inhale, exhale

The right leg is still over an inch bigger than the left, but the swelling is going down. By a full half-inch since last night.

What does this mean? It means that the Eldest is no longer bleeding into the muscle, that the clotting meds are (finally!) working, and that his body is starting to reabsorb the old blood that is sitting in the muscle. It means the start of a determined, fragile recovery. I ditched the hematology fellow ( fellow = specialist-in-training) and yanked the local hemophilia expert (a.k.a. hemophilia attending) onto the case. He immediately prescribed large, whopping doses of clotting meds through Thursday, rest and no school for most - if not all - of the week. And physical therapy. While my psyche cringes slightly at trying to keep the Eldest sitting down for another 2-3 days, it's a small price to pay. Oh, thank heavens. It's working. We're not going to be hospitalized, he's going to be fine.

I think I'm a little more sympathetic to my brother right now, who infuriated me beyond belief when he told me that his wife's third, easy conception and his two post-utero healthy children are signs of God's existence. (see here for my ire) And what about my not-easy conceptions, my healthy-by-my-definition children - they are evidence for what, exactly? And yet, with the Eldest's well being returning, I feel the urge to do something similar.

I want to point to the Shabbat, and say look! The day of rest truly was such for him, he recovered and regrouped on the shabbat. Aha! Thus the value of the shabbat is proven, via my personal lens.

I have long since been cured of the desire to point to God and say, oho! He gave the child a test that could be overcome, that He is just in the hurdles He places before us. Maybe She is, maybe he/thon/it isn't, but I know well how easy it is to make the divine into a scapegoat and triumphing hero in my personal dramas - and that this way lie problems when the path be not so smooth.

The divine, karma, the cosmic force du jour - these are explanations, excuses, and today I understand my brother's urge to turn and point to them as the givers of order. He's still a little snot, of course. Just a better understood one.

Not for me. I think I'll keep my focus on the human level right now: the resilience of the child, the patience of the parents, the care and curiosity of the sibling. And I'll tell you a story:

This bleed has been a tremendous opportunity for the Toddles. Typically knocked off his feet (literally) by his energetic, athletic sibling, the Toddles was finally able to keep pace with his big brother these past few days. It's wonderful. The Eldest, after some thought, turned the Toddles into his personal assistant, which role the little guy took on with enthusiasm. It reminded me strongly of the Sorceror's Apprentice in the movie Fantasia - like Mickey Mouse, the Eldest didn't know how to turn off his enchantment, either. So the Toddles would bring him book after book after book after book...but the Eldest found it in himself to smile and say, 'nothankyou,' and carefully put the book on a steadily growing stack. The little one would offer up his gap-toothed grin, and go off for another book while I giggled in the corners.

And on and on. And then.

Friday night, after two days of enforced, painful resting, we went to another family for Shabbat dinner. This was a thing of wonder for the Eldest, who'd been out of school since Tuesday at this point, and was feeling the lack of his peers' company. The family who invited us was prepped for our allergies (no peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, poppy, pumpkin, zucchini, beans, dairy, beef, wheat, oats, rye, spelt, barley, corn, egg) and had warned their kids that it was sitting-down games only. Their eldest was so excited that he'd shown his classmates all about his plans to play sitting down. These kids were, of course, also the Eldest's classmates - kids who've seen the Eldest get his clotting meds at school, marveled at their friend's lack of fear of small, sharp needles, but never really understood what it was all for. Right.

We arrived for dinner, and the family gave the Eldest a gold foil crown. You are the king, they told him. If you need something, just tell us, and we'll get it for you! He loved it. And he used his powers wisely. Mostly.

All evening, the child asked (often politely), and other children grinned, ran, fetched. The Toddles, by now wise in the ways of this business, ran and fetched as delightedly as any of the others, while the Eldest sat and glowed.

He saw himself loved. He saw himself valued - not for his athletic ability, for his charisma, for his imagination, for any of the bits that make up the boy, but for himself, for the whole child, abled or not. Following on that, he's been remarkably patient with his limitations, wonderfully accepting.

So, who do I thank? Do I thank God for the gift of community and caring? Or do I thank the family and friends who chose this moment to show the Eldest their affection and willingness to invest energy in him? I think I thank the people. But I thank them knowing that I believe in a divine who sets situations in motion, brings us to places where we can choose, and then lets us choose. Blessed be, then, the choice and those who shape it.

picking it up

6.20 am: the Toddles, nursing, bites me. Crap. Are we doing that again?

8 am: the Toddles flings a toy at my head, shrieking with joy.

6.35pm: running out the door, I lift a bulk package of toilet paper, which rips, sending rolls bouncing across the floor.

I tell The Man: today, if I picked it up, I dropped it. If I dropped it, it had liquid in it. If it had liquid, it spilled on me.
pause
Man, carefully, Then don't pick it up.

Resisting an urge to throttle him, I ran out the door to the umpteenth meeting about kindergartens. (I am now having dreams about talking to admissions directors. They are more interesting when my subconcious produces them, I think.) And promptly got lost at the intersection of Rts 2, 3, 16 and Concord Ave. Some days are like that. Luckily, someone had thoughtfully built a Starbucks at this intersection, so I was able to find solace.

But no driving directions.
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On a different note, the gDiapers are back! The Toddles got that irritated skin thing under his diaper (I admit it, I second guessed myself and used the last of the cheapo diapers with maybe, maybe not corn from the company who never called me back), so I went out and bought some more flushable inserts.

Last night: no leaks! And his skin looks much happier...

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The Eldest has a book by Stephen Johnston, called My Little Blue Robot, which has all the necessary bits to build a robot-ish figure. The robot talks when you press on his chest, to the Eldest's concern (it makes me jump, Mummy). He figured out how to disconnect the circuit, and feels better having that degree of control.

The robot, when toggled appropriately, says Hello! I'm your friend! Let's play. Having built the thing and connected the circuit, the Eldest listened to this for a bit. Thoughtfully, he said, We should put Pedro (the robot) away on Shabbat, so that the Toddles won't accidentally make him talk. (We don't use electricity on the sabbath.) Then he thought some more. But if the robot does talk on shabbat, he'll say, 'Hello, God! I'm your friend! Let's play....'

sabbatical salutations

Last weekend was The Grandparental Marathon.

(Editor's note: I promise a post soon about the jargon in the comments on navels and the Judaic laws of family purity. One is in the works. For now, sabbatical grandparents.)

To everyone's surprise, including my therapist's, it went extremely well. Nonetheless, it was a bit marathonish, and I regard it as pre-Thanksgiving training. (pause while my shoulders are rubbed with a precise degree of gentle and firm by the Man. ???? ah.)

Thank you for reading this blog. This blogger apperciates your readership. We will return to blogging shortly after this, ah, break.

Damnit. The toddles woke up.

Right, then, where was I? Oh, yes.

One of the best bits about the weekend, aside from the checkers lessons and mania that followed it, was Friday night. The Man and I are continually thinking and rethinking our religious observance, and the more obvious aspects of it, such as what do we do on the sabbath. While in the midst of considering a pluralist Jewish school, this conversation has taken on a sharper urgency. And this weekend, of course, we had an audience, one whose observance seems to be more strict that our own, a member of a family who has occasionally asked nervous questions as to our religious choices, even going so far as to expressing concerns. My family, alas.

Imagine this: at the end of the week, we drag our sorry tushies out of bed in the wee early hours of Friday, the Man to zip off to work, me to take the Eldest to school, run to the grocery store one last time, before handing the Toddles over to Mary Jr, while I cook everything we'll eat until dark Saturday night. I have until sunset, which right now is about 4 freaking p.m. It's a gallop, folks, no trotters allowed. By sunset, all is ready: the food is cooked, the family assembled, and the Man and I are hopefully showered. Hopefully.

And wiped from a long, long week. Without sounding defensive, have I mentioned that the Toddles does not sleep through the night? Sigh. Dog tired, drained dry, ready to use putting the boys to bed as an excuse to fall asleep and not do the dishes tired.

In general shabbat for young families is an evolving target. The baby might be having the evening howl during Friday night dinner, or needs to nap halfway through shabbat lunch. After a while, juggling the miserable child, you realize that he doesn't care about your ritual, and just wants to be tended to. And he has the lung capacity to make a fairly compelling argument. So you adapt. For years, when the Eldest was too young to participate or understand, this was our excuse for rushing the sabbath rituals, lighting a pair of tealights, tossing back some quick grape juice and challah, and ritually falling asleep before grace after meals.

Ah, the things one can get away with when one's children are young! Now that the Eldest is older, we make an effort. Shabbat is a good one to start with, as most of the other holidays are variations on the theme. And on Friday night, the Grandmere got to watch us do it. Our way.

We don't have elaborate sabbath meals when we're on our own, we have quick, kid-friendly ones, preferring instead to throw the kids' limited zitsfleisch into singing and talking. We sang part of the Friday night service, the Eldest made the blessing over the bread (pseudo bread doesn't rate a real, adult blessing), and we sang zmirot, songs of praise specific to the sabbath. And, of course, grace (in Hebrew, natch), sung with emphasis on the rhyming bits and with as much table thumping as we can muster.

The zmirot have a range of tunes, and we like the bouncy ones, to keep the kidlings interested - they can beat out the rhythm, even before they learn the words. We sang one to a tune that we call the Drinking Song, and had so much fun that we had to get up and dance.

So there we were. Tired, not terribly clean and dancing, each parent with a boy in the arm, singing and celebrating our day of rest.

That shabbat, the Grandmere fell in love with the boys all over again. And clapped along as we danced. Today during lunch, however, a carelessly left on baby monitor gave us orchestra seats to the Eldest's concert performance...in the bathroom. Delighted, we listened as he sang Grace - until, He's pooping all over the religion! said the Man. Floosh went the toilet. And we dissolved into silent giggles.

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No Way Can It Be...Tortillas!
makes 4
This recipe is courtesy of the Allergy Self-Help Cookbook, by Marjorie Hurt Jones, and the indefatigable MIL, who lent me the book. This is a rather uneven cookbook, but this recipe is a winner. It may replace my much mourned pita recipe, which is saying something.

1 cup barley/brown rice/buckwheat flour (for more options, see below)
1/2 tsp salt
(I added a bit of freshly ground black pepper)
1/2 c. water

Mix dry ingredients, then add water. Dough should be damp but not sticky - if necessary, add an extra, cautious tablespoonful of water. More if necessary. Dough will likely form a ball as you stir, or you can use the Kitchenaid cake mixer, as I did. Easy peasy.

Roll bits of dough into golf ball sized balls. Flatten until 1/4 inch thick (or use a tortilla maker for absolute simplicity). Heat a griddle, (I sprayed my ancient, no-longer non-stick griddle with high-heat sunflower oil spray) cook 3 minutes on each side.

Cool on a rack. Eat as soon as it won't burn your mouth. Delicious!

Flour options: replace he above 1 cup of flour with any of these flours. 1 c. oat/rye/teff, or 1.25 c amaranth/spelt, or 1.25 quinoa + 1/3rd c tapioca starch flour.

Mary? is that you, dear?

Hold your breath for me, cross your toes, toss salt over your shoulders, keep on wearin' those lucky boxers because I might, might, might just have a nanny.

No, I won't extol her virtues. Last time I did that anywhere semi-public, hordes of people from Harvard, MIT and Brandeis tried to steal her. (No, not exaggerating. More fool me.) But I will say that she has a sister with anaphylactic dairy allergy and can keep her head in a crisis. Oh, and she seems to love my children, thus I may just be inclined to adore her.

The belief in dirty children and neglected televisions might just be a bonus.

There is, of course, one complication. (Only one? Astonishing, no? Especially given my track record.) One of the two days that suit both our schedules is....Friday.

Yes, Friday, day of harried labor for those of us anticipating a religiously-sponsored day of rest. Friday is the day on which we scuttle around, cooking everything that we'll eat until after dark, Saturday night. And with the ritual sabbath meals, that's a whole lot of eating. The NY Times once compared the Christmas dinner to the Sabbath meal, and noted virtuously that the Jews appear to eat healthier than the Christians. Reading this, the Jewish community held their collective sides as they roared with laughter. Them's statistics for ya: Christmas comes once a year, but we sabbath-observers tend to have two NYTimes-style sabbath meals per week.

So, no, I don't think we're going to be the slimmer crowd. And given that, how likely is it that I can swing a cooking-free Friday? But oh, for my Mary P., I just might try...

I've got *how* long until candlelighting?

Shabbat is rapidly swooping in, and I have yet to finish making dinner, trace and paint a pair of rectangles on the boys' wall, screw in a doorknob, change water in the fish tank, shower and then try to excavate my home such that the guests can find the table. But what the hell, the partner has taken the boys walking (no surprise, that), and I have finally got a few moments...so let's blog!

To you all, I feel like I've hit a quota on my political posts. So instead, I refer you to this and this for an on-the-ground view of the war in Lebanon. It just makes me so sad. And I'll happily send you to this grumpy take on Mr. Gibson.

Rapunzel, I did not forget your question about kisui rosh. (See here if you missed the post.) I've actually been ducking it, because it's not an easily answered one - or perhaps it's an answer that makes me uneasy. Either way, here I go:

When I was first married, I lived in a community that seemed to me to be very interested in guidelines. Odd ones would crop up, ones I'd never really thought had much bearing on my practice, and there was an uncomfortable undercurrent of keeping up with the Cohens. It seemed almost as if your public faith was more important than your private faith. Now, keep in mind that I was rather young then, and that my practice then was more mimetic, or what I'd learned in school and at home, than it was a compilation of deliberately investigated and chosen behaviours/beliefs. My MIL would remind me that I'm not so very much older now, and I'd have to admit that my faith seems a permanently evolving creature. And that's my disclaimer.

I covered my hair when I got married for a range of reasons. First, I looked it up. According to the Rashi (commenator) on the relevant bit of Talmud, this seemed to be the thing to do. The flexibility and range within this practice seemed as much community-oriented as it was personal choice. As a member of the Orthodox community, then, I looked around and chose from the range of choices being enacted in my community. As an individual, however, I knew that I suffer from headaches, made worse by even the lightest headband, and I suspected that this would cause complications. Still, there are different headcovering options, and some would be kinder to my splitting skull than others.. I also knew that I was applying to graduate school, where I'd most likely be the only religious Jew the department had. Kisui rosh would make me a rare bird, indeed. Weighing this, I made a deal with myself and my partner: I'd give it a year. For one year, I'd keep this stricture, and over the course of the year we'd see how it felt. Convenience was not a reason to ditch it, even in the summer, and if necessary we could find a nice engineer to build a mini-a/c into my hats/fall (half-wig). And so it went.

I gave it a year and a half, in the end, and it was a good thing to have done. I learned that I could be that person, that I was comfortable with long skirts and demure dress, and that I could also be a variant with jeans and a scarf. But neither felt quite right.

Meanwhile, I was having migraines. And we'd moved to a community where only one or two women covered their hair. Being religious at grad school did indeed make me an oddity, but in a good way, as the faculty was intrigued by my day-school Hebrew and training in literary analysis.

Eventually, I decided that I just wasn't that person, that this felt like wearing a mask or persona. That kisui rosh was an option for a different version of religious me, and that worst of all, I was on the verge of rebelling. Lest other practices get lumped in with kisui rosh, I decided to face reality and make the change that I'd already seemed to have chosen. Off came the hats, to the distress of the faculty, who were concerned by this apparent religious backsliding. And my partner?

I never wanted to say anything, but I'm so glad you've decided not to do this anymore...

And that's the story of my wig, now stored in the back of my closet. It's become a metaphor for the evolving self, I suppose..

Oh, crap. I have two hours. Good luck to you, Rapunzel, in whatever evolution you are experiencing. And to you all, shabbat shalom. May this weekend bring us all peace.

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dinner tonight:
watermelon gazpacho (must add the thyme!)

goan fish curry
tofu-cucumber salad
corn salad, currently much too garlicky
hearts of palm/avocado salad, courtesy of my dear Viv

brownies
homemade lemon sorbet
fruit?

As you can see, this is a variant on the idea of throwing money at a problem. We're feeding a bunch a folks tonight, some vegetarian, some not, and some preggers. I couldn't decide what to make, so I'm throwing food at the problem. Surely someone will eat something...