Lots of pictures

Over the long weekend, I managed to knit/complete quite a few projects and want to proudly display them. I just want to add as a disclaimer that taking good pictures of inatimate objects is harder than you think.
First off, Baby M's hat. I finished it a few weeks ago but finally got him to pose for a picture today.

Isn't he cute?

The hat



And my cutie again. Love how he crinkles his nose!

Next up is a hat I knit for my newest niece, born Sunday morning 5: 32 am in Jerusalem.


Purple bec. it's a girl!

I also knit myself yet another hat, but I am not sure if I will wear it because A informed me this morning that "you don't look like Ima when you are wearing a hat."



The old hat- A. doesn't like it

 


The new hat- maybe this one will be better?



And last but not least, here is the sweater for Melissa's baby. Melissa, I only recently read on your blog that you have bigger babies, so I hope this fits him or her. Tada!

 I think I may have overdosed on knitting for a while.  Might be time for a break, what do you think?

Children at Play

Today was one of these cold shabbos days where we spent a lot of time indoors. And I was surprised at how well the kids were playing together. Of course I needed to be there to mediate squabbles about whose turn it was and to discourage silly games such as jumping off the radiator, but for the most part the kids were playing with each other. Even M got in on the act. They played with toy cars and little people and blocks and many other toys they pulled down from the shelf. Hey, I never said they were orderly and neat, just that they can entertain themselves.
Of course, they still wanted my participation and at some point Y insisted I get off the couch and come sit on the floor with them, which is fine. I do try to be more engaged with them sometimes, rather than just supervising from afar. But it was just nice to see how big my kids are getting and that they don't need me there all the time facilitating and encouraging play. It is especially cute to see M trying to keep up with the "big kids". I think being a younger child can be very beneficial in many ways as I see him learning to do more advanced things and  attempting to do things like his siblings.
I cannot believe that my children are really turning into little people. It's so sweet to watch them interact with each other in this way. Real caring with a few well-placed jabs and blows interspersed for some variety :)
Shavua Tov!

Thanksgiving

I have to be honest. I have become American in many ways but one thing I just don't get is Thanksgiving. Growing up in Vienna, we never celebrated Thanksgiving, even though my mother is American. When I was living in NJ with my grandmother when I was in high school, we never did Thanksgiving either. Ditto for when I lived in Israel.
Then we moved to New York and everyone is busy making Thanksgiving dinners and plans. I never knew religious orthodox Jews actually celebrate this secular holiday. And all the hysteria in the media about the traveling, the cooking, the family...there is a lot of drama.
My husband sees it as not really celebrating a holiday, rather just an opportunity to get together with some family and have a nice meal. The only issue with that is that other than my in-laws we don't quite have any family living in the US. But we work with what we have, so every Thanksgiving for the last 4 years, we take the train out to my in-laws and have a quiet and cute meal with them. Our kids run around the house and watch too much football. Then we take the train home and try to get out exhausted crew to bed at a decent hour.
Whatever your opinion on Thanksgiving, I was thinking that being grateful and thankful is always a good thing to do, so here is a short, by no means exhaustive list of things I am thankful for:
1) My husband- I don't really post about him a lot. Not because there is nothing to say, rather because there is so much. He deserves a lot of credit. For being a good husband and father, for supporting our family and enabling me to stay home with our children and mostly, for putting up with me and all my craziness :)
2) My children- I admit to being a bit of a kvetch and so I whine and vent. About the crazy things my children do, their shenanigans, their boundless energy, the mess and all the care they necessitate. But the truth is, and I am sure you all know this even when I am complaining, I love them to pieces and I can't imagine my life without them.
3) Our apartment- This might seem like a shallow thing to be thankful for but having enough space for our children and all their stuff is not something to take for granted when living in NYC. On November 30, it will be a year since we moved into our new place and we are really happy here. Especially because the doorman said our kids are the cutest kids in the whole building :)
There is obviously much more to mention- health, friends, etc. but I think I will leave it at that for now. What are you thankful for?

Learning from every Birth

Sorry for the silence these last few days. I was at a birth yesterday, and it lasted through the night till the morning. I was with them from 4 30 pm till 9 am the next morning. Then I spent a good chunk of the day catching up on sleep. Now I can't believe it's Tuesday night already. I feel like I lost a day somewhere :)
The birth was interesting. It was at a hospital I had not worked at before, and I always like to see how different hospitals do things and what their policies are. The nurses at this particular hospital were really phenomenal- friendly and very helpful.
 I can definitely say that I learn something new at every birth I attend. Every experience is so different and the circumstances vary, so there are bound to be issues I may not have encountered before. This time I saw how walking and movement can really make a big difference in terms of moving things along and getting the cervix to dilate. I also saw how my client was able to tolerate the contractions much better when she was moving or standing, as opposed to being confined to the bed. These are all things facts I knew already but to see them in action made it more real. Most importantly I saw that just because a woman's cervix is dilated to 10 cm, does not mean she is ready to push right away. It is always helpful to wait for the woman to actually feel pressure and an urge to push.
I don't want to give away too many details because it is not my birth story to tell. But I was honored to be at their birth and am so happy that I am gaining new insights into birth and being an effective doula.  Anyone searching for a doula? I am currently seeking births with due dates from January through March. Please be in touch or tell your friends!

On the knitting front

So, I have finally completed the three baby blankets I have been working on, crochet edgings and all. I knit a cute hat for Meir with earflaps, which he refuses to wear. I have been trying to snap a picture of him wearing the hat, but he won't keep it on at all. So much for that. I knit myself a hat too and am now finally working on Melissa's gift- a sweater for her baby, due in February. Gender-neutral of course, because she doesn't know what she is having.
I am always on the look out for a new project, preferably something I can knit with the yarn I already have. I remember, when I was first learning how to knit, going over to a friend's house for lessons. When she brought out her knitting basket overflowing with yarn in all different colors, I was surprised at how much yarn she had accumulated. I remember asking her what she was going to do with all of it. Now, I am embaressed to say, I have so much yarn, it does not fit into a basket anymore. It is in bags, on top of my bed, next to my bed, hiding in Baby M's closet. In my defense, some of the yarn is not mine, it is for the Charity Knitting Club and I am just storing it. But still, I admit to having a yarn problem.
I think when you walk into a yarn store and you see so many different colors and textures you can just get carried away. You hold the skeins and think of all the cool things you could make. I think it's the promise of perfection, the possiblity of creating are endless. Then you start knitting, you make mistakes and all of a sudden that color that seemed perfect in the yarn store is just not doing it for you anymore. And it doesn't look like the picture or anything you had pictured in your mind. So you add it to the stash and go pick a new project.
I think, in our imagination, things are always better- our relationships, children, spouses, careers are all perfect in our minds. Then we come face to face with reality and we may be tempted to just put whatever it is aside and start over. But if we stick with it, we would see that what we have created may not be perfect, but it is valuable and real because we have put in genuine effort. So my new project is to take all the orphaned skeins of yarn in my stash and to put them to good use. Instead of always looking for new things, I will try and appreciate what I already have. Shavua tov.

This week's happenings:

1) My parents left yesterday after a week-long visit. While they were here, we had fun, ate out in lots of restaurants and I got some great new sweaters (thanks mom). My mom brought the kids muffins for breakfast every day and A was very distressed this morning when we were back to oatmeal and Corn Flakes.
2) Day 2 of my Rebbetzen's conference was just as interesting. Some topics covered were helping women who have experienced miscarriage, counseling congregants and how to strengthen one's own marriage. We learned that Rabbinic couples do not need to work on their marriages because they are perfect and never fight...just kidding!
3) A. had her parent-teacher conference on Wednesday. For some reason, her school only allots 5 minutes to every parent but her teacher managed to include lots of praise in those five minutes. The teacher said she is a sweetheart, she has adjusted well to her new school and is making friends. She loves participating when they learn the Parsha- weekly Torah portion. She is also the Shabbos Ima this week and is very excited for her big day tomorrow.
4) M said "No more monkeys jumping bed" today and I was very proud. That is a quite mouthful for a 22 month old.
5) After hounding the Office of Pupil Transportation for 10 days, Y's  is being picked up 15 minutes later. While I would have liked his pick up time to be even later than that, 15 extra minutes in the morning are significant. The only problem was that they did not notify me that they were changing the time, so Tuesday morning we went down early and ended up waiting for the bus for, you guessed it, 15 minutes. Hopefully we will be able to settle into our new schedule now.
As you can see, it has been a busy week and I am very much looking forward to the weekend and to the one morning a week I get to sleep in- Shabbos. Yay!

The Rebbetzen's Convention Day 1

Today was Day 1 of a 2-day retreat for Rabbi's wives. It is held locally in NJ so I spend the day there and come home in the evening.
This is my third year attending and I always find it very refreshing and informative. Not to mention a small break from my regularly scheduled programming i.e  my day to day routine. I don't usually post much about my life as a Rebbetzen. Mostly because I don't want to get myself or my husband in trouble :)
In reality, though, the rabbinate is a big part of our family's life and just having the opportunity to shmooze with others in similar situations is really wonderful.
At these conventions, I always marvel how different we all are as Rebbetzens: we look different, we dress differently, some of us are stay-at home moms, some of us work part time, some of us work full time. But we all manage to support our husbands and do our jobs, however we have defined them. I like to remind myself of that, that there is no one model of what the "Ideal Rebbetzen" does, says or represents. We all need to find our own niche and what we are comfortable with.
One speaker mentioned an interesting thought about dealing with other people's anger at you. Apparently Rabbi Nachman once told his followers, who were distressed about his vociferous opponents: "These people are not upset at me. They are angry at who they think I am, and that person is truly awful." It is a pretty deep thought. When a person is angry with us, they often see us in a way that is not really accurate. They do not hate you. They hate the person they think you are, but you know that you are not the spiteful, selfish monster they have conjured in their mind. And that makes their misdirected emotions easier to bear. Not that Rabbis or Rebbetzens ever have to deal with angry people or anything like that. Enough said :)