YOM KIPPUR AT MY HOUSE

The kids have off of school today because it’s Yom Kippur.    

To all my Jewish friends:  I wish you a rich and meaningful holiday.  For those of us who are not Jewish, this is a day for kids to stay in their pajamas until their parents yell at them, which I just did.

 

I finally turned the TV off at 11:00 to moans of outrage.  Then I showed them the list of chores I had made for them to do:  strip their beds, practice their music, do homework and clean up their dresser tops, which look like this.

During my recitation of their chores, they mimed various suicide attempts:  shooting themselves in the head, hanging themselves with their bathrobe sash, instant heart failure.   

I took the remote away, so they could not turn the TV back on.  They lay on the floor for a moment, and then went upstairs.

I heard the familiar sounds of cap guns going off, doors slamming, giggling, and footsteps back and forth.   They will play until they fight, then I will break it up, then I will yell at them to get the chores done.  When they finally do, they will be hungry for lunch, which will require 45 minutes and 5 plates, two skillets and a lot of milk.   

Then it will be time to take my oldest out shopping for jeans that fit, because this is his only free day between now and Halloween.  When we get back from that, he will want to know what’s for dinner.

And I wonder why I can’t get anything done when they’re home.

MY SON'S CHECKUP

This week I took my first born for his 15 year old physical.  I love the kids' checkups.  I love when they get weighed and measured and the doctor tells them to stay away from soda and eat more vegetables and go to sleep early on Sunday nights to catch up on their rest.

And I love seeing this.

My son used to fit on that scale.  Whenever I'm in the office, I stare at the scale in disbelief.  How did that silly baby waving his legs in the air as they weighed him turn into the young man with size eleven shoes?

In the first year of your baby's life, you have checkups every 3 months.  My sister and I would get so excited for these checkups.  Mired in a routine of sleepless nights, nursing, and cranky nap times, we would look forward to these visits as a big day out.  We would call each other up and talk about what we were going to wear, including a full face of makeup.   It felt so great to be at the doctor for a fun reason - instead of fever or a cough that kept you up all night - so getting nicely dressed was a good way to celebrate that.

Yesterday my son stood on the regular scale.  He was 5'11 and 147 pounds.  I wore red capris and a partial face of makeup.  Afterward, he helped me return some things at Ikea.  When we got home he was starving, so he made a huge batch of pancakes for he and his brother for lunch.  He put a jalapeno pepper in one of them and declared it delicious.

Growing up is weird and wonderful.

BACK TO SCHOOL FUN

My husband and I had two Back to School Nights this week - one for the middle school and one for the high school.

Since my husband is an extremely mature, organized, thoughtful person who cares about his sons' educations, he brought a note pad to the evenings so that he could write down helpful ideas as they occurred to him.

He even made a list for himself.

Alas, he did not have time to complete everything on the list.  There was simply no time to go to the bathroom, much less flood it.  Back to School Nights are so hectic!

We learned all kinds of things about our childrens' teachers, grading, curriculum and schedules.  I don't know how the kids do it.  I was exhausted.

In French class, my husband passed me a note in which he asked me to the Homecoming Dance.

I said yes.

TOO MUCH TOO SOON

I was in the checkout line last week grabbing a few last-minute items for dinner, and I saw this.

No.  People ... please ... no.  Are we really going to start talking about Christmas?  I still have swim goggles on the floor of my car.  Seeing this

is bad enough.  I don't want to think about Halloween costumes, even though my kids do.  Before you know it, people are going to have scarecrows on their lawn, and mini-haystacks, and pumpkins, and all other manner of autumnal decorating.  That's bad enough, but ...

Holiday baking?   I am begging you, do not use "cookie" and "swap" in the same sentence until November 1st.


I still have beach towels in my laundry bin from Labor Day weekend.  I push my face into them and smell the chlorine just before I wash them, so I can have one last scent of summer.  Yes, I am pathetic, thanks for noticing.

Are you thinking about the holidays?  Am I the only one that still wishes it was summer?

LUNCH AND SHOPPING

Like many of you, I spent some time at a mall this weekend.  I happened to be browsing in a Banana Republic store with my teenage son.  While he was checking out the sunglasses, I saw this darling dress.

I adore gray wool, and the shape of this dress is a nice classic style that I love.  Hm.  I looked closely at the dress and saw the tag.  I could not believe my eyes.

Sorry, the picture is bad.  I’ll translate – the tag says Size 00.  Double Zero.  The dress is a Size 00. 

Do you know what this means?  It means that a Size 0 is too big for some women.  It means there are women who get into a dressing room and try on a dress and sigh “Oh, dear, this Zero is just hanging off of me.  I need a smaller size!”

While I was pondering this phenomenon, my son came over, ready to leave.  I showed him the tag.  He rolled his eyes.  Then he pointed out that double zero means the same as regular zero, because 0+0=0, and 0x0=0, so the double zero thing is, basically, completely meaningless.

My son is an excellent math student.

Then we went to lunch at Red Robin.  I ordered a delicious sandwich that came in a basket, and the basket had paper on it, and the paper had this writing on it.

OK, another bad picture.  It says “Fries are far as the stomach can eat”.  Does the double zero know about this offer?

At the mall, stores want you to wear a Size 00, but restaurants want you to stuff your face with unending fries.  It's very confusing.  This is why I tend to avoid malls.

 I got the fruit salad instead.  It was mighty tasty.