Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Bedtime runs pretty smoothly in my house most days.  I tell my kids often about the importance of a good night's sleep for their physical and emotional health; and so when I say, "Time to go to bed!" they know why and (sometimes begrudgingly) comply.  And I am happy they do, because next comes my free time, so relaxing and enjoyable that I lose track of time and often find myself awake until the early hours of the morning.

Dinnertime is also pretty cooperative.  Brown rice and and salad for sides are tolerated because I often point out the benefits of healthy eating, and the negative effects of eating badly.  But when they see me sneak some oreo cookies after dinner, it is a little more difficult to explain that behavior.  "In moderation it's okay," I say, as I give them each one cookie.  The rest I save for myself later.

They also know that when it comes to computer time, they must first do their schoolwork and then play their games.  Business before pleasure.  It is very tempting to click away from Word and onto MonkeyQuest, but I don't hover over them.  I trust them to use self discipline so that I am free to browse celebrity gossip sites and online shopping sites while procrastinating writing my blog and checking on my children's online schoolwork.

Hey, I'm a Mom, not a Saint!

Lessons from Tisha B'Av

Most parents will agree that their main wish is for their children to be happy.  Successful, good people, but mostly happy.  And most parents will agree that the last thing they would do is actively teach their children how to mourn.  Which normal parent, who wants their children to be happy, would teach them how to sit on the floor and reflect on tragedies until tears spill from their eyes.  Yet this is exactly what religious Jewish parents, including myself, do once a year on Tisha B'Av, the day when the Temple was destroyed and many other tragedies befell the Jewish people throughout the years.

Yesterday, over two thousand years since the first Temple was destroyed, I sat with my children on the floor as mourners do and read them the story of the events leading up to and following the destruction.  As we do every year on this day, we cried together.  And I couldn't help but wonder, why am I teaching my children how to cry?  We are living in good times, why not focus only on our good fortune?

In addition to a painful history, the Jewish people also have a history of celebrating life, even in the darkest moments.  Woven into the mourning is a feeling of hope.  The wedding scene in the movie Defiance illustrates this idea very well.  A group of Jewish partisans during WWII were barely surviving in the forest, skeletons of their former selves, and most of their relatives killed by the Nazis.  Nevertheless, when young love finds itself, the Jewish partisan group makes a wedding for the new couple, singing and dancing in the cold Russian forest while snow falls on them.  This scene cuts back and forth between the celebrating and scenes of another member of their group fighting alongside Russian partisans at the same time the wedding is taking place.  The contrast between the wedding and the war was very poignant.  My son watched the movie with me, and he asked, breathlessly, "Why are they making a wedding during such a terrible time?"  But that is exactly the secret to Jewish hope: never giving up.  Dancing with strangers instead of relatives at a wedding deep in the Russian forest during the Holocaust. There is always reason to celebrate life, no matter how dark the times are.  It is not a tragic story, it is an inspiring story.

This is message of Tisha B'Av: hope.  More than 2000 years have passed since the destruction of the Temple, and yet we have not given up on it.  We still mourn this great loss.  Just as we still have hope that it will be rebuilt.  We never give up our hope.

By teaching our children to mourn the destruction of the Temple, we are teaching them to have hope.  Hope that we will survive, hope that it will be rebuilt, hope that we will one day rejoice with as much emotion as we now mourn.  I want my children to be happy people.  But I want the happiness to come from within, not to be dependent on circumstance.  This way, they will be able to find joy and hope even in the darkest moments of their lives.  In times of war and poverty, Jewish parents taught their children to find joy in their lives.  In these times of peace, however shaky that peace is, I am grateful to have my children naturally understand joy and instead to teach them how to mourn.  And I am grateful to be able to pass onto them our Jewish legacy of hope and survival.

Where Do Our Thoughts Come From?

I just stubbed my toe, and that's when it occurred to me: the first thought that pops into your head shows who you are!  The first thought that popped into my head was to use arnica to prevent bruising.  That was a very surprising thought, so much so that it distracted me for a moment from my pain (see! arnica works!)  The reason it was a shock is because I have never been a fan of  homeopathic remedies.  I am all for tylenol and ice packs.  And sometimes even an epidural, when the situation calls for it.  But here in California, homeopathic remedies are part of the common culture, and even doctors send their patients to Whole Foods instead of CVS.  When I first moved here, I was resistant to trying any of it.  But over time, more and more mothers have told me they use Rescue Remedy to calm their children (and their own nerves,) or that Arnica will prevent bruising, or that a little colloidal silver in a child's ear will get rid of an ear infection.  I heard it often enough, and eventually, this information made a little home for itself in my own head, and now these ideas are my own.

The place where you live, and the messages you hear over an over, have a significant impact on your thoughts.  It took a few years, but I have become a real Californian, in thoughts and actions.  I have a bottle of Rescue Remedy and a vile of Arnica in my medicine cabinet.  Not to mention that I use controlled, deep breathing to relax when I'm stressed.  And I think this is great, because, first of all my toe already stopped hurting and I only took the Arnica 10 minutes ago, and second of all embracing your city's culture is great.  As long as it is done with common sense. When will I consider myself to have gone completely over the deep end?  When I hear myself saying, "Marijuana isn't any worse than alcohol."  That's when.

Leiby Kletzky, A"H

My heart sits heavily in my chest, and my breathing doesn't come as naturally as it usually does.  This morning, every parents worst nightmare became a reality when 8 year old Leiby Klatzky was found brutally murdered.  He was one month shy of his 9th birthday.  His parents let him walk home from daycamp himself for the first time.  His mother must have been very nervous waiting for him to make it safely home after his first time walking alone.  Every parent knows that feeling, barely breathing until your kid makes it home safely.  But Mrs. Kletsky never got to breathe that sigh of relief upon seeing him running to her, cheeks flushed and proud of himself for being so independent.  Instead, two days of searching came to a bitter end as she and his father laid him to rest tonight.

Every parent is shaken to the core by this disturbing story.  The internet is abuzz with the news.  And, sadly, some people see this as an opportunity to point fingers.  I am reading comments online judging the parents and saying that it is wrong to let a child of 8 or 9 walk home alone.  This conversation is going on while his funeral is taking place.  Where is the consideration and respect for a mourning family?

There are two sides to every argument.  Some people say it is dysfunctional to hover over your children and never let them become independent, and some people say it is not worth the risk to let your kids go outside alone.  There are valid arguments on both sides.  But this is certainly not the time to make those arguments.  Nor do they need to be made, because for the rest of their lives, Mr. and Mrs. Klatsky will be battling that nagging thought that he was not ready yet to walk alone.  May God grant them strength to get through this terrible tragedy.  My thoughts and prayers are with them.

The Mommy Workout

Its a great idea to go to the gym every day, but sometimes you just don't have the time.  Luckily, being a mother means you get a great workout just by spending time with your kids.  On days that I don't make it to the gym, I still get a complete workout, albeit an unconventional one.  But that's okay, because I was never known to conform to any standards, and this includes exercise norms.

On non-gym days, I do the Mommy Workout.  Instead of a 60 minute kickboxing class, I spend at least as much time exercising my patience.  Instead of weight lifting, I flex my smile muscles.  Instead of doing bicept curls, I lift the baby up and down playing "swingy swing."  Instead of training for my 5K, I train my toddler to use the bathroom.  Instead of touching my toes, I reach down to pick up the laundry dropped on the floor.  Instead of yoga, I stretch my imagination.  Instead of mile repeats on the track, I have the kids favorite song on repeat on the CD player.  Instead of bootcamp drills, I do multiplication table drills.  In place of the cool down, I do story time before bed.

At the end of the Mommy Workout, I know I had a great workout because my muscles are sore, I am fatigued, and I feel a satisfying sense of exhausted accomplishment.  And I'm craving carbs. 

The "Kind" Dinner

The place where you live certainly plays an important role in shaping your lifestyle and values.  In my case, moving to and living in LA changed the way I look at dinner time.  Dinner used to be centered around one main dish, either meat, chicken or fish.  But now, feeding off (pun intended) the movement of eating a "kind diet," I have incorporated vegan dinners into the rotation, serving absolutely no animal products to my family a couple of days a week.

The first few times I attempted to introduce my family to vegan dinner night, they looked around the table and asked "where's the main dish?"  Moving from an animal-based diet to a vegan one is a difficult transition to make, even if it is only for a couple of days a week.  There is something physically and emotionally satisfying about eating a burger, or even chicken and rice, and you cannot reproduce this feeling with vegetation.  It makes one wonder, Why try?  Or, more specifically, why would I, someone who does not believe it is immoral to eat animals, incorporate vegan meals into my family dinners? 

I believe that if you hear of an idea enough times, you will be at least partially convinced.  Living in LA, it is impossible not to feel that a vegan diet is at least worth trying.  I have become "greener" in so many ways, seeing billboards everywhere I go convincing me that it is my job to save mother earth by recycling, reusing and buying green products.  It was only a matter of time before I started wondering about a greener diet.  I have always known the importance of eating healthy, such as whole grains and lean protein and many fruits and vegetables,  but now green was becoming the new healthy in my mind.  While I was swatting away at the notion that a vegan diet is "kinder" to the planet, the idea that a vegan diet is the most healthy was planting itself firmly in my mind.

So I jumped right in with both feet and committed to making a vegan dinner once a week.  But I quickly found that cooking and serving the dinner was the easy part; explaining to the kids this new way of eating was a bit more tricky.  They wanted to know where the meatballs for the pasta went, and if they are really expected to eat the rice and beans.  So I began educating them on the health benefits of increasing plant based products and decreasing animal products in their diets.  We went online and researched the dangers of high animal protein diets, and the benefits of plant based diets.  We even discussed the possible benefits to the planet that a vegan diet offers.  They asked me if I think it's wrong to eat meat, and I told them that to me, it's not about right and wrong.  It's about small lifestyle changes that are healthy and maintainable.  It's about knowing that there are other options for dinner that are not animal based.  It is about becoming more educated to the beliefs of  our ever changing society, and approaching them from a place of curiosity and open-mindedness.  Then they asked for doubles of the vegan pasta and sauce.  And as they ate this heart-healthy dinner, rich in vitamins and minerals and educational at the same time, I reflected that this is exactly what I would call a Kind Diet.

Stream of Conciousness, or Unfiltered Thoughts of a Harried Mom

The profound and the mundane swim around in my head, swirling together and creating an indiscernible collage.  Indecipherable from one another, important and trivial become one and the same.  The blackberry buzzes nonstop for twenty chaotic minutes, then it is silent for two hours.  Why does everyone call at the same time?  What should I prepare for dinner tonight?  Nobody wants to eat the same thing twice in a row.  Yet starving children in Africa (and elsewhere?) would be grateful to eat anything.  I'd be grateful for a piece of chocolate right now.  And coffee.  And I'm grateful for running sneakers that take me the distance, and can you even do distance on a treadmill?  I do.  Six miles, sometimes only two, I always find myself exactly where I started.  And then it's time to have lunch.  Salad for me, mac and cheese for the kids.  Is this mine or is it yours?  Is it time to flip the laundry already?  When did she grow so tall?  The passing of time is a stealthy adversary, acting when we are busy with other things and deceiving us when we look in the mirror and are greeted by someone much older than ourselves.  We are all at different stages in the time continuum, but not at any stage for long.   There are babies and old ladies, young children and midlife crises.  Is a sports car really that dangerous?  And shouldn't red light camera's be illegal?  There are too many rules.  And we're out of yogurt again.  Wow the kitchen stayed clean for a full hour.  Questions about pirates and ninjas, and are there any REAL princesses these days?  Almost time to put the kids to bed.