permission to have fun

My older boys are sitting at the computer, typing up a shareable spreadsheet of what they would hypothetically want. It was my idea, when 12 yo approached me with yet another wish that he had. I suggested that he starts writing those wishes down and then, closer to his birthday or Yom Tov, he can take a look and decide what he is still interested in. He wanted to make a Word document, but his more electronics-savvy older brother took over and suggested Excel. I chimed in that if they do a Google doc, we can all see it and edit it and share it. 14 yo immediately corrected me that it is a Sheet...

I am standing there, folding laundry. It is not boys' laundry, but it does contain their bedsheets, towels that the whole family used and many other items. I am folding laundry and every once in a while go to do something else: chop fruit to make a pitcher of sangria "for later", check my phone, put away dinner leftovers.

Since this wishlist ended up being designed like a family wishlist, 12 yo asked me what is it that I wished for. I said, I wish I were not the only one folding laundry so that I could get to sit on the back porch while it is still daylight and watch the second Lion King movie. I have never seen it. I checked it out of the library for the kids because it was free and not available through Netflix or Amazon Prime. The kids saw all three Lion King movies, and some of them twice during the period that we had them out. I know it is due back later this week. I know it was released two decades ago. But I still have not seen it.

So instead of doing what I wanted to do (watch a G movie with sangria and maybe even with the company of those who appreciate Disney sequels), I am folding laundry, convincing myself that as soon as I am done with the laundry I will get around to watching the movie. It is almost like making myself swallow a bitter pill because I know sweet things are coming. Except that I often never get to the rewarding part of doing what I want to do. Because the reward is not a given, I am really resenting this laundry. I am constantly interrupting my tedious task with those other diversions: what's on Facebook? What's in that e-mail? Oh, look, food to be Saran-wrapped and put away. I am distracting myself from a distraction.
Brene Brown talks about writing a permission slip to herself to loosen up and have fun. I might need to take up her practice. My boys certainly gave themselves permission to sit and browse and hypothesize while the dinner is still on the table, the family laundry is piled high and they might not have a clean dry pair of socks between the two of them

chumash shemot and Purim

We started Chumash Shemot with 10 yo. I went to our local Judaica store, to pick up a copy with Rashi with nekudot, but they did not have it in stock, so they are ordering it for us. In the meanwhile, I pulled out regular Mikraot G'dolot.

10 yo seemed eager to start. He even talked about doing an aliyah a day. (I panicked, since I only prepared about 15 pesukim, assuming we will stick with 5 a day, and Purim being at the end of the week.) We ended up doing 10 pesukim. He seems ok reading Rashi without nekudot, although he vocalizes any way he pleases. He asked, why is Yosef not mentioned as one of the children of Yakov, but then he figured it out from the p'shat. I showed him Rashi on women having 6 babies at a time, and then we discussed whether it really meant that. I used example of post-Holocaust families having more children than average, and how that, going on for a few generations, results in appearance of teeming.

We also discussed whether this was a new Paro, or the same Paro. He asked me whether Paro was from Amalek, since he was being cruel to the Jews. I said that Paro was Egyptian, and we will see the differences in Paro's approach vs. Amalek. So far he figured out that Paro felt threatened by the Jews' reproduction rate to the point that he felt they were more numerous. I told him to consider how many Jews were there entering Egypt, and how many Jews came out, compared to the number of the Egyptians. I am finding this a nice segue into both Purim and Pesach.

Speaking of Purim, I feel like I have totally slacked off. I pulled out Purim stories after my daughter repeatedly asked about them. I have not read over the megillah with either boy. Well, actually, 8 yo read the first three pesukim to me. He read them pretty smoothly, and even translated quite a bit. That was a pleasant surprise. And then the rest did not happen. I thought, maybe we'll get through the first perek, but it does not look like it.

Every year I think, it's OK, we'll get to it next year, and every year, something is going on. I downloaded the Purim Story from Mostly Music, so the kids listened to it on our trip to the conference last week. The boy rejected my usual Purim music; they are getting too old for this stuff. I did make them compare the book that we got from the PJ library to the real story of Esther, and write out the discrepancies. In fact, the book was so bad that I ended up recycling it. My daughter asked me to read it to her, and after the first reading, I just could not bring myself up to keep on reading such inaccurate story. I recommend "Queen Esther Saves Her People", another PJ library book that we previously got.

I leave you with a picture from this book. See if you can catch what's wrong with it.

What's wrong with this picture?

This one is courtesy of my son ( 7 yo). It's in the back of S'fateinu, and since we were almost done with the book, we skipped ahead to Chanukah. He was looking at the pictures and exclaimed: look, this is crazy!

Can you see what got him riled up?

What's wrong with this picture?

This is from a nice and standard science book. Can you find the mistake?

Whats wrong with this picture? Answers.

 1. Look at that poor chicken. Look at its drumsticks. They are coming out of its shoulders. There are no wings! Who stole the wings? Who can bear to eat the mutant chicken? If you say that's the bottom, then that chicken must have been a cripple, hopping on its rear end, with legs sticking up straight into the air.




2. This is supposed to be a depiction of two witnesses observing the new moon, for the declaration of the new month. Well, I am sorry to say, but their testimony will be discounted , as that is the old (waning) moon. The new moon always faces the other way. There are very set phases of the moon, and one can tell where in the lunar month we are based on the phase. I guess that the illustrator did not actually look heavenward every month when he was saying kiddush levana. As an aside, my father OBM taught me to tell old and new moon apart. Old moon looks like letter C, as in the image. For Russian speakers, staraia starts with the same letter. New moon is the reverse, the curve of P, rojdennaia, in Russian.







If you have any more incorrect illustrations, I would love to see them.

What's wrong with this picture?

I am all for illustrated children's books, and I do understand the concept of artistic liberty, but the point of illustration is to depict reality. In the past couple weeks, here are two illustrations that jumped out at me as being drawn from fancy, without checking for accuracy.

From kids' siddur, Shabbos table

From Parsha book, sighting of the new moon

Can you tell what's wrong with these pictures?

Sadly, I think I will have more to add to this category...