Tired?

You know you're up too late when you realize that if you hit the delay cycle button on your dishwasher, the dishes will not be clean in time for breakfast.

What I Learned On My Summer Vacation

Once you have packed the necessary baby items into your (rather roomy) car, you're lucky if you have enough space to squeeze in a couple of changes of clothes for yourselves. Note that "necessary baby items" does not include Pack-N-Plays, as these were provided for us at our destination (Grandma and Grandpa's house).

The drive to New York takes at least twice as long with two babies in the car. (Thus our first demonstration of the difference between "textbook learning" and "experiential learning.")

If you have your babies in the car for ten minutes during their usual "wakeful" period mid-morning and are heading home for a nap so you can get some things done, they will fall asleep in the car and cry inconsolably if you take them upstairs. If you have your babies in the car for a long drive and it is the beginning of their usual naptime and you desperately want them to sleep so you can get some real driving done - ha.

Someone will decide that it's time to nurse or have a new diaper precisely one-eighth of a mile after the rest stop.

No toy on the floor is nearly as attractive to a little girl who knows how to crawl as the black plastic sheeting underneath the high chairs.

The black plastic sheeting underneath the high chairs is completely useless if your kid has a good pitching arm.

Baby-led weaning is a wonderful way to impress the grandparents...
...if your kids actually bother to eat.

Sometimes praying for good weather really does work, even in the face of a thunderstorm forecast.

When putting sunblock on a seven-month-old, there is no need to worry about applying it at least fifteen minutes prior to sun exposure. You will certainly encounter some issue preventing you from going outside before this time has elapsed.

In order to respect the laws of tzniut while swimming, I had to bend the rules of beged ish.

Splashing in the bath = fun.
Splashing in the pool = somewhat less fun.
Splashing in the ocean = get me the hell out of here.

Seagulls like poopy diapers.

Whoever invented a hand-held showerhead that can be propped about 30 inches above the floor - perfect baby-showering height - should be awarded a gold star.

Sunhats are for sissies. Mommy and Daddy will make you wear them anyway.

If you're dumb enough to stay at the beach house until almost five o'clock before driving over an hour to Brooklyn and you think your kids will stay awake so that you can put them to bed on time when you get there, then you'll totally get what you deserve.

The quality of takeout sushi is inversely proportional to the quality of the chopsticks provided.

Just because your son has peed once since you took off his diaper (and you caught it before he got his shirt) doesn't mean he won't do it again. (Note: this is a review lesson from last semester.)

When attending "an affair" with your children, be sure that all the spare outfits you've stashed in your various diaper bags and changing kits are of an appropriately dressy standard.

My children can sleep through anything (but only if they want to).

Bar mitzvah party games have gotten awfully complicated. I( don't recall scavenger hunts including a hundred-dollar bill, an American Express card, and a diamond engagement ring (may be retrieved with finger still attached)?

I still know how to dance Yoya.

I would say that I've discovered I'm too old for Yoya, except the bar mitzvah boy's mother was totally kicking it and I'm pretty sure she has a couple of years on me.

Teething pain waits for no man.

It's not the constantly changing locations that throws off the babies' sleep patterns - it's the amount of time it takes to effect each move.

Do not offer your babies blueberries first at breakfast if you want them to eat anything else.

Don't think you've escaped the annoying-music phenomenon just because you've gotten your children used to listening to stuff you like rather than kids' music. You can grow violently ill listening to even your favorite song for the thirty-seventh time in a row.

The tethers that go from the back of the convertible carseat to the anchor behind the rear headrest make excellent handholds for a baby who has just learned to stand. (Car not in motion, of course.)

Said baby who has just learned to stand will generally be unwilling to stop standing so you can buckle him in and get back on the road.

Eventually, said baby's sister will decide that she wants to stand, too.

With the proper breathing techniques, you can drive for a shockingly long period of time with a screaming wanting-to-stand baby (or two) in the car.

A parking lot outside a sewage treatment plant is not really the optimal place to try to lull your daughter to sleep.

It is possible for an exhausted mommy to squeeze into the backseat between two rear-facing Britax Roundabouts and read book after book while managing pacifier replacement to the left and head-stroking to the right - but it's not easy.

There's no place like home.

Exploitation-Neutral

Tonight Julian and I were discussing Moxie's post on consumer consciousness in purchasing children's toys. I suggested striving to avoid the Made-in-China-type stuff, not only for our kids' safety, but also to do our part to minimize worker exploitation and bad manufacturing practices. Not missing a beat, Julian asked if there are companies that would follow the carbon-neutral model by becoming "exploitation-neutral" - "We'll keep on exploiting our own workers, but we'll pay for those people over there to have a better life."

Seriously, I want to do some kind of assessment of our global exploitation "footprint" and see what we can do to minimize it. I have no real chance of ever meeting my ideal - the cheap, cute clothes at Old Navy are just too tempting to pass up. And just two days ago I bought a couple of rubber duckies (from Target no less) that were made in China...and I didn't even bother to look at the packaging before tossing them into the stroller basket. Hell, we have half of the Tiny Love catalog sitting in our living room, thanks to their "buy one, get one free" program for parents of multiples. We certainly have our share of plastic toys, though we are trying to minimize the number of items that sing, vibrate, whistle, beep, flash, or otherwise contribute to auditory and visual pollution of the home. (I should note that we bought high chairs with big plastic toy attachments that flash and play music. Sue me, but sometimes the kids need to be in their high chairs without food, and I'm weak.)

Will have to chew this over. In the meantime, I am happy to note that DreamHost, which my husband went with to host online stuff for our synagogue, is both employee-owned and carbon-neutral/green. w00t!

(No, being carbon-neutral's not perfect, not when you accomplish it by paying for "carbon credits," but it's a step in the right direction, and DreamHost also goes to some length to reduce their negative environmental impact to begin with.)

communism

It's amazing how involved we can get in hypothetical conversations. Batya and I have been discussing our commune for years now. There are several other parties knowingly involved (who shall remain unnamed until they tell me whether they want blog aliases or not), along with a scattering of friends who we're going to pull along for the ride, even though they don't know it yet. The whole thing started with our frustration with the education system--specifically Jewish education--along with some base desire to shut out the rest of the world. It occurs to me now that the commune has no name; we'll have to work on that.

The first big issue I remember us discussing was where to set up house. I like snow, Batya likes warm weather, and one of the nameless people wants to live in the trees. Not just in a clearing in a forest, mind you. In the trees. Like the Swiss Family Robinson in the summer, I guess. After years of debate and many discarded potential locations, I think we've decided on the Galil. Nice weather most of the year, a little snow in the winter, good vineyards, and lots of trees.

Tonight's discussion with Batya oscillated between dietary issues and monetary issues. Yeah, kind of free-ranging there, huh? It seems we disagree on the proper amount of animal-source protein, specifically dead-animal-source protein, needed in our diets. I'd like the commune to raise all of the animals from which we will benefit (milk and eggs, wool, plowing--along with meat, becuase we're not vegetarians). That makes it difficult to have chicken and beef every night, and considering that a diet high in dead animals is not exactl the healthiest in the world (no matter how lean the meat is), I'm OK with that. There are plenty of other protein sources (soy, quinoa, brown rice, other beans and grains), most of which are generally more ecologically and econimically efficient. I suppose we'll have to get fish from elsewhere--farmed salmon isn't the best thing in the world, after all--but ideally fish consumption would be limited to once or twice a week. High mercury deposits and all that. I suppose if we can get a good source of low-contamination fish, we'd have it more often. The omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are wonderful for you, and fish protein isn't so bad either. Still, I think most of us are too enthralled with eating dead animals, and just haven't sampled a wide enough variety of vegetarian meals. (Watch this blog for a more in-depth discussion of my dietary views at a later date....this bit is getting too long.)

Anyway, Batya is worried about our children being malnourished, and she is further concerned that people who won't or can't eat dairy--like herself--will have problems as well. Looks like we'll have to bring a nutritionist on board to help me with the menu-planning (I've appointed myself in charge of the commune's pantry and kitchen). I also suggested having a few family meals each week, rather than only communal meals. That has a social benefit as well, since we all need a break from the larger group and could certainly do well to build up family intimacy. It would probably result in fewer food fights, though.

We've just started to tackle the financial stuff. To be honest, I don't have the head to get into it all here now, so it will have to wait for another posting. Still, Batya wants it known that while I will describe her as advocating modified communism, "it's not communism in a monetary sense." Gotcha.

not a bad philosphy

Eat when hungry. Sleep when tired. Laugh all the times in between.

I miss you, Neil.