Bye Bye to an Old Friend

He was a  trusted friend for over 10 years.

Worked furiously to help me make mini's first birthday cake when we had no idea how to bake without eggs.  Helped us try countless cookie and recipes, letting us know which worked best.  Sat patiently while we worked on batches of frosting upon frosting, not caring that he was sticky and covered in cocoa powder everywhere.

He helped us with baby showers for friends and coworkers.  Helped mini eat healthy food when we discovered pumpkin protein bread, zucchini bread, and spinach muffins.  He brought warmth, comfort, tradition to every holiday, helping us with everything from hamentaschen to honey cake.  He was our secret weapon for the perfect apple pies at Thanksgiving, and homemade whipped cream.

It was because of him that oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for the doormen on Christmas and entertained children on playdates brilliantly for short bursts of time.

In short, he was always there when we needed him.

And then, suddenly......he was gone.  Just. Like. That.

2013: The Year of the Month-Long Purim

Perhaps it's just us, but does Purim seem to have gotten hopped up on steroids this year?

The holiday is one day, yet it seems to have gone on forever.  In fact, the holiday has barely started and we're already Purim'd out.  How'd that happen?

We have some theories.



Exhibit One: Purim Carnivals going on for weeks.

For some reason, this is the year several people decided to hold Purim festivities on alternate dates in order to boost attendance.  After all, it's impossible to attend your school, synagogue, and local community center carnival all in one day!  So for practical purposes the dates were sandwiched before and after the holiday.  Of course, with Purim being redonculously early this year, the alternate dates fell over winter break, meaning no one would be around to celebrate, rendering the alternate date futile.  The solution? Push it back earlier.  The result?  Purim carnivals scattered from Feb 10th all the way to March 3rd.

Exhibit Two: Purim is super trendy this year.

For some reason, Purim was a hot topic this year.  Maybe it was the explosion of social media, generating Jew-envy amongst those forced to look at droolworthy picture after picture of hamentaschen on Pinterest.  Maybe it was the party and celebration invites being spread like wildfire.   Or maybe it was the intersection of Purim's relevance to current sentiments and values in our culture, inspiring articles such as Why I like Purim as a Queer, Secular Jew and this book on Jewish superheroes.  Regardless of the reason, you know it's trendy when secular entities like Bed & Bath and Slate are tweeting hamentaschen recipes.

Eclectic hamentaschen photos swept Facebook and Pinterest this year

#Purim was also hot topic on Twitter this year, with tweets every minute from all over the world.

We wonder if all the people tweeting this photo for #Purim even know who Haman was

Exhibit Three:  Increasing number of friends with children + Quality education in Jewish preschools + waitlists in public schools everywhere = more Purim costumes than ever before.

'Nuff said on that one.

What we'll be stylin' on Purim this year.  

So, to sum up, like the torture we endure when Christmas tzotchkes get put out before Halloween has even ended, Purim seems to be going the way of overkill as well.  We have to wonder, at what point does the holiday start to lose its impact?  That would be truly a shame, because it really is a great holiday.

Mini once asked us why we don't celebrate birthdays every day.  It would make every day special!  Or would it......

Simple, amateur hamantaschen.  Just right.

Happy Purim, peeps.  But not too happy, if you know what we mean.

How Motherhood Turns You Into a Sentimental Sap

As we write this, we are going back and forth to check on a sleeping child, to savor the last few breaths of the wonder that was six years old because we're just not ready for the seven year old we will see tomorrow.  
 
Happy birthday, mini.  May you one day know the joy of having your insides shaken up every day.
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Recently, someone asked us to to describe the experience of parenting and we didn't quite know where to begin.  There's the honest, yet cheesy answer about loving another little human being more than you ever thought you could.  Then there's the more honest answer, which usually has the words "exasperated" and "smack" somewhere in the same sentence, along with [insert favorite expletive].

Hmm. None of that tells you what it feels like to be a parent at all, does it? 

Perhaps this is closer: imagine, on a daily basis, at random unpredictable times, someone took out all your insides, shook them up, threw them on the street, stomped all over them, and then put them back in your body in the wrong order.  We're talking heart in your stomach.  Emotions where your brain used to be.  Memory, coordination, overall executive functioning, all constantly needing readjustment.  Your ability to sleep through the night thrown out the window, even in lands far far away.

You second-guess everything you say or do.  All confidence and previously acquired knowledge hovers somewhere around your nether regions as if you're some kind of alien life form re-learning how to be a human all over again.  You're constantly being challenged to be a better person, identify your values, rethink your ideals, keep your promises, do good unto others, do what you say.  You feel like someone is always watching you.  Mostly, because someone is always watching you.

Exhibit B: Female finger, post parenthood

Exhibit A: Female finger, pre parenthood

You do not recognize yourself.  You fight off all inner alarms screaming "alert! alert! domestic hell ahead of you!" and go to places like the Container Store and Buy Buy baby anyway, even if they are so overwhelming that all you want to do is run the other way.  You ignore all introverted tendencies and forcefully, even publicly take on any teacher, lawmaker, or adult that gets in the way of what you think is best for your child without giving it a second thought.  You wonder how you let a little 2, 3, 4 year old boss you around and how you ended up wrapped around their cute little finger.

Exhibit C: Child's finger wrapped around adult's.  That's what they want you to believe, peeps. 

You hear yourself say things you'd never have thought would come out of your mouth.  Words like "what do you mean, you don't need me to wipe your poop anymore?" and "I'm going on that sleepover with you!" come out of your mouth so fast you don't have time to clap your hand over your mouth before you think to yourself "whatthefuck. who said that?"  You get so used to reciting "get your hand out of your mouth" at the end of every sentence that you start saying it unconsciously to grownups.  (Worse, still, this doesn't bother you.)  You can't stand it when your child is always hanging off your arm, yet when you are walking around without them it feels like one of your arms is missing.  You are so sleep deprived you want to cry, but at the same time the thought of sending this little person off to sleep away camp or (gasp!) college gives you panic attacks.  Speaking of crying, you do a lot of this.  You cry anytime you hear about a kid anywhere getting hurt, you cry anytime your kid says something endearing, you cry anytime you watch oneofthosesappyfuckingendofschoolyearvideos, you cry when your child wishes you a happy Mother's Day in earnest, and you cry at all those commercials with babies in them because watching all those babies reminds you that yours is not a baby anymore and then that thought makes you cry, which just makes you wonder who is in your body and what someone did with the real you.  You know, the one who was not the soft, sentimental sap you see before you.

That, peeps...that...we think, is a much more accurate description of what it feels like to be a parent.


*Note, if you're interested in an even better description of parenting, click here.  Could not have said it better ourselves.

5 Things I Learned At My Kid's Piano Recital

Mini had her first piano recital today.

This was an interesting cultural experience that was new to this musically-challenged mother.  After entering a hot small room packed with 18 kids and their families, she watched all the 4-7 year olds, one by one, take their moment to shine.  Here are the few things we learned:

1) A keyboard is just not the same as a piano, even if it's a good one.
We cheaped out seeing as how none of us know how to play a piano, nor do we have room, so keyboard it was.  Poor mini fumbled for the first few notes getting used to the pressure she needed to exert on the keys.  Whoopsie. 

2) Some kids practice, and some kids really practice.
We thought mini was ready.  She practiced every day, on her own.  Not at a formal time, just whenever she felt like it.  We heard her two songs the morning of the recital.  But clearly, seeing as how smooth the other kids played their pieces, we underestimated the amount she should practice.  Another clue that the other kids played it too much: they kept going over, repeating the song even after it was done and the applause had started.  After this had happened a few times, and a 5-year old boy asked his mom "not 5 times?" we started figuring it out.

3) Your child is not the piano prodigy you think they are.
We now suspect part of the incentive to run these recitals is to humble a parent or two.

4) The teacher is better than you think they are. 
If the goal was to sell us on the need for more lessons, it worked.  One 5 year old just came in and schooled everyone with his version of that king song who's name we can never remember from "Shrek".

5) Kids can surprise even the most seasoned piano expert.
Hands down the funniest moment of the night goes to the poor 4 year old boy, who sat in his chair, played 3 off-key notes, then ran.  His mother got up in front of everyone to announce he had to go to the bathroom.  It was so funny we hope someone got it on camera to replay it for his teenage friends someday.  As everyone bit their lips to stop themselves from laughing, the teacher summed it up: "there's a first time for everything." 

Indeed, there is.  Congrats, mini.  Mama is so proud.

The Princess and The Peanut

I was lucky enough to snag* an advance copy of a new book called The Princess and the Peanut, written by Sue Ganz-Schmitt. 

This is a new book that covers a sorely needed gap, food allergy education for children.  And it's not just for the children with the allergies.  In fact, after reading this, I'd say it's really best for kids who have a friend or classmate with food allergies.

See, some crazy people have the notion that if you educate kids on food allergies they'll be less likely to - you know - protest and such when they have to give up things.  Crazy, I know.  But I just happen to buy into that kind of crazy.

So I sat down with my 6-year old girl who is also allergic to sesame, eggs, tree nuts, and (wouldn't you know it) peanuts, and we both dived into our first book review together.  Truth be told we were both skeptical: she, because she feared it might be boring or scary, and I because I was terrified it'd be cheesy.

It was neither scary nor cheesy.

The Princess and the Peanut is a cute, modern take on an old classic, however in this one, a poor unsuspecting princess who doesn't even know she has food allergies is in for a surprise when the Queen runs out of peas and uses a peanut for the royal princess test instead.  After all, what could happen?  What follows is a smart, matter-of-fact and fun story showing what to do should you have or encounter anyone with an allergic reaction. 

Beyond the obvious, there was a lot to like.  Things the mini liked:

It was silly.  The book has a surprisingly humorous tone to it, which she loved.  She particularly enjoyed it when the royal princess had a skin test to various things.  While "peanuts" came out positive, we were both pleased to find out that neither "three blind mice" nor "dragons" induced a reaction.   And any book with a court jester is automatically awesome to her.

She could relate.  She saw the picture of the princess having a reaction and knew what it was.  She saw the royal epinephrine, the skin testing, the abandonment of products that may contain peanuts, and she knew exactly what that felt like.

What did I like? Well any parent knows if you find an educational book your kid likes that's reason enough to like it! But beyond that, what made me happy was that it was accurate.  My biggest fear was that it would perpetuate some kind of misinformation, like if the princess got a shot of epinephrine but then stayed home instead of calling 911.  Fortunately, our fears were put to rest as the book elegantly weaves in key topics of treatment, diagnosis, and the importance of avoiding the offending food.

Wait, there's a book that shows a princess looking like this?

I thought it was surprisingly engaging.  I particularly liked the pages of illustrations where mini had to come up with the story herself.  I like books that force my child to think.  I like that it presented information without being preachy or boring.  

Another good thing? The princess was still cool.   There was no "poor me".  No one was pitying her or looking down on her.  She was still a strong, smart, desirable princess.  However, people who loved her like the prince had to do things a little differently if they wanted to be around her.  And it was no big deal.  Which is exactly as it should be. 

My favorite part? When we put the book down and I asked my daughter if she liked it and she had a huge grin on her face as she said "I LOVED IT!"  That princess was cool, and she could relate.

Overall, I love the lesson that this teaches.  I love that it teaches kids actual facts that are medically accurate.  And while it did not end as I had hoped (we don't want to spoil it but here's a clue: they went traditional vs. modern), I let that one slide because the story was so cute overall. 

So we'll be going on Amazon and pre-ordering a copy for her classmates tomorrow, along with Ganz-Schmitt's first book, Even Superheroes Get Diabetes. 

You can do the same, or you can wait until it'll be sold in bookstores next month.  If you simply can't wait, check out the trailer, the music alone will put you in a good mood.   Meanwhile we can't wait to see what topic she tackles next.

*When we say "snag", by "snag" we mean they sent us one. Thanks peeps!

R.I.P. Fishy The Fish Fish

"The third floor has a lot of great stuff.  But go to your left when you get in, not the right."

          (whispers)

      "There's goldfish!"

This was the scene at a kids' carnival a couple weeks ago where mini got her very first pet.  After successfully throwing a football through a hole, she was handed a plastic bag containing water and a tiny, orange, slow-moving goldfish.  She immediately named him...



...it's coming.....



wait for it....



"Fishy".

Fishy didn't look like he was going to make it home.  But mini was so excited, she insisted we stop by the pet store on the way home to get a proper home for him.

Horrible mother confession time: knowing full well that carnival fish never last more than a day we dragged out the purchase, hoping to avoid blowing $25 on fish accouterments that would not be needed for more than a day.   So we stalled.

"Ooh, a toy store! Let's stop in the toy store!  We need to get your classmate a birthday present!  How lucky are you today!"

Ah,  the old "distract them by luring them into a toy store" trick. Works every time.

We didn't stop there though. No, we conveniently missed the bus by just a minute, accidentally got off one stop late, all in an effort to avoid this additional purchase.  And Fishy was looking paler by the minute.

Sadly, Poker Chick's ruse ran out and she did, in fact have to purchase a fish bowl.  And food.  And fish bowl cleaners.  And, of course, multicolored gravel.  No self-respecting city fish would live without.

Behold: Fishy in his new pied-a-terre.

So she did what any guilt-ridden mother would do at this point, she celebrated Fishy's homecoming but warned Mini that goldfish don't live long, especially carnival fish.  It became a teaching moment, a science lesson, about how everything is food for someone else, and small fish are really just made to be food for bigger fish.  So they're not supposed to live long.  Awesome.  Using the old educational route to alleviate guilt. 

Fishy thrived in her new luxury home.  Every morning Mini woke, sparkle in her eye, and ran to the fishbowl.

"Fishy's still alive!!!!"

she'd exclaim.

After a few days of this, we all got kind of used to Fishy.  Other kids' fish died off, but Fishy survived.  We made it to the one week.  Changed the fishbowl water.  And Fishy made it through.  A few days later, Fishy was still swimming around happily.  In fact, Fishy was looking downright sprightly.  Yes, sprightly.

So it was shocking even to Poker chick herself that when the nanny finally discovered Fishy floating in that horrible side-down position in the bowl, who was the most upset? Yes, yours truly.  The hypocritical mother.  All that stress worrying about mini sobbing in her room was clearly wasted.  Mini enjoyed the whole pet-owning experience, but was equally comfortable relinquishing her fish-feeding responsibilities.

What's interesting about this story is that it has Poker Chick wondering if the carnival scene would have played out differently in the suburbs.  Do you welcome a fish when you have a yard and dirt?  Do only city peeps cringe and run for their lives when they see fish offered as prizes and warn each other promptly?  We'd love to hear from our city and suburb friends to see if this theory holds up.

So R.I.P. Fishy.  Here's hoping you're in fishy heaven, enjoying that SpongeBob Squarepants "diver" Mini wanted that we were too cheap to buy you.

In the meantime, one thing was clear: joke was on mom, who wept like a little baby at the loss of Fishy.  He was a good fish.  Really.

We were slaves in Egypt, and I'm hungry dammit!!!

Poker Chick is not a fan of Passover. Well, let's rephrase. She likes the first two days. But it's the days after that suck. You're at work and you can't buy a bagel on your way. No sandwich for lunch. No Tasti-Di-Lite on the way home. And if you're traveling you're just SOL. If you're like Poker Chick (who hates matzah), it makes for a great Jewish version of the low-carb diet.

But this year is feeling different already. Sure, the hunger is still there (the asparagus-dill soup she spent an entire day cooking isn't quite cutting it). But it's been put into context. This year, Poker Chick was reminded of some spiritual theory behind Passover (Pesach). Here's the shocking reminder: It's supposed to feel restrictive!! We were slaves in Egypt for g-d's sake! So for eight (or seven) days you're supposed to suffer a little so you can be reminded that your people had it hard some several thousand years ago. You want we should suffer? We'll tell you how to make a Jew suffer: you limit their food options. Yep, we teach em young: us Jews are all about the food and the money (another fact Poker Chick was reminded of as she watched the mini in her first real negotiations for the Afikoman).

That's right, Poker Chick just used a cheap stereotype for a quick laugh. (Stop laughing if you're not Jewish. It makes you an anti-semite). But seriously, there is a cleansing component to Passover we often overlook. So this year, with renewed optimism, Poker Chick decided to take a slightly less negative approach to Pesach this year. It's an experiment. She doesn't usually do optimism.

So here are several themes to Passover she has been reminding herself of:

1. It's not supposed to be a week of binge-eating. If "suffering" for Poker Chick is taking away bread for a few days, then she's got it pretty damn good. And she'd better remember how spoiled she is and appreciate it. Moral point one, check! Bonus points for donating food to the homeless!
   
2. If you live in Israel you already know to associate Passover with spring. If you don't, you may or may not realize it always gets warm and sunny right before Passover. Spring may be on the calendar late March, but it never really arrives until just before the holiday and this year was no different. Passover was "late" and so was the warm weather. Here in New York, we had temps in the 40s and then suddenly a beautiful 80-degree day right before. As if mother nature was announcing: "Ok peeps! It's finally time for Passover now!" Yes, that's exactly what she said. "Peeps". So not the point. Just accept it and move on. Spring and sun make this girl happy. Then again, so do the two pairs of sunglasses she recently bought in preparation for the summer.
   
3. Spring is an opportunity to clean house. So as we focus less on food, we are free to do things we've been neglecting like switch our closets, dust off the resume, that sort of thing.
   
4. Spring is also an opportunity to "clean inner house" i.e. our soul (hold cheesy comments, please). We get to examine bad habits and relationships, re-connect with friends and family as we wish them a happy holiday, and reconnect to our faith as well.
   
5. If nothing else, it's an eight day reminder of how we're different than everyone else. She can't think of any other religion that wouldn't recoil from horror at finger puppets of "boils" and "lice". But not us. We give them to kiddies and laugh together.
   

One day in and Poker Chick is already feeling spiritually superior to three days ago. Case in point: one of the bad mental habits Poker Chick is trying to fix is thinking of Passover as an annoyance. Then again, it helps that she recently scored a fridge in her office. So today she was free to stock it with supplies like cherry tomatoes, cheese, fruit, and jelly and butter for the occasional matzah. Mmmm....butter. Maybe this Passover thing's not so bad.

Family Detour

Note: A couple of days until we post Part Two of the crazy travel week. We promise. Meantime, please to enjoy this sap-fest...

Emily's post had Poker Chick all sentimental and reminded her she had wanted to recount a moment to her own family (hint: family, this means you actually need to read this once in a while!). The other day, she and the mini were going through old pictures. This is a rare event, as anyone who knows Poker Chick is probably shocked she even knows where her pictures are.

At some point the mini found a picture of Poker Chick as a baby, maybe at 2 years old or so. She appeared to be whining and struggling to get out of her stroller. How appropriate. Anyway, the mini saw it and exclaimed "that's me!". Poker Chick jumped up too, because my g-d the kid was right. Had Poker Chick not been able to tell what year the photo was taken, it could easily have been mistaken for a photo of the mini. But what really amazed her was when she realized just how emotionally intelligent children can be.

The Mini: "Are you sad, Mommy?"
PC: "Yes, sweetheart, Mommy's sad".
Mini: "Why are you sad?"
PC: "Because I miss my Mommy".
Mini (throwing her arms around PC in a big hug): "Don't be sad, Mommy! You have me now."

Damn, that kid is smart.

Kashi* can Kill

Poker Chick is taking a break from mindless chitchat for a minute to talk about an important issue that is currently making her blood boil.

Sadly, an article recently published in Harper's Magazine is vocalizing a scary opinion many parents share (Everybody's gone nuts: The exaggerated threat of food allergies, Meredith Broussard, January 2008). Seriously. She states:

“the rash of fatal food allergies is mostly myth, a cultural hysteria cooked up with a few key ingredients: fearful parents in an age of increased anxiety, sensationalist news coverage, and a coterie of well placed advocates whose dubious science has fed the frenzy.”

Well let's talk about what Ms. Broussard calls "supposed threat" for a second. We'll use an example, say something as simple as a finger food for toddlers. Kids walk around with it in their snack cups all day. But it's got sesame. And it just so happens that my kid is severely allergic to sesame. So one little "mighty bite" could kill her, literally, and it would only take minutes.

Let's say you cared. You'd have a hard time taking care of my kid. You could get rid of them and replace with cheerios. Maybe, but did you wash the container first? If not, she probably got enough sesame just from the dust in the container to get a reaction. What about the cheerios you bought? What if they were made by Kashi? Maybe they had no sesame but were made in the same factory. Maybe some sesame flour from the Mighty Bites line spilled over into the other line. And that is the package my kid happens to be eating. That could be enough to cause shock. Maybe you're giving her another food. You think it's safe, but aren't 100% sure. If you'd have done your homework, you'd know that product has trace amounts of sesame. But you might never know this because sesame is not listed as an "allergen" in the ingredient list. This is because sesame is the 9th most common food allergy in American children, and manufacturers are only required to list the top 8.

Maybe you've understood and taken all the proper precautions. But did you remember to wash your hands and face before watching my daughter? Because the oils from the seeds on that sesame bagel can cause a reaction on her skin. Did you check the lotion you just put on your hands? And finally, if you're secure after all that, do you know where the Epipen is in case it all wasn't enough? Do you know how to use it? Are you sure?

Scared yet? Welcome to my nightmare. It gets worse your kid starts going to school. What terrifies me is that there are people like Ms. Broussard out there. Parents, teachers, public opinion leaders. Not only do they make things more difficult (for what reason? Are you really just too lazy to take some precautions not to bring nuts to school?) but people with this lackadaisical attitude like this pose a huge danger to my child and the millions of others with food allergies.

Please send this to anyone you know who has children or spends time with them. I can tell you firsthand that the food allergy thing is not a crock. It's very real and the only way to prevent is to have grownups understand it and take precautions.

For more information on food allergies, and some real facts, click here.

*Poker chick has nothing against Kashi. It's a very healthy cereal. Just not for people who are allergic to any of its ingredients.