the pieces of my life

In the old days I couldn't make the tea cups at Disney spin fast enough. Now one ride on the Cuckoo Clockenspiel and am ready to puke. Aging at its ugliest.

Doodles said on the Twirling Turtles–as we're whipped around at top speed and his friend exclaims, "My stomach is all the way in my chest!"– "I don't know how Dad can not like this!" Um, I might have an idea.

The Italian sausage and ice cream with sausages just after the Twirling Turtles and right before the Teacups may have been a mistake. Just sayin'.

Spotty service is foiling my posting plans. Doodles has two friends here, both girls, and they're fighting over who gets to sit next to him. Hope he doesn't get used to it. I took the kids on the Krazy Barn. Now I'm Krazy Nauseous. Ready to watch the freaky cats at the Hannaford Circus. Do you wish you were me?

Nothing like mediocre coffee in the morning to pump you up. Yea, Glen Junction breakfast! Or, as Adam says, it would be better called Ultimatum Point because every second sentence uttered is, "If you don't X, then no Storyland!" Children fortified with chocolate chip pancakes. Time to hit the park!

So normally I'd post all my brilliant and oh-so witty (let me have my delusions–at least until I get some coffee) comments on Twitter, but apparently I can now text posts to Blogger so I thought I'd give you guys minute by minute (sort of) updates of our exciting adventures in Storyland. Of course, you may not hear anything for a bit because the other family we're with isn't moving very fast. I just have to remind myself, not everyone can be a Brown. Although a girl can dream…

And Pie? What about Pie on this trip? Let me tell you what we’ve learned about Pie:

–Her legs break easily. But they heal quickly when ice cream is involved.
–She (along with her brother) have discovered that, yes, chocolate pudding does actually qualify as a breakfast food in Israel, and have availed herself of one daily.
–She can fall asleep anytime, anyplace, as long as it’s not in a bed and it will cause physical pain and general inconvenience to those around her. Otherwise, she’s wide awake and she wants to eat. Now. No right now. NOW!
–If you give her 20 shekels to Pie and 20 shekels to Doodles for ice cream to spend while they’re off with the other kids and the counselors, Doodles will come immediately back and hand you 11 shekels in change. Pie on the other hand will come back with a wad of chewing gum in her mouth (which the youth counselor said she bought and announced, “I’m going to share it with my family,” but when this family member requested a piece, she shook her head vehemently and chewed harder) and ice cream on her face, and yet, when you ask for the change back, she’ll stick her hand in her pocket, rattle around a couple of coins, and say, “I can’t find it.” When you stick your hand in your pocket and retrieve the coins, she says, “Oh, there it is,” and giggles.
–She thinks the Kotel is “cool.”
–The girl can find a phone. Anywhere. No, seriously. Anywhere.
–No, she doesn’t need the potty. Yes, she’s sure. Don’t you get it? She doesn’t need the potty!! Until five minutes later. When she needs the potty right now because she has to go really badly!
–She likes teenagers. Oh, does she like teenagers. Especially the girl kind who fawn over her and do her hair.

Reality is going to be a bitch for this little one. We’re about to hit a “no pudding, no shekels, no ice cream twice a day” zone. It’s going to be a rough re-entry folks. Hold on tight.

We ended up one of our days in a mall in Tel Aviv for lunch, primarily, I believe, because it’s one of the few locations in Israel with a kosher McDonald’s, which is apparently a big deal if you keep kosher, which we clearly do not. My son, the adventurous eater that he is, decided on Sbarro’s pizza. In Israel, Sbarro’s pizza comes with a kid’s prize. Doodles chose dinosaur eggs that will hatch in water, which caused much discussion.

Adam: When the eggs hatch, what kind of dinosaur do you think it’ll be?
Doodles: I hope it’s a plant eater because if it’s a meat eater I’d have to kill something to feed it meat, and I don’t know how to do that because I’m not a solider.

He then posed the same question to his youth counselor. His young, sweet Israeli youth counselor. His young, sweet, Israeli, do I need to add Orthodox? youth counselor.
Counselor: It might be a plant eater or it could eat both plants and meat so if it can’t find any meat, it could eat plants. What kind of meat would you feed it?
Doodles: Well, bacon is meat. I can feed it bacon.

To which she had no response.

That boy of mine. Always knows just the right thing to say.

We have made it to Jerusalem. The final leg of our trip. And we are doing all the things one would expect to do in Jerusalem and a few you wouldn’t. Placed notes in the Kotel. Explored the City of David. Shopped. Sifted dirt in search of antiquities at an archaeological site. Visited Yad Vashem (for the adults; the kids went to the Museum of Science). Visited a family of Ethiopian Jews in their home. And we went on a tour of the tunnels of the Kotel.

And, this, my friends, is where we get into trouble. Because in the Kotel tunnels, the kids who are awake (note: this means Pie was not in that group, as she was fast asleep in Adam’s, then my, then Adam’s, then my arms–hey, she’s dead weight when she’s asleep. It’s hard to hold her for very long) went with the youth counselors while we grown-ups explored. Which was all fine and dandy until Doodles got to the place closest to the Holy of Holies. As the name implies, it’s the holiest spot in Judaism, but it’s somewhere under where the Dome of the Rock is, so Jews have no access to it today. The spot in the tunnels is the closest you can get to it and many people come to this spot to pray.

(For those who don’t know what that is, without going into too much religious history here, once upon a time, there were was a temple in the heart of Jerusalem (twice: first Solomon’s Temple and then the Second Temple. If you’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know that in the heart of the first temple was the Ark of the Covenant. It is the most sacred spot and by going through the tunnels, you pass the place it would have been).

When the grown-ups reached the spot, we all took a moment to close our eyes and make a personal prayer. But not the kids. As was reported to me by more than one person with the children, when they reached the spots, the youth counselors asked the kids what they’d like to pray for. They were reminded that they should think of greater things than “lots of ice cream” or “a new toy.” Apparently, my son immediately said, “Oh, I know what to ask for!”

“What?” the youth counselor asked.

“I want my mommy to have another baby. I want my mommy to have a new baby every day!”

And my friends, this will be the ultimate test of religion and modern science: God versus Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Care to place any bets?