Unsolicited Advice to Third Time Parents

I was driving home from work last week with a friend of mine and his wife. They are expecting their first child this summer, and asked if I had any wisdom I could impart. I told them that the only advice I knew was don't drink and park, accidents cause babies, but that timeless bit of wisdom is too late for them.

I do, however, have some advice for third time parents.

But first, some background.

Most winter Saturday nights are movie nights for the kids. They choose a DVD or video that some of them like and others can tolerate, and then they eat macaroni on the couch while they watch the video.

Last night was slightly different. For some reason, Veev found a video of the kids from when my oldest was my only, and popped it in the VCR. The kids watched in between games of Gameboy and EA FIFA 06, while my littlest, my third, sat and watched the whole video with Veev.

After a while, My oldest was not the only one on screen, and we were treated to my oldest and middlest. They were adorable, by the way, not a word a straight man uses very often, but justified in this case. My favorite moment was when I told my oldest, who was about five in the video, that he couldn't play hockey that night because we were going out to dinner. His bright smiling face turned so sad, so quickly, and then, all of the sudden he was laughing hysterically. Did I tell him I was just kidding, did he read it on my face, or did he just cope with bad news by laughing? I don't know. I am off camera when it happens, but you don't hear me say anything.

But I digress.

When the tape ended, my littlest, who was so excited to see her older brothers as younger children, asked where she was in the video.

Uh oh.

You see, we never really taped her as a baby. She was the third kid. We don't have any professional photos of her as a baby. We don't have a baby book. We don't have really much of anything.

So she was crying because we never taped her, when I remembered that we had a DVD from a trip to Israel with her in it, and we found the scenes, and the night was saved.

So my advice to all you third time parents out there is never ever let your third child see family videos from before she was born, because she will not be on screen.

You're welcome.

NOTE: Veev claims that there is a professional picture of my littlest from when she was a baby. After searching through the pile of professional pictures we had for our oldest and the one picture we had of our middlest, Veev was able to find the professional picture of our baby as a bay

Modiin Miracles Update

Pitchers and Catchers is this Thursday in Lakeland...

The Israel Baseball League announced last week that Art Shamsky will be managing the Modiin Miracles. Shamsky, who is best known for hitting over .300 with the 1969 Miracle Mets, hit homeruns in four consecutive at bats in 1966, and that bat landed in Cooperstown. According to his web site, he also made appearances on Everybody Loves Raymond, and Ray's dog, Shamsky, was named after the former Met.

Another IBL franchise has disappeared. The Nahariya/Haifa team seems to have been replaced by the Ranaana Express. The IBL also has upgraded their web site, which canbe seen at www.israelbaseballleague.com.

The web site has a survey asking what people think of ending tie games with a home run derby. For me, I want to see them play until someone scores a run. This isn't the NHL. We don't have shootouts in baseball.

Bayit Cham - Follow Up

Here's what I did:

When they arrived I had all the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies ready, and we made them. The kids each got a bunch of dough and put their cookies on their sheet. While the cookies were baking, I immediately put pita bread, sauce, cheese and olives on the table for the kids to assemble their own pizzas. The cookies came out to cool and the pizzas went in, and the kids were directed to another table to decorate cardboard Tzedaka boxes with marker and stickers. When the pizzas were done they were called back to the kitchen table where they ate. While they ate, I bagged the cookies and put them inside the Tzedaka boxes for taking home. There were only 1o minutes of the 2 hours that were unaccounted for. At the end, I had my 10-year-old and his freind bring down our large supply of Rescue Heroes for the kids to play with.

It should be noted that the two girls from the class who were supposed to come, didn't. And Air wasn't home until 7:05.

It should also be noted that there are very few children I actually like. :)

Bayit Cham

There's a program at my 2nd Grader's school called "Bayit Cham," which loosely translated means "warm home." On Thursday it will be our turn to host the 5 kids in my son's group. Here are the parameters:

From 5:15-7:00 pm
Prepare fun activity (oh, yeah, completely in Hebrew!)
Prepare light dinner (Israelis eat the big meal at lunch...)

HELP! I need some ideas for an activity and for a dinner. The dinner can be made either before the kids get here or with them.

Thanks.

For Raachel

The Colts

Somehow

I ended up with 2 extra bottles of wine I didn't want or pay for. I have no idea how it happened. Now I have to either: Use them and pay next time I go to Kiryat Sefer, or bring them back with me next time. What a pain in the neck.

Maybe I should try to get more than two hours of sleep tonight.