Been Booted

So I ended up getting kicked off my mom's club yahoo groups, a different one from what you are thinking of, and may get kicked out of the entire club. Lame. Erik has started calling me a social pariah. I know who my friends are, and most people support me, but still I feel like such a loser.

I have been kicked out of parties, bars, restaurants and classrooms but a mom's club? That is a new low.

It's possible I can write a suck up letter to the International Group of Mothers (yes that does exist), I am still pondering that idea. Not sure if it's worth the effort.

Today is Halloween and my kids are party animals! We have been to a playgroup, a preschool parade, lunch with Erik at Chili's and after naptime is a party with our friend/realtor Nicole and then back home for trick or treating. Woo Hoo!!

Ooooops

As much complaining as I do about drama in my moms club, now I am the unintentional instigator. Somebody accidentally sent my fake letter to the whole mom's club. If you don't know what I am talking about you are going to have to read the post below for history because I gotta take a shower soon and don't have time to explain it again.

So my joke letter was buried under a thread of emails that had turned to talking about the cold weather in the East. So hopefully most people won't scroll all the way down and read the original email. Ugh I was just venting I didn't want people's feelings to get hurt. Now I have caused more work and problems for our president M and her son is sick and she doesn't need this. I just hope I don't have to kiss ass or get kicked out of the mom's club, the other one in San Ramon. I will of course take responsibility for my big mouth, but it's gonna hurt.

I am going to take the kids out of town today and hide. Wish me luck.

More Mama Drama

Oh will it ever end? So I wrote in an earlier post about the drama going on in my mom's club, that is not like that other mom's club. Drama that is completely new to us as we grow larger and less intimate. I will be brief in my explanation of this new shitstorm that I have apparently caused. My friend and former President of the moms club's husband is running for water management board, and I am not using any names here or real positions just in case anyone significant reads my blog. So our club was running a poll and I made a joke saying that a poll was a great way to practice voting for next week and that we should vote No on 8, Yes on Obama and Yes on this woman's husband. So a new member I have never met or heard of, sent out an email saying that the mom's club is not a political club and that I need to keep my opinions to myself. Awesome. So I felt bad because I am causing problems for my friend who is president, M so I sent out a nice apology. That is the email directly below. Well a bunch of other moms sent me personal emails expressing disbelief that somebody could actually be offended so I wrote a fake letter just for them. That one is below the real kiss ass one that I sent out.


Dear L and anyone I offended,
As a former member of the board, I am aware of the bylaws and you are right this is not a political club. By the way the bylaws are a great way to cure insomnia, just ask Madame President M. I know she has had to peruse them quite frequently in the past few weeks and I sincerely apologize to her for causing any problems with my previous email. I also apologize to you L. and anyone else that was offended.

L. since you are new I am sure we haven't met and you may not be aware that there was a punchline in that email. Our former Moms Club President's husband is running for the San Ramon Water Management Board. Though this role is important it is politically benign and he is a super nice guy so I was offering my support. So when it comes to apologies, I don't apologize for saying vote for him. Unless of course your partner is running against him for same position and then I do apologize to you again.

L. I encourage you to participate at club events and then you can see that we are all friendly, but it's hard to tell that by emails sometimes unless you rely heavily on emoticons to express yourself. # : ) I did not make it to hoot and howl because I was too tired after having the book club at my house Monday morning, and SuperFranks was during my daughter's soccer class, and if you were at the Halloween party this morning I am sorry I didn't get a chance to introduce myself, I was chasing my boys.

L. and K. N. there is a seperate email group for our club that is about discussion ,politcial and otherwise, I forget who moderates it but if you send an email out asking you will get an answer. That group is great for getting into intelligent discussions after the kids go to bed and we all agree to disagree respectfully and learn new things from and about each other.

Welcome to the club,
Charlotte Gracer mother to:
Michael Rankin Gracer 4 years old, Rebekah Hazel Gracer almost 3 years old and Jacob William Gracer 19 months old


Below is the fake email that I didn't send, it was just my way of venting.






Dear L. and any other bitch that bursts into tears when somebody looks at you cross-eyed,

As a former member of the board, a thankless job just like motherhood, I am completely aware that I was breaking one of our million bylaws. I have to admit I was fishing people like you out of the moms club population so when we do split off I know where not to go. I do apologize to M for causing her to have to deal with more whining that seems to never end from the likes of you. Thing is M is a big girl and will probably get over it loooong before you do.

L. , and you other bitches, since you are new we probably haven't met and if we have it will probably take me a year to remember your face since all the pot I smoked in an earlier life and the ravages of motherhood have left me short on braincells. It would also help though if you actually showed up to moms club events, not like that other mom's club.Before having kids I was never in a club so I really don't understand the point of joining something and never showing up. Well except for my old gym membership. Unless you actually like to sit home in your p.j.s feeling sorry for yourself and sending out snotty emails, then by all means party on. But actually we are really friendly in person, in fact if you showed up in your p.j.s nobody would really care, especially if you bring us cookies. In fact I went to a moms club event today, not like that other mom's club, without showering and wearing one of my husband's shirts and people still talked to me. My kids looked gorgeous and we were out of the house socializing and that is what is most important.

If you and the other spazzes would come to stuff you would also maybe get some inside jokes because you would meet other moms and know who they are and that their husband was running for city stuff. I mean really if I didn't know my friend do you think I would give a flying fuck about the water management board?! No offense to you know who.

Ok really we had 4 events going on this week, you could at least go to 1! And don't fucking whine to me how hard it is to get out of the house, I am well aware of that. My morning started before the sun came up and before noon I had changed 4 diapers, fed 6 mammals if you include all my kids, me, my husband and the damn cat,made a sack lunch,dressed 2 kids and yelled at the other to dress himself, brushed their hair, took one kid to preschool while the other 2 tagged along, delivered a bale of hay and cheese and crackers to a moms club event and made sure my boys ate something besides cookies and cigarette butts, returned the bale of hay, got the van washed and vacuumed all the hay out, fed the boys lunch, dropped off son at school and picked up daughter, put her and younger brother down to nap, ate my lunch, and drank roughly 600 milligrams of caffiene. I dare you to whine to my face about how hard it is to get out of the house.

Welcome to the club,
Charlotte Gracer mother to:
Michael Rankin Gracer 4 years old honey moon baby, Rebekah Hazel Gracer almost 3 years old didn't use a condom or birth control after I stopped nursing, Jacob William Gracer 19 months old was on the birth control pill for the first 7 weeks of his gestational life.

P.S.
L. you didn't tell us your political affiliation when you sent out your brief, albeit bitchy email, so I will just take a wild guess that you won't be needing any extra No On 8 signs from my front yard. Go ahead and call me a liberal queer loving fag hag, because I have been called worse. In fact if you have been in our moms club for awhile you would know that my 4 year old has been known to call me a poopy vagina.
Peace out.

No on 8

So my SIL, Merrill, who lives in San Ramon now, called me on my cell today while I was grocery shopping. She had called to inform me that there were Yes on 8 losers on the corner of Bollinger Canyon Rd. and Alcosta with signs. Grrrr! I got all fired up in Safeway and Merrill was cracking up. I had Mike and Bekah with me and Erik was home napping with Jake. Erik let me sleep in this morning, so I was paying him back by getting Mike and Bekah out of the house so he could nap too.

The 3 of us finished our grocery shopping with only minor annoyances. Mike tried to gnaw his way through a bag of chocolate chips and Bekah tried to help herself to some cheese from the cart but I caught them both in time. Once we were in line though I did find some surprise purchases but Pasta Roni and baked Lays aren't that bad so I let them through.

Once we got in the van we took the long way home to check out these protesters. We live deep in the burbs so protesters are as exotics as elephants. Sure enough, in all their whiteness was a dozen protesters with Yes on 8 signs on the corners of Bollinger and Alcosta, a busy intersection. I told the kids that I was going to roll down the windows and honk and then I wanted them to hold up a thumbs down towards these people. I didn't hesitate to explain that these people were bad and stupid. This was shocking because stupid is as bad a word as shit or fuck in our house. But I honestly believe this is a civil rights issue and I wouldn't hesitate to call a skinhead or a KKK hoodlum stupid. That would surely be an understatement. So why not call these people stupid? They are taking away the right of marriage from consenting adults, it is stupid and hateful and it's ok for my kids to know that.

But honestly my kids are very young. Jake is 18 months old and has nary a clue of pretty much anything. Mike is 4 years old and when it comes to marriage he either wants to marry me, Jake, his sitter Sarah or one of his cousins. As far as he is concerned if you love somebody you marry them. Bekah is somewhere between Mike and Jake. I have 3 No on 8 signs on my lawn and Mike and Bekah think they are there to keep away the raccoons. I really have no desire to go much further in explaining the issue of gay marriage to them right now. I just want them to grow up and look back and say, "Wait a second it used to be illegal for gays to get married?, No way! That is so weird!! Who cares if gay people get married? Those people must be really stupid!".

Last Batch of Pumpkin Patch

Merrill and I decided to dress our monkeys up as color coordinated as possible so we could get a group photo of them at yet another pumpkin patch. My husband Erik and his sister Merrill have a living grandmother and thanks to us Estelle has 5 great-grand children. What a perfect gift for Estelle, a picture of all her great grand children to show her friends. Between 2 cameras and over 60 pictures this is as close as we could get to almost all of them looking at the same place, with most of them smiling and only Michael has his eyes closed.

This is Bekah in a jumpy house. She is looking at me through the mesh wall with her hazel eyes.

So we finished taking our group photo and Mike, Kaitlyn and Haley went on the giant slide and Bekah went in the jumpy house and now it's time to pick a pumpkin. We all spread out in our quest and I took Mike and Jake and Merrill had all the girls. Mike said, "Mom I have to go potty.", so I said, "Ok let me get Jake.". Well that took too long, so Mike took matters into his own hands, literally. I turned around to see him peeing on a pumpkin. All I could do was take a picture. It was hard to be mad at him because I was laughing so hard. Don't go to Moore's Pumpkin Patch in Castro Valley.

On Sunday I learned that yelling, "Fucking Fox News!", is not appropriate at the gym. I was punishing myself on the treadmill and at first put on CNN, but Fareed Zakaria was interviewing Queen Rania of Jordan. She was going on about how it's ok to wear a veil if you choose to. I was not into that. The t.v. at the gym is limited, it's mostly sports channels, a girly movie, a gory movie and CNN or Fox. So I switched on Fox and immediately became enraged.

The anchor men and women on Fox were besides themselves because Colin Powell had endorsed Obama. They were interviewing people on the street but being very selective. They asked this one woman about Powell's endorsement and she was all disgusted and said his motive must be because he wanted a position in Obama's cabinet. Then the reporter asked her about Palin's performance on Saturday Night Live, and this same random citizen went on to say that she was brilliant and that it was brave of her to go into the thick of it. I am assuming she meant the dark hole of liberalism that is SNL. Then they went back to the anchorman who said that they were just waiting on Obama to speak live at a rally but he was running late. And then he actually pointed out that McCain wasn't late at the rally he spoke at earlier in the day but we are going to wait for Obama anyways because we are fair and balanced. WTF! No you are not!! That's when I lost it.


A couple of people looked and I pretended that nothing happened and switched on football. Even though football is on at my house on Sundays for 12 hours at a time. I decided that I was better off lifting weights.

Then Limbaugh on Monday was saying that Colin Powell only endorsed Barack Obama because they are both black. He repeated it several times, loudly. I am not making this up. I used to like and respect McCain. But paired with Palin, he has become so simple and base. So scummy and desperate. Palin is not afraid to stir up the most hostile rancor. She is not afraid to liberate the ignorant, to validate the seemingly disenfranchised. When she is done stirring up this anger and Obama wins (please, please, please) where is this riotous mob going to go? What are they going to do?

What is November 5th going to be like?

Assorted Pumpkin Patch Pictures

This is Jake with Auntie Merrill at a pumpkin patch we went to in Livermore. I don't know why Jake looks so angry he was having a blast.

Here is my daughter looking surly. Bekah wanted to come sit with me but I wanted her to sit with her classmates. Bekah and Michael go to the School Of Imagination and Jake is on the wait list to go there too. I love this program, they have very skilled teachers and a very low ratio of students to teachers.

In the picture below I got Bekah smiling a little bit. Her and Michael were watching a pair of little old lady volunteers put on a show. Very cute.

Jake, 18 months, at the pumpkin patch in Livermore.

I bought Jake a monkey costume and as you can see it's too small and enraged him. Bekah, Mike and I tried to comfort him between laughing but he was not having it. Bekah and Mike really wanted him to be a bulldog so I went back and got him a bulldog costume instead.

I can never get Bekah to look at the camera and smile, it drives me crazy. She is a very happy smiley person, she just won't pose. In this picture we are at yet another pumpkin patch but this one is in Fairfield and you take a train to get there. Very cool.

On a hayride with Bekah, Jake, Erik and our friend Denise. Mike is sitting elsewhere with our friend Anderson, his son Merrick and Denise's husband Sheldon and their daughter Tea and twin boys Jordan and Trey. It was very windy there and the kids kept getting stuff in their eyes, next time I will bring sunglasses for them.

Me and Jake at that Fairfield pumpkin patch.

Below are my 3 monkeys at the pumpkin patch in Fairfield. It is impossible to get them to look at the camera and all smile at the same time. They are watching a children's music band of grown men dressed like pirates. They were actually good, played reggae and rock.

Yay a cute family photo where everyone's eyes are open and almost everyone is smiling.

Mama Drama

So I am in a moms club, that has nothing to do with that other one, and have been since Mike was 6 months old. The camraderie and support have been a lifesaver. In the 3 and a 1/2 years that I have been a member we have been mostly free of any controversy, until now. As the population of our club increases, so does the variety of personalities. We communicate by an email group, so of course the amount of emails have increased as well. This is where the conflict lies. Some of the moms were annoyed by the amount of emails,and then offended by content. This prompted our dear leader to send out an email that was basically a copy and paste of the bylaws. She is a cool chick and she is just fulfilling one of the roles of her position.

Well this prompted me, and some of my more vociferous friends, to wonder if it was something in particular that we wrote that provoked this smackdown. Was it the email thread about penis water bottles, sex in exotic places, discarded foreskins or alcohol consumption, we will never know. So then everyone was on eggshells, sending out emails with disclaimers stating, I hope this is ok, I hope nobody is offended, I hope this is within our bylaws. I of course was one of those people and I sent it out tongue and cheek thinking this silliness would blow over and we could get back to the camraderie I thought all of us were enjoying. Wrong. I received a personal email back setting my ass straight.

This email was long, and swaddled in phrases of support for fellow moms, like respecting other mother's time and being sensitive to other mom's thresholds of offensiveness. But none of this could hide the underlying tone of condescension and control. I don't do condescending or authority very well. After reading this email I tried to sleep on it but that didn't work. I sent it to some very close friends to get feedback and that didn't quell my anger either. Then I sent out a smartass remark about mom's being too tired to use the delete button and that started a shit storm.

An onslaught of emails were posted by women whining about having to wade through a barrage of emails they found to be frivolous and inappropriate. They complained about their precious morning and afternoons being wasted because they had to read all these offensive emails. What ever happened to the delete buttons on their computers? When I am confronted by a boring thread of emails, I just delete them, no big deal.

As for offensiveness, this really gets my goat. We are mothers, we are women, we are adults. To paraphrase my friend Barb, you have to have sex to be a mother, it's kind of a prerequisite of a mom's club. So even if you adopted your child or used IVF, it's most likely that you at one point had sex and figured out it wasn't working like you planned. Even if you are a lesbian mother and have never had sex with a man, you at some point probably had sex with your partner. Considering the level of alarm that some of the mothers have expressed about the content of emails and conversations at our mom's night outs, I am thinking that their children are a result of virgin births or sex through a hole in a sheet. This is just my opinion of course.

Yes you heard right somebody complained about the adult conversations at one of our recent mom's nights out, that has nothing to do with any other mom's night out. Once a month we have a mom's night out event, that has nothing to do with any other event, with no children allowed, unless you are nursing. At the last event no children were present and somebody actually complained that we were talking about sex. If there are no children present then adult conversation is not inappropriate. Adult conversation should not be censored from email as well because it is assumed that a child is not reading an adult's emails. It is a parent's responsibility to make sure their children are not subjected to anything beyond their comprehension.

I am not alone in my opinion. I have received personal emails from women not easily offended, who agree with me and are dismayed by the path our club is taking. What is appropriate for adults is not appropriate for children. A successful mother's club realizes that distinction. What the new moms have yet to learn is that you can love and serve your children without sacrificing yourself. It is totally ok for you to be your true self and positively channel that into your childrearing practices. Otherwise you are going to be left alone with your husband, and you are going to be nothing but a shell. I am not talking about a pretty abalone shell, I am talking about an empty snail shell, with cobwebs.

It is absolutely fine for you to still hold onto the interests you had before becoming a parent. You may have to get a sitter to participate in them or even delay those activities for a few years, but you should not give them up. I enjoy cooking, dining out and reading. I can cook for guests while they watch my kids and keep them out of the kitchen. I get a sitter to dine out and I read before bed when my kids are asleep. What I really miss is listening to classical music and doing jigsaw puzzles. I know, I know, I am a closet nerd. I can put on classical music but my kids would eat and/or destroy a jigsaw puzzle so I don't even try. We are working up to camping and hiking. My point is that you don't have to completely give up who you are to be a good mom.

So is this division in the mom's club, different from that other mom's club, from new, inexperienced moms or is it a deeper division of philosophy? I recently went to a new member's house and saw a giant cross hanging on her wall. If I was a vampire or a werewolf, I would not feel safe in this neighborhood. As a Jew, I felt a little squirmy. I had a paranoid premonition that things in the mom's club were gonna change. Turns out I wasn't so paranoid. I really hope that is not it. If this sudden upheaval and outrage over behavior, we have grown accustomed to, is because of an infiltration of conservative christians, then I hope they join a mom's club in their church or I will just hit the road myself.

Well I think I have stirred up enough shit with this particular blog posting, what do you think? I need to watch t.v. with my husband now and go to bed soon.

Believe it or not this is my street! Our house is at the bottom of a very steep cul-de-sac. There is an actual working ranch at the top of the hill and these huge trucks have been going up and down the street for a couple of weeks. Well on this day, a Monday of course, this not very skillful truck driver did not navigate our steep winding street and tipped his 2nd trailer over. Jake and I had just come home from dropping off Mike and picking up Bekah. I turn onto my street to see this guy with a tipped over tractor trailer spilling dirt everywhere standing there scratching his head. Once I got my kids settled I came out and he's gone! He unhitched the trailer, set out some cones and drove off in his cab hauling just one trailer of dirt.

It really was the perfect thing to happen on this Monday. It was one of those Mondays where nothing extremely bad happens, just lots of little annoying things happen. Like trying to get a hanger out of your closet and it's kind of tangled in other hangers so you pull on it and like 10 hangers come crashing down into a pile on your feet. After breakfast Mike is supposed to dress himself but you practically have to stand over him and yell or he gets distracted by fuzz in the carpet and wonders off with his underwear around his knees and one sock on. Then both Jake and Bekah pooed before preschool and so changing them made us 15 minutes late. Then when we get to the gym I run into the nicest person but she talks sooo much she could make a deaf man want to stick ice picks in his ears. Once we get home to eat lunch, Jake poops again and is all cranky. When the 3 of us go to pick up Bekah and drop off Mike, Bekah is poopy again so I have to change her before we can leave and Jake wants to run off. Once we are home and see the spilled dirt neither one of them ends up napping at all.


Finally we go get Mike and I tell him about the truck accident and he is all excited so I tell him when we get home we will grab the camera and take a picture. So we get home, I load them up in our wagon and Mike is racing up the hill he is so excited. Mike was a little dissappointed that I wouldn't let them go play in the spilled dirt but it was still very interesting to look at and now there are lots of men doing clean up. The reason that I don't have any pictures of the huge mound of spilled dirt completely burying the sidewalk is because my camera's battery died! It was just that kind of day.
By the way, it turns out these trucks did not have a permit to be driving on our street anyways. One of my neighbors sent out an email about it and told us to complain to the city. I never had to send off my pictures because I guess enough people complained and now are street is quiet again. Well quiet except for my kids.

Friends for almost 30 years

This is a picture of my friend Kellie and her daughter Isabel, 20 months. Kellie, Linda and I have all been friends since I was 8 and I will be 38 years old on December 5th so that is almost 30 years of friendship. Kellie lives in Honduras now with her hottie Honduran husband Walter. Kellie, Walter and Isabel were here visiting for a few weeks at the end of September.

This is my friend Linda and her son Adam, 2 years old. Adam was adopted by Linda after he was left at a fire station by his birth mother. He is so lucky to be adopted into such a loving family, he must have an amazing guardian angel. How cute is he??!

Linda lives and teaches in San Jose where we all grew up together. We used to say that we would all get married and have kids, at the same time, and live near each other but when you are a young girl you obviously don't know what you are talking about. Well we all did have kids at the same time, I just happened to have more of them all at the same time.

Water for Elephants

I wrote a review of this book for my book club members because I wanted to practice some writing and they were captives, I mean a captive audience.




The book I am reviewing is Water For Elephants, by Sara Gruen. I loved this book. I did not skim, or set it down only to return to it months later. I wouldn't say it started slow but the story did climb continuously, and steadily until the end. Not a twist ending or a shocking climax but a very satisfying, tying up the loose ends kind of finish.

This book is actually timely. I know, I know, you are saying how the hell can a book about a guy who joins the circus as a vetinarian in 1929 be timely?! That's because we are in an economic crisis extremely similar to that of the Great Depression. The main difference being that due to the Great Depression our income is protected by the FDIC,right? Anyways a young man (and I assume he is cute) is at Cornell studying vetinary medicine when his beloved parents die and he finds out that he has no inheritance due to his parents putting up all their assets for collateral to pay for his college education. Ok so that is the boring part, or the plot premise.

So he is despondent and jumps on a train out of town only to find that is a train car full of transients. Back then they called them hobos. It's a circus train and he lands himself a job tending to the animals due to his almost complete degree. So without giving away anymore storyline I will fill you in on the writing. It's not overly flowery or poetic, it conveys the neccesary emotions. There is some violence, romance, sex and animal science but all palatable and understandable.Your husband can read and enjoy this. My husband shys away from books with romance, and so do I, but this book's romance is not mushy and the sex scene is not graphic. There is a line about her breasts being like lemons and that's as graphic as it gets. Lemons are good.

Enjoy!

Many Species of Jake

So this my youngest Jacob William, Jake. I tried so hard to find just one picture or image that conveyed Jake's essence but it could not be done. It's almost impossible to describe what it is like to live with a mammal so wild. We have decided he is not defnitely not human, and maybe even of another world. These are not negative labels, anyone who has ever lived with a beloved pet or thought a mythical creature was really cute knows what I am talking about. To add even more dimension to Jake's persona, he was our surprise, bonus baby. During those middle of the night, deep thought moments I often wonder if he was really sent to us and we had nothing to do with his creation. I usually snap out of it at by daybreak.



So below is pictures of Jake with comparative images I scrounged off the internet.





Directly below is Jake in the tub. We were used to Michael and his obsession with water and then along comes Jake to make Mike look like a desert nomad. The first swim lesson I took Jake to he didn't shed a tear! Most 14 month old babies would cry and cling to their mothers and sputter and cough when submerged in the water. Jake tried to jump out of my arms and into the pool on the first day. My chest was always covered in little scratches where his paper thin nails clawed at me so he could get under the water. When you stick him under water his eyes are wide open, and he is smiling. It ranks in the top 5 parenting miracles to see how he would naturally hold his breath and swim away from me like a merman, or dolphin, the first time I submerged him in the pool and let go.

So before you get comfortable and think he is the cutest thing that ever lived, he can also be insane and infuriating. His curiousity and gross factor is limitless. Today I changed his poopy diaper and it was full of sand and carrots. It was so disgusting! This was sand that he ate, not sand that got into his diaper from playing in a sandbox. He has supersonic hearing and as soon as he hears the toilet lid go up he runs full-speed ahead to burst into the bathroom and straight for the toilet. This usually involves him either getting his head peed on or if he is late he only gets to splash around in and drink the urine from the toilet bowl before it's flushed. He is also not afraid to eat trash from the garbage can, and anything he finds on the floor or ground outside is fair game. He loves to experiment with textures and make giant messes. When he is finished eating, every last morsel, utensil and dish is thrown from his high chair. Then he will fingerpaint his highchair tray, his face and his hair with any liquids or sauces left behind. He is like a mad scientist who isn't afraid of the most disgusting experiment and not afraid to use himself as a guinea pig.

Jake is also indestructible. He climbs and falls and runs smack into walls and rolls of the couch or bed like a sack of potatoes. He gets up smiling and runs away. He weighs a ton. He was only 5 lbs. and 14 oz. at birth. In 3 months he was 15 lbs. Can you imagine tripling your weight in 3 months?! Let's just say you are a 100 lb. adult (that's all my math skills can handle) and in 3 months you weigh 300 lbs, you would be very concerned to say the least. Jake is now 18 months old and weighs 28 lbs. which is not light. But he feels even heavier! Like when it's cold outside but also windy, so even though your thermometer says 55 degrees it probably feels like 40 degrees. That's Jake. I see unsuspecting adults trying to help me out by picking up Jake before he runs headfirst into trouble and they almost fall on their face! It's like he is chained to the ground or made of super dense material like moon rock. Not only is he indestructible but he is destructible. If he can't make something happen he just rams it with his head or whole body. He is our tank.

Sometimes I think Jake is our smartest kid. I have seen him use critical thinking skills to get himself unstuck before I could help him. He is an early talker and has a great memory for faces. Sometimes though I wonder. Like when he spits out water all over the kitchen floor and then slips and falls in it. I scoop him up and comfort him and put him on the carpet and before I can grab a stack of paper towels to clean up his puddle he is flat on his back again and crying. Arrrgh!

I call all of my children monkeys. They act like monkeys, and they look like monkeys. Monkeys are clever but silly, kind but mischeivious, messy but cute, active but cuddly.........I could go on and on. Yesterday Jake displayed classic monkey characteristics by escaping his cage while his keeper's back was turned. My youngest was in the backyard happily eating sand and I needed to take the cans to the curb. I was hopeful that he was so into his snack that I could get at least one can to the curb before having to lock him inside with his father. Wrong! I got only as far as the driveway before he was in the middle of the street. This is quite a distance he covered so he was hauling ass. I am not exagerrating when I say middle of the street, barefoot Jake ran straight to the middle of the street, turned right and headed for the main road. He gave himself away because he is yelling, "I did it, I did it, I did it!". As soon as I start huffing after him he actually picks up speed and starts laughing at me! Right before I grab him he turns again and heads back to the sidewalk and trips over the curb landing on his face. This doesn't faze him at all he is still giggling. So I breathlessly lug him back inside and hand him to Erik. By the time I am done with my chore Jake is tearful and despondent, another escape thwarted. His behavior is more chimp like but Jake reallys looks like a baby orangutang.

Holidays, any holiday

So today I had an epiphany. When you were a kid all holidays were fabulous, not a moment of stress or strife. All that was required of you, as a child, was to just show up and have fun and maybe show a semblance of gratitude.

I never realized how stressed out my parents were. I discovered that today when you are a parent holidays take on a completely new meaning and can even be a chore. You have to make sure the kids are clean, cute and well-behaved and you have to do all of this with a smile on your face. You also have to clean and feed yourself.

Then, even if you aren't religious, you have to convey a message of deeper meaning than just sweets, presents and the priveledge of skipping a nap. In between the sweets, you have to make sure they eat something nutritous and festive to commemorate the holiday. You also need to be nice to your spouse and both of you have to somehow get them peacefully into bed after a day of shattered routines and lots of sugar. Then the two of you need to celebrate in a meaningful way without passing out on the couch first or snapping at each other.


The first night of Rosh Hashanah, Erik ended up doing bath by himself, voluntarily, because I was not able to maintain the smile on my face any longer. I had taken the 3 monkeys to Temple earlier in the day and I am just worn out.

I had Sarah hear to help me fluff them up and then we had to wake Jake from a nap that he fought in the first place. I felt so weird doing that because honestly he is 18 months old, exactly how much is he going to get out of this experience except sleep deprivation? Couldn't leave him home alone though. Sarah went home and I took them to children's services by myself. I was a little panicky but thankfully Erik's Uncle Jamie sat next to me and basically commandeered my extremely wiggly Michael. An absolute G-dsend. I am soooo grateful and couldn't have done it without him. Mericfully children's services are short and sweet.

By the time we got home and through dinner I was cranky and tired and so was everyone else. If you mess with their routines, children will punish you. That's why my awesome husband volunteered to do bathtime by himself because nobody wanted to be around me anymore including him. I felt better after going downstairs and sending Uncle Jamie a thank you note. I was able to read few stories and kiss my monkeys good night.

L' Shana Tovah

Wildlife in San Ramon

Welcome to rutting season here in San Ramon! By the looks of our backyard you would never know that we live less than a half mile from the freeway. Luckily for us we have a creek and a beautiful old Oak behind our house that attracts all local wildlife. We have seen coyote, wild pigs, raccoon, deer and many varieties of birds, including woodpeckers, wild turkeys and huge predator birds. This is our first deer mating season here in this house, and though we see doe all of the time we are just now seeing bucks. This guy was the biggest one we have seen and he was spraying bushes, rubbing his antlers on the trees and chasing a doe. Scared poor Bekah when this buck crashed through the tules in the creek and up the hill chasing his woman.