She texted this to me on Sunday night, and it made me think.
I'm just going to leave it here for next time I need to read it.
jen
|
the Crumb Factory |
I have a good friend who is going through lots of stuff. She texted this to me on Sunday night, and it made me think. I'm just going to leave it here for next time I need to read it. :)
jen
0 Comments
So, Avi, our oldest, put on tefillin* this morning for the first time, and it was all very exciting - or at least I am told the putting on of the tefillin was exciting. My girls and I - we weren't actually there. Josh planned to head into work after our morning at the school, so we took two cars. He took the boys, and the girls and I headed out twenty minutes later. And it seems that during those twenty minutes, all the traffic on earth descended onto New Jersey. The guy who does the traffic on the radio even said, (and I am totally quoting him here) - Go home, New Jersey. Just go home. There were no alternate routes, no getting off the highway at that point to take the streets. No options. So we sat on the entrance ramp to the Rt 78 for forever, until finally we inched forward slightly. And then we sat some more. We watched the man in the car next to us eat a whole bag of hamburgers. And then we realized that we were hungry too, and also a little sad because there were going to be donuts in school, and what if we missed those! Forget the tefillin, donuts! Priorities. We did get there for the last few minutes of davening, and to my girls' great relief, we made it there in time for the donuts. Which is good, because if we hadn't, I think my girls would have indeed heeded the traffic report and gone home. With tears. This way, they ate all the sugar and went off to their classes. And I can laugh at the thought of my pint-sized sugared-up kids going to class only because it's almost summer vacation and I am pretty sure the teachers are already laughing at us parents. The question of the day - one that all the family members who did indeed make it to school in time for the putting on of the tefillin asked me - why did you not all come together in one car? Or at least leave at the same time? Valid questions. I shall explain. So a. Josh left with the boys at 6:45am, and we don't leave before 7:15am on a good morning, so that kinda wasn't going to work for us. And b. The girls were in the middle of making top-secret tefillin gifts (who knew this was a gift-giving occasion? Not me.) for Avi. These girlies are super-cute - they decorated plastic containers from the recycling bin and stuffed them with hand-written notes and pictures that they made for their brother. They also sorted through several junk drawers and Avi is now the proud owner of some random keychains and unclaimed Perler bead creations. But it's so the thought that counts. Notice several things:
- Both decorated containers have tefillin on them. I thought that was clever. - We have a lot of washi tape. That pile is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm guessing this summer will involve much washi-taping of all the things. *Tefillin are ritual objects that Jewish men wear each morning when they pray. Boys begin wearing them about a month before their 13th birthday, which is also their bar mitzvah. Stay tuned for scenes for Avi's upcoming bar mitzvah. This is our first real big thing as a family, so my event planning skills are going to be put to the test. :) jen For a bunch of different reasons, only Josh and the 9-year-old went to the Salute to Israel Parade in the city today. That left me and three others at home - my goal: finish the laundry. I was hoping the 8-year-old would help fold it all and put it away, like in actual drawers. She had other ideas though. I couldn't even feel annoyed that she wouldn't help because she spent her time so freakin creatively. She made a pizza store. I have zero clue how she knew to name her store Mama Mia. But so funny. And she not only set up this whole fantasy pizza store, she somehow convinced her 11 and 12-year-old brother to play along! See? His number was called. It's his turn to pick up his pizza! She's lucky to have two brothers who are so good to her. And as I am writing this, this looong ago picture of the same two cutie brothers popped up on my computer. They still love a sandwich and juicebox, but really, who doesn't? :)
jen So the 6th grader's final end of year research project for his social studies class was - aside for all the researching and note cards and report writing and typing and editing - which were, bless his teacher, ALL DONE IN SCHOOL - to present something about his topic to the class. His topic: Pompei and the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. He made a video, and it was pretty darn funny, with a homemade erupting volcano and Lego people running away from it. And then the very next day, after he had handed it all in and was done, I saw this: Poor guy.
At least the 6th grader got an awesome grade. :) jen I don't think we've ever made it all the way before, but this year, the boys counted sefira, not just for the first few days, or even a few weeks, but every single solitary day. They made sure to remind each other, and they even got back out of bed on a few nights to come back down and count. #dedication
I don't know about your house, but that was HUGE here. :) jen Something happened in my oven. You might want to look away, cover your eyes or just stop reading, cause it's kinda gross. About a year ago, I started baking gefilte fish instead of boiling it. It seemed that when I boiled it, my house would smell like fish for days, but when I baked it, the air would clear by the end of the day, maybe the next morning at the latest. So I bake it. At 450 degrees for 2 hours. It always works, except this last time. It exploded. In my oven.
My poor oven. How did this even happen? And more important, who is going to clean that? I was in the kitchen for the last 30 minutes of the timer, washing dishes, not seven feet away - and I didn't hear anything. Nothing exploding, nothing hitting the oven door. It looks like the fish jumped out the pan and tried to make it's way out the front door of the oven. Disgusting to look at and even worse to clean. Needless to say, we did not have any fish this week for Shabbos. I wish I knew how to use the vomit emoji here, it seems appropriate. :) jen |
Wondering where we've gone? Come visit us at JenWiseArt,
I'd love to see you there! Archives
September 2018
|