My Kids’ Family

Everything you always wanted to know about Passover prep but were afraid to ask.

Now that would make a great title for a book. Maybe I’ll write it someday. As I’ve said, Passover is my favorite Jewish holiday (and not even because my Hebrew name is Pesah!) despite the fact that it is a lot of work getting ready. It may not take a village, but it does take the equivalent of a recking crew to get everything done. Especially this year.

Lets start at the beginning. Passover food entered the stores starting the first week in March. The first thing we do is try very had to ignore this fact when we walk into the local supermarket. Of course, they make that hard, because at the local Stop & Shop, the food is right by the entrance. So while we are still buying flour and fillings for Hamentashen, the store is trying to get us to think about Passover. They don’t scare us!

About a week after Purim, when we have either consumed or gotten rid of all the junk food that comes in the purim baskets, mkm starts to make lists. Every year at the end of Passover, we make a list of all the non-perishable food items we have left for the next year. Each year right after Purim, mkm spends days trying to find said list.

After a few days of searching, she gives up and goes into the basement and recreates the list. Then she can start shopping. Thankfully we choose to pass over the Passover pizza and Passover pancake mixes and just by the necessities (Matza, Matza Meal, Matza Cake Meal, Matza crackers, Matza, Matza, Matza and Matza). In the New York area, the supermarkets use the Matza as a loss leader, and if you spend $50 on a shopping order, you get a free five pound package. So far we are up to two of them.

That gets us to where we are today. As I said, this year is a bit different as we are doing our seders with mostly friends rather than mostly family. Two other families in our town will be joining us for seders this year (plus some parents, sisters, uncles, aunts and other assorted people). There will be at a minimum 21 people at each seder. That number will likely increase a bit for each night.

Last Thursday, mkm had a lunch meeting (read power meeting!) with the two other moms at the local Panera. As far as I can tell they spent about 2 1/2 hours planning out the whole pre-passover process, and in upcoming postings, I will share our plans.

In the meantime, here is a funny youtube video. This is the British version of “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader.”

Enjoy!

Sunday night mkm and I took advantage of her parents’ netflix shipment and we saw the movie “Into the Wild.” The movie is well done and I highly recommend it. It got me thinking though, of some people’s need for solitude. Without wanting to give much away, I understand that the main character in this film had many issues that drove him to where we ended up.

It seems to me, though, that many people seem to need some sort of solitude. At its simplest, perhaps, it is just the need to have 15 minutes of quite time by yourself to get your thoughts in check. Even though I dislike commuting into New York City every day, I can say that the 2 hours of travel time each day is very relaxing.

What of people though, who seem to just stay to themselves all the time. I know too many people who bottle up all of their problems and although they may socialize with others, they are living in a solitude not unlike Chris McCandless. Throwing away all materialism is extreme, but keeping everything to yourself, can be just as extreme.

We are blessed with wonderful friends to whom we can turn for almost anything. And I thank God that despite our problems with Avi, they still choose to be our friends. It does take a village, and perhaps not only in raising children, but living healthily in society.

I’ll admit it. I’m hooked! We love Dancing with the Stars. I did not watch the first few seasons, and last year we tuned in at the end of the season, but this year mkm and I are totally hooked.

Last night was a lot of fun, and I will make the prediction here and now (lets all see if I am right). Kristi Yamaguchi is going to win this season. She may have an edge over the rest because skating (a major favorite of mkm) has taught her how to move and how to use her body in a similar way. It is possible that someone else can win, but I am picking her now. I think Marlee Matlin and Priscilla Presley will also be in the competition for a while too. On the mens side I think the last three men standing will be Mario, Steve Guttenberg and Jason Taylor.

As for those to leave soon, I the first two guys to go will be Penn Gillette and Adam Carolla and the first two women Monica Seles and Shannon Elizabeth. The only reason Shannon might stay longer is because she will get popular votes because she is so beautiful.

Tune in tonight to see if I am right!

Avi had a very difficult day on Saturday.  We went to Synagogue like we do every Saturday morning.  Usually Avi, Shayna and I go earlier and mkm and Noam come a bit later.  Our Synagogue has a lot of age appropriate programs for kids on Saturday morning as we have a lot of young families, but Avi has never really wanted to go.  We have learned to let him be in this case, and generally he either sits with me in services, or he just plays by himself nicely (or sometimes not so nicely) in the hallyway.  This time, though, he had brought a ball with him and at some point started throwing it around and he hit a couple of people.

In the end, as soon as mkm got there, I had to take Avi home.  I think it was the first time I had to take him home from Synagogue, but it does remind us that the medication is not a cure-all.  It helps him to focus and cope better, but it does not make him a different person.

From now on, I cannot leave him unsupervised no matter what I or mkm have to give up and we will have to work with this for now.

Sunday came along, and here was a totally different Avi.  We were back at our Synagogue for our Purim Carnival.  Unfortunately due to the fire last year, the carnival was in a different room from usual and Avi did not want to go downstairs to the room.  So he stayed upstairs helping different people doing some things in the Synagogue.  He was such a good boy and in no way resembled the Avi from Saturday.

We just have to take it day by day and hope that the good days outnumber the difficult ones.

I did not get to make the rest of the Hamentashen on Tuesday night like I had hoped. So last night I made another 5 dozen. I had also planned on helping Avi finish his costume, but that did not happen either. arrrggggh! Nothing went right.

The pack meeting was ok but then when we got home it was right to bath and bed for the kids. Avi then did not fall asleep, despite his having his melatonin. He kept calling down to me and I think he finally drifted off around 10 pm. We were going to make rice crispy treats to add to the Mishloach Manot, but that never happened either.

What a night!

Tonight is the Megillah (Book of Esther) reading at my synagogue. Hopefully mkm will be able to finish up Avi’s costume with him late, and find Noam’s Mickey Mouse costume! I am sure it will all come together, but it will probably all be last minute. Shayna is going to be a Disney Princess. At least we know where her costume is!

Thank God I am off on Friday (although I am giving some of my time to the Rutgers Hillel so I can begin to install their new file server). The kids come home just after noon from school tomorrow and then we have guests for lunch on Shabbat (saturday afternoon)!

When do we get a vacation?

mykidsmom told me this story to me last night.  Avi has a playdate scheduled with a friend from school for Sunday morning.  He comes home the other day and says:

“eema, I don’t think I can have my playdate with _____. “  When mkm asked him why not, he said: “Because he has a hole in his heart and if we play it might make it worse.” (or something to that effect).

Understanding that there could be conditions like this, mkm tells Avi that if it were a problem, _____’s parents would have done what was needed to make it better.

The next day at the bus stop, mkm asked _______’s mom about this.  She asked ______ and we found out that the day before, ______ had a pimple on his chest that popped and he bled a bit.  At school the nurse had to change the bandage, so everyone in class found out that he was bleeding from his chest (a hole in his heart).

I laughed at the story as it is funny.  I also felt very proud of Avi at his concern for his friend.