Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

YS has really become quite the artist over the past few weeks. He spends most of his free time coloring, cutting, writing, and drawing. Here are three pictures he made yesterday. You can see he sometimes adds his own drawings (sun, clouds, etc.) to the coloring book pages. He even manages to stay in the lines most of the time!


His new-found hobby is good for everyone involved. He develops his artistic skills and has an outlet for his creativity, I get fancy pictures to hang on my wall at work, and AM gets uninterrupted time with our gigantic stash of trains!

More excuses

Once again, thank you google images.

Last night was a looooong night in the W household. YS was awake and crying off and on from 10pm - 4am, mostly complaining that his ear was bothering him. He didn't have a fever or any other symptoms of an infection, and when I asked him what it felt like, this is what he told me:

"It feels like either a tree or a tomato is growing in my ear."

It was around 3am. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or pull out my computer to blog about it.

Today was a 2-cans-of-coke kinda day, but at least I have this little gem from last night to keep me laughing.

Found in a Monsey grocery store

The blogpost that fell in my lap

As soon as I pulled into the Skyview Shopping Center parking lot after work today, I knew I'd be blogging once the boys went to bed. This was the car parked in front of me...

...and this was the car parked one row over

The sign reads: "Please don't honk. Causes seizures. Thank you!"

Uhhh...WHAT?!?!

Usually I don't like to be the crazy lady pulling out her phone and taking pictures of other people's cars, especially in a parking lot where I almost always see people I know (plus, my reputation is still in recovery mode after Saturday night's watch-Kentucky-lose-while-screaming-in-the-pizza-shop debacle), but today it could not be avoided. I couldn't pass by these cars and not document their existence.

Shall we start with our good friend ARSON? Uh, seriously? ARSON?! How is it possible that this license plate got past the eagle eyes of the fine folks at the New York State DMV? Personally, if I were reviewing license plate applications and came across someone requesting ARSON as his vanity plate, I would probably put the applicant on a 72-hour psych hold while I evaluated the likelihood of him being a threat to himself or others. In the age of homeland security and orange threats and Big Brother using the Patriot Act to read my emails, how is it acceptable for someone to drive around with ARSON plates? The ever-wise Elena suggested that the owner is a fire fighter. Let's hope she's onto something!

Now moving on. I have lived in New York City for seven and half years now, and if there is one thing I can say for sure, it's that drivers in NYC love to honk. A LOT. Even I give a liberal honk when trying to navigate the roads while narrowly-avoiding overzealous cabs and buses, not to mention audacious bikers and ruthless pedestrians. While I truly feel very sorry for the individual whose seizures are brought on by honking, I certainly hope that s/he is not the driver of the car!

Never a dull moment, folks. Never a dull moment.

A Little Mind at Work

This morning on the way to school, YS suddenly exclaimed, "Hey! Ima! Toys that are people are called dolls!" He's figuring out the world around him, and I love every second of it!

This evening during dinner time, YS told me that he wanted to draw a rainbow, so he took a piece of paper and his tub of crayons and ran into the other room. He emerged a couple of minutes later with a perfectly-drawn ROYGBIV rainbow! I couldn't believe that he actually knew how to draw a perfect rainbow without help, so I started looking around the room for something he must have used as a guide. Nothing! I asked him how he learned the order of the colors (which I think I learned in middle school science class), and he belted out a song he had learned at school. A half hour later, he was serenading me with assorted Pesach songs that he's been practicing at school.

I am so grateful to his morahs (teachers) for not only being kind, patient, and caring, but for also being creative, competent, and so talented. How they manage a room full of 3 year-olds is beyond me, and how they do so while also legitimately teaching them copious information truly baffles my mind.

An Ode to the New York Public Library

What's free, easy, and an unlimited resource of entertainment and knowledge? The New York Public Library!!! My love affair with the public library system has gone on and off for the past seven and a half years, since I moved to NYC. Every once in a while I experience a surge of, "oh yeah! I LOVE the library!" I'm in the middle of such a surge right now.

A couple of weeks ago I heard an interview with Rocco DiSpirito on my favorite morning radio show, where he was promoting his newest cookbook. I liked the general idea of it (creating healthier versions of everyone's favorite recipes), but I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to buying a $30 cookbook. Suddenly it dawned on me that I could probably check out the book from the library, so I did! My local library is very small and has limited selection, but I can log online and quickly add a book to my "cart," and within a day or two I receive an email alerting me to the fact that the book is now available for me at the branch down the street from my house. I actually requested two of Rocco's cookbooks, read through them, picked out my favorites, and happily returned the books without spending a dime or taking up precious space in my bookshelf.

In the past month, I have checked no less than seven or eight books out from the library. I borrowed the newest book from my favorite author (Jodi Picoult - love!), some recommendations from my mom and friend, two cookbooks, and some parenting books. I have probably read and returned a couple of hundred dollars worth of books...all for free! What could be better?!

When I was in second grade, I told my parents that I wanted a pet rabbit. They told me that before I could get a rabbit, I needed to go to the library and read up on rabbit diseases and rabbit care, so that I could truly understand what I'd be getting myself into. Looking back, it's obvious that they had no intentions of buying me a rabbit, but some creative parenting put the decision in my hands and made me realize it was more than I bargained for. Perhaps this experience was the beginning of my realization that the library is an amazing resource!

My kids spend a lot of time at the NYPL as well. Not only do they have a little children's section with books and puppets and a reading rug, but they have story time and a free weekly arts & crafts workshop. The boys and their friends hang out there almost every day during the week (especially in the colder months), and I hope it's helping to foster their appreciation of reading. Budget cuts have caused a reduction in library hours and programming over the past few years, but that hasn't changed the fact that the library - when used the right way - can be an invaluable resource.

The Moo-sic of My Life as a Mom

Reason #3,489,392 why being a mom makes me laugh:

The other night, I was in the kitchen cooking, when suddenly something started to moo. My kids were asleep, D was still at work, and the last time I lived with a cow was in the early 1990s. I shook it off and went about my business. A few minutes later, I heard another moo. I looked around a bit and realized it was coming from a farm toy my in-laws gave AM a few months ago. The fact of the matter was that I was nowhere near the toy, but something about my movements in the kitchen activated its moo-ing function.

Before becoming a mom, I owned very few multi-colored-bilingual-musical items. Now I'm hard-pressed to walk though a room in my house without experiencing a sensory overload of color and music! Instead of rocking out to my favorite girl band while I cook, I listen to the random moo, baa, or gobble that may get thrown my way. And you know what? I love it!

The hills are alive with the sound of moo-sic.