It’s actually not that bad. In fact, it’s not bad at all. Yet it’s driving me nuts.

I’m talking about my daughters’ obsession with American Girl Dolls, and my reluctant complicity in all of it.

My older daughter is turning 4 this week, and she has spent a shocking amount of time recently paging through the catalogue (how the hell did we end up on that mailing list?), pondering the possibilities and repeatedly coming back to the baby–the baby in the blue ballerina dress. That’s definitely the one, according to both of my girls. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Baby & Toddler, Parenting
• Tags: dolls, Grandparents, staying cool

I'd take museum over roller coaster any day.

So I’m hoping I’m not the “boring grandmother.”

My machatenista (Yiddish, your child’s mother-in-law) has three boys and, reliving a happy part of their youth, and hers, loudly cheers on our grandsons at their Little League games.

I couldn’t stand going to those games even when my sons played. It was hot, buggy, the kids looked miserable, and there was always at least one idiot father who acted like a 3-year-old, having a tantrum if the kids failed to live up to his expectations or the ref made a call he didn’t like. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Art, featured, grandmother, Grandparents

Rebecca and Jacob.

There is a poignant scene at the end of the Torah portion, Toldot. Rivka (Rebecca) has helped her son Yaakov (Jacob) steal the birthright from his older brother Esav by deceiving their blind father. Rivka sends her son to her family in a distant land, knowing that Esav will try to kill his brother.

I imagine Rivka kissing her beloved son and watching as he runs off in the distance. I wonder if she knew that she would never see him again. She must have wondered–how will it all work out?

In the Torah’s account, we never “see” Rebecca again–our last glimpse of her is as a bereft mother, watching her child escape a fate she orchestrated. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: family stories, Grandparents, holocaust

It’s my birthday today. Apparently, once you’re past a certain age, it’s somewhat unseemly to be jubilant about one’s own birthday. Well, too bad–I am anyway. Today is the beginning of the last year of my 30s. Rather than feel old (come on!) or anything stupid like that, I feel blessed. What better time to look back on the most tumultuous decade of my life–and to thank the two people who got me through it with flying colors: my parents.

Of course, my parents were great during the other decades of my life, too. I grew up in one of those mythical entities known as a non-dysfunctional family, where everyone genuinely liked as well as loved each other (really!).  I was the oldest of four siblings. I was on the editorial board of the school newspaper and literary magazine, star of the school musical, and about as straight-edge as a person can get while still being liked by more than three people. I had a charmed life with my charmed family. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: birthday, Grandparents

Beeswax: Mind your own.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might think that our daughter’s grandmothers were up to something. After all, how many random Washingtonians can ask me when Baby #2 is due?

To be clear, I’m not pregnant. And that’s precisely the point. I am the non-pregnant-looking mother of a 9-month old-bundle of wonderful. At this point, I have lost count of how many strangers–all women–have asked me about my next, theoretical baby. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Grandparents, second child

My husband and I celebrated our anniversary recently. We met at summer camp when he was 17 and I was 16-years-old. I knew, in the middle of my senior year of high school, that he was the one for me. While I was dating someone else. But that’s another story.

As a geriatric social worker, I have been privileged to know, and learn from, many older adults. Many have shared their life stories with me. And it is clear to me, based on those stories, and my own observations of my peers, that the families that work best achieving self-actualization and happiness for its members are the ones where the kids, not the marriages, come first. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Grandparents, Marriage, priorities

No need to call a doctor, Grandpa's here.

In the 1960s, in the Soviet Union, my father wanted to be a doctor.  But, he was Jewish, so he was told he couldn’t be one – because he wore glasses.  By a Russian doctor.  Who was wearing glasses.

So, instead of becoming a medical doctor, and in spite of the infamous “Jewish Problems” designed to keep ethnically undesirable students out of Soviet Universities, he got a PhD in Bio-Chemistry.

And just doctored on the side – as a hobby.

He did it in the Soviet Union.  He did it upon immigrating to America. He did it to his children.  And now he does it to his three grandchildren.

He did it before he’d ever heard of the American Academy of Pediatrics, or the American Medical Association, or magazines where experts advise nervous parents about what they should and should not do.  And he does it now in spite of them.

Below are some comparisons of the prevailing pediatric medical wisdom (PPMW), and what my Soviet Immigrant Father (SIF) tells me to do with my kids (over the phone, over e-mail, over IM, over Skype)….

PPMW: Do not pour fluid into a child’s ear in cases of ache or infection.  The eardrum may be perforated.

SIF: Heat up some oil.  Pour it in.  Plug up with cotton ball.  Put on a hat.  And bedroom slippers.

PPMW: Stay out of the sun, reapply sunscreen every two hours, wear specially treated, anti-UV Ray clothing.  In case of sunburn, apply cold compresses and a topical pain reliever.

SIF: Children need Vitamin D.  The sun is good for you.  If your skin is peeling, that means it’s healthy.  In case of sunburn, apply raw scrambled eggs directly to the skin, it’ll suck the heat right out. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Grandparents, health, medicine

It wasn’t until after my African-American husband and I had been together for over a decade that we finally got around to watching the movie, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

In 1968, critics called it “a serious family drama” and predicted “it will make you laugh and may even make you cry.”

Well.  We laughed… though not, I suspect, at the parts we were supposed to.

The thing that made us laugh hardest was how the movie’s main conflict was presented as being about race.  Just race. Only race. Nothing else.

For two hours, we were supposed to pretend that the sole objections the respective parents – good San Francisco liberals on one side; good church-goers from L.A. on the other – might have to their children getting married had to do with the color of their skin(s).

Religion is never brought up, class is never brought up, and certainly no suggestion is ever so much as whispered of a possible values clash. Surely, all good people think the same way, don’t they?  It’s inconceivable that maybe the church-going folks wouldn’t want their son marrying into a hippy, permissive family, while the newspaper publisher and his art gallery owning wife might find their daughter’s fiancé’s parents much too conservative and narrow-minded for their taste.

Nope. It’s all about color. Only color. Nothing else.

Not at our house. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: featured, Grandparents, Interfaith, race

I loved Cara’s description of her relationship with her own grandmother and of her pleasure in seeing her child relate to his grandparents. Believe me, Cara, your parents and in-laws are also kvelling as they watch you parent and grow into your new role of “mother.” It’s a bonus of grandparenting.

I also noticed, with a smile, the Yiddish words used in the piece.

Both sets of my grandparents lived around the block from me when I was growing up so I saw them a lot and have many, many wonderful memories. I lost one grandmother, my Nana, when I was only 9 years old. It was a devastating loss which I only fully realized, mourned, and came to terms with as an adult. My Grandma, on the other hand, died six years ago, at almost 100 years old, and lived to see my first grandchildren.

Each time I walked through her door with the twins, she first looked at me and happily called, “Hello, Savta!” Then she would beam at the twin bundles I brought to visit her every week. Her joy at seeing them was only exceeded by her joy seeing me as a grandmother. She was so happy for me. “I loved being a grandmother,” she would tell me, sure that I would find the same joy and sense of purpose.

Both my grandmothers spoke fluent Yiddish. I didn’t understand the words sometimes but the tone and the inflection with which the Yiddish words were spoken came straight from their heart and into mine. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Bubbe, featured, grandmother, Grandparents, Yiddish

Babies love bubbes, even via Skype.

Since Aiven was born last year my husband and I have had the tremendous honor of watching our parents become his bubbes and zaides. I know how special a grandparent-grandchild bond can be since my bubbe was the earth, sun, and moon for me.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Bubbe, Grandparents, zaide