elusive nannies

Hiring a nanny online is like online dating. I was always thankful that I met my husband in the "olden days", before online dating was a thing, and I did not have to suffer through the uncertainty that nobody can vouch for that person, that I will be stood up, that the online profile will not match with reality.

When we spoke to our friends with any experience about hiring help, everyone told us that they use care.com. Ironically, this is the same organization that a school suggested for hiring a shadow, so I figured they must have  a very wide pool of applicants. I took a plunge, wrote a posting and got my husband to look it over. He said: "It sounds nice, but where are we going to find a person like that?" I sent it out there into the cyberverse, together with a small prayer.

Within 24 hours, we started getting responses. There were people out there who were interested! And some of them sounded normal enough and qualified enough. Some were weird, some sent a generic response, some did not have hours that matched our needs, and one person was almost stalking. But there seemed to be people who looked promising. Now, as with online dating, there was a question of safety, and a question of disclosing a bit too much information too soon. I tried playing it safe: meet at the park, and try not to disclose my phone number.

We scheduled the meeting time for this morning. I figured that there were no coop classes, and my husband was off, so it should work for both of us to be at the park, for the kids to play (hopefully with other kids), and for us both to feel out the candidates.

The first blow was the realization that one out of three did not respond that she is willing to meet us. Then, I heard from a few homeschool moms that they will not be making it, so no friends for kids to play with. Next, as we were getting ready to go, the sky grew dark, and unmistakable rain came down. I figured, I will call the first person and ask her to meet us in the rec center instead, so the kids can stay indoors. When we got there, there was no sight of her. I tried calling her; no response. I left messages, my kids played Foosball, 1 yo played with his usual toys. At least the rec center staff was nice about us just hanging out there.

Then I tried contacting the second person, for whom I did not have a phone number. I sent her a message through the website, telling her that we are waiting indoors. Time was ticking by. My husband said that we should wait the full half an hour, give her a chance.

Oh, this was ridiculous. We do not have so many mornings off, and I felt stood up, just like on a date. We could have done so many things with those killed hours. Moreover, we are exactly where we started, looking for that outside help.

In the defense of the second person, she did call me later that afternoon, apologizing, and saying that she had car trouble. We rescheduled for Friday morning. I will not have my husband along, which increases my anxiety about making a a desperate choice, and just grasping the first person who bothered to show up as promised.

So we are back to online dating (for nannies). We are scared of what it will cost us, but we seem unable to get to the point where this would figure as part of a discussion.

--------------------

In a funny twist, after all our morning adventures,  8 yo did his usual allotment of work in record time and with positive attitude. It took him less than an hour, maybe even half an hour? So pleasant, and so surprising. 10 yo, meanwhile, decided that HE will play the role of an uncooperative child, sulking and complaining, with outbursts about "grueling work". I cannot have it nice on both fronts, can I? Maybe, when 8 yo cooperates, 10 yo has a space to release his frustrations. But why do they all get released on me?

not a success

I Saw this today on someone's Facebook wall and my first reaction was, Oh yeah!

And then it turned into : what a bunch of baloney.

I was waiting for today, really waiting. Today was supposed to be an appointment with a psychiatrist for 8 yo. This was through a group recommended by another mom whose son also struggles with anxiety. It took us literal months to get this appointment, and lots of phone calls from my husband.

I was anxious about it. Last therapist was not doing much headway, but he was strongly advocating medication (and public school for services). My pediatrician said that they will not prescribe anti-anxiety meds. So we needed a psychiatrist.

Meanwhile, as long as I do not expect anything from 8 yo, things are peachy. However, any expectation is an assault on his freedom, and I am out of patience. I have not been giving up on this child for a long time. I am tired of being told that I just need to spell out conditions and expectations. I am tired of being told that I just need to be firm in my consequences. I am tired of being told that we need a reward system in place. I do not think it is vaccines or sugar or gluten or food coloring.

So a lot was hinging on today. I sat last night and finally faced the intake paperwork, a small mound of it. I gathered whichever documentation necessary. And I lined up a babysitter whom I was willing to play through the nose, just to get to this appointment.

Midday, I got a phone call from my husband that the doctor had a family emergency and the appointment is cancelled. Oh, and since it is at a teaching facility, we might be seen first by a resident, then by a fellow, and then, maybe, by a psychiatrist. He pushed very much for us to be seen by a psychiatrist. Meanwhile, it will have to be rescheduled for mid-November.

This bit of news came on the heels of not one morning meltdown, a meltdown over same old multiplication and "I'm scared!" and all the usual pencil throwing, and time out outside and apologies and then more of the same.

I am tired of all this. I am giving up.

A friend who is being very honest about her bipolar disorder shared how hard it is to have mental issues and for others not to understand, How hard it is to be on meds, and dealing with the fact that meds are needed. I needed to see that bit, to realize that what I have on my hands is not just a brat, or a case of bad parenting, but an honest situation which requires more than I can give,

My 4 yo probably knows more Hebrew words than 8 yo. My 1 yo wants to name the few letters that he recognizes. Both of these kids want to learn and they get to learn, 8 yo is faced with a brick wall of anxiety which suffocates any desire to try, to be challenged, to be open to new possibilities. His anxiety is setting my bar so low for the rest of the family, for the whole day, that I cannot commit to anything getting done. Will we get out of the house? Or will we spend the whole morning managing a tantrum?

So I am not a successful mom. I am giving up on my child, I am giving up on my situation. I dream of a camp, a farm, where kids with anxiety can go and pet goats, have chores, do manual labor, and be left alone to do whatever calms them. I dream of an alternative where there is only 8 yo, and we can pursue only what he wants to do.

But I can dream all I want. I can share those pep talks how everything will be ok. I can even revel in the lies that we whisper to each other, to soothe. I can keep on focusing on the positive. But the stark reality is that I am giving up.

first day back to "school"

We took off from doing formal schoolwork over Yom Tov (although 10 yo still managed to review the whole masechet Succah and read a ton of textbooks during that time). I wanted the first day back to be gentle, all the more so since I had a morning dr appointment and I was not sure when we would get back.

making "moshiv haruach" signs

First thing that I wrote down for everyone is to make posters/reminders to add "moshiv haruach" (a special prayer for rain). I spoke a bit about it to 8 yo. The older boys copied the text from their siddurim and I was pleased to see that, for once, 8 yo was fine copying Hebrew and even spent some time decorating his wall hanging. 10 yo went all out, with block letters. I printed out a dot-to-dot umbrella for 4 yo, which contained letters of the alphabet, and a regular umbrella image for 1 yo. For a whole five minutes everyone sat at the table, coloring. I even managed to snap an idyllic picture of how it could be...

Then the boys did mineral testing for my geology class. They described their rocks, tested their hardness and magnetism, checked for reaction with vinegar and finally, smashed them with a hammer to see how they cleave. Finally, they got to try to identify their rocks using guides and Internet. I am not sure how correctly they identified their rocks, but they surely had fun!

testing rocks

checking cleavage/fracture

Tums in vinegar

 4 yo said that she wanted to do her own experiment, so I gave her Tums tablet and told her to drop it into leftover vinegar. She giggled that bubbles appeared and took time shifting it around the container. 1 yo was trying to get in on the action the entire time, snatching rocks and other supplies. It is hard to do any experiments with toddlers around, especially with toddlers who are very interested in grabbing, but not so much in looking. I almost wish he was old enough and patient enough to watch TV, so I could buy some time while he is awake to work with others.

I did some math review with 8 yo. We are in the middle of memorizing multiplication tables, and we are at sixes. We did them before the break, but every time I try to review them, he just totally melts down. I do not have a full plan for how far I am planning to review: only sixes, flashcards for sixes, flashcards for all the tables that he already knows, multiplication worksheets... I am open to getting wherever we get on any given day. Most days, unfortunately, we did not get to even looking on the chart which is prominently hanging on the wall. He just drops to the floor: "I don't know it, I cannot do it!" and that's the end of it. I tried persisting, I tried hanging back, I tried pushing, I tried talking, I tried punishing.

Larry Cohen in "The Opposite of Worry" talks about the edge and how to approach it. My child is over the edge at the mere suggestion, and he is not interested in getting back. He is in free fall, and he does not want to practice calming down techniques. He does not want to be hugged, he does not want to be held. He is not interested in learning how not to end up in free fall.

This is the point where I am finding myself despairing. I do not want medication for this child, but, often, we have no functionality. We are to meet with yet another mental health professional, in hope, yet again, that this whole process will go somewhere. I was told how all Jewish kids have anxiety. I know that I have it, and I see where my other kids have it. It is just not debilitating, same way as someone who likes to wash their hands thoroughly is different from a person suffering from OCD who cannot tolerate hands not washed to some utterly unrealistic standard.

So yesterday, I mentioned those sixes and 8 yo promptly dissolved into a puddle on the floor. I said that he should review them from the chart. 4 yo came with me and we went over that row, with him screaming behind us. Then I told him to go outside and not come back in till he's ready to review them. I offered him his shoes, but he preferred to sit on the door mat, sulking. I went on with my activities.

After 20 minutes, I heard him knocking. (The door is unlocked). I let him in, asking whether he is ready. He said that he does not want to do them. I said, I understand, but are you ready to try? He moseyed on to the chart and reviewed them. Then we reviewed them out loud, together. Then we reviewed them counting backwards. Then I pulled our just flashcards for sixes and we did those. Then, seeing that he really does know them, I said, let's go over the rest of the deck, and when I hit a card that you did not learn yet, you can yell: "I do not know it!" He giggled, but he chose to tell me politely the ones that he did not know.

He knows them all.

He knows all the multiplication tables that we have studied.

Some part of him is not ready to own up to the fact that he knows it all.

I was struck by this week's parsha, Breishit. Adam and Chava ate from the Tree of Knowledge because they wanted instantaneous, magical knowledge of the matters which one normally would acquire through a lot of effort. My son's line is that he just wants to know it already. He wants the tree, and he wants the fruit. Consequences are irrelevant.

common core math

If you are expecting me to support it, you will be disappointed. If you are expecting me to bash it, you will be disappointed, too.

We have been using Math Mammoth for math for the past three years. I do not love it, but it is thorough, so I feel that we are covering our bases. It was Common Core aligned before Common Core was implemented. This program is popular with homeschoolers who do not end up shelling up big bucks for textbooks, yet get a complete curriculum.

So how does so called "Common Core math" look like? It looks like offering many different ways and tricks to solve a problem. For example, the third grade addition and subtraction review lists different mental math tricks: counting backwards, completing the next ten, etc. All these are good strategies, what's not to love, right?

Well, since I had two very different kids go through the same curriculum, I can say what I see as the issue. My oldest, who is quite good at getting work done, reads the suggestions, implements then for that page, and then moves on. He might use them in the future, he might not. He might think about them again, he might not. Either way, he can solve those problems when they come up in real-life situations and get correct answers, which means that whichever strategy he chooses to employ works just fine, even if it's not the most efficient one.

My younger one is rigid in his approach. I know that he has better number sense than my older one, but he does not believe in himself. Having all these different approaches to try and remember and use only paralyzes him. He tries to add to the next convenient number, same as they do in this example, but to him, there is no next convenient number, so he randomly guesses: should I add three more? or four more? If I add three, that's fifteen, and if I add four, that's sixteen. And then I have to add some more... meanwhile, he totally lost track of which problem he was trying to solve in the first place. Instead of feeling that he has one solid way to solve the problems, maybe a but clunky and inefficient at time, but the one that will solve them correctly every single time, he feels that there is some unknown magic in picking out a good strategy and then arriving at the right answer.

I wonder how many other kids are there in the classroom like him, who are able to think in one way which works for them, and who are bewildered by all the choice and options. Speaking of choices, in the above example, I was solving coffee change problem differently from the author. I still got the same answer. I would take away four dollars, and get 14$ and then take away 30 cents and get $13.70.

By the way, maybe by doing many. many problems "the old way" and really feeling that you know what goes on is a start to be motivated to find shortcuts and easier solutions? I doubt that many students dutifully subtracted 1999 from 2000 and never wondered what on earth is going on. I think many of them simply wrote "1" in the answer line, only to have teacher grade it as incomplete and be told to show their work, while they mentally figured out the "new math" trick.

I was in Russian school learning my math. Russian math is not known for its flexibility or user-friendliness, but the idea behind it all was that first you drill and practice till you are fluent, and then you can spend time thinking and understanding. I remember being in 6th grade and spending time on the bus thinking about positive and negative numbers, how they add up and cancel each other out. I am pretty sure we were doing much higher math at the time, but since I felt so safe and confident in those properties, I could just mentally play with them.

Then came 10 yo's long division. Now I am confident in my ability to carry it out, but it always leaves me with that teeny wobbly bit because in Russia we were taught to set it up a bit differently than in the states.

Europe[edit]

In Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, Romania, Turkey, Greece, Belgium, and Russia, the divisor is to the right of the dividend, and separated by a vertical bar. The division also occurs in the column, but the quotient (result) is written below the divider, and separated by the horizontal line.

    127|4    
   −124|31,75
      30
     −28
       20
      −20
        0

I hope that you feel just that tenny bit of anxiety looking at this set-up, and you understand that teeny bit that I feel when faced with American way.

When Math Mammoth introduced it, it was fine, and he practiced, and he got it. Then, this year, they decided to reinforce that division is just multiple subtraction. The way it was set up, it took me a few minutes to figure out what they were driving at! And let me assure you, nobody divides like that, not for any good reason that I can think of.


To check my hypothesis, I tried doing this problem mentally, and I showed it to my husband. Both of us estimated, but neither felt that the suggested approach is the one that we would use if we encounter such a problem (and total lack of paper and pencil to solve it!)

So, yes, Common Core math could be good and could be useful, but I do not think that expecting every student to learn and use every single technique is realistic. Moreover, it is discouraging to students who do not "get it", and confuses the students who like knowing that they already have a tool to tackle the problem.

what it takes to homeschool

I usually don't do this, but if you are contemplating homeschooling, thinking that homeschooling is not for you, and, especially, if you are in the trenches and despairing, this blog entry will make your day.

Here it is:

http://amongstlovelythings.com/why-im-no-homeschool-superstar/

I don't know who the author is, and I have not read any of her other entries. But this one is a sanity saver must read.

accidental find (photoblog)

This is what happens when I have an activity scheduled just for 10yo (homeschool day at Anne Frank exhibit) in a part of town where we usually don't go. I sort of looked at the map and saw two local parks, figuring one of them should have a playground. The younger kids insist on bringing their bikes, so we end up driving to the park with paved trails. We have never been there before, but we had time and were open to new experiences.

watching the ducks 

skipping stones

blue heron

goose feather

watching waterfowl

I always wonder: couldn't we do this if we weren't homeschooling? Couldn't we come here on a Sunday? But do we end up taking half a Sunday just to wander around and discover a new park?

I fret about wasting learning time. Then I see that they are learning and watching and observing and feeling, especially near a peaceful lake on a beautiful day. I see 8 yo calm down and focus. I see him observe. I see him wait patiently.

We all just need free mornings to go out there and explore nearby nature places. We all need rippling lake surface. We all need to be quiet enough to hear the calls of the birds and not to scare them off.  We all need freedom to just go out there, bike, and teach our kids to skip stones.

creative mess

Look at this neat Montessori classroom: every object has its place, and every kid is working nicely with only one manipulative at a time, then cleans it up before taking out the next one... Which mother hasn't swooned over the beauty of the set-up, the clean lines, the perfect choreography to make this all work, the obedient kids who would never dare throw an object across the room or mix the materials?

It's such a dream, you know, especially for those of us whose houses are in a constant state of disarray.

I stayed home this Yom Kippur with 1 yo while my husband took the three older ones to shul. Most of the toys that are in my living room/playroom are for 1 yo. We have a wooden kitchen which we use to store bins with the toys. The toys are: a big bag of Mega blocks and a Mega Blocks car; a bin of train tracks and wooden building blocks, a  plastic cube sorter toy, two puzzles, and a bin with tea set. It is not a small amount of toys, but it is not that large, either. Usually I do not watch closely how 1 yo plays with his toys, but I do find a lively mess of everything being dumped out either by nap time or by bedtime. I often despair of cleaning it all, just to know that it will all get dumped again a few short hours later. 

I have pared down. I have thrown things out or rotated them or banished them to the basement. I live in that perfect Montessori classroom fantasy, thinking that if only I was organized enough, my children would be just as neat as those kids in the picture.

But this Yom Kippur, as I laid on the couch, I got to observe firsthand what 1 yo actually does with all those toys.

First thing, he took the whole bag of Mega blocks and dumped it on the floor. He enjoys the sound of so many things hitting the wooden floor. Then he started stacking them up. Then he figured out that he can attach Mega blocks to the handles of a push toy because the openings are the same diameter as the tops of Mega blocks. He built long drooping towers poking from the handles. Then he took the pieces from one of the wooden puzzles, dumped them all out and loaded them into the car. He pushed that around for a bit, then turned the car upside down to unload the shapes.

Then he dumped out the tea set from a solid plastic bin, and filled it up with Mega blocks. He climbed onto the couch  and tried dragging the bin with him. I helped out. He tried building with blocks on the couch, but the surface was not too sturdy. Then he dumped out the whole bin onto the couch, but there was not that satisfying sound of blocks hitting a hard surface. He started throwing them off the couch onto the floor, one by one. One of them hit a toy xylophone and produced a melodious tone. He started aiming in that direction.

He dumped out all the train tracks and started throwing them into the toy oven. Then he tried climbing inside, but it was not comfortable, sitting on all those wooden pieces. He climbed into the nearby compartment instead and worked hard on closing the door behind him.

He stuffed some blocks into the couch. He built and destroyed multiple times. He made a tremendous mess. He is obviously learning about what fits into what, and he is getting some kind of kick of placing the toys inside and then dumping them out.

I watched and thought: if I did not have all these toys out and available to play, he would surely not stay busy for as long as he did. If I made him clean up after he played with each toy, he would not be combining them in those crazy combinations. And if I spent so much time agonizing over how messy the room would look at the end, I would not be able to observe what he was doing while happily making this mess.

How many times, when the kids get older, we hand them a blank piece of paper and tell them to be creative: write up something, draw up something, fold up something new? How many times we expect them to make something wonderful out of a box, or a roll of toilet paper, or some paper scraps when we always give them only one set of preselected materials and extol them not to make too much of a mess? And then, one day, we expect them to combine random materials and make something totally new and amazing?

So here is to messy playrooms, mixed-up toys and creative kids. Here is to parents who will dare to put their kids' need to explore before their need for a "presentable" house. Here is to keeping that insatiable curiosity of a toddler alive in much older kids (and adults).

In case you are wondering, I do clean up those Mega blocks with 1 yo every time he goes to sleep. We sing "clean up" song, and he dumps them into the bag. He likes to put each block into his mouth first and then let it go right over the bag. He is also very tempted to dump the entire bag once it is full. But we do a basic clean-up.

viduy

Some days I wonder: why do we homeschool? Wouldn't they all be better off in their respective classrooms, with peers and trained teachers? They certainly wouldn't be spending their time flying remote control helicopters, bickering, reading random pieces of paper lying around, doodling...

And then we have a good experience, and I know that it could not have happened if they were in school.

Last night I talked on the phone to a mother of a former classmate of 10 yo. She was consulting about potentially homeschooling her son; the bullying situation in school got unbearable and the child did not want to go to school in the morning. Moreover, the bullying was done by a kid who was supposedly a good friend, which made it even more devastating.

I sort of told it over to my 10 yo, telling him to watch out for this boy in shul, and to be nice to him. His response: "Why would they bully him? He even wears the same kippa as everyone else, not like me!" Oh, I so wish that everything would be that easy, and that every kid would look around and see no faults in others.

Today I finally sat 10 yo down to go over Yom Kippur Amida. Being an insane person (or overly ambitious), I have just given a class for women on the basic structure of Yom Kippur davening, so it felt funny that I prepared and taught this material to others, while my kid would be in the dark.

He had seen Rosh HaShana Amidah, so the beginning parts were easy. He chose to use Metsudah machzor which has translation side by side. I pointed out the differences in the Kedushat Hayom, and he sort of listened, sort of rolled his eyes. Then we got to viduy. He said, I know what it is: ashamnu, bagadnu... I read and translated the preliminary bit, and then he read each word of the acrostic. I focused on how Hashem knows everything, and how we might not even be aware that we have sinned. We read over most of the rest of viduy, and he got very serious and very sad. I saw that he was taking this all close to heart. I explained that Hashem forgives our sins, as long as we confess them sincerely. Hashem erases our sins, and they lift like smoke. He was teary-eyed, and he said that he is aware of how many mean things he has done. I told him to remember that sincere teshuva is accepted. I also told him that people who used to sin and then stop and repent are held in higher regard than people who never sinned.


I was starting to think that maybe I overdid it with viduy, until it was time to go to Costco, and the boys returned to their old cheerful selves, ramming each other with the carts. At that point, I was almost wondering whether any of this stuck, until he asked me, later on in the day, wouldn't it be embarrassing to recite viduy out loud, so that everyone would hear your sins? I said that people say it in unison, not too loudly, unless one's sins are well-known, and then they can be recited.

I do not know whether going over viduy is on a curriculum for 5th grade yeshiva. That brought me back to a question asked by a parent last night: how do I test my kids to make sure they are keeping up? I said that I do not do testing beyond state requirements, and I do not worry about keeping up. I worry about the level of each individual child. I felt that 10 yo is ready to be familiarized with the structure of Amidah, and that he was ready to take a closer look at viduy. What I do know, if those boys who are so abusive to her son would have had a sincere experience of sitting down with a parent, going over viduy, and thinking how their actions affect others, and how they will have to ask for forgiveness in just one more day, I bet the bullying situation would not have been so bad.

In the meanwhile, I ache for this boy and his intolerable situation. I ache for my kids who are not getting the calmest parent and the best education possible. I ache for the dayschool system which does not allow kids to blossom outside of a very narrow definition. I ache for the kids who will go into Yom Kippur and come out exactly the same way because nobody took the time to make it meaningful. I ache for mothers who resent having their kids home the whole Yom Kippur. I ache for the mothers who will try to make Yom Kippur meaningful, yet will feel that they do not live up to some impossible standard of self-sacrifice if they do not manage to daven AND feed everyone AND break up the fights AND keep the kids quiet because daddy came home to take as nap.

I ache for the sin of superficiality pervading Jewish community.

May this Yom Kippur strip all the veneer and reach deep into your heart.

suddenly, a dress!

So a Jew and a Catholic fall in love with the same dress...

No, this is not a beginning of a joke, it's a beginning of a nice story.

I have a homeschooling friend, Talitha Seibel. We met through our homeschool coop, which is very open and diverse, but also very respectful of people's differences and diversity. I am an unapologetic observant Jew and she is a new Catholic, as in, a Catholic by choice.

Now, what would a nice Jewish girl have in common with a Catholic lady?

Well, we have homeschooling (chuck it up to being weirdos). We have children who are no typical, and we are not shy to share that with the world. And we also have this whole dressing modestly thing. Talitha is a great seamstress and a DIY kind of person. She fearlessly walks into thrift shops, walks out with other people's trash, and, with a few snips and tucks, converts it into treasures. She has a great sense of style. But she is also into dressing modestly: old-fashioned bathing suits, skirts, and classy style.

Which brings me to the dress.

I haven't gotten any new clothes for Rosh haShana. I missed the deadline for dropping off my sheitel for its semi-annual wash and styling. I was feeling not very pretty going into this Yom Tov. On erev Rosh HaShana I opened my facebook page to see Talitha post a whole bunch of dresses for sale. And one of those caught my eye: knee-length, elbow-length, belted, and with a pretty neckline.

The reason Talitha resorts to selling dresses online has to do with her other belief: her family is gearing up to become foster parents. Talitha has four children of her own and a modest house, yet she feels strongly that she has space in her heart and in her life for those kids aching for a normal environment. The only space Talitha lacks is the actual physical space for those kids. Most of us would sigh at this point and say, oh well, not meant to be. Not Talitha; she and her husband Travis are building an extension to their house to make space for these foster kids. Talitha's crafts offset the costs of such construction. In fact, being DIY types, they have built everything themselves, a feat which I cannot begin to comprehend.

So the dress was there, and the money would be going directly to a good cause. The only question was: will this dress fit me and make my Yom Tov?

I drove over to try it on. As we pulled in front of the house, the boys asked me: not the one with the cross? I said, yes, that's the one. I also said, they know we are Jewish, and they are very respectful of that. And so it was: I came in, looked at the dress and it fit me well. No proselytizing took place, just some feather sharing among the kids.

I was elated to have a sudden Yom Tov dress. I got compliments over Rosh HaShana and I loved how it sat on me. I was thanking Talitha and her sense of both style and modesty for such a great addition to my wardrobe. In fact, I put the dress on on Sunday just to get this picture.

If you would like to see what Talitha has in store, please click on this link:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1245408022&sk=photos&collection_token=1245408022%3A2305272732%3A69&set=a.10203695757734873&type=1
She adds new items as they become available and removes the ones sold.