Elul Ema

A friend suggested this title after I hosted a very haimish and ver belated birthday party for my oldest child who was literally in tears after I fell off the organizational horse and had his family birthday party be his only birthday party this year. Once it got so late that I gave up and threw him "half-birthday party" instead, complete with half a candle and singing of half of "Happy Birthday." He liked it, and I could kind of get away with it since his real B-Day is in the summer when so many people here are away that winter kind of makes more sense. Oh well, it was novel and cute and kind of Lewis Caroll-esque, but I don't really want to do it every year.

I always wondered at parents who enhusiastically threw elaborate birthday parties for their one year olds. Sure, you'll have pictures and you'll see your friends, but I don't love going to those events -- why would I host one? It's certainly lost on the one-year-old. I was so grateful to the moms and dads who dutifully carpooled their invited children to our home with a beautifully wrapped gift to make my son happy and feel celebrated.

But, I am recognizing finally that my children are now reaching the age that they notice if their birthday comes and goes and gets treated like mine or their dad's. We are quite happy to wish each other a happy day and maybe have a glass of wine or watch a movie after the kids are asleep. The whole party, pizza, decorations, cake, games, goody-bags type event is not really fun for me, but I suppose it was when I was seven.

So why the resistance? Do I expect them to be more grown up than they are? Why would I want that? I have noticed that I value independence in them -- being able to get themselves ready for bed or help themselves to a snack and that I get annoyed if I perceive them to be whiney and acting younger than their age, but there's a reason for each behavior and it would help them more, I'm sure , if I just patiently responded to each request with a yes, or a no, and an explanation if one was called for. Hmm.

Next up, my much rehearsed (in my head, of course) bedtime post...

Just. Relax.

So very much easier said than done. Yet I never cease to marvel at how well it works when I can manage it. Everything is just okay if I can relax through it. Late to school? What's going to happen? Terrible headache? Complaining about it won't make it better. All the kids crying, at the same time? Well, they'll stop eventually. (I am not even pretending to talk about the really horrible stuff, just about everyday annoyances).
But when I am not successful at talking that approach, everything is stressful. And I can't imagine being able to relax through something as impossible as whatever it is I'm going through.
So I'm waiting to find what it is that will let me just chill through more stressful situations. I've gotten as far as realizing that relaxing doesn't make it pleasant, but it does make it more manageable and productive. And that the absolute worst thing to so in a stressful situation is panic, think negatively, blame and criticize. I first learned it getting ready for Shabbos, hating the panicked stress and miserable hungry children wailing as I lit Shabbos candles. This is not what it's supposed to be like. And I'm still trying, still trying.
People often say to me "You're always so calm! How do you do it?" and it's really not true, I am not always calm. I may be calm often (at least by current cultural standards where it's normal to curse at strangers whose driving habits you don't like), but certainly not always. I hope to be some day, if for no other reason than it's so much more pleasant to exist when I am calm. (Even the sound of the word is calm. Warm and quiet.:) In this way, being calm is like a mitzvah which is its own reward, one way of reading the saying "schar mitzvah, mitzvah," the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah. I think of that often.

The Importance of Maintaining Newness

... if it isn't an oxymoron. I had the oil changed today, so I needed to be around the oil-change-place, but not at home. I had originally planned to bring work and sit in their waiting area while the work was done, but boy am I glad I brought baby with me and was forced to WALK instead.

We had a glorious time, beautiful weather, walked around the lake (not the whole way), met a dear friend and talked a while, got WAY more exercise than I generally do on a Tuesday morning. Baby got a nice nap and I got to see people and places and sights that are normally not part of my life. And the whole time I was thinking, "This is great! I love walking with baby, why don't I do it more often? Look at all these people! They're exercising, spending time with friends, reading, people watching -- good for them! Why is this the first time that I've taken this route? And one of the first few that I've done more than just think about how nice it would be to walk down here?"

Now, I know the quick answer, which is that I don't have time. But I know myself and my schedule well enough to know that I have time for things when I make it. Meaning, if it's urgent enough, it'll get done. Like, say, feeding the children. They get downright noisy if you don't give them food. That's why my plants don't always do so well. They're too quiet.

The longer answer is that I am, well, consumed by my "to do" list. I feel compelled to get-things-done. Which is why, on lazy Sundays (I love that about this country), I often get bummed that I'm not doing enough. I should be taking advantage of the day, or at least getting work done around the house. When I don't, because the kids require my attention (I don't actually ignore them completely), I feel like I've done nothing and wasted a perfectly good day.

On the other hand, if I have a busy work day and run from one thing to the next, so long as I don't lose my balance (literally and figuratively), I feel super. Accomplished.

I've resolved plenty of times to rise above the mundane and keep my focus on other goals that are important to me as well such as furthering my education in lots of different areas, hiking more, planning days off better, tweaking our families' nutritional life -- but change happens so slowly, especially while working, raising children and trying to keep the house clean and organized. I guess the important thing is to keep moving in the right direction, even though sometimes it seems like I won't get back on my personal horse until I'm about fifty. We'll see.

I Didn't Buy the Eggplant

I didn't buy the eggplant, even though I like to think of myself as a person who buys and prepares eggplant in many interesting and tasty ways. I am actually a person who is more likely to eat cherry or grape tomatoes than regular tomatoes becuase they require less effort. That's the awful truth. Eggplants, much as I enjoy them, require time and energy. Since I am the only memeber of my household who currently eats eggplant, I cannot justify preparing them on a weekday. (Shabbos guests are their own category). Some day, when I have fewer pressing demands on my time, maybe. But not now. I am finished composting forgotten eggplants bought in moments of hope and delusional nutritional idealism.

You may be wondering why this is interesting and I wouldn't want to disappoint. I'm thinking alot these days about image and how our images of ourselves affect our decisions. Trivial decisions, like the kind I make in the produce isle, and significant decisions like how I speak to my children or whether or not I should take this medication. It's everywhere I look and it's really very disturbing. I suspect that it's not just me -- the entire advertising industry feeds off of this feature of the human psyche.

I learned in high school that real growth is very painful and that's the main reason it takes so long. My adolescent self figured I could speed up the process by getting up the guts and just facing the unsavory bits and get it over with. I'm finding the hard part is finding said unsavory bits since they don't want to be found.

I heard an explanation of the story about Yaakov wrestling with the angel that what he was wrestling with was his image of himself. That in preparation for meeting Esav he had to be free from any motivations stemming from how he viewed himself or how he wanted others to view him. I wonder what Yaakov's "demons" were and I find it encouraging that even Yaakov was dealing with some of the same things we do. Torah doesn't have saints, just great people.

I am on a quest to unveil these images! I want my blog to be thoughtful and personal but not secret -- maintaining that kind of anonymity is exhausting and robs me of my best dinner conversation contributions. Nothing terrible will happen if someone recognizes me. (Hi GG!)
Oh, and the name is from Nick Bantock's trilogy. (Just plain "Sabine" was not available). I spent many happy hours on Shabbos afternoons studying the artwork, looking for clues about them and their relationship. Didn't care as much for #4 nd haven't read any of his other works.

Keep Away From Children

So I need to make lunches and stick them in the fridge before I can go upstairs for the night and I notice that one of the bags has a hole. Actually, I noticed it a few days ago but didn't feel urgent about fixing it. As unfixed holes are wont to do, it grew. Just a little bit, but enough that "A stitch in time saves nine" keeps going through my head as I envision the additional work I'm going to have to do to fix it once it's really big. Or worse, my poor kid is going to spill his lunch all over the place because his mom was too irresponsible to fix it. But I digress.
I go down to the garage to get my recently purchased package of needles and upstairs to get my thread. I tripped over some shoes in the dark and woke the baby, adding 20 minutes to my project, but I digress again. Down I go, finally ready to fix the lunch bag. It will feel nice, I think, to cross it off my list of things to do. I am afraid I am going to die with a "TO DO" list, but that's a post for another time.
Here's the funny part: the needles have a note on them: "Caution: Contains sharp objects. Keep away from children." Now, I'm all for warning labels, but this one reminded me of a Seinfeld joke about signs that say "No Dogs Allowed, Seeing Eye Dogs Excepted." Is the sign for the blind person, asks Jerry, "or for the dog?" So is this note for the people who didn't realize that needles were sharp and should not be offered to children as playthings or to the rest of us? Either way, I'm not sure how much of a difference it's going to make.