Who knew Fisher Pakyl was Jewish?

No posts for a long time - I've just been in such a bottomless pit of guilt and/or anxiety about kindergarten, money, mice, childcare, career, maternal depression, neglect, cordless phones, bad credit, childhood depression, cancer, dirt, amblyopia, ADD, racism, doting, junk food, and and so on and so forth, etc., etc., etc. But alas, S-phie saves the day. Bedtime is chaos in our house. Not controlled chaos, but chaotic chaos. The other night we were trying to get H-nry and C-rina to bed and S-phie was running amok, then the mundane gave birth to magic. I was doing laundry and somehow thought (read: parenting genius) to suggest to S-phie that she should check out how the washing machine works. I opened the lid as it filled and she brought her little stool over so she could peer in. She was fascinated. Absolutely riveted. She kept looking in and then jumping down and running over to me, exclaimaing, over and over, "It's amazing!" And that's just while it was filling with water. I explained that the real action had not even begun, that once it started agitating she would really see something. I demonstrated, avec mon ass, how a washer agitates, and she enthusiastcally joined the "washer booty dance." The suspense built and built, and occupied her for some time, as we waited for the next phase of the washer (my beloved Fisher Pakyl, which was my first love of an appliance, long before my grande refrigerator, and which awakened my inner June Cleaver). When it started agitating she yelled, "Now it's really going to town!" Then she said, while doing the washer booty dance, "it sounds like it's saying 'oy vey, oy vey, oy vey.'" We both cracked up and I felt sheer, unadulterated joy, of the sort that improves your mental health long after the moment is gone.