Bubbie 18 again?

Last night we combined Hanukkah with Bubbie’s birthday. Bubbie cooked up her potato latkes. We lit many candles – on the menorah, on the birthday cake. We opened presents. We ate ice cream cake. It was double the celebration, and double the fun!

I never grew up celebrating Hanukkah, but I must say it’s rapidly becoming one of my favorite holidays.

I love how the kids open their toys over many days, so they can savor and enjoy each one.

I love that we get a few days of real days off over this time period. The rest of the country is celebrating Christmas – busy buying, wrapping, giving presents; busy cooking and traveling; busy church going. Busy, busy busy! For us, everything is closed. For us, there is no church, no family gathering. For us, there is no extensive, one day present giving. It forces us to just slow down and enjoy the precious gift of time. I can’t wait for this weekend to do… nothing.

Spent all day yesterday with the lovely Michelle Harradine and her three boys. She is one of the most positive people I know. Just spending a bit of time with her probably saved me hours to listening to Tony Robbins.

Here we are waiting for our order at Johnny Rockets, which recently opened dangerously close to our house. I love this picture. The boys look like such a bunch of tough guys…

Harradine & Calisoff Boys

The past few weeks Ben started acting strangely. So strange, in fact that we took him to the doctor twice in two weeks to see what was wrong with him.

We knew he was teething. We also knew he had a cold. And we were transitioning him from crib to bunk bed. So, a lot of change.

But we still didn’t understand why our happy, always smiling, easy going little Ben was all of a sudden throwing temper tantrums for hours every day.

He cried when he went down for his nap. He cried when he woke up. At night he would cry or stay up for hours messing about in his bed.

Finally my father, who was visiting for a couple days, did some internet sleuthing. He found comments from other parents on different websites. One parent tried dropping the nap and found the tantrums went away.

Drop the nap? But his brother, who is twice his age still naps most days. How could he be ready to drop the nap at 2 and 1/2 years old?

I tried an experiment today. Is he really not tired at nap time or just scared in his new bed? I put a movie on and laid him on the couch. Guess what – no nap! Third day in a row! And surprisingly he barely suffered in the afternoon. Even better – no crying after I left him in his bed tonight.

Too early to be a trend, but promising…

Ben pushing Grandpa around

The kids are always excited for a visit from Grandpa Devensky. He’s got an incredible ability to relate to each kid differently, each in their own way, at their own stage of development.

Both kids enjoy rough housing with him. There is a lot of wrestling going on around here lately. Poor Grandpa has already gotten his glasses broken this way. I’m sure he’ll go home with many new bruises from the boys and perhaps even a cold too.

Ben’s favorite game is to man handle him. He likes to push him into one room then another. Or shove him into a wall and laugh hysterically.

Grandpa joking with Jack

Jack hasn’t stopped laughing since Grandpa got here. Not only can he hold his own with the poopy jokes, but he can joke with Jack until he has him on the floor in a belly laugh.

All this would be enough to make me quite happy. But Grandpa Devensky is more than just enough. He even manages to think of me too. I don’t think I’ve touched a dirty dish since he’s been here! Thanks Grandpa! If only you lived closer…

Dear Toys R Usuck,

Please do not split the customer service line in two, one for ‘guest relations’ and the other for ‘online orders’, then proceed to give preference to the ‘online orders’ even when there is a line practically out the door for ‘guest relations’. It makes me feel like a second class citizen.

Please train your staff so that when I finally get to the front of the line after waiting 20 minutes, they can actually help me instead of sending me home to do it myself online.

Please do not send me flyers that have already expired. I’m not even sure if this practice is legal.

Please train your staff so when you come in with an expired flyer, you do not have both a floor staffer and a cashier tell you that you are right and to stand BACK in the ‘guest relations’ line for another 30 minutes to fix it.

Signed,

Concerned Customer (or should I say ex-customer?)

The Holiday Train

Tonight we were very lucky to have the Holiday Train come right by our house, go around the Loop and return us home. It took 40 minute and we didn’t have to switch trains at all.

We met up with a bunch of mom friends and their kids. Between us, our helpers and our strollers we took over half of a train car.

There were elves giving out mini candy canes. And there was holiday music. And lots of decorations. And one car in the middle with a live Santa in a sleigh.

Jack and Ben with some of their buddies

I like to take our kids to see all these things, even though we are Jewish and it makes for some creative explanations. Trying to explain that Santa doesn’t come to their house but comes to just about everyone else’s house they know can be tricky. Thank goodness for eight days of presents. That helps a lot!

If you are interested in seeing the Holiday Train, there are still plenty of days left. Every day they do a different route. You can see what matches your schedule best by checking the website: CTA Holiday Train Schedule.