls that had comic heros emblazoned on the side, which was to replace similar balls that got wrecked by overzealous teething babies and a spiky lemon tree in our rain-starved back yard. So the obvious thing for my son to be upset about, in his universe was the loss (even temporarily) of these new playthings. Funnily enough though, he also lamented his Kumon work (not his schoolwork which was in the same backpack, but the Kumon zipper case which also just happend to house his incentive rewards for doing his Kumon work) Crazy kid!
So now you know, and now I know what is truly important in my oldest son's universe.

Yamim Noraim

Yamim Noraim

Teresa’s mom fell and broke her hip in FLA (my friend and coworker) :(

Frail older lady who suffers from osteoporosis and anemia (come to find out that she needed blood transfusions after the surgery because she lost so much blood) 

Teresa and I have become pretty close these last few years...

Alarm to our house went off – constables dispatched, kids re-living trauma: 

No harm, no foul - there was really no reason for the alarm to have gone off - I remember checking the mail and then turning the key in the lock, but the front door was open when the officers arrived. I also remember setting the alarm off before I left, and checking the keypad to make sure the proper lights were lit and nothing was red or yellow or some number indication. It all looked good so I left and rearmed the alarm.

When I first walked in and it looked like the place had been ransacked (as is the normal state of my house on most days) I only saw the coffee table which is pushed in front of the TV table so my new walkers won't topple the TV over on themselves. So I initially though the plasma screen was gone, but it was there as was the XBox which the officer noticed I didn't seem too worried about. For some reason all that was different is that we were left with a mysterious white medical grade cord in the middle of the living room that we can't figure out what it belongs to.

Mezuzah question from officer- "What is this?"

my simplified answer - "It protects the house." 

His retort -  “It sure did it’s job this time”

Dr Katkin’s office – clinic visit at TCH

Panic attack – walking through doors of the bldg information center which is next to the ER. No fear until we entered the building and then a continuous building shaky feeling all through the lobby area to the area where we waited for the elevator to the clinic. Too much anguish there in the building? Or maybe my residual trauma from all we have endured there? I think I may need some therapy LOL!

Once we reached the check-in desk and started the feelings subsided. 

Jonathan showed  his devilish side for the apt. much to my mommy chagrin.

Good news is that 1.doc says you would never know by listening to him that he is missing a chunk of his lung (YAY!) and 2. we are off the asthma meds (I never believed he had asthma in the first place) and on to allergy meds instead. Also evaluating getting the tonsils taken out....

Today Jonathan is headed to the Astros game with his camp and I was given vendor tix 2 hours before the game for much better tickets than those. Then tonight we (3 tix bought) are headed to the fundraising event of the Dynamo game where we will also be getting custom T-shirts with Houston Dynamo in Hebrew. Sure to be favorite t-shirts for the near future.

hand foot and mouth disease - still developing

from my twitter feed this weekend:

glad my kids know how to #share. hand foot & mouth disease shared w/ older brother & both miserable. #matzohballsoup #minttea to the rescue

Updates are in purple

 
Since one of the first notes I saw from our new camp this summer politely informed us that one of the kids in machane aleph (thats the little kids who share everything) group came down with hand foot and mouth disease I just hung my head. That would explain why my princess was acting so out of sorts and ill feeling. Turns out she had a pretty mild case that lasted a few days with a few blisters and her swollen lips. And one dramatic instance of bleeding gums toward the end when she was brushing her teeth.


Yael joined me and bubbie for a fancy lunch and a few hours at my office, but she was unable to eat much. So I got her a shake and some yogurt and she still wasn't eating. Other than that she was in pretty good spirits most of the time she was sick and even went to camp the same week she got sick (Friday) so she could have some Tasti-D-lite when the ice cream truck came for a visit.



Not the case with Jonathan. As per his usual sicky self, he got a brutal case of mouth sores that led into some major swelling of his mouth and then a putrid smell emmanated when he would get it open at all.

Finally took him to the dr after a few days (his dr was of course out of the office but we saw a colleague) who suggested that it may be another strain of the virus since his gums were so swollen also and that we could only dull the pain until the thing had a chance to run its course. So he got 2 prescriptions in 2 days of Tylenol with codine [the first got spilled all over the floor by a well-meaning butterfingers who shall remain nameless]

He eventually got severly dehydrated and I made some poor parenting choices in not taking him to get IV fluids when he was too weak to eat/drink or do anything but sleep. When he finally did urinate after several days, it was the color of our beloved iced tea and a few hours later he went all clammy. I knew that the two were connected but it was only in later research (thank you internet medical websites that list scary symptoms and what they might mean) that I discovered that my poor sick kiddo was probably in shock. It's a good thing he was in a bed under a ton of blankets in the middle of the hottest Texas June on record.  Poor parenting choice maybe, in that he probably would have benefited from a bunch of IV fluids, but I was too nervous about him becoming a pin cushion at the hospital to take him to the ER or the medical center. When he finally did go back to camp after a week at home, I called to check up on him and was told that there was no nurse on staff, but that they had an ER dr at their disposal [dr d happens to be the father of one of J's classmates] so it was all good and he was eventually a pretty happy camper. He lost a lot of weight between not being able to eat or drink anything and what I think may have been a growth spurt as his feet peeled which is usually my sign that he is growing.

In fact, he may have lost almost 15% of his weight, all of his favorite shirts are literally falling off him!

One other thing I did notice was that he was not coughing, not during the day, not at night, not at all.
and he did not have any asthma related problems the whole time he was sick, and that he slept much better. He didn't get up every night and roam the house [read: get a drink of water and end up in my bed]  He also had a nasty looking blister on one of his thumbs that is turning into a black blood blister as it is trying to be reabsorbed by the body. And on the other thumb, he had a blister/sore that popped that was on the edge of/under his nail and thank goodness for chlorinated pools, that the finger looks a lot better [I originally thought the infection was so bad that he was gonna lose part or all of his fingernail]
Good note: he hasn't sucked his thumb in almost a month!

Also, my kids who were sick (not the babies thus far) were so kind to their caretakers. They gave a version of the virus to both grandparents in some form or other.

hand foot and mouth hell

from my twitter feed this weekend:

glad my kids know how to #share. hand foot & mouth disease shared w/ older brother & both miserable. #matzohballsoup #minttea to the rescue
 
Since one of the first notes I saw from our new camp this summer politely informed us that one of the kids in machane aleph (thats the little kids who share everything) group came down with hand foot and mouth disease I just hung my head. That would explain why my princess was acting so out of sorts and ill feeling. Turns out she had a pretty mild case that lasted a few days with a few blisters and her swollen lips. And one dramatic instance of bleeding gums toward the end when she was brushing her teeth.


Yael joined me and bubbie for a fancy lunch and a few hours at my office, but she was unable to eat much. So I got her a shake and some yogurt and she still wasn't eating. Other than that she was in pretty good spirits most of the time she was sick and even went to camp the same week she got sick (Friday) so she could have some Tasti-D-lite when the ice cream truck came for a visit.



Not the case with Jonathan. As per his usual sicky self, he got a brutal case of mouth sores that led into some major swelling of his mouth and then a putrid smell emmanated when he would get it open at all.

Finally took him to the dr after a few days (his dr was of course out of the office but we saw a colleague) who suggested that it may be another strain of the virus since his gums were so swollen also and that we could only dull the pain until the thing had a chance to run its course. So he got 2 prescriptions in 2 days of Tylenol with codine [the first got spilled all over the floor by a well-meaning butterfingers who shall remain nameless]

He eventually got severly dehydrated and I made some poor parenting choices in not taking him to get IV fluids when he was too weak to eat/drink or do anything but sleep. When he finally did urinate after several days, it was the color of our beloved iced tea and a few hours later he went all clammy. I knew that the two were connected but it was only in later research (thank you internet medical websites that list scary symptoms and what they might mean) that I discovered that my poor sick kiddo was probably in shock. It's a good thing he was in a bed under a ton of blankets in the middle of the hottest Texas June on record.  Poor parenting choice maybe, in that he probably would have benefited from a bunch of IV fluids, but I was too nervous about him becoming a pin cushion at the hospital to take him to the ER or the medical center. When he finally did go back to camp after a week at home, I called to check up on him and was told that there was no nurse on staff, but that they had an ER dr at their disposal [dr d happens to be the father of one of J's classmates so it was all good and he was a pretty happy camper. He lost a lot of weight between not being able to eat or drink anything and what I think may have been a growth spurt as his feet peeled which is usually my sign that he is growing.

In fact, he may have lost almost 20% of his weight, all of his favorite shirts are literally falling off him!
One other thing I did notice was that he was not coughing, not during the day, not at night, not at all
and he did not have any asthma related problems the whole time he was sick, and that he slept much better. He didn't get up every night and roam the house [read end up in my bed]  He also had a nasty looking blister on one of his thumbs that is turning into a black blood blister as it is trying to be reabsorbed by the body. And on the other thumb, he had a blister/sore that popped that was on the edge of/under his nail and thank goodness for chlorinated pools, that the finger looks a lot better [I originally thought the infection was so bad that he was gonna lose part or all of his fingernail]
Good note: he hasn't sucked his thumb in almost a month!

Also, my kids who were sick (not the babies thus far) were so kind to their caretakers. They gave a version of the virus to both grandparents in some form or other.