Laundry and Fashion

This is really a combination of two seperate things, however since both are dealing with clothes I think that a combo post is OK.

The first is on the topic of laundry.........I don't know if all moms did this or just mine, but either in the early morning or in the evening, there would be this frantic call to me and my sister. It went something like this, "strip right now! I need your clothes to make a full load in the laundry!" If it was morning then she wanted our pajamas and if it was night, then it was our clothes and even if it was only 6:00pm we were in pajamas or sweats so that she could do her laundry. Flash forward about 30 years and low and behold, Friday afternoon had me doing the same thing. Fridays in our house for anyone who knows me, are to put it midly....INSANE! We are trying to get everything done before Shabbat comes in because if it doesn't get done before sundown, its not getting done until Shabbat goes out on Saturday night. Since my oldest has ripped every last pair of pants in the knee except for TWO I am always in a rush to get his pants in the wash for school the next or in this case Friday so they are ready on Sunday. So it was Friday afternoon around 2:00pm and out came those same words my mother would say, "Hurry up and get out of your pants NOW, I need to get them in laundry! I don't care what you wear but give me those pants!" I swear I was looking for my mother until I realized that it came from me! Oh how the mighty have fallen.........

Now for part two the fashion portion of our program. Somehow when we had twins and we had a boy and a girl we imagined pretty clothes and a fashion sense from one and jeans and whatever from the other. Well, we were mostly right.....Y is the ruler of fashion and coordination in our house. He will wear pants or jeans, always with a proper shirt. The only t-shirts he wears are Thomas the Tank Engine and occasionaly a Blues Clues shirt which is a hand me down. He will not wear shirts with writing on them. No sweats and everything must match. Now take M on the other hand..........she is a Slob. She drools, makes a mess out of everything she wears and her favorite outfits are anything with pants and anything that has a hood and pockets. Today she wanted to wear her pink sweat pants with her brown hooded Nike shirt that grandma brought this fall. Me, I am all fine whatever, just put clothes on......I am not in the mood to argue over what to wear. Y on the otherhand, seems to know that his twin sister is fashionably challenged and was in horrors about what she wanted to wear. He kept insisting that she wear the matching shirt to her sweats and not the Nike shirt. I had to convince him to just let it go. Y frequently tries to pick out her clothes and was for a while particularly fond her Dora the Explorer dress brought by Grammy. He was very dissapointed when I told him she out grew it. M rarely takes his fashion advice, though I must admit he does pretty good; but instead prefers her own style to anyone else's. Y does accept it, but I think he just can't resist trying, hoping that just maybe one day she will actually wear something during the week that doesn't embarass us all. Oh and by the way, there is one person who she will listen to. Her Abba! That is how I get her dressed for Shabbat. I can argue, force, struggle, to no avail. She will not put on what ever is I have picked out. But if D walks in the room, and gets her dressed she is just all smiles and sits perfectly still while he gets her ready! I told her she is a traitor to her sex! She doesn't seem to mind.

Nothing New

In reality I have very little news to report. But this is why I am writing. To show you that despite the war that goes on here, we are all fine and living our daily lives. I am extremely grateful that we live in the center in the country as this is what allows to live our lives without disruption. But it also shows that our goods and services are not cut off because of the war and that life and living goes on despite what most of the Arabs surrounding us would hope for. We just got in our first batch of localy grown organic carrots of the season at the health food store. They are double the price of the regular ones, but the taste and quality is so much better. It is well worth the cost. We continue to have guests for Shabbat and visit with friends coming from all over the globe. David was priviliged to see our Rabbi and wife who we know from Portland and now reside in New York. They were here for a Bar Mitzvah with their family. We have friends that have just arrived from Seattle, we will see them sometime in the coming week. Yes, despite what others would hope for, life here is thriving.

In kid news I am still trying to potty train the twins. My goal is next month, but I am not feeling hopeful, my absolute cuttoff would be age 3. S was trained at 2+9mo. And Y is so close, I figure he should be able to do it too. M is another story..........she can tell me she went in her diaper, but she has decided she has no interest in the potty at all anymore..........grrrr.....

S is enjoying school, but we can deffinitely see where he is behind and we are setting up a meeting with his Rabbi and principal so we can get him caught up. We missed the parent teacher conferences due to my own lack of understanding hebrew..........oooppps. Can we say, "feeling stupid...."

The grown ups in the house are fine, and as sane as possible with three very active kids, one of whom is quite the morning person........Must be a recessive gene! Nothing like running commentary about anything and everything at 6:45am............

I am happy to report that after 3 long weeks of colds and flu we are all healthy. I now take a full regime of vitamins and pro-biotics hoping to stay healthy the rest of the season. For those of you with kids, acidophilus in pill form or better in live culture like yogurt, but look for the one with the live acidohpilus, is a great pro-biotic that helps build the immune system.

OK gotta go, duty calls..............