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Tot shabbat II
I mentioned in my last post that our most recent Tot Shabbat didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. And I promised a followup post to explain. Here goes! So, the first mention I made of Tot Shabbat, I described how difficult it was because J got so clingy, and wanted my undivided attention. I…
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Connecting Cultures…
Yesterday was a full day. It started with Tot Shabbat, in the morning at Tikvat Israel, and despite following the excellent advice of my friend Mary (Thanks, Mary!), the morning didn’t go much better that last month‘s (separate post on this to come). J and I drove the car to the synagogue, as we had…
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Allowing a community to support you
This month, the online book club From Left to Write read Those We Love Most, and this triggered a very personal memory for me: The Nature vs Nurture question often comes to mind as I observe at how different my kids are (all three – the biologic, and the adopted), but occasionally, the idea applies…
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My dad was a DeadHead…
Well, kind of. I’m sure lots of kids about my age, and younger, were born to the crowds of people who followed the Grateful Dead around the country, creating a moving community of people unified by an organic style of music, and music-making. My dad never traipsed around the country, and, to my knowledge, never…
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Wedding Bells
I’ve been thinking a lot about weddings lately. Last Sunday, Tikvat Israel hosted the annual spring Cantor’s concert, this year titled “Under the Chuppah” The concert was amazing, with members of the community providing explanations of the various elements and traditions in a Jewish wedding. Over several weeks before the concert, the event was previewed…
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Sister-strife
I have one sister. Only one sister. She was born when I was six years old, and, unlike my friends now, who encourage their first-born children to hold their newborn siblings within hours or days of her birth, my first memory of my sister was that I was not allowed to touch her, let alone…
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Tot Shabbat
Our Friday nights and Saturdays follow a rhythm that varies rarely. Most Friday nights we try to be home before sunset (an almost impossible challenge for us in winter, but achievable in the summer months). We have a nice meal together, in our dining room rather than our kitchen table. The meal is structured with…
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What a ride!
So, as promised, the second children’s book that we downloaded to review was: “Speeding Down the Spiral: An Artful Adventure” by Deborah Goodman Davis and illustrated by Sophy Naess. Verdict: we all loved it!! It’s 33 pages long, with some pages containing some complex and extended text, but our 5yo was engaged and excited about the pictures and…
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Not the lesson on nature or biology I was expecting…
Sometimes the cover of a book is deceptive. And, I think this may be one reason why selecting e-books can be so challenging. The cover of this book appealed to me, and the title suggested to me that I and my kids might learn something. Sadly, I was disappointed. Their response? They liked it well…
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Big Brother Poetry…
We found two pieces of paper in S’s red folder (the folder that facilitates communication between home and school). Dad had read them already, and was upstairs doing the bedtime routine when I found them. I read these in the kitchen, while cleaning up the dinner dishes, and couldn’t stop laughing! S said from upstair,…