A blog about parenting, sports and life.
Dear E,
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is coming up in a few days, so I decided to write a sort of personal blessing for you and our family for the coming year. You get ritual blessings every time we see our relatives in person and by proxy when I speak with my parents on the phone every Friday, but I thought I would write something a little more unique for you. Continue reading “May There Always Be Ice Cream”
This past weekend, T, E and I drove down to Philadelphia to visit my grandparents for a long weekend. They live in a great location; a block away from the funky South Street shops and a short walk from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. It’s obviously always a pleasure getting the chance to spend time with them, but being able to walk around the neighborhood and live the “city life” (albeit, on a smaller scale than New York) has a real allure, as well.
I’m not going to write about our time in the city, though. Continue reading “Torah Reading and No-Hitters (and Vomit)”
Contrary to what the website says, this post was written by my wife, T, in honor of her 30th birthday. Enjoy!
Fact: I am a woman. Fact: I am a wife, mother and daughter. Fact: I am a friend. Fact: Today is my 30th birthday.
Fact: I am adopted.
No, I am not playing a joke on you. I am, in fact, adopted. Continue reading “What It Means to be Adopted”
I rode my bike all the time when I was younger.
I rode a fair amount when I was 9 and 10, but the neighborhood where we lived in Chicago was laid out as a grid, so I never really had to worry about getting lost. I was also fairly young, so I wasn’t going to venture too far away from home. I would usually ride up to the park a couple blocks away and then circle back around, although I do remember widening my radius gradually around the time I turned 11. A month after my birthday, though, my family moved to Long Island, New York, which was a more typical suburban neighborhood. We had left the grid behind; our new home was in an area with winding streets and lush green lawns. Everything was new for me, from the strip malls and diners to the stand-alone houses and the people with their “Lon-Giland” accents. I didn’t meet a lot of other kids right away, so I spent a lot of time on my bike. Continue reading “Riding Like the Wind”
I’m a good guy.
I don’t mean this as a brag, humble or otherwise. I’m a pretty good husband and father. I care about my family, both immediate and extended. I’m a social worker full-time and a religious school teacher part-time. I put a lot of effort into treating people with respect, even when they are not necessarily returning the favor. I think it’s pretty safe to say that people would consider me a good person. Continue reading “Embracing My Inner Villain”
A couple of weeks ago, on Father’s Day, in fact, T and I took E to the movies to see Inside Out. We had not made any significant plans for Father’s Day, aside from having dinner with my in-laws, partially due to the threat of inclement weather and partially due to the fact that the rest of June was so busy with other activities, like E’s moving up ceremony from preschool, his birthday party and my brother’s wedding. A movie seemed like a nice relaxing way to spend some time together as a family. Continue reading “Turning Sadness Inside Out”
Spring is a great time of year to be a sports fan.
March gives us the men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments that cripple workplace productivity as people replace spreadsheets and phone calls with box scores and online play-by-play logs. It’s the time of year when NBA and NHL teams really start to jockey for playoff position and NFL teams conduct their player evaluations in preparation for the draft in May. March also marks the start of Major League Baseball’s spring training. Spring training means warmer weather is on its way, along with the optimism that every fan feels at the start of a new season. Continue reading “The Chicago Legacy”
E gets sick somewhat frequently. It’s usually something mild. It always starts with a cough; he wakes up one night with that rasping, barking cough that sounds like his throat is so dry there might as well be cactus growing inside it. Either the next day or the day after, his nose starts dripping and the fever follows soon as well. He’s usually fine during the day. He does his part to keep the tissue industry afloat, but he plays and watches movies and is generally pretty stoic about the whole process. He takes the Tylenol or Advil without any protest and does his best to sleep the virus away. He misses a couple days of school, then goes back and gets re-exposed to the germs that probably got him sick in the first place.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Continue reading “Just Keep Breathing”
My family and I recently traveled to Singapore to visit family. I decided to write about the trip, both to tell our friends and relatives how the trip was going and to give us another way to remember the trip after it’s done. We’ve since returned home, but I had a couple more blog posts in mind, so they’re still going to be coming out here. Enjoy!
Contrast.
That was the word that kept coming to mind during our vacation-within-a-vacation, our trip to the Indonesian island of Bali. The dichotomies were everywhere, from the broader scales of the types of government to the individual differences between the people living in different parts of the island. Continue reading “Something About This Other Place”
My family and I are currently in Singapore visiting family. I decided I’m going to write about the trip, both to tell our friends and relatives how the trip is going and to give us another way to remember the trip after it’s done. Today’s post was actually written by my wife who has also posted a number of times before. Enjoy!
My mother always told me not to point and stare. If I saw someone who looked “different,” my parents always explained to me that it is not polite to point and stare. Instead, I should ask them or the person questions about what I had seen. I know that there are different times when people stare at others and, sure, I’m guilty of doing it too. But coming to Singapore has left me with a new feeling about pointing out a child who is cute or drawing attention to someone in public. In almost every place we have gone, E, our little blonde-haired, hazel-eyed American boy, has been smiled at, waved at, petted on the head, taken by the hand, and then talked about in a different language.1 Continue reading “E the Celebrity”
