I don't pay my babysitter enough

Today my kids were walking home with the babysitter, when I heard a knock on the door. I opened it and saw one of my kids, who will remain anonymous (hah!), standing there alone.

Child: I ran away from Babysitter, because she was mean to me.
Me: You ran away?? Does she know where you are?
Child: I dunno. But they were being mean!
Me: Who was mean?
Child:
Me: You can't run away, it's not safe.
(in the meantime, babysitter arrives)
Me (to babysitter: Child was just telling me that she ran away because her feelings were hurt.
Babysitter: Aww, I'm sorry. Who hurt your feelings?
Child: You did.
Babysitter: Why, what did I say?
Child: You yelled at me.
Babysitter: What, when I said you're not allowed to hide from me?
Child: Yes, but not just that.
Me: Child, you really aren't allowed to hide from her.
Babysitter: Was it when I told you you're not allowed to play with the elevator, because [the museum staff] don't allow it?
Child: No. It was when you said I couldn't go into the road!
Babysitter: Oh, when I said you couldn't go into the road alone?
Child: Yes!

... as you can see, Child has a tough life. As does Babysitter, when she's here.

And now, off to say an extra prayer for this kid to reach adulthood, preferably with all her limbs still attached to her body. And to talk to Viggy about giving Babysitter a bonus.

Happy birthday to Snan!!

So I've been the laziest of lazy people when it comes to updating this blog, but I've been pulled out of semi-blog-retirement by the BIRTHDAY OF THE BEST LITTLE SISTER EVAR!!!!!!!!

In honor of Snan's birthday (which I think we should all agree to refer to as Snanday), a brief birthday-themed round of....

Snan and Alirsnan:

Snan realizes that once you hit a certain age, you don't need to be overly precise about your age

Alirsnan just plain doesn't remember.

Snan knows that making a delicious birthday cake is simple. Just find a good recipe, and follow it!

Alirsnan still struggles.












But Snan and Alirsnan have this in common: both like to look at the positive side of their current age.

College

Does anyone else think that society is really weird about college?

Like, if an acquaintance ran into me and asked what I've been up to, and I said, "Oh, I've quit work, and instead I'm spending several hours a day - and over 1,000 shekels a month - learning to juggle," they'd be like, "Wow. Ali's turned into a juggling-obsessed loon. I hope it's not catching."

But if I said, "Oh, I've quit work, and instead I'm spending several hours a day - and over 1,000 shekels a month - taking classes at university, where I learn things like how to calculate the value of cosine at inconvenient points without a calculator (in a mere 20 minutes)" people are like "Oh! How nice!" In fact, the only possible criticism seems to be "why are you only doing this now?"

Of course, there's a difference between those two situations. Juggling can get you jobs entertaining children at birthday parties.

All about S

Conversations with S. All real, all from the past two days:

(S and I stop at a friend's house)

Me: S, let's leave the stroller out here. We'll be back out in a minute.

S: OK. *glares at nearby snail* But that snail had better not take it.

***

(On the way home)

S: *rips handful of leaves off of random plant, offers them to me* Mommy, for you!!

Me: Thanks, sweetie, but it's not nice to rip the leaves off of plants. Plants need their leaves.

S: *thinks*

S: *picks up filthy bottle cap that has fallen from nearby overflowing dumpster, offers it to me* Mommy, for you!!

***

Me: S, do you want this with ketchup?

S: Without ketchup.

Me: OK.

S: Without ketchup!

Me: OK! No ketchup.

S: I said without ketchup!!!

Me: I didn't give you any ketchup!

Me: ... wait, when you say "without ketchup," do you mean "yes ketchup"?

S: Yes ketchup.

Me: *gives ketchup*

S: Bananas aren't allowed to have this.

S: *giggles to herself*

***

(We pass a random child walking with her father. Total strangers.)

S: Mommy, look! *turns to girl* You're a sweet potato chocolate banana!!

Me: S! That's not nice, you'll hurt her feelings.

S: But she is a banana chocolate.

(this was a bit of a tricky one, because "banana chocolate" is really not an insult. I went with telling her that we don't use words to hurt people's feelings. I was rewarded with a Look of Ultimate Betrayal, which is usually a good sign when it comes to discipline)

***

S: Mommy, can Moshe come to play? *pause* I won't hit him.

***

Reasons S has gone into full-on hysterical sobbing in the past week:

- because I handed her the gray spoon, not the blue spoon

- because daddy went to work. This has only happened nearly every day since S was born, so naturally, she hasn't quite had time to adjust yet.

- because she wanted to play with her friend Odeliyah (at night).

- because "I didn't want" (????)

note: list is not comprehensive

***

Things S is very good at:

- jumping like a frog

- running in circles

- greeting people she loves with complete, overwhelming enthusiasm

- being adorable

Parenting... success?

A while back, someone showed up at the playground with a dog, and my kids got terrified. I don't understand how that whole thing started. Dog phobia seems to be contagious.

Anyway. Adi got over it pretty fast, because a girl who thinks baby cockroaches (!!) are cute can hardly be expected to resist the cuteness of a puppy. I decided to use it as a learning opportunity by teaching the other kids not to be afraid of dogs by having them come sit near the dog and pet it.

Later, N and I discussed the incident:
N: "At first I thought the dog was really scary! But then I petted him, and I learned that really, he was really really really really... scary."

So much for my attempts at amateur therapy.
*****

Amateur speech therapy has been a fail, too. This is me and S over the past couple of weeks:

Me: "The word 'achot' has a *ch* sound in it. Can you say *ch*?"
S: "Ccchhhh"
Me: "Can you say *ach*?"
S: "Ach!"
Me: "Great! Can you say 'achot'?"
S: "Atot!"
Me: "Achot."
S: "I said atot!"

I think it's going to be worth going through the whole speech therapy process again just to have someone else be the one to deal with my 3-year-old.

Speaking of, D can talk really well now. Not that she always chooses to.
*****

I have been fairly successful at Passover cleaning this year.

Passover cleaning involves making sure there are no leavened-grain food products around the house, and making sure there are no crumbs of leavened food that could get into food on Passover. So, in an already-clean house, sweeping the floors and wiping down the fridge, counters, cabinets and oven with a soapy sponge (plus kashering, but whatever).

In our house, it means looking absolutely everywhere, because the weirdest foods are in the weirdest places. So far I found candy under the bed in the playroom, cheerios under my bed, a cereal bar inside my bed, and a jar of tehina in my closet. Oh, and cornflakes in every drawer in the children's rooms and playroom, naturally.

Anyway. The part that makes me feel like a housekeeping success is that the oven, cabinets, freezer and fridge are already clean, and I have, like, two and a half whole days to go until Passover. I'm getting things done super early this year.

The part that makes me feel less like a housekeeping success is that shutting down the kitchen for three days so that I could slowly clean it (an hour at a time, at night, with the kids in bed) has not affected my cooking habits in the slightest.

Post-election thoughts

OK so first a story - I was just going through Adi's backpack (in a futile search for missing glasses) and found a drawing of three girls playing a game. On the drawing she had written "for illustrative purposes only."

***

And now for thoughts on the elections.

First of all - I guessed wrong, clearly, although I was close on some things. Mostly I thought the hareidi vote would split, with some Gimmel voters going to Yachad, but that didn't really happen, and I didn't predict the move of 4-5 seats from Jewish Home to Likud.

Second - ever since it became overwhelmingly clear that Netanyahu won, there have been a bunch of articles and facebook posts predicting racism, war-mongering, and all other kinds of doom and gloom. So just to clarify:

- people who vote for the political right generally don't hate Arabs. Really! OK, you guys here probably didn't need to be told that, but it's ridiculous how many people do need to be told that.

Actually, I know Arab Jews (aka Sephardi/Mizrachi Jews) who vote for right-wing parties and say they think left-wing voters tend to be racist against Arabs. Something that I don't think is true - just pointing out that this whole my-opponents-are-bad-people thing goes both ways.

- Netanyahu allegedly said on the day of elections that he won't agree to a Palestinian state. So just for the record - absolutely no one who voted for him thought that was a real thing. It was obvious that Netanyahu will continue his generic approach of encouraging peace talks while remaining highly skeptical that the Palestinian Authority genuinely wants peace. It's what he's always done. It's what he  confirmed immediately after the elections that he plans to keep doing.

- This whole thing about "Obama didn't call Netanyahu yet because he HATES ISRAEL" is beyond ridiculous. But who could miss yet another opportunity for media hysteria over Obama and Israel?

***

And now, to continue searching for children's missing things. Wish me luck in not stumbling across anything too gross in the recesses of their backpacks and under-bed and -cubby spaces.

Predictions

Oops, gotta guess now or it will be too late.

OK.

Likud - 23

Cachlon - 13

Shas - 7

Gimmel - 6

Yachad - 5

Meretz - 5

Arab list - 14

Jewish Home - 12

Yesh Atid - 9

Livni/Herzog - 26

If I'd guessed this morning I would have given Cachlon, the Arab list, and Livni-Herzog fewer seats, and Lieberman 4-5 seats. But after seeing the low voter turnout where I live... Given my location, if Lieberman isn't getting a lot of votes here, I don't see him getting enough votes anywhere.

Elections (or: why we are screwed)

So. It's elections day here in Israel, and I don't want to vote for anyone.

A rundown of the parties that currently have a realistic chance of making it into Knesset:

Yesh Atid
Yesh Atid was the big "elections surprise" party of the last elections. (Israel usually has at least one new party that does surprisingly well, because we're always hoping that this time we'll finally find someone better than the usual bunch of idiots. We are always disappointed.)

It's overall liberal on social issues, centrist on diplomacy, and confused on the economy (other than a strong desire for things to be better than they are now, there doesn't seem to be much of a clear viewpoint).

Pros: Has goals that nearly everyone can support. Who doesn't want a better economy, cheaper housing, and a more equitable distribution of military service?

Cons: Has plans that nearly everyone can see make no sense. Forcing hareidim to serve in the army - how is that going to work, exactly? Wouldn't reducing the tax on purchasing a new apartment just increase demand without increasing supply and thus exacerbate the housing crisis?

Meretz
Meretz is liberal on social issues, socialist re: the economy, and left-wing on diplomacy.

Pros: Is faithful to its ideological platform.

Cons: Is faithful to its ideological platform primarily because it is never in the coalition. Personally, if I had to choose between "uncompromising" and "actually got something done," I'd choose the latter. (Meretz's "list of accomplishments" it was handing out before the elections included almost exclusively issues that Meretz "worked for" or "supported," rather than "did.")


Shas/Gimmel:
The two hareidi (ultra-orthodox) parties. There are differences between them, primarily that Shas has schools that are somewhat religiously mainstream and are used by non-hareidi families, while Gimmel does not.

Wait, political parties with affiliated school systems? Oh yes. And that's basically the point of these parties - they exist to trade Coalition support for funding for their communities.

Pros: Both are very strong on promoting social welfare and alleviating poverty.

Cons: To paraphrase Eretz Nehederet (a satirical TV show): Shas cares for the poor. Shas cares for the children who go to bed hungry, wake up hungry, and go to Shas schools, where they get an education that will keep them hungry.

In other words: Shas and Gimmel want to help the poor, but in a way that doesn't involve teaching secular subjects (like math and science) in boys' schools, reducing the birthrate, internet use, or employment in non-hareidi workplaces. So... yeah.

Machane Hatzioni (aka Livni and Herzog):
Center-left party made of the Labor party combined with Tzipi Livni, who has shown a truly admirable (/terrifying) ability to survive political failures. Will probably get the most votes. Will probably not be able to assemble a coalition.

Pros: Is not Bibi.

Cons: The only thing they could think to base the campaign on was their non-Bibi-ness. How bad do you have to get to get the point where "at least we're not that guy" is the only point in your favor?

Also, I went to see them speak and I don't think their diplomatic or economic platforms make much sense. Re: diplomacy, the plan is roughly that Livni will talk with Abbas, as she's done before, but this time it will be better. Why better? Because the Americans support Livni more than Bibi. Think how ironic that would be if true - if Israel and the PA couldn't make peace because the pro-peace America didn't think Bibi wanted peace enough.

Re: the economy, the idea is that they government will stop spending roughly 10 million shekels per year on settlement in the west bank, and this will somehow give it the 100 billion it would need to overhaul the school system and the health system, build new public housing, and relocate 100,000 Israelis from the west bank.

I know that politicians are usually (deliberately) bad at math, but Herzog acts like math killed his puppy when he was a kid.

Likud (aka Bibi):
Center-right party made up of Binyamin Netanyahu and I guess probably some other people too. Has been in charge of the government for the past few years.

Pros: Has made some progress on reducing cost of living through increased economic competition, has reduced the cost of childcare, did not totally screw up on security.

Cons: Is Bibi. Also, did not fix housing crisis or even make it the tiniest bit better.

Yachad:
A bizarre mix of former Shas members and far-right Jewish nationalists. Stands a good chance of passing the voting threshold.

Pros: Ex-Shas MKs will care for poor, far-right Jewish nationalists would be faithful to their ideology.

Cons: Ex-Shas MKs - see Shas/Gimmel. Far-right Jewish nationalists would be faithful to their ideology.

Yisrael Beiteinu (aka Lieberman):
Right-wing on diplomacy and economy, liberal on religious/secular issues. Headed by Russian immigrant Avigdor Lieberman, who is like a cross between Likud, Yesh Atid, and Darth Vader.

Pros: is sensitive to issues facing immigrants, who are a large percent of the population.

Cons: seriously, Lieberman's not even trying to not look like a terrifying fascist. (Technically that's a pro if you, like me, want your Knesset to have a bit of entertainment value. But I'd rather they stay a small party.)

Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home):
A mix of modern-orthodox Jews (those are the ones who serve in the army, go to university, and believe God doesn't want them to drive on Shabbat but is OK with men and women conversing) and a couple of token right-wing secular Jews. Is right-wing on diplomacy, supports a free market economy with some social welfare programs, is conservative on social issues (eg. public transport on Shabbat, gay marriage).

Pros: Has decent ideas re: fixing the housing crisis, has decent voting record on social welfare and education-related issues, will not waste human lives by releasing murderers in a futile attempt to restart peace talks.

Cons: Diplomatic platform seems to be as follows: 1. No land concessions to Palestinians, 2. Magic happens here, 3. Everything is awesome.
There's a happy grey area between "I would do anything for peace, including things likely to cause further bloodshed" and "I would do nothing for peace," and Bayit Yehudi doesn't seem to be there yet.

Arab list:
A combination of Arab parties, including the Arab-Jewish communist party Hadash, the Islamic Movement (which still refers to Israel as "inner Palestine"), and Balad (a secular nationalist party founded by Azmi Bishara, who fled the country a few years ago after allegedly spying for Hezbollah).

Pros: Headed by Ayman Odeh, a charismatic leader with a very reasonable list of objectives. Will probably get lots of seats and remind Israel's government that Arab citizens exist and also need stuff.

Cons: Includes several members whose views range from pro-terrorist to openly-fascist. Most members will refuse to serve in any coalition ever for ideological reasons, making them basically seat filler (with occasional entertainment value).

Cachlon:
OK, this party has a real name, I think, but I forget what it is. It's the Moshe Cachlon party. Cachlon is ex-Likud, and is basically running on Yesh Atid's platform from 2 years ago, but without the controversial bits.

Cachlon's plan seems to involve saying as little as possible, and getting tons of votes anyway just because he's new and shiny. It will probably work.

Pros: Is new and shiny.

Cons: Will inevitably disappoint.

***

I think that's it. I'll post my predictions later.

Understanding N

D used to be hard to understand, because she couldn't make consonant sounds using the front of her mouth (t, d, sh, etc). Now, thanks to speech therapy and improved hearing, she's usually easier to interpret.

S is a little hard to understand, because she has trouble with consonant sounds that use the back of the mouth (k, that gutteral "ch" that Hebrew is so fond of). She's still young and hopefully this will resolve itself without speech therapy.

And N is hard to understand because it turns out that sometimes, making all the right sounds just isn't enough.

See if you can interpret the following:

(on what she wants to dress us as for Purim):
"The one where the girl turns the teddy bear into... you know."

(on a movie she saw):
"It's the one where the ball goes into his tummy, but then he does *pantomimes vomiting* and it goes in his hand!"



give up? The correct answers are: 1. Belle from the movie Beauty and the Beast, 2. the first Harry Potter story (Harry Potter and the Almost-Swallowed Snitch, apparently).

It's not like she says these things as part of a full explanation. "We have to bring a thing to school for the thing" is the whole explanation.

Fortunately, or maybe not so fortunately, her sisters seem to understand her just fine. It took A less than 10 seconds to figure out statement #1.

I foresee a future of listening to them talk about the time they did that thing at that other thing, while they all nod and smile and I just sit there being confused.

snails

Adi told me today that school is boring.

I suggested that she try reading a book under her desk.

She said that she and her friend already have a way to sneak in entertainment:

"We bring in snails, and we put them under a leaf so that it looks like we're bringing in leaves, and then when the teacher says 'no leaves in the classroom' we throw them away and put the snails into Tamar's pockets."

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that undergoing an unnecessarily complicated transport procedure that ends in a 9-year-old's pocket is not beneficial to snail longevity.

"Two of the snails were squished. But two lived."

They will not be doing this again, because Adi loves snails and does not want to see them squished (I entirely approve, of course. Snails are basically slugs with armor, therefore, awesome. (The part where she thinks "baby" cockroaches are cute is a different story)). I was just proud to hear that she's found creative ways to deal with boredom in school.

And now I have to do my part, namely, go to school and find out what they're planning to do to stop boring my daughter. At the very least they should have a collection of interesting books for under-desk reading.

****

D had a birthday party today. D had an actual birthday over a month ago. Don't judge, OK? I've been busy. And we totally celebrated on her birthday; this was the "friends party."

Cake was eaten, balloons were accidentally popped, and colorful sand from many art projects was embedded in the crevices of our living room floor. So - good party.

By the end of the (not-quite-2-hour) party, the older kids were playing on the computer, D's D-aged friends were all sitting around the table doing "art," and D herself was sitting alone on the floor playing happily with a Playmobile set and muttering softly to herself. So basically, exactly how you'd expect things to end, if you know her. (She rejoined the group when it was time to hand out party treats.)

****

Can I just point out that I managed to get through a whole post without complaining about studying even once? Now I get to write a whole post that's only complaining.