also, p.s.

1. I found a raisin and a blueberry in the wash today. They were both very clean.
2. I made chicken soup on Sunday. From scratch. With matzoh balls. Why are my children sick?!?

The good, the bad, and the very cute

The good:



















Maddox is definitely sleeping better. I would probably give less credit to Ferber than Al would, but we'll take it any way we can get it. He still calls out a lot at night (hence the missing sticker in the last column) but it is improving.

The bad:



















Chava has been sick with a mysterious fever all week. I've roped Dad in to coming this afternoon so I can go in to work for a few meetings; although I work for one of Working Mother's 100 Best Companies, being out three days every two weeks has got to take its' toll on my performance.

And the very cute:

Come again?

Maddox is currently obsessed with the show Little Einsteins; it's actually pretty entertaining, because he watches and listens carefully enough to learn a bit from it. Whenever I ask him to be quiet these days, he tells me, "No, Mom, I like to be crescendo!" In any case, one of his favorite episodes involves a bald eagle. Last night I was giving him a bath and he noticed that there was a bald eagle on the washcloth we were using (thanks, Nonna!).

He said, "Look, Mom! A val-geegle! Just like on Little Einsteins!"
It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about.
I said, "Oh, a BALD EAGLE. Very cool."
"No, Mom, it's called a VAL GEEGLE."

Chava's room

Chava's room is my favorite spot in the house. It gets great light, and is so cheerful and bright. It's also just about the least cluttered space around (although you can't tell it from these pictures because nothing is put away, but we do, sometimes, put things away).

I especially like looking at the wall with the two windows because the plasterers were here the day I was in labor with her and I kept worrying that when I ran to the bathroom (maybe I wasn't wearing pants? why else would I worry?) they would see me.

The walls you see are a buttery yellow and the wall you don't see (which the crib is up against) is the same green as the curtains. The rug is a nice, cusy berber which I'm sure will be stained soon (which reminds me that last week as I was wrestling Chava down to change her diaper before bed, all of a sudden a poop nugget appeared on the carpet. Where does it come from? It wasn't me, I swear.).

The whole thing was inspired from some weaving my grandmother did (Hi Grandmum!) - she made small swatches that she put in to cards she sent and they were too beautiful to throw away. So I saved them, and now they're framed and the perfect finishing touch to the room.

Something's gotta give

Before kids, I actually really liked having plants. I would water them regularly, prune them, repot them only about a year after they needed it, you get the idea. One of the nicest things I got in the hospital when Maddox was born (thanks Grandma Faye!) was a pot with about 5 different plants in it... I took it home and repotted each plant (okay, maybe one died before I repotted it, but I had a newborn then) and thought it was so Martha Stewart... these plants would grow large and I would have them forever and they would always remind me of when Maddox was born. Well, this is one of the last remaining remnants. I guess it's a small price to pay for keeping the kids alive.

Catch up (again)

Maddox had another ear infection this week, starting on Sunday. So, I worked a grand total of two days, and thus never had time to post anything all week (yes, it's true, working affords me a whole lot more time in the day than staying home, especially with a sick and needy child whose ability to make a mess is not at all diminished by his illness).

So, we'll start with last Sunday, when we went bowling. This time I remembered the camera, but only managed to get a shot of Lola with her mom, Jane.














Monday was a holiday so I was home with both kids. It was also rainy and gross, and a very long day. We spent some quality time in a fort under the dining room table.
You can just hear Chava saying, "Jesus, Mom, is this all you've got?"












Today I am home with Chava, who is being very cute. Well, very cute in between bouts of exasperating stubborness. Chava is much more stubborn than Maddox ever was. The whole distraction thing really doesn't work with her. She's a force to be reckoned with. Our daycare lady keeps laughing as she tells me what a nightmare Chava's teen years are going to be.... personally, I'm not laughing (and yes, Mom, I already had the payback thought myself).

No pictures, bad mommy

Today is day 2 of what is predicted to be a 3 day weekend full of rain, sleet and maybe snow. So, this morning we left the house early for a stop at Target and then a ride on the green line downtown (do you know that the Mall at Copley is linked to the Prudential Center mall and you can basically walk almost all the way across Boston while remaining indoors? This is an excellent way to tire out little bodies). It was great.

But first we had to stop at Target for a few things. Al took Chava in a cart because Maddox wanted to walk. When we finally met up in housewares, Chava was passed out with her head wedged into the corner of the cart seat. She is serious about her napping.

Also, last night Al went out with a friend of his for dinner and a movie. They left before Maddox went to bed, and Maddox was extremly perplexed about why they would want to do anything outside the house. I said, "Well, sometimes grownups like to go out with other grownups to talk about grownup things." Maddox asked, "Are they going to talk about their penises?"

Two things

Chava got a perm














and Maddox got a fat lip (I swear, I didn't do it!)















**if you seriously think I would perm my one year old's hair, you don't know me.

More on Dr. Ferber

Not going so well. Friday night (or perhaps it was in the wee hours of Saturday morning) found me unable to sleep after being up with Maddox - furious with Dr. Ferber for making me MORE tired than I already was. I will try to appreciate the irony for now. We're committed to giving this a try for at least another week.

In other sleep news, yesterday Chava fell asleep on the way to Costco at 10:30 a.m. She slept through me picking her up out of her carseat, carrying her in to Costco, Al taking off her coat, and being put in the cart. It was hysterical to watch her trying to find a place to lay her head (Maddox's shoulder? The handle of the cart? Straight back?). Poor child.

The infamous Dr. Ferber

I wish I could say that I felt fantastic about our visit with Dr. Ferber yesterday. Instead, I feel mildly let-down and only a little hopeful. Basically, his nurse (very young, clearly not a parent) took the history, ran it by him, and then he came in and gave us his diagnosis and solution in about 20 minutes. We didn't really address the trauma of early fall, and instead focused on what's going on right now. Dr. Ferber feels that we are expecting Maddox to sleep more than is reasonable (he thinks about 9 hours at night with a 2 hour nap is within the realm of reason) and suggests that we start by keeping M up until 9 p.m. He also suggested implementing a new sticker chart with stickers for staying in his room at bedtime, not calling out at bedtime, staying in his room throughout the night, and not calling out throughout the night.

I think my biggest issue is that I have been getting in to bed about 8:30 lately to try to recap some of the sleep I have lost for the past year. So, staying up til 9 with M, keeping him occupied, just about killed me (even though Al was around and playing, as well). My guess is that we'll eventually dial back bedtime to 8:30 or so, and we'll need to come up with a whole set of activities M enjoys that he can do on his own while we take care of all the stuff that needs taking care of at the end of the day - because I put my PJs on at the same time as M, and hit the bed the minute I left his room.

By the way, he earned 3 stickers last night. He fell asleep right away without calling or coming out, but he was up twice at night - 12:20 and then with a screaming fit (I think bad dream) at 3:40.

Keeping the kids busy

Thank god for Annie and her plastic bowls. We pull them out daily to buy us the required 18 seconds to make dinner for the kids.