Vinyl Blues

Pesach this year was absolutely lovely. I managed to keep my pre-Pesach mental anguish at bay, D was incredibly helpful by taking the kids off my hands on cleaning and cooking days, the boys were on their best behavior, we shared some meals with wonderful families in our community, and we had our own Seder for the first time! My Pesach stash of cooking gear grows little-by-little each year, and when we decided to have a Seder, I decided it was time to add some plates, bowls, and a tablecloth to my collection. What a great excuse to spend time browsing the shelves of Bed, Bath, and Beyond! You might be surprised (I was) at how difficult picking out a tablecloth is. I'd say it's safe to say I spent at least 20 minutes picking up one option, putting it down, picking it back up again, etc. etc. etc. I ultimately decided on a vinyl tablecloth with a pretty pattern on it, since I figured being able to easily wipe off matza crumbs and wine droplets would be really helpful during the holiday, sine I didn't want to have to take it on and off repeatedly to clean it.

The table looked great!

Until...

On the first day of Pesach, I forgot that the tablecloth was vinyl and set a hot serving dish on it. Imagine my surprise when I tried to clean up from lunch and discovered that the dish had become one with the tablecloth! Since it was yom tov, I couldn't rip the dish off, so we just left it there and ate around it for the rest of the holiday, including Seder!

Basically I'm Famous Now

I'll be honest (I usually am). I'm not exactly sure who Justin Bieber is, what he sings, why teenage girls think his crazy hair is something to be excited about, or whether or not he has a Disney tv show, but I DO know that he's uber-famous. So, when given the opportunity to try on his shoe, of course I jumped at it.

Was this the first time I had worn a famous person's shoe? Yes. Was this the first time I wore an ugly purple high top with strange velcro closures and a tweenage boy's signature? Yes. Was this the first time I felt like I needed to Purell my foot in the middle of a workday? No, definitely not.

Will it be the last? Time will tell...

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.