Friday random ten: bullets
1. I am worn. out. Between last night's milk marathon, and today's adventures in needy children, I might just go to sleep before Mr. Blue gets the kids back home from their trip to the mall. But wait -- what if they stop off for ice cream? Do I really want to be asleep and miss ice cream? Definitely not. I'd better stay up and blog.
2. Operation Prevent Shabbat Meltdowns has been going really, really well. The tzedakah box plan we cribbed from Els has been enthusiastically embraced by everyone concerned. LG is really proud of his tzedakah box -- and why not? It looks lovely. He is also very proud to get his four quarters to put in the tzedakah box. He puts each one in with a flourish. We count them in Hebrew as they go in, so we're even working in a little learning. He's also added his own little ways to make the rituals his own. He has decreed, for example, that he is in charge of turning the light off before we light the candles, and then turning them back on after all the blessings have been said. He has also announced that he has a special place to stand next to me while I light the candles, and it's his job to blow out the match.
It's like night and day. Before, the tantrums, the hiding under the table, the getting sent to his room. Now he struts to the table like Shabbat is his personal celebration. He sings the brachas with us, and afterwards, he sits and eats without any fuss whatsoever. Sometimes he's even well-behaved enough so that Mr. Blue and I can exchange a few sentences of conversation. Who knew? So to all of you participants in the Shabbat parenting hacks pixie party awhile back, thank you! You rock.
3. LG's preschool teacher told me that LG totally swept the field with his bigger, faster classmates when they played tee ball today. I think baseball is going to be his sport. Not too much contact, lots of personal space, and a pacing that's compatible with daydreaming. Also, he's quite the little slugger. I'm so proud!
4. I'm also so proud of LG for making himself a friend at preschool. When I met with his teacher eons ago, she mentioned that LG was still very reluctant to initiate any verbal interactions with his peers. I'm not sure if "shy" is really the right word for it. He's such a perfectionist that it's hard for him to put himself out there. Anyway, she suggested a couple of kids in the class with whom he might be compatible. I arranged for playdates with one of them (the one that LG sounded the most interested in), and sure enough, they clicked. Today LG told me that Z. always wants to sit next to him in school, because he is LG's friend. Hooray!
5. A lot of the other boys make fun of LG at preschool. They tease him by calling him the name of a sports star who shares his first name, and by calling him another, less complimentary alliterative name. They especially tease when they play tag -- LG is always "it" because he can't run as fast as the other kids. He says the teasing doesn't bother him, that he thinks it's funny. His preschool teacher confirmed that he always laughs when they call him names; she thinks it's a defense mechanism. I suppose it's an effective defense mechanism, in that it probably takes some of the fun out of it for the other kids if LG doesn't seem bothered by the name-calling. But I'd still like to string up the perpetrators by their toenails. Especially because it's such a herd thing -- a few of the genuinely not-nice kids start it, and then the other kids do it, even the ones who have been friendly toward LG. I wish I could imagine that the problem will disappear when he goes to kindergarten with different kids, but there's always a core group of jerks in any class. If it isn't these kids, it will be others. It's really, really hard to accept that LG is going to be the butt of teasing because of his size. It's also really hard to accept that there's not a lot I can do to change that. We can only keep an eye on things, intervene when necessary, and help him find strategies to manage it. But damn, it makes me froth at the mouth a little.
6. On a more upbeat note, today Baby Blue is 22 months old. A few days ago, I overheard LG having a very serious conversation with his sister. "Baby Blue, babies have a lot of birthdays. That's because of the months. You have a new birthday every month, because you are a baby." Truer words were never spake by preschoolers. So it is with a little sadness that I mark this "birthday," since we are almost at an end to the monthly milestones -- who pays attention to such things after the child reaches two years old? In honor of Baby Blue's 22-month-birthday, though, I'd like to record some of our favorite Baby Blue sayings:
"In onnnnnne minute."
"I need to gettt downnn."
"Where me ball?"
"I beat me!"
"I cannnnn't wait!"
"We-weed me dat book!"
I'm sure I'll think of more after I hit "publish." Ah well.
7. I'm just at that middling height at which regular length pants are slightly too long and petite pants are slightly too short. Usually I just buy regular pants and swish a little, but every once in awhile I am persuaded to believe that petite is the right choice. I'm just writing this down to remind myself that petite is NOT the right choice. Those pants get washed a couple of times, they lose a few centimeters of length, and all of a sudden I'm showing enough leg that it actually matters that I haven't shaved my legs since October or something. NO MORE PETITE PANTS. Thank you.
8. A while ago I took Lucy up on her suggestion to sign up for eMusic. It's got a different pricing structure from iTunes: you pay $9.99 a month, and you get 40 song downloads for the month. That can work out to two or three albums, versus the one album you would get for the same money at iTunes. Plus eMusic gives you mp3 files with no digital rights management crap restrictions. Also, for someone like me, who has often forgone buying new music because I hate to spend money on something I might not like, it's been a great incentive to get myself to loosen up a little bit and take chances on new music for the simple reason that, if the 40 downloads don't all get used at the end of the month, they don't carry over. My frugal self insists on using them all every month, which means I'm downloading more things that I would have hesitated on otherwise. And I'm generally enjoying them, too. The only downsides I've found are, first, that eMusic doesn't have a huge selection of music -- you can't just search for whatever song from 7th grade that just popped into your head; and second, that albums with a lot of individual tracks would be more economically bought on iTunes' pricing model. Also, if you'd not normally spend $120 a year on music, then obviously it's something you might think twice about. In my case, it probably is $30 or $40 more than I had been spending per year, but I accumulated a lot of pent-up demand for music in that time. So for me it is worth it.
9. I finally updated the software for my iPod, and it turned out that there were more than 500 songs in my iTunes that hadn't been loaded onto my iPod before, because the previous software was so outdated. The sudden addition of those 500 songs has filled my iPod up to the brim. Alas! I do so adore carrying my whole music collection around in my pocket, or plugging it all into the stereo at once.
10. My iPod was obtained semi-legally for free by my brother (it was the display model for a promotion at the place where he was working) a couple of years back. It's 10GB, and has one of those defective batteries that only holds a charge for about two hours. We just got some money from my grandma's estate. I'm thinking of buying myself one of these with some of Grandma's money before responsibly doling out the rest of it to college savings and retirement accounts. (Oh, and maybe a new roof.) But... do I dare disturb the universe?
2. Operation Prevent Shabbat Meltdowns has been going really, really well. The tzedakah box plan we cribbed from Els has been enthusiastically embraced by everyone concerned. LG is really proud of his tzedakah box -- and why not? It looks lovely. He is also very proud to get his four quarters to put in the tzedakah box. He puts each one in with a flourish. We count them in Hebrew as they go in, so we're even working in a little learning. He's also added his own little ways to make the rituals his own. He has decreed, for example, that he is in charge of turning the light off before we light the candles, and then turning them back on after all the blessings have been said. He has also announced that he has a special place to stand next to me while I light the candles, and it's his job to blow out the match.
It's like night and day. Before, the tantrums, the hiding under the table, the getting sent to his room. Now he struts to the table like Shabbat is his personal celebration. He sings the brachas with us, and afterwards, he sits and eats without any fuss whatsoever. Sometimes he's even well-behaved enough so that Mr. Blue and I can exchange a few sentences of conversation. Who knew? So to all of you participants in the Shabbat parenting hacks pixie party awhile back, thank you! You rock.
3. LG's preschool teacher told me that LG totally swept the field with his bigger, faster classmates when they played tee ball today. I think baseball is going to be his sport. Not too much contact, lots of personal space, and a pacing that's compatible with daydreaming. Also, he's quite the little slugger. I'm so proud!
4. I'm also so proud of LG for making himself a friend at preschool. When I met with his teacher eons ago, she mentioned that LG was still very reluctant to initiate any verbal interactions with his peers. I'm not sure if "shy" is really the right word for it. He's such a perfectionist that it's hard for him to put himself out there. Anyway, she suggested a couple of kids in the class with whom he might be compatible. I arranged for playdates with one of them (the one that LG sounded the most interested in), and sure enough, they clicked. Today LG told me that Z. always wants to sit next to him in school, because he is LG's friend. Hooray!
5. A lot of the other boys make fun of LG at preschool. They tease him by calling him the name of a sports star who shares his first name, and by calling him another, less complimentary alliterative name. They especially tease when they play tag -- LG is always "it" because he can't run as fast as the other kids. He says the teasing doesn't bother him, that he thinks it's funny. His preschool teacher confirmed that he always laughs when they call him names; she thinks it's a defense mechanism. I suppose it's an effective defense mechanism, in that it probably takes some of the fun out of it for the other kids if LG doesn't seem bothered by the name-calling. But I'd still like to string up the perpetrators by their toenails. Especially because it's such a herd thing -- a few of the genuinely not-nice kids start it, and then the other kids do it, even the ones who have been friendly toward LG. I wish I could imagine that the problem will disappear when he goes to kindergarten with different kids, but there's always a core group of jerks in any class. If it isn't these kids, it will be others. It's really, really hard to accept that LG is going to be the butt of teasing because of his size. It's also really hard to accept that there's not a lot I can do to change that. We can only keep an eye on things, intervene when necessary, and help him find strategies to manage it. But damn, it makes me froth at the mouth a little.
6. On a more upbeat note, today Baby Blue is 22 months old. A few days ago, I overheard LG having a very serious conversation with his sister. "Baby Blue, babies have a lot of birthdays. That's because of the months. You have a new birthday every month, because you are a baby." Truer words were never spake by preschoolers. So it is with a little sadness that I mark this "birthday," since we are almost at an end to the monthly milestones -- who pays attention to such things after the child reaches two years old? In honor of Baby Blue's 22-month-birthday, though, I'd like to record some of our favorite Baby Blue sayings:
"In onnnnnne minute."
"I need to gettt downnn."
"Where me ball?"
"I beat me!"
"I cannnnn't wait!"
"We-weed me dat book!"
I'm sure I'll think of more after I hit "publish." Ah well.
7. I'm just at that middling height at which regular length pants are slightly too long and petite pants are slightly too short. Usually I just buy regular pants and swish a little, but every once in awhile I am persuaded to believe that petite is the right choice. I'm just writing this down to remind myself that petite is NOT the right choice. Those pants get washed a couple of times, they lose a few centimeters of length, and all of a sudden I'm showing enough leg that it actually matters that I haven't shaved my legs since October or something. NO MORE PETITE PANTS. Thank you.
8. A while ago I took Lucy up on her suggestion to sign up for eMusic. It's got a different pricing structure from iTunes: you pay $9.99 a month, and you get 40 song downloads for the month. That can work out to two or three albums, versus the one album you would get for the same money at iTunes. Plus eMusic gives you mp3 files with no digital rights management crap restrictions. Also, for someone like me, who has often forgone buying new music because I hate to spend money on something I might not like, it's been a great incentive to get myself to loosen up a little bit and take chances on new music for the simple reason that, if the 40 downloads don't all get used at the end of the month, they don't carry over. My frugal self insists on using them all every month, which means I'm downloading more things that I would have hesitated on otherwise. And I'm generally enjoying them, too. The only downsides I've found are, first, that eMusic doesn't have a huge selection of music -- you can't just search for whatever song from 7th grade that just popped into your head; and second, that albums with a lot of individual tracks would be more economically bought on iTunes' pricing model. Also, if you'd not normally spend $120 a year on music, then obviously it's something you might think twice about. In my case, it probably is $30 or $40 more than I had been spending per year, but I accumulated a lot of pent-up demand for music in that time. So for me it is worth it.
9. I finally updated the software for my iPod, and it turned out that there were more than 500 songs in my iTunes that hadn't been loaded onto my iPod before, because the previous software was so outdated. The sudden addition of those 500 songs has filled my iPod up to the brim. Alas! I do so adore carrying my whole music collection around in my pocket, or plugging it all into the stereo at once.
10. My iPod was obtained semi-legally for free by my brother (it was the display model for a promotion at the place where he was working) a couple of years back. It's 10GB, and has one of those defective batteries that only holds a charge for about two hours. We just got some money from my grandma's estate. I'm thinking of buying myself one of these with some of Grandma's money before responsibly doling out the rest of it to college savings and retirement accounts. (Oh, and maybe a new roof.) But... do I dare disturb the universe?
posted by Phantom Scribbler at 10:06 PM 
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