pre-pesach jitters

Pesach is coming.

I don't want to read about fifty gazillion amazing things I can do with matzah.
I don't want to read about twenty desserts that taste like chametz.
I don't want another handy Pesach checklist.
I don't want to read about your panic over dirt in the bottom of your fridge which your OCD will not let you pass over.
I don't want to read about your emergency of a cleaning lady or a babysitter quitting. I definitely do not want to read how stressed you are over having your kids home for a whopping three days.

As we get closer, I do not want to see cute ideas for seder set-up. I don't want to see a charoset bar. Charoset was supposed to symbolize clay, the back-breaking labor of the Jews. There is a good reason why we had to leave Egypt and materialistic slavery behind. I am not planning on slaving over charoset.

I do not want to see your seder set-up unless:
1.I am invited to the said seder.
2. Your kids set the table up, with all the imperfections and cuteness, and you JUST LEFT IT as they set it.

Every year I tell myself not to stress over Pesach, and every year I find myself stressing. I have been in tears just about every night last week. Last night, to top it all off, 2 yo managed to march downstairs, into Pesach kitchen, with a cup full of chametz cereal. We do not allow food downstairs, keeping it chametz-free year-round. We usually keep the gate closed, but I guess it was left open with all the cooking and running back and forth, He used the opportunity. I lost it. I yelled at all the kids to get into the pajamas NOW, and get into bed. I did not tuck anyone in (except for putting 2 yo into his crib). Then I sat on the couch and cried.

Pesach is supposed to be about freedom, and we are supposed to free ourselves from expectations. We are supposed to let go, be ready to shift perspective. Every year I beat myself up for not reading up more about the seder, for not feeling ready to tell the story of Yetziat Mitzraim, for not engaging the kids enough, for stressing too much about food and cleaning, and not enough about what is really important.

Every year I want to make something memorable for the kids, and every year it ends up being a last minute project, not completed because I am out of time and steam. This year, I sat at the computer and typed up a bunch of questions pertaining to the seder. Most of them are open-ended, not halachic, in hope of engaging even my younger kids. I printed them, cut the out, and folded each piece of paper. I' m hoping to place them in the middle of the seder table to spark some discussion. I'm also planning on serving a lot of veggies for karpas, to keep them munching. Finally, I made candied nuts, to be given out to kids for good questions and good answers. That is straight from the Gemara. The wine was supposed to engage the adults, the treats were supposed to engage the children.

Every year I hope it will be different.
Every year I hope to get more learning done with the kids, so that they come to the seder prepared.
Every year it ends up being the same: short of my expectations, stressful, sometimes meaningless.

My boys love Pesach because of their birthdays. They love the season. They love plotting how to steal the afikoman and where to hide it. (We had a memorable hiding spot many years ago behind the garbage can in the bathroom). I doubt they love the stress that I am feeling. I don't want them to remember the stress, I want them to remember the excitement and the joy. I don't want them to remember the food. I don't want them to dread the food, either, but it should not be the focus.

I am still learning how to balance it all: be happy in cooking and cleaning, be learned enough to know what to clean, be relaxed enough so that I am available to the children, and get it all done on time.

If we all had to leave our current materialistic Egypt, would we be able to? Or would we be too attached to the way we always do things to let go?

Great Friday night

It hasn't happened in such a long time, that I almost forgot how fun we can all be. Between the day-to-day stresses of running a household, between my husband working, between the diagnosis of 7 yo and possibility of school for 9 yo, between the baby still not quite sleeping through the night, it is so easy to be constantly in a crisis managing mode, and oh-so-serious.

What we all needed was a break, and we somehow pulled it off this Friday night. We had no company, not even my in-laws. I made a very simple meal: curry cauliflower soup from "Manna from Heaven" that my kids adore, salmon, potatoes and salad. For dessert we had a banana cream pie from Walmart sale rack (9 yo said it tasted like fluoride treatment at the dentist, but it sure looked good!) On Friday morning the kids listened to Rabbi Juravel on the parsha from shabbat.com. I am not so comfortable with the amount of misrashim that he puts into story, but he gets kids engaged and they do know what is there, and are eager to discuss it, so for now, that is our parsha learning.

My husband got home early enough before shabbos to clean the house a bit. I am not talking spic and span, more so one can walk without stepping on Cheerios. The local minyan around the corner was not happening this week, so he stayed home for mincha and maariv. We even sang a bit of Lecha Dodi. My boys do not want to go to shul with him, so for them, it was not so different from a regular Friday night.

Once we made kiddush and hamotzi, and the meal got on its way, we started talking about the parsha. We give out jelly beans for answering a good question, and they are age-appropriate for each kid. 3 yo was not engaging, even though she heard quite a bit of the parsha, so I decided to do a bit of acting with her. I told her that she will be Miriam, and her doll will be Moshe. She loved having a mission to put her baby brother into a basket and watch him go down the river. My husband was playing the role of Egyptian princess, and 7 yo was his maidservant. A pool noodle (I had it under the couch to prevent the toys form rolling there, but it was appropriated as a weapon) was used as a long arm to reach the baby. My husband was pretty funny, claiming that he has no idea what to do with this baby, dangling the doll by one leg upside down. The kids were giggling. I sent 3 yo over, to offer to bring the baby's mother to nurse this baby. By this point, her real baby brother was trying to climb into the basket, and she was pushing him out, making space for doll Moshe.

Then the boys asked to act out Moshe and the burning bush. They assigned roles: 9 yo--Hashem's voice, 7 yo--lost sheep, 3 yo--snake, my husband as Moshe and I was the burning bush. The baby was just free crawling through this all. I got to wave the bright orange pillows, 3 yo kept jumping up and hissing, and sheep was bleating, and Hashem and Moshe has a very interesting conversation. The baby took off with Moshe's discarded shoes. The above-mentioned pool noodle became a staff, but then it morphed into a phone line. We all dissolved into laughter.

While I tucked in the baby, my husband read a good night story to the older kids. The whole night was just so nice and light-hearted, and fun.

As a baalat teshuva, I did not grow up with Shabbos. I did not go away to camp, and I did not go to Israel, so I do not have that amazing uplifting spiritual treasure trove of Shabbos experiences to tap into.  Every now and then I get a glimpse of this alternate spiritual state that is Shabbos. I fret about it, I wish I knew how to maintain it and bring it to my family regularly. We keep Shabbos, we refrain from melacha and make kiddush. We daven, we go to shul and discuss parsha. And yet, often, that Shabbos feeling is not there. My husband might get called up, the kids sulk, I sulk, too much pressure to entertain and have company and go out, and socialize. I know it can be simple, but in the day-to-day living, it is so easy to lose track of how simple it can be.

I decided not to have people over any Shabbos that my husband might be called up. I also think that we need to establish one Shabbos a month when it is just us, and I can make a very simple meal, so that the emphasis will be on having a good time together.

nearly perfect

Last morning was the new round of coop classes. I signed up for set-up duty, which means that now we have to be there half an hour earlier. I did not realize it will be during the week when we change clocks. So, last morning, at 7:30, as I was trying to wake my boys up, I was informed that they are planning a play about gazelles and hunters, which involves scissors, cardboard, rubber bands and K'NEX. This would have been fine any other morning...

You know the day when your kids claim to love every class, everyone behaves, the weather is gorgeous, you make it to the zoo, and when you finally come home, the kids just can't wait to get started on their Ancient Egypt dioramas? Well, yesterday was one of those days.

If yesterday was nearly perfect homeschooling day out, today was nearly perfect homeschooling day in. During my breakfast, 5 yo brought over an illustrated copy of Alice and we read the first chapter. The kids both started next unit of Rosetta Stone. 7 yo happily received next volume of Story of the World. We did timeline for the first volume which involved measuring, drawing a straight line with a ruler, marking off intervals, figuring how many years will fit on each page, multiplication and division by 10. I have hard time classifying it all as a subject. Then he started putting in a bunch of dates, and when I asked whether it's enough for today, he just wanted to keep on going, even after he realized that some dates were not correctly marked and had to be fixed. While he was working on that project, 5 yo finished reading The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. I read some history to him, which had to do with ancient Egypt. Just perfect for his Egypt class and for upcoming Pesach. We read how Nile floods and farmers depended on it. We also read how Egyptians worshipped the paroh, because they thought he had control over flooding Nile. I read to him the Osiris myth. Then I explained why it was important that the first plague affected Nile: to show that paroh is not in control and to makes Egyptians worry about their livelihood.

Then we did math. 5 yo got to play with base ten blocks and I saw now that he does get the concept of place value. He was able to trade successfully and pull out the right amount of blocks. Whew! He also got the play with them by creating a house for his baby Zhu Zhu.

Then I did megillah with 7 yo. We read first three pesukim of 5th perek. I explained the setup of Achashverosh sitting and Esther approaching in the doorway and him being stunned by her appearance. 7 yo translated bakashatech as asking; I explained that it was a request. He wondered why she did not ask for the Jewish people then. Then, in the next pasuk, he got that Esther is making a meal for "him", the king, but she is also inviting Haman. Then the boys wanted to act this scene out. 5 yo was Achashverosh, a flip-flop was the scepter, 7 yo was the palace guard with an iguana as a sword. I got to be Esther.

Now, thinking back about it, it is strange that 7 yo didn't want to be Achashverosh. I guess he's not being held in high regard, royal status aside.

Then, after lunch, 7 yo did math. I got the scale with pounds and ounces and we went back over the measurements that he previously estimated. But the surprise came when there was a review problem, 61-56. He borrowed a 10 from 6, but recorded it as a 10, not as 11. At that point, I pulled out those blocks and made him do it again. He saw the discrepancy, but could not figure out why. I showed it to him again. Then I gave him a block of two-digit subtraction problems. He did those fine, but none had 1 in the ones. I gave him another one, 31-15, and he again forgot about 1 in the ones! His school teacher claimed that he was doing very well in math... he got the concept, but something like this slipped through.

7 yo flew through Lashon Hatorah. I will have to get him new workbooks when we'll be up in New York. I am thinking about getting them for 5 yo too.

Then we did spelling, which was review today. He got a bit discouraged that he got any words wrong. Then we did art, which today involved looking for lines and movement in sculptures. I Googled Greek sculptures, and he enjoyed both looking for movement and trying to identify who's portrayed without reading the captions.

5 yo did Handwriting Without Tears quickly and then stumbled in Lama. He wanted me to sit next to him. He wanted to take a rest. He wanted me to write it for him. I said I would write one line, if he tells me what goes there. He wanted me to go away and to make a surprise for me. Then he was just lying there, moping.

Then we picked up some friends and the kids had a playdate. At some point, I went into the backyard to dump out composting and to turn the pile. Eventually, all kids ended up outside. 7 yo declared that he will do weeding, not because anyoen is forcing him, but to make the yard look nice. Wel,, the way our yard looks now, I could use a whole lot of cats and a VOOM!