Baby Lavender is growing nicely!

Ran and I made an impromptu visit to the city. First lunch with baby daddy and helping him pick up his new bike at Bicycle Habitat, and than,a truly spontaneous trip to the New Museum. Like always, I get captivated by the beautiful Manhattanites. Often cooped up in my Park Slope bubble, I forget how incredibly fancy and well groomed NY people can get. Not that Park Slope people are not beautiful. But I’m referring to  the fast- paced/model type/straight out of a catalogue people. The ones that are much too fabulous to smile at the sight a baby with 5 teeth that tries to feed himself guacamole.

Equally inspiring is the street art. Stensils, posters and stickers. Almost everywhere you look, someone tries to communicate. I soak up all that and feel overwhelmed even before I get to the museum. Why don’t I get to the city more often?

It took me one and a half “around the blocks” and Ran passes out as I start my walk in the museum galleries. Phyllida Barlow’s “Siege” was nice, Klara Lidén’s “Bodies of Society” was intriguing too.

But the most interesting and surprising installation hid in the gallery next door, in the museum’s new annex. The sinister “Parade”( by Nathalie Djurberg with Music by Hans Berg) is flock of strange colorful birds (more than 80!) and 5 short animations.

The movies (the artist’s wry allegories of human behavior and social taboo) were highly disturbing and very grotesque. Hard to watch, yet mesmerizing.  I stay as much as Ran’s nap allows me.

Then, I take a long walk on Lafayette street and a subway home. The 5pm human and subway trafic is brutal. I now remembered why I don’t get to the city too often.

Till next time…

Our last road trip was a year ago, almost to the day.

After checking and inquiring, an opportunity has presented itself for a quiet vacation upstate.

On our To Do List:

Get an approval for a vacation for all the crazy hard work Ilan put up for the last couple of months-/

Get a house up-state for the week (an amazingly gracious gift from a friend)- /

Get a rented car the size of a house up-state, for all our crap-/

Sublet our apartment and find a temporary caregivers for our cat- /

Buy unbelievable quantities of food for the road and for the week- /

**

Seems that bad weather likes to accompany to our family vacations. The sun peaked out here and there but it rained most of the time. So we took it easy. Real easy. Spending most of the week sleeping, eating and squinting at the sun when it was out.

On this vacation: Ran grew one new teeth and has officially become daddy’s boy (making it now two of two) Ouri spent a total of 3 hours throwing rocks into the rivers and lakes of the area. I have finally finished Nicole Krauss’s “Great House” (it’s so beautiful) and Ilan read “Start-up Nation”.

Some magical moments included:

*The dinner we made for ourselves the second night (included: Bucheron cheese,Dry Salsiccia sausage, sautéed ramps, Calkins Creamery chive cream cheese, Les Trois Petits Cochons pate and more…. all over a bottle of white from Alsace).

*Kids are passed out in the backseat of our Mitsubishi Endeavor. We are snaking oreo cookie, squinting at the sun in our new plastic sunglasses (the kind that we’ll be too embraced to wear once this road trip is over) singing “Hotel California”

*Watching “Ponyo for the 100 time after making home made play-dough (cinnamon for the brown one, paprika for red one and curry powder for yellowish one)

*Ouri ate his first porter house steak like it’s no biggy. We ate our’s medium rare. But Ouri’s 3.5 so he settled for medium. A few nights later we had dinner at the “Lazy Beagle” where Ran tries the lamb chops. Their father’s kids no doubt.

And we took lot of pictures.

Here they are, in no particular order.

Look Ran! Suburbia!

On the Delaware River

Ouri’s favorite pastime

Callicoon Farmer’s market where we picked up a lot of good food for our dinner the next day.

Stoping to blow some bubbles.

Good old fashion torture

A lovely dinner Ouri made us the first night.
 Feeding Ran…

It doesn’t look like it, but the water was above the road level

It’s oh so quiet here.

“Ponyo” and playdough

Ouri and his first porter house steak.

Ran and lamb chops.

On our back home we made yet another stop at Wal*mart, in yet another attempt to get Ouri a real bike. Failing to make a decision. Yet again.

Ouri sensed our indecisiveness, general exhaustion and the fact the credit card was already half way out and got us to get him this thing. It’s half Ouri’s size and it encompasses two things that Ouri currently loves the most.

Space and Micky Mouse.

When we got the the register and discovered how much it costed, it was way too late.

Here’s to another family vacation!

Ilan and I have been waiting for this moment for 13months.

Act I

Act II

Ran hits back.

Literally.

As Ilan’s work load’s gotten lighter, we were able to bring back our family weekends, fully packed with activities.
On Saturday, Ilan and Ouri resumed their scooting tradition. They haven’t been scooting all winter. Since the last time, Ouri learned to fully pronounce the word “scooter” and to use the back brake.

The guys stopped at Prospect park for a bit.

Mr. Helmet hair.After picking up Ran and me,we all had brunch at Brunchmak and together headed south, for the second annual  “P.S. 295 Touch a Truck” event.
On our way there, our curiously made us peek inside the MadArts gallery. The inconspicuous small loby, hid a “14,000 square foot arts facility on two floors of a former Renault factory/home furnishings warehouse”. The hangar was divided into  25 art studios, 3 recording studios, a darkroom, a woodshop and a gallery.

And on Saturday, they had an open studio weekend, when one could meet the artists that work in the studios.

After the artsy detour we finally got to touch some trucks.

The idea behind the event was very nice. Over 20 trucks are parked the length of an avenue, infront of PS295. Kids get to fondle the trucks, while the $5 each of us paid at the entrance, would help to fund a part-time teachers at the public school.

‘xept that it was packed. Too packed.The wait for each truck was about 20 minutes (and an extra 10 for the cool ones like the garbage truck, the fire engine and the concrete mixer).

Ouri really didn’t have the patience to wait so long.

Out of the twenty, he did get to operate the Cherry Picker.

Took a photo with the paramedic…

the police officer…

And jumped around in the Doodle Van.

Even Ran got to dip his fingers in some grease (not pictured here)

Two hours later we met Remi for desserts at Colson’s and the day was done.

Too young, you think? 

On Sunday we were supposed to go out separate ways. My writing wasn’t moving along and I had to put in the time in that, while Ilan was supposed to take Ouri to Hebrew playgroup.

But then Ilan gave me a mischievous  look, tempting me with a day in the city. Well it was a beautiful day and if memory served me correctly, the last time I was in Manhattan the year was changing from 2011 to 2012 (which is quite unacceptable, wouldn’t you say?)

So I said FINE and we took a train to Central Park.

(On our way to the subway, a not unusual sight in Park Slope)

here on a typical Sunday you either see a line for brunch, or for yoga

@Brooklyn Yoga School

Central Park in all it’s glory.

Sweet serenity

Disco Skating at Skate Circle north of the Sheep Meadow, where every weekend afternoon, for 30 years it has been blasting with disco and full of dance pirouettes and divas.

After the park, slightly sun-kissed and famished, we stopped for dinner at Humus place.

Kids were already beat and cranky, but it’s not our fault that there’s no “Hummus Place” in Brooklyn.

By the way, have I bragged about my interview with Ori Apple yet?

Joyful hysteria of an overtired baby.

Thought it’s his first beer, he already has the belly to show for it.

**chilax. It’s non alcoholic.

An amazing Kadaif  (that I’m planning  to rip off)

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In our bathroom, right by the light switch,we have a little sign, from about 2 years back.

It shows Ouri, rampaging the bathroom with a warning;

Please close the door behind you, or else!

Two years later, it’s a different baby but the warning couldn’t be more current.

All though he is very good at walking these days, if he hears the bathroom door open, or he as much as sees a crack of light, indicating that the bathroom door might be open,he drops everything, gets on all four (still the fastest means to get anywhere) and doesn’t stop till he gets there.

His main objectives are:

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Daddy is still away (he sent us this progress report from his flight to LA as proof)
And the Sunday forecast didn’t leave us too many choices…

I had an idea for a project, while baby is a asleep.

A while ago, I bought this wacky 3D cookie cutter kit, but never had the chance to try it.

Since Ouri has been running around the house with a gigantic rolling-pin, trying to flatten everything in his sight, I thought it was the perfect morning for sugar cookies.

As soon as Ran got down for his first nap, Ouri and I engaged in some measuring, mixing, stirring, rolling, cutting, baking, cooling, coloring and eating. In that order.

The recipe was pretty basic:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2  cup butter, softened
•  1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1TBS milk
• a pinch of baharat spice blend

After everything was mixed together, the dough got a short (short) rest in the freezer (when your time in the kitchen is limited to the baby’s nap, every moment counts)

2. On a floured surface, we roll out dough and cut it into shapes.

Trying to make the seal. 

Apart from the animals (which were tricky to make because the dough was too sticky), Ouri have also made a few stars.And a  families of snakes.

*The funny letters are courtesy of my Mac camera.

3. Bake for 10- 12 minutes, until lightly brown. Barely let cool.

While Ouri was making another batch of snakes, I took this photo of the baked elephant and the lion, both pre-painted. 4. Decoration with food paint.

And voi·là

5. Let the Eating Commence!

This here, was the highlight of the day.

The rest of the day was full of battles.

I blame it on the sugar.

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A week later, and we’ve got 2 sprouts!

Ouri was very excited and immediately tried to help them grow, by overflowing the pot with water from his new, embellished watering can.

Tiny green stubborn Lavender and equally tiny Camomile!

Two little specs of green optimism, that take after their little green owners.

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My mom has a “green thumb”. She can make anything grow. This will sound like a serious  cliche, but she actually has a little apricot tree growing outside her window in a flower pot, from tossing an apricot pit. Seriously.

Me, on the other hand, do not posses that ability. The closest I came to making something grow, was in college, during an industrial design class. We experimented with various materials in order to create a light fixture. I chose to work with organic bath loofa. A few days after securing my loofa in a moist cast and putting in a light bulb, a sprout grew in it ( I didn’t notice that the loofa had a few seeds, and the moisture coming from the cast facilitated it’s growth). It was pretty amazing actually. An unintended miracle.

After my mom’s visit a year ago Ouri picked up a few interesting habits.  Mainly he began smelling flowers.

And also learned to operate a watering can.

Here’s Ouri, a year ago, watering flower bouquets at a local bodega.

A few days ago, under the influence of the smell of fresh soil and daffodils, I got into a hardware store and impulse bought a houseplant kit; a bag of planing soil, a few pots, a watering can and some seeds.

Last Saturday, while the baby was napping, Ouri and I went to plant some lavender and camomile.

The actual planting took us 5min.

And we spent the remaining time sipping our coffee/choco milk and personalizing the watering can.

 Updates will follow…

We are all wish the sprouts the best of luck!

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Who said that socks have to match? Seriously.
Every week, every load of laundry, produces roughly 24 pairs of socks. In the time it takes me to fish and fold roughly 57 socks every week, a small country is formed somewhere on this globe.  And then I have to deal with the misfits. How many shades of black are there for Godssakes?? And seriously, how many stripe combinations does a baby need?

Some lost socks are casualties of a rushed trip to the laundrymat. Some fall on the street from the feet of a wiggly baby and become roadkill. Some become a peculiar game in the hands of an over enthusiastic toddler.

And some, and I know you know what I’m talking about, just disappear into thin air.

Now and then, small miracles happen and I find a stray sock that looks familiar; sometimes inside a pair of pants or deep inside a drawer. I know that this little fella would be happy to reunite with his “sole mate” from my expanding missmatch pile.

One or two become immortal and turn into a sock monster.

Even featured in a movie…

But not everyone is so lucky, and I happen to think that everyone deserves to be happy. So I take maters to my hands.

I’m a professional interracial sockmatchmaker.

I try to pair two, that look compatible. To see how they feel about each other. I pair the footballs and the baseballs (cause these too are all the same to me) Then the wild life themed ones all go together. And then I organize a wild *couples exchange party* and leave it to destiny.

And even though mismatched socks usually mean that I didn’t get enough sleep, they also make our feet happy.

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If you like it, show it and vote for me!
(and click this banner)

A click is a vote!