the 90th minute

How fast can Shiran?

2012-01-20T08:59:00.007+02:00

Moriya (aka Moriya'chuk, Chook-chook, Moriya Shiran, Shiran-ran) update:

* Second tooth coming in!, [Moriya added that comma. Really! She is sitting on my lap right now. Gotta get going on that punctuation lesson...]
* Still super-smiley (except for a few days when she had a bit of a bug and her smiles went away and it made me sad. But now she's smiling again so it's all good.)
* Doing pushups. But not the kind she was doing before with just her arms - in the last few weeks has started pushing up her whole body and kind of pushing herself backward with her arms, ending up halfway across the room from where she started. Also rolling over (both ways) on occasion.
* This week started getting a bit more into eating (she turned 6 months old last Monday) - she did pretty well on sweet potatoes, carrots and bananas in the last two days.

Philosophy time

2011-12-09T10:56:00.003+02:00

Rimonit (after Warren mentioned something he had done prior to 2007): Who was my Abba before I was born?

Corrupting the animals

2011-12-02T11:24:00.001+02:00

Rimonit to Warren: Let's play a game. I'll hide, and you be a bad giraffe.

Moriya update

2011-11-23T09:49:00.003+02:00

She's now 4 1/2 months, and is very into doing pushups. She also rotates herself clockwise or counter-clockwise when she's doing tummy time, and sometimes she'll crane her neck like an owl to keep tabs on her sisters. She has a fantastic smile, which she deploys quite frequently, and so far she's been the most chilled out baby of the three (well, K was actually pretty chilled out but she wouldn't eat, which pretty much counteracts everything else). I know parents are supposed to be eager for their kid to progress and all that, but I'm happy where we are - in the mornings I can just put her on her mat on the floor and sit at the computer near her, taking occasional feeding breaks - and kind of dreading the crawling, omg-i-forgot-to-babyproof-that! phase, not to mention the whole sweet-potato-mush-all-over-the-walls thing. But let's go back to the moment - about which, believe it or not, I have no complaints.

Light bulb

2011-11-23T09:34:00.003+02:00

Funny how we expect kids to learn to speak from us, but we find it amusing when they actually do. To wit: Rimonit's latest phrase is "I have an idea" (which she must have picked up from me) - usually followed by her latest plan to avoid eating dinner/taking a bath/going to bed (as in, "I have an idea! I'll play a little bit more first!").

I have been quite good at not laughing or smirking when she uses it, but it did make me think about how there's this meta-awareness on the part of adults regarding what words or phrases kids "should" use, even if that makes no sense based on how children learn to speak (ie from hearing others speak) and even if we give them no cue that this is a "grown-up phrase" - and why should we? they'll eventually have to speak like us, after all.

1 verb + 1 verb = Snack Time

2011-11-21T09:18:00.001+02:00

Another two-verber from KL: I want to eat Bamba! (Repeat ad nauseum)

Sounds like...

2011-11-19T23:09:00.002+02:00

Rimonit has finally started to figure out what I mean when I ask what sound something starts with (she had been giving me a whole syllable or several letters at once, like 'cupcakes' starts with 'cup'). She's all of a sudden quite good at it - this morning we went through a whole bunch of sounds. She started, saying something along the lines of "'Bowl' starts with 'b'" (the sound a 'b' makes, not the name of the letter). Then when I asked her if she could think of other words that start with "b," she was able to come up with one or two, and we did it for a few letters. Then later in the day she came up to me and Moriya and said "baby" starts with "b," and when I asked her if she could remember another word that starts with "b" she picked a different word that we hadn't even mentioned in the morning ("bag," which she saw lying around). Very exciting! Planning to put up a page with the letters of the alphabet on her door so we can easily transition from sounds to letter identification. She can identify "her" letter ("R") easily, and we've done a few others (not sure if she remembers them), but would like to play this game a tad more systematically. Nothing formal, and we stop when she doesn't feel like it anymore, but it is exciting that she's suddenly able to get this whole "sound" idea much better...

Who's your daddy?

2011-11-19T21:17:00.002+02:00

Scene: Friday morning. Warren playing with Moriya.

Kinneret (running over in distress and laying claim to Moriya by touching her legs and kissing her): No Abba baby! My baby!

Same, but different

2011-11-17T07:37:00.002+02:00

Two things that slowed us down a bit this morning: 4yo (somewhat unusually) wanting me to help her get dressed, and 2yo very much wanting precisely the opposite (Me! Me! Me!).

Another one

2011-11-16T19:11:00.003+02:00

Forgot a good one by Rimonit. Something along the lines of: Clothespin have same sound as close, just like open and close.

The hole in the middle of the Cheerio

2011-11-16T16:59:00.005+02:00

KL, in full sentences:
Moriya smile at me.
Help me fix stroller please. (Two verbs in one sentence!)

RP, picking out sounds:
Pumpkin that's like pump.
Cornflakes that's like corn.

(Speaking of which, out of nowhere K decided she doesn't eat Cheerios - they normally eat them both together, but for the past week it's been all "Cornflakes. No cereal. Cornflakes." They insist on calling Cheerios "cereal," no matter how many times I try to explain that both are different kinds of cereal. What's funny is that in Israel it's kind of the opposite: "Cornflakes" is used as a generic word for cereal [though there is a proper Hebrew phrase - deganei boker] that can include Cheerios, Rice Krispies or anything else.)

R has also had a few misses on the sounds, and seems to mix up "p" and "b" sounds; she told me "pumpkin" starts with the same sound as "bus." But she's definitely heading in the right direction (I think).

R's English is currently stronger than her Hebrew. I've especially noticed a lot of holes in her Hebrew vocab (though the holes will prob be in the other direction soon), and she can't pronounce a resh (Hebrew "r," esp problematic since it's the first letter of her unusual name, and people have a hard time just guessing what she's trying to say). She sometimes fills in with English or just makes up words (leaving whoever she's talking to a bit out of their depth), though sometimes she just changes direction and drops whatever she's trying to say in favor of something else. Like I heard her talking to two kids about what food they take to gan for lunch, and R was trying to say she takes in cereal (they beg for cereal in a bag to munch on the stroller on the way to gan - not that they haven't already had breakfast, mind you) but she was saying "cereal" in the middle of a Hebrew sentence and they didn't understand what she was trying to say. She repeated it the same way, then switched directions entirely and basically changed the topic (can't remember to what).

Yesterday I noticed she was imposing English grammar on a Hebrew sentence when she said something about a "yarok motzetz" (the equivalent of a "pacifier green"). I'm pretty sure most of the vocab and grammar issues will get sorted out more or less by themselves - eventually. And in the meantime, she's showing a heartening interest in the sounds that words make. If only she hadn't mysteriously forgotten how to count...

Growing

2011-11-10T20:05:00.004+02:00

Rimonit has been very into the idea of getting bigger, and the role that food plays in it.

We have a Little Critter book about all the things he's planning to do when he gets bigger, and then it ends with him saying "But I'm not bigger yet." When we first got it, it didn't really resonate, but I guess I just had to wait until R got a little bit bigger. :) Now she's all about planning what Moriya's going to do when she gets bigger, in addition to thinking about herself (and Kinne'et). Like before Simhat Torah she wanted one of those cuddly toy Torahs, which we got them, and she specifically requested one for herself, one for K and one for M, for "when she gets bigger." (After gan one day she asked if Hashem gave us toy Torahs also.)

And whenever there's something she's not allowed to have (either at the moment or at all) she'll now often say (if she's in an accepting mood), "When I get bigger?" I don't really like to say yes to that if it's candy or whatever because I don't want it to become this thing she seeks throughout childhood and then overdoses on when she does get bigger, but W has recently been telling her that candy doesn't make children grow bigger (she's been a bit obsessed about the role of food in making her grow - as she'd be in mid-chew, she'd say "I getting bigger?" like "Am I growing an inch with every bite I take?" to which my standard response is "You're getting bigger every day"). So now she's gone on health patrol (when she's not busy telling me not to look at her as she tries to sneak a taffy, that is): After the aforementioned biscuit-seeking by K, Rimonit goes, "No, Kinneret! Biscuits don't make you grow!" (Shockingly, this did not deter Kinneret the slightest bit.)

One leg at a time

2011-11-10T19:31:00.002+02:00

Despite what I wrote recently, I've noticed that K has actually been getting her "me"s and "you"s straight a lot more often. And she also seems to have grasped that "please"s can move around in a sentence. On a recent morning, after trying to get her pants on herself, she came to me and said: "Help me please! Please help me pants!" With a request like that, even if I were, bizarrely, inclined to let her go to nursery school without pants, I still would have put them on for her...

Also

2011-11-10T19:24:00.004+02:00

Kinneret's signature phrase of late has been "Alsoalsoalsoalsoalso me!" Oh, the life of a middle child...

She has also been speaking in full sentences more. They often seem to involve food.

While eating pretzels: "Iya no eat pretzels. Eat milk!"
While Warren was eating tea biscuits: "Abba eat biscuits. Alsoalsoalsoalsoalso me!"

Really??

2011-10-27T08:58:00.002+02:00

Here's the list of things I need to bring in for Rimonit's birthday party at gan on Friday:

- 4 pictures of her from babyhood on
- 10 blown-up balloons
- A decorated store-bought cake
- A present for the gan (game/book)
- Candles
- Napkins

Really????

Photo montage for a 4yo? Present for the gan? Blowing up balloons isn't in their contract?

Anyway, here's hoping this year's bday party will be better than last year's at least...

Introducing

2011-10-16T23:21:00.002+02:00

This is long long long long overdue, but here goes (finally):

Q: What? You had another kid? What's that, No. 3?
A: Yup.

Q: What, another girl?
A: Yup.

Q: So three girls, huh?
A: You got it.

Q: So what's her name?
A: Well, that depends on whom you ask. If you ask her Big Big Sister, it's often Moriya Shiran-ran. (RP occasionally likes to confirm the facts and announce: 'Moriya a girl.' She also likes to reprise recent history and say things like: 'First Moriya was in your tummy. Then she came out of your tummy.' and: 'First Moriya didn't have a name. Then she have a name: Moriya Shiran-ran.') If you ask her Little Big Sister, it's generally Ya or Iya (as in 'Change you Ya,' when KL wants to help change the baby - as opposed to 'Change you,' which is when she needs to be changed. Similarly, 'Help you' is when K wants me to help her; 'Help me' is when she wants to, er, 'help' me.)
If you ask her birth certificate, it's Moriya Shiran. (Well, Moriya Shiran Kordova Wienburg, but you knew that already, didn't you?)

Q: What's with spelling her name with a 'y'? Shouldn't it be 'Moriah'?
A: The idea is to help people avoid confusing her name with that of a singer whose last name is Carey. Unfortunately, the spelling doesn't seem to have done much so far to keep Americans/South Africans who don't live in Israel from calling her either 'Mariah' or some variant of 'Maria.' Maybe we should have spelled it MoReeYA for extra clarity, but somehow I don't think it would have helped...

Q: Why Moriya Shiran?
A: There's a whole theme thing. If I were to encapsulate it in equations, it would look something like this: Moriya = Har Hamoriya/Mt. Moriah = site of akedat Yitzhak (binding of Isaac) + Har Habayit/Temple Mount. Matityahu = (familial) my maternal grandfather + (historical) leader of Maccabees = purifying Temple (after beating up the bad guys - you know, that whole Hanukkah thing) = Har Hamoriya. M = Matityahu + Moriya. Avraham = (familial) W's maternal grandfather + (historical) Avraham Avinu, of patriarch renown = akedat Yitzhak = Har Hamoriya. Shiran = Shimon = (familial) w's great-uncle. Get it? Got it? Good.

Q: How much weight has she gained in the past three months?
A: At birth (that would be July 9, a week before K's second bday), she weighed in at 3.62 kilos, and just before Sukkot she was 5.65. I don't want to take away from anyone's fun, so I'll let you do the math if you really want a precise answer to the question asked.

Q: How have her sisters reacted?
A: To be continued...

Where there's steam...

2011-10-16T22:51:00.004+02:00

* At breakfast today:
Me to RP, after two consecutive mornings of bloody noses (hers): We're going to put something called a hu-mi-di-fi-er in your room so you don't get bloody noses as much.
RP: [Not much of an immediate reaction. About five minutes on, looking troubled and sounding distraught:] I don't want fire in my room!

* RP, sharing her epiphany after being put to bed tonight:
Grown-ups don't play a lot. They do... things.

* What RP calls a bathing suit: beigele yam
(The explanation that ruins the joke: Bathing suit = beged yam. Beigele = pretzel. Beigele yam = sea pretzel.)

* Extended conversation with KL (while she is being changed):
Ima no diaper.
Just Ya. [that would be Moriya aka Moriya Shiran aka Moriya Shiran-ran aka Gimmel, who has yet to be properly introduced on this blog despite being 3 months old]
Also Diti. [at night]
Also me.

It's a bear!

2011-05-01T11:11:00.006+03:00

I observed recently that while Rimonit's imagination has extended to bringing her friends and various animals into the house (regardless of where they are in body), making birthday parties, etc. for her dolls and, most recently, negotiating with Pharaoh, she hasn't really extended that tendency to reenacting the stories of other characters, like those she knows from books. Anyway, that has changed in the last few weeks, and she now incorporates characters from her books into her play. She has been Angelina (of course!), Donald Duck (we have a bunch of old Disney books that Warren brought back from Cape Town) and a bear hunter (from 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'). (Rimonit: Tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe. It's a bear!) She's also been the bunny from my revised version of 'Runaway Bunny' (in which Little Bunny's idea is to play a game of pretend with his Ima rather than run away and have his mother stalk him). She also likes to assign roles; I have been Miss Lilly (Angelina's ballet teacher), Louie (Donald's nephew, obviously), and the innkeeper from "Donald Duck and the Magic Stick."

It's tempting to see this is a meaningful sign of some development or other in her imaginary play, but I could come up with an argument saying it's a kind of regression (first she was creating her own scenarios from scratch, now she's just reenacting scripted scenes) just as easily as I could that it's progression (she's gotten better at comprehending the narrative arc of a story and that's coming through in her imaginary play). Ultimately I think it's probably most likely that this is just another way for her to channel her imagination and is not necessarily a linear move.

Anyway, here are a few Hebrew words that often find their way into her English sentences:
- "hi/hee" (meaning "she" in Hebrew) instead of "she" (can hardly blame her for that one)
- "mi/mee" instead of "who"
- "ki/kee" instead of "because" (though she will now sometimes correct herself)
- (once or twice) "im/eem" instead of "if"

In English, she says "my" instead of "I" or "I am," and sometimes asks "where" instead of "what." She sometimes says "what you in" instead of "where are/were you," and I've noticed that "yesterday" is the repository of all things in her remembered past.

As for Kinneret, she keeps saying more words every day. One of her recent favorites seems to me to be a classic non-first-child word: "also." eg Rimonit: My want cereal. Kinneret: Also!

And in the Somewhat Unexpected Word for a Not-Quite-2yo to Use category: "deodorant" (she likes to play with mine, and apparently she knows what it's called). Plus she gives quite a cute roar now when she comes upon a lion.

In other news, R&K (they do this both together and separately) have recently introduced something of a reversal of the bedtime story ritual, in which they crawl into bed with me in the morning, armed with loads of books, and demand that I read to them... and read... and read... and read...

Historical discovery #2: Noah was trying to sail to Egypt

2011-04-13T17:28:00.008+03:00

Since Rimonit keeps asking to see Pharaoh, Mitzrayim, etc. (um, have I mentioned how into the Pesach story she is?), I put on the Sipurei Hatanach Saba Tuvia DVD today and showed her "Pharaoh for pretend," then I started it from the beginning. Turns out that the reason Noah got into the ark was because he was trying to sail to Mitzrayim. Who knew?

Then she got on her toy phone to Pharaoh and asked him to "let people go." (Though I wasn't privy to the other end of the conversation, I can only presume that the reason she asked "why?" immediately afterwards was because he said "no no no.")

What I heard myself saying today

2011-04-11T22:40:00.003+03:00

"If you don't stop crying, you won't be allowed to help me clean for Pesach."

And the best part? It worked immediately. Chalk one up for Shas gan brainwashing.

In other news, Pharaoh was sighted in Rimonit's room tonight. She caught him hitting, and he had to be sent back to Mitzrayim. Also, there were frogs in her tights.

Speaking of tights (her latest obsession, which she can now actualize in full thanks to the package Savta Lea sent), the other day Rimonit announced that she wants to wear tights because she wants to be beautiful. I pretty much stopped in my tracks, thinking 'Whoa, it's begun!' and gave her a whole spiel about how she's beautiful whether or not she's wearing tights, a dress, etc. etc. I've repeated it a couple of times since then and I guess it got through because as we were putting on her pajamas tonight she said, 'Ima, my beautiful!'

Historical scoop of the week

2011-04-09T22:04:00.004+03:00

Historical find of the week: When the Jews left Egypt, they said 'Oooh!'
Source: RPKW, Song on the Swing

--

Q: What's this Song on the Swing you're talking about?
A: Imagine a girl on a swing in the park singing a long song with an indiscernible melody at the top of her voice. It involves Pharaoh, Moshe, Mitzrayim, people saying oooh, a tall tree, the sky and airplanes. And back again.

--

The hazards of having a nephew named Moshe around Pesach time include fielding a question from a Smunchovitz like: Gila [sister of said cousin] live in Mitzrayim?

UPDATE: The morning after I issued a clarification that her 5-year-old cousin was not actually the Moshe in question, R announced: "Pharaoh say 'No no no!' Moshe say 'Let people go' - but not my cousin Moshe."

--

Kinneret may have said her first sentence today! Rimonit had a tiny tumble in the living room and I said the usual 'Oh, you fell down? You're okay! Let me give you a kiss' or some such. Kinneret was standing nearby and said: Niti down! (Okay, it was more like: Niti! Down! - but that still counts as a sentence, right?)

She also will now say 'ow' if you say a cat says 'me__' -- but if not given that prompt, continues to maintain, as a true sabra should (surrounded by feral cats as she is), that cats actually say 'Khh.'

I love DST

2011-04-06T19:42:00.004+03:00

Ever since Israel changed the clock to Daylight Saving Time (known here as summer time) at the beginning of the month, I have seen fewer dawns, and am quite happy about it. As I was eagerly anticipating, the girls' internal clocks keep them waking up at what had been 5:30, 6 a.m. (cue horrified gasp from pre-Rimonit me), but it's now "only" 6:30, 7 a.m.

Well, that's true for Kinneret. In other good news, I'm actually not sure what time Rimonit's been waking up (I'm also not 100 percent sure to what extent it's connected to the time change, but I'm not going to look too closely at the gift horse, or something). On Shabbat (two days after the clock change) I praised Rimonit for playing by herself and not waking up Ima and Abba when she got out of bed after we put her down for an afternoon nap, and since then (ptu-ptu-ptu) she has *not* been sneaking into our bed at the crack of dawn, disrupting my sleep for about half an hour and then demanding to be fed! By the time I get up she has dressed herself (often backwards, but still). Makes a nice change of pace.

The only down side ('cause there's always gotta be something to complain about!) is that just as Kinneret has made the miraculous changeover from desperately wanting Ima in the morning and physically pushing me out of bed to actually ignoring me and insisting that Abba take her out of her crib and get her some grub (halleluya!), Warren is now running off to shul (since she's now waking up later) so I have to get up anyway (urg!). But back to the plus side, if he gets her a bowl of cereal before he dashes off, I can usually sneak in a bit more shut-eye because the girls have recently significantly increased the amount of time they can play together before crying ensues. (I haven't actually timed it, but it's definitely noticeable.) In short, good stuff...

I wanna go to Mitzrayim!

2011-04-03T20:57:00.010+03:00

So much to catch up on, so I'll just make a random list.

- Why?
That's what Rimonit has been wanting to know endlessly for the last month or so (and I had optimistically thought that maybe she had decided to just skip that phase). Coincidentally, I have recently discovered a keen interest in tautology and the art of rephrasing. (It's time to go to sleep now. Why? Because it's sleeping time.)

- Hug
Kinneret has been saying that since February, and who can resist a high-pitched bunny saying "hug"? Not one to be left out of the excitement, Rimonit has taken to announcing whether she wants just a hug or just a kiss, how many kisses (one, two or lots - though she can now count to 13, sort of, on a good day), where exactly the kiss should go (no not there, here!), and when would be the best time to provide the hug (now, after lunch). That's not to say there's no spontaneity - she is quite free with the hugs and kisses she dispenses (to Ki as well as to Ima and Abba) - but she is also quite strict when she chooses to be.

- Mitzrayim
Rimonit's response to hearing about Pesach: I wannna go to Mitzrayim! She was tired, and this became a full-on litany (in her lingo: "My want to go to Mitzrayim! My want to go to Mitzrayim!"). At first I tried to explain that she was kinda missing the point, but then I just went with it and tried to distract her with methods of transportation. No freier she, Rimonit decided she would rather go to Mitzrayim on an airplane than a camel. I was just entertaining the possibility that I had successfully diverted her onto a discussion of airplanes (she likes that they first go on the ground faster and faster before they go up up up to fly in the sky) when, after she was finally in pajamas and ready to hop into bed, she announced a clarification: "I want to go to Mitzrayim NOW!" At least she was kind enough to issue me an invitation (if not a ticket): she told me she wanted Ima to come on the airplane to Mitzrayim with her, er, now. She has subsequently been sighted looking out the window and saying plaintively, "Where Mitzrayim? I can't see Mitzrayim!" Looking at the map helps, but does not appear to be sufficient...

- Pharoah
Another favorite recent activity of Rimonit's is randomly announcing: Pharoah say 'No, no, no!' (don't forget the finger wagging!). That's because the only line I can remember from that English song about Pesach is Pharoah saying "No, no, no, I will not let them go." She sometimes does Moshe too (actually, she usually just asks me, again, what Moshe says), but she appears to have a greater affinity for her fellow autocrat (surprise surprise). What's interesting is that when pushed to express the part that comes after 'no, no, no,' she actually translates it into her own pidgin English rather than just repeating the phrase I've handed to her. Instead of saying 'I will not let them go,' she says something like 'My not let them go' or 'My not let people go.' (Why Pharoah say no no no? Short answer: Because he wasn't very nice.)

She also frequently invokes the presence of Pharoah, Moshe, Haman and Mordechai while she's playing. She'll say 'Ah, Haman here!' with a pretend look of shock - eyes wide, hand covering mouth, one hand sometimes pointing to the supposed location of bad guy (I presume this to be an imitation of my initial response when she started this around Purim time - What? Haman's here? Oh no!). And she'll have Haman and/or Pharoah doing what in her world are 'bad' things - taking her hat, touching the (nonexistent) cake (around W's birthday) - and announce 'Oh! Haman take my hat!' Or 'Pharoah touching the cake! Pharoah touching the candles!' Sometimes she'll give me very specific prompts, saying something like: Say Haman/Pharoah go away! Mordechai and Moshe often make an appearance too (I'm not sure if it's the gan's emphasis or what, but Esther seems to have made less of an impression on her); she either has the good guys refrain from doing the 'bad' thing (Mordechai no take my hat) or gives them permission to do it (Moshe allowed to touch the cake).

Not that surprising given the wide extent of her imaginary play, esp. her scenarios with kids in her gan or people she's recently seen, etc., but still very interesting. I haven't really seen her do this with other people from stories, say, characters from books (she does talk about Angelina, the mouse who is a ballerina, but she calls her ballerina doll Angelina, so it's more tangible than just giving the fictional character a role in her birthday parties or whatever). The closest I've seen is when she summons various animals - it's often similar behavior - Oh, there's a lion! And she sometimes gives me cue cards for the animals too, along similar lines - Ima, say lion go away, etc.

When we started transitioning from Purim talk to Pesach talk, one of the first things she wanted to know was whether we eat Pharoah's ears too. (She was very into the concept of eating Haman's ears - hamantaschen/oznei haman - for pretend.) Then she wanted to know if we wear funny clothes on Pesach; when I said no we wear nice clothes like on Shabbat, she immediately announced she was going to wear a dress on Pesach. Her ganenet just told me that this clothing/matching obsession has reached gan too, and that when they play outside, she's constantly coming over to the ganenet and telling her that this pink matches that pink, etc. (Her version of matching usually means that two things are the same color - she has informed me in no uncertain terms that I didn't match, because I was wearing black with some other color.)

Diti
Kinneret may have finally found a name for Rimonit: Diti, or so it sounded like (though it may have been a nasal Niti, which would make more sense). She heard R and was looking around for her and I said, 'Do you want to go play with Rimoniti?' and she said 'Diti!' and repeated it when she found her sister. Rimonit was quite involved in her own play (involving two kid chairs, a doll and a bandana, among other objects) and was not impressed. Lately it's occasionally been sounding like Kinneret has been referring to Rimonit as 'Ki,' which is what R calls her (though she also says Kinne'et - she solves the r/resh conundrum by just leaving it out altogether). Ki's 'Ki' does have a logic of its own (mother=Ima, father=Abba, sister=Ki), but we'll see if Diti/Niti will stick for a while...

January 2011

2011-02-02T22:47:00.004+02:00

Rimonit showing off some of the new clothes Savta Lea brought.

Saba Nissim with K and R.

Their father's daughters (+ bonus book rant)

2011-02-02T13:46:00.012+02:00

1. Warren has trained his girls well. He has found a Web site where he can watch cricket, and it's now often on in the mornings before he takes the girls to gan. It's no big surprise that Rimonit knows how to say "cricket," but the word is also now part of Kinneret's small but rapidly growing vocabulary. Now when she sees it on the computer, she chirps "CI-ket" in her little high voice. Very amusing.

As for Rimonit, sometimes her father's tendencies can go heading in unexpected directions. Warren is a major advance planner, to the point of insanity. But unlike Rimonit, he probably never planned his outfit about eight months in advance. RP caught sight of the box of sukkah decorations in storage the other day and began asking about Sukkot (Sukkot sleeping? Where sukkah? I can't see sukkah. Sukkot come back?) I told her Sukkot would come back after Rosh Hashana, which she already knows will come when she's four. Her response? She announced that she wants to wear tights on Rosh Hashana.

On a note that Warren can relate to just a wee bit better, she also looks forward to having a beer l'chaim with him during Shabbat lunch (he puts a drop in her kiddush cup), and they have even been known to have a beer dance, which involves Rimonit shouting BEE-YA (as per the requisite non-pronunciation of the letter "r" at the end of a word, as per the way W says it).

South Africa, here we come...

2. In anticipation of our impending journey, I have repeatedly been having pretty much the same conversation with Rimonit. We had it twice just this morning:

Rimonit: My [that would be "I'm" in actual English] going with Abba to see Grampa tomorrow.
Me: Yes, we're all going to Cape Town. But not tomorrow.
Rimonit: Going on airplane to fly in the sky?

The second time was as W was about to take them to gan, except she replaced Grampa with Gaga. She seems to kind of know we're not really going "tomorrow," and doesn't get upset about it, but all the same she keeps repeating it.

[UPDATE: Later in the day, RP asked yet again about flying to Cape Town. This time she told me she's planning to wear a skirt on the plane. (!)]

Soon enough it really will be "tomorrow"... sooooooooooo not looking forward to the flight, especially with the Runaway Bunny, who has been a squirmer since she was in utero and needs to be captured about 16 times just so I can get her dressed in the morning.

3. Which reminds me - the other day I put on a short-sleeve onesie under K's shirt, and the onesie had a rabbit on it. Knowing what we sometimes call K, Rimonit saw the rabbit and announced that it was the Runaway Bunny...

4. Speaking of which, I really really hate that book (here's the text, posted by some woman who loves the book for Jesus analogy reasons). But I found an alternate way of reading it that works with the pictures, for those times when Rimonit insists that I read it (I always plan to hide it or give it away or something, but I haven't actually done anything about it).

The actual book "The Runaway Bunny" (by Margeret Wise Brown, the author of R's former favorite going-to-sleep book, "Goodnight Moon") is a horrible story - published in 1942 but still a popular (why??) children's book today - about a mother (okay, a mother rabbit) who won't give her son any of the independence he craves and follows him around mercilessly every time he tries to get out of her clutches. For instance, he says he'll run away and be a fish in a stream; she says that if he becomes a fish, she'll become a fisherman and fish for him (meaning she'll gouge him with a hook and eat him!?).

I find some of the illustrations (by Clement Hurd) quite disturbing as well. In the part when he says he'll become a bird and fly away from his suffocatingly omnipresent mother and she says she'll become a tree that he comes home to, the picture is of a very freakishly rabbit-shaped huge imposing tree. But no less freaky is the rabbit-shaped huge imposing cloud blowing the wind when he becomes a sailboat. Oh, and she's not blowing the wind to keep him safe or anything - she wants to become the wind so she can "blow you where I want you to go." Uh, hello, let him make his own decisions in life, scary rabbit mommy!

Anyway, when coerced into reading this, I now turn it into an adventure game that mother and son play together. In my version, son says something like: "Let's play a game! I'll pretend to be a fish in the stream!" Mommy says something along the lines of: "That's a great idea! I'll be a fisherman!" And so on. It doesn't exactly make for the best plotline, but it does keep me from throwing She Who Just Won't Let Go across the room.

Rimonit Peniniavelli

2011-01-30T19:51:00.005+02:00

1. In addition to the whole Amelia Bedelia aspect of living with a 3-year-old (i.e. when the kid takes you overly literally or grasps an unintended meaning of the word), there's also those times when the kid just mis-hears or misunderstands an unfamiliar word.

I found out that Rimonit apparently thinks 'mailbox' is 'milkbox' because when we passed one she announced that it was 'for babies.'

And last week I distinctly hear her saying 'Eliyahu anavim [grapes]' instead of 'Eliyahu hanavi.'

2. On Sat. night RP decided she wanted to watch (again) the Angelina Ballerina DVD that my parents had brought over. I wasn't being so responsive to her request, though, so she decided to take matters into her own hands. First she plopped down on the kid couch, followed shortly thereafter by her little sister. Then she turned to Kinneret and asked, in a kindly, big sis voice:

Ki, you want to watch TV?
[no response]
Say yes!
[A few seconds later, to me:] Ki want to watch TV.

And thus do the manipulations begin...

Good for you, mom!

2011-01-23T17:02:00.003+02:00

While Kinneret's form of parent training is her enthusiastic 'yay's, Rimonit has recently picked a different route (one presumably gleaned from the way she herself gets encouraged).

The other day she asked me (pursuant to her fairly inexplicable burning ambition to ascertain the provenance of every object in the home) who had gotten some basic food item or other (bananas? milk? don't remember). As it happens, I had recently gone food shopping and did actually recall purchasing said item myself (though W is the more frequent food shopper in the household) and told her (probably after rolling my eyes, in my head if not in my actual eyeballs, at the question) that I had gotten it.

'You?' she asked me, wanting to be certain she was getting the story straight (another burning ambition of hers). 'Not Abba?'

I confirmed that this was indeed the case, to which she replied: 'Kol hakavod l'Ima!'

You know you're raising your kids in Israel when...

2011-01-16T20:55:00.002+02:00

... your 1.5 year old (as of today!) insists that cats say kkhhhh rather than meow (and you feel a bit silly correcting her, because she's being more accurate than you...)

Amelia Bedelia update

2011-01-16T20:50:00.003+02:00

I forgot this one, in which Ima catches RP just in time, and learns a lesson:

Me: Rimonit, you're not allowed to go down the slide headfirst!
RP: My head's not first, my hands are first!

Thanks and no thanks

2011-01-02T21:06:00.008+02:00

Kinneret is talking sooo much more than Rimonit did at this age - she says, or at least repeats, several new words a day (or so it seems); I can't even keep up.

She already says Grampa when she gets near the computer we use for Skyping, and yesterday I asked her if she wants to speak to Savta Lea and she said 'yaay!!' and kept repeating 'Lea' (pron. Ye-a).

'Yaay!!' has recently replaced 'yes!!' and the earlier clapping (see an enthusiasm theme here, anyone?) as K's positive reinforcement for when the grown-ups in her life understand what she wants (or offer her something she'd like).

Here's how it works: She hands me 'Brown Bear' and says something that resembles 'book.' I say 'Do you want me to read you the book?' She smiles and says 'yaay!!' - then tells me that bears say 'Fff fff' (that would be 'woof woof' for the uninitiated), closes the book, takes it away and brings me another one.

Her vocabulary extends to Hebrew too.

On the down side, she has recently started saying the rather unfortunate expression 'dai!' (as in 'enough'). Like when I've finally managed to capture the Runaway Bunny in what I know will be one of several attempts to get her dressed, but have only managed to get her shirt over her head, and already she's announcing that she has had quite enough and flees to the other side of the room.

On the up side, one of her new favorite words is 'toda' (a lot easier to pronounce than 'thank you'!). Her inflection is more like a high-pitched 'TOda!'

Typical exchange:
Do you want hummus on your sandwich?
Yaay!!
Here you go.
TOda!
[Drops sandwich on the floor and runs off to climb onto the bimba, only to be promptly deposed by the Dictator]

But the other day Rimonit took exception to Kinneret's use of 'toda' and, though she sometimes has entire monologues with K in Hebrew (at least once she actually translated my comments to her - I told K to sit down and R told her lashevet), at breakfast one day she started lecturing little sis on speaking in English (to my great surprise).

KL: TOda!
RP: Not toda! Say manku! (Toldja 'thank you' is hard to pronounce)
Repeat.

(No. 1 has actually gotten quite good at the whole 'please' and 'thank you' thing, even if that mostly means tacking on a 'peas' to the end of an 'I want.')

In an altogether different conversation I overheard the other day, Rimonit was apparently having difficulty getting her reflection to obey her command.
'Lo at!' (Not you!) I heard her tell the mirror.
'Ani!' (Me!)

Umm, good luck with that one, Smunchovitz...

Winter in Givatayim

2010-12-21T08:57:00.000+02:00

Amelia Bedelia moments

2010-12-21T08:40:00.002+02:00

Living with a 3-year-old can help remind you of the literal (or unintended) meanings of some of the things we say without thinking about it.

Yesterday we were coming out of a building that has one step before you get to the sidewalk. I'm walking slightly in front of R, turn around and say 'Watch the step.' She stops, looks down and looks back up at me with a puzzled and anticipatory expression, like, okay Ima, I watched the step. Now what?

It reminded me of an incident a while back where I wanted to brush the back of her hair or something and I said, 'Okay, now turn around.' She obediently did a full 360. It's a good point, really; how come no one says 'turn around halfway'?

Warren says

2010-11-09T20:10:00.006+02:00

1. W objects to my statement that KL has stopped saying Abba. He says she still does.

2. Apparently the Smunch, being the teenager she is, has (at least for the moment) rejected her childhood nickname, telling Warren when he calls her the Smunch: No, Rimonit!

P.S.: New word for KL = up (as when she stands up). I think she may also be saying 'here' (as when she wants to sit on this here chair). And I forgot to mention that she also understands instructions related to getting dressed (or arrested), like 'hands up.' (Also 'pick up your leg.' Maybe she's learning more about dogs than that they are said to say 'woof woof'...)

P.P.S.: I love that our little frummy chick (that would be RP) was looking in her dresser drawer for her "seatbelt" this morning - dontcha know, the sparkly one that comes with her jean skirt.

Teaching a young dog new tricks

2010-11-03T20:14:00.008+02:00

Scene 1:
Last week. Kinneret learns a new trick. She has turned toward the kitchen window, listening as a dog starts barking loudly somewhere outside - and (to Ima's surprise) excitedly repeats what said Ima has just said: "doggie" (her version is sort of more like doooooooooo'iiiii)and "woof woof" (a very cute "fff fff," said with her top teeth over her bottom lip, her eyes even wider than usual, and a look of deliberate intent that makes it clear this is no random sound). She even gives the right response to the question "What does a doggie say?" (Fff, fff, of course!)

I tell Warren, but for the first day she only does it on cue when I'm the only witness. That Friday he reports that she repeatedly trotted out her animal repertoire when he took the girls to buy shoes. We're very proud, in that way that only parents of a 15-month-old can be.

This week. I'm at the playground with R&K when Kinneret spots a cat. She gets very animated, points and shouts: "Doggie! Doggie! Fff! Fff!"

Hmm, looks like we could use a little fine-tuning before she enters the talent contest...

Scene 2:
This morning, somewhere between 6ish and 7ish. Rimonit is not happy to discover that the front door is bolted, because she hasn't figured out yet how to unbolt it and she wants to play in the hallway.

RP, standing at the door: Want to go inside! Want to go inside!
Ima: What do you mean, go inside? You're already inside the house. You want to go outside?
RP: Want to go into outside!

Random other things:
- Kinneret has recently gotten into sitting on grown-up chairs. She's constantly going up to a chair, patting it with her hands, and waiting for me to put her on. (And take her off - though she does that pretty well by herself too. And put her on again.)

- Rimonit's shoe fetish, which she has had since she got her first pair, has yet to diminish. She announces about 12 times a day that she has new shoes, which she wants on from the moment she wakes up. At least she isn't constantly taking them on and off (or worse, getting us to take them on and off), as she did with every pair of shoes she's had until now! It's amazing to see Kinneret not particularly caring about her shoes - I mean, she knows they're new and she definitely understands the word "shoes," and she sometimes signals that she wants them on or off, but that's about it.

- Words Kinneret says: Verbally, just doggie, woof and more. She used to say words that sounded a lot like Ima and Abba, but then she stopped. She also signals eat (which is also drink, unfortunately - I'm working on that) and all done, and loves to wave hello to anyone she sees, and bye-bye. Some words she understands (or seems to): dancing, clapping, bye-bye, bath, shoes, sleep/bed, bottle (plus of course the words she says and signs - since I always use the words with the sign). When I asked Rimonit the other day if she wanted to hold Kinneret's hand as they walked up the path to the building (she often does if they're both out of the stroller - very cute!), Kinneret held out her hand to Rimonit (who of course, didn't want to take it!). She seems to understand a lot - apparently in Hebrew too, since at gan they also tell me she really seems to understand. Though she's had a lot of ear infections, it looks like (ptu ptu!) she doesn't have the (minor, temporary) hearing loss (from fluids in the ear) that Rimonit had, which hopefully means (and it already seems to) her speech won't be as delayed - and no hearing tubes! (did I say ptu ptu?)

- As for Rimonit's speech, she has lately been using possessive words in English a lot. Instead of saying "shoes sheli" or "Rimonit shoes," she'll now be much more likely to say "my shoes" (or "mine shoes"). She's also been using your/yours.

- She has this funny very localized stutter - only when she's saying her own name and usually saying that she wants something. She'll just repeat her name very fast like four or five times in a row - Rimonitrimonitrimonitrimonitrimonit Rimonit want toast. I don't see it as a matter for concern, since the context is so specific, but it's just this kind of funny random temporary speech quirk.

- Rimonit has gotten very into the concept of the supermarket (which she pronounces superMAARket) as THE place to replenish all insufficient supplies (kind of like if Target were to merge with Pathmark and Home Depot - and move to Israel). She's constantly telling me that when something's finished we'll get more in the superMAARket. But while the products she mentions are often food, sometimes they're random other objects. On Shabbat she noticed that I was wearing a necklace and that (at her insistence, of course), she was wearing a necklace too (plastic thing one of w's cousins got). This led to the following exchange:
R: Abba no wear necklace.
Ima: No, Abba doesn't wear necklaces.
R: Abba get necklace in superMAARket.

- I said in a recent post that she seemed to be playing less with her quasi-imaginary friends, but I think it must have just been a pause of a few days. She's now incorporated some of the newer kids in gan into her play, and has started talking about the gananot as well. (Especially on Sundays, which is the main ganenet's day off: Where Esti? Esti home? Esti come back?) Today she informed me that both Esti and the other ganenet, Michal, wear shoes. (Have I mentioned the shoe fetish?)

Skirting the issue

2010-10-23T20:43:00.007+02:00

Rimonit loves skirts, and whether I'm trying to get her to put on pants for gan or a dress for Shabbat, she regularly demands a skirt instead. The only problem is I only have three for her (one of which went AWOL for a while), and of those she would be more than happy to wear her yellow-and-gray striped skirt every single day (I did once let her wear it for three days in a row, but don't tell anyone...)

On Friday I went back to one of the biggest stores in the Givatayim Mall (probably about a tenth the size of a similar store in a small-to-medium American mall, as opposed to most stores here, which would probably be dwarfed in the perfume section of their American counterparts), the department store H&O. The last time I was there they had told me they were all sold out of skirts for age 3, but I was hoping they had restocked in the intervening weeks.

What I wanted was a couple of really simple cotton knee-lengh skirts that she could wear anywhere, ideally in a solid color so she could actually wear a shirt that sort of matched it.

What I got was a lesson in Israel's inescapable identity politics (not to mention misplaced paternalism and unparalleled customer service).

"I'm looking for a skirt for a 3-year-old girl," I say. "What size would that be?"

"Religious?" the saleslady asks me.

Me: "What does that have to do with the size?"

Saleslady: "I wanted to know whether to show you short or long."

Me: "So why don't you just ask me if I want short or long?"

Saleslady: "So do you want short or long?"

Me: "I want to see what skirts you have for size 3 so that I can make my own decision about what to get."

Saleslady: "Well, we just have this one."

??!!

Where's the cake?

2010-10-21T09:08:00.011+02:00

This is an Israeli birthday song that Rimonit loves and which I hadn't heard of before coming to Israel. The words are:

Ein ein ein hagiga
Bli bli bli bli uga
(Az) eifo eifo eifo eifo etc. (this part goes on for a while), eifo ha'uga
Repeat last line

It sounds kind of absurd in translation - all it amounts to is "There's no celebration without cake, so where's the cake?" - but it's a really fun and catchy tune, so I can see why she likes it.

Her babysitter introduced her to the YouTube clip of the song (linked above), and she loves that (but only asks the babysitter for it, never me or W), as well as singing it on her own while playing or jumping (excuse me: dancing).

They sang it in gan for the birthday party yesterday, and the kids were really into it. I just wish they had left it at playing the music and doing their own thing in gan without bringing in the gan's music lady, which is the Thing They Do on birthdays. I really don't like her and I think her schtick is totally inappropriate for the age of the kids in gan. She always blasts the music super loud and then has to shout to be heard over it. A couple of the kids got upset when she started to get going. And this is the oldest class! They use her for all the ages.

She has these very structured routines, replete with props, which is fine for kids age, say, 5 and up, but it's just so stupid for little kids, who can't follow directions that well - especially directions that keep changing: Put dots on your mushroom! (and no, that's not a metaphor or a euphemism, just a kind of random prop) Stand up and walk around your mushroom! No, only around your mushroom! Now sit down again and put more dots on your mushroom! Hold up the mushroom and stay still so your mother can get a picture!

It makes me wonder who it's supposed to be for. It's definitely not for the kids, so if it's supposed to be for the parents, then I for one would be more than happy to forgo it.

Another example: As part of her birthday repertoire she has this song about how great the Ima is and she intros it by saying your Ima took care of you from when you were a baby blah blah blah, and then (I can't imagine this happening in the U.S., though I could be wrong) asks the kids questions to which the answer is apparently always supposed to be Ima: Who feeds you? Who does your laundry? Who takes you to gan? (If you were wondering, in our case the answers to the last two are Abba, the vast majority of the time.) When one of the kids did answer Abba to one of the questions, she conceded that "Yes, there is Abba too." I mean, I know they import these people from Bnei Brak since it's a Shas gan and all, but the kids aren't Haredi and the whole thing was just kind of odd. And then she gives them each a fake rose that they're supposed to give to the Imas. Uh, thanks, just what I've always wanted. Of course, Rimonit wanted to keep hers...

When being dictator of Givatayim is just not good enough

2010-10-20T19:15:00.010+02:00

While wearing her birthday crown again just before going to bed, after a delayed bday party in gan today:

Rimonit wear crown.
King wear crown.
Rimonit king!

A perfect demonstration of a classic logical error that many adults make too. (All kings may wear crowns - though I can't say I'm 100% sure that is actually the case - but not everyone who wears a crown is a king. Even if the crown-wearer in question does expect you to obey her every command.)

Oh, and a few minutes later, after she had agreed to take off the cardboard crown for bed (I had told her it might get broken if she sleeps in it), she suddenly volunteers: "King no wear crown to bed." Hey, whatever gets you to listen to me, Your Majesty...

Random things I just remembered

2010-10-20T02:07:00.004+02:00

- I have been learning all about what little Israeli kids say through what Rimonit brings home from gan, but I don't always know how much is Rimonit and how much is what the other kids do. The first time I heard another little kid shout "Dai!!!" in exactly the same whiny yet aggressive tone of voice that Rimonit uses (though she doesn't use this so much anymore), I was startled at how well this random kid at the park was able to channel Rimonit. I had a similar moment at the park a couple weeks ago, when we ran into one of Rimonit's gan friends, Stav (they played really nicely together and then Rimonit brought over her toys and pretzels to share - she enjoys sharing when it's on her terms), and while they were on the see-saw Stav called out "Aya!" and her mother went over to investigate the boo-boo. And that's how I discovered that "Aya!" seems to be the Hebrew version of "ow," and not just a random Rimonit exclamation.

- RP has been using a lot more English at home, even for things that she used to use the Hebrew for. She does still say "eifo" a lot, but she also says "where." More to the point, I haven't heard her use "kah" or "k'hi" in a while - she now says "take it."

I don't even know all the words she actively says because she doesn't necessarily use the Hebrew ones. The babysitter came and Rimonit was climbing off the couch and said "Ani nofelet," which I can't recall ever hearing her say before ("I'm falling," though she wasn't really). In English, she has taken to warning herself to be careful as she starts feeling like she might fall. I think she might also be targeting it at the furniture. It's quite funny to hear her repeating my intonation and telling herself "CAREful!" as she is climbing onto/off of something.

She'll sometimes translate for me/give me the metanarrative, but switching from Hebrew to English, like I told the babysitter she was excited about her bday party in gan for the next day so she said in Hebrew, Are you going to have cake at the birthday party? And they're all talking about the upcoming uga and then she says to me in English, Ima, cake birthday, or something like that.

- She seems to think Jerusalem is the music capital of the world. We went there for a day over Sukkot and she saw live music in a few places - a few fairs/festivals plus some "busking" (ppl playing music on the street for money). Then we went the next week for a wedding, where there was, of course, more music. She's been saying "Shalayim music!" and driving herself to Shalayim in her taxi. For all of Sukkot and a couple weeks after, she was also building a sukkah in every corner of the house.

- Have I mentioned that Kinneret really really really loves holding the broom?

- They seem to have done a bit of a switch lately. It used to be, esp when K was just born, that the second one of us was holding her it set off an instant reaction in R, who suddenly realized that THE place to be was on the lap of whoever was holding K. Now, though, as soon as K sees R sitting on Ima's or Abba's lap, she's the one who sprints over and begs to be invited to the party.

The case of the missing doppelganger

2010-10-20T01:12:00.010+02:00

1. Over Shabbat we had friends over who have a daughter named Kinneret. Since they were originally supposed to come the week before (before one of them got sick), Rimonit basically went around for two weeks saying: "Have two Ki's!"

Fast forward to yesterday morning. I hear Rimonit saying "Eifo Rimonit?" and think at first that she is covering her face, with one of my scarves maybe, and initiating a game of peekaboo (which I think she picked up from Kinneret, since she hadn't really been doing that until K started initiating it, minus the words). But then I look over and she isn't covering her face with anything - she's standing there seeming vaguely perturbed, and not satisfied with being told that there she is.

"Where another one Rimonit?" she wanted to know. Repeatedly. She finally informed me that the other Rimonit's house was in my closet, and that seemed to settle the matter. It was all vaguely surreal. Warren thinks she's certain Kinneret pulled one over on her by digging up a second Ki (actually, Kiki, in her case), even if she's not entirely sure what K gained from it, and she's trying to pull even...

2. Things Rimonit has taken to doing recently: being a lion, a dog and an airplane (not all at once, though I wouldn't put that past her - she has been known to eat a hummus and peanut butter sandwich, and to add pasta to her hummus-cheese-tuna-egg sandwich). With the lion and the dog, she generally alternates between spotting the animal, say, in the kitchen (lion or dog) or on every landing of the stairwell (lion), and being the animal, which of course involves barking/roaring. I've noticed she also likes it to move around - after all, she doesn't stay in one place, so why should her animals?

She seems to be playing with her quasi-imaginary gan friends a bit less these days, but reports from gan indicate she's playing with her actual gan friends more, so I'm counting that as a net gain. It seems like having had one of her pals over for her birthday party was a bit of a turning point for both of them - before that, R had talked about Ofri and pretended to play with her, but they're both on the quiet side when in gan and while I was told they'd whisper together while waiting to be picked up, they weren't hanging out all the time or anything. Since the birthday party, though, they've reportedly been really living it up in gan, and R has also been doing some imaginary play with dolls and such with other girls in gan. The ganenet says she's much more open and talks more to the adults as well as the kids.

3. And speaking of birthday parties, Rimonit's having another one tomorrow morning at gan. They didn't want to have bday parties until after the hagim, so they randomly picked tomorrow to do it. It'll be a party for her and twin boys who she likes to play with. Boy, does Rimonit like birthdays!!! I made sure to point out that she's still 3. So far she hasn't asked for Rosh Hashana and Sukkot to come back because it's her birthday again, which is good because when she wanted to know Eifo Roshana? Eifo sukkah? Eifo shofar?, we told her they were sleeping but they would wake up next year, when she had another birthday and was 4. She told me the other day that Shabbat was sleeping, and when I agreed, she asked the perfectly logical next question: "Where Shabbat bed?"

4. And speaking of beds, Kinneret's latest trick is pummeling me out of it. She's little, but the girl knows how to get things done! Why stand there and cry when you can prod Ima's head and arms, pull Ima's hair and generally make it quite clear that sleeping time is over (even if it only just began)? And she somehow manages to do it all in such a sweet way.

She also loves to tap-dance! (without those shoes, though.) It's kind of this fast shuffling of the feet. And she understands the word "dancing," often performing when she hears it, even if there's no music. (Rimonit's favored forms of dancing are jumping up and down heavily, like an elephant, and turning around in circles. They also like to dance holding hands sometimes.)

Loyalty oath

2010-10-17T23:22:00.002+02:00

Here's my latest Tablet column, about Israel's proposed loyalty oath.

One day, three scenes

2010-09-21T18:58:00.004+02:00

Scene 1, morning, at home:
Rimonit is playing on her own in the living room, next to the wooden coffee table. She asks for a bowl, and I give her a plastic one. This isn't so unusual, since the kiddies often play with kitchen utensils. Then I see her coming out of the kitchen with another plastic bowl.
Me (suspicious): What are you doing with those bowls?
RP: Ely! Barak!
Me: You're eating with Ely (pron. Ee-lie) and Barak? (Needless to say, neither of these gan-mates is physically present.)
RP confirms this to be the case and requests another bowl. I get it for her (after all, it wouldn't be polite to leave one of her guests without a dish) but tell her no more bowls, which she repeats and seems to accept.
Logically enough, she subsequently requires three spoons. I give her regular spoons from the cutlery drawer and she sets three places at the table.

Scene 2, afternoon, at home:
We've come home from gan and sukkah decoration shopping and I happen to pass by as RP is unzipping her new fuzzy pink backpack with 3-D white fuzzy doggie head (ie it sticks out of the bag, isn't just a picture - and she love love loves it! thank you dani and savta june!). And what do I see? She pinched three very familiar-looking spoons and brought them to gan this morning while I wasn't looking! Keeping my laughter inside, I told her that spoons stay in the house and don't go in the backpack or to gan. She eventually agreed to bring them back to the kitchen. Oh well, she may have walked off with the silverware but at least she brought it back at the end of the day!

Scene 3, 6:50 p.m., at home:
The girls have eaten (or at least played with their food sufficiently) and I have just given Kinneret her nighttime bottle and done her inhalation (both have mild asthma, which I'm told is quite common in kids and which I hope will go away when they get a bit older - actually, now that I think about it, R hasn't needed to be inhaled in several months, ptu ptu ptu). I say to Kinneret: Okay, it's time to go bed! To my utter shock, she gets up immediately - and LEADS THE WAY STRAIGHT TO HER BEDROOM DOOR! She stops in front of the door, sees that it's closed and starts slapping at it. I have no way of knowing whether she was reacting to/understanding my words or the pre-bed ritual + maybe intonation of my sentence, but either way, what can I say but Wow!

Things Rimonit has been saying

2010-09-20T03:02:00.003+02:00

* tni li hand (holding Kinneret's hand down the path in front of our building in very big sisterly fashion)
* lo l'bite! (to Ki)
* lo l'break, lo l'take (seeing any trends here?)
* Nit lo want THAT 'tainer (because that's not the container Ki was playing with first. the 'that' is a recent upgrade from 'ze.' she also occasionally remembers to say 'yes' instead of 'ken.' the occasional 'thank you' comes out something like 'manku.')
* eifo rosh hashana? (when 'hagei tishrei' cd starts playing:) hinei rosh hashana!
* yalla, yalla roshana!
* ima metuka! (not so true, but i like it anyway)
* i lovOO!

* over the last few weeks, she has started really absorbing my repeated explanation that the reason we can't open this bag of pasta/can of corn/etc etc right now is because there's already one open and first we finish what's open and then open a new one. now every time she sees any container, it's all: lo open. finish open! and she's not satisfied until i repeat the rule. (that's right, first we finish what's open and THEN we open a new one...)

* she very much excels at the metanarrative. she'll often be running around the house 'singing,' and regularly interrupt herself to inform me 'Nit singing!' another time, she had a whole 'shabbat shalom' back and forth with warren; i was sitting right there but she stopped in the middle, looked at me and said, 'Nit Abba shabbat shalom!' she also narrates what other ppl are doing, like when warren took another helping of something: 'Abba want more.' About a month or two (three?) ago we were at ppl with a dog and she said 'Nit dress for Shabbat. Doggie lo dress for Shabbat.' Have i mentioned she loves shabbat? all week long she sits in her bathtub cooking for shabbat (hot! oven. Nit cooking shabbat)

* she love love loves playing with her quasi-imaginary friends: her buddies from gan who do exist but just aren't actually there while she's opening the front door to let them in to the house.

If it walks like a duck...

2010-08-01T21:55:00.000+03:00

... it's probably Kinneret.

Rimonit's first pun

2010-08-01T17:08:00.002+03:00

Rimonit is still a month away from her third birthday, but yesterday we became the proud parents of a bilingual punner!

She took Warren's kippa off his head, grabbed a bunch of plastic toy keys and put them on his head instead, then said with all deliberateness: KEYpa!

What more could a parent ask for?

My tea-sipping Harley chick

2010-03-09T09:25:00.005+02:00

Kinneret has been fully sitting for a while now and is already getting her fifth tooth! (Once she started, she just kept on going!) She is almost eight months old, and likes eating banana, avocado, sweet potato, applesauce and Abba's soup.

And speaking of eating, Rimonit has been letting us know that she is up for strong tastes. She begged for Warren's blue cheese and he was sure she would spit it back out, but she kept right on eating it and asked for more. And she loves crystallized ginger! Who could have guessed?

Rimonit also loves drinking "tea," and has graduated from pretending to drink from her red plastic tea cups to pouring some water into any handy receptacle (unfortunately including those that have holes in the bottom) and announcing that she is drinking tea. She has also taken to clinking cups and saying l'chaim (which comes out like the Hebrew pronunciation of Cain, 'kayin') - this morning she picked up Kinneret's bottle and bashed it against her cup, saying 'l'chaim!'

There was a Shabbat that we did introduce her to this (not on purpose - someone said l'chaim and she got all into it), but that was a while ago, so I'm not sure if that's why she started now. It might also be connected to gan, because their topic of the week last week was being happy and one of the art projects she came home with was a mazel tov sign, so l'chaim could conceivably have played a role in it (though it is also possible that she was storing her memory of doing it at home until she was ready to release it at the time she deemed appropriate).

But lest you think she's all about tea and joy, let me assure you she has become quite the Harley chick. Sort of. She gets very excited every time she sees a tus-tus, which is how Israelis refer to the ubiquitous motor scooter, and says 'voom voom!' The only thing is, I've been telling her they're motorcycles ('kull,' as in the last syllable of the word, in Rimonit-speak), even though I know they're not, because to me 'scooter' connotes those little scooters that were very trendy kids toys/vehicles a few years ago, and when I think of a motorized scooter I think of those same things with a motor attached, which I also see not infrequently on the streets and sidewalks of Givatayim. But since this word comes up so often now (about every five steps on our walk home from gan), I've been feeling guilty about giving her the wrong word. Do I switch midstream to motor scooter? I personally think of it as a tus-tus, but I don't want to cave in and give her the Hebrew word, which she'll learn soon enough anyway. I think I might have to make the switch.

She may have a few years to go before joining the Hells Angels, but in the meantime RP has become a certified member of the Snot Police, who swoop in, tissue at the ready, to wipe poor Kinneret's weary (and, need I say, snotty) nose. This morning she kept saying 'not, not, not,' and when I was too dense to notice, she found a tissue and made sure I took care of business. Later, she proudly announced, 'Ki not!' She is also getting better at saying longer phrases, like 'See you soon!'

RP, who is now 2 and a half years old, knows that she is an 'ahot gedola,' a big sister. I'm not 100 percent sure she knows what that means, but I saw the bulletin board in gan had family words on it this week, so when out of nowhere she said yesterday, quite clearly, 'Ani gedola' ('I'm big'), I said 'Ani ahot gedola' ('I'm a big sister'), and she gave me that certain smile of recognition that she reserves for when I correctly guess the word in Hebrew that she's trying to say. We said 'ahot gedola' a few times, and then we said 'big sister' (which she has heard me say before, but we never really dwelled on it). I told her she's Kinneret's big sister and that Kinneret is her little sister. Then she said 'Ima!' so I told her that Ima is Rimonit and Kinneret's Ima, because there's nothing like circular logic.

As for RP's new bed, the transition has actually gone much more smoothly than I had expected, at least at night. Naptime has been hard-hit, but it's hard to say whether the bed is entirely to blame.

Rimonit has also been getting very into examining the pictures in her books - well, 'book' would be more accurate at the moment; she's on a "Goodnight Moon" kick, especially any page that has the balloon ('aloon! aloon!') on it. She also likes the page with the bowl, and sometimes pretends to feed herself, and me, from it.

Sometimes she will bring me a magazine and insist that we look at it together. Images she's especially liked: a photo of an Olympic athlete with her child (she kept saying 'baby! baby!'), a photo of a room where assisted suicides take place (we pointed out the bed and the pillow and the blanket and the chairs and the window, and compared the picture on the wall in the photo to the picture on the wall in our living rooom), and a full-page illustrative photo of a snappily dressed guy wearing a briefcase and holding one of those sticks with a tablecloth-type thing wrapped up at the end of it, for a story about the recession (we identified each visible item of his clothing, and Rimonit especially liked pointing out his briefcase, which by the way, is yet another object she knows as 'ki'). Who would have thought I'd be combing through the New York Times Magazine or the Atlantic to look at the pictures?

Rimonit has also gotten much more into identifying herself by name, and has started to regularly point to herself and say 'Nit' (an upgrade from the previous 'Ni'). When I ask her in Hebrew what her name is, she now responds 'Nit' (when she feels like it, of course). This is the one thing I have initiated in Hebrew, because I think it's important that she is able to answer the question here. Oddly enough, when I ask her in English, she has been known to respond 'Abba.' I'll let wiser heads than me try to figure that one out...

No more toothless grins

2010-02-16T22:24:00.003+02:00

Oops, I forgot to mention that Kinneret got her first tooth last week! (In front, on top)

She's had so many milestones in such a short time that it's hard to keep up!

Today was her seven-month birthday.

Here she is standing against the coffee table:

It's bed time!

2010-02-16T21:43:00.004+02:00

Tonight is Rimonit's first night in her new bed (which arrived this afternoon)! I hadn't built up the idea beforehand, partly because I didn't know when the bed would be coming, but when the delivery/assembly people came she was excited to hear that they were putting together a new bed for her. But that excitement didn't come close to matching her reaction when she actually got to see and touch and climb on the bed.

She ran to get her little orange chair and put it at one end of the railing, climbed up, and spent the next half hour either sitting in different spots on the bed, lying on it (gotta test it out!), or crawling back and forth across it. She especially liked getting onto the bed by standing on the chair, crawling to the other end, climbing back down and starting the process all over again. When Kinneret dared pull herself up by holding on to the bed, Rimonit quite nonchalantly removed those insolent little fingers.

And when I wanted to put R on her changing table to get her into her pajamas after her bath (as I usually do), she wouldn't hear of it, and flopped herself down on her new bed in her bathrobe, so I got her ready there.

But it wasn't excitement I was concerned about, it was what R would do with the sudden freedom of actually being able to get out of bed (cue ominous tone) whenever she felt like it. I wasn't surprised that she got out of bed within about two minutes of being put down, but she did stay down after the third time I put her to bed (within half an hour of the first time). Now we'll see what happens when she gets into her lighter sleep cycles later in the night...

As for Kinneret, she is also moving forward (or, more accurately, upright). After skipping that whole sitting thing and going straight to pulling herself up and initial forays at cruising, she has now circled back to it and is starting to sit nicely on her own. When she gets more stable, I may start giving R&K baths together. Until then, K loves standing at the edge of the bathtub and supervising the proceedings.

Here's K in January, quasi-sitting while leaning against a pillow: (I haven't been able to capture her sitting on her own yet, since by the time I get the camera it's all over.)

Pres. Obama fathered my child...

2010-02-04T13:38:00.005+02:00

...at least according to Rimonit, who has taken to "reading" the newspaper, in the course of which she likes to point to every photo of a man (including Obama) and say "Abba!"

I took the opportunity to introduce the concept of man, woman, boy and girl, leading to an unforeseen cross-linguistic moment. When she saw a picture of a boy on a riding toy (on the box her riding toy came in, which we now use as a catchall surface for stuff I keep next to the rocking chair), she said "bimba" (the Hebrew for riding toy, which she somehow pronounces "Ima," as in me) and I pointed out that the little person sitting on the bimba was a boy.

To that, she motioned to the boy with her hand to jump off the box and play with her, calling out "Bo'i!" (the feminine form of "come"). I suppose that's an improvement over her previous pronunciation, in which "bo'i" (which she uses indiscriminately) sounded more or less the same as "bye," so you were never quite sure if she wanted to go hang out somewhere else without you or to take you somewhere, usually to the kitchen for some "ummy."

Speaking of which, I was kind of surprised when she started using "yummy" as a synonym for "food," since I never deliberately used it that way. But I can see where the confusion might have come in, since I often use "food" and "yummy" together and place more of an emphasis on the "yummy."

In addition to the Ima/bimba and boy/bo'i/bye confusion, there are a few other words RP uses that sound more or less the same, even though you wouldn't really think they would. For instance, "water bottle," which is how she now describes actual water bottles as well as Kinneret's botles (or the baby bottle RP sometimes uses, which is actually filled with water and therefore is kind of a water bottle), sounds surprisingly like the way she pronounces "Gruffalo," the name of an awesome kids book by British author Julia Donaldson, and Warren often thinks she is saying "Abba lo!" In other words, No Abba right now, try again later (she does the same thing with me - she's nothing if not mercurial, but then again, she is 2).

Also, she says "ki" to mean both Kinneret and the very similar-sounding corn flakes. In the last few days she has also switched from indiscriminately saying "kah" (take/here, masculine version) to indiscriminately saying "k'hi" (feminine version), which often sounds like "ki." Of course, an actual key is also a ki.

In addition to command words in Hebrew like "kah/k'hi" and "bo/bo'i," RP has also picked up lots of sharing words at gan, which she uses often at home:
Lo (no)
Dai (stop/enough)
(both the above are generally repeated several times and come with lots of exlamation marks)
Lo laga'at! (don't touch - she usually leaves off the "t" sound, though)
Sheli! (mine)
Ani! (me, as in Let me do it)
Ani po! (I'm here, as in don't you dare try to sit next to me)
and, as I mentioned in a previous post, Oy va voy (as in, What do you say to a baby sister rapidly approaching your new Mrs. Potato Head that Adaya/Savta Lea got you? Answer: Lo laga'at! Oy va voy Ki!)

But to be fair, she knows both "hug" and "hibbuk," and distributes both generously, very much including to Ki.

And although she uses some Hebrew words at home, she has also begun distinguishing between Hebrew and English words for the same objects, using English words with us and Hebrew words with her babysitter, Efrat.

At home, she uses "shoes," "socks" and "jacket" a lot, since those are some of her favorite things. But as soon as Efrat comes, she rushes to get her na'ala'im, garba'im and me'il - and/or just say the words - knowing that Efrat usually takes them to the park. She also associates the word "avoda" (work) with Efrat, because once when Rimonit said Abba or Ima, Efrat told her Ima and Abba were "ba'avoda." Now, in addition to names for outerwear, one of the first things Rimonit says when she sees Efrat is "avoda!"

Superbaby strikes again

2010-02-04T13:36:00.001+02:00

Kinneret took two steps today! (while holding my hands)

Yes, she is still only six months old!

Skipping ahead

2010-01-31T20:48:00.009+02:00

I think I now know what Kinneret was doing while I was waiting and waiting for her to pop out: She was skipping a few chapters ahead in the "How To Be A Baby" manual (you know, the one that explains how sleep is an evil force that must be resisted at all costs).

To make a short story even shorter, she moved from combat crawling to crawling crawling at a mere five and a half months.

The next day - because why stick to your newly learned skill when you're only a few months ahead of the game? - I caught her raising herself up on her knees while leaning against a toy.

Later that day, she was leaning against said toy while STANDING ON HER FEET (though the picture below actually shows her leaning against a couch cushion).

Now about six and a half months, she spends her time practicing that standing trick on any available object (one of her favorites is a wooden bar under our dining room table that is just the right height, but my knee also works pretty well). In between, she speed-crawls to every corner of the house and squeezes herself into any spot that doesn't look big enough to fit even her (though I'm not exactly sure why the space between the rocking chair and the bookshelf looks so tempting).

She isn't fully sitting on her own yet - but she hasn't let that inhibit her plans to win a gold medal in the next Olympics, or at least run a marathon by the end of the year.

You know you've been putting in too much kiddie time when...

2010-01-31T20:42:00.002+02:00

... You're packing yourself food before going to work, spy a pacifier lying around, and think, 'I should put that in the bag, just in case.'

Update: Almost sitting, chattering on empty

2009-12-27T20:33:00.009+02:00

Kinneret gets further and further each day, and I often find her in places she had yet to venture previously. I'm not really sure what the technical definition is of crawling, but she sure is getting around. I still classify her as combat crawling (meaning that she kind of pulls herself forward on her arms, often with her belly on the ground), but lately she's been picking her belly up off the ground while she does it, so she's definitely moving forward in more ways than one.

She is also getting close to sitting - she kind of props herself up on her elbow while lying on her side, so she's in this semi-sitting position. For a few days she kept falling down and wailing, but now she often goes into a roll.

Rimonit's language has been developing beautifully, and she is now frequently putting together two words (or a word and a two-word phrase, like 'lo tza beans' for 'don't want ['lo rotza'] beans'). Her pronunciation is also improving (she impressed several neighbors with her 'Shabbat shalom').

RP is also bringing back a lot of Hebrew words - and songs - from gan. Whereas before, her association with the song 'Yonatan Hakatan' was the 'oy va voy,' she now regularly (very, very regularly, in fact) asks me to sing it (showing that her judgment obviously has a ways to go yet), by saying 'katan.' She has also gotten into 'Ooga, ooga, ooga,' the Israeli version of 'Ring around a rosy,' and periodically shouts 'lakoom!' and stands up. This morning the three of us 'danced' to the whole song while listening to the CD. She also holds her mouth to her face and says 'apchee!' (the equivalent of 'achoo') at the appropriate spots for 'Hashafan Hakatan.'

Two concepts she has recently learned are 'empty' and 'soon.' Both have been quite valuable for me. Her understanding of 'empty' means that now if we're out of something she wants, I can explain that it's empty (I usually try to show her the evidence), and she gets it. She also likes announcing 'empty' on her own, like if she finds a bag with nothing in it (she pronounces it 'etty'). She also says 'Abba soon' (which she often pronounces 'doon'), and she knows it means he's going to come home eventually but not that second, which is pretty much what soon is. It's nice that she has a (minimal) grasp on the concept of future, not just now now now.

She likes identifying objects with their owner, but where she used to just say 'Abba' when she saw, say, his shirt lying around, now she sometimes puts the name and the object together, sometimes in English and sometimes in Hebrew. When she saw a suitcase Warren has used, she said 'Abba tik,' and she later pointed to his toothbrush and said 'Abba teeth.' Granted, both those phrases sounded pretty much the same in real (spoken) life: Abba tee. But I continue to stick by my interpretations, since so much of understanding her is about paying attention to the situation.

Probably the most common word combinations are those that involve 'no' or 'more': 'No dressed,' 'more mayim.' And speaking of getting dressed, the latest preference Rimonit has expressed is a rejection of Pampers and a very vehement support for the Israeli brand of diapers, Titulim. Go figure...

Photos! Photos! Photos!

2009-12-27T11:50:00.002+02:00

For more pix, go here.

What the bureaucrats are up to these days

2009-12-25T12:20:00.002+02:00

Who's Orwellian now?

Going places

2009-12-06T14:02:00.002+02:00

KL is combat-crawling quite a lot - using her hands to push the rest of her body forward. Still practicing getting on all fours. Rimonit, keep an eye on those Lego towers! Little sis is on the loose!

Hitting the big time

2009-12-03T13:14:00.002+02:00

Kinneret has been living on the edge for weeks if not months - she isn't happy unless she has sidled up to the very edge of her mat or crib mattress, if not beyond. She has also been rolling over quite a lot. And now... she's getting in gear to crawl.

I know, she's only 4 months old (well, 4 and a half), but she's been a squiggly squirmer since before she was born. The last few days she has been getting on all fours and hanging out for a few second, then dropping back down. Sometimes she also tries to move a bit in that position. I think Rimonit was doing this at about six months, and only after she had been scooting along on her stomach for a while. Of course it's possible this stage could last a while, but looking at her getting on her knees the whole time and rocking back and forth (she's doing that right now), it's looking like she's going to start crawling any moment.

As for Rimonit, she's in a bit of a Dada phase. She very much enjoys taking her artwork that she made in day care and deconstructing it at home. I'm all for it - it means the same project gets twice as much mileage, and means I don't have to feel bad when I throw it all out anyway since by the time I do it's in tatters.

My favorite was the paper cucumber and tomato she brought home the other week, because they were discussing morning time, and that's what you eat in the morning (along with hummus and chocolate spread, of course!).

Blah blah

2009-11-05T02:08:00.003+02:00

Here's me Babbling about two young'uns (photos have nothing to do with anyone I know): http://www.babble.com/six-toddler-infant-care-tips

Hee hee

2009-11-03T17:19:00.002+02:00

KL has sort of started laughing - but only when she's looking at her big sister.

Oy va voy!

2009-10-15T20:03:00.003+02:00

Yup, "oy va voy" is one of Rimonit's newest phrases, replete with finger-wagging - but only when she hears the song "Yonatan Hakatan." They obviously do it at gan when they get to the "oy va voy lo lashovav" part. It's a very funny sight.

On the other end of the naughty-to-nice spectrum of stuff she clearly picked up at gan, she also says "Bravo!" while clapping like a seal.

Nothing like a good Israeli education.

Kookoo for short tyrants

2009-10-12T22:31:00.017+02:00

Here are a couple of recent pics of Rimonit with a ponytail, or as it's known here, a kookoo, sprouting out of her head.

But just because Israelis use their own word for ponytail doesn't mean they make do without their little pony - it's just that an Israeli "pony" is what Americans call bangs (and the Brits know as fringe). "Kookoo" is also what Israelis say for "peekaboo," as well as having the distinction of being one of the words that Rimonit for some reason has decided to pronounce by stressing the second syllable - kooKOO! - which frankly, makes her sound a little cuckoo (though in a very cu-cute way, of course).

RP will often make her demand for a hair band just after she sees me put one in my hair. And she's also taken to other hair accessories of mine.

But it's not just the head that merits imitation, as you can see in this photo from the summer.

Not only does Rimonit have a head&foot fetish, she has also crowned herself Fashion Dictator of Givatayim. While I have no problem letting her pick her clothes (especially when she sticks to one of the options I offer her), I wouldn't mind getting the same consideration from her. Instead, on some days I have to face a tantrum if I don't wear the headscarf she picks out for me. She has also developed an objection to my wearing flip-flops and will regularly remove them from my feet; if my clogs are nearby, she'll insist that I put those on instead.

However, she's not above trying on my flip-flops herself (along with her dress-up shoes - silver slip-ons left here by W's mom).

Oh, and in case you're wondering how all that dictatorial talent plays out with a new little sister to boss around, let's just say that Rimonit has been very good about sharing her toys - and no, it's not okay if Kinneret isn't quite ready to get a grip on a Lego tower yet. (Rimonit has also been very good at, shall we say, sharing Kinneret's few toys with herself.)

Here's a peek at what KL looks like when big sis isn't trying to force her to accept her offerings or, as per today's venture, to clap her hands. (By the way, another second-syllable word of Rimonit's is baBY! - which she has recently started using for actual babies, Kinneret included, instead of her previous pick, "dolly.")

All in all, it's starting to seem like Napoleon wasn't such a misguided idea for a name after all...

File under: Things I never expected to hear myself say

2009-10-06T19:51:00.002+02:00

No, only Ima can put a basket on Kinneret's head.

RP becomes a big sister

2009-10-01T01:36:00.009+02:00

The time has finally come to introduce Kinneret Leora, who was born on July 16 and weighed in at 3.205 kilos.

Some FAQs:

So what do you actually call her?
Aside from Kinneret, the name Squirrel Monkey (including variations such as the Monk) has stuck pretty well so far. And if you don't get why, try putting her on your arm, and watch her cling to the branch like a... squirrel monkey, of course.

What color are her eyes?
Beats me. At first they were dark blue. Now they're just dark, kind of a greenishy brownish. (Just try putting that on your driver's license, though.)

Who does she look like?
Whence this obsession with carbon copitude? I don't see any resemblance to either of us or to RP, but in a generic way, she does look like she could theoretically be our kid, unlike her rather Aryan-looking older sister. (As one religious mother at RP's day care said, after being told that no, my husband is not blond: 'Maybe it's the mailman. God forbid!')

Does she do anything other than eat and sleep (and spit up and burp)?
Well, I'm glad you asked that, because I have to say Schwarzenegger's got nothing on this girl's muscles! Not only does she pick up her head and chest like a real pro, but at 2.5 months, she's already rolling over (from front to back and more recently, from back to side)! This seems like a continuation of the squirminess she exhibited in utero. Let me tell you, this girl can move!

You didn't give this one four names too, did you?
Yup. Kinneret Leora Kordova Wienburg, aka KLKW (or just KL for short). But this time we sent a letter to the Interior Ministry pointing out that (in the absence of middle names in this country) we do in fact mean it when we request that Kordova be listed as her third first name. Oddly enough, we only had to send in the request once and got just what we asked for! I didn't even get a phone call from a puzzled clerk! Maybe she was having her lobotomy that day.

Speaking of her names: Why?
Leora (note the "e") is after Warren's grandfather Leonard (get it, LEOnard, LEOra - pretty clever, hey?). And Kinneret - well, you know. It's a lake. We've already got a pomegranate, and everyone knows that once you have a fruit, the inevitable next step is a body of water.

So, does she get less attention, not being the only kid in the house?
Definitely. On the plus side for us, she seems more laid back about life than Rimonit - she doesn't demand to be fed the very second she wakes up, she actually lets us put her down every once in a while, she sleeps. And on the plus side for her, she gets the chance to develop an early resistance to unnamed parties trying to poke a pacifier in her eye. And what more could a body of water really ask for?

Any Smunch-sized space will do

2009-05-05T10:43:00.003+03:00

As you can see, Rimonit is thrilled to have dumped out whatever was in the basket under her stroller seat in order to make room for her to climb into it. If I recall correctly (this is from about a month ago - okay okay, we take too long to upload our photos), this was the same day or the day after she had snuck one of my shoes and one of Warren's shoes into the basket as we were about to leave for day care; and if shoes can fit inside, why not a Smunch?

She now channels her stroller-related climbing ability into clambering in and out of her regular seat, which she does all the time now, requiring us to keep the brakes on in the house so it doesn't move around while she climbs (it's a stable stroller, so fortunately we don't have to worry about tipping-over issues). All in all, she's quite the monkey.

I expect to get paid by the hour, you know

2009-05-05T09:57:00.010+03:00

Okay, so Pesach is long over by now, but here's Rimonit getting ready for some pre-Pesach cleaning. She just loves pushing around the floor cleaner thingie and/or the broom! Note some of her favorite things: a cup clutched in one hand and a bag over the other.

And here she is in (somewhat fuzzy) action:

Does she talk yet?

2009-04-13T15:53:00.004+03:00

People have been asking me a lot lately whether Rimonit is talking, so here is a list of whatever I can think of that she currently appears to say and understand. (Note: This does not include the stream of babbledygook that only RP understands.)

Says (notice this is in Hebrew and English):
Et ze (=this) (probably her most common words, though it took me a while to recognize that she was actually saying words and not just sounds, since we speak to her only in English - she obviously picked this up from maon)
More (mo)
Abba
Toda (da) (=thank you) (also picked up from maon, and also took us a while to figure out - but once I started looking at when she uses it, I saw that she pretty much reserves 'da' for when someone gives her something. at maon the ganenet says toda when she gives the kids something, which seems like a weird idea, but i guess it works, since she didn't pick this up at home)
Hello (aya)
(?) Bath (ba)
(?) Banana (ana)

Signs:
All done
Drink
Eat
Hello/bye-bye (=wave)

Understands:
Anything she says or signs plus:
Hands up (when I'm dressing/undressing her)
Legs
Nose
Head
Come
Out
Stop/wait
Bye-bye bath (the cue that bath time is about to end)
No
Don't touch
(?) Ima

She has also recently started getting interested in animals, and points and babbles excitedly to any birds, cats or dogs she sees. But she doesn't like when they come too close; a couple of times she's gotten upset when a dog started sniffing her.

Bottom's up!

2009-03-12T14:25:00.001+02:00

There's nothing like the old tushy-in-the-air position to guarantee a good night's sleep!

Purim: A great opportunity to dress up (or not!) as Worst Ima of the Year

2009-03-08T20:18:00.013+02:00

(In Purim-induced bovine distress. Get this thing off my head!)

As Purim approaches (Tuesday in most of the world, Wednesday in Jerusalem), the streets seem full to bursting with kids and teens getting in the dressing-up spirit. Having a kid of my own in day care makes me realize how ignorant I used to be when it comes to just how long that spirit can be made to last; Rimonit has been forced into a different getup every day for the past two weeks or so (her reaction, predictably, ranges from utter indifference to wary, cringing antagonism of the "don't you even think about going near me with that hat" variety). She has already been a chick (well, not really, but the gananot sure did try, and I have the yellow smock and chick mask to prove it), a mushroom, a clown (I think), a (non-)fez-wearing Moroccan (or Turk, as they insisted), and all manner of combinations of random face paint and (mostly resisted) hats/masks.

All this seems orchestrated primarily to ensure that Purim itself will turn out to be anti-climactic. It also seems kind of odd that one of the shortest holidays on the Jewish calendar (only one day, with a quasi-second day as backup!) is being dragged out to last longer than the longest (what, a week each of Pesach, Sukkot and Chanuka isn't enough?).

But the gananot seem immune to this logic, and mercilessly set up Ima Ve'Abba Shel Rimonit (yes, those are now our official names) for our apparent failure of a major parenting test Friday - when, it seems, we were supposed to have dressed the kid up at home and brought her into maon in costume, because heaven knows she hasn't had enough of the grown-ups trying to get her to wear funny-looking stuff lately. Apparently there was a sign on the door. And apparently every single other parent at maon read the sign and remembered to dress up the progeny. That would be, you know, all of them. Except, of course, for us.

Reactions of gananot when Warren dropped off the normally dressed kid amid a sea of Queen Esthers/fairy princesses and at least one King Ahashverosh: Shock! Horror! Shock and horror! (though not on RP's part, obviously). Our crime was so heinous that we got a call at home shortly afterward to let us know that we really should go back to maon and bring in a costume for the poor underdressed kid. Naughty parents! Tsk tsk tsk! (or as they say here, Nu nu nu!)

The truth is, if RP were a little older and could actually absorb the fact that the other kids were dressed funny, and maybe even feel bad about being THE ONLY ONE WITHOUT A COSTUME (oy, I can already imagine the everlasting recriminations if this were ever to occur at a later stage, God forbid), I probably would feel guilty about it for quite some time afterward, maybe even forever. But as things stand, it was just kind of funny that the gananot cared so much when she so obviously didn't.

End of story: We were walking past maon anyway on our way to breakfast, so we dropped off the cow costume I had already acquired, to the vast relief of the gananot (they had, of course, already painted her face so she would at least be somewhat uncomfortable). When I say "we" dropped off the costume, I mean that I made Warren go in because I was scared they would look at me like I had just vaulted to the top of the Worst Ima of the Year list in one mighty bound. I can only hope this will be the worst of the inevitable foul-ups to come, rather than the precursor of further depths of parental depravity and deprivation. In my defense, though, I would just like to add that when you press the button on the cow's head (which, on Rimonit, just kind of hangs off the back of the costume), it emits a very expressive Moo! Beat that, fairy princess!

The Book of Dahlia: Not as good as they say

2009-03-03T23:18:00.017+02:00

I just read "The Book of Dahlia" by Elisa Albert, one of this year's finalists for the Jewish Book Council's Sami Rohr Prize. Even though I recently wrote a rundown of the prize nominees for Haaretz Books, I had only read one of the books ("The Septembers of Shiraz," by a real-life Dalia), and thought I should educate myself a bit more about the books written by the authors the book council's judges consider this year's most promising Jewish fiction writers.

Albert seems to have gotten almost universally laudatory reviews - and I can't help but wonder why. The reviews I've seen tend to fall into one of two categories: the younger set, excited to find a familiar voice in fiction that represents them (as one review put it, "I realize in some ways it reflects poorly on me to say this, but it's been a while since I've read a book that I identified with as strongly as this one"), and the presumably older set, excited to come across a fresh new voice that I infer sounds kind of exotic to them when contained between the covers of a book (writing about Albert's earlier collection of short stories, which I haven't read, one reviewer said, "It is also both refreshing and a little shocking (at least for me) to find such bawdy, hot prose as Albert's in the work of a young female Jewish American writer").

My problem is that being exposed to 256 pages of the running commentary of the protagonist - Dahlia Finger, a bitter uber-slacker and potty-mouthed pothead living off Daddy's largesse and obsessed with the movies of her youth, who is diagnosed with a brain tumor at 29 - made me feel like I was stuck on a never-ending inter-campus bus ride in front of a couple of frat boys discussing how plastered they got the night before, in a conversation consisting almost entirely of the many variations of the word "fuck," with an occasional "asshole" or "whatever" thrown in to spice things up a bit. I found myself rushing to get to the end of the book, not just because it's not exactly a difficult read and certainly not because I couldn't wait to see what happened next (there's not much in the way of plot action here), but mostly because I just wanted to get off the damn bus already.

Chronology puts me in the "young set" camp (I was born the same year as Dahlia, so we share the same cultural references - and the book is replete with them, making it seem all the less likely "The Book of Dahlia" will have much lasting resonance, rather like Dahlia herself). But I have no particular desire to hang out with this character for so long, even if she is vaguely familiar. Albert has said she didn't want to fall into the trap of making Dahlia too likeable, and in a way that's admirable, but in addition to not being a sympathetic figure, Dahlia's also not particularly loathsome or anger-inducing or even all that interesting - which means I ultimately don't much care what happens to her one way or the other.

(I also found myself distracted by the occasional incorrect usage of the Hebrew that Albert scatters throughout the book, mostly in connection with Dahlia's mother being an Israeli immigrant. Was there really no way Albert could have checked whether Israelis would actually be asking Dahlia "Ma shlomcha?" - the masculine version of "How are you?"?)

After I finished the book (ah, my stop has arrived!) I realized that my reaction was similar to the one I had when reading another highly acclaimed female Jewish writer, Allegra Goodman, whose not-particularly-appealing young slacker chick protagonist Sharon Spiegelman turned me off to "Paradise Park." Just coincidence? Or is there a silent conspiracy out there of reviewers/culture-shapers who have come down firmly on the side of disaffected young Jewish female characters, however uninteresting they may actually be?

For all that Albert is said to employ irreverent, conformity-bashing writing (the cynical take on the happy-happy-joy-joy self-help culture! the courage involved in - spoiler alert - killing off the main character, and in a book about dying, yet! creating a character who's a rabbi but not a nice guy!), the book actually contains a kind of sneaky reverse snobbishness, a take on the mainstream that I suspect may even be partly responsible for some of the, let's face it, conformist positive reception of the book.

There are a couple of instances in which Albert seems to use the book to harangue anyone daring to think of criticizing it. At one point, she writes: "Why so profane, ask the bookclubbers? Because we are talking here about death, and fuck you if you don't like it: You're going to die, too. This is serious. Fuck fuck fuck." Elsewhere, she basically tells us that if we don't sympathize with Dahlia, we're hypocrites who don't believe that life is valuable just for the fact of its being lived.

One reviewer takes Albert's challenge a step further, implying that anyone who doesn't like the book is probably not very sophisticated: "'The Book of Dahlia' will probably find detractors just as passionate as its champions. As Albert writes, 'A vile, self-absorbed, depressing, lazy, messy, spoiled, f-up [that, of course, is not how Albert actually puts it], probably mentally ill loser dies. So what?' Albert answers her own 'So what?' with a deeply sympathetic portrait, devoid of sentimentality. Readers looking for a depiction of illness as a crucible for the triumph of the human spirit will be disappointed. But this book keeps its steadfast focus on a more complicated truth, and that is its triumph."

Yeah, maybe, if this is the first book you've read that features death. But for readers with high expectations (possibly unreasonably so, I'm sure some would argue, and probably heightened by the good reviews and award nomination), who are on a hunt for writers whose language transports and for complex characters who demand to be cared about, Elisa Albert's "The Book of Dahlia" is just not the hot shit, as Dahlia herself might have put it, that it's cracked up to be.

She came, she saw...

2009-02-24T19:05:00.006+02:00

Forget musical chairs - Rimonit has begun a game of tactical chair. She now realizes that her little orange chair is not only something to drag around, something to sit on and something to put her favorite toys and/or food on, but also something to give her some much-desired (on her part, at least) extra height.

We don't object when she drags her chair over to the old coffee table, which is just that little bit higher than she can comfortably scale on her own, to help her climb onto it. (This is okay with us partly because she's very good at getting down nicely on her own and partly because it's not very far off the ground in the first place.)

But it's a different story when she tries to conquer the dining table, that catchall of newspapers, books, earrings, dirty dishes and a random collection of other stuff that gets cleared off every Friday only to miraculously become just as jumbled a mess by Sunday (to W's dismay). While we have slowly (and, admittedly, not consistently) been getting used to moving things away from the dangerous border zone of the table's edges, the middle of the table has become one of the few sacred spaces left where we can put things without too much fear they will end up in the Smunch's wagon.

(One of W's colleagues learned this the hard way, when RP was making a run for the open door while clutching his wallet, which he had inadvisedly left on the coffee table.)

But now Rimonit very deliberately pulls her chair up to the dining table and stands up on it, wearing a look of thrilled wonder at this whole new world of previously hidden - and eminently desirable - objects. Sometimes she pulls up next to a wooden big-people chair and climbs onto it from her chair to give her even more height. This, of course, is bad news for us.

Yesterday, not wanting her to hang out there but also not wanting to spark a temper tantrum, I stood next to her for a bit to monitor which objects were in her reach, then nonchalantly started playing with some of her favorite toys, away from the table but well within her line of sight. By the time I had placed one of her toys on her wagon and pushed it up and down the living room a couple of times, she started getting interested in what was going on over there, climbed off her chair and grabbed my newfound toys away from me. Phew! Crisis averted, til next time...

Squiggly pasta for a squiggly squirmer

2009-02-03T21:24:00.003+02:00

Pasta (the squiggly kind) was on the menu yesterday and today. The most interesting places I have found it so far (aside from smushed into a gross, slippery paste under my foot) are:

The precisely squiggly-pasta-shaped space (who knew?) at the top of the broom handle (RP really enjoys what we may as well, for lack of a better word, call sweeping), and in the toe of her slipper (which was, in turn, safely stored - along with one sock - in a disposable plastic container that had been used for chocolate chip cookies, and which RP must have discovered while impersonating a raccoon in the kitchen garbage can).

In other news, Rimonit likes to say hello (well, actually, "Aya!") into her toy phone. She also sometimes holds her hand up to her ear and cheerfully shouts "Aya! Aya!" Of course, when she encounters an actual phone at her ear, she smiles toward the voice but is remarkably silent.

She has also found original ways of escaping from her stroller. Though we buckle her in when we're going outside, we didn't bother with the buckles when we tried to get her to fall asleep in her stroller while we were eating Friday night dinner at someone's apartment the other week. (She often falls asleep in her stroller, she was tired, and it was way past her bedtime.) Our stroller can lie flat, but when in this position, it leaves a gaping hole in the back, where the kid's head is (the gap is supposed to be covered with a plastic flap).

The first time we tried putting her down, she pushed aside the blanket we had put over the hole and stuck her head out of the stroller with a huge, mischievous grin that is still making me laugh two weeks later. The second time (also the last one until we left, at which point she fell asleep in about 30 seconds), she turned onto her stomach and slithered out from the front end of the stroller, using the same motion as when she clambers off, say, the coffee table, and stood up with a proud, "Look at me!" smile. Then she scampered off to wreak some more havoc.

I sense a full-bodied berry bouquet...

2009-01-20T23:40:00.001+02:00

(It's Hamper Time! Ahhhh!)

The kid seems to be doing a lot of imitation lately. I recently noticed that I had the unconscious habit of tapping the front of her diaper when I closed it up - as if to say, "All done here," I guess - only when I saw her tapping the front of her own diaper and realized she must have picked it up from me.

Then last week I was taking a long, thirsty drink of water and let out a little "ahhh!" that I would scarcely have noticed had I not suddenly heard an echo of the sound from the high chair next to me. But I don't even need to provide that syllable of thirst-quenching satisfaction anymore - though sips from her own cup ar relatively unaccompanied, she has now been primed to provide the sound effects when I take a drink.

I had described her newest trick to Warren, but he didn't hear it himself until Friday night, when he drank the kiddush wine with the kid on his lap - and was rather startled to hear her say "ahhh!" in evident appreciation of dry red.

Who's a stinker now?

2009-01-18T18:29:00.004+02:00

Two things Rimonit really likes came together in an unexpected context the other day.

She loves holding my (closed) deodorant (one in each hand, preferably), and she really enjoys walking around with a bag on her arm - she's recently adopted a Zara paper shopping bag and an orange cloth bag I frequently put in her stroller to transport crackers and other tantrum-allaying devices - and placing her little treasures inside. I have found a diaper (clean, of course!), her socks, one of Warren's slippers, cornflakes - and of course, my deodorant - among her most favorite things.

The other day I put the food bag I was planning to take to work (I would say lunch bag, but it's more of a dinner bag, which just sounds funny) on the end of the table near the door so I could grab it as I headed out. But someone else grabbed it before me, needless to say, and I had to distract the kid with something else so I could get it back from her clutches.

I didn't think much of it... until I got to work and discovered a familiar-looking container of deodorant snuggled against my food! I guess she's gotten tired of me calling her stinky (but only when she is!) and decided to return the compliment...

Chairman Rao

2009-01-11T18:47:00.006+02:00

RP's newest acquisition is an orange plastic chair, just her size. She already has her very own couch, but she seemed to want a chair. She was sitting anywhere she could find - the low (slightly above the floor) windowsill in the living room, the bottom rung of her high chair, on top of her truck - so we decided to take pity on her and get her a piece of furniture intended for the Smunch-sized to place their little tushies upon.

When she first saw it, though, the last thing she had in mind was sitting: She picked it up and wandered around the house with it, stopping every 30 seconds or so to see how her chair looked in the new location, shifting her grip on it and starting again. She did find a good spot eventually (about a foot away from where her journey first began), where she sat nicely (okay, for about a minute) and read a book! (I guess she is our kid after all...)

She also has recently started getting into hand puppets (like her blue hippopotamus that's also supposed to be a kind of bath sponge). But she's not so interested in being washed, or entertained, by a puppet - she's much more into wearing them herself. In fact, she's already created her own puppet: On Shabbat she stole my slipper right off my foot and put it on her hand. I tried to (gently) steal it back, but she was having none of it, and reclaimed it every time.

Dancing and stuffing her face...

2008-12-30T21:10:00.004+02:00

Rimonit has a new dance move: She likes to turn around in circles now when there's music on. She'll often start smiling or even clapping as soon as she sees me near the CD player, before I even turn it on.

She loves to eat in the morning, when she is practically insatiable. Her faves include pear (downside: there's never enough!), cornflakes (preferred method: walking around with a little container of cornflakes that somehow always end up being crunched underfoot) and bread with leben/cottage cheese/hummus.

Can't wait for her to grasp: the concept of gravity. (As in, "If I turn this container upside down, the cornflakes will spill all over the floor. And that would be a bad thing." Or, "I should be very proud of myself for figuring out how to put a piece of pear on a spoon, for some reason, and I will even be able to get it to my mouth if I just keep the spoon right side up.")

And she knows how to ask for more cornflakes or pear: Just say mo! (She knows the hand sign too.) Nancy Reagan would be proud.

Spiderkid in the tunnel

2008-11-16T20:23:00.008+02:00

Rimonit and I encountered our first bullies the Shabbat before last - two girls (they seemed to be about 9 years old) who got their little kicks making fun of a 1-year-old (yes, RP) and trying to keep others from using the playground facilities in the spot they had chosen to hang out in. As a foreshadowing of the future of Israeli citizenry, or something like that, it was kinda depressing.

This particular playground is often pretty empty, and Rimonit really likes it because it has a spectacular combination of tunnels + slides (with a moderate enough incline that she can climb up them as well as slide down) + stairs (which she is beginning to climb with her feet rather than her knees).

When Rimonit got to the blue tunnel, she found herself hampered by a girl who was just sitting there, doing nothing other than blocking the entrance. I gave her a minute in case she didn't get right away that the Kid, who was standing patiently, wanted to go through. Then I said, very politely, "You're blocking the path. Do you think you can move over?" She gave me a look that combined pure insolence with surprise that I would dare address her directly and a kind of resentment that I was seriously asking her to do something other than sprawl out in the area she had colonized. She did eventually get out of the way, though quite slowly. I pity her teachers.

But that wasn't all. RP got out of the Mean Kids Tunnel and made her way around the yellow tunnel and the slides. Then she decided to climb back up to the blue tunnel - but, lo and behold, the obnoxious girl had doubled herself, and both of them were doing nothing together and had no intention of changing that. When I asked them to move (still politely, though it had already dawned on me that such silly Americanisms as basic human manners were lost on them), they grudgingly budged about half an inch from their position in the center of the tunnel (the part that a person who wanted to get past would have to walk on), apparently imputing to RP certain Spiderman-like qualities that, to the best of my knowledge, she does not possess. I pointed out that it was a bit hard to walk on the curved side of the tunnel, while mentally urging the Spiderkid to drool all over their hair as she clambered across them to reach the other side.

Then came the rather bizarre (not to mention slanderous) making-fun-of-a-1-year-old part. As she climbed over them, I heard them chat to each other in gossipy Mean Girl voices as they attributed a poopy smell near the tunnel to RP. Then they tried to bring me into it. "Lady! Lady!" one of them called out. "She made kaki in her pants like a baby! (giggle giggle). Go change her!"

I don't even really get what that's about. I mean, she IS a baby! And anyway, she didn't do it, I swear! I changed her right before we left the house, and her diaper was remarkably poop-free when I changed her again at home. It just seemed like the kind of thing they might say about someone in their class so they thought it would be just as piercing a blow to RP. But who can truly understand the mind of a 9-year-old tunnel-blocker?

In a totally unconnected update, Rimonit will be taking her first judo class tomorrow afternoon...

Shoes! (for a day)

2008-11-09T22:10:00.011+02:00

(Photo: The little remaining evidence of those first shoes - both of them.)

Today I bought Rimonit her first shoes. As you may have guessed by the previous sentence, in the loooooong time since my last post, she has started walking - and she is really getting the hang of it, if I do say so myself.

On erev Rosh Hashana (end of September this year), I noticed her standing on her own for significantly longer periods than usual, like maybe two minutes or so. I got the feeling that walking would come soon, but I didn't realize how soon; I saw her take a few steps on her own two days later, as Rosh Hashana was ending.

Although the process leading up to those first steps was extensive - from cruising and pushing chairs around to standing on her own (which she started in August) and gradually increasing her standing time - once she took her first steps, there was no stopping her, and her rate of improvement was incredibly rapid. The first week or two she took at least as many falls as steps, remaining largely unperturbed by her frequent tushy-to-floor contact. Warren dubbed her the drunken sailor, but day by day her sea legs gave way to land legs, the amount of steps she took increased until I stopped counting them, and her walking-to-crawling ratio shifted in favor of walking. It's only a few weeks later, but she has become a master walker, and she took well to her shoes after only about 30 seconds of wondering why her feet were suddenly so heavy.

And so it goes: from crawling infant to toddling toddler in the space of a mere month.

UPDATE: The day after I wrote this post (I wrote it Sun., Nov. 9), one of her shoes fell off her foot and disappeared forevermore (I only noticed after it was already gone). It was apparently some combination of the shoe being too loose and the velcro being too weak, giving us something to look out for next time. I wasn't going to put up this post at all, seeing as how it got dated so soon, but finally decided it still makes a bloggable, er, footnote to the Story of the Smunch. In the meantime, she is back to being shoeless (though we'll fix that soon enough)...

HamuDA

2008-09-07T19:24:00.006+03:00

The Smunch is a whopping 1 year old! That's as of last Wednesday - though her Hebrew birthday isn't for about two more weeks, leaving her in (take your pick:) a) confused birthday limbo, b) thrilled extended festivities or (pick me, pick me! as Annoying Donkey says) c) continued absolute non-awareness that there is such a thing as a birthday).

She has recently been doing more standing on her own two feet, though only for a few seconds at a time so far. I kind of feel like I'm one of those spoilsports at a magic show when she does it - I keep looking for the trick, thinking that she must be leaning against something (as she had been in the past), but I have so far been unable to spot the invisible strings, so she must be pretty talented.

Today she discovered that she can fit into a closet we have in the dining area (which fortunately has nothing in the bottom section on the side she discovered), and she had a really great time climbing in and out of the closet and playing with the closet door. Very smunchy!

Completely unrelatedly, I find it interesting that in Israel people ask about the child's sex in a way they wouldn't and couldn't in the U.S. because of the strictures of the language, in which - as with many other languages - you can't say much without knowing whether the person in question is male or female. Although they sometimes assume a baby is a particular sex (generally male, whether for reasons of male linguistic default issues or chauvinist male favoritism issues remains unclear) or ask directly whether it's a boy or a girl ("ben o bat"?), they often pop the question by asking: Is it a cutie (hamud - for boys), or is it a cutie (hamuda - for girls)?

This latter method can also be used by the parent when people assume the kid is a boy. The baby-commenters say, "Eizeh hamud!" (what a [male] cutie) - to which the appropriate response when the boy in question is not one is: "hamuDA."

Cruisin' along and saying goodbye (is this a blues song or what?)

2008-07-30T01:11:00.010+03:00

The main Smunch update is that she's been "cruising" the last coupla weeks, which is apparently the official term for coffee table-assisted walking.

She's also definitely begun dancing, which is the term I am generously using for waving her hands around when I turn on the music. I notice, though, that once it's on she doesn't seem to relate to it most of the time - she primarily responds in that first minute of its being on.

RP, who is almost 11 months old, has also become more proficient at waving goodbye. She started waving a while ago, but would practice her newfound skill quite indiscriminately, with no evident connection to whether there was anyone to wave to, and frequently with both hands at the same time. Now she often waves bye-bye, which is, of course, very smunchy. (I was surprised when the nurse at the tipat halav/well-baby clinic asked if R waves yet - I didn't realize it was a quasi-official action, like rolling over. Sure, it's a physical capability as well as a form of communication [though for RP it was the former before it became the latter], but my impression is that parents teach their kids to wave mainly because, well, it looks cute.)

When I pick her up from day care, she usually smiles and/or crawls over to me, but yesterday she not only smiled at me but waved hello to me, and then raised her arms for me to pick her up. And today she waved hello at a neighbor kid when he came by to play with her. I haven't explicitly taught her to wave hello as I have to wave goodbye (mainly on the way out of day care), but I do wave hello to her regularly in the house, kind of as a way of making contact if, say, she's playing on one side of the living room while I'm on the computer on the other side.

Oh, and here's a really big one (but I'm a bit restrained about it because I'm still awaiting confirmation): On Shabbat she accompanied a waved goodbye with what sounded very much like a spoken "bye-bye"! I admit she did do this twice in a row, so it's quite possible she really did utter her first word. (!) But being ever reluctant to announce a new development without being absolutely sure of it, I am withholding final judgment until I hear her do it again. (What can I do, I like to make sure I have my facts straight - not the worst trait in the world for a journalist.)

In general, over the last few months she has become a bit more choosy about who she will be friends with. She used to bestow a great big grin on anybody who crossed her path, but now she prefers to take a more considered approach, and often likes to have some warm-up time with the new person in my or W's presence. After a few minutes, though, she's usually fine (especially if she's not particularly tired or hungry). The flip side is that she has really started to recognize the people she does know, and now lights up when her babysitter walks in the door, which is nice to see. With the neighbor kid, she already showed signs of recognition the second time (in two days) that he stopped by.

It seems nuts that she's almost a year old! That's so, like, huge!

Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not after you

2008-07-30T00:38:00.004+03:00

It seems like my attempt last year at doing an end run around the maternity clothing scam (er, industry) has backfired. At the time, I thought I was getting away with not buying a whole new wardrobe because I already had a lot of loose summer clothing that could fit my expanding belly. A year later, I look at my closet and all I see are what now look to me like maternity clothes.

Now I am constantly paranoid (realistic?) about people making incorrect assumptions when they see me in the same loose tops that I bought in regular people stores and that, in some cases, I had worn for years beforehand, but that they may remember as having housed a larger me this time last year - or that just look like pretty much anything could be hiding in there.

I am usually a privacy fanatic who has difficulty understanding women (and sometimes men) who feel compelled to share all around the dinner table, but lately I have wanted to wear a sign around my neck saying, "This isn't maternity clothing! I bought it in a regular store, I swear!"

I supposed if I had washboard abs I could start showing them off, but I never have and I have no reason to believe I ever will, so that's not really an option.

Every time I listen to the part of me that says it's dumb to obsess about this and I should just wear whatever's in my closet and to hell with what people may or may not think, I end up imagining/seeing seemingly knowing or wondering looks or hearing comments that just may be overly solicitous.

So what's a girl to do? Maybe I should just stay home and crank up the A/C. (But wait, I did that when I was nine months pregnant! Oy vey, can't win...)

Zero hour

2008-06-24T19:01:00.011+03:00

In my never-ending quest for Internet access that actually provides me access to the Internet (shocking demand! shocking!), I had the privilege today of overhearing a conversation between the Netvision guy and the Hot chick that revealed a certain confusion on the part of said chick regarding the difference between Hebrew and English and did not do much to raise my estimation of her company as a whole.

Netvision guy Anan, the first Israeli I have encountered who bears the Hebrew version of the flower child/American Indian-sounding name Cloud, took me patiently through a whole lotta steps to figure out what the problem was and concluded that the router was faulty and needed to be replaced. Then he called back and said he needed to make sure it wasn't the modem after all, which entailed a conference call with Hot.

When he finally got the brains of tech support on the phone, he asked her to do an "ipus" (איפוס - pronounced ee-pooss) of the modem. Since she showed little indication of understanding what he meant, he changed the form of the word to ask her "le'apes" (לאפס - to reset) it. Both words come from אפס (effes), the Hebrew for zero. (Morfix translates לאפס as: to calibrate, to zero, to set on zero; to reset.)

The Hot representative clearly had no clue what the hell Cloud was on about (maybe she couldn't check the dictionary because she couldn't get online either?), so she insisted that whatever he was asking was impossible and attempted to make it clear that she knew just what she was doing. She did this by adopting that tone of righteous indignation, replete with a declaration of her experience in the field, that I can recognize from a mile away as a clear sign that the person doesn't have the slightest idea of what to do and, more dangerous still, will never, ever admit it.

"I didn't just start working here yesterday, and I can tell you that there is no such thing," Hot insisted. After a bit of back and forth along these lines, she finally figured out that Anan - whose name, despite its airy-fairyness, puts me in mind of a good cuppa joe, thanks to a certain unnamed world body - wanted her to reset the modem.

"Oh, la'asot [to do] reeeeset!" she said. And then, I kid you not, she went on to ask: "Why don't you speak in Hebrew?"

Anan sounded as taken aback as I was. "Ipus is Hebrew," he informed her. "Reset is English."

Not surprisingly, given the admirable personality traits she had already demonstrated, Ms. Hot blithely continued as though Anan had not pointed out what a total lamebrain she was, and finally accomplished the task.

Conclusion: It turns out that both the router and the Hot representative are faulty.

Vertical new world

2008-06-10T19:18:00.006+03:00

I said in my last post that I could easily see Rimonit pulling herself up... in another couple of months. And I was right... but way off-base; she started pulling herself up the Shabbat before last.

Over the past week and a half, she has stood up by leaning over a couch cushion placed on the floor, by holding on to the coffee table and holding on to her high chair, and by leaning against the back or side of the couch.

A couple of days ago I thought I could sneak in a quick catnap by resting on the bed in the guestroom while she played on the floor of the most Rimonit-friendly (read: empty) room in the house, but the kid had other ideas. I had only just closed my eyes when I noticed that there was a little head peering over the top of the bed, the big blue eyes about even with mine. My incipient rest was disturbed by a mysterious sensation of having my hair tugged just before a little elf tried to steal my glasses right off my face. I looked down and for the first time was able to apply the concept of "height" to the suddenly vertical being next to me. It was a bit of a weird sensation. Wonder if I fell asleep after all and was only dreaming...

RP update: The dog we never had

2008-06-03T23:17:00.010+03:00

The kid started doing some serious crawling last week. She now bears a great resemblance to the dog we never had: She crawls under the table and eats shoes (yum!). She also loves books and newspapers (rustle, rustle!), meaning that she is eating her words before she can even utter them.

She had started moving forward a couple of paces on all fours two weeks ago, and did that for a few days before really taking off on her hands and knees.

And although I said in a previous post that she was getting in some top teeth, they didn't start actually breaking through the gums until this week, in a not particularly fun experience. :( On the bright side, RP has also chosen this week to fall head over heels in love with her reflection, so any time she gets upset (say, once the teeth start hurting but before the Acamoli kicks in), all we have to do is bring her to a mirror, and behold: an instantaneous transformation from crying Rimonit to smiling, loquacious Rimonit, who immediately begins a conversation with herself that almost inevitably begins and ends with "da."

I can also see a marked increase in Smunch communication skills, commensurate with her newfound ambulatory abilities. Now instead of staying in place and crying if she's hungry, tired or wants to be picked up (usually because she's hungry, tired or both), she crawls over to me to hand-deliver the message and pulls on whatever article of my clothing she can reach to get my attention. A couple of weeks ago, she did this partway, crawling (well, scooting on her tummy at the time) to her stroller, which was midway between me and her, and giving me the most pitiable, hangdog look through the mesh of the stroller basket. So I caved in and gave her a doggie biscuit. (Just kidding, savtas!)

The kid, who just turned nine months old, has also shown signs of wanting to reach further still. The other day I was sitting on the couch-bed in the guest room, trying to do some work on the laptop while she played on the floor. When she had enough of this arrangement, she did not satisfy herself with crawling to the edge of the bed and making her appeal from there, but knelt on her knees to give herself the most height and reached up as high as she could to make sure I had heard her plea. It's not hard for me to imagine her pulling herself up in another couple of months.

The smunch has been getting herself to sitting position for a while now, I would say about a month or so. She isn't yet able to sit herself up if she is lying flat on her back, but she gets herself into sitting mode from the all-fours position. She started doing this when she was still in crawl training camp. But when she's tired she sometimes just can't hold herself up anymore and will fall over from a sitting position or repeatedly lay her head down for a few seconds in mid-play.

Two weeks ago Rimonit started clapping (applause!), but I have yet to work out if she does it for any specific reason. Sometimes she does it when she hears music, but other times there doesn't seem to be a particular cause. If she starts clapping and I clap in imitation, I sometimes merit a big smile. I've also been trying to teach her to wave in the appropriate situations (mostly when leaving day care), but that doesn't seem to have caught on yet. I have the feeling that now is a good time to start teaching her sign-language signs for certain key words (food, drink, more, enough), but I'm not comfortable enough with what the signs are myself. I know I could just make it up, but I'd like the signs to be recognizable by others as well so that she can communicate with them too and not just with me.

Over the last few weeks I have also really seen a difference in her understanding of the concept of object permanence. She now can really appreciate peekaboo (called "kookoo" in Hebrew), giving me a big grin when I pop out of hiding, and when her toy drops off the changing table she tries to dive off to get it back instead of just forgetting about its existence as soon as it disappears from view.

As for food, I have been giving her a mix of baby cereal (so far, rice cereal and kasha cereal) and actual pieces of food (white potato, sweet potato, carrots, corn, banana, rye bread, pear, skinless red and yellow pepper) that she can pick up and eat with her hands. Sometimes she is more willing to eat with a spoon and other times she prefers to use her hands, so I try to offer her both at every (attempted) meal. I have also just started trying to get her to drink from a cup. She drinks from it fine if she lets me hold it for her, but if she wants to hold it herself there is the small problem that she likes to hold it upside down just as much as rightside up. I am also trying a sippy cup, which she enjoys putting in her mouth the right way, but I'm not convinced she is actually getting anything out of it.

And that, folks, is RP in a nutshell at this moment in time. No doubt by the time you read this she will have changed in a dozen more ways.

Doing the crawl

2008-05-11T20:57:00.015+03:00

[Photo: Rimonit appearing to be in need of a rescue from her cousin's embrace.]

RP is on the forward march. She has been consistently creeping/slithering/scooting forward, as well as practicing the crawl position, since Wednesday night - Erev Yom Ha'atzmaut which, if you'll permit me a moment of pretentious melodrama, was also the eve of Rimonit's burgeoning independence.

For those unfamiliar with the pre-crawl crawl, just think of a snake with arms and legs. She kind of propels herself forward with her legs and forearms, though she sometimes goes backwards when she appears to have intended to move forward. Actually, what she most looks like is a swimmer doing the crawl on dry land.

But although doing the crawl should not be confused with actually crawling, it's clear the next phase is imminent, as Rimonit has set herself a consistent training regimen to get her in gear for crawling. Not wanting to give too much away, she has refused to reveal the deadline by which she plans to reach her goal. However, observers note that regularly getting on all fours is a pretty sure sign of impending crawlingness, even if for the time being it is succeeded by a collapse to the floor and a blithe return to one's previous preoccupation (namely, getting to the TV cords).

It's pretty cool to see her sight an object of interest and then swim toward it ponderously, with conscious intent, effort visible in every movement. I know that it won't be long before she'll be moving around with even greater ease, but for now I'm having fun watching her steady progression, which somehow manages to be simultaneously incremental and lightning-fast.

You win some, you lose some

2008-05-07T11:51:00.011+03:00

On the one hand...

Givatayim and Ramat Gan have a style of Yom Ha'atzmaut decorations I never noticed in Jerusalem. In J'lem, there are flags decorating the windows of apartments, which are put up by individual tenants, there are decorations that companies or government ministries put up on their buildings, and there are the municipal decorations in the streets. Another type that I haven't seen over there but I've seen a lot in Givatayim/Ramat Gan (including outside our building) is blue and white decor put up by the va'ad bayit (building committee) of large apartment buildings - meaning that not only are the individual apartments all flagged up as per tenant discretion, but so is the facade of the whole building. For instance, the walkway leading from the street to our building's front door is festooned with blue and white ribbons, and the new 20+ story buildings across the street have blue and white ribbons running down the outside of the building.

Not sure if the increased va'ad bayit participation in Yom Ha'atzmaut that I am seeing in the TA region has any significance whatsoever, but it's been interesting to observe the differences. It's probably just because there are more tall apartment buildings here. It might also be a function of the va'ad bayit being more involved, kind of like a condo board maybe? (But fortunately without the selection criteria, for the most part.)

On the other hand...

I was rather surprised to see two Jews for Jesus guys handing out pamphlets on a corner in Givatayim yesterday. Didn't say anything to them. I always kind of feel like I'm supposed to say/do something, but what? Tell them Jews don't believe in human deities? Gee, I'm sure they've never heard that before. Once in NY I took their pamphlet and ripped it up in front of them and walked on, but what good did that do?

Final score: Laurel for the building decor, Dart for J4J (to use Targum terminology). Givatayim comes out even.

Stop the presses!

2008-05-04T18:56:00.005+03:00

While at work this evening, I received an urgent report from the husband manning the Home Front, to wit: Rimonit has crawled! Forward, no less!

I have not actually witnessed this exciting phenomenon yet, but I am told by sources familiar with the case that the incident in question was precipitated by the shrimp's inability to resist the lure of rustling paper being filed. Compelled to do some crinkling herself, she lifted her tummy off the floor and moved forward an inch, dropping down in exhaustion. As the "crumple crumple" sound continued (hey, is that an onomatopoeia, or merely an entrenched mental association? hmm, something to ponder...), she kept up her belly flops until reaching her clamorous goal. Can't wait to see for myself...

This is her third major milestone in the last two to three weeks alone:
- She just got her first tooth - and already she's sprouting what look like three more (one more on the bottom, next to the first one, two on the top)
- She can sit unsupported (which she did for about an hour and a half on Shabbat, quietly playing on her own!!)
- She has added the backwards slither to her repertoire of rolling all over the place (well, mostly toward the TV cords) and pivoting in a circle (a combo that enables her to get wherever she wants, even without the crawl).

She just turned eight months old yesterday.

Getting a lift

2008-04-29T19:23:00.013+03:00

We spent part of Pesach in Jerusalem, leading me to come up with a few counterbalances to my arguable over-sentimentalization of life in the Holy City (though I continue to stand behind everything I said here):

1. Doing things we would normally have done if we had still been living in J'lem (hanging out with friends and taking advantage of free holiday activities - which unexpectedly led to the acquisition of a shockingly purple necklace made out of melon seeds!) is relaxing and vacationesque when you're staying at somebody else's apartment (thank you, R&S and B!) - even if you know the very same activities would have been somewhat more mundane if you had been staying in your (alas, imaginary) Jerusalem home, complaining about having nothing to eat aside from matzah and jelly.

2. Speaking of that imaginary Jerusalem apartment, our stay in the big J brought home the unsettling realization that the roomy elevator we have started to take for granted in our building here in Yuppieville would be a mere wisp of a dream in most buildings back yonder. I used to scoff at those under-70s who purported to need an elevator merely to reach the grand heights of the fifth floor. Even when I was pregnant and the arrival of a little one loomed quite close on the horizon, I haughtily figured - to the minimal extent I thought about it at all - that we could just park the stroller at the bottom and carry the kid up, no problem. And also that all those wusses out there were making a big deal out of not very much.

That, of course, was then - before I knew about the magical sleep-inducing properties of strolling. Yes, I had heard stories about parents putting their baby in the car to get the kid to sleep, but I had not yet experienced up close the full power of Motion the Magic Potion. This is no theoretical concept anymore, but a very real law of nature - which, like gravity, just is, regardless of whether you understand it - and RP exhibits its sway on her at least once a day. But here's the key: If I'm to get anything out of her tendency to capitulate to the charms of what Warren insists on calling The Chariot, then I need to bring her back home and let her continue her slumber indoors, so I can eat lunch/do the laundry/check my email/take a catnap. This is easy when you have an elevator - but significantly less so, as I saw firsthand last week, when you've got a whole lotta stairs separating the snoozer from the house.

And elevator absence is just one element of the bigger picture: the serious tradeoff involved in living in a city, where - to relegate a huge quality-of-life issue to four words - space is sacrificed for location (unless you've got a few million bucks, in which case you can a) have both and b) probably don't even live in Israel, but just deign to visit during the holidays while insouciantly pricing actual Israelis out of Jerusalem... but that's another story).

3. Too many Americans in Jerusalem!!!!! I constantly complained about this when I lived there and was quite forcefully reminded of it upon my return. I did not leave America in order to feel like I never left!

A conversation I would never have had in J'lem

2008-04-14T17:09:00.004+03:00

I'm still fielding calls from people who saw my signs looking for a babysitter, and I had a brief unexpected conversation today with a woman named Esther. After we discussed the kind of hours I'm looking for (since I can use as many backups as I can get) and I made it clear that I don't currently need someone for the regular gig, she added, in a kind of hesitatant tone: "Well, you should just know that I'm religious."

I was rather taken aback that she would feel the need to point this out and said, "Okay, so am I." She said that was good because some people were bothered by having a religious babysitter. What can I say but "??!!!" I am definitely going to interrogate her about this further - if she decides to keep our meeting, of course (see Tip #1).

Pretty wacked out, hey? I wonder if babysitters in Jerusalem feel the need to tell potential employers that they're not religious. I am saddened but intrigued...

Leave the lemon at the door

2008-04-13T21:31:00.011+03:00

Recent experience (the direct result of my main babysitter being in the middle of exams) has led me to come up with a coupla hot tips for anyone looking to get paid to watch a kid (known in literary Hebrew as being a babyseeeeter [ בייביסיטר], though in a pinch an actual Hebrew word - metapelet [ מטפלת] - will do too.)

Tip #1. Show up.

This may be one of those things that seem kind of, well, obvious, but I have had no less than three women claiming to want to be paid to (in part) show up at a specific time, like for instance, when I need to leave for work. And yet they have proven this desire by... not showing up. And don't think they called to cancel, I might add.

Tip #2. It wouldn't kill you to smile.

So I admit it was a bit of an awkward situation. On Friday I agreed pretty much right away to take on the first babysitter I had spoken to who I really liked. She was at our apartment, where she had come so I could meet her and she could meet the kid. All was going well - and then the next interviewee showed up. I had thought I spaced them far enough apart, but the first one stayed longer than expected and the second came earlier than expected and, well, you know how it is (both of them apparently read Tip #1).

There are people who take a non-ideal situation well, but Applicant II was not one of them. In fact, I've never met anyone who fit the description "sourpuss" quite as precisely as she did.

She wasn't showing much of a happy face when I opened the door, and after I explained the situation in the most diplomatic way I could (including the fact that I had already picked the other girl to be my main alternate, but that I was always looking for other babysitters to keep in the pipeline), she went into serious bad sport mode, making these bitter comments the whole time. Like, "Well, I would have thought you'd want a mother." (The babysitter I chose is 20 and living with her parents.) And, after catching a glimpse of her: "She's obviously not very experienced, but whatever." And then, as she was about to walk out the door, "So do you think you made the right decision?" Well, if I hadn't been sure before you opened your mouth, boy was I sure as soon as you did.

Anyway, my new babysitter has only done her duty once as yet (tonight), but so far she's met both of my strict criteria. Not to mention, the kid didn't cry but did eat and sleep! Let's hear it for the first native Israeli (and an Iraqi yet) to be named Lynn! Eh, excuse me, Leeeeeeen. (No joke!)

Dreaming of strawberries

2008-03-04T23:07:00.005+02:00

By all accounts, I have recently moved up in the world. In August, I left the poorest city in the country for a city considered to be fairly high up there on the socioeconomic scale, earning a Central Bureau of Statistics ranking of eight out of 10. Every Israeli who hears of my new hometown says, "Ohhhh, Givatayim!" – with much the same intonation a fashion aficionado might use in checking out your new sweater and exclaiming, "Ohhhh, Versace!"

And now that winter has arrived, I can take pleasure in leaving the house with no more than a light jacket, for even as residents of the Tel Aviv area complain about their low-key version of cold, I know that I have left behind some shivering friends huddled inside the stone buildings of the capital.

Why, then, do I miss Jerusalem so much?

Part of it has to do with the section of Jerusalem I used to inhabit: the colorful and constantly changing neighborhood of Nachlaot, whose narrow alleyways are populated by neo-hippies, art students and Mizrahi families who have lived there for decades. The neighborhood is enlivened, and perhaps even defined, by its proximity to the steaming-fresh pitas and pungent spices that form part of the intoxicating bustle of the Mahaneh Yehuda market, known as the shuk.

Back when I lived in Nachlaot, I had only to step five minutes away from my front door in order to scout out whichever fruit was in season, be it succulent green grapes or bright orange persimmons. Seduced by the heady aroma of blood-red strawberries as they lay heaped on their wooden beds in the vendors' stalls, we would feast on them for a scant NIS 5 a kilo, the cut-rate price they reached by the time the strawberry season was coming to a close. When the strawberries first hit my supermarket in Givatayim this year, I thought I would get two small containers – but when the price came to NIS 56, I left them at the cashier's counter.

Living so close to the shuk made me feel connected to the agrarian cycle in a way I never had when growing up amid the sterile supermarkets of New Jersey, where it seemed that almost any food item could be purchased at any time of year. When my husband and I were living near the shuk, our Shabbat meals often revolved around whatever was in season – making it hard to plan ahead, but easy to get inspired by particularly good-looking green beans or mango (or both, mixed together in a rice recipe conjured up on the spot).

As I did back then, now too I generally get my groceries at the closest available location; but now that means I have to step into the Givatayim Mall just to pick up some tomatoes, cucumbers and milk in the Mega Ba'ir supermarket, where everything seems orderly and plasticized. The rice and lentils come in standard plastic packaging instead of being shoveled out of burlap sacks; the mint leaves, sealed inside a plastic bag, don't threaten to inundate the other groceries with their scent. There are no vendors about to burst shoppers' eardrums with the sound of their price wars, and I have not yet had to swerve to avoid running into a man balancing a large tray of pita bread on his head. In short, doing the shopping has become a perennial disappointment, instead of an occasional revelation.

As I reluctantly make the shift from shuk culture to mall culture, I am regularly reminded of some of the other reasons I miss Jerusalem. The capital is much maligned for its failure to truly unite its eastern and western halves, despite insisting on pro forma unification - but for all that, there is a sense of heterogeneity in Jerusalem that is sorely lacking in the ostensibly more liberal center of the country. Walk through Sacher Park on a Saturday when it's not too cold or rainy, as I did so many times, and you will likely see several soccer games going on; if you go closer, you will hear that some are being conducted in Hebrew and others in Arabic. Keep an eye out for the Sri Lankan foreign workers playing cricket in the afternoon, and step between the secular families grilling kebabs and the religious ones out for a Shabbat stroll.

My all-too-frequent forays to the Givatayim Mall, by contrast, reveal a depressing sameness. It's not just that 97.3 percent of the city is Jewish, according to the statistics bureau. It is also that, unlike in Jerusalem, so many seem to fit the same mold. Well-groomed mothers in their 30s wheeling Bugaboos – in other words, upper-middle-class suburban Yuppies – proliferate, sipping café hafuch with a friend or browsing through expensive jewelry. And that's fine, for those who want it.

But went I left the stifling suburbia of my youth, I wanted to be in that Israel of old (or perhaps just of legend) where simplicity trumps materialism, where sun-bleached sandals are acceptable footwear for any occasion. And to some extent, that's what I found in Jerusalem, not because – as many Tel Avivians would like to believe – Jerusalemites are country bumpkins, but because the capital's population is so diverse that just about anyone can find a niche there.

For now, though, I'm making the best of my stay in Givatayim, and dreaming of strawberries.

Getting a head start

2008-01-17T16:46:00.002+02:00

Just a bit of wisdom from Rimonit's day-care center:

When I went to drop her off the other day (she started last week and hangs out there for three to four hours a day), I noticed a laminated paper on the floor with all the other toys. It had a picture of a colorful parrot, beneath which were the words, in English: "How many color does it hold?"

Fortunately, all that Rimonit (now four and a half months old!) cares about right now is, "Will it fit into my mouth so I can drool all over it?" (Or, as the authors of the ostensibly educational game might have said, "How many drool can hold one little mouth?")

Ah, well, it's good to know Israelis are getting a head start on how to speak pidgin - or should that be parrot? - English...

Little Fat-face

2007-10-03T07:26:00.001+02:00

Haven't posted in quite a while. In the interim, I've moved to Givatayim (part of the Tel Aviv area known as the Disgustingly Humid Belt) and had a baby girl (Rimonit Penina).

Bath time with RPKW.

Herewith, some FAQs:

Okay, so now we know her name. But what are you actually going to call her?

I don't really get this question, but it's a very common one, so I will attempt to answer it. Umm, we were kind of thinking we'd try calling her by her name. And no, not the whole double-barrelled thing, just Rimonit. What people seem to mean by this question is, 'How will you shorten her name so that it bears no semblance to the original but takes half a second less to say?' All I can tell you is that the only name-related nickname I've tried so far is Rimoniti. For those of you gasping in wonder at the thought that such a nickname is even longer than the original, let me point out that a three-syllable appellation (with an optional fourth syllable add-on) is really not that long! My name, for instance, has three syllables, and both Warren and I have four-syllabled sisters named Daniella - but despite such a terrible setback imposed so early in life, we've somehow all managed to pull through so far.

What do you mean by 'name-related nickname'? What other nicknames do you have?

The kid gets stuck with a new nickname almost as often as she goes out to her favorite 24-hour diner. Which leads me to a couple of eating-related nicknames for the squirt: Insatiable Munchkin (alternate form: Munching Munchkin) and Little Fat-face. Warren likes Thing-a-Ling, among others - a throwback to her fetal days, when she was just Thing (and particularly suited, in a bad haiku sort of way, to her being carried around in a sling). Warren's mother, who managed to time her arrival in Israel to coincide with the day of the birth, tends to go for Bubbaloo. (Don't ask me, she's South African.)

What are her vital stats?

She weighed 3.26 kilos at birth, which comes to somewhere around 7 pounds. (A month later, she is now more than 4 kilos. I don't remember how much more, but I did write it down somewhere.) She was born at 1:57 P.M. (that's 13:57 Israel time) on Monday, September 3, chaf Elul, via natural birth. There's probably other random bits of data I'm supposed to have memorized, but I'm not sure what that might be. And before you ask, I have no idea how many inches long she was - why exactly do you need to know??

Wait a second, is Rimonit actually a name?

Yeah, well, if it wasn't before, then it is now.

What does it mean?

It's a feminized form of 'rimon,' which means 'pomegranate.'

Okay, but why Rimonit?

Mostly because I was walking back from work one day several months ago and thinking that it was too bad we couldn't name the kid something Rosh Hashana-related, since we knew Thing would be born around then and that would at least narrow the sobriquet search. My inner dialogue went something like this: 'I mean, what are we gonna call it? Shofar? Or how about Tekia if it's a girl, Shevarim if it's a boy?' (Yes, I have sarcastic inner dialogue, and yes, we really didn't know what we were having until it popped out.) Then my mind kind of drifted to the Shivat Haminim (Seven Species), whereupon the sarcasm returned, in the form of: 'Yeah, Chita (Wheat), that would be a great name. It would go over really well in English too. Nothing like having a kid known to the world as Cheetah.' But then I went through the list and came upon Rimon and turned it into Rimonit and just kinda decided that that would be a really cool name. Bonus points for pomegranates being a fruit traditionally eaten on Rosh Hashana, to symbolize that we ask for our merits to be as numerous as the seeds of the pomegranate. I suggested the name to Warren shortly thereafter, making sure to intersperse it in unrelated conversations to get his mind used to the idea. The ploy worked: The name grew on Warren. And if you are not one of those with the good taste to love the name Rimonit at first hear, then it will surely grow on you too. (Anyway, it's better than Napoleon Alexander, which was Warren's father's first choice for the boy he was sure we would have.)

Well, since you clearly haven't named her after some relative called Rimonit, then who was Penina?

My great-grandmother Babi Penina, aka Babi Pepi - my mother's mother's mother.

Okay, now how about her last name. Er, what is her last name exactly?

Let's start at the beginning: Both Warren and I have the same names post-wedding as we did pre-wedding, meaning that I'm still a Kordova and he's still a Wienburg. We decided that for simplicity's sake, Rimonit would have only one last name, which would be Wienburg. However, I also wanted her to be a Kordova kid, so we decided to make Kordova her middle name, making the kid Rimonit Penina Kordova Wienburg (or as Warren occasionally refers to her in emails, RPKW). Unfortunately, Israeli birth certificates do not ask about middle names, so we were forced to list Kordova as her third first name and remain stalwart in our hope that she not grow up too confused.

UPDATE: We have since received her birth certificate in the mail and surprise, surprise, the Kordova is missing. A tangle with the bureaucratic powers that be awaits. (Yippee!)

I'm it

2007-07-11T12:47:00.000+03:00

I've been tagged by Live From Israel to respond to the blog equivalent of chain mail - in this case, a list of 8 facts/habits about myself. However, since this is, after all, my blog, I'm going to bend the rules a little (a lot?) and not post the original rules, tag anyone else or provide the requested number of responses. Oh, and also, I'm gonna answer a completely different question.

Herewith, 4 foods I like to eat (or, if you're a traditionalist, 4 facts/habits about me, as pertains to my eating lifestyle):

1. Cherry tomatoes (preferably fresh from the garden, but straight from the shuk is good too)

2. Chocolate chips (and please don't dilute them with milk, I want the bittersweet kind. Oh, and none of that "white chocolate" crap either. I don't know who invented that oxymoron, but calling a substance chocolate when it doesn't have any chocolate in it just may be the food scam of the century. Hmm, I wonder if those Nigerian spammers started it? You know, "Just wire me all your money and I promise to send you some white chocolate in return." And the inevitable response: "Gee, that sounds like a great deal, I better call my bank right now." But I'm getting sidetracked here...)

3. Meatballs and spaghetti (preferably with pickles, extra sauce and, of course, Tropicana orange juice)

4. Mint chocolate-chip ice cream (this could also be on a list called "Foods that America should start shipping over to Israel, and pronto." I still have to restrain myself from salivating every time I see green ice cream in Israel - which in this country, bizarrely enough, signals that all-time summer fave: pistachio flavor.)

Mmm, I think I'm getting hungry...

Expecting the unexpected

2007-07-08T14:00:00.000+03:00

Being pregnant in Israel comes with its own share of what feel like only-in-Israel moments - though I confess that not having gone through the experience in any other country, I'm not actually able to compare them with not-in-Israel moments.

Fortunately, I have yet to have random strangers reaching out to touch me, a hazard I have been warned to expect - though with a couple months to go, I'm not ruling anything out.

My first random stranger experience took place in the beginning of my sixth month, when I still wasn't sure if people I didn't know could discern my, er, condition. As I was waiting for a traffic light to change in Tel Aviv, a pregnant woman joined me on the sidewalk and asked when I was due.

Somehow, the rest of the waiting time and the actual street-crossing time were long enough for her to let me know that it seems everyone she was in school with is now expecting a child and, moreover, that now that she too has swallowed a watermelon, she's discovered pregnant women sticking out (belly first?) of every nook and cranny.

A friend told me she wasn't surprised the exchange took place in Tel Aviv, because there are so many pregnant women in Jerusalem (which, completely coincidentally, has a very high Haredi population) that no one even looks twice in the holy city.

All the same, it was in Jerusalem that I had what I consider to be my most Israeli pregnancy moment so far.

As I was standing on the corner of my block during a recent heat wave, trying to hail a cab because it was just too hot and disgusting to walk to work, an Israeli guy strolled by, felafel in hand, all prepped to display the "Don't worry, I know what's best for you" attitude that manages to beat the laws of supply and demand. (The supply of this attitude in Israel far exceeds normal per capita needs, yet there is no demand that I can discern - has the government considered export?)

"Sister, you should stand in the shade a little!" he exhorted in Hebrew. And then, because I had clearly forgotten: "You're pregnant!"

Faffing is moreish

2007-06-21T19:26:00.000+03:00

Sometimes, being an American transplanted to Israel can generate a real culture swap - but not always from the expected sources.

I was just eating a bowl of really yummy Israeli cereal called Kinamonim, which is basically whole wheat squares covered in cinnamon and is much tastier (and probably healthier, though I haven't checked) than the American Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and thought, "Wow, this stuff is really moreish."

And then I thought back to my unenlightened days as a blissfully ignorant American in America, when - I can hardly believe it - I didn't have such a key word in my vocabulary. As you've probably already guessed, "moreish" (as in "more-ish") is what you say about a food that makes you want more of it - at least if you're British. It's kind of like the "you can't eat just one" potato chip slogan, condensed into a single versatile word - without the negative associations and just plain unoriginality of the American English equivalent, "addictive."

Another indispensable word I learned from my British former roommate that we both found ourselves using to describe our activities at pretty much any given moment is "faffing" - to "dither, futz, diddle, potter about uselessly," as this site has it. Faffing (also "faffing about," in British, which translates into "faffing around" in American) seems to be the British cousin of "futzing around," at least the way my father always used the phrase - as in, and I quote, "Stop futzing around already and get in the car!" It's also related to procrastination (a particular talent of mine), but without even requiring a task just calling out to be put off.

The thing is, even though I found "futzing" and "futzing around" on Urban Dictionary and listed as slang on other dictionary sites, the only person I can remember hearing use the word is my father, which signals that at least in my circles, it wasn't exactly popular slang. Also, I was frankly never actually sure it was a real word, especially since its Yiddish sound (though the actual derivation appears to be a bit murky - see this and this for two possibilities) seemed a bit weird coming from my Sephardi father, for whom Yiddish words and American slang are not really high on the vocabulary list.

Faffing, on the other hand, appears to be quite a popular activity among the British, making me feel at last that I am not alone.

Go here to read the recipe, which I haven't tried, for the moreish-looking cookies pictured above.

Catching the wrong fish

2007-06-14T10:13:00.000+03:00

Herewith, a note of caution: Just when you've been thinking about the rather ridiculous necessity of reading Hebrew in English, along comes a Hebrew word practically screaming to be read in English. But – what the hell? – it turns out the Israeli writer was actually speaking the language of the Hebrewman!

I was translating a news brief about the Australian movie "Jindabyne," which is going to be playing in Israel as part of an Australian film festival here over the summer.

The reporter wrote that the film was about four men who find a dead body during a מסע דיג (without vowels, the second word would read something like DYG). The phrase should, of course, be read as "masa dayig," meaning "fishing trip" – but at first glance, what jumped out at me was the English word "dig" (or "deeeg," in Israeli). In those first few seconds, I imagined four college-age guys spending their summer on an archeological dig looking for old coins – but turning up a much more (cue scary voice) sinister find. I mean come on, that could totally be a movie! It all made perfect sense.

Fortunately, though, I got a good grip on the rod of reality and realized my mistake before I fell for that old decoy trick – hook, line and sinker.

Driving me to drink

2007-06-07T12:28:00.000+03:00

My brother-in-law Yaakov has unwittingly resolved a minor mystery that has plagued me since I moved to Israel. For years I have seen stickers on car windows that say "טסט ליין" (which, given the vowel-lessness of Hebrew, transliterates roughly into "TST LYYN") and had absolutely no idea what it meant.

Although it could have passed as a bumper sticker, it didn't convey any political message that I could discern, and moreover, I wasn't even sure how to read the sticker in the first place. Since the first word is not actually a word in Hebrew as far as I know, I figured it must be English, but I was tripped up by the second word, which - even though it is written in Hebrew letters, constitutes a Hebrew word and appears all over Israel - I was dimwitted enough to actually read in Hebrew.

This left me reading the second word as "leyayin" ("for wine"), and given that context, I could only surmise that the first word was an Israeli rendering of the English word "taste." And so I reached the uneasy conclusion that the car owners with the sticker on the window were basically telling the world that they had a taste for wine.

I was a bit uncomfortable with this reading of the text, in part because, well, what kind of a statement is "taste for wine"? It's a lot more vague and a lot less fitting to pithy bumper sticker style than more formulaic messages like "I love wine" or "I'd rather be drinking." And why did the number of Israeli car owners seemingly advertising their taste for wine seem to exceed the number of Israelis who have actually developed a taste for wine?

More than that, though, the logo of the sticker - a kind of jagged line with peaks and valleys, like the results of a polygraph test (at least when shown on cop shows on TV) - really didn't seem to have anything to do with wine. I mean sure, I could make something up - the peaks represent the good wines and the valleys represent kiddush wine, for instance - but it wasn't exactly an instantly recognizable symbol of wine, like the bottle or glass you might expect if the sticker was really about a taste for wine.

And finally, I was pretty sure that "taste" would more likely be rendered into Hebrew as "טייסט," but the vagaries of transliteration are such that people can write a word from another language pretty much however they want. (It may come as no surprise that Israelis have yet to come up with a uniform transliteration for a word that appears in the newspaper daily: Palestinians. But that's another story.)

For all my hesitations, though, I couldn't come up with a better option that made any sense to me, and settled on "taste for wine" until I found a more fitting solution to the puzzle. Of course, I suppose I could have asked an Israeli, but this was one of those things that occupied my thoughts for the few seconds I caught sight of yet another of those stickers and flitted out of my head again as the car left my field of vision.

But then along came Yaakov, who wrote this blog on vehicle inspection, which happens to be held at a place called (drum roll, please) Test Line - spelled, yes, טסט ליין

When I read this, discovering in the process that my ignorance was a hitherto unforeseen disadvantage of my pedestrian lifestyle, the asimon finally dropped. (The phrase harks back to the days when Israelis used asimonim, metal tokens with holes in the middle, to make calls on pay phones.) It all seems so obvious now that the longstanding mystery threatening to drive me to drink has been resolved at long last.

Next time, at least, I'll hopefully know better than to read Hebrew signs in (gasp!) Hebrew.

Forget retail therapy

2007-05-28T14:36:00.000+03:00

Back in the old country, clothes shopping generally involved entering a store that was significantly larger than my living room and trying on clothes in a fitting room conveniently equipped with both a door and a mirror, so I could decide whether I wanted to purchase the clothing. And if I wasn't sure, I could always buy it and then return it if it didn't turn out to be what I wanted.

I'm not a huge shopper, but just thinking of such an idyllic scenario brings tears of longing to my eyes. That's because here in the Holy Land, if I don't time my shopping expeditions so they coincide with absolute wardrobe desperation, the only thing I end up getting is frustrated. Forget retail therapy - I need psychoanalysis just to recover from my shopping sprees, rare and often aborted though they are.

A couple of weeks ago, I was trying on some clothes in the designated fitting corner in the back of a store in downtown Jerusalem, which some depraved curtain-hanger had decided should pose as two dressing rooms - in much the same way that a tiny studio apartment I once saw in Nachlaot was being marketed as a 1.5-bedroom apartment because it had a bunk bed. (The reason should be obvious: the bottom bunk was the bedroom and the top bunk was the half a room.)

The two mini-cubicles of the dressing room in question, meanwhile, were more or less separated from the shopping area by two curtains, but were separated from each other by a curtain that ran only halfway down the changing area. As long as I didn't move around too much and practiced self-delusion really hard, I could almost sustain an illusion of privacy. On the plus side, I did not have to share arm space with a sink (definitely not something to be taken for granted). On the down side, there were, naturally, no mirrors on the inside of the fitting room.

I could not possibly overstate the degree to which I hate this absurd Israeli concept of walking out of the dressing room to parade around in an article of clothing that probably looks awful on you but you don't actually know because you can't see how awful it looks on you until you parade around in it in front of a whole buncha strangers, who - along with their husbands, children and pet rabbits - suddenly all seem to be staring at you.

In this case, though, I had an extra burden: Every time I stood in front of the mirror, I had to keep one eye on the clothing I had painstakingly picked out, in an effort to keep it from falling into the greedy hands of the hired harasser. Said harasser, who had the misleading title of saleslady, really, really doesn't like it when customers have the chutzpah to bring clothes into the dressing room to try them on, and was far more interested in putting away the clothes before I got a chance to figure out whether I wanted to buy them than in actually making a sale. It was like trying to eat at a restaurant when the waitress is standing with her hands on her hips in front of your table and snatching away your fork when you pause to take a sip of water. All in all, an experience I'm dying to repeat.

My sister tells me, though, that sometimes that much-desired mirror inside the fitting room can create more trouble than it's worth. She was once in a dressing room in a Jerusalem store that had a single mirror on the inside that was meant to serve two cubicles. Of course, the curtain separating the cubicles didn't quite reach the whole length between them, and to her surprise, when she looked in the mirror she found herself seeing the woman in the next cubicle undress.

But the highlight of my Israeli fitting room experience actually took place in the Malcha mall, not some hole in the wall in town. To my undying shock, a door at the back of the dressing room, which I hadn't noticed before, flew open without warning as I was changing, and a store employee strode through my cubicle and out the curtain before I could even comprehend what had just happened.

The obvious solution, of course, is to buy something without trying it on, see how it looks in the privacy of your own home, and return it if it doesn't fit right. The only problem with such a neat approach is that refunds are virtually unheard of in Israel. Most stores will, however, do you the favor of allowing you to exchange the item for something else in the same store - if, of course, you can be bothered to go looking.

And don't think it gets any better once you actually purchase something you like; the next hurdle is keeping your belongings both intact and looking new.

Take the purple flip-flops I bought Friday. It didn't take long for a bald spot to appear on the left shoe, as the decorative stripes under my big toe faded away after all of an hour or two of wearing them around the house.

I'm hoping my new flip-flops make it through the summer - but even if they don't, the good news is that at least I won't have to brave the dreaded dressing room to try on a new pair.

Blog award finals - voting closes Wed.

2007-05-15T00:07:00.000+03:00

The final round of voting in the 2007 Jewish & Israeli Blog Awards closes Wednesday, May 16, at 10 p.m. EST (5 a.m. Thursday, May 17, in Israel). If you want to vote for me, head on over to the following links:

Click here to vote for this blog in the Best New Blog category.

Click here to vote for this blog in the Best Jewish Personal Blog category.

And if you want to see all the categories, click here.

Thank you!

From black to white: the lifecycle of a mass email

2007-05-14T22:40:00.000+03:00

An email circulating in Israel last week urged Israelis to wear black on Monday, May 14, to protest the fact that the three Israeli soldiers kidnapped over the summer have still not been returned home.

The Hebrew notice attached to the email I received reads, in translation:

"14.5.07 – THE ENTIRE STATE OF ISRAEL IN BLACK

"On 14.5.07, all residents of Israel, we will wear black shirts, to protest the ten months of abduction of the Israeli soldiers.

"In July 2006, 10 months ago, Ehud Regev, Gilad Shalit and Udi Goldwasser were kidnapped. ...
Almost a year has passed, and no one knows when the nightmare will end.
We won't let this subject come off the agenda!!
We, all the residents of Israel, will unite together and do everything so that the soldiers will be returned to their homes quickly!

"These are 3 soldiers who went to defend the state!! To defend us!!

"On 14.5.07, Monday, we will all be in black shirts, and we call on you, Ehud Olmert – return the soldiers to their homes, and to their normal lives as they were before!!"

I didn't pay too much attention at first, primarily because I tend to ignore mass emails, hysterical notices and the seemingly endless protests that Israelis love to hold. I did, however, point out to the friend who sent me the email, which she received from someone at her large Jerusalem company, that the three soldiers were not all kidnapped in July, as the notice said they were. Regev and Goldwasser were abducted by Hezbollah on the Lebanese border on July 12, setting off the Second Lebanon War, but Shalit was kidnapped by Palestinian militants near the Gaza border on June 25. I attributed this distortion to an oversight on the part of an overzealous protest organizer with a possible addiction to hand-lettered signs and megaphones.

But then came a twist that made the message much more interesting, by seeming to add a cleverly manipulative spin to the exhortation to wear black. A second email went around stating that the original message was actually one big hoax perpetrated by Israeli Arabs with the intention of tricking Israeli Jews into unwittingly identifying publicly with Naqba Day – the anniversary of the secular date of the establishment of the State of Israel, which is commemorated by Palestinians and other Arabs as a day of catastrophe ("naqba" in Arabic).

"The State of Israel was established on [the Hebrew date of] 5 Iyar 5708," reads the second email. "It was a difficult and traumatic event for Israeli Arabs. Every year they commemorate a day that's called Nakba. This day is commemorated on the secular date on which the state was established: 14.5.1948. Therefore, Israeli Arabs will be very 'happy' to see us wearing black on their holiday."

According to this theory, such patriotic exclamations as "These are 3 soldiers who went to defend the state!! To defend us!!" were merely a way of cynically playing on widespread Israeli feelings.

The email also said the official Web site for the abductees - which lists a calendar of events held to show solidarity with the missing soldiers and their families - mentioned nothing about the protest, and noted a couple of linguistic mistakes in the original notice that it said indicated that the writer's mother tongue was spoken Arabic rather than Hebrew.

I was left a bit puzzled, though, as to why there was a date discrepancy in the hoax theory too: Naqba Day is generally commemorated on May 15, not the 14th, even though the State of Israel was officially established on May 14, 1948. Israel, for its part, celebrates its Independence Day in accordance with the Hebrew calendar, and pays no attention to the secular date.

Lo Relevanti, an Israeli Web site that aggregates mass emails and gives the opinion of site author Hanan Cohen as to whether it's worth passing them on, appears to set everything straight.

It turns out, according to Cohen, that there was no hoax at all - only a lack of awareness of the possible confusion with Naqba Day and a lack of coordination with the abductees' families, who put out a statement saying they don't want a protest involving black shirts because of the association with death. The problem with the original protest notice was further compounded by the absence of a name or contact information, spurring apparently unfounded suspicions.

The claim that the protest was a hoax, writes Cohen, is "a great example of a mistake upon a mistake upon a mistake." According to his version of events, the initiators of the May 14 protest only made matters worse when they got wind of the email arguing that it was a Naqba Day hoax: They moved the protest to May 15, which really is Naqba Day.

But the problems have since been fixed. In response to the wishes of the families of the abductees, the protest organizer, who has since identified himself, is now calling on all Israelis to unite next Monday, May 21, by wearing white - "which symbolizes, most of all, hope," according to the revised text.

This time, the event has been coordinated with the non-profit association that runs the official Web site, and now appears on the site's activities list. In addition, the protest notice has been posted on a separate Web site set up for the purpose, which now notes the organizer's name - Ilan Spector - and his contact details. Spector has also fixed the linguistic errors that had previously cast aspersions on his intentions. The text does, however, still say that all three Israelis were abducted in July.

So what I have learned from all this? To ignore mass emails, hysterical notices and the seemingly endless protests that Israelis love to hold.

Neither here nor there

2007-05-06T18:13:00.000+03:00

You know those annoying people on radio and television who insist on talking into the mike just to let you know that absolutely nothing is happening, but that - don't worry - something will be happening very shortly?

Well, as I was in a cab last week passing the Foreign Ministry on my way to work, the correspondent for the radio station my cab driver was listening to was describing the scene inside the Foreign Ministry, where Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was about to give a press conference on her response to the Winograd report on the Second Lebanon War.

Instead of waiting for the press conference to actually begin before broadcasting it, the radio station aired the incredibly inane patter of said correspondent, who was left to breathlessly report rumors of how Livni may or may not have greeted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert when she met with him before the press conference.

The breaking news sounded more like 11-year-old girls desperately trying to squeeze some excitement out of an utterly yawn-worthy he said-she said conversation they had overheard.

"She said, 'It's good to see you,' or something like that," the correspondent related, to the best of my recollection. "And he said, 'Well, I’m tired.'"

And then came the speculation - because God forbid we should wait two minutes to actually hear what Livni has to say, when it's so much more informative to just guess.

The announcer predicted that, despite all the Israeli and international reporters impatiently waiting to hear Livni speak, the press conference was likely to be rather "pareve," since she wasn't expected to quit the government.

Pareve is a concept borrowed from kashrut laws, in which food is designated meat, dairy or neither - that is, pareve. Meat and dairy don't mix, but pareve food - like fish, eggs and pasta - can be eaten with either steak or cheese, giving rise to the idea that "pareve" is a rough equivalent to either "wishy-washy” or "bland" because it doesn't take a stance; it's neither here nor there.

But Mr. Radio was not quite satisfied with his careful assessment of what the foreign minister had not yet said, and quickly upped his designation to "pareve plus" (פרווה פלוס) - because after all, he noted, Livni did call the press conference, so she must be gearing up to say something.

The correspondent gave no indication, however, of whether he thought Livni's comments would be more likely to go with steak or with cheese.