We have finally exited Heathen Mode and joined a temple, which means Jake & Danny are now in Sunday School. They started three weeks ago, and were a bit nervous about it. But their first morning, we were talking with the school's director in her office, when who walked in but our former next-door neighbors with their girls the same ages as our boys. Jacob and Olivia were pretty well inseparable from 9 months to four years old, and Danny and Katie, who are only three weeks apart, were just the most adorable things together. They went to preschool together, shared childcare, and went through the bumps and bruises of infancy and toddlerhood together until our friends left the city for Evanston.

So guess who was joining the temple at the same (belated) date as we were? The boys were SO excited. Jake and Olivia got to sit next to each other in their classroom. Unfortunately, Katie missed the cutoff for kindergarten by the aforementioned three weeks, so she's not in Danny's class. However, he has friends from elementary school so everyone is happy.

Yesterday, we attended our first family program with the rest of the kindergarten families. They provided childcare, so we dropped all three kids off in their respective classrooms and trudged upstairs to meet with the rabbi. Apparently there had been two previous sessions where everyone had talked about Shabbat and why it's observed. At this third and last meeting, the rabbi talked about blessings. Why do we give blessings? Well, it's to say thanks, naturally. But she raised a side benefit -- in saying thanks, we're reminded to be grateful (another way of saying 'count your blessings,' I guess).

The point of this discussion (besides the obvious) was to instruct us in writing our own blessings for our children. There are traditional blessings given by parents to their children on Shabbat, wishing for boys that they be like Joseph's sons, and for girls that they be like the Biblical matriarchs (Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel & Leah). But, as the rabbi pointed out, we want our children to be uniquely themselves -- why wish that they are like other people? She went on to discuss how these blessings are not that literal -- that they be examined as comments in context. It's not that we wish our boys to be like Joseph's sons. We wish that our sons be treated like Joseph's sons (who Jacob greeted as equals, not as superior and inferior by dint of birth order).

I really dug this discussion, though I have essentially no training in discussing theology or the practice of any religion (including my own). After being away from my family for four, brain-cleansing yet& nbsp;exhausting days, I missed the essence of each of my kids. Being removed from the day-to-day drudgery of motherhood (because, let's face it, much of it is akin to slavery), I could appreciate from my distance how special each child was.

On Friday, I was stuck in the Orlando airport when the whole airport was grounded due to some electrical problem at air traffic control (take your time & fix it right, guys!). DH sent me an email apologizing that when I got home I would likely find a mess in our bedroom (very much par for the course, and at least half my fault). But after that, he told me two incredibly funny stories about Jake and Danny, which literally made me laugh out loud. And they were SO MUCH Jake and Danny.

I said in the Sunday School discussion how I liked the idea of creating a blessing for each child to wish them to be their own selves, and how in doing so I was also being grateful for all of the things that do make them their own selves. Jacob is so funny and smart and calculating and full of theories; he wants to figure out the whole world, and then draw and write it down. Danny is such an exhuberant kid who's finding his way in his little world. DH said last night how he will just pop these huge and complicated words into his everyday conversation, and right now he wants to know everything about everything. I remember when he was three or so and told me how he liked something "because it was colorful," and how kind of shocked I was by his use of the word "colorful." Oh, and Benjamin -- such a naughty, delightful, impish little package of adorableness.

Of course, they have all the habits and traits that take me to the limit of pharmaceutical assistance, but in being reminded to be grateful for their wonderful traits, I am also reminded to concentrate on the good more and the difficult, less.

And as long as I'm being grateful, a funny tidbit: Saturday night, DH is curled up in our bed with Danny and Benjamin, reading from Nick Jr. magazine with Danny and having him fill in the 'blanks.' The topic was classic fairy tales, so DH would read the first part and guide Danny into completing the sentence. He got to "Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum, I smell..."

And Danny promptly said .... "Awful."

I'm in Orlando, attending a big conference on distance education. This is my first time attending this particular conference, and it's supposed to be the biggest one on the subject. But the problem is, I'm not the typical distance educator. I don't have a Master's degree, let alone a PhD. I don't enjoy discussing the philosphy of education, and I don't give a shit about the history of education at all.

In other words, I'm kind of their worst nightmare.

While I was in a particularly boring session where every sentence the speaker uttered ended in a mumble, I wrote up these Conference Attendance Rules:

1. Don't turn your phone off.  You look more important when your mom calls in the middle of a session.

2. The best way to network? Mill in the hallways, especially if you have the opportunity to block the restroom door, the line for coffee, and/or a major exit.

3. Never start on time.

4. Never end on time.

5. Every PowerPoint slide must include a reference to obscure educational theory; bonus points for the most uses of any form of the word "pedagogy."

6. Sign up for hands-on technical workshops, but don't bring your laptop. Complain, loudly, that it wasn't explained to anyone.

7. And finally, there are extremely important dress codes:
 - Male faculty: balding, grey-bearded, slightly rumpled oxford shirt and tweed jacket. Bonus points for ugly shoes.
- Female faculty: the smaller your school, the more floral you must wear. If you are presenting, you can wear a just-so-slightly mismatched suit jacket and skirt, but comfortable shoes in some earth tone are a must. And a rule about color: the darker your clothes, the lighter your shoes.  
- Female instructional designers: Wear suit pants or khakis with an untucked, nipped-at- the-waist blouse. No jackets, no sweaters. May have unusually colored streaks in hair and/or multiple earrings.
- Male instructional designers: Poorly fitting Dockers or jeans and a shirt with a logo, topped with a fleece or jacket with a logo.
- Consultants: A traditional suit. No major variance allowed.
- Exhibitors: Polo shirt with company's name embroidered on it. Should smell of Rogaine and desperation.

I'm wasting time waiting for the night's event, which is a Casino Night. I have no idea who's going. I haven't really met anyone here; at the last conference, I befriended a really cool woman about my age and we hung out. This time, I haven't really met anyone. It's very odd to spend almost no time alone and then to be alone for several days. It's kind of freeing, but it's also weird to be in a place like Orlando without my family. I haven't been here in over 20 years, so the Disney Explosion hadn't yet taken place. It was all about the Mouse then, but now it's just insane.

Down the street from the hotel is the Nick Hotel, which is a special Holiday Inn done in a Nickelodeon theme. I called over there, thinking they might have a store where I could pick up some rare Blues Clues thing for Benjamin, but they don't allow visitors on the property -- you can only go there if you're a registered guest. Which makes sense -- they're protecting the kids on the property. But in checking out their web site, I started fantasizing about taking a real family vacation. It would be just like the commercials -- everyone would get along and have fun, we wouldn't be panicking about how much every little thing would cost (because I'm sure the add-ons are insane), and nobody would get injured, sick, or sunburned.

Of course, I'm being kind of silly since we haven't yet had one of those mythic family vacations, so we can't have had a vacation that went AAAALLLL WRONG! And I'm not sure we're ready yet -- Benjamin is still such a babe in the woods and so unmanageable in public. And it's not like we're planning anything. But I can see into the future I'd like to have... maybe down the road, I'll be speaking at a conference, and DH and the boys can come with me. After I speak (on the first day, natch), we go explore some family-friendly area or adventure together.

The only other woman I kind of bonded with here was with the company who makes the presentation software we use. She has two girls -- ages 9 and 18 months, and the baby had a liver transplant when she was only four months old. She said how she wishes so much that her husband and girls were here... he works from home, so technically they could have done it. But the first year after the liver transplant is the most dangerous, so traveling is just inviting germs to attack her daughter. I guess there are more things to worry about in the world than whether your kids will get along when you travel, eh?

DH is home alone with the boys, and he sounds like he's a little inundated. Granted, it's an ugly job, that temporary single parenthood. The last time I went away, I was 10 minutes from home when I talked to him and he sounded like he was three seconds from complete meltdown. I could picture the three kids dancing in warpaint around his trussed, bruised body. Again, I'm exaggerating -- in many ways, I think the boys behave much better for their Daddy. Jacob even asks me to go away because he likes when it's just Daddy at home (uh, thanks, sweetie pie). That doesn't make it easier. I can't say I'd look forward to DH running off to conferences, myself. But I get so stressed in response to him sounding stressed. I think it compounds my guilt -- just getting away for a couple of days is so refreshing. I don't have to worry about anybody else for three whole days!

I'm not so sure the conference has been that useful, but while I've been gone, I've written the framework for my own case study, a full book review, and the school newsletter. Oh, and the SLEEP! I didn't sleep that well the first night (the hotel I was in was nearly deserted, and I didn't have hot water); but when I moved to the conference site, I got a much better room. Not fancy, but with a really comfortable bed. And oh, so very quiet. I don't remember waking up ONCE. I can't even remember remembering how long it's been since I've gone a whole night without waking up.

On the other hand, I can't sneak into the boys' room and ruffle their hair while they sleep. So I guess nothing's all that bad, and nothing's perfect, either.