When Jake was four he started asking me a lot of questions about God. More specifically, he’d spring a “Who’s our God?” question on me when I was checking-out at the grocery store or signing him in at daycare. He was also quite intrigued with “the baby Jesus” and church. Desiring…
It was one of those Halloweens where we were ahead of the game: Costumes? Check. Two identical zombie hunters. Something to pass out? Check. Let’s do plastic witch fingers. Decorations? Check. Why buy yellow “Caution” tape when they sell red “DANGER” tape? But when I saved up all of our…
The same weekend Jakey became dentally poorer yet richer in the eyes of the first grade, we were playing down in our favorite creek in San Luis. Unlike previous trips, I hadn’t packed their bathing suits and so the outing involved NOT falling into the creek in their normal clothes…
I can totally envision Nate’s new Pokémon character, Connoisseurus… imagine a Japanese cartoon anime-style dinosaur… drinking a big, bold Cab. He “evolves” from a little friendly looking lizard that drinks grape juice and his “attack” is via Lava Cheese or the Swirl and Spit. His “weaknesses” are warm stone massages…
This weekend we were in San Luis Obispo for a little getaway and I decided to take the boys down to explore one of our favorite creeks. As we’re walking toward the path, Jake says, “Oh hey. Maybe you should go say ‘hi’ to our friend.” The friend he’s referring…
Family Game Time. James and I both have similar memories of playing against our card shark grandmothers… neither of which showed any mercy to their grandchildren. Me-momie would wipe the floor with us in Crazy Eights and I’m told Grammie Lani would crush James in Scrabble. At our house, we’ve dabbled in…
Recently I’ve written about the secret, or now not so secret, language we speak in our family. And I’ve also noticed the stream of new family vocabulary generation beginning to diminish. It’s clear mainstream English is wedging out toddlerease as Nate confidently peppers his conversations with his plans to “destroy”…
It’s soccer season. Jake is on the Ninjas. And Nate is on the Thunder Bears. Fortunately or unfortunately, neither team is quite as menacing as they may sound. The games consist almost entirely of a swarm of kids kicking the ball past an unsuspecting goalie. Generally ours. There are an…
Lately Nate has developed quite an affinity for apples… dipped in honey. He tells me it’s so good. I was having trouble understanding where this constant request had originated. But then last Friday he came home and reported that Rabbi has hair clips. That’s how it stays on his head.…
On Friday I asked Nate how his day was at school. “We had Shabbat today.” “Oh neat. Tell me about that. What do you do at Shabbat?” “Well, we go to the Temple House and sing songs.” “And then what happens?” “We ate hollow. We ate hollow. And Rabbi comes.”…