I love black & white. Color is what we see everyday, but black & white pictures seem to capture what color misses. Emotions–they inspire a feeling that they have revealed a hidden secret. If we look close enough it seems that we can see what they are made of. A few examples of my family
June 18, 2013
Black & White photographs
June 18, 2013
Orange slices
I loved how bright the colors seem when place in a neutral colored environment. They really pop.
June 16, 2013
My Bat Mitzvah speech or how we conquered Dragons
I was asked by my Rabbi if I wished to say something wonderful about my daughter for her Bat Mitzvah. For him to ask me, was a standard question. But for me, it was akin to asking me to fight dragons. I told him I would think about it. I used this delaying tactic for a few months. I didn’t say no, which meant, I wasn’t a bad Mom & I didn’t say yes, so I wasn’t going to throw up on his shoes. Finally, time ran out & he needed an answer. Yes or No? “Yes” I surprised myself by saying. I wonder who gave me that last little push. It was Hannah, the night before, she had said, “If I have to go up there, you have to go up there.” I thought, how dare I ask my child to do something, when I myself lack the courage to stand up, to tell the world (50 people), how wonderful my child is?
When I wrote this I wanted people to see, what I’ve seen, in raising her from babyhood to thirteen years of age. This is what I wrote. And the very best part is the end, after the eating, the party, dresses on the floor (hers) PJ’s on (us). I assure you it is worth your time reading this & it explains what parenting is all about.
“Hannah, I know you’ve spent a lot of time studying for today & you’ve spent a lot of time worrying about today. You worry about your future, you always have. You tell us,”I don’t know what I’m gonna be when I grow up.” I would always answer, “You are young, don’t worry about it, you’ll figure it out.” I am not concerned, because I know who you are going to be. Looking at your past, I see a pattern.
You at one, didn’t want to walk, being carried was going to be your mode of transportation, but I put you down & you learned to walk. And then I had to run to keep up. At 5, you struggled to read, said you couldn’t do it. But you did & you still devour stories. At 8, you didn’t do well in math, you said it was too hard. But you and your step-dad worked together to help put you on A-B honor roll, where you have remained ever since. At 10, you struggled through your Hebrew prayers, you said they were too hard. But when you read Hebrew, I still cry. At 12, we moved you to a new school, very much against your wishes. When I dropped you off that first day, it felt for me, like your first day of kindergarten. And I knew then, that you are braver then I’ll ever be. At 11, 12, 13 you worried about your Bat Mitzvah, for no other reason then your shyness, but you have done it, beautifully, as we knew you would.
We listen to you struggle, complain and protest loudly with new challenges. We listen and wait. We wait until you have vented enough and then we watch you find your feet and you shine. We’ve seen you do it a thousand times & (knock on wood)will to see it thousands more. You don’t know what your going to be when you grow up. But we do. And you proved us right. You are going to be who you’ve always been, a success.
You told me with a wicked grin, that I had to come up here (Bima) & tell everyone how proud we are of you. And you knew that would be a challenge for me, because of my shyness. But I will follow you anywhere. So right now, today, you outshine the Sun, you hung the Moon, you rock me to my core & you blow me away. I love you.”
So I said to wait for the part in which explains what parenting is all about. Past all the worry & stress of getting through this. About writing a bat Mitzvah speech while crying over the keyboard…
when we are both in our pjs, I shyly ask Hannah if she liked my speech. ”Um…I didn’t really get it.” She said. Ouch.
No, she won’t get it until she is a mother.
But right then…she was a 13 year old brat, I mean…girl. But both of us had conquered Dragons.
(watercolor is a commissioned piece by me)
June 15, 2013
The quiet one in our family
I am sorry for the lack of quality in these images. I wanted to introduce a member of our family, this is Kitty, she belongs to my daughter. She was plucked from the shelf @ Tuesday Morning in 2002. Kitty is both a blessing & a curse. A blessing because she is able to calm my daughter, a curse because if she was left behind…well, lets just say I’d rather face a tornado. I found Kitty on the washing machine this morning. She needs a bath because she went camping at Saab Lake/Pond. Kitty has been on every single camp out since the creation of the lake. I think she went to the last one just to save S. the time of answering the question posed by the Saab Clan as to where she was. Its always easier to say she was present, then trying to explain why she would be left behind. Kitty is 11 years old now. Someday, when my daughter moves out, I hope that she will leave Kitty behind, to comfort me.
June 14, 2013
saved evidence
of my daughter & I about 9 years ago.
I have been informed that I don’t do anything with my children. I love when I am able to come up with examples of me doing exactly that. Summer vacation is very difficult for mothers & children. The structure (school or daycare) that they relied upon to get them through their day, drop kicked them out the door. GO PLAY! Today is very different then when I grew up. The age of technology is here, the summers of my past are just that, past.
The guilt that comes with motherhood is like ketchup is with fries, you can’t have one without the other. My children can apply guilt as though they have a masters degree in it. I’ve been a mother for about 17 years, so I may not have the best answers, but what I do have, I am willing to share.
1. “You never play with us!”
A. This is a falsehood- they wanted nothing to do with you until you told them to turn off the: t.v., iPad, video game…etc.
Now they have come to seek you out & harass you with their interpretations of 1990 Garfield episodes. Until you relent & say, enough!…go watch t.v. (but not before telling the truth!)
2. You love so-and-so more then me.
A. This is also a falsehood, we humans tend to hang around the familiar, the child thats personality is closest to yours or a family member, you tend to allow babble incessantly BECAUSE…”I learned how to suppress your Uncle George when we were kids.” Then let the child know that that is all it is & they wouldn’t have said something like that had I not told them to turn off the iPad. Or remind them to eat…
B. I tell my children, part A, but I’ve also added…my favorite is the one, “I like the child who being the most helpful.” You think this guilt trip will damage them, but really it is the elbows of his/hers siblings, trying to push past to be helpful, that land in his/her stomach that is the only damage they will suffer.
C. The last guilt tri…answer that I have found that works is that, the reason I had your younger sibling is because YOU left me FIRST!
Then I tell them (very reluctantly)it is what they were supposed to do, as I am supposed to feel–otherwise the child will not grow up & move out. Mother’s would remember
1a. Pain of childbirth
2b. shlepping babies in my beautiful stomach
3c. STRETCHMARKS appearing on my everything…sob.
4d. Falling for your father
5e. Being perfect, living at home with my parents, driving their cars, using their gas, earning an allowance to buy records, tapes or CD’s, having someone else come up with dinner, being rescued by my parents for anything…that I wanted them to know about. And believing getting out of the house & growing up would be better. As we are supposed to believe, but learn at age 42 or so how unbelievable it was to have all that & being unhappy. Thus proving that having everything doesn’t make you happy.
The mother wants more children because, i think, my children looked at me with their big, baby eyes. Starstruck. I was always starstruck with my children. Those babies I wanted to be with, talk to, raspberry on the tummy with…learned how to crawl, walk & talk–ultimately did learn those things…
My children left my arms because I had done it right. My crush was over & turned into…”why don’t you just fall the @$%&* asleep??!?!?!” I was tired, I missed being adored. I had become…my mother.
I love my mother.
I read in a magazine that the older we become, the happier we become. I thought that was true because most older people became slightly less…smart. That is not true. Older people know where I have been, where I am & where I am going BECAUSE they did the same damn thing.
Older people become teenagers again. They can fall back on their own children if they HAD to (they would have to live in the basement). They know that life totally sucks from 42+57 (because we still have to take care of our, now, spoiled children. AND we are tired). They know that when their skin is sagging (they now know that nothing will stop it) & have learned to move on (because time is a freight train).
I think that older people tend to be happier because they have, finally, realized the key to happiness is…sleep. Sleep whenever they feel like it. Sleep wherever they happen to be sitting, no matter the time. Like a house cat.
I remember sitting in front of my Grandparents television, enduring yet another football game, only to jump out of my skin because my (beloved) grandfather had snored in his sleep. I remember thinking, how can he sleep with all this noise?
I understand now, he had finally begun to earn all the sleep he had missed taking care of his family.
In this picture, I have evidence of playing with my daughter.
I also have evidence that my son left me first. The only real parenting advice I can honestly say is successful- is to take lots of photographs & save the evidence.
BTW, I will edit tomorrow, its way after my bedtime.
June 5, 2013
Happiest people captured on camera!!
And we look like we are the happiest women on the planet.
