Anna's recent obsession is this Winnie the Pooh DVD that a friend lent me. Now normally, I'm not big into letting my kid watch too much televison - I don't watch too much myself anyway. But with it being so hot lately, and I've been feeling a bit crummy, I've given in more than usual. So she watches Winnie the Pooh and cracks up every time he says "Oh bother!"

The other day, Anna asked me where Roo's daddy is. For those of you who don't know the characters, Roo lives with his mom, Kanga (they are kangaroos...ha ha) and the absence of his father is not explained. So I told her that some families have mommies and daddies, but some families just have a mommy or just a daddy. She pressed... more

You want to hear something ironic? I had a subscription to a magazine called "Budget Living." A little while ago, I got a note in the mail saying that the magazine had folded and the remainder of my subscription would be filled by one of their partners - a magazine called "Shop." Anyone else but me find that weird?

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So, Anna's going to "big-girl-school" this fall and I'm busy busy filling out all the paperwork that they keep sending me every other day. I wish schools would understand that if they got their act together and mailed out everything at once, they would actually be saving on postage and envelopes. Whatever. She keeps asking if it's September yet so that... more

So, the real reason that I haven't posted in a few days is that it is about 100 degrees outside, and about 110 degrees inside my house, with the hottest area being my computer desk - in the kitchen - where it also feels like 400 percent humidity. So, I've had the strength to get up, check email a few times a day, and mosey on back to my one air conditioned room - my bedroom. Anna's been sleeping on a few blankets folded on our floor - but the end is near! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! The work on the house which has been rumored to be starting at some point this century is actually starting! Air conditioning here we come!

So. Here I am. Braving the heat to get one post... more

So, I was going to write up this whole thing on explaining the custom of giving a Jewish child a Hebrew name, but About.com did a decent job. An excerpt is below. I will also add this - Hebrew names, like much of our tradition that we still follow, are all parts of the string that binds us together. Us being all Jews today, and also keeps alive the connection to our ancestors. Whatever our philosophy or our level of observance, certain things connect us all as one people.

Certain religious rituals require Hebrew names. Hebrew names are used for calling people to the Torah. Certain prayers, such... more

Something to consider when going through the adoption process is the name issue. Many of us adopt babies who have not been given a name, so the choice is relatively easy - we choose the name, end of story. Then it gets slightly more complex if the baby or child already has a name - do we keep the name? Do we make it a middle name? Do we change it altogether? Much of what I have read suggests that if the baby or child already has a name then one should make an effort to keep the name as much as possible - keeping the name shows that you are accepting of who they are and their heritage before they became part of your family. On the other hand, if it's a name you really can't or don't want to... more

So when I was pregnant, I was on all the pregnancy message boards. I was so happy to share my symptoms and thoughts and was enjoying talking to other women who were in the same state of life. I found it easy to talk to people whom I had never met - sometimes over the internet, we feel more comfortable sharing personal information with complete strangers than friends or family.

Then I miscarried. After a bit, I found myself on the miscarriage message boards, got support from other women who were going through or who had been through similar... more

Karen at the Naked Ovary has a great post up today about the phrase "Just Adopt" - you know, that wonderful two words that we hear so often from people who I'm sure mean well, but just can't seem to think of something good to say. And it's true - we heard it alot when we were going through our few years of dealing with a miscarriage followed by fertility problems, tests and treatments. "Why don't you just adopt?" people would say, to which I generally responded that "you don't just adopt. It's not that simple."

And we all... more

So, there seems to be a third option in the world of diapers. First there was cloth only. Then, there were disposable diapers. Now, there are gDiapers - what seems to be an eco-friendly option. The essence of Judaism is Tikun Olam - literally fixing the world. I'm an environmentalist myself by trade and at heart, and try to do everything I can to leave this world a little better than I found it. If you're not a cloth diapering type of person, maybe this is another option to look into? It sounds interesting, but I can't decide if it would be more work than regular cloth diapers. What do you think?... more

Anna is not a baby. She is three and a half years old, potty trained, talking in pages worth of dialogue and on the cusp of reading. She sleeps in a bed, and is going to "big girl school" in the fall. And if all this doesn't matter, she remains three and a half years old. Anna is not a baby.

My in-laws seem to have difficulty on this issue. They insist on refering to her as The Baby, which I really don't understand on so many levels. (For one thing, she wasn't the baby for almost a year while we had a foster baby staying with... more

It seems to me that we have been saying "no" quite a bit lately. Last week it was the girls - we decided that they really could not stay with us on a long term basis and that we would be better as an emergency placement for them. We could not keep them long term because the older girl was older than Anna (something I doubt Anna would handle well) and the simple fact that we did not have enough beds to go around. So we did have legitimate reasons for that case.

The Department of Youth and Family Services called us yesterday with a baby boy, a few months old, and would we be interested in taking him? The legal status... more