Torah for young children

(The joke, for non-Hebrew-speakers: this is a "Torah for young children" page created by one of my actual, real-life young children. I'm not sure what most of it says, but at the bottom there's what seems to be a list of essential commandments, which reads more or less as follows (English misspellings a translation of Hebrew misspellings):

Keep the Sabbath
Eat politely and nicely
Don't kill god forbad
Being one friend and coperat

I have to say, that does cover a lot (most?) of the important parts)

Reading a book with a four-year-old

"Peanut Butter and Jelly for Shabbos"

"Why is it called 'Peanut Butter and Jelly for Shabbos'?"

"That's just the name of the book, honey."

"But why is it called that?"

"Let's read and find out!"

"Peanut Butter and Jelly for Shabbos

Yossi opened his eyes-"

"Who's Yossi?"

"The boy in the picture is Yossi."

"Why is he Yossi?"

"Because that's a picture of Yossi."

"But why is he called Yossi?"

"Because his Mommy and Daddy decided to call him Yossi."

"What, when he was a baby?"

"Yes, when he was a baby.

"Yossi opened his eyes one cold winter day
Then said 'Modeh Ani' and washed right away."

"Why did they call him Yossi when he was a baby?"

"Everyone gets a name when they're a baby. Mommy and Daddy decided on a name for you when you were a little baby, too."

"Also Moriya and Netanel and Arel and Itai? Their Mommy and Daddy picked a name?"

"Yes, also them.

"'This Friday is special - "

"But what about Netanel T?"

"Yes, also Netanel T. His parents picked his name when he was a baby.

"'This Friday is special,' thought Yossi, 'because... "

"What are 'parents'?"

"The Mommy and Daddy are both called parents."

"Oh"

"'There's a reason...' But he just forgot what it was!"

*page turn*

"Who's that? Is that Yossi?"

"No, that's Laibel."

"Why is that Laibel?"

"Look, this one is Yossi."

"Why is that one Yossi?"

"See, he has the same kippah here and here."

"But Laibel also has the same colors on his kippah."

"Right, but in a different order."

"Oh."

"Then father walked in and called, 'Hey sleepyheads!
It's time to get up; jump out of your beds."

"Who's that?"

"That's the grandfather."

"Why is he the grandfather?"

"Because he's the father of the father. Or the mother."

"But why is he the father of the father or the mother?"

"Because that's what grandfather means.

"Your mother's been gone for three days -"

"Why was she gone for three days?"

"Let's read and find out.

-and we've missed her;
Today she comes home with your new baby sister!"

"Why is she bringing the baby home?"

"Because the baby is part of the family now."

"But why is she coming home?"

"Because that's what happens when there's a new baby. The baby and Mommy are in the hospital for a couple of days, and then they come home."

"So then why didn't you bring me home from the hospital when I was a baby?"

"I did, honey."

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did. You were born, and then a couple days later we went home."

*looks skeptical*

"Look, if I didn't bring you home, then why aren't you still at the hospital?

"I'll pick up - "

"When was I a little baby?"

"Well, you're four, so four years ago."

"Why four years ago?"

"Because that's how time works."

"But when was I zero years old?"

"You were zero when you were first born. Then after one year you were one, and after two years you were two, and now after four years you're four.

"I'll pick up your grandmother-"

"Who's that?"

"That's the Daddy."

"Why is he the Daddy?"

"Because he is."

"Did he give Yossi his name?"

*****

I'll spare you the remaining 100+ pages of dialogue.

Crazy

I had an interesting conversation today with one of my children, who shall remain anonymous to all but those who have met my children and/or have read this blog in the past.

(To really get into the story experience, picture the following: as we talk, said child is on her back on the bed busily kicking my hands, which are held out to catch her feet.)

Me: (Child), N and M say you were hitting them. (to readers: M is a friend)

Child: Yes, I was doing that.

Me: You know that hitting isn't allowed!

Child: But Mommy! I'm insane!

Me: Uh-oh. Why did you go insane?

Child: Because it wasn't fun being not insane.

***

We eventually reached a compromise: she could stay insane, but would have to be insane in a way that did not involve hitting. We even did some brain-storming, and settled on either of the following as an acceptable form of insanity: believing herself to be a giant, man-eating crocodile, or believing herself to be a monster. (But only a good monster. Child: "A good monster is a monster that it hits evil and evil goes home.")

***

Bits of conversation that I overheard on Friday:

A: Stop it! I told you, I'm not a train!!
N: Yes you are!!!


Viggy: You want to call it a chicken? Fine. It's a chicken. Now GET OUT OF THE CHICKEN!!

Dinnertime

A tour around the family dinner table:

The oldest two children enjoy their food.

Like all babies, S knows that food is only truly delicious when someone else is trying to put it into their own mouth.

And here's D, who is -

Uh-oh. D, remember what we said about -

"What have I told you about jumping on Mommy's head during dinner???"

"But you're cute!"

"You need to get off right now."

"But you're so cuuuuuuuuute."

Never listen to the lyrics

I have a confession: I've been listening to (bad) pop music. The reason why is pretty simple: I need to work out, and music with a beat helps that happen.

The thing is, while it always starts well - find song by pop artist so well known that even I've heard of them, play it, run -  at some point I accidentally set the volume too high, or start elliptical-ing too slowly, and before I know it, I've heard some of the lyrics.

And then, what with me being who I am, I can't hear the song again without my inner nerd (who is a separate, nerdier entity than my outer nerd (who is mostly just anti-social to the point of borderline misanthropic, which can easily be mistaken for nerdy by an outside observer)) cringing in horror.

TOP OFFENDERS:

In third place:

Rihanna's "Where have you been all my life."

This song actually isn't so bad. Repetitive, but OK.

One issue, of course, is the trouble in suspending disbelief when Rihanna sings about how she can't find a man to "love me all night long." If Rihanna can't find a man, the rest of us are in trouble.

My main problem with this song, though, is that for a while I kept hearing "Where have you been? / Cause I never see you out / Are you hiding from me, yeah? / Somewhere in the crowd"

as "Are you hiding from me, yeah? / Somewhere in the ground"

And now it always makes me think "noooo, Rihanna! Don't look for love underground! Sure, it sounds all sexy and romantic in my new teen romance about an ordinary girl and the brooding, mysterious zombie who loves her, but in real life it's a terrible idea!"

In second place:

Eminem (with Rihanna) "Love the Way you Lie"

This is a song about how sad it is when terrible, dysfunctional relationships come to an end.

That I could live with.

What I can't live with is Eminem singing "Now you get to watch her leave / Out the window / Guess that's why they call it window pane."

GAAAAAH!!!! NO!!! No, it isn't! Never say that again.

Is it just me, or is that line the lyrical equivalent of nails on a chalkboard? I find it hard to hear the beginning of the song, knowing that line is coming.

Also, this song forced me to face unpleasant truths about myself. Specifically, when I heard this line: "Cause when it's going good / It's going great / I'm Superman / With the wind at his back / She's Lois Lane."

and my immediate response was, "Well that's not a very good comparison. You don't even have to read the comics to know that Superman and Lois Lane have a complex and often difficult relationship."

Now how did I even know that? I don't know, but it disturbs me.

In first place:

Katy Perry's "Firework"

This song makes my sarcastic inner voice start up from the beginning. "Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting throught the wind / Wanting to start again"

Is that, like, a known inner desire of plastic bags?

"Do you ever feel already buried deep / Six feet under scream / But no one seems to hear a thing"

The good news is that if you do feel this way, you probably won't be feeling this way for very long.

"If you only knew what the future holds / After a hurricane comes a rainbow"

I'm sure that's very comforting to the people who lost their homes and loved ones in the hurricane. Or would be, if it were at all true.

"Like a lightning bolt, your heart will blow"

I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure this isn't something to look forward to.

"Boom, boom, boom / Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon"

Even brighter than the moon - an orbiting chunk of rock which gives off zero light of its own.

***

But I shouldn't mock this song. It has a very positive message for young people. No matter how terrible your problems are - whether you're a kid with cancer, or a kid whose parents have awful fights, or are currently being mugged, or if you're gay and afraid how people will take it, or even if you're overweight - there's still hope!  (I tease, but I bet a disturbingly high number of teen girls would prefer one of the other problems to "fat")

The solutions to the above problems, btw, if I understood the Firework video:
- Wander aimlessly around the hospital
- Intervene in your parents' physical fight (what could go wrong?)
- Be a magician (nobody appreciates whimsy like gangs of violent criminals)
- PDA
- Cannonball 

random, again

Adi had a birthday party in school. The party started with the teacher going around the room and various girls expressing their good wishes. Things like:

"I bless you to be happy and have everyone like you."

"I bless you to do lots of mitzvot and be smart and be a teacher."

"I bless you to eat lots of yellow cheese."

One girl's blessing was "that you marry a good guy." Which was pretty funny, because this was a seventh birthday.

The teacher (quietly) joked, "Yes, it's important to start praying for a good husband when you're seven," to which a student who overheard replied, "Nuh-uh! Not until you're eight!!"

****

I love that the first question in the Home Front Command pamphlet about earthquake preparedness is, "How do you know an earthquake is happening?"

Just what I was going to ask first! It's like they read my mind.

****

A genuine parenting tip:

If you want to reprimand your children for their behavior, never start by asking questions you already know the answer to. Like, for instance, "Did you just shove an entire pancake in your mouth?" Because they're only going to either 1. lie very, very badly ("Mphlmmph!") or 2. helpfully physically show you that your suspicions were correct.

****

S got a new toy stroller for her birthday, as planned. The stroller came with us on the walk to daycare, and home from daycare, and over to pick D up from a friend's house, and..... etc.

On the one hand, it helps keep her walking (/running down the street giggling insanely to herself). Well, mostly. The other hand is the times that she decides she's tired of walking, but still can't bring herself to let go of the stroller, so we end up walking down the street looking like this:

Soldiers

Today I was bringing N and D to preschool (gan) - and not looking forward to separating from D, who usually likes her preschool but sometimes decides at the last minute that actually she doesn't - when suddenly we saw soldiers.

Lots and lots of soldiers. Heading into D's gan.

So naturally, this made D eager to get into gan, too. It says something when the addition of dozens of strangers carrying large guns makes a child find preschool more appealing.

Then the rest of the soldiers followed N and I to N's kindergarten. I don't think they were expected. The teacher tried to get the kids to stay focused through the end of what they were doing (I'm not sure what that was, but it involved a guitar), but naturally the fascination of REAL LIVE SOLDIERS YAAAAY was overpowering. Guitar always loses to gun (unless it's a guitar with a gun in it, in which case you not only have a gun but also have the element of surprise).

One of the little boys called out to the soldiers, "I dressed up as a soldier on Purim!"

In the afternoon, when I went to pick N up, I asked her what the soldiers had talked about. "Did they tell you what it's like to be a soldier?"

"A little bit."

"What did they tell you?"

"That they don't use their guns to shoot at each other."

****

Usually it's Viggy who brings the kids to their various preschool/daycare arrangements (it's not due to any laziness on my part, it's just that... oh wait, it actually was the laziness thing). But I've been involved a couple of times this week.

Yesterday I dropped off Baby S (who I should really just call S, since she's nearly 2). She was clinging to me the whole way. As we got closer to her daycare, I started to steel myself for a tantrum at drop off.

She wasn't happy when I put her down outside the daycare. Well, you know, she's young, and she still needs her Mommy, and it's normal for kids to have separation anxiety at such a young age, and... wait, is that juice they're drinking in there? JUICE!! JUICE!!!!!!! MOMMY!! JUICE!!!!

She was at the front door before I'd even rounded the corner.

****

Have I mentioned that N and the other sisters often call S "Reeda"?

Long story short, they became convinced several months ago that S wasn't speaking bad English or Hebrew - she was speaking really good, really fluent S-language, and they just needed to crack the code. The code being, apparently, "replace 90% of consonants with R."

So for the past few months, if we tell S something and she doesn't listen, N will helpfully burst in, "Nooo, you have to say it like this! 'Reeda, rour rou rike ra chocolate rarik?" (chocolate is the same in every language, and has always been a word S reacts well to).

Anyway. I guess it's not uncommon for children to get a funny nickname, even if usually it's the younger child who can't say the older one's name, not the older child convinced that the younger one is speaking an as-yet-unknown dialect.