Whoever Says It Gets Harder Than This Is Lying...

I have 4 kids. Their ages are 7, 5, 3, and 1. I usually do not sleep more than 4 hours straight. I am chronically sleep deprived and I know it. I wake up to nurse, to soothe, to bring drinks, to tuck in... I love my children and this part of being their mom. Sometimes being their mom is like a beautiful fairytale... imagine rainbows above, bunnies and puppies frolicking in the distance and my 4 little darlings and me having a joyful time playing....

Now imagine this... it's 3:30 pm. I've just picked up my 7 year old and 5 year old daughters from school with three year old son and 1 year old daughter. My oldest daughter, A., announces that she has a birthday party this afternoon... in 30 minutes. We NEED to buy a present. Okay! I can do this! Drive to nearest bookstore! Find the perfect book for a 7 year old! In the store my daughter, A., aged 7 begs for some stickers, and a DVD, and a new umbrella... M., my 5 year old is running up and down the aisles singing - loudly. Z., my3 year old son is opening and closing the expensive looking umbrella that A. is begging to buy. H., the baby... where is she? Oh no, she just ran out of the store... A stranger is stopping her. H. screams. I thank the stranger as I soothe H. and run back into the store.

I'm losing it. Four against one and I am definitely not keeping up! I want to shout, "Stop it right now!", but I don't. I smile at the passers-by who seem to think my bouncing munchkins are "so cute"... and look at my watch. 15 minute until the party. I grab a nice looking book, Little Women, I dash for the checkout - gift wrap it - A. signs the card and we're heading for the car... Getting into the car, buckling 4 car seats is another story!

As a very busy and overworked mom... I often receive advice from all types of well meaning folk. A common comment I get is, "Oh wait until they're older! Then you'll really have your hands full!" or, "You think this is tough? Just wait until you have teenagers!"... Well, I'd like to thank all of my loving fans for your blessings for future hardship but quite frankly, I disagree. Do teenagers wake you up several times in the night? Do your older children contribute to sleep deprivation? Are you constantly cleaning just to maintain a sanitary home? Do you wipe tushies? Change diapers? Do you chase 4 little ones in 4 different directions??? I love my 4 little children and I also know that they are hard work! This is as hard as it gets! I know there will be more complicated issues to challenge and push us to our limits as they grow BUT... I will have more sanity, more sleep, and more time to breathe. When I have more sleep I believe I will be much more fit to handle the challenges that come!

Fast-forward... it's 7 pm and all of the kids are tucked into their beds. I've had kisses and hugs. The house is quiet. I have time to reflect on moments of my day... when A. read quietly for an hour on her own and M. poured her own cereal and milk and Z. said, "Give me love" and planted a huge kiss on my face, and H. laughed... I remember how lucky I am.

Legacy Built From Lego

Now here is a man who makes fun for a living... or has fun making a living? Either way, Nathan Sawaya is a artist whose main medium is Lego. No sculpture is too large or too small and many of his creative designs are more adult than what one may expect from Lego. A sample of his work can be found on the CNN website.

Nathan Sawaya's workspace is an explosion of color.

Clear plastic crates stuffed with LEGO bricks in every hue are stacked high against the walls. A computer sits on the floor, but it's not functional. The red, yellow and blue replica is made entirely of LEGO.

In fact, everything in the room is made of LEGO; a cash register, a monkey, a bowl of fruit, a vase of flowers.

Now people can get an even closer look. Sawaya's national touring exhibit, "The Art of the Brick," is making the rounds. The collection was viewed by tens of thousands at the Lancaster Museum of Art in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Its next stop is

the Discovery Center Museum in Rockford, Illinois, on June 15; it will stay there until September 3.

Wow! That is an exhibit I would enjoy seeing! I wonder if he glues the pieces together....

When I'm Old and Gray...

When I'm old and gray... perhaps 60... I hope to be alive and well! There are many hopes and dreams that I imagine being mine at 60 - and not one of them happens to be going through in-vitro fertilization, pregnancy, and giving birth via Caesarean section to twins!

This was a choice that psychologist, Frieda Birnbaum, hopes to spread to other women. According to Birnbaum, "It's really basically about women and empowerment," she said in an interview with NBC's Today show.

Birnbaum, who underwent in-vitro fertilization last year at a South African clinic that specializes in older women, gave birth by Caesarean section on Tuesday at Hackensack University Medical Center.

"I don't feel like I went through a lot of trauma during delivery or even through the process of being pregnant," Birnbaum said.

The hospital said she was the nation's oldest mother of twins.

"Age has been redefined," Birnbaum said.

She and her husband, Ken, a New York City attorney, have been married for 38 years and have three other children — sons ages 33 and 6 and a daughter, 29.

The couple wanted another child closer in age to their youngest son, and Birnbaum's husband said it was his idea for his wife to become pregnant instead of adopting.

"I couldn't be happier about the way it worked out," Ken Birnbaum told "Today."

Their daughter has said she worries about Birnbaum taking care of the twins when they're in their teens and she's in her late 70s — concerns dismissed by Birnbaum on Thursday.

I look forward to being "empowered" with retirement, enjoying my grandkids... and perhaps even menopause by the time I'm Frieda Birnbaum's age. No comment on breastfeeding at age 60.

Pool Time!

Last week at this time it was raining and cold....

The weather has taken a sudden turn and now it's hot. Atara decided that it's time to haul out the kiddie-pool so we cleaned it out and filled it up.

The timing is great because their new sun-guard bathing suits just arrived from America - via Amazon.com - via my Aunt Marci! Thank you!!!

I love these suits and think they are adorable!

Right now, Zach is not too happy... he wants to go out and be in the pool too. I guess I'll need to accommodate....

Garden in Progress

The weeds are whacked and it's time to plant! That's Atara standing in our backyard with the dry dead weeds - much better than the jungle that was here about a week ago! We are in hurry to get the grass and watering system in before Shmita begins.

Yesterday afteroon Atara, Maya, Zach and I had a good time "exploring" in the garden... though we were unable to locate the tortoise with the red heart on it's shell. The tortoise has been living in our garden and we painted a red heart on it's shell with nail-polish so we'd be able to identify if it was the same tortoise each time!

Yesterday I planted some flowers...
it was fun going to the nursery and choosing all types of plants and flowers. We already have quite a few fruit trees, palms, and bushes. Our yard is lacking in color so I chose quite a few flower-type things.
I am not quite sure of all of the names of the flowers. When choosing what to buy I made sure to select the *heartiest* types of flowers and ground-cover. I plan to only plant things that grow year-round and won't die after one season.

Bad Father Of The Year Award Goes To....

19-year old Joshua Royce Mauldin was blessed with a baby girl - born only two months ago. What a lucky man he is and yet for reasons one can only dream of (in their worst nightmares) Daddy Mauldin put his 2-month old baby girl into a microwave oven in an Arkansas motel.

The baby girl sustained burns on her face and left hand. She was hospitalized early Thursday and yesterday underwent a second skin graft performed by University of Texas Medical Branch physicians at Galveston's Shriners Burns Hospital.

This despicable monster faces indictment for felony injury to a child, which carries a maximum sentence of from five to 99 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000... injury to a child? I wonder what Joshua Royce Mauldin was thinking as he placed his baby daughter in the microwave oven - which setting did he chose and how many minutes did he *time* his little girl to be "injured"?

People do not microwave their children in order to "injure" them. The only other such "microwave injury" case I could find was about the Ohio murder suspect, China Arnold, who killed her month old baby, Paris Talley, in a microwave oven in August 2005.

Daddy Mauldin needs to be put on trial for attempted murder.

If Only Humans Were This Kind

Meet, Huani, a mixed breed farm dog who has taken on the task of nursing three baby tigers who were rejected by their mother. This mixed-species "family" resides at the Jinan Paomaling Wild Animal World in Shandong, China.

While cross-nursing in Humans is rare in Western society in less developed countries it is more common. Often an orphaned infant will be breastfed by an extended family member.

Wouldn't our world be a better place with more *people* like Huani?