Nonsensical stories

When I was growing up, my parents had a number of remarkable strengths and talents.  One was a seeming encyclopedic knowledge of card games, which they taught and played with us.  Another was a love of unusual food preservation techniques, like drying food (either with the food dryer my father built himself or on the [...]

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Ima’s pity party

I hate the phone.  I’m fine talking to people in person, and I love writing emails and letters.  But keep me away from the phone unless it’s absolutely necessary.  I don’t love it in English, and like most people struggling with a language that is not their own, I HATE it in Hebrew.  When the [...]

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Yet another catfight

I pay little attention to Natalie Portman on the average day.  Her all-out neurotic performance in “Black Swan” left my stomach churning, and I had to put the window down in the car on the way home to battle the nausea.  I guess that means she did a good job. It was after seeing the [...]

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Self service

One of the many roles I fill in the Crunch household is that of Tyrant of Order.  (This is in opposition to the Cap’n and the children, who are the Demons of Chaos.)  Everyone dirties their clothes; I wash them.  Everyone leaves their stuff all over the house; I tidy it up (or yell at [...]

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Do less?

A friend of mine just posted to Facebook that many of the blogs she’s been reading with New Year’s resolutions for 2011 have as a goal to “do less.” I’m as puzzled as she is.  Where her friends have agreed that choosing projects wisely and prioritizing one’s activities should be the real goals, and not [...]

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When art and life meet

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Gobsmacked

Banana came home the other day and announced that her rav at mechina (preparatory kindergarten) had told the girls that in the home, the husband makes the decisions and the wife obeys the husband. I’ll give you a minute. Okay?  Good. Once the Cap’n and I had picked our jaws up off the floor, I [...]

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Babymanners

Bill is turning out to be a charming boy.  At 21 months he is smallish and skinny, but with hazel eyes, a winning smile, and an irresistible giggle, he has also begun cultivating the social graces the Cap’n and I hold so dear.  (Read about ‘em here, here, and here.)  When I sneeze, he says, [...]

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No hate zone

I drive to the Yellow Hill near Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion a few times a week, taking the kids to swim lessons or gymnastics.  Our route there frequently passes Arab shepherds herding goats or sheep, speeding Arab taxis ferrying passengers between Hebron and Bethlehem, Arabs on horseback or driving donkey-drawn carts. Somehow, these sights [...]

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I love my children, BUT…

While the Cap’n put the girls to bed tonight, Bill subjected me to one of our countless games of parental Marco Polo. “Mama.” “Yes, B.” Pause. “Mama.” “Yes, B.” Pause. “Mama.” “Yes, B.” Pause. “Mama.” “Yes, B.” Pause. “Mama.” “Yes, B.” Pause. “Mama.” “What?” Pause. “Mama.” “Yes, B.” Pause. “Mama.” “WHAT?” “Knee,” pointing to own [...]

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Back to work

Nine years ago I made the complicated, difficult decision to leave my cushy teaching job in order to stay home with my newborn (first) child.  There were so many factors that figured into that decision: economics (it was cheaper than working and having all my salary—and then some—go to childcare), my desire to be with [...]

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Summer of do-nothing

My presence in the blogosphere has been pretty sparse lately.  Some of it is due to the near-blackout I’ve had since Bezeq (the phone company and our internet provider) “upgraded” the service in my area.  It’s also been because I have been weighing my options returning to the world of work.  But more than anything [...]

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Birthday blues

Summer is here, which means birthdays in the Crunch household: Banana’s at the start of Tammuz, Beans’s, Peach’s, and the Cap’n’s in Av.  Of course, summer birthdays often mean cramming classroom birthday parties into the last few weeks of school or gan.  Beans and Banana had theirs with cake, musical chairs, and brachot (birthday wishes) [...]

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Baby in the hoosegow

Soon after Bill was born, I blogged about co-sleeping with him (as I had my other children).  He’s been a fantastic mattress buddy: quiet, cuddly but not clingy, and rolls away after nursing to allow me the space to get comfortable and go back to sleep.  (The girls all insisted I hold them all night.  [...]

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Our lot

Since the Cap’n and I married and began our family, I have watched as friends have debated, deliberated, and ultimately decided when their family is finished.  Sometimes years would go by, and the couple would decide “just one more.”  Or that they were  maxed out, emotionally and financially, at the size they were.  Or that [...]

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My old-new life

For the first time in weeks, I am able to sit down to my computer without Bill crawling over, pulling himself up on my chair, and hitting the sticky “ENTER” key in the lower right of the keyboard, setting the computer off into repetitive hysterics, and requiring a credit card to un-stick it. The last [...]

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Kids in shul

Purim’s coming, and it will be one of the few times per year that I actually set foot in shul. I used to attend shul all the time.  In fact, before the Cap’n and I were married, we used to walk a mile and a half and got to shul half an hour early to [...]

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Table manners

I decided early on that one of my jobs as a pedantic parent is to teach my children table manners.  The Cap’n and I figure this goes hand-in-hand with our philosophy that kids will live up or down to parents’ expectations, and that it is never too early to establish the foundations of good manners.  [...]

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Litter rant

From the time I first set foot in Israel in 1996, I have been mesmerized by the beauty and history of this place. At the same time, however, I’ve been appalled at how people have chosen to maintain it.  Coming to Israel is like going back in time in many ways, and unfortunately one of [...]

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Beans’s great discovery

I was nursing Bill, closing my eyes, and trying to snag a cat nap the other day when I heard Beans yell, “Ima!” “What?” I said. “This is boring.”  She was up in her room.  “Folding laundry is BORING!” “Yes, honey, it is.  Now keep folding.” My own frustration with folding laundry came to a [...]

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