Book Giveaway Winners

The random integer generator has spoken.

The winners of the parenting books giveaway are:

• Mama from Me and My Little Life wins Father to Son - Life Lessons on Raising a Boy
• Molly from Five is the Perfect Number wins The Little Big Book for Dads
• Julia Smith from A Piece of My Mind wins A Special Collection in Praise of Mothers

Congratulations to all three of you. I know you'll really enjoy these terrific books. I'm contacting all of you directly (e-mail if you've left it, if not to your blog). To claim your prize please e-mail me within the next four days at robintlv AT gmail DOT com with your mailing address. If I don't hear from you within four days the book will go to the next person chosen by the random integer generator.

Thanks for playing everyone, and for sharing all those wonderful sources of inspiration. Come back and visit again now that the giveaway craziness is over. There's always an extra chair and a fresh pot of coffee.

Old Jaffa, 2008

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Last Saturday we decided to take advantage of a beautiful day and headed to the Old City of Jaffa for an afternoon's ramble. (Follow the link to read more about Jaffa.)
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The Old City, even the reconstruction that is this one, is tailor-made for the old-fashioned look and feel of sepia.

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In this shot you can see how the old and the new sit in uneasy coexistence. The building on the far side of the arches is in fact a brand new luxury apartment building.

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Of course these 3,300 year old walls hardly need processing - they're already naturally monochromatic - and beige to boot. They are part of the remains of an Egyptian fortress built around 1300 BCE.

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These is just small glimpse into what makes Old Jaffa so unique, and such a great place to spend an afternoon. There is something for everyone - alleys full of artists' galleries, winding staircases, an old port, sea views, restaurants, and of course photo opportunities around every twisted alley. I'd show you more but at this point the kids were clamoring for ice cream so we left the charms of the Old City behind for the infinitely more fattening charms of the oh so good Dr. Lek's flagship ice cream parlor down the road. Maybe next time.

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Raindrop

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Visit Wordless Wednesday to see what other people aren't saying

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Ruby Tuesday - Balloons

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(Have you checked out my giveaway yet?)

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It's Tuesday again, and around here that means it's time to start seeing red. Here's mine - a closeup of a brightly colored red balloon and two of its friends:

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Visit Mary the Teach over at Work of the Poet for more ruby red shots.

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It's Giveaway Time Again - Inspiring Books for Parents

This giveaway is now closed. Thank you for entering everyone. The winners will be announced in a separate post later today.
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It's hard to believe that time is going by so quickly, but here it is already - the big Fall 2008 Bloggy Giveaway kicks off today, and you're invited. Click on the link (going live at 8am CST) to participate in literally hundreds of great bloggy giveaways.

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For my own giveaway this time I'm giving away inspiration. How do you give away inspiration, you ask? The answer is with three different books that will recharge your batteries and inspire your parenting. All three are books you can pick up for a minute or two here and there, no need to carve out a large block of time in a busy parent's day. Keep them for yourself or slip them into a shower or new baby gift to bring a smile to a tired new parent's face.

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Two are perfect gifts for the fathers in your life:

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Father to Son - Life Lessons on Raising a Boy - full of small tips and good advice - everything from "Let him learn the joys of chocolate chip cookie dough" and "teach him how to throw a curve" to "talk to him about his dreams. And about yours". Good stuff, well-packaged.

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The Little Big Book for Dads - this one moves well past tips and advice into how-to's. I love this book. There are sections on songs and nursery rhymes, jokes and tongue-twisters, activities, and even recipes. Everything from how to collect insects or fly a kite to the words to "Froggy Went A-Courtin'" and a recipe for french toast. It even teaches you how to juggle marshmellows and do magic tricks.

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A Special Collection in Praise of Mothers - this collection of essays and quotations is sure to tug at your heartstrings. Here are two of my favorite quotes:

The mother is the most precious possession of the nation, so precious that society advances its highest well-being when it protects the functions of the mother. Ellen Kay

It will be gone before you know it. The fingerprints on teh wall appear higher and higher. Then suddenly they disappear. Dorothy Evslin

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To enter, leave me a comment telling me who inspires you as a parent, and be sure to leave me a way to contact you if you win. And while you're here, grab a fresh cup of coffee, kick off your shoes and take a look around. You never know quite what you'll find.

Three winners - one for each book - will be chosen at random on Friday, 31 October.

This giveaway is international and open to everyone.
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Bathtub Art

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Maya, the girl who would only scribble a few months ago, got creative with her tub toys last night. I'm not sure which makes me grin more - the freakishly large head on the small body, the boots for arms, or the fact that she took the trouble to stick a football in the woman's purse.

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The feminist in me is tempted to proudly draw all sorts of non-gender-biased type conclusions here except for one minor detail - I strongly suspect that Maya doesn't have the faintest idea what an American football is. We don't have one and it's not on tv here, so it's altogether possible, even probable, that she stuck it in there for no reason whatsoever, just because she liked the way it looked.

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Either way, it made us both happy.

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P's, Q's and the minding thereof

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"Do you want a sticker?" the speech therapist asked my daughter. "Yes," she responded. "Yes, please," I prompted. "Yes please", she corrected herself.

"Oh, right. I'd forgotten you were like that," the therapist said. The therapist. The woman whose job it is to help my daughter work out the intricacies of interpersonal conversation.

Excuse me? Like what? Unusual because I insist on teaching my children basic manners? Apparently so.

I may live in Israel, the country which invented chutzpah and "telling it like it is", but that doesn't mean I can't foster a tiny oasis of slightly more civilized behavior within my own family. Israelis are brusque to a fault, sometimes appearing quite rude in the eyes of outsiders. They're not acting rudely by their own code of behavior, but as someone raised in the US I have to say that even after nearly twenty years here it still grates on me.

As a New Yorker born and bred I think I'm fairly moderate in the standards I demand from my children, and from myself. Please, thank you, hold the door for someone carrying heavy packages, we're talking the basics here, not yes ma'am-ing or no sir-ing everyone old enough to vote. Still, that's somewhat unusual here. Enough that teachers have commented on my children's American manners, and other parents have set them up as role models for their own children, much to my son's chagrin. (You wouldn't think a simple "please" would get that much attention, would you? Surprisingly, it does.)

To me, basic manners aren't an end in themselves, they are a sign of a deeper respect. A way of saying "I recognize you and notice and appreciate what you are doing." If we don't recognize this most basic level of interaction, how naturally will respect come when the issues are harder and more contentious? If you don't say good morning to a teacher, or pay attention when she speaks, how will you give her the respect that she deserves and YOU need to be able to learn? How can we teach our children to go out into the world and thrive if they can't manage something as basic as please and thank you? How much easier is it to jump to anger and aggression if our speech is already angry and aggressive? What a difference it could make to take that extra second to temper ourselves, even just a little.

Manners. It all comes down to basics. Start with the basics, internalize them, teach them to your children and the rest will follow naturally.

And wouldn't that be wonderful.
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Ah-choo!

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That's what I've been doing this evening after going through all of the (old and very dusty) books on our bookshelf. We're doing a bit of rearranging in the back room, which required the emptying out and moving of the bookshelves and the resulting stacking of a whole damn bunch just a few incredibly dusty pristinely clean and well-kept books haphazardly all over the floor, blocking access to half the room and several closet doors in neat and organized piles for an eternity 3 days while we put the rest of the room back together.

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It wasn't all for naught though, we did manage to weed out a fair number of books which will now be enjoying a renewed lease on life among Tel Aviv's foreign workers, who are always hungry for English reading material.

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Why the sepia? Many of these books were so old and dusty that they looked practically antique already, so I decided they'd be perfect for the inaugural edition of Mary the Teach's new Sepia Scenes photo prompt (which I will join officially as soon as I wake up - ahh, the wonders of scheduled posts...).

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What do you think? Are you feeling that old-timey sepia love?

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Best man, the rings please...

I have a friend who forwards every piece of garbage that comes along. She finally came up with a winner. It's only 44 seconds long and well worth the watch. Just set your drink down first.

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They're right, ohmigod really is all you can say.

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WW - Hard at play

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Visit Wordless Wednesday to see what other people aren't saying.

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PS Yes, he's in his socks - he'd taken off his rollerblades to go play on the exercise equipment.

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A Sport is Born

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Amidst the detritus of the party, a sport is born...

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Balloon soccer. Invented and soon to be wildly promoted by my 7.5 year old son, who is absolutely confident that if I will just agree to get him a table at next year's after-school activities fair children will flock to him to join his new sport, and will of course also pay him handsomely for said privilege.

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Oh to be seven again...

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Visit Ruby Tuesday for other glimpses of red from around the world.

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Where I've Been All Weekend

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Whew, now I can sit back and breathe a bit - the princess party we threw for Maya tonight was a resounding success. Five little princesses in their finest frippery spent the evening cavorting to their hearts' content, going home two hours later spent and happy, wearing the ribbon "crowns" they made and clutching goody bags full of sweet surprises. Their baser side was not neglected either, as they bashed the crap out of a butterfly pinata. This was a new one for all of the guests, pinatas have only just become available in Israel and most people still don't know what they are (Maya saw one on Dora and determined that this was a must for any self-respecting birthday party - her other requirements included "cake" and "decorations").
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This was the first time Maya has had, or even been interested in having, a real "friends" party. Normally children in Israel invite their entire class, upwards of 25 children, plus however many outside friends. (This large size means that parents generally hire professional entertainers to handle the insane amount of kid-wrangling necessary.)
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Maya's not really the big loud entertainer type though, nor does she like large crowds or sound systems, so she and I decided that small and intimate was the way to go. We invited four close friends (the only other two girls in her class and two other friends) and threw a princess party, because there is nothing dearer to Maya's heart right now than princesses, unless perhaps it's chocolate milk. Having so few children meant that we (I) would be serving as party mistress extraordinaire, and I will freely admit that I was quaking in my crocs. The thought of having to entertain a group of children used to a polished, action-packed performance left me with a major knot in my stomach. Still, they are little girls, and I myself was one of those once, so I crossed my fingers, wrote up a list of activities, closed my eyes and jumped.
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And it worked. Everyone had a ball. It was completely over the top girly and very very pink and they loved it. Heck, even I had fun, and my husband outdid himself managing the background logistics while my son discovered his inner DJ. A real family effort.

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Maya, who stayed in her costume (including her crown! And her braids! She asked me for braids!) the entire evening (!) was beaming from ear to ear. She was absolutely thrilled and very much enjoyed her moment in the spotlight. Her smile made all of the behind the scenes effort worth it. There's no question that a professional entertainer makes life easier, albeit more expensive, but the satisfaction you get from knowing that YOU are the one to put that smile on all those little faces and see them gasp in wonder when they discover that the strange thing they've been whacking with that stick is full of CANDY is in another class entirely.

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Happy birthday Princess Maya. You earned every bit of this one kiddo.

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(Photos cropped to remove other people's kids.)

Thematic Photographic - Blur

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This week Carmi's asked us to toss out the old photographic rulebook and show him pictures of blur, like all those awful shots which fill up our old albums because we'd taken them and couldn't just throw them in the garbage now, could we.
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My blurry shots aren't from motion but rather from an incredibly shallow depth of field. I've been playing around this week with a friend's lens. It's an old 50mm, f/1.8. A really old one. So old it won't autofocus and the auto-white balance doesn't work. It is however a good little lens in low light, as long as you keep that aperture cranked wide open. The downside of this is that the depth of field is then so shallow that when shooting these little spice bottles on my kitchen shelf only one individual bottle could be in focus at a time, the rest are completely blurry. Oh, and that strange blue cast to all of the shots? That would be me not realizing that the auto-white balance wasn't engaging (and it looks this crappygood after doing some color correction). Meh. I'm chalking these up to the learning process. I still haven't figured out quite what to do with this little lens, but I am learning a whole lot about what not to do.

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Another failure. I kind of like this one anyway though, despite the blown highlights. (How on earth did I manage to blow out the highlights on a dark blue couch?) I'm not sure whether it's the color balance in the foreground, which does work, or the incongruity of having a bicycle in a living room (sadly all too common at my house), or some other intangible, but I like the feel of it. It's not a "good" shot by any stretch of the imagination, but something about it just speaks to me. What can I say, call me odd.

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I'm posting these for fun, but if anyone out there has any practical technical suggestions for me I'd love to hear them.

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TT - Random Meme on Steroids

Follow That Dog just tagged me for a six random things meme, and since I hadn't done a meme for a while and didn't have anything lined up for this week's Thursday Thirteen I figured I'd go for broke and give you not six but thirteen, yes thirteen, random facts about me me me. Now, to come up with them...

1. It drives me crazy when tv writers don't fact-check well enough. I'm sitting here watching CSI New York as I type and they keep talking about the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, putting emphasis on the hard g. The thing is, the g is supposed to be silent, the word is actually pronounced "Aya".

2. I know this because before I had kids I spent the better part of a year working in Ankara, the capital of Turkey.

3. It's not nearly as exciting as it sounds.

4. My husband took my son to the championship soccer match between the Israeli and Italian youth (up to age 21 so including several stars). Last time I flipped channels, we were losing 3 -1 with not much time left.

5. I was all set to eat a salad for dinner tonight (not my usual fare and I was feeling quite virtuous) when I found a nasty caterpillar in the bag - and caterpillar poop all over the place.

6. Needless to say I didn't have salad after all.

7. At that point nothing really appealed and I ended up eating a bowl of honey nut cornflakes.

8. Now it's a few hours later and I'm hungry but still nothing appeals.

9. Not even the delicious fresh sourdough bread that Jay made earlier today.

10. Maybe it's because I have a headache.

11. We finally found a pullout couch that will fit in our very small and overcrowded guest/computer/storage/bicycle room, but it's from Ikea.

12. I really don't like shopping at Ikea.

13. But it's probably better than telling my parents they have to sleep on the floor next time they visit. Maybe. If I don't have to go on a Friday. I think. (Luckily my parents don't read this blog. Heck, they don't even know about it.)

There, that's thirteen. Done. Not exactly Shakespeare. What can I say, such is my oh so fascinating life. Hey, how about this? Instead of tagging, why don't you guys each leave me one fascinating fact about yourselves in the comments. Come on, you know you wanna... Pleeeeeeease...

Bringing Out My Inner Martha - Edible Sukkahs

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Nope, not even close to wordless this week...
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It's Sukkot, the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, this week. (Follow the link for a full explanation of this week-long holiday.)

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The word sukkot means "booths" - temporary huts that Jews build outside for the holiday in remembrance of the time our ancestors spent wandering for forty years in the desert before reaching the promised land. Technically, Jews are commanded to "dwell" in these huts, but in practice most people just eat their meals in them. People build their sukkot in their backyards, on their balconies, or outside communal apartment buildings. While our family doesn't build a sukkah of our own we do visit our neighbors' sukkah most years (and would have this year too except they decided to go on a three-week tour of China, leaving the evening the holiday began).
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We do however bring a bit of the holiday into our lives (besides enjoying the kids' week-long vacation from school) by doing a fun craft - we make miniature sukkahs which can do double-duty as a healthy holiday snack or a holiday decoration.
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Maya's sukkah

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Itai's sukkah (must give equal billing to both kids)

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To make a sukkah you need:
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Square rice cakes (or graham crackers) for the walls
Peanut butter for the "glue"
Pretzel sticks, for the sekhakh (roofing)
Miniature fruit-shaped candies for the decorations

Each one takes just a few minutes to build, and even very young children can join in with a little bit of help.

As a bonus shot to make up for my being not even close to wordless this week, here's my daughter pretending to be "inside" her sukkah (before it was moved from her "workshop" to a clean more photogenic plate).

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Chag sameach, happy holidays, to all celebrating and drop by Rocks in my Dryer to see what's working for everyone else this week.

Clothespins

A splash of bright red for today's Ruby Tuesday.

Five

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There is simply nothing better in the world than turning five - you're old enough to understand that it's your birthday with all that that implies, and young enough that you gasp in delight when you open your gifts, thrilled with the fairies and the princesses and the tea sets, but still picking your brother's homemade card as your very favorite present.

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Happy birthday to my incredible, wonderful, magical girl. To use your favorite expression, you're AMAZING. You've taken us on an unbelievable ride these past five years and I can't wait to see where you take us next. The sky's the limit, and you're reaching for the stars.

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All my love,

Mommy

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Random Cuteness

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The words seem to be stuck today. It might have something to do with staying up until 2am watching 3 straight episodes of Grey's Anatomy (which we downloaded and could of course have watched at a much more civilized hour). In the meantime, here's a bit of random cuteness for you.
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Somewhere in Time

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What a fascinating question - if I could live anywhere, in any time, what would I choose?

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It's actually a question I've given a fair amount of thought to over the years (I'm very good at escapist fantasies - they're much more fun than working). The trigger is often visual. I'll see a painting somewhere and dream of slipping right into the canvas. Sometimes it's a pastoral scene with a gently flowing brook, other times perhaps a masked ball with revelers in sumptuous costumes, the possibilities are endless. The costumes are key though - they MUST be as wonderful to wear as they are to look at. Above all they must not be too constricting - no tight necks or bodices. A girl's gotta breathe, and I have a real thing about anything touching my neck. I can't stand even the lightest touch, even a feather-weight necklace or a hairdresser's drape makes me feel as if I'm choking. The mere thought of a turtleneck leaves me gasping for breath.

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I think Roman gowns would be wonderful to wear, they look utterly delightful, especially when paired with all those magnificent ringlets and braids (Rome, anyone?). Medieval gowns too, all flowy and romantic. I've been imagining what it would be like to live in medieval times ever since I first visited the Renaissance Festival as a child, a fantasy that was only strengthened by the summer I spent working a crafts booth at the fair. Of course knowing me if I was magically transported to the days of yore I'd probably find myself a pock-marked, lice-infested, plague-suffering peasant, or since I'm Jewish it's more probable that I'd find myself being run out of town during one of the all-too-frequent expulsions, but it's a lovely fantasy if you don't delve too closely.

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Or the roaring twenties. Now that era seems like it must have been a fun one - flappers, jazz, boundaries and old world orders tumbling down, optimism and possibility around every corner... (Little did they know.)

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Or perhaps the colonial United States, just before the war (no reason to sully my fantasy with murder and mayhem). For that one I've even already got the dress, handmade by my grandmother for the "bicentennial" birthday party I had in 1976 and complete with antique lace trim and a white lace bonnet. Of course I might have to alter it a bit, I was a lot smaller at age seven...

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Now it's your turn. Where, and when, would you go if you could?
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Yom Kippur - The Day of Atonement

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Reposted from last year. After all, it still holds just as true.

The Yom Kippur holiday is about to begin. Already you can feel the pace of life slowing down. All the windows are open but there is little noise. Traffic is becoming more sporadic. the airport has already closed and with it the noise of the planes. Tones are more muted. The most prevalent sound is the quiet clink of dishes in the kitchens of those preparing their final pre-fast meal. Soon that too will be replaced by the quiet conversations of strolling adults, the whirr of bicycle wheels, and the happy sounds of children let loose on the streets.

The mood is becoming more introspective, more contemplative. Neighbors wish each other a "good inscription" for the coming year, or an easy fast. Fasting or not Yom Kippur lets you, even encourages you, to stop for a day and take stock. We could all do worse.
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WW - Silent Wood

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Visit Wordless Wednesday to see what other people aren't saying

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Red. And purple and blue and green and yellow and orange and pink.

Red leading off a rainbow of colors

Not quite ready to tempt fate

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I've been wanting to write a big long post about Maya and how she's doing this year for the past week or so, but every time I've written about the highs in the past they've invariably been followed by lows of epic proportions.
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I've got a lot to say, but I'm not sure I'm quite ready to tempt the fates yet. In the meantime, you can just quietly smile as you imagine a beautiful young girl, flourishing, radiant and meeting the world head on. You might even imagine her drawing meaningful pictures (she was still just scribbling in July and now she's drawing pictures of her family!) and writing letters in two languages. And getting ready to have a princess birthday party.

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Someday I might even introduce you to her.

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Hoppin' the fence

When you're a teenager, doesn't forbidden fruit always seem the sweetest, beckon the strongest? (Thankfully this urge to push limits and test boundaries fades with age or we'd all wind up as jailbirds - or were the rest of you more law-abiding than my friends and I were? We didn't exactly exemplify the straight and narrow in those days, though most of us came to our senses over the years.)

The Sunday Scribblings prompt this week, forbidden, got me reminiscing about some of the stunts we used to pull in high school. (Note: if you are the parent of a teenager or ever hope to become one you should probably avert your eyes now or risk not sleeping for the next six years.) Among this long list was one I hadn't thought of in years - late night swims. About midway through the summer, when the nights were hot and sultry and we'd all become bored with hanging around our usual haunts, someone would invariably suggest a swim. Only catch was that by sheer bad luck none of us had a pool of our own, the ocean was too far away, and the local lakes were well patroled and quite closed at night. What was a hot and sweaty teenager to do?

Why, hop the fence of course.

We may not have had pools of our own, but we did have a swanky day camp right down the road, complete with a beautiful, inviting Olympic-sized swimming pool set amidst acres of manicured grounds - in other words, far, FAR from the nearest road. The ten-foot high fence around the pool was a challenge, but not an insurmountable one (get it? insurmountable? nevermind...), not with that cool blue water beckoning just a few feet away. A little bit of effort and more than a bit of liquid courage and you were up and over. Getting back out again later when you were drunker tired and no longer running on adrenalin was more of a challenge, but somehow we always managed to make it out safely, and without getting caught by the cops at that.

Ahh, the good ole' days. Of course if my own kids were ever to try a stunt like this I'd have to ground them well into next year...

With stories like this (and others much worse which could turn a parent's hair gray overnight, not to mention a whole other set no less hair-raising from their father) is it any wonder that one of my biggest fears is getting a teenager who is just like me...
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So if you were wondering... camping Israeli-style

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And for that matter even if you weren't wondering... Yes, we did camp right by that spring-fed pool and those palm trees. I can't believe I've lived here all these years without knowing this wonderful little corner of the country existed, but there you have it. I didn't. Now I do, though sadly it will close for the season in a few weeks. We'll definitely be making up for lost time next spring though. Just look at the smile on my daughter's face and you'll understand why.
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Did any of you locals recognize where we were? It's definitely possible that we were in fact the very last people to discover this place, although from the lack of crowds (on Rosh Hashana!) I'm inclined to believe that there are a few clueless others out there. This idyllic spot is Ganei Huga (no English website but you can see their photo gallery here). Now this might not look like the height of luxury for those of you used to lovely private wooded campsites in the US, but by Israeli standards this was palatial - when we arrived at 2pm we still had our choice (!!) of shaded areas, most with their own picnic tables. There are no assigned campsites in Israel - "camping" is just a large flat space with minimal facilities and usually you're lucky if you find 2 square feet to call your own, so you'll understand that to not have anyone for about 30 feet on either side of you feels almost decadent. There was no one at all in front of us so we had an unobstructed view straight down to the water about 30 yards away.

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(Taken early in the morning before splashing children ruined the reflections)

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There were large grassy lawns, clean bathrooms with hot showers, a small restaurant (which we didn't try, except to buy iced coffee and ice cream) and of course lots of water activities for the kids - a Tarzan swing out into the water, slides, boats and even waterfalls to hide behind. None of the pools were that deep, making this an ideal spot for families with younger children (sort of a shallow-water version of Sahne, for you locals - and Ganei Huga's Omega (Tarzan swing) is free).

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Look at all that empty green space all around!

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Everyone was sorry when it was time to pack up and go home, but we're all already looking forward to next time. (I am loving my kids' newfound passion for camping and the outdoors. So fun.)
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Now about the O'Malleys....
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The family group you see in the background (top right corner) of the photo below were the only ones camped anywhere near us. They weren't even that close, but they did make up for the distance by being very loud. They weren't trying to be obnoxious, they just spoke Too. Loudly. All. The. Time. Why the O'Malleys you ask? Because they spent the entire, and I mean the ENTIRE, two days talking about cars. Cars and tires. Tires and cars. Cars and tires. And then more cars. All. The. Time. The whole time Jay and I kept laughing that we'd discovered George O'Malley's long-lost Israeli relatives! (Note to self: do NOT look at Wikipedia's Grey's Anatomy site again - Jay and I are only on season two and I just spoiled three season's worth of plot twists for myself!)
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Edited to add a link to Carmi's Thematic Photographic, since I just discovered that this week's theme is "kids". I'd say this post fits the bill.
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We're back

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We had a great time camping but it's late now and I'm too tired to put together a coherent post so here's a teaser to tide you over.

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PS Remind me to tell you about the O'Malleys...

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