Nice to Meet You

A recent comment from Liyatle (friend of Snan's?) asks "Who are you?"

I decided it was a good question. I never introduced myself. Admittedly, that was logical, since 90% of my readers are related to me (whether by blood, marriage, or being former neighbors of Viggy's, which also counts). But still, I thought it'd be a good time to share some relevant information about me.

Name: 

ALIRSNAN. Also known as "hedgehog," in reference to my personality, which is small and mammalian. 

Age:

Still not 30, but only just.

Family:

The ever-patient Parental Units, my loving sister SNAN, the most excellent and ever-suffering Viggy, and children A, N, D, and S (all girls, a fact which never fails to shock at least one new person a week).

Education:

Let's not get into it.

Favorite food:

Popcorn, unless coffee qualifies as a food.

Favorite movie:

Even though I'm almost 30 - Finding Nemo.

Quote that never fails to make me laugh:

"Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't... nothing?"

Five-year goals:

Finish my math degree

Speak Russian

Have at least four toilet-trained children

Get a second toilet

Long-term goals:

World peace, under the iron rule of my despotic dictatorship.

Strengths:

High tolerance for noise and mess, ability to learn new languages, ability to pretend not to speak new languages in order to get out of unpleasant conversations, can chew gum and wash dishes at the same time.

Weaknesses:

Phobia of the-bugs-that-must-not-be-named, extreme case of Homework Aversion, complete physical and mental dependency on coffee.

I think that about covers it. Readers, feel free to introduce yourselves, too.

More birthday fun

Today we celebrated baby S's birthday. The celebration was pretty simple.

First, she got to join her sisters in the bathtub at bathtime. No points for guessing that she pooped a minute after I put her in, but you do get points and bonus points if you guessed that when I pulled the plug to let the poopy water drain out, it started leaving the bathtub and coming back up through the drain in the bathroom floor. Fun times.

Then I cut her bangs. OK, that was more something I did for myself. And by "more" I mean "entirely," and by "I did" I mean "three of us did." S is very talented at squirming.

Then we had the real fun, which was eating special sweet bamba (bamba = peanut flavored cheetos) with chocolate filling. The celebration ended with me attempting to get crushed bamba out of S's ears. And then - bedtime. Not for me, of course - I had a bathroom floor to clean - but for the kids, which is almost as good.

Me, I couldn't help but remember where I was one year ago. Around this time Viggy was calling an ambulance, and two paramedics who showed up a couple minutes later were very disappointed to find such a non-laboring woman in labor. As I recall, one suggested that I could have walked to the hospital and still made it in time (debatable, as it turned out). 

They were probably annoyed that I was basically using them as a glorified cab service. I probably didn't make things any better by explaining that I would have taken a cab, but I couldn't afford to pay for a cab driver to reupholster his seats if I leaked on them.

Anyway. I got there in time, there was pain, I finally got drugs for once, S was born. 

People talk about childbirth being a miracle. I guess you could say that, although "miracle" tends to conjure to mind images with a lot less bodily fluids.

But why do so few people talk about the other miracles of parenting? Whatever the reason, in honor of S's birthday I'll share a few:

1. The postpartum weigh-in miracle.

This is when you first step on a scale after giving birth, and find that despite expelling a small human being and more gunk and fluids than anyone wants to think about from your body, you somehow weigh exactly what you did right before the baby was born. Miracle!

2. The newborn poop miracle.

This is when you feel wet and realize baby poop soaked through to your clothing, strip the baby of his or her soiled clothing, open the diaper and - it's completely clean! Miracle!

3. The where-is-it-going miracle.

This is when your baby eats, then eats, then eats more, until you realize they've consumed more food that they physically have room for within that tiny body of theirs - and none has come out the other end.

4. The where-is-it-coming-from miracle.

Like 3, but the opposite.

I'm sure there are more. Really, the fact that certain children are still alive and well despite their many shenanigans is a miracle as well. I've stopped kids from trying to play with knives, play with razors, play on windowsills, get into the medicine cabinet, and take a secret bath alone - and that's all just the past few weeks. Not all the same child, for the record.

We should all spread more miracle awareness here, make new parents more prepared. New parents: you should also be aware that miracles involving kids tend to be a lot messier than you might have imagined.

SNAN and ALIRSNAN eat

I have math homework due tomorrow, and even though this is a course I've taken before (admittedly, not since high school, which was a frighteningly long time ago), it's not going so well.

So with a homework assignment due tomorrow and a Shabbat to prepare, what better time than now for pure unadulterated avoidance of responsibility (speaking of repeating high school... ) in the form of yet another round of SNAN and ALIRSNAN?

SNAN and ALIRSNAN: Nutrition

SNAN avoids frozen food for health reasons, and makes her own nutritious alternatives.

ALIRSNAN avoids frozen food so that she'll have more money to spend on diet coke and popcorn.

SNAN does her best to avoid chemicals in her food.

ALIRSNAN figures the more letters, the merrier.

SNAN tries to eat like her ancestors did.

ALIRSNAN looks to the more recent past for inspiration.

SNAN considers the latest health research when deciding what foods to prepare.

ALIRSNAN tends to buy first and find research that fits.

SNAN knows her self-restraint now will mean better health down the line.

The way ALIRSNAN sees it, she's helping to advance the human race by weeding out weakness.

Conversations with Kids

Some recent conversations with the kids:

1. 

(We're walking outside at night. The moon is about half full)

Child 1 and Child 2: Look, the moon!
Me: You're right, there's the moon! What shape is it?
Child 1: Round!
Child 2: Like a banana!
Me: Right, kind of like a banana. Or like -
Child 1: It's round!
Me: It doesn't really look round to me, honey. Maybe half round?
Child 1 (patiently): It's always round, Mom. You just can't always see all of it. But it's still round.

2. 

(Child eyes leftover pizza)

Child: Mommy, can I have pizza in my sandwich for school tomorrow?

3. 

Child: I love eggrolls! Especially the ones with that stuff inside - what's that stuff called?
Me: Carrots?
Child: No.
Me: Cabbage?
Child: No... beans. The ones with beans.
Me: Eggrolls with beans?
Child: Yeah, beans. And tortillas.
Me: Eggrolls with... wait, do you mean burritos?
Child: Yes, burritos.
Child: I love burritos.

4. 

Child (crying): Mommy! Adi said I'm lying!
Me: Awww. That's not nice. What happened?
Child: I told her what my teacher said and she said I'm lying!
Me: I'm sorry. What did your teacher say?
Child: That we have to walk around naked, and wear nail polish that's purple or blue or pink. Also on our toes.
Me: ......

Secrets from Alirsnan's kitchen

As an apology for slacking with the whole blog post thing lately, I'm going to give you a rare chance to share in my wisdom. Specifically, the secrets of my kitchen. Not the cookie dough Viggie doesn't know I'm keeping in the freezer (cookie dough is best when eaten in hastily stolen frozen chunks) or the zombie cockroaches behind the counter wall, but cooking secrets.

I've chosen one of my best recipes - lentil patties. It's cheap, nutritious except for the frying, and vegan except for the eggs.

Lentil patties:

Ingredients:
Lentils, eggs, bread crumbs, spices, oil, water (do you have to list water?)

Instructions:

1. Soak the lentils for 5 minutes.

2. Put the lentils on the stove with the water. Preferably in a pot.

3. Stupid lentils. Why are they taking so long to cook?

4. Oh right, the fire. Turn on the fire and put them over low heat.

5. Use the time to get some work done.

    Dilbert is funny today. So is Cracked. So is... what's that smell?

6. CRAP CRAP CRAP get the lentils off the stove! And maybe put some water on them or something.

7. These will be special black lentil patties. Add some extra ketchup to hide the flavor and continue to step 8.

8. Look for the eggs. Realize that you left them on the kitchen counter overnight.

9. Wait, eggs were out overnight and are still whole in the morning? Make a mental note to get Dani's eyes checked.

10. Ask Dr. Internet if it's OK to eat eggs that were on the counter overnight.

11. Dr. Internet said it's cool. He also said something about a global conspiracy involving either Jews or alien lizards. Make mental note to find out whether it's Jews or lizards, and if it's Jews, why I'm not getting a cut.

12. Add the eggs to the lentils.

13. Should the recipe have had quantities? Let's add some now. I'm going to go with one cup of lentils, two cups of water, two eggs, a bunch of breadcrumbs (one bunch = 0.572 cups), and a big pinch of each spice, assuming you don't have abnormally small fingers, in which case you'd need more like a big pinch and a half. As for the oil, you can never have too much oil.

14. Add some spices. TRADE SECRET: all spices are basically the same, especially the ones that are the same color. Anything that calls for nutmeg can also use cinnamon, anything that calls for cumin could also be made with turmeric or curry powder, and anything that calls for sweet paprika can also be made with chili flakes and then there's more for me.

Cookbooks will try to tell you otherwise, but only because the spice companies have paid them all off.

Anyway. For this recipe, try some salt, a pinch of beige spice, and a bigger pinch of red spice.

15. Add the bread crumbs. Or potato flakes, or flour, or oatmeal - all those whitish/beigish carby things are basically the same, too.

16. Fry it! Fry everything. The only thing that the southern states know about cooking is also the one thing they got right - everything tastes better fried. (I know what you're thinking, and yes, that does include Snickers bars. And cockroaches.)

 Your patties will be done around the time there's enough smoke in the room that you remember you were cooking something.

17. You're done! All that's left is to listen to your kids whine about how they wanted tuna patties, not lentil, and later, to remove teeny tiny pieces of mashed lentil patty from between the tiles on the floor (if you've got small kids and are still trying to cover your floor with a carpet, you're too far gone for my help).

SNAN and ALIRSNAN return

Sorry to be such a lazy blogger. Our internet was out for a few days due to a crossed phone line (or something. I don't even pretend to try to understand these things.)

Fortunately the phone company took it very seriously, and sent a technician a mere 50 hours later.

I never saw the first technician they sent, but apparently he was here long enough to realize that the problem was too complicated and he'd need to send a different technician (probable translation: he was never actually here, preferring to spend the time getting drunk wherever it is tech guys hang out). Fortunately, a tech guy did come today - I could see him and everything - and solved the problem through some smart-people technique that involved calling the house phone every 5.2 seconds.

And what better way to celebrate my return to the internet than with another round of:

SNAN and ALIRSNAN (the high school years):

SNAN was interested in Latin.

ALIRSNAN was interested in whatever was being taught on a different campus.

SNAN made sure to turn her homework in in a timely fashion.

ALIRSNAN would occasionally procrastinate.

SNAN enjoyed gym class and took the opportunity to learn to play new sports.

ALIRSNAN would totally have done that too, if it weren't for completely valid heath issues.

SNAN made friends with interesting individuals who taught her new ways of doing things.

So did ALIRSNAN.

SNAN was instantly beloved by her teachers.

ALIRSNAN gets remarkably little credit for having made that possible.

A birthday. and SUPERMOM.

I survived the birthday party. 

I know I said earlier that most women are smart enough to not try to have it all. I don't know if this is quite the same, but throughout Party Day I found myself comparing myself to a non-existent mother far superior to myself.

I couldn't help thinking that Supermom would have done a few things different.

1. Supermom would have invited friends to the party as a first step.

2. Supermom would have figured out how the Special Fun Activity she bought for the party worked. In advance.

3. Supermom would not have used her baby as a party toy in order to get a head start on cleaning up.

Supermom probably also would have bought her child a present before the actual birthday. And she would have gone and picked out something both fun and educational and had it wrapped, instead of just sending the birthday girl in to pick out whatever looked sparkliest.

Oh, and Supermom's castle cakes probably look like castles (fortunately, I went with the classic "cake cake" design for the party. It came out shaped perfectly. Somewhat burned on the bottom, but that just made the cake: frosting ratio even better).

But fortunately, none of my kids could care less that I'm not Supermom. Adi was very pleased with her party, the girls all enjoyed playing princesses whenever they weren't eating cake, and all the girls are enjoying the super-sparkly books that Adi chose (I didn't know that sparkly books were even a thing. But they are a thing! An expensive thing).

The day ended like this:

Consider Yourself Warned - P - Promises

We're celebrating a birthday here. This year I'm really trying to do the Good Mommy thing, party for several shrieking small people included.

Child wanted a cake shaped like a castle, just like the picture in the cookbook. I broke the news to her right off the bat that no cake I make is going to look like the one in the cookbook, but I did try. I made a round cake and several cupcakes, then put the cupcakes upside-down on the big round one (they were the turrets), frosted the whole thing (frosting is actually pretty gross when you see how it's made. I mean, I didn't expect it to be healthy, but still... ech), ripped up pink marshmallows and put them around the turrets (not sure what part of the castle that was supposed to be - gargoyles, maybe?), and then sat back and said "well, that's about as good as it's going to get."

And all the work paid off. Everyone agreed that the cake was very clearly meant to be a cake. The castle part I had to explain, but still. It was progress, compared to certain past birthday-cake experiences.

What does that have to do with promises? Nothing.

Here's what does have to do with promises: soon, I'm going to be taking Birthday Child to get her ears pierced. Because years ago, when she was a much smaller and somewhat milder version of her current self and first grade looked much further away, I made a promise.

Parents, and parents-to-be: Never promise anything to a child. I don't care how young they are. I don't care how forgetful they are. Kids remember promises. ALWAYS.

The same child who can wander in and out of their room five times without successfully getting a pair of shoes (including at least one trip where they bring back just one shoe - did they forget they have a second foot??), who won't remember that they were supposed to bring carrots to school today until their bus has arrived at the stop, who will ask "how many days until my birthday" multiple times in one day - that same child WILL remember that once, when they were two years old, you told them that when they get to third grade they can have their own bike.

And now I have to get to bed, because I promised someone a birthday party tomorrow, with a cake, which is going to mean a pre-work trip to the grocery store for more margarine and confectioners sugar than I want to imagine being consumed by anyone, let alone small children who will be running amok in my house.

Post diet Ali

A few people have asked me why, after my diet has more or less succeeded, I continue to draw myself as noticeably rounder than the rest of the family.

There are two reasons:

1. You may not have noticed, but my artistic ability is somewhat limited. Making me rounder than the other ovals is a way easier way to make it clear who is who than actually learning to draw would be.

2. I like that when I see people who read this blog in real life after spending a while apart, they tend to ask if I've lost weight.

But just for the record, here is how I look now:

The gray squares include helpful close-ups. I'll take them in clockwise order from the bottom left:

- First is my leg. It has a muscle now! I use the muscle primarily for squatting down to be toddler height (Kids take "I told you to STOP TRYING TO FEED THE PINECONE TO THE BABY! There won't be more warnings" more seriously when you're looking them in the eye).

- Second is my arm. It may look like it doesn't have a muscle at first, but if you squint really hard you can start to see what looks like a muscle but is actually just blurring brought on by eye strain.

- Third is my face. You can tell it has bones now.

- Fourth is my stomach. It remains lumpy, misshapen, and generally disgruntled. My stomach had to live through the third trimester of four pregnancies, during each of which I got large enough that it was harder to stand up and get things than to just stay on the couch and wait for them to get sucked into my gravitational pull.

Now it is time for Stomach Justice. From my abdomen's point of view, no number of situps can make up for the kind of cruelty it's been subject to. So there it remains, squishy and hostile. Admittedly fun to mold into funny shapes (you know, if I were ever bored enough to do that kind of thing. Which I'm totally not, because of all the housework and studying I'm busy with) but not so appropriate for the post-diet look.

Why am I telling you all this? As a heads up: people, I only look pregnant.

If you're thinking right now, "Oh, she's responding to me" - no, it wasn't just you. What can I say, I can see where people would get that idea. But rest assured that if I really am pregnant in the future, I will be at least twice this large. Also, I will be asleep by 1 AM, not blogging.

In the non-pregnant meantime, I'm going to continue to improve my health by drinking plenty of caffeine and alcohol while I still can. Oh wait, that's not "improve," that's "exploit." Exploit is usually the more fun of the two verbs.

I would gorge myself on sleep, too, but a certain teething baby objects. 

Happy holidays

I've been a lazy blogger lately, I know. For what it's worth, I've been busy with all the holidays we've been having over here. There was Rosh Hashanah, aka the Jewish new year, aka the Day of Judgment, aka the day where you get to eat apples in honey then run around the house screaming "tooooooooooooot" just like the noise the horn was making in shul. 

Then Yom Kippur, aka the Day of Atonement, aka one of the two annual 24+-hour fast days, aka the day where you get to stuff your face with honey cookies and run around doing all that stuff you could never get away with any other day of the year because Mommy isn't feeling good right now.

Now it's Sukkot, aka feast of Tabernacles (<-- it is time to change this translation. Nobody alive has seen a tabernacle), aka the holiday on which my already timid child managed to develop a fear of, of all things, wind. She says that if it's a windy day on a day when she has preschool, she just won't go.

To prove my busy-ness, I present my to-do lists from before Rosh Hashanah. (I love writing "to do" lists. I'm not really into reading them, but writing them is great. It fills me with a sense of possibility, just thinking how cool it would be if I were actually going to get more than 1/3 of that stuff done.)