D is in full-on Lion Mode again. This has led to me saying all kinds of things that, this morning, I was not expecting to say.

Such as, "Just because you're a lion is no reason to rip your sister's picture," or "Lions don't eat toilet paper. Trust me. They eat... uhh... vegetables."

(The former was followed by, on my part, "What do you need to say to your sister when she's sad because you ripped her picture?" and, on D's part, "RAAAAAAAWR.")

********

N and D reacted with remarkable calm to the news that Ganenet is engaged. I guess to N it makes sense - if she were a Higher Power, she'd be getting married every day, right after her daily birthday party.

Now they're taking pride that they knew Viggy's friend before he became famous as the future Mr Ganenet. "Right he was at our house? And he played a... um... piano? No... that thing.. you know, that you play on, and it makes music? Like the one in that place." (They get their vocabulary from... um... you know, the one who isn't me.)

********

If I disappear for a while, don't worry, I'm not dead. Not on the outside, anyway. Just busy with math.

If I'm remembering correctly, I have two weeks until the final exam, 2.5 months until I retake the final, and, probably, 5 months until I retake the course (unless I get the same TA again, in which case I may have to just switch to sociology. Changing majors would probably be the easiest course of action in that case).


*******

I love Terry Pratchett. I admit, I owe a debt of gratitude to a certain British friend who alerted me to his books.

I haven't finished the latest book of his I'm reading yet to review it here, but here's a snippet just to share some of the awesome in the meantime:

"It was garbage, but it had been cooked by an expert. Oh, yes. You had to admire the way perfectly innocent words were mugged, ravished, stripped of all true meaning and decency and then sent to walk the gutter for Reacher Gilt, although 'synergistically' had probably been a whore from the start."

and shortly later

"No one was sorry for anything because no living creature had done anything wrong; bad things had happened by spontaneous generation in some weird, chilly, geometrical otherworld, and 'were to be regretted.'"

A story, and a danger

A story:

Adi was doing homework on subtraction with double-digit numbers. I came to check her work and saw that a few problems were wrong, and helped her redo them.

A few minutes later I check in again.
Me: Adi, how's your homework going?
Her: Good. N and D are helping me.
Me: Honey, N and D can't really do this kind of math. (On a good day, N and D can count to 20.)
Her: Nooo, they aren't doing the homework. I'm doing the homework.
Me: Oh. OK.
Her: They're just checking my answers for me to be sure I got it right.

A danger:

So, very exciting news: a friend of Viggy's is engaged.
More exciting news: N and D's ganenet (early childhood teacher) is engaged.
Mind-blowingly awesome news: they are engaged to each other! Yay!

But there's one problem, and that's N.

See, to N, her ganenet is the closest thing she knows to a Higher Power. To her, whatever Ganenet says is like what God says, except way more important.

And now, said ganenet is going to be a bride, which to N (and A, and D) is by far the coolest thing that anyone can be ever (I don't know where they get it. Don't blame me, when I was their age I wanted to be a paramedic who could also beat up bad guys and talk to animals, like a normal kindergarten girl).

So... what happens when N finds out that the person she most admires is about to become the thing she most worships? It'd be like finding out that the president is also the messiah is also Batman. I'm not sure a 4-year-old's mind can safely contain that kind of awesome.

(But seriously - I'm very happy to hear the news, and I'm sure that after an hour or so of hysteria N will be just fine, with no lasting effects other than making Ganenet and Groom-to-be the latest characters in the never-ending game of Princess Wedding that she and Adi and their friends have going on.)

Numbers

As a tribute to my stistar-snan ("tribute" in this case meaning "copying, but I acknowledge it so that makes it OK"), I will share some of the numbers that have come into play in my life recently.

20: The number of hours per week I would need to be studying math in order to pass my final in three weeks.

9.5: The (estimated) number of hours per week I spend studying math.

2.3: The number of those "studying" hours that are actually spent staring vacantly at a page and occasionally drooling on myself.

40: My last homework score, earned with help from a professional Calculus tutor who shall remain anonymous.

48: My current resting heart rate, as taken right now. Haha, Snan - immobile beats athletic for low heart rates any day of the week.

2: The number of courses I'm registered for next semester.

67: The grade I got last time I took two courses in one semester. No, that's not for just one of the courses - that's a sum.

1.5: The maximum number of days that can pass between any two given lice checks of my children's heads if I want to avoid an outbreak affecting two or more people.

70(%): The odds that checking every 1.5 days will be sufficient to prevent said outbreak.

1.8: Average number of times per day I use my new rice cooker.

1: Average number of times per day I eat something other than rice (it's cool - I take a multivitamin, and I get protein from the milk in my coffee. And isn't coffee a vegetable or something?).

5 x 10^7: Number of pieces of paper that were on my living room floor this afternoon, one hour after I gave the girls and their friends scissors and a stack of paper to keep them quiet while I worked.

25: Tabs open on my (2) browsers right now.

7: Number of those tabs that are to articles and/or cool looking graphs about the elections.

2: Number of my children who, if given a book, are equally likely to attempt to eat it as to read it (to be fair, one of my children is a dog now, and apparently that's what dogs do).

That's enough for now. Off to get my (7.5) hours of sleep (with 2 interruptions) for the night.


(A brief clarification - because I seem to have worried some people, I should note that the 67 I got for two courses in one semester is not the sum of two failing grades. It is the sum of one incomplete and one very bad grade in computer science (me and programming get along like slugs and salt).

I have reason to hope that this next semester will go better, because a. I should be getting the course materials several weeks in advance, b. neither course involves programming, and c. I don't plan to give birth in the middle of the semester.)

I'm psychic!

Did I call it, or did I call it?

Elections results according to exit polls: Likud largest with 31 seats, Lapid in a surprise second place with 18-19 seats (earlier polls showed him in fifth place with 10-11), and no new small parties.

Me, three hours ago:
 My dramatic prediction: Netanyahu wins, and all the small parties that have been promising their voters that this year is the year they get into Knesset, don't get into Knesset. Given the large number of undecided voters, I'm also predicting Yair Lapid does better than expected. He seems like the natural go-to candidate for people who aren't sure what they want.

Elections are today. As a last moment of elections craziness, we got an ad in our mailbox:

EUKLEIDIS

No, that's not the name of a medicine. 
It's a Greek mathematician who your child will learn about instead of learning mishnayot.

It went on for a while, with the ultimate point being, "A government without Judaism will make your son learn foreign subjects. You must protect the next generation. We all must. Vote Gimmel."

Anyway. I don't recall spending much time learning about Eukleidis that could have been used on anything else (as I recall, the lesson was something along the line of, "Eukleidis invented lots of geometry. The end."), and I'm way on the "make them learn math" end of the curriculum-politics spectrum - but I still thought it was a nice ad concept.

In other elections news, a head rabbi of Satmar (an anti-Zionist Chassidic group) is trying to convince people not to vote at all, and I hear that Satmar offered money to whoever was willing to turn over their ID card (thus rendering them unable to vote) for all of Tuesday. Which is both disturbing and amusing - disturbing because encouraging people not to vote is not very good for the health of a democratic society, amusing because who pays people not to vote for them? Satmar, you're doing it wrong.

Anyway, it's all almost over. Just over two hours to the big reveal, when we discover the shocking results. My dramatic prediction: Netanyahu wins, and all the small parties that have been promising their voters that this year is the year they get into Knesset, don't get into Knesset. Given the large number of undecided voters, I'm also predicting Yair Lapid does better than expected. He seems like the natural go-to candidate for people who aren't sure what they want.

In other news, I am chopping N's hair to half its current length, and D has recovered from her fever/ sleeping sickness/ whatever it was and has regained her old energy, which was great for a good several minutes, until she got her hands on the scissors. Also, she's decided she's a dog, not a lion, which means she's somewhat less aggressive but also much more likely to carry random items in her mouth (now if only she'd decide that being a dog means she has no thumbs and so can't use scissors. I can dream).

More Supermom and Alirsnan

Supermom thinks labor-saving devices like microwaves and slow cookers are a great way to get more done, faster.

Alirsnan thinks it's called a labor-saving device for a reason.

Supermom buys age-appropriate educational toys for her kids. Play time can be learning time, too.

Alirsnan has to improvise.

Supermom seeks out after-school activities that will help her children develop their unique talents.

       Alirsnan thinks talents are best developed in ways that don't involve her carpooling or spending money. 

Me and Supermom

As I may have mentioned in a previous post, there are times when I find myself thinking, "What would Supermom do?" (Supermom being the mythical perfect mom who other moms can't help comparing themselves to.)

The answer is usually "Not this."

ALIRSNAN vs. SUPERMOM

Supermom has weighed her options and decided to get her kids vaccinated, but she still worries about the side effects.

Alirsnan is less concerned.

Supermom understands that there are some tasks her children don't enjoy, and she takes the time to empathize and to explain why it's worth it.

Alirsnan empathizes a little too much.

Supermom helps her kids see how their decisions now will shape their future.

Alirsnan does too.

Supermom's motto: Do it now!

Alirsnan's motto: You can't accumulate clean. 

I love elections

Elections season in Israel is so fun.

We're still a couple weeks away from actual voting, and we've already had the Shas party called out - again - for illegal pre-elections blessings (Americans, did you know that was a thing? It is here!). At the last count, five of the outgoing Knesset's factions have had at least one MK split off to form their own party, and that's not even counting Atzmaut or anything else from over a year ago. And of course Livni is attacking Bibi, Bibi is attacking Bennett, and Yair Lapid might be attacking someone too - we'll see when he finally makes his point.

What I'm saying is, I have Elections Bingo already. I am happy.

But then! There is more! The universe truly loves me this elections season.

There is: Michael Ben-Ari and Aryeh Eldad appealing to the Arab vote.

There is Meretz's terrible, terrible campaign jingle (Meretz, you probably started well, but you forgot to wait long enough to let the creativity-inspiring high fade so you could review this while sober).

And of course, there's this (for those who don't recognize it, that's Israel's national anthem. With a slightly different tune).

But! I've saved the best for last.

The best remains the Unofficial Naftali Bennett Facebook page, still solidly in the lead. This page exists to reveal some of Bennett's lesser-known traits to the public. Such as:

- When Naftali Bennett plays paper, he beats scissors.

- Naftali Bennett threw one grenade and killed 80 terrorists. And then the grenade exploded.

- Naftali Bennett doesn't pass on chain mail, and nothing happens to him.

- When Naftali Bennett goes to a restaurant, the waiter leaves him a tip.

- When Naftali Bennett takes the Jews out of Egypt, he still has time to bake the bread.

So much elections fun.

Fortunately, the fun doesn't have to end when the elections do. Last time elections were barely over when we had accusations of incitement to murder to deal with.

Politics. It's like Jerry Springer, but when the show's over, instead of going back to their private lives in a run-down rural town somewhere, they go run the country. I try to ignore that last part.

Excuses, and a wandering lion

I haven't been very active here lately. I have a good excuse, though - I've been dying of the plague.

I was diagnosed by my STISTAR (it's like a sister, but... shall we say... "special"), who doesn't have a medical degree, but has other degrees, so is, I figure, smart enough that she probably knows these things.

My symptoms right now include a cough that I say I've had for two weeks but everyone else says I've had for over a month, a "Snan fever" - that's when you totally really do have a fever even though the thermometer only says 99 in Fahrenheit and everyone says you're just being a wimp - and other stuff. Basically, I'm totally pitiable right now, but in a gross enough way that I don't get any hugs out of it.

But don't worry, this post won't be just me making excuses. I'm also going to tell you about Dani's recent important discovery.

You see, everyone has a point in life where they start to question what they've been told by their elders, and begin forging a new identity for themselves. It's a part of the cycle of life, without which those of us who are no longer "young" adults would have no way to feel superior to the next generation.

Dani recently looked deep into her heart, and realized that the role society has been trying to push her into doesn't fit her true, inner essence. Specifically, she realized that she is not actually a human toddler, but rather, a hungry lion.

She asked that we respect her new identity by getting her lion food, and a lion bowl to eat it out of, and making a lion cave for her to sleep in (fortunately, a crib with a blanket over it seemed to suffice).

It was all well and cute until she started attacking villagers.

In the end there was a conflict as her devotion to living her new lifestyle to the fullest (eg. not going to bed, because "lions don't have daycare in the morning") collided with the societal mores set by older generations (eg. get in bed right now or Mommy just might have a breakdown).

Things have settled down since, mostly because she's been sick too. You can tell it's bad when you have a three-year-old who gets on the couch for non-jumping purposes at 3 in the afternoon.

And yet, today, as we were out walking with her in the stroller, she greeted the cats not with her usual "MEOW!!!! MEOW, CATS!!!!" but with a "RAAAAAAAAAWWWR!"

"Do cats say 'Roar'?" I asked her.
"No," she said. "Lions say rawr."

So we'll see what happens when her temperature drops. I predict adorable mayhem (adorable until she sinks her teeth in, at least).