Bed time and a picture unrelated to bed time

It's just before 8 p.m. and Marina is in her bed. Whining.
The last few weeks she's been doing that thing where she tries anything to get out of bed time.

First she used to say she was hungry. And that was a good card to play because she never eats, so we're always really sensitive to food issues. So she'd be all, "I'm hungry." The intelligent part of my brain knew what she was trying to do. But the mom part was like: maybe she is really hungry and if I don't feed her I will be starving her and causing her body to rot. Obviously that side wins and I take her to the table and she just sits there staring at her food, sometimes doing her dramatic thing where she covers her mouth with both hands.

Then she started saying she had "a poop." She never did.

Lately we've been having arguments about the light in her room. She has this light ball under her bed with a dimmer. If she doesn't get to dim it to her specifications she will scream in her bed until I come in and let her move the dimmer thing (and I only come in because I don't want Ella to wake up, not because I'm a pushover).

Last night she actually dimmed it all the way off, so we were both happy. Tonight, she turned the light on full blast.
"Not a little bit of light, Mommy."

Of course, I turned it to the appropriate level of sleep light. And that's why she's in her room, whining. Oh, actually!! Not anymore!!

And just for fun, here is a picture. Well, it's actually a re-post from Facebook. But most of the familial readers do not have Facebook accounts and they are the ones who care most about this stuff.

Getting ooooold

This post is dedicated to Kim Stoutamire for nudging me into updating . . .

I'm going to be 35 in, like, 3 weeks. Thirty five. I think that's the first time I said it out loud. Or out loud on the computer, whatever, you know what I mean.

When one is 35, they are no longer young. They aren't just 30 or early 30s. They are straight-up mid-30s and next comes late 30s and after that is 40 which = middle age. You want to know how I know this? Whenever you fill out a survey or questionnaire they have those boxes that ask your age and you can pick 18 to 24; 25 to 34; 35 to 45.

Do you see my new category?? It's not good.

I can talk about how I've done a lot of cool things in my life, like going to the Oscars a bunch or being able to score great seats at concerts. But there's no denying it now. Come October 15 I will be old. And none of those aforementioned cool things will change the fact. Not even my intense knowledge of Gossip Girl and The Hills will get me out of this one.

Tradition

I once saw some comedian on TV who walked on stage and immediately sang:
"Sheket Bevakasha"
A few scattered peoplein the audience responded with, "Hey!"
Then the comic made a joke about how every single Jewish person in the room just outed themselves. And it was hilarious. Because any Jewish kid whose ever gone to Jewish school or camp learns the
"Be Quiet Please."
"Hey!"
call-and-response song.
You can be having lunch or playing tennis or reading a book and suddenly some cool type authority figure will sing out "She-ket Be-va-ka-sha!" which literally translates to be quiet, please.
And it's instinctual to respond, "Hey!" no matter what. You can't NOT do it. It's coded in Jewish genes. (Same for the Shabbat Shalom song.)

Now that Marina's in preschool, she's learning tons of new tunes. And every day I hear some random version of one. Like the fish song goes something about "Fish, fish, fish in the water. OH NO!"
Or there's the pizza one? "I am a pizza, please eat me." Maybe?

Today after school, Marina sang "Sheket Bevakasha" in that familiar singsongy melody.
I immediately did they "Hey!" fist pump, thinking it would be, like, some inside joke with myself.

Turns out, though, that age 2 is not too early to be indoctrinated. Because at the exact same time that I said "Hey!" I look in the rearview mirror and Marina was doing it too. Fist pump and all.

Hair

Every now and then, it gets kind of annoying that Marina has a cooler haircut than I do.

Trust me, if I had such amazingly straight and golden hair like hers, I'd go out and get "The Marina" this very minute. But I don't.

And, like, every time we go somewhere, I get comments about how great her hair is and I have to be all, "Yeah, I know, she's way more stylish than me."

Even the alternative-looking girls at the Children's Museum recognize Marina's potential hipsteriness and take a special liking to her. These are girls with similar haircuts and dangly earrings and skinny jeans that I would want as my own friends, but I'm just the dorky mom with the too-clean Chuck Taylors.

But I would like to remind Miss Marina what her hair used to look like back in the 06s.



Though some would argue that a natural-born mohawk sort out-cools anyone in the land.

The CW

I have not been writing because three out of my five week nights are occupied by programming on the CW network. It's actually really embarrassing that I'm this immature.
To make it worse, on Mondays, not only do I watch Gossip Girl, but then I switch over to The Hills. I think I am one of the last 34-year-olds on the planet that still watches MTV.

This is what I do instead of capturing the precious moments of childhood.

But OMG, can you believe Chuck Bass can pull off wearing a white tuxedo? And why am I the only person who loves the new 90210?

A new year

All the teachers at school were super nervous about Marina starting "real" preschool. They said she was used to being the boss of the baby room and it was going to be a rude awakening to be surrounded by other kids her age.

And the first day I took Marina to her new class for a 30-minute warmup, these predictions came true. She hardly left my side. She looked at the new kids and their sticky hands and play-doh-stained t-shirts and wanted nothing to do with any of them.

But then on her first actual day she saw her new room had a kitchen! And books! And live frogs! And no cribs! Or high chairs! And it turns out she loves school now. She sings songs and has friends and takes naps on a cot, just like the big kids.

Her whole attitude's changed, even at home. Kind of like she just grew up in one week.

Like today, when we went to a birthday party at the beach. Instead of being terrified of the waves as she was at the start of summer, she ran full-speed into the ocean. I tried grabbing her hand but she wanted nothing to do with me and I was like, oh no. Is this how it starts? I had a vision of her in drama class or something going to her plays and her being all, mom, can you just go?

But then a big wave came and Marina ran back to my arms. So at least I get her for a few extra years.

I would have taken a picture but she was always off doing her own thing. So here's a picture of Matt and Ella. Ella discovered that sand is a really remarkable snack: