Thoughts about the holidays

If you've talked to me in the past week or two, you already know that I'm frustrated with lovely, insular London.  Despite the outward appearance of more than token multiculturalism, we have been met with gems such as the following:

"Do you put up a Christmas tree?"

"I know some Jewish people celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas."

"Why isn't Hanukkah at the same time as Christmas?"

"These songs aren't Christmas songs.  They're just holiday songs you hear on the radio at this time of year."

While the last quote is technically true, the person who said that to us completely missed the point.  And yes, the timing question is valid, but not in the context of assuming that our holidays should naturally always line up with Christian holidays.  Perhaps some people celebrate both holidays, but as Ben and I wanted to respond, "We are not those people."  We are comfortable in our faith and this has nothing to do with xenophobia.  We just have a hard time with the ignorance that is so prevalent in our society with regard to other people and their holiday celebrations and customs.

After explaining to someone that we celebrate Hannukah and it will be over a couple of weeks before Christmas this year, I was asked if we would still put up a Christmas tree.  No.  No tree.  No stockings.  No Santa.  We do not celebrate Christmas in any way.  No secular celebration.  No religious celebration.

I guess I should qualify the above diatribe.  We do celebrate the abundance of gigs at this time of year!  Seriously though, I do understand that people aren't aware of other cultures but I personally find it insulting when someone assumes that we celebrate Christmas even though I have just told them that we are Jewish and celebrate our own holidays which are in no way related.

Rant over.  I now return to my regular life in which Rachel is pretending to be Judah the Maccabee and Anna is insisting that she is Thomas the Tank Engine.

Heard over the monitor

Last night:
Anna was loudly singing "Blah blah black sheep, have you any wool?" over and over.  Between the newly mastered L sound and the newly mastered ability to jump off of the ground with both feet, no wonder she hasn't been sleeping well lately.  And yes, it takes my kids a while to master jumping.  They have big heads and need time to grow into their bodies and figure out how to make them go.

This afternoon:
Anna did not want a nap but I put her in her room with Ducky and a book anyway.  She alternated wailing and chatting for about half an hour before I heard her yelling, "I need some medicine because I'm crying!"  Yes, that was a failed nap.  So, for the gazillionth time this month, the kids will have early dinner and Anna will be in bed by 6.

It's going to be a long night

Anna woke up at 3:43 a.m. after a not-so-great night.  She's still working on getting her last molar and she has a cold as well.  She went down for a so-so nap from 11-1 and I got her to bed "for the night" at 6 p.m. after she had a huge, healthy snack of apple, cheerios & shredded cheese while watching t.v. 

It's now 7 p.m.  Although she slept from 6-6:45, apparently that was just a nap.  Over the monitor we heard her whimpering, "I was supposed to be doing something better than sleeping!" over and over.  She also suggested that "Going downstairs would be a great idea!"

She is so lucky that she's cute.  I have a feeling that it's going to be a long night.

So much to say, so little effort put forth in saying it

Rachel is either very lazy, very creative, or both.  For a long time, she didn't let her inability to spell words hamper her desire for creativity or productive output.  She simply put the first letter of each word and figured that was perfectly good.  Even if no-one else knew it, pictures adorned with "PADORSF" clearly indicated that "Patrollers are destroying our romping stomping forest" - yes, we asked.  No, we have no idea where she got that from.

Grade One has proven to be a bit of a challenge in this respect since Rachel evidently figured out on her own that her teachers would not share the same admiration and appreciation of her abbreviated approach to writing.  For the first month or so of school, Rachel was reticent and reluctant to complete assignments if she was not given appropriate spelling assistance.  She has progressed beyond that in school now.  When asked to label Hebrew flash cards with the corresponding English word on the back, we saw the following gems amongst the many correctly spelled words:

carpit
garbge
cupbord (It cracks me up that she knew there was a p in cupboard.  When I asked, she explained that she knew the word involved putting together cup and board.)

She is realizing that she can spell more words than she had previously thought herself capable of, and we're enjoying that right along with her.

Apparently she still likes using her short forms though, because when I told her yesterday that Ben and I were going to have a late dinner and would likely make something that she and Anna didn't care for, she thought for a minute and said cheerfully, "EMT?"

"EMT?" I asked, baffled.

"You know," she said.  "English Muffin Thing!"

Yes, Ben and I have taken to making our own egg "mc"muffins at home with English muffins, egg & cheese.  We call it English Muffin Thing because that's how we roll in this house.  That reminds me that I haven't made Crouton Thing in awhile.  Hmm... lunch idea for tomorrow perhaps?

Good advertising

After dropping Rachel off at school this morning, Anna and I were headed home.  When we stopped at a red light, directly in front of us was a van for a local flooring company.  Its logo?

"Say no to rugs!" complete with a "no rugs" sign on the back.

I admit to laughing out loud at that one.