Three things and a picture

1. Happy Rosh Hashanah! I remembered it was Rosh Hashanah because a good friend sent me something with the subject line "Blessings for Rosh Hashanah," and the wonderful Fred Childs from Performance Today played something in honor of the holiday. So an hour or so later, when the kids and I were walking toward the beach park and I saw a Jewish man in skull cap and prayer shawl walking in the same direction, I called out a cheery, "Happy Rosh Hashanah!" He looked surprised and asked how I knew about that, and I will admit that I felt a little smug as I nonchalantly said that I had a Jewish friend. Well, he quickly left us behind (not hard to do when I have a baby in the backpack and about 60 pounds of combined little girls in the weak-sauce umbrella stroller), but as we finally made it to the little sandy beach area, who should be there but the man, now stripped down to electric blue swimming trunks. I felt a little strange, pulling in with my loud crew to what was obviously intended to be a solitary swim. And what a swim! There had been a big storm a few nights before, and the beach and water were littered with logs, leaves, twigs, trash--it was truly gross. Plus, it was a chilly day. We weren't there to swim, just to dig in the sand and build sand castles. But the man stood for a moment in the shallow water, then plunged in quickly, and just as quickly got out and started toweling down.

"Was the water too cold?" I asked. One has to make conversation when one is intruding in such an embarrassing way.

No, he told me--it turns out that he was there to immerse himself in a natural body of water. That's the traditional way of preparing for Rosh Hashanah, which would actually start that night at sundown. Not all Jews will actually do that, he told me, but he was. As he put on his black trousers and white shirt and everything else, he told me about blowing the shofar (not that hard, once you get used to it) and Yom Kippur next week and the Jewish community in Morgantown (there's a temple with a congregation of 100, but he doesn't attend). I knew the name of precisely one Jewish person in Morgantown--the friend of my friend Dana and, coincidentally, the next-door neighbor of my friend Mary--and it turns out that he knew her and her family! Small Jewish world. And that was that. Once dressed, he set back off down the trail for the quarter mile walk back to the ranger station and the long, steep walk up to the parking lot. And the kids and I enjoyed the dirty beach in solitude.

2. We've decided on our home owner's and auto insurer for the next year, at least. Allstate is the winner! I was kind of dreading the process of getting quotes, comparing premiums, deciphering the arcane terms for coverage. But it's (basically) the last thing standing between us and home ownership, now that our loan application is approved, so it had to be done. For some reason, these things are always easier to do with Dave around to make me do them and to complain to if the process gets too onerous.

3. Cici had therapy this morning with her occupational therapist and surprised us by not running and laughing all over, but instead lying down on the carpet and almost falling asleep in the middle of it. That's what she gets for not going to sleep until nearly 10 pm last night. In any event, it gave Christina and me a chance to talk about how to help prepare Cici for the upcoming move, and how to use this big change to institute good habits from the beginning. To wit: in the new house, we actually sit down in the bathtub! In the new house, she'll sleep in a bed. In the new house, she sits on the potty. I have a list of things for Polly, too. In the new house, we don't eat snacks in bed. In the new house, she has 30 minutes of quiet time in her room so Mommy can at least check her e-mail, if not actually respond to it all. In the new house, she leave Mommy's office supplies alone and only uses her own desk things. Think she'll go for all that?

And now for a picture. Sorry, Christian, not the best view of you, huh? Let's talk about how this is symbolic of many things about growing up in our family :).