Eat that, NPR!

...which is why, for the past half-hour, we've been discussing rising debt in America...

Ariel: "Debt in America? CAPTAIN America!"

Elan: "Who? Are they talking about Arak Obama and Hillary Clinton again?"

The Simple Definition of 'Three Years Old'

"Noooo Mommy, don't gooooo...stay with me. Lie down with me a little bit."
"Fine, but just for a minute. Like literally, one minute."
"What does 'lidderally' mean?"
"It means...really. No more, no less."
"What does 'really' mean?"
"It means the truth."
"What does 'truth' mean?"
"Ariel! Enough! It means nothing. Stop it!"

Pause.

"What does 'nuffing' mean?"
"GOODNIGHT."

This is How They Play

Not too long ago, one of my work colleagues got a puppy. A really adorable one - a mix of Pug and Boston Terrier, just supremely cute. And supremely wild, as puppies are meant to be.

One day, another co-worker brought his dog - a larger, older, hairier Shelty into work to meet the newcomer. They circled each other, did their sniffing thing, and finally just began fighting like mad. The two canines were pawing each other, growling, biting, barking - the works. I began to freak out, certain someone was going to end up dead, and nervously suggested we pull them apart.

My two friends laughed it off, one telling me to "Relax. They're having fun! This is how they play!"

I guess I looked skeptical, because the other quipped: "They're dogs. They don't have opposable thumbs. What are they supposed to do for fun?"

Whatever. This is LA. I once watched a dog surf.

It didn't look like "play" to me and I probably wouldn't be convinced were it not for my two puppies at home. I'm told girls sit and play with dolls, quietly tucking the creepy plastic mini-mes into minuscule beds. I've witnessed my two-year-old niece conduct a tea party to end all tea parties for a room full of guests (just don't ask her for more imaginary sugar when the imaginary sugar has OBVIOUSLY run out. She gets PISSED.).

These are quiet activities. Elan and Ariel, bless their little hearts, don't believe in many quiet activities. Actually, that's not totally true - each on his own will partake in coloring, reading, and playing with action figures up until a point. But together -pretty much all they want to do is fight. The physical kind. With hitting? Kicking? You've seen it, I'm sure, in kung-foo movies.

Y is used to it. But even as the only girl growing up in a houseful of boys, I wasn't exposed to much of it. Not for sport, not for spite....Just not.

Of course, as Y is always apt to point out: "No, you guys preferred to just think of the most hurtful, below-the-belt, straight-to-the-heart, ripe-for-future-therapy-sessions things to say to each other, instead. Much classier."

Touche. We're a word family.

So all of this physical fighting, the limb-flailing, the knee-buckling is relatively new, and even after a couple of years more than a little unsettling to me when my boys are in the midst of it, smothering each other with the couch cushions, which, as I mentioned, is pretty much any given waking moment.

For all of the noise and the number of arms or legs or other strange, stem-like swords, light-sabers, bicycles and kitchen sinks flying through the airspace of our small house on, say, an average Tuesday at 4 PM, I often feel as though I might as well have six boys instead of two.

I went through a stage of yelling, naturally, because it seemed the only way to get heard. It was, as the Super Nanny would surely have predicted, largely unsuccessful and even more exhausting. I'm afraid, you see - I'm ALWAYS afraid - someone will get hurt. Because someone always does. Always. It never ends any other way. So I screamed, in vain, for them to stop, put them in time-outs, untangled their bodies a toe at a time and shoved them into separate rooms, slammed the doors shut.

They'd just open the door. Yeah, after some time and struggle, I'd get them to calm down, apologize, the whole nine yards. I'd try to get them to explain WHY they felt the need to be touching each other, bothering each other, as long as they were awake, WHY they needed to pretend they were super-heroes by actually trying to make one another become dead.

Eventually, I'd win. I'd get mumbled answers followed by requests for food and drink. But their answers were never very good, their arguments anything but logical ("He said my NAME and he said it in A VOICE" or "It's fun" or "Ariel flies"). And by then, I'd be emotionally and physically spent, aching to put them to sleep, and feeling, mostly, like a maternal failure.

So I decided to change tactics. I'd just...do nothing. Let them destroy each other, and instead of trying to prevent the injury, simply clean up after it. Bandage, ice, kiss. Fight over. Accept the inevitable boo-boo and uh-oh and let them figure out for themselves when it's gone too far. In the meantime, shovel the wild mess of bodies into the backyard, whenever it isn't raining.

It doesn't rain much here, so this has become my coping mechanism of choice most of the time. And it works, sort of. A little.

So the other night, when the Computer Guy was over treating my ailing PC with antibiotics or whatever it is they do, and it was bed-time, and everyone was crying and screaming and whining and demanding ALL AT ONCE, I did a whole lot of nothing. I just brushed little teeth straight through the noise, dealt with the chaos, pretending it wasn't there, until I re-gained control and got the boys to bed. It was ugly and a little humiliating but I didn't lose it entirely. And the Computer Guy witnessed the whole thing.

Something happens when you become a mother - maybe it has to do with the process of giving birth and all of those interns you've never seen before coming in to brazenly check how dilated you are, but you concede most shreds of dignity at the door. And though you do, naturally, worry that others are scrutinizing your mistakes, blaming you for every obnoxious scene your child puts out there - you also give up trying to save yourself the embarrassment. You borrow a wet-wipe and blot up the barf. You let the tantrum unfold in the snack aisle of Ralph's. You let your kids act like maniacs in front of guests - anything, not to give in. Not to let them win.

Now, the computer dude is a dad himself and not the judgmental sort, but I acknowledged the scene later anyway, when all was quiet, as I cut him a check. "We had a bit of a rough night. I take it your kids aren't quite as insane?" I asked sheepishly, by way of apology.

"Well, mine are smaller," he admitted. And you've got, what, like three or four boys?"

HA! VALIDATION: If you build it...

"Nope, just two! Believe it or not."
"There were only two boys in the house all night?"
"Mm-hm."
"It sounded like - well, double that."

"Trust me, I know. This is how they play."

All They Need is a Mahogony-Paneled Smoking Room

"I like Obama."

It's bedtime and I tug Ariel's pajamas over his head and look up at Elan, surprised. "Do you now?"

"Yep. I saw him on the news this morning. I like him because Uncle B. wants him to win. So I do too."

Amused, I turn to my little one. "So, Ariel. What are your politics? Obama or Hillary?"

Ariel tries not to smile and stalls for time. "I....like...."

Before he can take a side, Elan quickly leans forward, whispering in his younger brother's ear conspiratorially. "Hillary's a girl!"

I fall back on the floor laughing. In a sea of politeness and jargon, my son, the buoy of laymen reason...

"Then Obama, Obama," Ariel quickly opines.

They high-five.

Oh No She Did NOT

"Move Auntie Mardo!"
"Hannah, you know what?"
"What!"
"If you sleep all night in your crib tonight like such a good girl and don't cry at all and don't wake up your mommy, Auntie Margo is going to take you to the toy store and buy you a toy!"
"A toy?"
"A Strawberry Shortcake toy!"
"No stahbewwy shotecake! iPod!"

Everybody's Gotta Eat

This morning at work, my hard drive passed away. Considering it belonged to a year-old, 24-inch Intel iMac without which I'm utterly inept, the whole thing was pretty disturbing. The drive itself, of course, is replaceable, but it's a little more time consuming to try and have my data recovered first.

So I left work early. I had two and a half hours to kill in the neighborhood before I'd need to pick up the boys, and I really, really, should have headed to Y's office to get a little work done for his company over there. But somehow, I ended up in a nail salon. I couldn't explain it if I tried.

Okay, I could. It's been forever since I've had a manicure and my disgusting, cracked skin and flaky cuticles were...disgusting. Maybe they wouldn't offend a stranger on the street, but I was at my limit. So I took advantage of time when I could have been getting paid in order to pay someone else instead. Surely you can understand.

Since it would be who-knows-how-long until I was back again, I upgraded to a paraffin treatment, which, if you've never had one, is weird and cool. You dip your hands in very hot, moisturizing liquid wax, which quickly hardens into creepy gloves, then bundle them in saran wrap, and settle into some gigantic oven mitts for the better part of ten minutes. If you're lucky, you'll get a massage. I did.

While I'm waiting, I hear another customer enter. She is obviously a beloved regular, because all the technicians hug her and call out her name in excitement upon her arrival. My back is to her, and I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes to relax for a few minutes, my terry-mitt covered hands poised awkwardly on my lap.

However, it proves hard not to eavesdrop.

"It's this nail, honey," Customer says in a thick, unmistakable New-York Jew accent. "I don't know what to do! It won't stay put. It's unwrapping. It's such a mess. Whattya gonna do to help me?"

She's clearly anguished.

"Oh-kay," the manicurist replies in a soothing, sing-song tone. "I take care of it. I re-wrap all the nails. I have to because your nail grow back underneath and it's no good."

"So you're going to re-do all of them?"

"Yes, I have to."

"DO. WHAT YOU HAVE. TO DO."

"Oh-kay!"

I smile to myself. Women at nail places inevitably crack me up. I am all for grooming and self-indulgence if you've got the time for it, I love the perfect shade of almost-black red as much as the next girl, but some people take it so seriously, you'd think they were discussing life-or-death open-heart surgery. For their only child.

I close my eyes again, happy not to put a face to the voice yet.

"Can you put the TV on? Quickly? Channel 7!" Customer demands, gesturing to the large flat-screen suspended high on the far wall. (Nobody can say LA isn't stylish.)

I'm a little surprised. That's a bit pushy, even for a nail place. The technicians hurry to fulfill her every desire, but they chatter away in Korean to one another, unable to keep their lips from curling up at the corners. It's obvious they are trying not to laugh, and I wonder what they are saying, just as I always do.

It's hard not to be paranoid. Once, a couple of years ago, I had my nails done while a younger manicurist gestured towards me, whispering wildly behind her palm to the woman patiently buffing my fingertips. It was painfully obvious that she was talking about me, but I didn't want to make any accusations and risk the embarrassment of being wrong. I sat there, turning deeper and deeper shades of purple, until finally, she stood shyly next to my manicurist and nudged her, pointing her chin at me. The older woman sighed. "She say, she like your face," she finally told me.

So I try to be less suspicious, but it's hard not to feel slightly embarrassed on behalf of Customer's curtness. After all, this isn't New York, despite the audio. Oh, to be old enough that I won't care to step so cautiously. I read somewhere that it kicks in in your thirties.

The technicians stop tittering. General Hospital appears on the screen and Customer audibly melts into her chair. "It helps me relax," she announces.

Sitting quietly, undisturbed, not rushing anywhere for half an hour - forcing myself not to scratch an itch and risk sacrificing true art - is the part of the manicure that helps me relax. I'm now reminded just how complicated - albeit in a good way - my life has become.

I look at the monitor.

No...it can't be...

Are those REALLY the same exact actresses that were on this show when I was 16?

Because yes, once I got my drivers license and a car, my girlfriends and I used to take "extended lunches" from high school consisting of, typically, pancakes, leftover lasagna, and an hour of GH well into the afternoon. (I was a lot heavier in high school.)

One of my friends still records the show every day at 2, but I never got that into it. Still, I remember the faces, and indeed, they are the same ones I'm looking at today, barely a day older.

I can't help but share this. "Have these same actors been doing this show for, like, 15 years?" I exclaim, turning around in my chair and directing this towards Customer, who I've obviously startled with the sudden attention.

She recovers. "I guess so. My husband just got me the soap channel on cable?" Her accent belongs in a Woody Allen film. I love. "So I just started watching it. But that one actress? Right there? I once saw her here in this very nail place, having her nails done. She didn't have any makeup on, so I almost didn't recognize her, but she was reading a script and I caught the name 'Sonny' so I said to her, I said 'Are you so-and-so?' and she said yeah, she was. They look so different without makeup, you wouldn't even know!"

"Yes, makeup is a beautiful thing." I peer at her a little more closely now.

"Morah Elaine?!*" I exclaim. Because, as I should have guessed all along, I know this woman. I don't just know her type, I actually know her specifically. She is the one who assigns Elan davening awards on an almost daily basis. She conducts the morning prayers with the Pre-1 class.

She doesn't know me, but I introduce myself. We talk about the school for a bit. We talk about The Valley, which might as well be China to those in Hancock Park. We discuss paraffin. We're old friends by the time I admire my re-born hands, tip heavily (I want that massage again next time!) and say my goodbyes.

And what have I gotten out of this whole experience, I know you're wondering?

Namely, that soap-stars stick with the same jobs, the same storylines, the same co-workers, for years. Decades. And I know that getting paid well probably helps, I don't kid myself. But I have so much trouble being in the moment with my own line of work and not constantly thinking about being further along, more accomplished, more successful, new and difference experiences and skills under my belt. Regardless of my salary. Ambition can be very exhausting, even if it sits on a shelf in your mind while you try, in complete and utter vain, to persuade your three-year-old to just taste a vegetable while he's still young.

Yet Sonny is still on that show. Robin is still doing it, if a bit Botoxed at this point. I think about their ambitions. Have they reached the peak of their art? Do they know it, are they just coasting at the top for as long as they're welcome?

Everybody's gotta eat?

*Morah = teacher, in Hebrew. Names have been changed.

What They Get Out of It

Awhile ago, I wrote about Elan's sudden interest in world news and politics, notably with regard to natural disasters and untimely deaths. It piqued when Southern California was on fire a few months ago, and was more than likely reinforced by my own - equally sudden - shift in addiction from Kevin and Bean on KROQ to everything NPR. We're all growing up, I guess. This means that the kids start their day watching the ABC morning news, and drive home from school with "All Things Considered."

I'm not sure if this makes me a good parent. Probably not a responsible one. After all, there is only so much that the boys can possibly understand and relate to their own experience. But I'm sure you can imagine their excitement when a real-live TIGER jumped out of its pen at the ZOO and KILLED one boy and INJURED SEVERAL OTHERS! Obviously, nothing could have been more fabulous or thrilling.

Ariel, apparently, repeated the story verbadim to his teachers, (along with a little tidbit about his daddy driving too fast on the highway and a police man came and gave him a ticket while we were all in the car!). Naturally, this was told over to my sheepish husband with good humor and yet eyebrows raised.

There was the story on the radio about Striker, a beloved police dog, who died in hot pursuit of
a felon and was to receive an honorable military burial. The criminal jumped off a 200-foot bridge just as Striker sank its teeth into his leg, taking the animal overboard with him.
Just like a german shepard, I imagine, Elan's ears perked up from the backseat. "What's that, Mommy? What are they saying about that dog? What did the police dog do?" I relay the tragic story. "The bad guy survived and will probably go to jail, but the dog didn't survive the fall," I explain.

"STRIKER'S DEAD?" Elan is indignant, like they were old friends.

"Well, yes, it was a 200-foot drop. But he did his job so well and the police are so proud of him, they are giving him a real funeral, like a person. He was the best dog they had."

"I can't believe this," Ariel mutters from his car seat.

"He was the best they had?! What did the bad guy even do?" Elan wants details.

"Um..he probably did something really bad, like steal - like a candy bar or something."

He sighs. "I'm not going to be upset because one day, Hashem [G-d] will bring Striker back again, and if I find him before the police do, I'll just grab him and make him my own pet," Elan decides.
"Yes," agrees Ariel. "When Yerushalayim comes." This is what he calls the Messiah.

So it was obvious that their grasp of real-life tragedy and disaster was limited to the sensational, the glamorous, that which they could simplify to super-hero, good vs. evil terms. And that, in a way, was fine. They didn't need to understand evil on a grander scale, and yet it helps not to grow up in a total bubble of naivete, I figured - knowing to be careful and protect oneself. I'm not a fairy-tale kind of girl, and respect my kids' efforts to understand their surroundings better.

I knew I had to start censoring, however, when I came out of the shower one morning to find Elan glued to the television, perched on my bed, a forkful of syrupy waffle paused in mid-air halfway to his mouth. Upon seeing me, he exclaimed: "You won't believe this! That boy was kidnapped from his parents for FOUR YEARS. He's just coming back to them now after FOUR YEARS."

"Elan, that's terrible," I try and explain. "That's not stuff you should know about."

"But it is why we have to be so careful not to talk to strangers, right Mommy? So they don't kidnap us?"

Now that's just scary. The stuff of nightmares. And I hate scaring them, but better safe than sorry, right?

"That's right."

By now Ariel had wandered into the room and the conversation, full of wisdom and experience and knowledge, on the ready:

"And THAT'S why whenever a stranger tries to give me candy, I won't take it even though it's candy and I love candy because I know that when a stranger gives you candy it's toisonous, and he wants you to take it because he knows you love candy."

"Toisonous? You mean 'poisonous'?"

"No, TOISONOUS. Like the stranger wants to TOISON you. That's what strangers try to do."

Oh. Well sure.