There's a saber-toothed tiger in my backyard

So, I'm finally almost through reading "Free Range Kids" by Lenore Skenazy, which I started months ago, put down and sort of forgot about, then recently picked up again.

It's about how parents today are basically smoking anxiety crack, and how we need to all just get over ourselves and the idea that we can and should shelter our kids from all possible danger, because a) our lives are really not all that dangerous and b) the effort is making us positively nuts.

She points out that this is not at all the way WE grew up. And it's totally not. How many stories can we all tell about things we did as kids that today would possibly land our parents in the DCFS office begging for their little ones back?

Here's my personal favorite... My sister and I decided we wanted to build an office for ourselves. Maybe it was for the newspaper we were publishing, I don't remember. But we knew we needed two large boxes. And we knew where to find them: the Sears warehouse. I was maybe 8 and she was 4.

Sears was located, inconveniently, across two highways. I don't remember at all whether we purposely decided to not tell our mom where we were going, or if it just didn't occur to us to mention it. In any case, we walked about a mile to Sears (crossing the highways carefully) and into the loading dock behind the store. We asked the guys working there--who I seem to recall were a little stunned--for two boxes. One short and one tall, please. Yes, a refrigerator box. A stove one too. Thanks.

Carrying the boxes above our heads, we then walked back home, where we proceeded to paint and cut doors and windows in the coolest playhouse ever. This became our HQ for many, many months.

Now that Talia is almost 4 herself, I admit that it makes my stomach turn inside out to contemplate her going on a similar adventure, even with a supremely mature (ha!) 8-year-old. (And to be fair, it does pain my mom to hear this story, so maybe some things haven't changed.) We don't even let her cross our little road by herself yet. And yet don't I want her to feel brave and resourceful? To solve problems herself? To think outside the--well, the box?

Skenazy makes the comparison between small children of decades and centuries past--and in many parts of the world today--who took and still take on responsibilities and jobs and challenges that we couldn't fathom for our lactose-intolerant, knee-pad-wearing kids slathered in 100 SPF sunscreen. Like say working as a blacksmith's apprentice, or even selling newspapers or taking care of children just a couple of years younger than themselves.

Probably about 0.4% of American parents today would be OK with their 6-year-old babysitting and slightly fewer (0.0004%) with their first grader hammering molten horseshoes. But somewhere beyond the horrible "what-ifs" of these scenarios is the question of how we give our kids real challenges, real exposure to the world around them, and prepare them to grow up--without being oblivious to their general safety.

I thought about that question a lot while reading another book recently, "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight" by Alexandra Fuller, a memoir of her childhood in various African countries. Her parents were crazy pioneer types. The family suffered. There were wars, predatory animals, diseases, heat, hunger, everything. Three siblings died.

You either read a book like that with your mouth hanging open in horror (that these British parents decided, what a great way to raise a family!) or sort of in awe of the author and how she grew up with so many life skills.

Now, you could say that's what even Skenazy calls "romanticizing childhood in impoverished villages."

There does seem to be a bit of backlash rippling through our culture when it comes to overprotective parenting. As one example, the movie "Babies," which tracks the first year of four infants' lives in both industrial and developing countries, presumably showing us how cool it is when your baby can ride on your lap on a motorcycle or drink water out of a muddy puddle. The film of course doesn't show the puddle baby getting dysentery. (Hopefully she didn't.) But maybe these images can at least start to prepare our minds for the idea that baby gates aren't solely responsible for our species' survival.

Anyway, I've struggled with this question of "what's safe enough" while living outside the U.S., in a country where young kids have a lot more freedom and society isn't nearly as litigious. We might take a walk into the fields by our house and see a few kids riding in the front scoop of a tractor driven by their dad, even though this is Totally Unsafe. I think it's kind of cool. And yes, I've seen 6-year-olds watching their kid sisters at the playground. Nobody got hurt.

But soon it will be time to test our beliefs. To let go a bit more. Can we, who are so comfy we delude ourselves into thinking we can control everything, let our kids have their day?

Ode to the Tantrum

When I first began to experience tantrums as a parent (yes, I mean the girls', not my own), my curiosity was piqued. I was trying to imagine how my own parents had handled the wailing meltdown, the kicking and pounding, the anguished sobbing till the small red face is streaming with snot.

I called my mom. "Do you remember what you guys did when I was Talia's age and threw tantrums?"

"Well, I don't think you really had temper tantrums."

"What?"

"When you were little and got angry, you used to go to your room and draw pictures about it. I don't really remember you throwing fits."

I tried to imagine Talia winding up for a primo-meltdown, then choosing to draw a picture instead. My mom's revelation either showed that I had been the emotionally healthiest child on the planet, or it was the most f-ed up thing I had ever learned about myself. I realized the answer was probably B, and it explained a lot about what was wrong with me most of my life.

Therefore, like a paraplegic watching runners in the 50-yard dash, I have developed a voyeur's admiration for my daughters' tantrums. The unselfconscious, immediate transformation of frustration and disappointment into pure rage is both shocking and fascinating. Unlike the slow-motion, invisible game of badminton that many of us are socialized to play with our emotions--don't get angry; wait, think, analyze, understand it from another point of view... then die of cancer--tantrums are like pinball.

Doll is gone? BAM!
Wait 10 seconds till juice?? BAM-BAM!!
You said NO?! Game over...DING DING DING!

Then, usually, as quickly as they come, they're over. Forgotten. Move on.

Amazing!

Although having your kid collapse screaming into a gel-like substance on the floor is technically not fun, Nadav and I manage to sort of embrace this "phase" because we each have ulterior motives. Personally, I want to learn how to throw a better tantrum myself. Minus the snot, perhaps. Nadav wants to believe that some shred of their instinctive indignation will survive through grade school, tweendom, and into their dating years, causing them to, if accosted in a convertible by a horny date, bash the boy's head in with a rock. Did I mention my husband is part Greek?

Both of us take comfort in the idea, the hope, that each of these little female selves is growing a hardened core that will not question itself, will not hesitate, when it matters most.

Middle space

It's one of those regular days, not newsworthy at all, but beautifully average. I have time to write, but have nothing important to say. Nadav and I took a long walk across the rough parts of the fields this morning -- too late to be cool, but blissfully cloudy. We ended up deciding to cut back through "town," then found the entry blocked by a huge pile of crumbly dirt someone had dumped there to keep the ATVs out of the residential neighborhoods, probably. I had clambered to the top and was checking out the descent when he observed, "It's poo!" Indeed, it was not dirt but cow manure. Dried, at least. We washed our shoes when we got home. See? Fascinating. That's the kind of great story you have from a day like today.

It was another morning that Talia remembered (as she always does) that I promised the night before to make "pipicks" (pancakes). As we had only a few minutes to spare before it was time for the girls to go to their in-home preschool, she had to settle for measuring the dry ingredients, with a promise we'd finish them this afternoon. Noa, for her part, now considers herself the baking veteran since the other day when the three of us made Aggression Cookies on the floor (the kind you mix with your hands). Now she pulls out the same hot-pink bowl I'd given her that day and announces, "No-wa! No-wa! Pa-pick!" and then proceeds to surreptitiously scoop flour from the canister all over the floor, which really needs to be cleaned up right away because it's Ant Season here in the boonies.

My finger, although now slightly green and purple, isn't broken after all. Three days ago I was overly mad at a small gnat and instead of swatting it with a towel, smashed my middle-finger knuckle into the countertop. (Or maybe I did kill the gnat; I didn't really care after that.) Anyway, the finger is nice and bendy again.

It's mid-June, time is flying, yet the end of the year isn't here yet. For kicks I looked up some more home listings on Redfin in the Chicago suburbs. It doesn't really matter. Too early to care; we're not going back till October. No pressure, although I can catch the early whiffs of when it will start to matter and life will start cranking up its pace again...hurling us toward reentry into...what?

I don't really want to think about it. Across the valley, up on a hill, the girls are sleeping in their little nests. Nadav is having coffee with his best friend. I have work to do but it isn't urgent. My only goal is to avoid getting sucked into the Internet for half the day.

Time to check the laundry. Life in the middle space is very good.

A bad day in the hood

It's hard to concentrate on other things when the international headlines are pretty much all condemning the country you're living in for everything from "state terrorism" to stupid, damaging decisions (the latter from Ha'aretz, the main daily here).

What happened on that ship bound for Gaza was tragic on so many levels. For the people who were killed, for the soldiers sent on a problematic mission, for the Israeli state that needs no more reasons for the world to hate and blame it for everything (painful also in many ways) and for civilians in Gaza who are being screwed in the long run by everyone, including their own leadership.

I really hate to get political. I've learned a lot by living here (and since the day I wrote "I want to study anything in the Arab world except Israel/Palestine" in my grad school application). Still, I feel unqualified to be a commentator. That's the main thing I've learned. I think that only when you have spent some time immersed on both "sides" of a conflict can you have something approaching a genuinely fair view. And it's really hard to do that.

The best way I can describe what I see is that Israel is a country straddling two worlds, expected to play by two different sets of rules at the same time. It is damned no matter what it does.

I will also say that I have, by living here, developed a sincere respect and appreciation for Israeli society that could never, ever have germinated by watching or reading international news.

Anyway, our family is linked indelibly to the Israeli identity, for better or worse, since my husband and daughters are all Israeli citizens. I think about it every time we fly with three Israeli passports.

I wonder how we'll explain the many facets of their Israeli identity to the girls when they're a little older. At their age, of course, they know only the fun of holidays, the familiarity of Hebrew, the love of their family here. How can we help them retain the positives--heritage, pride, strength--while someday explaining why Israeli flags burn on TV and various world leaders want to see the country "wiped off the map"?

Where am I again?

Today it's the tail end of the sharav, the hot wind that blows periodically across this region from the Arabian peninsula, carrying dust and sand and sucking the moisture out of all living things. Yesterday morning I hurried out for a walk at 7:30, before it hit full bore, and even then came back parched with a dusty feeling in the throat. The sky turns hazy yellow and visibility withers. You get inside and close things up.

One upside to the sharav for me is that it reminds me where I am. It's surprising how easy it is to forget, some days. Some days I spend the bulk of my day ...like now, online, especially since I telecommute to my old job, essentially. The virtual world creates more connections, true, but it also makes it easy to stay in our own little silos. Here, I don't have to do a whole lot to assimilate. Since we moved here, my main interaction with non-English-speaking locals has consisted of 15-second conversations with supermarket employees, checking in with preschool teachers and the occasional visit to a doctor's office. No wonder my Hebrew is still pretty bad.

Once you know your way around any neighborhood or valley or region, you can usually get in your car and drive from A to B without too much interfering. Maybe you're listening to your own CDs. You get in a zone. The scenery becomes comfortable; your eyes pick out the relevant details and you stop noticing other things that used to seem strange. You could be anywhere, daydreaming.

It's not all like that... I mean, we--I--do get out. There was the two days spent in the hospital where Noa was born, in an ultra-Orthodox community near Tel Aviv. That was definitely Somewhere Else. We also see Israeli friends, we tool around, I have a Hebrew tutor. Our food is labeled in Hebrew. I catch parts of the national news on TV and listen to Galgalatz (Army radio, the most popular station).

But, on some level, I sort of feel like the old Chinese lady who lives in San Francisco and reads Chinese newspapers and cooks her favorite dishes at home and has Chinese friends. It's natural, I guess. Most of us, when we have a choice, don't change all that much. We all want to feel at home.

Happiness is...

Can I just say one thing? Ben & Jerry's Light Phish Food.

OK, one other thing. Chocolate Light Ice Cream, Gooey Marshmallow, a Caramel Swirl & Fudge Fish. (I'm reading the description right off the carton, which is close to empty.)

Now that I've talked a little about how much I've been enjoying Israel, let me just say it's missing something really really important: B&J's Light Phish Food. And now that we're in Chicago, my ice cream muse and I have been reunited.

I realize that Israel is a sort of serious place in the eyes of the world, and tends to be a lightning rod for a million controversial issues. We're not going there right now. We're keeping it shallow, like most of us are in our daily lives. Sorry, no offense. I include myself. You and I both probably care about a few shallow things every day. And day after day, there's no Phish Food in Israel.

Now, there ARE lots and lots of other extremely yummy things to eat. In every supermarket there are about 400 kinds of cheese. Some kinds are even broken down into cow, sheep and goat's milk versions. Also, hummus is not a "dip" sold in little lunch-size containers, it's a staple and you can buy it by the half-gallon. Pita is real pita. Not the sad, flat flying saucers you get in stores here. The produce is fabulous. Great domestic wines. On and on.

But there are no graham crackers. No canned pumpkin. No Cool Whip. No Wheat Chex, or 400 other kinds of cereal that have been invented in recent years by American chemists. A lot of the processed foods that have made America great just haven't made it to Israel yet. Importing is expensive and maybe not every Israeli loves these things as much as they should.

Nadav's mom has told me about when they first arrived in the mid-'80s and the supermarket situation was bleak. For Americans, anyway. They had something called American Day once a year at the store. Then, you could buy peanut butter, marshmallow fluff and other exotic delights. Most of the time, though, you had better learn to like lentils.

On that note, I'd like to commend Israeli supermarkets for now carrying a bazillion items they didn't used to, like Heinz ketchup (without which Nadav cannot eat a hamburger), Oreos, Post Bran Flakes and even caffeine-free diet Coke. If we had moved here 25 years ago, I wouldn't be writing a post on a blog about it, I'd be tied up somewhere in a padded room overcoming the symptoms of food detox. (Yes, I know...25 years ago there were no blogs either...OK.)

I'm only slightly embarrassed to tell you that when we moved here, or I should say when John Deere moved us here, we brought a nice little stash of supplies that cushioned our landing. Brownie mix, Trader Joe's Light Vanilla & Almond granola, canned pumpkin (for Thanksgiving pies, for crying out loud, even if there's no Thanksgiving), molasses and other stuff that would keep on a shelf for a while and stave off homesickness.

I was also slightly embarrassed to open our pantry door when company came over, but it did make me very warm and happy inside to know it was there.

Since then, my dear husband has hauled I don't even want to think of how many pounds of powdered, boxed, canned happiness during his/our various trips back from the Shopping Capital of the World to keep me from getting sad or bitchy. I am not quite sad or bitchy enough to suggest bringing Phish Food on dry ice.

Ready for takeoff

No deep thoughts today. It's almost packin' time.

Assuming the Iceland volcano doesn't decide to mess up our travel plans, we'll be on the plane in three days, headed to Chicago. Usually we stop over somewhere in Europe. That would have been bad for this trip. Luckily this time it's straight to Toronto, then O'Hare. So, we have a decent chance of getting there.

We've got our "Buy in Amrika" list made out. Mac & cheese, Dry Idea, the girls' favorite bath paints. I used to "like" Target. Now it's a pilgrimage site.

The post-it notes are also written, so the critical stuff doesn't get left behind--passports, immunization records, flight info, stroller.

We've certainly spent a lot of time whining about these trips over the past 3-1/2 years and approximately 150,000 miles. No doubt, going trans-Atlantic with small kids isn't anyone's idea of enjoyable. We've done the infant-won't-stop-screaming thing, the projectile-puking-infant thing, the we-can't-find-your-daughter's-reservation thing, the terrified-of-airplane-lavatories thing and the subsequent wet-seat thing. Kids jet-lagged for days or weeks, in both directions. It's all a barrel of fun.

We've made deals with the devil over kids sleeping on airplanes, which usually (as most deals with Satan do) backfire. You arrive bone-tired, finally all go to sleep for the first time in 36 hours, and 3 hours later, after your offspring have had refreshing naps, it's play time!

So, we try really hard not to think about these trips until the last possible second. There's no point. Que sera, sera.

Actually there's an exception to this rule, which is planning the Activity Bag. It reminds me of a class assignment I had once, to take a pepper can and fit into it everything you'd need to survive in the desert for several days. It requires a careful cost-benefit analysis of an object's relative value versus its size, collapsibility, and weight. Same idea.

The bag used to be a knapsack crammed with toys and books. Now, every trip, it gets smaller. It's not that they won't play with all the stuff you bring. They'll play with some of it for 10 minutes, most things for 10 seconds, then will spend an hour and a half carefully and deliberately shredding your InFlight magazine or playing with a plastic straw.

So you might as well save your back and bring less. You (and by "you" I mean your husband) still have to carry enough other crap. Even though you swore you wouldn't become the people who carry a lot of crap. Either you carry it, or somebody starves or screams or wears vomit-scented clothes for 20 hours.

I'll spare you the diatribe on airport security, except to say that we watched "Up in the Air" and laughed. I mean, I love George Clooney. (Who doesn't want to watch him do anything, including go through a TSA scanner?) But is it really all that impressive to watch a grown man snap his luggage open and closed and put his baggie of liquids on the moving belt when no one is hanging on his leg, crying for juice, while he simultaneously takes off two other people's shoes (who hate having their shoes taken off), collapses a stroller and convinces a toddler who slept 4 hours last night to be held by a stranger wearing rubber gloves?

Like I said, we whine a lot. It's not like we planned to have families on two continents. Well, OK, actually, we did sort of choose to marry each other. That was an excellent decision on a human level and a lousy one, logistically. But no take-backsies. So I guess I'll go pack. It totally beats going by covered wagon.

Desert brain

This week we drove out of our green valley and took the girls on a little overnight to the Negev, the desert that makes up much of the lower half of Israel. After blowing two years in this country "nesting" with a toddler and new baby, time is running out, and we're ticking through our Israel bucket list.

We also wanted to fit this trip in before summer arrives and standing in the sun for half an hour, let alone going to a desert, is a foolish, self-punishing activity. My people are from Ireland. I do not love summers here.

So in three hours we were in Mitzpeh Ramon, a dusty little town that has two things going for it: several surrounding military bases and a ginormous crater 40 kilometers long.

The view of the crater was definitely stunning. Nadav and I took turns admiring it from the lookout point, 1,500 feet above the desert floor, while the other herded the girls away from the edge. When both you and your spouse are terrified of heights, you can do this for only a few minutes. So that was the crater.

(A little embarrassing: we spent the entire visit thinking the crater was made by a meteor, like, 40 billion years ago, and only after returning home bothered to Google it and learned it was carved out by water, like the Grand Canyon. Obviously, we didn't go through the Visitor's Center museum. Things were going too well outside, playing with rocks. One thing we really like about having small kids is that we finally have an excuse for being lazy, uninformed tourists.)

Anyway, Nadav had found one other cool thing for toddlers to do in Mitzpeh Ramon, which was to stay overnight on an alpaca farm. It was a little compound tucked inside some dry, rocky hills. Not green enough to be an oasis, but with a few pockets of trees and flowers. Four hundred alpacas, plus a large number of llamas, some donkeys, horses and a lone camel were the main attraction, milling around in a series of barnyards.

If you've never seen an alpaca face to face, they look like the relative of the llama that couldn't afford braces. Neither are particularly friendly animals. But alpacas chew funny and have a kind of demented look in their eyes and make a weird whining sound, thus are good entertainment if you're 3 or 1, or if your standards have sunk really low due to having had almost no adult nightlife for years.

***

Later that night, while I was lying awake, trying to sleep in what should have been empty silence but for the congested snoring of our daughter, I was thinking about the last time I spent the night in a little compound in the middle of a desert. It was in a monastery on a backpacking trip many years ago. I'd gone because I had always found monasteries intriguing, the promise of serenity derived from a life of repetitive work, humility, reflection. I'd wondered how long it would take to get into the groove. How long before the mind quieted down? Before the traffic of one's thoughts was reduced to a dull hum of memory and eventually, with great discipline, muted so that a greater presence could exist within?

(Answer: more than two days.)

It was into this little reverie that an image appeared of myself back home, cleaning the same high-chair tray and the floor around it six to eight times a day. Wax on, wax off. After you've changed several thousand diapers, you can do it in the pitch-black. Wash, rinse, repeat. It struck me that although being a full-time parent is a lot noisier and chaotic than being a monk, there are some similarities. In both scenarios, you're up at 4 a.m. (however, monks probably sleep through the night). Ultimately, nature--or you could call it God, or the laws of physics--is forcing you, through endless, exhausting repetition and work that constantly undoes itself, to tune out a lot of the stuff you used to think was highly important. Are you being worn down into a washer-woman? Or mentally liberated? Eventually, I guess I fell asleep.

***

It's not every morning you get to open your curtains and have a camel looking in. Or have your breakfast delivered in a giant cooler to your doorstep. Or watch your 1-year-old discover chocolate milk.

I sort of love that with these kids, any agenda we have can evaporate. You can't afford to take your own ambitions too seriously, because at this age playing on the previously mentioned rocks is truly more fun than anything else. By 9 a.m. the girls had, as the Hebrew expression goes, "juiced" the alpaca farm--were tired of having us prod them toward animals that didn't have much personality. They let us put the helmets on them but refused to ride the llama. So we played in the hammock on our porch for a while, let them have their wrestling match on the bed, then packed up and left.

Some days it's a little distressing, all the neurons that apparently withered in my brain due to sleep deprivation and the fact that "Boo-bee-BAH!" now passes as a brilliant joke in our house. Most days, though, the feeling of liberation, strangely, unexpectedly, wins. Maybe I'll think about it again the next time I go to the desert.

Down and dirty

I've been spending hours online lately looking at preschools 8,000 miles away. And I have to admit, I'm freaking out.

It's not just that sending your young child to a 2-hour "program" three days a week can cost the same as buying a decent, brand new car once a year. It's not just that 2 hours is long enough to drive back home, write a to-do list, do maybe one thing and drive to pick your kid up again. And forget about the fact that this meticulously designed program, balanced between "stimulating creativity, modeling problem-solving and teaching a sense of social connection and responsibility" is for a person who acts, much of the time, like an escapee from a mental institution and might play with poo if you let her.

(No, I do not let either of my daughters play with poo.)

What's kind of freaking me out is that apparently my tastes have changed since we've lived abroad. Either that, or they were always a bit scruffy and low-maintenance and I just didn't know it. I see what we're headed for when we move back to Americana, and I'm not sure I'm ready for it.

I mean, I work in marketing. I realize that modern-day yuppie nursery school web sites must offer a fabulous product. They have mission statements. They talk about sensory development, interpersonal skills and other critical items in your child's bag of tricks.

However, I'm watching my girls develop without the five-star childhood education and they are doing just fine.

Yesterday afternoon, we popped them in the double-wide and walked 6 minutes down the road to the fields. They got out and ran down a path to say hi to the cows, picked up rocks, pulled some grass, and (miraculously) held hands halfway back. We found snails to pick up and look at, and a single ladybug was entertainment for quite a while.

Of course, country life isn't the only way to achieve sensory development when you're 1 or 3. It just makes it ridiculously easy (and scenic) for us.

After Noa was born, Talia spent a year in a full-day "gan" (nursery school) in our tiny town. It wouldn't have won any awards for aesthetics. In fact, the outdoor play yard kind of looked like crap. It was full of broken strollers, armless dolls, sand buckets, some creaky swings, a couple of little playhouses. I'll admit it, the first time I saw it, my inner yuppie was a little turned off.

The kids loved the crappy toy yard, of course. What did they care? Human children throughout history have gone through the critical stages of development with much less. They did all the usual preschool stuff--music, art, puzzles, books, blocks, dancing, holidays. Every day after lunch and before naptime, the children got a full bath and shampoo in a sink that was probably designed for washing dishes in a restaurant. Forget to bring a second set of clothes for your kid? It's OK, we slapped someone else's extra shirt on her.

Talia arrived home every day rested, excited and happy. She made a dozen friends there and it's basically where she learned to speak Hebrew. Enriching as hell.

My only point is, I'm going to miss the low-key thing we've experienced here in the Israeli countryside. I know there have to be plenty of folks in the Chicago area who like seeing their kids learn through sheer grimy joy. After we move, I'm going to try really hard to find them.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em

So, not even a month ago, I was making fun of bloggers. Particularly, blogs with titles like "Mobile Mama." It was after I read some article in the New York Times about the industry of blogging moms, which is now so big that you can attend conferences on the topic and compete for national acclaim. I was kind of horrified, I suppose in the same way my conservative grandparents used to be horrified that I watched racy, soul-rotting TV shows like "Laverne & Shirley." That's when I realized I was going to be fighting a long, lonely mental battle against the forces of society if I didn't give bloggers their due.

Of course, you know what came next. The trip from sarcastic outsider to wannabe didn't take long. "Hmm, maybe I could have my own blog..." And in fact, it suddenly seemed like a great idea. A low-key way to finally write somewhere besides in my journal or at work, perhaps. So welcome to mom blog #32,784 (approximately).

Caveat to non-parents and other not-easily-amused types: If you're not into stories about children's misbehavior in public restrooms or fascinating recipes involving spinach and cookie cutters, please don't run away screaming. I'm not really into those stories, either. You have to be quite a literary genius to make that kind of material universally enjoyable to read, and I'm not up to that kind of pressure.

The reason for the title, "Mobile Mama," is because, well, when you have to boil yourself down to two or three words for a blog, that's about the best I could come up with. (And my first five ideas were already taken.) As someone who's always been a bit of a nomad, married to another sort-of nomad, who travels with our two human carry-ons quite frequently between our families on two continents, that seemed to fit. Our older daughter could recite the anatomy of an airplane before she could say her own last name. And even when we stop moving households and "settle down," which may happen soon, being mobile is (maybe forever?) in our blood.