the day that the holy temple or Beit Hamikdash in Jerusalem was
destroyed thousands of years ago, has always been a day of sorrow and mourning
for the Jewish nation day marked by a day of fasting.
Fasting on its own is not an easy thing to do, but fasting with a bunch of
little kids is much much harder. So what are mommies to do today? My first
inclination was to sit them all down in front of the tv, and while that always
seems like a good idea to generate quiet, I find that the kids are much
kvetchier and antsy-er after watching tv.
So on to some projects. It's not even 9:30am and I've already served two
breakfasts and a snack. And we've done a project - and I promise, this one is
totally for a lazy mommy on a fast day. All you need is paper and glue. Maybe a
marker if you're feeling adventurous.
Jerusalem, the last wall standing from the Beit Hamikdash. It's easier
than it sounds - in this case, mosaic is just a fancy word for gluing paper on
paper. Gather together some large white paper, we had some that was pretty big,
larger than legal size paper, but whatever you have is fine. I drew a bunch of
squares or stones of the Western Wall on a paper for each child. Then I cut up a
bunch of brown and orange construction papers into squares, handed out glue
sticks and off they went, gluing and talking for twenty whole minutes. And I got
to lay on the floor next to them. Even the baby held a glue stick and waved it
around.
And because it makes the kids so happy, we hung their creations on the
mantle and we're done. Except we're not because it's not even 10am and they're
bored again. Hmmm. It's going to be a looong day.