Peace And Quiet? No, Thanks.

Every parent yearns for peace and quiet.  We crave just a few moments respite from the constant chaos of parenting.  But usually, when we finally do hear the beautiful sound of no noise at all, we fear that silence.  Case in point: my new baby.  I finally moved her into a bassinet so that I can sleep for a few hours straight at night.  But this didn't help me sleep better at all.  Instead, I kept getting up to put my finger under her nose and make sure she is breathing!  I feel worried every minute that she sleeps peacefully, and I am reassured by her kvetching and fussing.  It's good to know she is breathing.

There are other types of breathing too.  For example my preteen boys breathing, which sounds more like wrestling, but is equally reassuring.  When the wrestling stops and all goes quiet, I get really nervous.  My mind starts racing with all the possibilities of what could have gone wrong, and I run to see what is going on.  My boys see my face and ask, "Are you okay?"  Yes.  I'm just glad you are both still breathing.

Most parents can relate to my fear of silence with regard to my toddler.  There is no silence that screams louder than the lack of noise coming from him.  I need to hear his constant breathing, in this case the sound of toy cars crashing into each other, soccer balls being bounced off the living room walls, and all the accompanying breaking sounds that accompany a toddler at play.  When I don't hear any noise from him, I RUN to check on him and make sure he is still breathing.

Then there is my eleven year old son.  Lately he has been acting really strangely, cleaning up his room, not fighting with his siblings, and even completing his school work without any fuss.  Last night, he went to bed the first time I asked.  Jarred alert by the silence, I went to his room to check on him.  There he was in bed, ready to go to sleep.  I was so confused by this behavior, and I worried that something was wrong.  I went to put my finger under his nose, but I couldn't figure it out.  "Mom, are you okay?" he asked me.  I'm not sure, I thought.  He seemed to be breathing, but yet I was still unsettled by the peace and quiet.

As my kids are getting older, it gets increasingly more difficult to check that they are okay, that they are breathing.  I am worried that my finger-under-the-nose trick no longer works for some of them.  I yearn for peace and quiet, but along with that I need a new way to check that they are still "breathing."  And I wonder if I will ever be okay with the calmness I dream of.

I am starting to understand why my mother will call me sometimes in the evening and ask how everything is going even though I just spoke to her that morning and told her everything is fine.  She probably just wants to check that I'm breathing.

Yom Hashoah

Today is Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.  There is some controversy in the Jewish Orthodox community if today is an appropriate day to commemorate the Holocaust, and I won't go into the details of that debate here.  But personally, I often find myself wondering how every day is not Holocaust Rememberance Day.  Maybe not on an international level, but certainly among Orthodox Jews, the grandchildren of survivors.

I grew up among Holocaust survivors.  Every member of my shul (synagogue) over the age of 50 was a survivor.  They were as varied in personalities as any other group of people.  There were the quiet ones, the boisterous ones, the friendly ones, and the ones who were always shushing the children.  They never discussed their trauma, but they didn't have to, it was in the lines on their faces, in their smiles that turned into a sad, nostalgic, far away look, in their silence.  You could hear their stories loud on clear on the breath of every word they spoke.  You could see it in the lone tear that accidentally escaped their eyes seemingly out of nowhere.

As a child, I knew to never ask them about their pasts.  I read books from those few at the time who published them, but I never asked my next door neighbor how her family was killed, or the people at shul how they survived.  But it came out in stray comments here and there.  For example, the man at the kiddush who refused to drink coca-cola because it tasted just like the bugs in his mouth he woke up to every morning as a partisan in the forest.  Or the lady who lovingly told me I was lucky I looked like a shiksa (non-jew.)  Or the lady who accidentally called me Sarale all the time, then apologized and said I just look so much like her child that was killed.  A tear runs down my cheek as I try to recall her name, but cannot.

And of course there was my grandfather, a survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp.  He survived by the strength of his stoic resolve, and he tried to pass that on to us.  So if we were upset about something, he would ask loudly, "Do you have a roof over your head?  Do you have food to eat?  So sheifele, what in the world is there to complain about?"  He thought he would cure me of night terrors one night when he was babysitting and I woke up crying from a nightmare.  He listened to the tale of my scary dream, then told me, that's nothing, wait till you hear what happened to ME when I was your age!  True, this turned out to not be a good cure for nightmares, but now that he is gone, I cherish those nightmares he shared with me along with the happy memories I have of him.  And while I would never share with my young children the details of the horrors of the Holocaust, I am sad that they don't know them.

It wasn't the details or the events themselves that are etched on my soul.  Surely books will always survive, telling the tale of terror that our ancestors lived through.  But the story will never be complete without seeing their faces, without tracing the numbers on their arms, without hearing the flatness of their voices as they suppress the pain inside them.  I am sad for that part of the narrative that we are losing, for the real, human side of the story.  I am sad that my children will need a specific day to remember the Holocaust, that it isn't on their minds every single day, because they never witnessed that pain firsthand, and it isn't a part of them.

Time To Not Go Back To School Again

So it's that time of year again, and everyone is asking when I plan on starting.  I ask them, "Are you referring to when I plan on starting not sending my kids back to school?"  The response is rarely a laugh, and usually a sincere, "Yes, when do you start homeschool, before or after Labor day?"

This seasonal conversation highlights one of the biggest differences in mindset of a homeschooling mom and a non-homeschooling mom.  Homeschooling is about integration of life and learning.  It is about natural, organic if you will, education.  It is education not defined by any parameters, not least of which is dates and time.  Which is why it is also difficult to answer to the question of "how much time each day do you spend homeschooling?"  It is as if we speak different languages.  I don't have any set dates, or set times, when learning occurs as opposed to not learning.  Vacation and work are intertwined.  We homeschool all year, and 24 hours each day.  And yet none of those hours is anything like school at all.

"When are you starting?" is a question that reminds me how different homeschooling is from regular school.  I don't usually have an official start date for not sending my kids back to school.  In our lifestyle, summer and fall flow seamlessly into each other, as do all the other seasons.  Usually, what will happen is, one day, sometimes well into September, I will notice that all my kids are home, some playing chess while some are coloring.  I might marvel at the temporary serenity and calmness in an otherwise hectic day, and that moment of pause will make me realize that indeed I am homeschooling my kids.  So maybe that is my official start day.  But how do you explain that to someone who wants a quick answer?  I guess the quick answer is, sometime after Labor Day.

Lessons Learned From My Grandmother

It has been almost six months since I lost my beloved grandmother.  My mind has still not completely digested that she is gone.  There are moments when I reach for the phone to call her, to tell her something I know she would appreciate.  It came as a surprise how much I miss telling her every Friday what I cooked for Shabbat.  Less surprising is how bittersweet good news has become, without being able to share it with her.

There were some questions I never got to ask her.  I have always wondered if she was happy with some of her choices in life, and if she would have done things differently if she could do it over.  There are questions that I never would have asked her, because she would have considered them foolish.  She would have said, what is the point of wondering what could have been?  She taught me to accept your lot even while trying to improve it.  She taught me that life doesn't have to be what you want for you to be happy, and people don't have to be perfect for you to love them.  She taught me that love and happiness are a choice  you make, not something that happens to you.

She was the strongest woman I have ever known.  As a young teenager, she escaped Nazi Germany barely in time, and moved with her parents and brother to Australia.  She left everything and everyone she ever knew behind, but she never looked back.  Then, when her idealism brought her to America, she again left everything and everyone she knew behind.  She never expressed any regret, and accepted her difficulties without any negativity.  This is the greatest lesson she taught me, to always forge ahead, with a smile in your heart, and never look back.

There were times when she guided me through my own difficulties.  She would always tell me not to be so emotional, and to focus on what needs to be done.  She would remind me to see the positive in every situation, and to count my blessings.

In recent years, I noticed a hint of questions in her eyes and voice.  But she never let those questions out, and they never affected her actions or her belief.  In her silence, she answered some of my questions. She taught me that you can believe, and you can love, and you can be certain, even while you have unanswered questions.

I wish she was here right now.  She would tell me to stop being so emotional.  And to count my blessings.

Magical Rocks

There are rocks everywhere.  And I don’t just mean all over my house, I mean everywhere.  And did you know that they are magical?  Well, not all rocks are magical, and I am still learning how to determine just how magical a rock is, if at all.  It has something to do with the texture (it should be smooth,) the color (it has to be a cool color,) and the general excitement or lack thereof when spotting it.  

My three year old son is my teacher in these matters.  He is a true expert in magical rocks.  He has an impressive collection of rocks on his dresser, and scattered throughout the house.  There is one in particular that has magical powers only activated in a steamy room, so he keeps it on the bathroom sink.  I dare not move any of the strategically placed rocks, because I am no expert, and I wouldn’t risk ruining any rocks.

One thing that I did notice with my non-expert eye is that the most magical of all rocks are the ones that go on my son’s dresser.  (I am not sure what specific powers the rocks have, and when I asked, I got a loud sigh in response, followed by, “They’re just magical, they have magic powers, it’s magic.  Okay mommy?”)

It took me a while figure this out, but the ones that make it to his dresser are all metamorphic rocks.  Rocks that are two toned, or a combination of two completely different rocks fused together, are the most special and get displayed on his dresser.  I decided that I would turn this into an educational moment, and I pointed out to him that all the rocks on his dresser are not in their original state and have been changed over time.  I explained the three different ways rocks can form, and that he seemed to like the metamorphic rocks the best.  He told me (in a very exasperated why-doesn’t-mommy-understand-rocks voice) that if you have two colors on one rock, it’s REAL magical.  That’s why they have two colors, not because of the impact of pressure and time.  It’s because of their magic.  Well, I guess I am being educated as well.

There is one particular grocery store parking lot where my son loves to find rocks.  We always come home with at least one pocket full of magical rocks when we shop there.   I went there today, without my son, and what I thought would be a really quick grocery run ended up being a real self-discovery  moment for me.  I realized that I cracked the cold to magical rock identification!  As soon as I stepped out of the car, I noticed the most magical, two toned rock lying just a few feet from my car.  I put it in my pocket since my son’s pocket was at home with him, and I shopped even faster than usual, eager to get home and show my son my find and let him share in my excitement.  He was really proud of me.  He stood up really tall, his cheeks turned a bit pink, and he said in a breathless voice, “Wow, Mommy, that rock is really magical!”  I’m thinking of keeping this one on MY dresser.

Pesach Cleaning and Things I'd Rather Do

Pesach (Passover) comes every year, without fail, and this year is  no exception.  And along with Pesach comes a month's worth of spring cleaning in preparation for the holiday.  So now, with a little more than two weeks to go, I realized time is running out, and it is time to more actively procrastinate. 

It started with the thought of which room to clean first.  Then the thought of perhaps looking through the boxes of Pesach dishes and utensils to determine what needs fixing, cleaning, or buying brand new.  Then came the thought that maybe it would be smart to order handmade matzah now.  These thoughts of different tasks to be completed seemed incredibly overwhelming, but I realized that I have to start with something.  So rather than doing nothing, I decided to get back into writing, starting with this blog post.  Because the first step to being productive is to procrastinate more efficiently.

Sure, the toys need to be cleaned and organized, but I'd rather first make that Costco trip I've been putting off for a while now.  I know that I have to deep clean both kids rooms, but I'd rather first catch up on my writing.  The kitchen should be started by now, especially if I plan on going through every single cabinet by Pesach, but I'd rather first practice reading with my daughter.  It would be a great idea to organize all the Pesach recipes that i have scattered though different cookbooks, but first I'd rather spend a bit of extra time with my son in math.

I have realized that over the years, I accomplish a lot in the weeks leading up to Pesach.  And by a lot I mean besides for anything that has to do with cleaning.  Because doing something to prevent me from doing a dreaded task is all the motivation I need to get things done.  Now if only I could find a task I dread more than Pesach cleaning, and I could put that off by first taking care of the cleaning...

Deep Fried Jelly Donuts

December came and went, but not before it left behind a few pounds to remember it by.  I haven't even had time to blog, with all the festivities going on.  It sure has been a festive month!  And I can't speak for everyone, but I CAN say that I have had at least one too many deep fried jelly filled donuts this Chanukah, and at least one too many high calorie cocktails at at least one too many holiday parties.  My scale is not talking to me.  It wants me to make up for my overindulgence with extra exercise and three meals of lettuce a day.  But I have no regrets!  It was worth every joyous calorie!  Who will break first in this standoff?  Only time will tell.....