I made a post about my dad a couple of weeks after he passed away, in 2007. A couple of weeks ago, evilellie responded to it to say that she had a picture of her dad, Wayne, in some advertisements for my dad's business - her dad used to work for my dad. She posted a link there (you can follow the link above if you want all the pictures) but one of the shots shows my dad sitting on a stool next to her dad & my dad's business partner of the time. Here it is, behind a cut as it's freakin' huge( Read more... )Thanks, Ellie & Wayne!

We had discovered in the past that when we built cribs for our kids we needed to be careful when assembling them, as they could not be removed from any of the rooms in our house without disassembling them. None of our doors are as wide as a standard crib.

We've had Tobie in the next room to us for a long time; she used to be in our room, but we moved her next door to what is putatively my office/library area so that she wasn't directly in line of sight/sound of the TV in our bedroom. The wall between the two rooms is not complete and so we can hear her without a baby monitor, although sometimes noise we make wakes her when she's not in a total sleep.

Well, she's outgrowing where she's sleeping, so we bought her a brand new crib (our first!) and assembled it upstairs in the second bedroom, down the hall from the bedroom above ours. Adding another piece of furniture to the triplets' room would be silly, and unlikely to get everyone to sleep well. The other bedroom is less crowded, and she's almost two...we thought it was a good choice.

Tobie was less impressed. She wanted no part of her new crib and cried until she was brought downstairs to her usual & expected sleeping place. She already understands real estate. When it comes to where your crib is, it's location, location, location.

In case you haven't been following along on FB, Karen has been sicker than normal. Today is day six on her current stay. With luck and good care, she will be out tomorrow. Yee-ha. I would write more (or would have written earlier) but life has been pretty busy. Go figure.

Power went off at about 4 a.m. Kids got up at around half past 6. They played nicely for the most part; Tobie needed a nap around half past 9, and power came back on about an hour later. Kids dropped playing nicely and are now attached to the idiot box. I get to post to say that we are alive. Hooray!

Sam and Abby went and found frozen waffles. I put some in the toaster oven and started them, then sat down in the dining room and had some cereal. Ellie was already eating cereal there. Sam stood next to us and was less than patient.

Sam: are they done?
Me: no, Sam.
Sam: Are they done yet?
Me: no, Sam.
Sam: are they done yet???
Me: When the metal in the toaster oven stops glowing, the waffles are done.
Sam: I think the waffles are done!
Ellie (goes into the kitchen and looks): It's still glowing!

Sam is my future theologian. Ellie is my future scientist. Abby didn't wait for waffles and played with the iPad. Tobie sat in her chair and was perfectly content.

More updates as I get 'em

Upon bringing the Kitchen-Aid stand mixer upstairs from the basement, Sam saw it and said, "That's mine! Because I'm a boy!" This leaves me both happy and confused. I'm certain I will never know what was going on in his head.

Jill/Jon-

Sorry, I can't find a current email address for you. Not surprising, plus I haven't used LJ in months. Life's been busy. I hope you'll see this, and I'll check with Karen to see if she has an current way to reach you. Failing that...

Jan Pelon, Ian Soboroff's mother, was niftar yesterday. Funeral is 1 pm today at Mt. Lebanon Cemetery: 9500 Riggs Road, Adelphi, MD 20783 (301) 434-4640; Take Beltway Exit 28B (South) onto New Hampshire Avenue. Turn left on Adelphi Road (second light). Proceed 0.4 mile to cemetery, on left.

Ian will be sitting shiva at his home 1420 Crestridge Drive through Thursday morning.

Shacharis on Sunday will be at 8AM, and Mincha/Maariv on Sunday-Wednesday will be at 7PM. Shacharis times on Monday-Thursday will be announced, along with specific shiva times.

Love,

Seth

Yes, it's the latest in the Merciless Discipline parenting series, from the folks who brought you MERCILESS DISCIPLINE: Superglue stops the whining!, it's the Merciless Discipline dieting guide: "Duct Tape: the only dieting tool you'll ever need!"

Sold online and in your finer hardware stores.

Today was the second time this week we've lost power to storms. Power came back about half an hour ago, after being off since 4pm or so. This means that I can sit in front of the fan and read LJ while the A/C chugs away at bringing the house temperature and humidity back to something I can tolerate.

I'd like to say something useful about...well, anything...except that I'm kinda brain-dead. It's been busy. Perhaps I'll post more later.

I had a new professional experience last week. I had to say to the tech standing at the C-II safe, "Please give me 4.8 grams of cocaine." And he did. All part of my job.

We took the kids to Wheaton Regional Park. It took less than 90 minutes for us to call it quits. It was too hot and we just couldn't even stay to eat lunch. We ate in the car on the way back, finished lunch at the table, & put triplets down for a nap. I changed my shirt and went out to Target to get a gift; Julian is going to a birthday party this afternoon, and we needed a Barbie for the birthday girl. I had the A/C on in the car on full blast the whole way there. While walking through the store, I saw someone from our neighborhood walking with her girls. She said, "You look hot. Are you okay?" I told her where we'd been, and took that as a recommendation to buy a Slurpee on the way home. I'm drinking that and icing my back (as per my physical therapist's directions). The situation is starting to improve.

A while ago, I built Julian a dresser. It worked out pretty well for him, but it was taller than he was (meaning he would put stuff on top and not be able to find it) and it had more room than he needed, so it would often get filled with non-clothes random stuff.

A shorter while ago, we realized that the existing system for handling small clothes for small people (e.g. Julian's existing brothers and sisters, Tobie not yet having made her entrance) was not working. So, after some sorting and rearranging, we emptied Julian's clothes into temporary bins, and moved his dresser into the triplets' closet. His dresser held the bulk of their clothes quite well, although it was too small for everything. It's a start.

Julian's room, though, a source of much chaos and confusion, only grew more so with a handful of bins cluttering up the place. I made it to Ikea on Sunday to pick up another Malm dresser (one level shorter than his old one, to avoid the problems mentioned in the first paragraph) and succeeded in throwing my back out again.

Tonight, I was feeling well enough after three solid days of steroids & recuperation to assemble his dresser. I managed it in under two hours, with an assist from Karen on one of the fiddly bits. When Julian awakes in the morning, he will find most of his bins gone and his dresser filled with his clothes.

Some days, it's good to be the dad.

http://estherchaya.livejournal.com/428921.html

Could I have written this? No. I couldn't have even come close.

With apologies to George Carlin, who did something similar for the Seven Dwarfs.

Zoomer: Totally ADHD. Recommend stimulants (e.g. amphetamines) to bring her back to level.
Dozy: narcoleptic as the day is long. Recommend Provigil to add a bit of consciousness.
Hey-Ho-Howdy: bipolar, heavy on the manic. We'll fling a little lithium his way & see what happens.
Sob: major depression. Prozac or your SSRI of choice.
Snort: No actual problems, but a real dick. We'll slip some Haldol in the next ice cream he steals & see if he mellows out.
Tremble: anxiety disorder. We'll start with BuSpar & see how things go.
Smooch: Smooch is way too level. She also doesn't seem to have a job. I'm thinking she bought Pfizer stock 65 million years ago and is living off the dividends.

This, folks, is what happens when I read children's books too often. I also wonder if the truck driver in the Berenstein Bears book "Inside Outside Upside Down" could get charged with cubnapping. But I digress.

So, I mowed the lawn today. Shocking, no? Please remember that the lawnmower storage area is blocked by the sukkah. I took that down today, too.

Only took 6 months to get around to it...

We have a name! Introducing Tova Lieba! (Tova = "good" in Hebrew; Lieba is "loved one" in Yiddish). We'll call her Tobie. Hello, Tobie. It's so nice to meet you!

Beautiful Baby Girl delivered this morning - 10:11am. She was about a month early, but GINORMOUS compared to the newborns we're used to - weighing in at 5lbs, 9ounces. Pictures to follow as soon as Karen gets them online.

(if you follow Facebook, no new news - just covering an additional community)

Julian stepped on the scale this morning. To show him the difference between his weight and mine, I did the same. Turns out I'm just about back down to three Jonathans. Note that these are Imperial Jonathans - I did not gain weight to go up to Metric Jonathans. I hadn't realized I'd lost more weight.

How strange.

Ganked from jeliza:

Lollyphile is currently featuring Caffeinated Maple Bacon flavored lollipops.

You *know* you want some. Although Lori probably wants to wait until the puking and diarrhea has ended. Sorry, hon. I, personally, will have to enjoy them vicariously; unlike the maniacs over at Bacon Salt, Lollyphile is not a kosher-bacon-flavor-producing company.

I suspect by the time my kids are old enough to understand what Alcoholics Anonymous is, there will be an organization for kids to sit at meetings and bitch about their parents. It'll be something like "Raised by Geeks Anonymous". Sam will be there, probably as a result of tonight.

As I was putting him in Mickey Mouse pajamas, I sang to him:
"MIC...that stands for Minimum Inhibitory Concentration, one of the ways antibiotics are tested to see at what point they retard bacterial growth!"
"KEY...the way that drug moieties fit into a receptor site is often called 'lock and key'!"
"MOUSE...genetically altered 'knockout' mice are common in drug research for how they can confirm or refute a hypothesis regarding a disease state!"

I apparently saw the wrong Mickey Mouse Club House as a kid. Or as a pharmacy student. Sam took it well. I think he understood one word in ten.

For several months, the triplets have been at a stage where they want to be read to. This is much better than the previous (but sadly still ongoing) stage, "shredding books to make confetti to redecorate the house with". We have the remains of a once-decent collection of Boynton books, among others. One of those is one that is available both in Spanish and English, Opposites.

Unsurprisingly, by now, I have it memorized. In both English and Spanish. I'll give you a taste:

"Big, and small. Short, and tall. High, and low. Fast, and slow. Heavy, and light. Day, and night." There's different animals illustrating the opposites. Rhino and bird. Pig and giraffe. Sheep and sheep. Dog and snail. Elephant and rabbit. Bear and bear. If you click the link to the Spanish book above, you can see one of the inside pages if you click on the photo of the book.

Ellie has reached a point where she can fill in some of the book. And, clearly, she understands some of the subject matter. So, I would say, "Big, and small. Short, and..." Ellie: "Tall!" Me: "High, and..." Ellie: "Low!" Me: "Fast, and..." Ellie: "Slow!" Me: (pointing to the elephant): "Heavy, and..." Ellie, pointing at the elephant: "Abba!" (hebrew for dad) Me, cringing, finishing the page and turning it over to the next illustration, a hippo). Ellie, not letting me talk, and pointing at the hippo: "Abba!!!"

Okay, I get the point. I'm 6'2" and ~275 lbs, and she's somewhat smaller and lighter...being, you know, a toddler. Is this fair? And how did she learn to get me a consult for gastric bypass?

I'm not in too much pain, despite two hours of shoveling. If I'd had to do it all myself, it would undoubtedly be too painful today.

During a couple of the attempts to determine if I could get the car out of the gap in the snow at the end of the driveway (the hardest shoveling was done by osewalrus, who got a gap dug where the snowplows had piled it higher & deeper) was that the snow was still compactable. You know, by a forced collision with a Honda Accord. If only I had a plow blade for my car...

Still could be better, although I'm glad it wasn't worse. Made it through last night & today, with the help of friends & family. Sheri dropped off food prior to Shabbos. The Nelkins dropped off a full meal, which of course lasted for two meals considering the quantity of food delivered and the number of mouths here. Karen's mom both dropped off & picked up Julian from school (he was there for, well, like 3 hours!) but it was his special day, so hopefully it was good for him. She also relieved Mariam (our nanny) so that she could prepare for Snowpocalypse '10. I fed the kids dinner for three hours on Friday night, and tried putting the triplets to bed. At 9pm, I gave up on them going to sleep, and left their room to go to bed myself. Julian had already put himself to bed. They didn't kill each other, so it's a win for everyone.

Today went fine - they didn't wake me up until almost 8am, so I got lots of sleep. Breakfast went well, kids played together nicely, and osewalrus and his medium Bear dropped by after shul to check in on us. Julian & Bear played together for an hour or so, and I got the triplets out in the snow. The first time it snowed like this (Dec. 19th) I took them out and they were miserable. Today, they loved it. They went out again later. Julian went out into the snow a total of five times. He's in hog heaven.

I gave them lunch, and at 1 pm put them down for a nap - they were kvetchy and tired. Fortunately or unfortunately, only the girls napped - Sam wouldn't go down, so I took him out at 1:30pm so that he wouldn't wake his sisters up. I had trouble staying awake, but Sam didn't demand interaction, so I read a bit and managed to keep my eyes open while he played. The girls got up at 3:15pm, so they napped approximately 2 (two!) hours. I got them a snack, we went out into the snow for the second time, and went inside for dinner. It seemed after dinner that they were losing it again, so I took them to bed at 7:30. I took Ellie back out to save her being abused, and although Abby & Sam threw their regular fit, Sam dropped off to sleep by the time I took Ellie back in.

osewalrus and Bear had come at my request to assist in shoveling my driveway in case I found childcare coverage so I could work tomorrow. Karen's still in the hospital, yes, and there's no knowing when she'll be out. When I came in for hand warmers for Bear, I heard playing in their room, but when I just checked on them, everyone was unharmed and in their beds. While shoveling occurred, Julian put himself to bed - in my bed. I could move him, but I just moved 30 cubic meters of snow (with help), so why? It's not like there's more beds down here.

Once everyone is up and fed tomorrow, I'll call Karen's mom and let her know that she doesn't need to panic about getting to us to relieve me for work - it sounds like they haven't cleaned her complex yet. I'll call the local grapevine & see if coverage can be arranged, and if not, c'est la vie. What else can I do?