Some days, being a parent feels like one long exercise in self-control. It’s like navigating a minefield, or walking In stilettos on a wet floor. Or wearing a big fluffy winter coat while shopping for porcelain figurines. You get my drift.

No better time to drive this point home than the High Holidays: we recently survived another Yom Kippur, and although Rabbis far and wide will disagree with me, I often think the holiday is designed to remind my children of how much fun bad behavior can be.

Case in point: doing something atrocious, just so you can show off your excellent apology skills, preferably with a holy smirk on your face. I fell for it again this year; multiple times, in fact. “Wait,” my daughter seems to tell herself, “Yom Kippur is tomorrow? I better squeeze in some rotten egg behavior before the deadline. After all, soon, all will be forgiven. Yom Kippur starts on Sunday night? That means a humongous fit needs to take place on Saturday; in a public place, if possible”.

You think I am too harsh. For that reason, I have included Isabella’s latest apology to her brother Mendel, carefully written out, and meant to convey her remorse for calling him stupid. I ask you, is it an actual apology, or is it an exercise in how many times you can write the word ‘stupid’ on a sheet of paper, and get away with it? I suspect the latter. Isabella is in love with the word ‘stupid’. She uses it for everything her brother does. His songs are stupid, his toys are stupid, his clothes, hair, favorite TV programs; he is undeniably, irrevocably, the stupidest kid that ever lived. Unlike Mendel, who pretends he doesn’t hear a thing, I can’t ignore it, and address it every time.

Why does she get so much juice from calling him ‘stupid’ anyway? It’s not as if he actually has any problems in that department. He doesn’t listen very well, and he likes to sing the same song over and over again; he often refuses to eat, he hides our things, and he attempts to drive the entire family mad by doing everything at a snail’s pace, but stupid? Not that I’ve noticed. Although, a friend recently explained to me that ‘stupid’ is actually code for “you’re not doing what I want,” so maybe this is a sign he’s finally standing up to her.
“What you call others says more about you,” I tell her. She doesn’t like that at all.
“I’m not stupid,” she says, insulted that I even bring it up.
A few days later, I realize I haven’t heard the word in a while; could it possibly be that she’s dropped it? Or is she getting her kicks by using it on someone else, at school perhaps? Maybe I better check with her teacher.

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Yikes

If we have to believe popular culture, Thanksgiving is about one thing only: the food. Colorful flyers advertising everything from ready-made birds to one-step-stuffing (Because we know you are busy!) have been cluttering the mailbox for weeks. That’s a problem, because most of us can live without greasy turkey, clumpy stuffing, and pumpkin pie, and if we have to eat one more piece of fudge we might be a little sick in the cornucopia centerpiece. And besides, who are these people who design those ads, and how do they know we are busy? Maybe we’re not busy at all; maybe we just really hate schlepping all that junk home and cooking it because we know how many hours we need to log on the treadmill to lose all the belly fat. Do you know how many calories there are in that cheesecake? Do you? And can someone explain to me how it is possible to express gratitude by eating yourself into a coma?

            Having come to this country as an adult, I struggle to fully understand the meaning of Thanksgiving. Passing anything worthwhile on to my children is therefore a monumental challenge. “Is Thanksgiving a Jewish Holiday?” My seven-year-old daughter wants to know. She asks, because she is currently on holiday-overload; having just observed Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth and Simchat Torah, the prospect of yet another special day with many demands and no school terrifies her.  Over the past month, she hasn’t had a full five-day school week once, and she’s sick of it. The fact that she was out of school during Halloween due to a totally unrelated teacher’s conference didn’t help.  In other words, she’s feeling decidedly ungrateful this time of year and not at all in the mood for giving thanks. I’m inclined to agree with her, especially since her discontent causes massive fluctuations in her behavior. She does admit that she likes visiting her grandparents, so there’s that, but we have to find some real meaning in the holiday itself. Why else should we pay attention to it?

            I ask my husband what he thinks, and the answer is as immediate as it is unsatisfying. “Pie”, he says, and I roll my eyes. “That’s not what I mean”, I tell him, and he tries again: “Lots of pie?” Sensing I will not find any enlightenment here, I ask some of my friends. Dan, who was born and raised in the Midwest, goes into a long explanation about Pilgrims, Native Americans, and strange agricultural practices that involve burying dead fish to make things grow. It’s fascinating, but whom are we thanking, and what exactly are we thankful for?  “That’s a good point”, another friend deadpans, “perhaps we’re celebrating the one time the settlers were nice to the American Indians.” This leaves me wondering, what do Puritans have to do with me? Can’t I just ignore this holiday, like I do with Memorial Day, Labor Day, and all the other American holidays I didn’t grow up with? It would certainly help my waistline, not to speak of the time it would save. Oh, but wait; I sound like a stereotypical cranky party-pooping foreigner, and we can’t have that. Maybe this food-angle isn’t so bad after all; at the very least it’s a place to start. We make plans, adapt our schedules, and promise my in-laws we’ll be there. Since preserving complicated dishes during a three-hour car ride is not an option, I offer to make dessert.

            The next few weeks are marked by frantic recipe searches and important decisions about ingredients. My four-year-old son Mendel has the chance to use his Aleph-Bet cookie cutters, and although the end result looks nothing like Hebrew letters, he is pleased. My kitchen turns into a war-zone, my refrigerator looks like a foreign country of which I don’t speak the language, but the kids are having a great time. And suddenly it strikes me: we are building memories. This is not about the food itself, but about the memory of food; people who look forward to a holiday only do so because they can look backward at holidays past. I may not have memories myself, but I can create new ones for my children and thereby make this holiday my own.  I can do that by baking the perfect pumpkin pie, but more so by spending time with them, visiting family, and making sure they have a context for eating that pie.  After all, a pie is just a pie, until you eat it with someone you love.  

I love the beginning of the school year; it means the end of 100-degree days, my children are back in a structured environment, and I actually have time to get some work done. Of course, before we can really find our rhythm, the High Holidays will interrupt the brand new school year. It is a welcome interruption, for sure, but also a challenging one. The question that arises every time any holiday nears is what to do with the kids. They hate sitting still in Synagogue and wish to be entertained, and I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with that; children can’t be expected to experience special days the way adults do. They have their own rules and expectations, and if we want them to take ownership of Judaism, we need to strike a balance between tradition and individual needs. On top of that, my son Mendel is three, unbelievable naughty, and hoping he will sit still for any length of time without the assistance of illegal substances is just plain unrealistic.

            All I remember from last year’s High Holidays is that he wouldn’t stop chanting ‘Apples and Honey’, which he had learned at pre-school. Unfortunately, whenever Mendel learns a new song, he never bothers to remember all the lyrics; just the first line will do, thank you very much. This greatly aggravates my daughter Isabella, who remembers everything. From the socks she wore last Tuesday to the present you bought for her birthday four years ago: it’s all recorded in her brain that –I suspect- had a microchip implanted when I wasn’t looking. She mostly uses her vast knowledge to show up her little brother, who is blissfully unaware that there is a competition going on that doesn’t involve who can scream the loudest. “Have I taught him to be this annoying?” she asks, and I tell her, no, some of it is inborn. She rolls her eyes, as if to say, this is not as funny as you think it is. She doesn’t really buy that it’s quite normal for three-year-old brothers to constantly test everybody’s limits.

            My daughter’s day school introduced the concept of repentance during last year’s High Holidays. Isabella, already overly familiar with the need to apologize for naughty behaviors, has taken to it like a famished dog to a juicy steak. She is looking forward to a clean slate; there have been plenty of missteps that warrant a little forgiveness, so she argues. She also knows that even though she has a stellar memory, G-d’s is even better. If you have been mean to somebody recently, you can’t just gloss over it and hope for the best. Mendel, on the other hand, couldn’t care less, and I’m not convinced this particular part of the holidays will strike a chord with him. What is there to forgive when you are only three years old? So what if he refuses all potty training, draws on the dining room chairs with permanent marker, beats his sister over the head with anything that is remotely stick-shaped, and dumps his lunch on the floor on a daily basis: it’s all par for the course.

            Still, we have to somehow make these days real for him, and give them meaning. Wondering how to accomplish that, I ask Isabella what she remembers from last year, and what she likes the best. “I like the shofar”, she says. Hoping to get one of those surprisingly profound answers, I ask her why.

“Because it makes noise,” she says. Then she scurries to a different room to avoid any more probing; she knows exactly when her mother is in the mood to ask lots of questions, and she isn’t having it.  However, she does have a point: both my children have a soft spot for the shofar, and they get their hands on it on average once a week. Ever since Isabella was about three years old, she’s been practicing; nowadays she produces a sound that lives somewhere between a frozen pipe and an overly amorous elephant. Mendel happily eggs her on, even though he is a little envious that when he tries no sound at all comes out. For everybody involved, hearing someone who actually knows how to blow the shofar might be a nice change.

Over the years, I’ve heard many children cry at the sound of the shofar. Not mine; they love noise, and welcome any opportunity to help make some. Of course, allowing them to play with it at home eventually leads to a tug-of-war, someone -usually Isabella- gets hit in the head, everybody gets a time out, and nobody wins. This is not as bad as sounds, because it will provide them with an opportunity to say sorry and forgive each other. There, problem solved. Add some honey in the mix, a sweet challah and some apples, and we have ourselves a holiday. When you’re three, holidays are all about symbols; we have to trust that the meaning comes later. Now all we have to worry about is Mendel climbing on the bimah, escape into the parking lot, or using his kippah as a Frisbee, just because he can. And maybe, just maybe, the honey will make everything sweeter- even little Mendel’s behavior.

You never know what ticks small children off. One minute you’re happily going through your day, the next you are faced with an angry, screaming child who claims it’s all your fault. Girls can get mad over anything, ranging from their clothes (“I didn’t want the white tights, I wanted the off-white tights!”) to being asked to do something unreasonable, like setting the table.

When boys get mad, it usually involves food. Needless to say, Passover hasn’t been easy on my son Mendel. We’re on day number seven, and he’s counting the minutes until tomorrow night, when he can be reunited with his beloved donuts. That’s okay; when you’re not yet four years old, you are allowed to love donuts more than religion.

Mendel’s current enemy is the Matzo. Imagine his glee when we ran out prematurely, went shopping, and found the entire city was without Matzos. Sold out, all over Omaha, except for one last box of chocolate covered egg Matzos, which, of course, we bought. Not that it counts; it’s about as close to the real thing as fruit loops are to a healthy breakfast. Luckily we ran into somebody smart enough to have ordered enough, and were offered a box full of real, handmade Matzos. Mendel was, of course, unimpressed, we could see it on his face: Darn it! Back to square one!

Holidays shouldn’t make you mad; it’s a lesson he will have an easier time learning during Hanukkah, when donuts are plenty and nothing is off limits. However, Passover is more important and longer, so there’s that. At some point in their young lives, children have to transition from viewing a holiday as an obnoxious obligation, to something that they can truly celebrate. How they make that transition, I’m not sure. My daughter did it almost without us noticing; it seemed that one day she woke up and got it. I’d like to take credit, but I’m not sure that’s appropriate; it’s probably her teachers that did most of the work.

Still, it’s not all bad; my son has given up asking for cookies every five minutes and has even started eating again. All it took was three overpriced packets of Lox and unlimited yoghurt tubes. That’s right, he’s lived off fish and yoghurt this week, and he survived. Whether Passover next year will be about more than merely ‘surviving’, we’ll have to wait and see. Regardless, the boy has eleven months and three weeks of pure bliss waiting for him in the bread aisle.

Now that Passover is in full swing, I am slowly coming to the realization that my son Mendel isn’t eating. Sure, if I smear chocolate paste on a matzo, he will lick it off, but that’s not eating, that’s manipulating.

Even foods that he normally likes get the cold shoulder; apparently he is seriously upset that there are no cookies or crackers in the house. For dinner tonight he eats half a dish of applesauce and two bites of chocolate pudding. I don’t even offer him the broccoli; what’s the use? He asks: “Why don’t I get broccoli?”

“Did you want some?” I ask him.

“No.” Then he throws an evil glance at his potatoes, and walks away.

I imagine that eventually he will get hungry, but, as a parent, I know better. Children can go extremely long without eating, especially if they have something to prove. Mendel’s points of protest: “I want cookies” and “Mommy sucks for not giving them to me.”

Our household does rely heavily on food with leavening in it, that much becomes obvious when I look at my fridge; it only has a third of the stuff it normally holds. While I am neurotically happy with such empty shelves, and come up with creative, Passover-friendly meals, my son isn’t having it. He wants his damn bagel and he wants it now. And by the way, where are the crackers? The Oreos? The donuts? And while we’re at it, why are there no cheerios, where is the old stand-by, the peanut butter sandwich?

My daughter Isabella meanwhile is flying through the holidays as if it’s a breeze. She knows what she can and cannot have, and doesn’t ask for forbidden food. She doesn’t complain, and she doesn’t act difficult; why can’t some of it rub off on him?

Of course, it is hard to be three and suddenly be denied your favorite snacks and meals. Besides, all the other holidays are easy; you’re too young to fast, and most holidays add foods instead of taking them away. And why is it that the cruelest of holidays has to be eight days long?

When I look at it like that, I suddenly feel very, very sorry for him. Maybe it’s time to go to the store and buy some of those ridiculously overpriced chocolate-covered matzos after all. If they haven’t been sold out by now to parents of angry Boychiks everywhere.

Now that all the Chametz is gone, and we made it through a five-hour Seder last night, there are new problems on the horizon. I made an exception to my usual frugality when shopping, and bought my children some special, Passover approved, cereal. A friend was nice enough to deliver a second one, which I was grateful for, considering the small size of these boxes. Daughter Isabella has been staring at it all week, only to be told: “You can’t have this until after the Seder. You have to wait.”

Waiting is, of course, one of the nastiest concepts in any six-year-old’s existence; imagine the relief when Sunday morning finally arrived.

Except, it didn’t taste good. In fact, it tasted downright nasty, like milk-soaked cardboard with a side of sand. I convinced her to eat it anyway, by dumping a scoop of sugar on top, but I won’t be able to pull that off a second time. My guess is she’ll be avoiding the stuff as if it’s the eleventh plague.

It forces me to ask myself: why, when we can’t have something, so we insist on imitating it? Do Hindus eat fake cows? If I normally avoid imitation bacon like it’s laced with cyanide, because “fake bacon is still bacon”, then what’s with all the imitation Chametz-that’s-not-really-Chametz? As if we can’t survive eight days by eating yoghurt and vegetables and fruit and fish and all the millions of other things we can still have.

Of course, they’ll eat the cereal eventually, after I melt some chocolate over it. My children will learn two important lessons: First, when you can’t have the real thing, don’t bother with the replacement, and second, everything tastes good when covered in chocolate.

I’m going to my friend’s house tonight,” my daughter Isabella announces to a complete stranger at the playground. “She’s extra Jewish; they walk on Shabbos!”

The other child looks at Isabella as if she’s just sprouted tentacles all over her body.

My daughter barely notices; she doesn’t come into contact with non-Jewish kids very much and encounters like this are few and far between. Does the other child think she’s weird? It’s impossible to tell, and either way, my daughter wouldn’t care. Doubt about whether she should act a certain way is nowhere to be found at this age; she is who she is.

I wonder at what age the insecurity sneaks its way in, because I know at some point she will start questioning herself. Is my hair the right color? Am I wearing the right clothes? Do I say the right things, feel the right things, or believe the right things? I can only hope that, when the big questions start to come, she will focus less on the exterior, and more on what really matters. After all, worrying about your hairdo is a very effective way to ignore your inner life.

And what kind of inner life do I want her to have? What can I teach her now to prepare her for later, and will any of it stick? How do you introduce values and belief systems at an age when kids are still mostly concerned about what dress Barbie should wear, and whether mommy and daddy will remember to buy the right cereal?

Luckily, there’s help: she’s in school, and many, many things happen in school that are the perfect jumping point for learning life’s lessons. Put a group of six-year-olds in a room together, day after day, and watch what happens; it’s like a combination between Washington politics and professional cage fighting.

Every day when I pick Isa up, I ask the question: “How was school today?” The answer is always the same: “Good”. This tells me nothing; it’s the statement that follows it that explains what kind of “good” she is talking about.

As in, “Good. I went to the office because I refused to do my work this morning.”

Or: “Good. We went to the Museum and I had fun.”

Or: “Good. I had to stay in for recess because I kicked so-and-so.”

You get the idea. So, does she really believe her day is always good, no matter what happened? Or does she use the word without thinking about it? I tell her that kicking another child doesn’t exactly sound “good”, in fact, it sounds downright ugly, but it falls on deaf ears. My daughter chooses to accentuate the positive; she practices the sort of historical relativism that only children can get away with. I ask her if she thinks that kicking other children is acceptable behavior. She gives me that look that says: I cannot believe you just asked me that. Are you insane?

“Then why do you do it?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer. She doesn’t know why she kicked, she just knows she did. Isn’t that enough? So I deliver a speech about violence, and how it doesn’t solve anything; maybe some of it will stay with her. That’s really all we can hope for at this point. Plus, this other child will sooner or later return the favor, I know she will; then my daughter will have a different kind of “good” day.

My son brings home a small plastic cup, filled with fake grass and a little baby with a blanket. “What on earth is that?” My daughter asks, pointing at this strange thing, sitting on the kitchen counter.

“It’s Moses in a basket,” I tell her. “He made it at Pre-school.”

“Why does it have Easter grass?” She asks, and I tell her it’s for height. “Otherwise Moses would be too far at the bottom, and no one would find him. He wouldn’t be rescued, and then where would we be?”

“Like if the room was the cup, and I was Moses?” she asks, and throws herself flat on the floor.

This is, perhaps, the weirdest impersonation of Moses ever, but I nod, and say: “exactly.”

The answer satisfies her and there are no more questions about Moses that day.

My son, in the meantime, shows absolutely zero interest in his artwork. He hardly ever does, and yet, he brings the coolest stuff home from school. Once it’s home, he leaves it lying around and never looks at it again; it’s apparently the act of making that excites him, not the final product. My daughter is the opposite; no scrap of paper that bears her signature may ever be thrown away; it’s art, and it’s forever.

Our house bears the markings of this “forever”, and rarely am I able to throw anything she’s made away. In addition to being a hoarder of her own work, her level of production is astonishing. To make twenty drawings in under ten minutes is nothing. Needless to say, this habit kills trees as well as my enthusiasm for displaying her stuff.  I only have so many walls; in order to put up anything new, the old has to go. It’s the law. She doesn’t like that, but isn’t open to other options (like sending it all to family members far away). The consequence: Boxes of artwork in the basement, which is undoubtedly a fire hazard, and her work proudly displayed in every single room of the house.

To be honest, some of the things she makes are cool. She recently produced an Elizabeth Murray-inspired relief painting that is absolutely gorgeous.

I recently found an old photograph of the apartment where I lived when I was in college. There are nice reproductions on the wall; there’s not a single toy in sight. Those were the days.

Still, some day my children will be grown and I will look at all their projects with different eyes. I imagine myself 30 years from now, unwrapping the Passover dishes, and finding that little Moses puppet, still lying snuggly in its Easter grass. It’s enough to make me just a little bit sad in advance.

Today is the last day I can get anything done; no more “I’ll do this later”, it has to be now.  Never a great way to start the day; I like to do things on my own schedule. Yesterday we took the couch apart and found a toy that my son Mendel ‘borrowed’ from his friend Jack four months ago, and then immediately lost. At least Jack will have a nice Passover surprise. He can ask the four questions wearing his favorite rubber ducky beak.

So what’s left? Walking around like a chicken with my head cut off, that’s what. My son is assisting me with that by taking a crayon and drawing on his table, the wall, and around the fireplace. That’s okay; crayon isn’t Chametz, and I refuse to be too distracted by it. I’m sure there’s a magic eraser somewhere in the house.

Just as I am walking back and forth, trying to get the last details sorted out, I find this on my email:

“The biblical slavery of Egypt represents bondage to your own self.

Every day, every moment, must be an exodus from the self.

If you’re not leaving Egypt, you’re already back there”.

Sounds great. I could certainly use an “exodus from the self”, believe me. Although I have the feeling they don’t exactly mean it like that.  Still, there are many ways to explain the concept of “self”, who’s to say how we give our life meaning beyond the immediate on any given day?

I think one good lesson, during this Passover, might be to focus on how my children are responding to all this. The Passover story is a difficult one, full of hidden trapdoors and dark passageways.  To three-year-old Mendel, it is still a holiday mostly defined by the frog hand puppet he received at his pre-school. It’s not a holiday unless you have special toys. For the past few days, I have been painstakingly explaining the concept of Chametz to him. Sometimes, it seems he almost gets it, but it’s hard during the halfway stage. Most of the house is done, but there’s a few last things left; we can still eat Chametz until tomorrow night, but not in the areas where I already cleaned. Try to explain that to a three-year-old; he listens to me intently, then he says: “I want crackers.”

Okay, fine, but not in the living room. Naturally, that’s exactly where he wants to eat them; no surprise there. I say “no” as firmly as I dare (we don’t want to make this whole deal too punitive) and he agrees to sit in the kitchen with his crackers. But not for long, two minutes later, he gets up and walks into the living room. I send him back to the kitchen where he subsequently dumps them on the floor. Fine, I still need to clean the floor anyway. He wants new crackers, and I give in; we need to get rid of them anyway. Again, he tries to carry them into the living room, again, I send him back to the kitchen. Now he’s tired of it, and leaves them on the counter. “I’ll have juice instead,” he says, and I sigh with relief. Juice, he can drink in the living room. Then he says: “I want cereal.”

I know it’s not nice to ignore your own child, but sometimes they leave you no choice.

Happy Passover, everyone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3Xiy5aK3AU&feature=related

Six-year-old Isabella attends Parsha class once a week, so she’s prepared for whatever the weekly Torah portion will be on Saturday.  This is not an easy thing, considering that most adults have a difficult time studying Torah (me, for instance). However, she likes it, and she’s enthusiastic about it; if it really were too hard for her, she’d rebel immediately; she’s good at that.

When the teacher tries to explain Yom Kippur and the meaning of saying you’re sorry, she tells the kids: “Sometimes, people do bad things.”  All kids immediately pay attention; “bad things”, they know all about that. They start yelling examples of very, very bad things; then, my daughter’s hand shoots up: she knows a bad thing too and is eager to share.

 “Yes, Isabella?” the teacher says.

“Like believing in Jesus!”

Oops.

We’ve taught our daughter not to make fun of other kids; they may look different, talk different, have funny last names or a really ugly backpack, and on certain days they may smell a little weird. But making fun of others is perhaps the meanest thing of all, and it’s just not allowed.

Apparently, the lesson didn’t include religious tolerance, but who worries about that when you have a six-year-old? We’re focused on teaching her her own religion and that’s a big enough job; and how does she even know this Jesus? Now what?

I take the coward’s way out and let it slide; frankly, I don’t even know where to begin. Am I remiss when I think she’s too young for this topic?

It’s not as if the concepts of “good” and “bad” are easily explained to begin with; I think they’re right up there with the discussion about where babies come from, and exactly why it is not a good idea to talk to strangers.  On the surface, it seems so easy; when you listen to your parents, that’s good; when you throw your food on the ground because you despise spinach, that’s bad. But the deeper meaning of these terms? Forget it.

What my daughter retains from the day’s lesson becomes clear when she leaves me a letter that night. Apparently, she has been thinking about this bad behavior business on a more personal level after all, because this is what she writes:

Dear Mom, I hate getting in trubal with you. I bet you do to. Love, Isa.

Which almost sounds like an apology. And she didn’t even get in trouble with me today.