Skip to main content

More than me

It's the end of the week and I'm glad it's over. Being a teacher, parent and homeowner is stressful at times, so it's nice to not have to worry about one of those responsibilities for a little while.

I haven't really written about my family at all since I've started this blog.
I guess it's only fair to mention them every once in a while...

My wife started working about a month ago. We realized that the single-income family thing wasn't exactly working for us so she applied and got a full-time job that started right after we got back from Israel. This changed a lot about our daily routine. For my wife, it meant rolling out of bed before 9 am and not having most of the day to take care of things around the house.

As for me, I now pick up my daughter from the babysitter and watch her (alone!) for about an hour or so unitl mom gets home. I, of course, am supposed to be helping out more around the house to make things easier, but I've been a lazy ass these past few weeks. I do feel more guilt than I did in the past, so I guess I'm vindicated.

My daughter had the easiest transition. She now goes to the babysitter for 8 hours a day (instead of 4) and she loves it there. She knows that, when I come to get her, "Mommy - work" and she seems to enjoy watching me play Madden football or check my email. We've even got a snack routine down where she demands something and I give it to her.

Weekends are becoming more important but we're still in the rut of not doing anything on Sundays. Because of a new commitment to budget, which limits excursions to Target and Walmart (which can kill 2 hours on a Sunday), we don't really have a whole lot of ideas. Last Sunday we broke the bank and went to the Science Center. They were showing a Mr. Roger's Neighborhood thing in the panetarium and we thought that Elana might enjoy it. She did, until the lights went out... Word of advice to all you first-time parents (cuz I know that the veterans are laughing at our stupidity): Don't spend money on kids activities before your kid is 2. Definitely not $30.

A few other cute things about my girl:
  • She's good at singing her ABCs and counting to ten.
She just got her most recent shots and she only cried for, like, 20 seconds (seriously)
  • She like to point at people's freckles and say "Freckles", but it actually sounds like "F**kers" (see video)

  • She puts her feet on the table when she eats because she knows they belong "Under table"
  • She likes to watch Barney (ARGH!)
That's all for now.

Comments

SARAH COOK said…
I wanted to let you now that you had me laughing out loud with the comment about snack time. The same thing happens at our house.
Keep the posts coming!!
carol said…
Love the blog. Watch the language. You never know who logs on.
Live and learn. It's so much fun....

Popular posts from this blog

Rabbi Marcus

My sister called this morning and left a message telling me that Rabbi Marcus passed away. I hadn't seen the man in quite some time (It's been a while since I've been to Toronto, even longer since I've been to Bnai Torah and almost forever since I last spoke with the rabbi - probably at my aufruf a few years back). I did know that he was sick, but I never really process these things well (out of sight, out of mind?). And as inevitable as the news was for some, it really caught me off guard. The first time I met the rabbi I was a five year-old kindergarten student at Eitz Chaim. Over the course of the year we had been learning our Aleph Bet , earning stars for every letter that we covered along the way. I, of course, had procrastinated for most of the year so that, by the end of the year, I had only gotten as far as the fifth or sixth letter (not for lack of knowledge, mind you). With time running out, I tried to corner my teachers to have them listen to me run through a...

Ishah Tzadikah

In memory/honor of Leibka Feiga bat Chanoch A”H (Laura Faye Topper) This week marks the 9 th anniversary of my mother-in-law’s passing. Laura suffered most of her adult life from Multiple Sclerosis, a disease that slows down or blocks messages between the brain and the body and causes – amongst other symptoms – visual disturbances, muscle weakness and thinking and memory problems. While there are treatments that can slow the disease, there is no cure for it. I was only privileged to meet Laura during the final months of her life. But while I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with her, I was privy to observing her recite Birkat Hamazon numerous times. Being in her company during those moments was inspirational, as it seemed to me that I was in the presence of a Tzadika (righteous woman). The term tzadik shows up for the first time in Jewish literature in the first verse of this week’s parsha, as follows: “ אלה תולדות נח : נח איש צדיק , תמים היה בדורותיו ...

UbD + Student Teaching = The Plan

All the rage in education is an approach to curriculum writing called Understanding by Design . I've been working with this model as an educator for the last few years and it is the main focus of the second year pedagogy class at PEP. So I decided to use this model in planning for my visit to the US, by setting out my goals for the visit and then arranging my calendar accordingly. I met with my coach for a half hour (we've been talking about this for a while, though) to flush out my ideas, and I walked away with a good list of questions and ideas that I want to test in the US.