yet another day

8 yo charting the travels of Avram

We have been on a crazy trip to NY. My sister got married last Wednesday, so we drove up. By "we", I mean myself and the kids.

I am hoping to blog about the highlights of the trip someday soon.

We got back late Monday night and the rest of the week was spent trying to come back to our senses. We did a bit of Lashon HaTorah and math every day. I got 8 yo to review Chayei Sarah, to catch up to the place where we were. It only took two days, and he was able to translate everything on his own.

On Tuesday 8 yo woke up with a toothache, which was caused by an infected tooth and a few cavities. I am clamping down on my relaxed teeth brushing habits. My son is on antibiotic and, hopefully, we will save that tooth. He got pretty scared, decided to avoid dessert and is quite anal about taking his medicine. Thankfully, I do not even remember last time he took any antibiotic, so there is novelty in it. He also claims that it is like getting dessert three times a day.

Today was my turn to visit the dentist. I had to get a babysitter, as I was not sure how long the visit would take, and we got new insurance which sometimes takes forever to process. I did not want to make my kids wait for a long time in the waiting room. Now I know exactly how much my "services" cost: $13.75 an hour. Now 13.75 times 24 hours times 7 days a week is 2310$. There, that's my weekly salary.

While I was at the dentist, I got a call that the friends of ours from another town will be coming over for a visit. My kids like to play with them, and there was pizza involved, so when I got home, I used this as a bargaining chip to get schoolwork done.

This week is parsha Lech-Lecha, which 8 yo learned in school last year. I asked him whether he would like to prepare it and teach it to his brother. He agreed. I told him that I usually take notes of the main highlights of the story. He opened up a Stone Chumash, and wrote two pages worth of notes. He also requested a map of Mesopotamia to chart Avram's travels. Oh, and he wants to study a Ramban on the parsha. That one will have to wait till tomorrow, when I have time to prepare one.

When he was telling about abduction of Sarah, here are the illustrations he drew:

Apparently Sarah was referred to as "cutie pie", and, when things did not work out, Avram and Sarah were told to scram, in their car.

After this part, 6 yo lost interest, so 8 yo learned a valuable lesson of teaching: teach each according to his way. I sent him to do math. Both of the boys have been slowly working through Math Mammoth. Neither one adores it, but they do not complain too much. 8 yo is plagued by careless mistakes, and his addition/subtraction is still not automatic. 6 yo is moving right along, except when he decides that something is too hard.

By the time out friends got here, 6 yo has been done with all his schoolwork for a while, and 8 yo still had Lashon HaTorah and new pesukim left to do. We all went to pizza, which gave everyone a chance to catch up. Then the kids came over to play. I asked 8 yo to finish LHT before playing, and he asked his friends to stay outside while he finished.

The kids eventually subdivided by genders: all girls went downstairs to play with tents, while the boys played with bows, arrows and tepees outside. There was quite an age range, and the kids did mix for legos, but, overall, the division was by interests, same as grown-ups subdivide into social groups and clubs.

After the play time was over, I sat 8 yo down and reminded him that it's his night to make dinner. He said that he is not hungry yet. Then I said that we will do chumash. We had 4 pesukim left till the end of the perek, and he completed them. He called on one Rashi when something in the pshat did not make sense. I also asked him the overarching question of why spend all this space on telling us that Avraham got a burial plot for Sarah. Eventually, we concluded that this is the proof that the land was bought ( acquired) in a public transaction. I felt quite a bit of satisfaction, but my son glowed: I finished a perek in 3 days!

Then it was on to dinner. He originally wanted to make salami sandwiches, but he rebuffed my idea of putting necessary items on the shopping list when we went grocery shopping on Tuesday. Now it was a bit after 5pm, and he had to come up with dinner. He found some rolls from our trip. The salami he was planning to use was worrying me, due to not being the freshest, so I suggest frying it up. He joked that it turned into little kippas. While the salami was frying, he made a salad: sliced romaine lettuce, chopped cucumber and baby carrots. 6 yo came and also wanted to help. He chopped some pickles. The amount of ketchup used at this meal qualified it as a vegetable. In the middle of this meal, 8 yo said that he had a good day, not a fun day, but a good day nonetheless. He also expressed quite a bit of pride in his meal and said that now he can move away from PBJs. I am just hoping to get him into habit of planning ahead, executing, and cleaning up.

After everyone had diced peaches for dessert, I did a Tom Sawyer move of the night: I told boys that they could watch the presidential debate if they clean up everything upstairs. 6 yo protested and suggested Pokemon instead, but 8 yo convinced him that at least he gets to watch something. 6 yo lasted for about 20 minutes, while 8 yo had to be interrupted in the middle to go to sleep. The most curious thing though: after telling people that he would vote for Romney, he said that he likes the things that Obama said. He talked about taxes and solar power and new teacher hires and being concerned how much money those new teachers would cost. ( Confession: maybe this kid should vote instead of me, I did not watch the debate!) I am also so proud that he is open-minded enough to listen to the arguments made instead of sticking to his guns.

We concluded our day with a new nightly ritual: trying to feel the baby move. I get to answer questions like what's it like inside the uterus and can the baby cry and whether all the parts are formed already and why is the baby swimming in its own pee. Overall, it is very sweet and mellow, as everyone is being gentle and I feel so many loving hands on my belly.

somebody has got to pay

This is a little rant, slightly off-topic, but on a subject that is near and dear to my heart: natural childbirth.

A bit of background: my husband is an OB-GYN. I had one highly interventionist birth and two natural ones. I am not a crunchy granola type, but I read up quite a bit on natural birthing and midwifery. Therefore, I do believe that most babies can be born safely, without medical intervention or assistance and probably not even in a medical setting. Or, as my husband would paraphrase: an OB should have small hands and big behind, so that he could sit on those small hands with his behind and let the birthing commence.

However, there is a subset of women who do require medical assistance, whether in coping with prolonged labor, pushing baby out, or for obvious fetal distress. There are extremely overweight patients, diabetic, with multiple health issues, requesting an epidural and laboring on their back. Needless to say, by the time it comes to pushing, they might not be very active participants at all. They cannot flip on all fours to resolve a shoulder dystocia. There are women who are scared of the pain, so they prefer epidural and whichever drug cocktail during labor. Finally, there are clear indications for c-section. Unlike what a lot of militant midwife literature would lead one to believe, c-section was not invented in the 20th century to streamline doctors' schedule, c-section has always operated as a last resort. Till 20th century, the choice used to be between the life of the mother or the life of the baby. Nowadays, most people expect a happy ending, where everyone goes home safe and sound.

Why am I writing this now? That's because my husband is attending a birth of a woman whose baby has been in distress since 4 am. (It is 9 pm now). This woman chose to labor at home with a midwife for a VBAC. So far, so good, more power to her for trying to swim against the current, making her own choice. The problem is, the midwife did not have a doctor backing her up, so when the baby showed signs of distress, the woman was brought to the nearest hospital and they called the doctor on call, who happened to be my husband. Now, the happy ending would be a section right then and there, but the problem was, this lady wanted an epidural to cope with the pain. Epidural slows labor down. Epidural confines mother to the bed. Epidural does not allow one to walk and use gravity to bring the baby lower into the pelvis. In short, a patient with an epidural is not laboring as effectively as one without. By the time my husband got there, the woman was dilating, but the baby was high up in her pelvis, nowhere near the delivery, and showing those signs of distress for which the midwife brought her in in the first place. The other problem was, this lady was adamant about not getting a repeat c-section.

All of this dragged on the whole day. I understand that woman's perspective: nobody wants a major abdominal surgery. She probably envisioned a very different birth, and a certain amount of control over the situation. She wanted to be given a bit more time, let the things progress on their own.

But I would like all patients like this to understand the situation from our perspective (my husband's and mine):
My husband has been up and at the hospital since 4am, when the nurses called him in. He had another two c-sections scheduled today, together with a gynecological surgery. He has not been home the whole day. I have not seen him the whole day and neither did the kids. This is not a nine-to-five job, with a round of golf and martinins to take your mind off things. So we  adjusted to a very different day from the one we were supposed to have. (Not golf and martinis, but, maybe an outing to Bruster's after dinner and some help in tucking kids into bed). Now, this lady's baby has been in distress for so long, that there is a possibility that something might be wrong with it. There might be some oxygen deprivation, some developmental delays, or some other form of damage. And that's where the lawyers come swooping in. This patient did not have a previous relationship with a doctor, so, instead of thinking about how she might be responsible for any possibly bad outcome, a scapegoat will be found. A scapegoat in the form of an evil doctor, who SHOULD have done something different. By this point, all natural hopes go out the window, and it becomes a malpractice suit, because someone has got to pay.

An average obstetrician gets sued four times during his career. The lawsuits are usually brought by the patients who do not have a relationship with a doctor, the walk-ins. The insurance companies are so worried about losing a case that they often choose to settle, even if the obstetrician did nothing wrong. And it is easier to accuse an obstetrician of wrongdoing when nothing was done, than when medical procedures were performed, such as a c-section.

I am all for natural childbirth, women's education about what our bodies are meant to do and as few interventions in labor as possible. But next time someone goes on a rampage blaming obstetricians for every singe thing that went wrong, please spare me.

oil and water do not mix

It's been Tishrei. There have been holidays up to wazoo. There has not been a lot of formal learning going on. Ok, there has not been any formal learning, nothing which produces nice neat worksheets, completed pages, checks, grades, nothing assessable with a multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank standard test. And next week my sister is getting married, in New York, so there won't be any formal schooling taking place till we come back, in the middle of the following week.

A part of me is panicking. That's the part which wants to be able to have something to show for our homeschooling: those pages covered, material taught, worksheets completed. A wiser part of me is saying that there is still tons of learning going on, of the more permanent kind. It is not easily quantifiable and assessable, but it is still there.

For example, our lunch today. We had to run a bunch of errands: fix the car's headlight, get haircuts for all the kids, buy groceries for Shabbos and snacks for the road. As a result we finally got home for lunch by 1:30. The boys asked for pizza bagels and were snacking on veggies dipped in ranch dressing while waiting for them to bake. 8 yo, dreamily: "I wonder what happens when you pour oil into the cup first, and then pour water on top." The teacher in me: "So what do you think happens?" 8 yo:" The water is denser, so it will be on top of oil."

The teacher in me thought of the mistakes in this reasoning. The teacher in me thought of the oil droplets floating on top of the chicken soup. The teacher in me thought that by the point a child reaches 8, he SHOULD know what happens when you mix oil and water. Luckily, the wiser side of me took over.

"Do you think it matters what gets poured in first: oil or water? Why?"
6 yo chimed in that he thinks that oil will float on water because water is heavier. 8 yo maintained that if oil gets poured in first, it gets pushed down by denser water. By that point, we had to try it out. 8 yo was actually surprised that oil floated on top. He was also surprised that it formed bubbles. I asked what happens when you mix juice with water (something we routinely do). There he knew that it stays mixed. I introduced terms "hydrophilic" and "hydrophobic". 8 yo was able to take them apart and figure out their meaning. I explained how oil molecules are afraid of water and try to stick together, looking for each other and holding hands.

The boys added more water to the cup, till the oil layer separated into droplets. Then they stuck their fingers through the oil layer. Then they cleaned up the mess.

Ok, nothing great and amazing here. No scientific breakthroughs, no charts, graphs, not even a short entry in a science notebook. But the difference is, the question came from within, the experiment was designed to answer the question, and 8 yo peacefully acknowledged that his younger brother was right all along. I think that the answer is more likely to linger in his mind this way.

How many times, when I taught science to middle schoolers, I was waiting for them to ask a question and then to come up with an answer! But their minds were more often on the interrupted game of kickball, or the  assigned reading of the day, than on what I wanted them to do. It is impossible to run a classroom like this, waiting for kids to formulate their own burning questions and then figure out how to get answers. Yet, somehow, by the time one reaches graduate school, one is expected to do just that: here is what we know, figure out how to ask what has not been asked yet, and then figure out how to answer that and to prove it. In short, we are doing a lousy job of producing true thinkers.

This is a graphic of the High School report card of John Gurdon, this year's recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Obviously, his teacher did not think much about his abilities. Obviously, this guy did not fit into a neat little box. Obviously this "out-of-box" thinking is what led to his Nobel Prize.

Now, I am not expecting my kids to win Nobel Prizes, but I expect them to think and work beyond what is traditionally expected. The more I think about it, the more I realize that unschooling is a fertile ground, waiting to be mined for gems, beckoning to be explored.

tackling mishnayot

Do you know what was the original reason why I did not homeschool my 8 yo when we moved? I was afraid that he will have to start on Mishna in 3rd grade, and I have no idea how to teach him Mishna. I was never taught Mishna. Yes, we have Mishna with translation at home, yes, I know the basic organization, and yes, I am aware that it is not that hard. Some brave souls might have even feebly suggested that I can do it, but I was so afraid, that I chose to put him in first grade because I was worried about teaching him a subject in 3rd grade.


As last school year was coming to a close, and I already had him at home, I had to confront this Mishan issue. I spoke to a few people and friends, trying to figure out whether I would find a rebbi to teach him. By this point, we were bending so many rules, that I found a suggestion of waiting another year (or two) and not starting Mishnayot at 8 quite reasonable. And it gave me more time to either tackle it myself or to find an appropriate teacher. Meanwhile, we invested in a book called "Tallis Ends and Other Tales" by Rabbi Don Channen. My boys devoured it. It presents a few different mishnayot in cartoon format, with rhymed story line. I figured that it is a good, fun introduction for now, with the hope of making Mishnayot less daunting in the future. I also found a file on chinuch.org about systematically teaching mishnayot, so that demystified the whole process to me a bit. In the meanwhile, I was planning on sitting this year out.

http://www.amazon.com/Tallis-Cartoon-Mishnah-Learning-Series/dp/965229053X

Well, a couple weeks ago, my husband took both boys with him to the early shabbos minyan. They davened some, helped set up kiddush (with great pride), noshed and then they had an hour to kill before Shabbos groups started in our regular shul. My husband decided to crack a mishna with 8 yo. 6 yo did not want to do it, so he was given Artscroll Chumash, opened to the weekly parshah. He read the whole thing while my husband introduced the older one to Nezikin. (He chose Nezikin because that's what his rebbe started him off on, and, I guess, he was familiar with it off the top of his head). That day, both boys came home happy to share what they learned. 8 yo told me about four damaging things and even remembered their names in Hebrew. I thought: great, he is not intimidated and even interested. Perhaps this whole Mishna learning could become a father-son bonding thing.

Another few days went by, and there was a quiet Friday night evening. Two younger ones went to shul, so I asked 8 yo whether he wanted to learn something. He said that he wanted to continue Nezikin. I trembled, I absolutely did not know what to do and where to start and how we are going to do this... but before I had a chance to voice any of this, he said that he will just read it in English and he does not need me. He spent an hour reading the mishnayot on his own. He excitedly called out when he came to a case that he was familiar with from "Tallis Ends".

This past Shabbos, as I was gearing up to read goodnight stories, he said that he wants to read more mishnayot, and he proceeded from there. He even said that he hopes to make a siyum on Nezikin, only he does not know what he'll give his d'var Torah on. It seems that mishna is not as scary I thought it to be.

I am aware that it's not the way Mishna is studied. I know that he is missing out on the intellectual rigor of setting up a case, establishing and organizing the categories, arguments pro and con, etc. I would love to pull out a chart and start organizing all that info. Just reading through Mishna is inefficient. But then I think about how many things that kids do which appear to be completely inefficient from the adult perspective. All that digging in the sandbox, pretending to be an astronaut, doodling, daydreaming, jumping into puddles so that the inside of the rainboots is wet, poring over maps, making dams with your food...all of these appear to be a total waste of time. But they are essential learning components of childhood. While on the surface these activities are unproductive, inside the brain is working something out, something which will come out at some other later time.

I think that 8yo's individual reading through the Mishna is the same. There is some kind of satisfaction that he is deriving from it which is not of the same orderly kind that grown-ups like to impose on it. There is some kind of informational intake, and, if I am patient, I will find out, sooner or later, how it will be processed ans synthesized.

In the meanwhile, I can consider myself off the hook as his Mishna teacher.

Yom Kippur

Another year found yet another frazzled me. My husband got home too close to comfort (but, hey, at least he was able to leave his Blackberry at home!), the kids did not do their pre-yom tov jobs, I wanted to finish Yonah, they did not, I was worrying about my cold and fasting, and whether there is enough food, and whether I will make it to shul.

Next thing I knew, the final meal was served, it was after candlelighting, I realized that I did not set the timer in the living room properly, and I forgot to light a yortzait candle for my father. I crawled into bed, tired.

The next morning, we all walked to shul together for 8:30 minyan. I thought it was brilliant, they have babysitting, I will catch shacharit before Yizkor and then head home with the kids. As soon as I was done with the silent amidah, I got light-headed. I ended up sitting for most of chazzan's repetition, focusing on not passing out and lasting till Yizkor. After Yizkor, I went to gather the kids. The boys did not join the youth groups for davening (this is not our regular shul), and they could not locate the library books that they brought to read. 2 yo wanted to stay, the boys wanted to go. 8 yo nixed his lunch since his sister took his lunch bag and he was not about to eat lunch out of a princessy bag (the contents was exactly the same). On the way home, I got an earful about how he wanted to go to our regular shul's groups since he gets Pokemon cards there and now he missed on a batch. I did not handle that one well.

When we got home, I collapsed, to be woken up with requests for lunch. I told them which shelf in the fridge contained food. Afterwards I was told that they had peanut butter with corn chips and sliced cucumbers. Then the boys entertained themselves for a nice long while. Not all of their entertainment was quiet, though. My husband came home with a sleeping 2 yo later. She did not nap for long, and woke up really cranky. 6 yo tried cheering her up, bu that produced even more noise.

Just around the corner was dinnertime. Apparently, cold noodles were not too appealing, but they worked in a punch, I even got the kids to clean up the whole table and put everything in the fridge. Then there was more running and more fighting and more screaming. Through all of this time, I was trying to read "One Special Prayer" about the service in the Beit Hamikdash on Yom Kippur. Even though the book is billed for young adults, I found it very fascinating and informative. At some point, after I sent everyone to get pjs on, 8 yo came over and asked me to read the next chapter out loud. It happened to be about the goats and the lottery. Now, to backtrack, I tried to engage the boys in some learning earlier in the day. I offered to finish Yonah and was rejected. I asked whether they knew about the "two mehhhs" meaning the two goats. That led to a few guesses, and then a complaint from an 8 yo about how we can be so cruel to animals. I probably did not offer the best answer to that one, lying on the couch in near-darkness (messed-up living room light). So when they climbed into my bed (next to a window with twightlight streaming in) and eagerly listened to the next chapter, containing quite technical descriptions and no pictures on the majority of pages, I was a bit surprised. I liked that one of the kids in the book also asked about why the poor goat has to be thrown off the cliff. 6 yo made a joke about "ish iti" ( a person who accompanied the goat). We learned that he was offered food along the path to the desert. I did not know this at all. 6 yo said, that's why he was called "ish eat-i"!

They asked for the next chapter, after which they willingly allowed me to tuck them in. Goodwill prevailed again.

Although I wish I squeezed even more meaning from the Yom Kippur, I think that ending it on a high note with the kids was meaningful in its own way. They will learn what they want to learn and when they want to learn it. I feel that this lesson is being taught to me again and again.

The presence of kids in shul

From 613 Torah Ave, Vayeilech:
A boy breaks a jar of marmalade. Strangers make nasty remarks:
-Small children do not belong in stores!

-Excuse me, sir, I do not mean to show disrespect,
But tell me, how do you expect,
A child to learn to get on along,
If are you always keeping them at home?

-Yes, you must take him out each day
And show him what's the proper way
He may, indeed, make some mistakes,
And you will pay for the mess he makes
But in raising a child, that's what it takes.

-We learn this lesson, without fail,
From the special mitzvah of Hakhel

(A quick background: the mitzvah of Hakhel involved gathering up the entire nation once every seven years for the king to read parts of the Torah. The explicitly mentioned parties are men, women, small children and converts.)

The song can be found here.

I did not grow up with 613 Torah Ave tapes, so we are discovering them together. Not every single piece is meaningful or well-thought-out, but this particular part resonates strongly with me. It is hard to grocery shop with kids. It is hard taking them all to the post office, or the cleaner's or any other store. The errand is not efficient, and things are bound to get ruined. You are bound to get some dirty looks and remarks. But that's what it takes. Rashi comments that the reason the small children were brought to Hakhel was to give reward to their parents. So, it was not for them to learn Torah, or to listen to it, but for their parents to show that Torah is so precious to them, that they will drop everything, inconvenience themselves, and bring their kids. Something tells me that national gathering was not quiet and produced quite a few gray hairs in parents.

What if the Torah placed decorum over the importance of the learning experience?

I am well into Shmuel I in my Nach Yomi. In the first perek, it talks about how Elkanah would go up to Shiloh once a year and bring his family with him. Abarbanel comments that he brought "even his young children in order to inculcate them with the pure fear of G-d that would come from the atmosphere and service at the holy place, and so that the presence of the entire family would increase the joy of the festival observances". Unless children were different in those days, I strongly doubt that it was an easy undertaking. After all, Elkanah was a wealthy individual, couldn't he leave the children with the nannies at home? Couldn't he leave the wives at home, as well? Women do not have an obligation to pray, and he was the one bringing korbanot on their behalf. However, apparently there was a learning experience there not to be missed. Maybe when Chana saw what Penina's children were gaining from exposure to the Mishkan, she got an additional motivation to pray for a child. After all, the essence of our prayer is based on Chana's prayer, the prayer of one who had no obligation to pray.

Where am I going with all this?

I believe the above sources corroborate two points:
1. Children belong in shul and are expected to become the members of the community from an early age.
2. The prayer of women should be encouraged.

These two points are closely related to one another, especially in the modern setting of a shul. If women (of any age) are encouraged to come to shul to daven, they will be bringing children to shul. If the shul provides an atmosphere which encourages women to bring their children to shul, the children get to learn by observing and participating in davening, and the mothers can get a chance to daven. If the children feel valued as members of a congregation, performing such functions as holding doors, opening and closing the aron, changing page numbers, setting up and cleaning up kiddush, let alone singing Adon Olam, they are more likely to look forward to growing up and joining the congregation in prayer.

Too often, a shul places decorum over the needs of its congregation. A place full of decorum most likely has fidgety adults as well, same fidgety adults who hush the mothers who dare bring their kids in. The mothers do not feel welcome, and so they leave. The kids are discouraged from being inside: after all, how long can a child sit still in a place where he has no function? He has two paths: either learn the grown-up language and outperform them (for example, by extending Amens longer than anyone else), or drop out. Then we have a crisis of kids leaving the fold. And how many Chanahs never get a chance at a heart-felt prayer?

I will finish with three anecdotes, all showing how decorum has nothing to do with kavanah.

I attended a bar-mitzvah in Richmond, VA, right before Rosh HaShana. The shul there does not have a ton of kids, but a boy went up on Friday night to sing Yigdal. He marched up, was draped in a tallis and then belted out... Adon Olam! There was a pause, he was corrected, caught his place, and then continued, with the congregation joining in. He made a mistake, but he learned a most valuable lesson: his service is valued, and when he stumbles, there is a community which will correct him and set him on his way.

What if the boy was booed instead, or not allowed to say Yigdal at all?

During Shabbos day, right as bar-mitzcah speeches were starting, Mr. Griff, the gabbai, motioned that he has something to add. Now Mr. Griff is old-school, he is all for proper decorum. He is imposing, and he looks just, as his name sounds: someone who very clearly indicates what flies in his shul and what doesn't. I do not know how many rabbis he saw come and go, but he runs the place. What Mr. Griff had to say was surprising to me: he spoke how the bar-mitzvah boy, while being a wee one, would go up with his father to open the aron, holding on tightly to his father's hand. Then, when he got older, and realized that Mr. Griff will not eat him, he would wait for his cue, and go up on his own. And look at him now, reading his parsha!

What if Mr. Griff did not tolerate little boys on the dais, never welcoming them up?

The most personally inspiring davening of recent memory happened on our trip to Israel. On Shabbos morning, we were brought to a fairly standard Israeli shul. I had to rummage for nusach Ashekanz siddur, the mechiza was a white curtain, and the davening was moving at a brisk pace. But there was an incredible kavanah (intent) in the room. When the congregation recited the prayer for the Israeli soldiers, they inserted the names of the kids from that shul who are serving. When they mentioned Tzion and Yerushalayim, it was not an abstraction standing in the way of kiddush, but a real place, so close to their hearts. When the baal koreh read from the Torah with a kid draped over his shoulder, nobody flinched. Nobody flinched, either, when he took that kid to the restroom, and another person took his place for one aliyah. There were some women in shul, and some kids. There was no pomposity, just an earnest expression of a congregation.

Isn't that what tefila is supposed to be about? 

No yelling today

This morning, I checked the weather and it was cloudy and cool, without any chance of rain. I decided to take kids to the zoo: because they have not been there in a long time, because they kept asking me when are we going to go and because I yell less when we are out. Maybe it's being in public. Maybe I feel better when they are doing their own learning and exploring and I can hang back. Maybe because I like trips.

Also, at breakfast table, I announced to the boys that I will try to yell less. I kind of asked them to help me out, both by listening and by reminding me not to yell. 8 yo did remind me once. I thought I was still keeping my cool, but I guess he sensed the elevation in tone before I did, so I stopped. The kid who was being "addressed" stopped, too.

So we did go to the zoo. 6 yo checked sheep for cud chewing and split hooves, good thing they complied. 2 yo requested zebras, which turned out to to be giraffes. Her mistake is partially explainable, since both animals are kept in the same enclosure. 6 yo tried catching a parakeet. 8 yo blew all of his allowance money on a projector and toy snakes. We ate lunch next to a large group of adults in wheelchairs. I learned that 8 yo has sensitivity not to point and talk loudly about them. 6 yo still is working on this.

After the zoo, we drove straight to my chiropractor. By the time we got home, it was after 4. That's when I started thinking about shabbos, and the grocery run that did not happen. That's when 8 yo dropped on the floor, whining about getting leftovers for dinner. That's when I eyed the laundry, still piled in the laundry room. That's when I realized that I forgot to do my Nach Yomi from yesterday (I have been on top of it, for the most part). That's when my husband texted me that he is doing a c-section in about half an hour, which meant that he won't be home for dinner, or to tuck the kids in.

That's when I started having second thoughts about spending the day at the zoo.

Now the kids are in bed, some sort of shabbos is being cooked, challah is rising, and my husband is grocery shopping on his way home.

At least I did not spend the day yelling. But was all this worth it?