09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
From Josh's teacher, via email, to all the parents:
Some of the children had a discussion about God the other morning. Two children told the class that God does not understand every language. They were adamant about the subject. Several of the children were upset because they believed that God understands everyone's prayers. I DID NOT start this conversation, believe me! I did come into this discussion when some of the kids were beginning to either get mad regarding the subject and upset. I told them that it was a topic for home. That being written, if your child asks you about this subject, you will know from where it came.
Yes - you guessed right! Josh loudly and insistently pronounced that God only hears prayers in Hebrew. When I asked him why he thinks that, he said, "Well, if God spoke every language, that means he'd be Christian and other religions too!" Hmmmmmm.
04:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Last weekend, Gregg and Josh went camping overnight in the N. Georgia mountains with his boy scout den (pack? troupe? band? assemblage?) The weather turned sour unexpectedly on Saturday - rain and freezing temps. It was Josh's first time camping. It was very weird for me to be alone with Max. But he and I had a great time just the two of us. And Josh had a blast. And Gregg - aside from having to help Josh poop at 4am in the dark and rain - had a good time too.
Earlier in the week, Josh's poppy came to his school to sing for his class. I love how proud Josh looks in this picture.
10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Max:
As you certainly remember, Max is almost 3.5 years old. He has definitely evolved into the terrible two's. It's easy to recognize. How? He screams for Gregg when he's not in the room, but as soon as he comes into the room, he screams for me. He screams for his rock, but when he's given his rock, he screams that it's not THAT rock it's not the RIGHT rock and I WANT MY ROCK. He wants certain songs in the car played at any given time, with no regard for whether it's on a cd, my ipod, Gregg's satellite radio or which vehicle it was last in. It's like he doesn't even CARE about that. He will scream SCARY SONG SCARY SONG I WANT THE SCARY SONG (referencing Michael Jackson's Thriller, which is on one of a zillion indistinguishable CDs scattered throughout the floor of the Prius.) Also, anything that Josh is holding, Max will scream in an escalating fashion: That's mine. That's Mine!!! THAT'S MINE!!! I WANT IT IT'S MINE.
Josh:
Josh attends a pricey after-care program three days a week, during which time he is supposed to work with top-notch teachers on his homework during part of the afternoon. When he gets home by 5:30, it's a marathon of making and eating dinner, reviewing (finished) homework, bath, books, and bedtime. Josh, however, insists every day that TODAY he didn't do his homework at aftercare because he really wanted to do his homework with ME because it's really SPECIAL HOMEWORK TODAY. Which doesn't mesh well with my daily objective of getting him in bed by 7:30. Plus - Josh is sometimes (and unpredictably) fussy about what he wears. Usually, with only a little cajoling, he puts on whatever I lay out. But now and then, he freaks out about how the pants are SCRATCHY and the shoes are TOO TIGHT and the neck on the shirt is CHOKING HIM and it becomes a marathon of sorting through articles of clothing until he finds the items he is satisfied with. And that's on top of incidents like, the other day, when I was talking to a client at about 5:15 and Josh came running into my office screaming, "Mommy I have to poop! Will you wipe me??"
Gregg:
What can I say? He does more than 99% of other dads I know. And he never reacts to a request with an eyeroll or an exasperated sigh (I mean, I don't either! GOD!) He just says "sure" and does whatever you've asked of him - whether it's unclogging a toilet or moving a decomposing body from the backyard to a landfill. He may not move at the speed of light, but he does it. And it may take him 4 trips back inside the house before he finally leaves for real (forgot my phone - glasses - keys - directions.) And he struggles to master the art of separating the dark laundry from the light laundry, even though we have two different hampers side-by-side. Oh and there's the hand-written ten year anniversary card he made me, even though he had about, um, ten years notice of this impending event. But he did buy me a beautiful necklace with the birthstones of both Josh and Max (pearl and diamond, respectively.) So who's complaining?
Nonetheless, I'm exhausted. When's my next business trip already?
Max, awaiting the start of the Halloween parade.
Josh, giddy about his impending flu shot.
The cover of the anniversary card from Gregg.
10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
I've neglected this blog, as you can tell. Why? I'm ready to admit everything. It's time I got this off my chest. There's nothing to say other than, I've been seeing someone else. At first, I thought this was everything I ever needed. It was fun and easy and we laughed a lot. Everyone else seemed to be doing it. I figured, what's the big deal? Well, I've learned. Nothing comes without a price. And, although I haven't cut all ties, I'm no longer in love.
Yes, Facebook, I'm breaking up with you. I'm no longer willing to risk everything for you. Ten years from now, you'll be a distant, lame memory and my blog, by then, will be an important, published (I'm sure) record of my life for the last fifteen years. Maybe we don't have to break up entirely. But I'm no longer committed to you exclusively. I'm going to see others - definitely TypePad, maybe Twitter - we'll see. I haven't decided yet. You and I can maybe be friends with benefits, but that's it.
Maybe, possibly, if things really changed - if people started posting really funny things, if someone other than Lynne commented on my posts, if someone put an end to all these idiotic FarmLand and Bejeweled and ChainRxn space-wasters - I'd rethink things.
But after all my years in therapy, this I've learned: I can't change you. I can only change me. So goodbye Facebook. Goodbye for now.
06:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
10:13 PM in Max Gideon | Permalink | Comments (1)
Rabbi Buckman's Message
Modeling for our Children01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
. . . we let the President of the United States address our children to, according to the White House, "urge students to study hard and stay in school". Of course the crazies Right Wingers didn't complain in 1991 when George HW Bush addressed students in much the same way ...
President George H.W. Bush gave an address to schools nationwide in
1991, from a junior high school in Washington, D.C. News reports from
the time said the White House hoped that the address would be shown at
schools nationwide, and Bush began his remarks by saying he was talking
to "millions" of students "in classrooms all across the country."
As if our schools and teachers do not have enough to do already:
04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Our relaxing (not) evening routine, of which bath for Max is one of the myriad of steps.
Actual picture of Josh and Gregg in the middle of bedtime book-reading.
Gregg, in the outfit he chose for an Atlanta Falcons game. Good luck with that.
Max getting his first cavity filled. Yes, yes, he's three - with no permanent teeth - and I'm a bad parent.
01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
And now we start week three. You might ask . . . how's it going? Well, I'll let you, kind readers, assess it for yourselves:
- one bomb scare and a day spent in "lock down"
- one school closing due to a sewage leak
- one classmate diagnosed with Swine Flu
- one teacher-reported incident which involved two boys (one of whom was my son) taking turns punching each other in the "balls"
- two times that a backpack was sent home with wadded up Superman underwear containing a wad of poop
Other than all that, it's been great. No crying or hanging on my leg in the morning. No pleading at night about not wanting to go to school in the morning. And, by all accounts, the best first grade teacher in the system.
I'm sure the kinks have been ironed out and we'll have a less-eventful remainder of the year. Right??
07:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
This email came from Max's pre-school, on the 4th day of the new school year:
01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Today Josh started first grade and Max began pre-school at Greenfield. While neither seemed particularly freaked out about it, you could sense the anxiety building a few days prior. Last night, neither slept well. This morning, we set out walking to get Josh to school by 7:50, but ended up being late enough that I could barely give him a kiss as he walked into the classroom. Later, we took Max to his new school, were he was immediately taken with banging a tamborine like a drum, and barely noticed as we said goodbye.
Tonight, they both were sound asleep by 7:30pm. And I suddenly realized how exhausted I was, too.
Toward the end of our walk to school - running late - Josh annoyed and Max wouldn't let go of his bear, walk or sit in the stroller . . .
All is good as Josh joins Ms Bliss's class.
An hour later, Max is excited at the sight of his new school's playground.
Max immediately took advantage of a bevy of new toys and things to do.
09:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Ahhhh . . . the logistics of a new school year. How do people do this with 6 kids? Well, they probably don't purposely enroll just one of them in a school that's a 30 minute drive away. But we did! Max will be leaving the little day care in our neighborhood that we've attended now for six years and will be starting in the 3 year old class at Greenfield Hebrew Academy.
06:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
You have to love the fact that this Joel Stein article was in Time Magazine. By the way, if you're the least bit interested in this for real - you MUST watch the video clip on the article link below.
There is so much you can't know about your spouse when you get married, like that one day she will want to eat her placenta. But there are two things you don't argue about with a pregnant woman: what she eats and that being full of life indeed looks sexy. So when . . .
09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
We just got back from a seven day Canadian/New England family cruise in celebration of my parent's 50th anniversary. And Bennett and Alyson's 20th. And our 10th. And Doug's 50th birthday. And when I say "family", don't take it to mean that our entire family went. For reasons no one really understands, but which I'm sure involve not having 24/7 free internet access to maintain his top 10 right wing blogger status, Doug and his family chose not to come. So that completely sucked. But, looking on the bright side, I only got into 2 screaming matches that were political in nature. Whereas if Doug was there, it would be 2 per meal.
We started the cruise on Gregg's birthday in Montreal and went to Quebec City, two stops in Nova Scotia, Bar Harbor, Maine, and ended in Boston on Mike's birthday. The line was Holland America, which is very nice but sends a variety of not-so-subtle "this place isn't for kids" messages. Which meant I had to parent more than I would have liked. Every time we wanted to send the kids to the "kids club", it wasn't open - or it was about to close. Annoying. And even though we traded out our two connecting steerage rooms (150 sf each) for the biggest suite on the boat (600 sf) because they were oversold - it still wasn't big enough for our family of four.
But the ports were beautiful - we hadn't seen Bennett and Alyson and Jake and Sam in ages - and it was a really nice break from the norm. Plus, we managed to snuggle in a lot of booze, so we didn't have to buy too many $8 drinks (classy, I know.)
In the end, Gregg and I realized that our kids don't know or care if we're in Egypt, Booger Hollow Georgia, a rain forest or on Mars. They just want a kids club where they can color, do a scavenger hunt, play video games and make paper bag puppets.
Check out more pics in the photo album on the left . . .
06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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