Another year, another thing...

It's that week of the year again. Time to start summing it all up, and next week we start the elevation toward Judgment and yadda yadda. (Eloquent, no?)

I've been quiet on the blog now for a while. You could say I've had to restrict things, restrict my words. For a while, I couldn't talk politics, because of my job. Then I couldn't talk about some major personal turmoil, in order to protect the privacy of family members. Then I elected not to talk about my pregnancy, and it took six months before I felt comfortable talking about my kids here at all. Just as I was getting ready to shift gears, I received a few comments that were...less than appreciative of my path toward Mommy Blogging. I have to say I agree to some degree; I'm not looking to be a Mommy Blogger. But at the same time, I regret terribly that I have almost no record of my children's first two and a half years, all because I didn't want to be pigeonholed.

So here it is, people: this is my place. I'm going to stop caring what people do or don't want to read, what they think I am or am not capable of. I have two beautiful children. They are among the most important things in my life. If every word I write from this day forward is about them, I will not have wasted a single letter.

What, Me? Cryptic?

It's all about intellectual stimulation, really. My brain was starting to atrophy. Rita and Rafi are wonderful and delightful and brilliant, but at the end of the day they are still a couple of toddlers. Their greatest accomplishments include eating soup without spilling, correctly identifying all the animals in "Polar Bear, Polar Bear," and making it to breakfast without three rounds of "Rafi pushed-you me! Time-out." (Usually said by Rita when she did the pushing. Though, to be fair, she will sometimes put herself into time out: walk into bedroom, close door, wait thirty seconds, then start screaming.)

So I'm kinda-sorta working now. Maybe. It's freelance, it's not in the legal field, and it's a task with which I don't have much direct experience. It involves words, though. I can do words. They're what you get when you put all those pretty letters together in little groups with spaces in between. The real question is whether I can pick the right words, in the right order, and make something good come of it.

I didn't use words enough, though, in the past twenty-one months. Twenty-one months - almost twenty-two by now. My children are almost two years old, and written records of their infancy and early toddlerhood are spotty at best. We have pictures galore, but it's not the same. Sure, there are scattered emails and the like, highlighting this or that adorable event. I can probably pull something comprehensive together if I really try. But it's just not the same. Rafi, Rita: I'm sorry. You have no baby book detailing your first words and first steps. But perhaps I can sum it all up with this: you are lovely and loved, and ever will be.

Right - maybe instead I should just blog the cute things as they happen?

Isn't It Ironic?

I may start blogging again. And wouldn't you know it - it's not because of politics (yay Obama!) or recent legal developments (boo Prop 8) or my children's neverending adorableness (of course). Nope, it's only because I have other stuff I'm supposed to be writing. Of course.

Let's see where this goes.

My 60-day Challenge

I've signed myself up for Round Two of Moxie's 60-Day Take Yourself Seriously Challenge. One of the challenges I've given myself is to post here at least three times per week, at least one of which must be substantial (defined as 100+ words). Because I'm a wuss, I'm counting this post as one of my three.

slow-slow

English was not my father's first language. It was his fourth, in fact, after Farsi, Hebrew, and Arabic. Because of this, he had more than his share of linguistic quirks. I never really noticed them as a child, the way you don't really take note of your parents' accent or weird driving habits or total lack of fashion sense until you hit middle school or whatever and someone else points it out to you....at which point it starts to stick out like a sore thumb and becomes a never-ending source of embarrassment.

Two particular quirks hold fast in my memory. One was his use of the word "cautious." He must have learned "cautious" before "careful," because he almost never used the latter. "Be cautious!" he would say as I hopped onto a swing, dove into a pool, or went off to just about anywhere. It would burst out of his mouth even as a split-second warning, like when I was riding my bike or learning to drive. It just sounded odd, as these things go, far too formal a declaration when a simple "Careful!" or "Watch out!" would do.

The other one that sticks out for me is the way he communicated the concept of acting slowly. In Hebrew, one would say "le'at le'at," which translates literally as "slow slow." Different languages, different grammatical structure; it makes sense in Hebrew. But not in English. I'm not sure he even knew the word "slowly." Driving too fast? "Go slow-slow." Wolfing down dinner? "Come on. Eat slow-slow." And so on.

You may have noticed a few new lines in the Archives drop-down menu. Or, if you are subscribed to the Devarim feed, you probably have a bunch of new posts in your reader. I am importing posts from the original Devarim, working in little spurts. Slow-slow, it will all get done.

Eleh haDevarim...

I was born in New York.

I ate, slept, pooped, moved from New Jersey to Michigan, and toilet trained somewhere along the way. We were the only Jews in our town. I was checked for horns. I taught people about Chanukah. I grew up some. We got a dog.

We moved to Long Island. My sister was born. My mother got cancer. My paternal grandfather died. My mother died. I flew to Israel for the funeral, even though my father told me not to. We sat shiva at my maternal grandparents' home. I finished high school and went to the prom without a date (but did not lack for dance partners).

I went to college. I joined a sorority and started dating this very nice guy in early February, but I had already committed to being some other guy's date for a fraternity dance on Valentine's Day. I dumped the very nice guy on our one-month anniversary. He ended up marrying my roommate from the sorority. I was a bridesmaid in their wedding. In the meantime, I met another very nice guy. I married that one. My maternal grandmother got cancer, and no family from Israel came to the wedding. Before that, though, the dog ran away and I started law school.

I covered my hair when we got married, but only sometimes. The (second) very nice guy and I lived in different states for a while after we were married. Then we decided that this was very silly, and I moved. My maternal grandparents died within four months of each other. I tried to fly to Israel to see my grandmother before she died; instead I was there for the funeral. I didn't fly to Israel for my grandfather's funeral; instead I finished writing a final exam. I attended another law school, started a blog, took the Massachusetts bar exam, and got a job. I started covering my hair all the time - almost.

We bought a new, bigger, apartment. My paternal grandmother died the next day. Fresh out of grandparents, I took a day off work to sleep in the middle of my new living room floor and field international phone calls. My sister got another dog. My father got cancer.

I bought some fake hair to cover my real hair, but never really wore it (except for that wedding where I was a bridesmaid). My father got a little better, then he got a lot sicker. I got a new car. I got pregnant. With twins. I stopped looking for a new job. My father died. I didn't fly to Israel for the funeral. I sat shiva in four places, including an airport.

I grew a little older and a lot wiser in areas where I would have preferred to stay young and naive. I had carrot cake on my twenty-seventh birthday, blew out candles lit in binary, watched an aging Dick Clark fumble his way through midnight, and said goodbye to my last year of non-motherhood. I pushed out a couple of kids.

We made a brit milah and a zeved habat on the same day. We named our daughter for my mother and my mother's mother. We named our son for my grandfathers. We made a pidyon haben about three weeks later. I've made gallons of milk. They've made plenty of dirty diapers.

The (second) very nice guy's paternal grandmother died. He went to New York for the funeral. The (second) very nice guy and I, for the first time, hosted Pesach seders in our own home. Our daughter, not wanting to sleep, joined us for the second seder. Our son slept through both. From this we learn that it was because of the righteous women that Israel was brought out of Egypt.

I wandered in the wilderness, reading blogs and wikis and message boards in the early morning hours, a child draped over my shoulder or held to my breast. Our children grew, a little. Nearly half a year passed in the space of about five minutes, which may explain how the world was (or was not) created in six days. I found my way, lost it, found another. There is no certain way, just faith. I lost my faith, found it, lost it, looked again. It's out there somewhere, or in here somewhere.

Let's go looking together.

thank you for holding

I'm terribly sorry for my extended break from blogging. Batya came to visit for Shavuot (began last Tuesday night) and stayed through yesterday afternoon; before that I was cleaning and cooking and pretending to organize stuff. Ah, who am I kidding? I'm a chronic procrastinator. I'm sure there were plenty of wasted minutes and hours since my last entry during which I could have found time to post a few sentences.

Anyway, our oven broke again. For about a year, the bottom heating element didn't work. Julian and I (ok--Julian and his father) replaced the element in December, and the oven worked just wonderfully from then until last Wednesday morning. Yup, in the middle of Shavuot. And, yup, I had planned to cook more stuff in the oven for later in the holiday and for Shabbat. Looks like my tendency to make ten times more food than necessary was not such a bad thing this time around. Of course, now I am back to stovetop-only cooking plus broiling. No more brownies, no more kugel, no more roasted chicken, no more cheesecake. Maybe it's time for a full kitchen renovation after all.

procrastination

Watch this space.