Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
It’s in There!
Hey readers who weren’t born in the 90’s! Yeah, you! Remember that spaghetti sauce commercial, that was like, “I can’t believe it has REAL tomatoes and peppers and blah blah blah…!” and the mom would cheerily and smugly reply,
“It’s in there!”
Okay, I’m dating myself; if you were born in the 80’s you also won’t remember that unless you have a photographic memory of your pre-verbal years.
But the POINT IS:
My leather couch.
I cleaned it for the first time since early April. Lifted up the cushions and everything.
Enough pretzels to fill a grocery store sized bag?
It’s in there!
Two of my husband’s missing yarmulkes?
It’s in there!
Enough challah crumbs to feed a bird sanctuary?
It’s in there!
Old grapes? Old dried tuna fish? Old chips? Seaweed flakes? Cheerios? Yogurt?
Yup. It’s in there!
SIGHHHHHHH…….
Does anyone know of a good “once in a while” deep cleaning housekeeper person?
Because… my sanity?
Not sure if it’s in there.
c/xo,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
Gee, ma, what's in that sauce? It's delicious! Aw, honey, isn't it just like homestyleeeeWAITAMINUTEYOUNGMAN, DON'TYOUDAREEATTHATSPAGHETTIONTHECOUCH!!!!!
Aharon-isms
“Now I really understand him. I know what he needs… he needs to be himself, you know? Not stuck with the others.”
This is my husband talking. God love him, he is cute.
And no, he wasn’t talking about our son… nor a friend, nor a student…
He was talking about rice.
Rice.
So in honor of my husband’s adorable statement about how he has new insight into how to cook “him” (the rice), I’ve dedicated this blog to:
AHARON-ISMS
“I might gonna go” “I may go.”
“Put it that way” “Let’s put it this way:”
“You have to drink him straight.” “Might I suggest drinking your coffee without cream or sugar?”
(as we sit idling in his car at a red light, after buying a new ring-shaped cookie cutter) “I’m holding the ring under the car.” “I pulled my car over the imprint in the street that triggers the light to change green.” (nothing to do with the ring we just purchased)
“Hold him on the other side” “Can you please flip the salmon, it’s beginning to burn.”
It’s as if he has his own dialect, kind of like Patois. And it’s catching – all the time, I find myself saying things like, “I might gonna get them five minutes.” (“I’m thinking of leaving in 5 minutes to go pick up the kids.”)
Maybe we should start teaching HebrEnglish in schools! Or… not…
c/xo,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
This is me on a really good day. Just kidding. But that is my husband. That's the way he looks every day. To me.
Flashback Friday! (Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes)
Every Friday, I will post an oldie but a goodie blog for your enjoyment. To those of you who just started reading The Grownup Girl recently, enjoy the “new” blog! To those of you who have been with me from the start, but have memories like mine, enjoy the “new” blog!
And to those who were with me from the start and who already read this blog and burned it into your memories, word for word, photogenically, I say:
What are you doing wasting your time dilly-dallying on my website? Get out there and find me a book deal!
If you hate to read, just click on the audio link, below. And there’s even an original GrownUpGirl Song to listen too, so scroll all the way down & keep clicking!
BatSheva (BatSheva Vaknin) – CH-Ch-Ch-Changes: the BLOG
Had coffee with a friend recently I hadn’t seen in about nine years. This guy was the heaviest drinker & smoker I knew growing up, played guitar and got into fights over stupid philosophical things, and never left home without his leather jacket. He honestly believed that anarchy was the best social and political solution.
(Yes, I hung out with people like that as a kid, and NO that is not what this blog is about. Note to self- write about childhood in another blog.)
Nowadays – my friend? He quit smoking while his wife was pregnant. He doesn’t go out to bars anymore; in fact, he is a part-time stay at home dad. He is planning to move to some green pasture in Utah over the next year to raise his child in a healthy, more affordable place. He votes Democrat and is kind of conservative, by his own definition. He’s in therapy.
I’ve still got one up on him: I changed my name. Both of them.
I used to be Shana Susman. From about age 17 until around 24, I partied like crazy about 4 or 5 nights a week. (I’d go into more details, but I really cringe to think someday my kids could get a hold of these blogs.) I was insecure, needy. I didn’t believe in God. I suffered from headaches, stomach aches, insomnia, and I grinded my teeth.
I wound up in therapy when I moved to LA, age 22, and that 7 year process pretty much saved my life, thanks to my angel of a therapist and my sincere desire to get better and be happy. She encouraged me to write, act & sing, which also helped dig me out of my self-destructive hole… and then I discovered a spiritual system – Kabbalah – that pretty much rocked my world.
I asked for the Rav Berg, head of the Kabbalah Centre, to channel me a Hebrew name, one that was connected to my soul, and he gave me BatSheva (BatSheva Vaknin). (BatSheva (BatSheva Vaknin) was the soulmate of Kind David.) Not Sarah. Not Miriam. Not Leah. BatSheva (BatSheva Vaknin).
BatSheva (BatSheva Vaknin) – a crazy Hebrew name that has all sorts of cool kabbalistic secret codes hidden within (technically the name means “daughter of seven,” if you’re familiar with numerology or Kabbalah you start to get the idea) – a name that no self respecting American can pronounce. A name that makes every Israeli assume I am also Israeli, which leads to incomprehensible messages on my voicemail every once in a while. (Luckily Israeli Husband can translate.) Also, a name I happen to love.
So I changed it, right around the time that I married… and at that time, I changed my last name too, to Vaknin, which is also unpronounceable and un-spellable by any American worth his or her salt.
Shana Susman became BatSheva (BatSheva Vaknin) Vaknin.
Over the course of the past 20 years, I’ve gone from hard-partying, ironic & secretly depressed girl, to stable, mostly happy and confident mother, wife, and woman.
Excuse me. Grown up girl.
c/xo
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
PS I’ve included a song, below – CRADLE YOU – that was the very first song I ever wrote, back when I was digging myself out of a black hole with the help of therapy and creativity. Enjoy!
BatSheva (BatSheva Vaknin) – Cradle you – the SONG
I didn't believe there was anything beyond the physical world when I was a kid. And now, look at my son! Oh, the times, they are a-....
FLASHBACK FRIDAY! (Chester the Molester)
Flashback Friday!
Every Friday, I will post an oldie but a goodie blog for your enjoyment. To those of you who just started reading The Grownup Girl recently, enjoy the “new” blog! To those of you who have been with me from the start, but have memories like mine, enjoy the “new” blog!
And to those who were with me from the start and who already read this blog and burned it into your memories, word for word, photogenically, I say:
What are you doing wasting your time dilly-dallying on my website? Get out there and find me a book deal!
BTW, if you hate to read, just click on the audio link, below.
BatSheva (BatSheva Vaknin) – Chester the Molester
My 1 year old is a groper. Roper the Groper. Chester the Molester.
She loves my boobs.
I have 2 other kids, mind you, and they also breastfed until about one and a half years. But the Baby (her name, for the sake of this public arena) is already 22 months, and the other 2 never came CLOSE to the kind of nipple and breast obsession she has.
Actually, it’s wrong to call it an obsession. More like, “possession.” Because yes, Baby loves my boobs, but more than that – she owns them. They are hers. She’s not even threatened when Husband moves in once in a while to show her she’s not the only one who is allowed to touch Mommy’s boobs. She knows what a sucker my husband is for her – she’s got him wrapped around her little pinky finger; he’d never step over the line to challenge her for total ownership. He’s happy to share that toy.
It’s particularly challenging when I breastfeed her each morning right when she wakes up, usually around 6am. (7 days a week, for 6 years, by the way. All my kids are Bright and Early Morning Wake Up Kids. Until motherhood, you couldn’t roll me out of bed until 8, and that was only on a workday.) Anyway, each AM, I take her quickly from the room she shares with her 2 older sibs, trying to keep them asleep as long as possible (Almost never works. My husband leaves each day around 6:30am so lucky thing Dora, that little rascally Explorer, is such an excellent babysitter.)
Anyhoo, so I’ll be on my side in bed, back shoved against a pillow so I won’t roll over, a pillow shoved behind her back so she won’t roll out of bed, and one arm of mine gets pinned beneath me. She’ll start to breastfeed, eyes deceptively closed. I will close my eyes, with the ever-fruitless hope that this time she’ll leave me alone and let me go back to sleep for another precious 15 minutes or so.
Then the groping begins.
As she sucks, she moves her little hand to my other breast, under my shirt. Aw, how cute… SHIT! She’s grabbed my nipple! She’s pinching it! Ack!
I quickly swipe her hand away with my one free hand, then cover my nipple protectively. Her hand slides over and bats at my hand a few times, those tiny little finger muscles surprisingly deft and strong. But I am stronger, and I maintain position.
Until… her hand slides down my stomach and reaches my bellybutton, which is always uncovered because of the necessity of lifting my shirt to offer her the one boob to drink from. Once landed, her fingers immediately start to dig and diddle my belly button.
I hate that feeling. I move my free hand down quickly to bat her hand away. She moves hers up and grabs my nipple. I swipe it away only to have left my belly button wide open. Shit! She’s launched the offensive, once again, successfully. Darn those nimble fingers, blast those silky smooth palms that belie their evil agenda!
When I carry her around during the day, especially when I pick her up after not having held her for a while, Baby immediately shoves her hand down the front of my shirt and grabs my nipple. I take her hand out, tell her I don’t like it. She laughs and shoves it back down.
I think about the fact that – thanks to her breastfeeding, & the milk I produce for her – my tiny boobs are still somewhat inflated. Does that give her the right of ownership? I started out young adulthood with small, perky boobs. Now, after 3 breastfeeding kids? Take out the “perky” and underline “small”. You get the idea.
Marla Maples once told me that her boobs were not even half the magnificent breasts they once were thanks to the three years she breastfed her daughter Tiffany. (Don’t judge – Tiffany is such an amazing teenager we should probably all start a campaign to have every kid breastfed for 3 years. Or at least to have Marla as a mom and The Donald as a dad.) I was impressed that Marla never got them “done” like many of my beautiful friends have, after having a few kids. PS, I know a few mommies who got tummy tucks… Now that sounds like a good idea to me. If only it didn’t involve surgery, pain, cutting into my skin, blood, painful recovery, etc…
I’m such a wuss.
So, Chester, I mean Baby, you know, my little Molester… I guess I’ll just have to deal with her roving hands and diddling, pinching fingers. With the nail marks. And the heebie jeebies.
At least SHE thinks my boobs are beautiful. Maybe that’s why I put up with it.
c/xo,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
PS – UPDATE: Esther hasn’t nursed for 6 months as I post this for Flashback Friday (yeah, I’ve dropped the anonymity, too, since my earlier posts) but girlfriend still stages the occasional sneak attack, just to keep me on my toes.
Even at one day old I can tell she's eyeing my boobs.... ready to attack!
Sacred Love
What is it about men singing through a distorted amp that makes me so woozy? I’ll be sitting in the car, minding my own business, when the Foster the People song Pumped up Kicks comes on and I’m hooked. I literally will sit in my car to hear the whole thing – inane lyrics and all (“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, faster than my bullet”), until the last note.
Same goes for Lil’ Wayne’s mumbled ballad How to Love. I’m obsessed with that song. And I’m equally interested in how odd it is to hear this compassionate love song (“You hada lots crooks tryna steal your heart, never really had luck, couldn’t never figure out how to love. How to love”) – granted, grammatically crazy and misspelled song – uttered from the gold-toothed mouth of the face & body-tatooed mess that is Lil’ Wayne.
Lil’ Wayne, however, doesn’t hold a candle to the original dreaded bad boy of distorted love songs. In 1986, singing on a telephone line calling in from prison, HR from Bad Brains recorded my all-time fave, Sacred Love. I played that song on that record over and over and over and over.
The lyrics – literally – are RIDICULOUS. A sample: “Baby, baby, baby, I don’t want you come to me as a whore. Don’t lust off my body baby. That’s a bore.” And, “Maybe, maybe, maybe, Jah will bless us to be one tomorrow. Visits from you every Tuesday. Right on time.”
I mean, for crying out loud, that last verse doesn’t even rhyme!
I didn’t care. I was a love-sick teenager.
And don’t even get me started on Somebody by Depeche Mode.
c/xo,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
Seasons of Love
If you hate to read, just click on the audio link, below.
BatSheva (BatSheva Vaknin) – Seasons of LOVE – the BLOG
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes… How do you measure, Measure a year? – RENT (the musical)
You know the other night, I got to thinking… just exactly how many minutes of my life have I thus far spent in my children’s room, trying to get them to go to sleep? (I’m sure I don’t even need to say that this thought struck me as I was passing the ½ hour mark doing just that.)
To answer my question, I left my little one crying (the two bigger ones having mercifully fallen asleep already), and went to my desk. Took out the calculator, a pen, a stickie note (neon pink, if you must know – I KNOW they are overpriced, but who can put a price on things that make you that happy?), and got to work.
I reasoned that with 3 kids, the oldest turning seven this summer, I have probably spent ON AVERAGE about a half hour every night putting them to sleep. Yes, I know we have babysitters some nights, but then again, there are some nights they take hours to put to bed. So it evens out.
Here’s what I came up with:
30 (minutes) x 365 (days) x 7 (years – my oldest son & how long I’ve been doing this) = 76,650 minutes.
For those non-human calculators among you, that equals Fifty three days plus some change.
FIFTY THREE DAYS. OF SITTING IN A DARK ROOM, READING STORIES, PATTING BUTTS, SHUSHING BABIES, QUASHING THE MINI-REBELLIONS…
53 whole days!!!
Lord have mercy. I’m the kind of person who likes to maximize the use of my waking hours. I like to DO things, and to be of use. It could be argued that I’m happiest when I’m busiest (though I’ll hotly deny this if any of you leak this information to my husband – you know he’ll turn around & use it on me when it’s his turn to do dishes/put kids to bed).
Yes, it’s true, my husband does help – very often – to put our kids to bed. On average, I would guess he does it 2-3 times a week. Let’s be generous and say it’s 3 times a week. That still means I’ve spent the equivalent of ONE FULL MONTH putting kids to sleep.
Wait–! I didn’t even factor in the time it takes EACH DAY to get a baby down for his/her nap!
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes…
Cx/o,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
I know they look peaceful, but guaranteed it took her like 2 hrs to get that little sucker to sleep!