Showing-off season

I could never go to law school. Forget about the LSATs, which I would most likely bomb, or the classes, which would put me to sleep on a regular basis, or the constant studying and writing; the thing that would really kill me would be the Bar exam right after graduation. I mean, really, what good is graduating when you have to dive right back in to work the following day? What's the point? I would be so burnt out and drained that I'd just say forget the whole thing. Thanks for the nice diploma, but I'm studied-out right now. I'd just wave my white flag right then and there. Hmph, I would grumble to anyone who would listen. I didn't want be a stupid lawyer anyway.

Thankfully, my husband has far greater endurance than I do. I don't know how he manages it.

I guess it's kind of like motherhood. The responsibilities and worries never end. Just when we think we have it made - school is out, summer is here - we get slammed with the showing-off season. It's the Bar exam of parenthood.

First it was the end of soccer season.

My son had an all-day tournament, and my daughter had her final game on the same day on different fields, in different towns. My husband and I have one car. It was a logistical rompecabeza, but somehow, we managed.

While the big kids played their games, the baby kept herself busy teaching herself to climb a tree.

Part of me watched in horror as she scaled the low branch, inching slowly upward.

Part of me glowed with pride at her derring-do and determination. The wise mom in me kept her mouth shut, and watched from a safe distance, letting her experience the pride of her own success by herself.

The look on her face when she made it her way to the "top" was priceless.

I'm so glad the worry wart in me shut her mouth for once.

It's a lesson I'm learning the hard way. My kids are getting to the age where I need to start doling out independence and responsibility more freely.

My kids are pretty good about the responsibility thing already. The two big ones have been taking piano lessons for years already, and they're good about practicing without too much noodging. But I have to admit, I was getting a little worried this past month. They had a recital coming up, and it was getting harder and harder to get them to sit down and focus. Neither of them could get through their recital pieces without seriously messing up. I gulped and said, try again more times than any of us wanted to hear. It was starting to be like pulling teeth.

The day of the recital came, and in the morning we had a nice distraction: my daughter's seventh birthday party.

Speaking of doling out responsibilities, after my baby's birthday party, two houses full of guests, and the graduation party, I was partied-out. I turned to my husband and said, the next one's yours. He came through beautifully, sending out e-vites, and planning the scavenger hunt along with all of the clues and prizes.

He ran the whole thing, and even took the pictures.

I baked a cake that no one but the birthday girl liked, and I put together the goody bags. My daughter had a great time with her friends, but abdicating my own maternal responsibilities may have been an even bigger treat for me.

With that party in the hopper, we put the spring time birthday season to rest, and headed off to the piano recital. Truthfully, I knew my kids worked hard and knew their pieces, and if they messed up, so be it. This wasn't Carnegie Hall. It was the experience that counted. Still, I would have liked to see them see that their hard work was paying off. But I wasn't so sure. After sitting through one botched up practice after another, I didn't see how they were going to pull it off.

A little voice in my head (that sounded an awful lot like my husband) advised me to back off. It was hard, but I'm learning. Once again, I abdicated responsibility to the dad, let him supervise lesson-time, and made myself busy in the kitchen. The urge to noodge was too great.

After the birthday party, we dressed, gathered up the music, and headed to the recital hall. My kids seemed relaxed and happy, and fortunately, it was contagious. We got there early, the kids ran through their pieces on stage a couple of times, and we were ready to go. First up was my daughter playing a lovely, sad piece by Lyakhovitsky, loosely translated by the piano teacher as "Sad Dog". My daughter confidently ascended the stage, took her bow, and played her piece flawlessly (at least to her mother's ear), and then dashed off stage as fast as her little legs could take her.

Next up was my son. His piece, A Short Story, by Kabalevsky, was technically demanding, and required some pretty swift fingerwork. All month long he struggle with getting his hands up to speed. He practiced frequently with a metronome, but couldn't quite get through the whole piece with out tripping over his own fingertips. Once again, I tried not to worry too much. It was a piano recital, not the Van Cliburn competition. He looked so grown up mounting the stage, taking a deep bow, and sitting himself down to play. My son sat up, took a deep breath, and plowed through his piece better than he'd played all month. I marvelled at his maturity and professionalism. When did he get so big?

For the last piece, my son and his school friend played a sweet duet together called Copycat, by Matz. For kids three years apart they had amazing chemistry. Why not? I asked my husband mischievously, we're three years apart!

With that, we sighed deeply and scratched another thing off our list.

Only one more responsibility lay ahead of us before we could declare a start to summer. The following week was the dance recital. All three of my children were scheduled to perform, but not before I had to attend the parent helper meeting, and not before we had to endure the dress rehearsal. Each step was a time consuming and a mind-numbingly aggravating "hurry-up-and-wait" kind of experience.

The recital was scheduled for father's day. I woke up early, made my husband an omelet and a smoothie, while the kids made him homemade cards. Just as he was sitting up in bed to enjoy the morning meal, the phone rang.

"Where are we supposed to drop-off the luggage today?" a friend who was sending her daughter to the same camp we were sending our son asked in what sounded like near-panic.

I quickly understood what panic really was. Drop off?? Today?? I practically screamed into the phone. They're not leaving until Tuesday!

I had three hours to finish the laundry, label hundreds of clothing items, fold and pack them, and get them to the van, and make it to the theatre on time. We flew into action, barking at the kids all the while. Don't ask me any questions now! For that matter don't even talk to me! I screamed anytime a child approached. They backed away slowly with a look of curiosity and concern.

Miraculously, my husband got the suitcases to the drop-off point on time, and I got to the theatre with the girls a little early. No one had their head bitten off by a rabid mother.

If the end of dance classes was graduation, dress rehearsal was studying for the Bar exam, and the recital itself was the Big Test. For me, as the backstage mom, it was one test of patience after another. I was stuck with a half-dozen half-pint three and four year olds who didn't want to stay backstage, in their costumes, with stupid bows in their hair. They wanted to run around and play, or else they wanted mommy. The crusher was when I was getting ready to leave the girls with another mommy so that I could watch big sister's performance from the side of the stage. As I was leaving, a little polka-dotted princess asked me to take her to the potty.

I missed big sister's performance.

We managed to get the girls and boy on stage, fully dressed in time for their dance. My little one decided the choreography wasn't up to her level of expertise, so she embellished, until the brightly colored screen behind her distracted her. With a big smile, a wave to her daddy, and a couple of prat falls, she made it through her dance, and off the stage.

I may have missed their dance, but I did get to see my daughter and her hiphop friends goofing off backstage. They were adorable.

Especially my little hiphop girl.

My son's performance was during the second show. He did an awesome, acrobatic, hiphoppy, breakdancing thing with his Just For Boys group. My husband and I switched jobs. I sat in the audience while he stayed backstage with a pack of wild boys, thereby avoiding the decidedly immodest overweight belly dancers.

Dancing didn't come easy to my son. Several times over the year he was ready to quit. The teacher was sweet and patient, but had an artistic vision that was physically demanding and required tremendous focus. My son struggled with both. But like piano, when it came time to perform, he brought on his A-game. The boys brought the house down mid-routine with a tripod handstand that my son had been agonizing over. I felt him beaming from 30 rows back.

My hiphopper started theatre camp today, but by noon, I was on my way to pick her up. She has a delicate constitution that couldn't stomach peanut butter and chocolate chip challah sandwiches. The baby asked her if she had a "stummy egg".

My son is all packed up. Today I'm putting him on a bus for somewhere in Wisconsin. It will be his first overnight camping experience. I will have four weeks to miss him, worry about him, and fret. No one said this independence thing would be easy. What will my picky eater eat? Can he even make his own bed? I guess it's time to let go, step back, and tell that inner worry wart to stuff a sock in it.

Actually, my inner worry wart will be too busy dealing with the psychotoddler all day. Lucky me, I'll be running my own mommy camp for the two of us.

And you think the Bar exam is hard?

Big days, part 2

Graduation already seems like a million years away. Three days later, my husband was already back at work juggling a Bar Preparation course with a Public Interest Law Internship. Life for us continued as normal, but not before we finished celebrating his major accomplishment.

Graduation was followed by a reception at the law school. The law school thoughtfully provided kosher food in a separate room for the handful of families requiring the accommodation. This was a relief in a couple of ways. We got to eat, after an exciting, but ultimately hectic morning, and it was away from the over-crowded chaos in the main atrium. We had room to relax and chat with the professors who strolled our way.

We dashed out of the reception after an hour of shmoozing, to prepare for Shabbat. We were spending Shabbat in my friend's empty house in Skokie so that the whole family could be together. I prepared the meals at my apartment, which we transferred over in a frenzy to have everything ready before sundown. Miraculously, we managed, only forgetting small things like matches and salt.

Once Shabbat was over, our attention went to the big graduation party. My parents took the kids to piano lessons, and then on a promised picnic to the beach, using my daughter's brand new birthday picnic basket. Meanwhile, my husband and I went into overdrive bringing over foods and beverages to the house, putting up streamers, and trying to get things "just so". It felt like a mammoth task, so much so, I had a hard time just relaxing and enjoying the party. Mostly, I made margaritas and took pictures.

What I did enjoy was seeing all the people who came out to celebrate with us. People from all walks of our Chicago life. Friends from synagogue,

friends from work,

family members,

and friends from law school,

all came to share our joy and eat my fudgy brownies. Towards the end, I finally collapsed on the borrowed futon and chatted with friends.

Somehow, we managed to make it through the weekend and get the kids off to school the next day. My husband, too, was back to school, preparing for his Bar exam. The only evidence that a party had occurred was the abundant leftovers and the exhaustion. It took me a week just to recover.

It's hard to believe a month has passed. While my husband's school year ended several weeks ago, he was right back at it days later, reading, underlining, outlining, sitting through, and occasionally sleeping through, one or two lectures. We also slipped right back into our routine, the kids and I just making it to the end of our school year.

Occasionally our daily doldrums were brightened by surprises. I was recently visited by an old fencing friend who was recently ordained a Catholic priest.

I don't know why, but that tickled me pink. I enjoyed chatting with him at length about his duties, the priesthood, and the state of the Catholic church. I fear I may have interrogated him a bit too much, but he was game. The kids enjoyed having a fresh face to regale with their silly stories and songs, now that all of the grandparents had returned home.

And once again we come to the end of another chapter. In a couple of days, the school year will end for us all. My son is going away to an overnight camp for the first time. Piles of his clothes cover the dining room table, waiting to be packed away. The girls have day camps of their own to enjoy, and I'm getting a real break from work. Only my husband is sweating out between the Bar exam and the PILI Fellowship.

Big days, part 1

I should be sleeping. Instead I am making dinner for a friend who just had a baby. It's a joyful insomnia. It's easy to feel joyous. I have much to celebrate, and for now, I can choose not to dwell on the trials and tribulations around the bend. They'll intrude soon enough.

I am particularly proud of the fact that I made it through the challenges that piled up, one after another, in a week replete with celebrations. The first was my baby's birthday party. I suppose at four, it's inappropriate to call her a baby, but as my youngest, I'm afraid it's a moniker that will follow her into her adult life. After all, I'm still my mother's baby at 40.

This was my little one's first real birthday party.

We held it at the ballet school, yet again. For her, it was a dream-come-true. She dressed in the fairy costume Granma Thuthin made her, blew out the candles atop the homemade cake, and danced like lunatic for a full hour, while daddy ran out to put together goody bags. 

Best of all, she was surrounded by her best friends.

The party was absolutely adorable.

The kids giggled and played, and lived up to their gender stereotype. While the dance teacher sang out the instructions, the girls listened patiently while the boys ran laps around the studio.

Days after we celebrated four years of my sweet abundance of life, it was time to turn our attention to the culmination of our Chicago experience, my husband's law school graduation.

Before we could get the partying started, we had to deal with some logistical issues, like preparing an empty home to be inhabited by my parents, my grandmother, and my family for a week. I am so blessed to have made an amazing friend who was generous enough to move to a new home the week of graduation, leaving her old house ready for a South Texas invasion. She lent it to us not only to sleep in, but to host a party in, as well.

My husband and I set out borrowing beds from another dear and generous friend, moving sheets, pillows, towels, blankets, sleeping bags, table and chairs into the house. I then began the extensive shopping and cooking for Shabbat and a party. I was barely human by the time everyone arrived. Yet, somehow, we pulled it off. In fact, it was a pleasure, a real labor of love.

The week leading up to graduation was filled with events and parties for the graduates and their families. My husband took his mom to the "Last Lecture". I would have loved to have been there to hear the uplifting words of opportunity and gratitude, but I had to work. Instead, I got to go to the "Law School Prom". My husband and I dressed up, left the kids with the babysitter, and headed to the zoo for an evening of drinking, dancing, and celebrating with his classmates.

I was amazed how many of my husband's classmates with whom I had developed a relationship.

It drove home how much of a shared experience this had been for the two of us.

Many of his classmates had joined us at our home for a meal at one time or another.

Many I had met at various law school events.

I just wish we had had more gatherings like this during law school. I'll miss my hubby's buds.

Finally, it was time for graduation.

The process of getting to graduation was a bit crazy. My mother-in-law got there ahead of everyone and tried to save nine seats in a row, enduring name-calling and abuse in the process. In the meantime, I had to run out and get stockings and sweaters for my girls since the weather turned rainy and cold. Already in a rush, we attempted to get my grandmother into our high-up minivan, but her knees protested. we took two cars instead, my parents following with my grandmother in and out of Chicago traffic. At the venue we discovered that a wheelchair would have been handy. The ushers were calling everyone in, "we're locking up in two more minutes!", while my grandmother and I hobbled down the long corridors as fast as we could, until a kindly usher came along with a wheelchair. 

In the end, none of us ended up sitting together, and Granma Thuthin had to give up the nine seats.

Graduation itself was a beautiful and meaningful event for us, despite the chaos of trying to get the whole family there on time. The speakers captured the spirit of the occasion talking about the support and sacrifices of the graduates' families and of the hopes and opportunities of the future. In my deeply emotional and moved state, it all rang true. 

Northwestern University Law School does something beautiful I don't recall seeing in any other commencement ceremony. They invite the children to walk across the stage with their graduating parent. I've always found graduation ceremonies to be a bit tedious and merely endured, but this one was different. We may have been sitting in three different sections, but all of us were there together, all of us having made different sacrifices to celebrate my husband's commencement.

Part 2: Time to get the party started!

Event horizon

Shabbat is over. My husband sits at the dining room table typing away. Already he's hard at work editing a paper due next week. The kids are asleep, and I'm surfing the internet for lack of anything better to do. Well, that's not entirely true. I could be washing more dishes, or being otherwise practical and productive, but it is Saturday night. Although it feels like any other Saturday night, there's one major difference. That paper my husband is working on is his very last assignment for law school, ever. He took his last exam on Thursday. By next Saturday night, it will all be through.

Wow.

Plans for graduation are coming together nicely. My Skokie sister was kind enough to purchase a new home and renovate it over the past few months. She's especially sweet enough to be moving into it next week leaving her old home empty and available for me to borrow. My 90 years old grandmother (hamza, hamza, bli ayin hara'ah, ptui, ptui) doesn't do stairs, so our second story flat won't cut it. So, we'll be furnishing my friend's Skokie split level with borrowed beds, folding tables and chairs, and calling it home for graduation weekend. It will also be party central on Sunday afternoon. I'm planning on decorating the place with balloons and streamers, and preparing a wide array of hors d'oeuvres and my world famous margaritas, and inviting the world to celebrate the end of law school widowhood!!

Speaking of parties, I've planned a birthday party for my angelic terror at the ballet school for mother's day afternoon. My sweetie has turned four, and this is going to be her first real birthday party. She keeps asking me, "is my party tomorrow?" It's rough not having any real concept of time. Big sister's birthday party is going to have to wait for me to get through at least one of the many events on my horizon. She wants a sleepover party, but I think she's still a little young for that. My Cinco de Mayo girl is on the cusp of seven and ready for the Ivy Leagues.

My parents tell me I was an early reader. They love to recount the time I was three and reading the different flavors of Baskin Robbin's ice creams. The kid behind the counter was convinced I'd memorized them all. It didn't amount to much in the long run, so I don't normally get worked up when my kids are ahead of the learning curve, but this kid is the real deal. At the beginning of the year she was struggling with basic readers. By winter break, she was stammering through Ramona the Brave. A month later she devoured the first three books of the Harry Potter series.

This past month her school held a reading contest, challenging the 3rd through 8th graders to read 1600 pages in a month. 1st and 2nd graders could participate if they chose. My little Einstein chewed through Charlotte's Web, Because of Winn-Dixie, Bridge to Terabithia, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and a half dozen other books in a two week period, topping it off with Alice in Wonderland, to take home the top prize: dinner with a teacher. She's six.

Big brother got the top prize, too, but he managed it in three books. Two of them were book 6 and 7 of the Harry Potter series, which already got him three quarters of the way there. I'm surrounded by scholars!

I attribute my kids scholastic success to their father. Seeing him poring over his law books, cliticky-clacking away on his laptop night after night, has clearly made an impression. It's hard for them to moan and whine about having to do homework when they witness their father sweating it out every night. We're going to have to make the most of the week and a half he has before starting to study for the Bar exam. If all I've heard is true, this two day exam is going to make law school look like a picnic.

My dear friend used to say, "buses come in fives." My head is swimming with all of the events we have around the corner. In addition to all of the birthday and graduation celebrations, we've got piano and dance recitals coming up, and if that weren't enough, I'm starting a skating program at my school this week. I will be teaching 150 fourth to seventh graders in-line skating. I haven't been in a pair of skates in over four years, and I wouldn't have considered myself an expert then. It should be amusing. I'm also planning the big field day event at my school with an international theme this year. I've come up with seventeen games from around the globe, now I have to organize the kids and faculty to run it, get all of the necessary equipment together, and pull it all off with panache.

Somehow, it doesn't seem as staggering as it should. For the past three years it felt like life was a great big treadmill. My husband worked and worked and worked with no end in sight. All of a sudden, there are no more exams to outline, no more papers to edit. For once, we're checking items off the to-do list without replacing them with another three. The kids and I only have another six weeks before school is out for summer.

For the first time in three years, I can look down the road to the distance horizon, and see the end of the journey. Or to put it a way my six year old can understand, We're just a couple of paragraphs from the end of the chapter.

Wow.

Breathing time

Law school hubby finished his last class ever on Monday. I asked my husband if they cheered, threw hats, or celebrated such a momentous occasion. Nah. He just went to class. Three brutal years are over just like that. No more briefs, cases, or getting called on in class. I would be jumping up and down hollering Hallelujah, but my husband just shrugged it off, and started studying for his last exam.

He doesn't have too much left to get through. On Sunday he completed his final trial for his litigation class. He argued a case with his partner in front of a real judge and a juror (they couldn't get more than one high school volunteer). With the help of two good friends serving as witnesses, he won his first case.

All he has left is one exam and a paper draft. Oh, and the bar exam, but that seems a million years away right now. In a little more than three weeks the whole family will be descending on West Roger's Park to celebrate my husband's graduation. He has his royal purple robe and tam - no mortarboard for the law school grads - and a big smile on his face.

I wish I could share his sense of relief, even if it is temporary. Less than a week after commencement, he'll start his public interest law internship and his bar preparation course. But my year is just ramping up, so it's hard for me to treasure the moment. We just got through Passover, which wasn't as awful as it has been in year's past. In fact, we actually got the house fully cleaned and turned over a few days early. It was the first time since having kids that we didn't have to wake them up at three in the morning to search for the chametz, the leavened crumbs my husband hides around the house each year.

The seders were lovely. On the first night we had another family over, three law students, and a law school widower. It was a very eclectic, smart and fun crowd. The food came out well, the kids performed their roles with panache, and we were done by one o'clock in the morning. The second night was just us, and we let the kids run the show. Predictably, it was a fun, goofy night. We beamed with pride as our Jewish Day School educated kids strutted their stuff. Tuition dollars well spent.

Somewhere in the middle of the holiday, minor mayhem ensued. My oven died of exhaustion. All my plans for matzah pizzas and matzah lasagnas went up in a puff of natural gas. For the so-called second days of the holiday, the last two full days of Passover, we also had guests coming, and no oven. I had to be creative in my kitchen. I cooked my first pot-roast, and quartered a whole chicken by hand. Not bad, for a squeamish vegetarian. Everything got cooked on the stove-top, including my Shmuely Fish, a delicious gefilte fish casserole. It got a little burnt on the bottom, but it was tasty, nonetheless.

The biggest challenge was desserts. I had bought boxes of cake mixes and brownie mixes, upon which I had planned to celebrate my baby's fourth birthday. With no oven, I had to think fast. Ah, the genius of pasteurized eggs! With the aid of a new hand-mixer (the third purchased for Passover in as many years), I whipped up a gallon of chocolate mousse and chemically created fake whipping cream. I dipped matzah sticks into melted chocolate, and voila: a masterful dessert was created.

Passover was exhausting, but fun. Between the first days and Shabbat which followed on it's heels, and the last days that creeped up on me a few days later, I scarcely had time to breathe. I did have a little time to take the kids and my son's best friend to the Field Museum for a visit to the Pirate exhibit.

This was no Disney fantasy, it was a dark, depressing, and realistic look at historical pirates. And it was surprisingly timely, as well, considering news headlines. After our visit with the pirates and a snack of Passover treats at the museum, we tried to walk around the museum campus and visit some of the interesting art, but who would have predicted forty degree weather in mid-April?

Argh, Matey. Me thinks Chicago is a mite too chilly for me scurvy-laden blood!

After we got through Passover - Passover never simply ends, it is something to accomplish - my mother-in-law came to town for a family wedding. My husband's little cousin got married on Saturday in high style. My husband and I made it for the tail-end of the reception, thanks to Shabbat ending so late, but it was wonderful to see the family.

On Sunday, after piano lessons and soccer games, my husband's aunt, her three children, and a boyfriend came over for a visit. We hadn't seen each other for eight years. They hadn't even met my girls, but the kids took no time warming up to their new family. My son was trash-talking his cousin's boyfriend in no time, challenging him to games of Risk, Blokus, and who knows what else. I took out the camera to take a photo of everyone, and promptly got distracted. Aaargh!

My mother-in-law went home last night, but not without giving the two of us a night off. It was our first date in who knows how long. My husband took me to the newest kosher sushi joint, and a movie. For a few hours, we could forget about the kids, the exams, and all of the stuff I have coming up soon, like the roller skating program I'm teaching in two weeks. Never mind that I haven't been on skates in years. Or the Chicago 2016 Olympics bid week my principal volunteered me to plan and run in a couple of week. Or field day, which is coming up sooner than I can bear.

I am so happy for my husband. He has earned this breather, without a doubt. I just wish I could breathe along with him.

Six weeks

The agony, I've discovered, is the waiting. We have arrived in the spring of our last semester of law school; and while the light is most certainly at the end of the tunnel, the distances are deceptive. Graduation is a mere six weeks away. It's hard to believe we've come this far. Six weeks is a minuscule unit of time, yet life continues, unimpressed.

For my hubby, six weeks isn't nearly enough time to complete the work he has piled up ahead of him. A final in trial advocacy, which will be a mock trial in front of a real judge and a jury of high school students, is on his docket. A final exam looms ahead, as well. But the worst of it, the most tedious and time consuming of the lot, is a senior research project with his Supreme Court professor. For months now my husband has been pouring over case after case, brief after brief, compiling data, crunching numbers, and trying to limn a cohesive thesis from the data soup he's collected.

For the kids, six weeks is an eternity. Summer break is around the corner, and time has slowed to the pace of chilled molasses. My oldest will be going away to a sleepover camp for the first time. While intellectually I'm convinced it will be a fun growing experience, I'm not sure we've made the right decision for him. Options for orthodox sleepaway camps are slim, and this one seemed the best fit. I hope we're right.

My drama queen is hoping to go to an arts and drama camp this summer sponsored by the Chicago Parks District. I'm not concerned that it isn't the perfect fit for her. I know it is. My creative girl flits through the apartment singing, writing plays and short stories, acting out her 6 year old fantasies, which lately have been of the Harry Potter variety.

I take full responsibility for that. About a month ago, she was home sick with a virus. I gave her a copy of the first book of the series to read. She devoured it in less than two weeks.

As promised, I threw her a Harry Potter party where she got to see the movie for the very first time. She had over her closest friends from school, and they colored Harry Potter pictures, watched the movie, made "potions", and ate pizza puffs and pasta. We decorated the house with streamers and Harry Potter signs on the doors, and my avid reader donned her Hermione costume, and entertained her guests.

It was a rousing success, and a couple of weeks later, she had completed the second book, as well. She's zeroing in on the end of the third book right now. I'm afraid I'm going to have to impose a forced hiatus on the reading of Harry Potter. At six, she's far too young for the dark twists and turns the books take.

The baby will be staying at her day care for the summer, enjoying the summer program they offer. It's all the same to her. Six weeks shmix weeks, time marches inexorably on. To anyone who will listen, she informs them that she will be turning four in April. Aayyeeii, I think, I have a birthday party to plan!

Make that two birthday parties, one for the baby and one for the big sister. And a graduation party soon after. And field day for my school, which follows directly on the heels of the roller skating program I'm introducing there. And somewhere in the next couple of weeks I have to get ready for Passover. It's not a fifty page research project, but I'm feeling the stress. Six weeks is the gauntlet time throws down at my feet, daring me to succeed. I'm withering under the armor of supermomhood.

But we plug away in denial. My husband taps away at his laptop, and I have kids over for playdates and sleepovers, finishing up all of the chametz in the house, doing makeovers and playing gender and age appropriate video games. Pesach? what Pesach?

But the biggest shock time has sent me yet was our tenth wedding anniversary, hemmed in between Purim, writing assignments, and spring cleaning. We kept it low-key this year, bringing in our special babysitter, and going out for an elegant, over-priced kosher French dinner. We smiled at each other over our molten chocolate cakes, amazed that ten years had already passed. There's never been a dull moment, from a steady array of career changes, religious metamorphoses, and a periodic arrival of children. We've lived in three different cities and four different homes in that time. What a long strange trip it's been.

For my gift, my dear husband picked out the loveliest sparkly and dangly earrings to grace my newly pierced ears. Real Michal Negrin's! I got him a far less impressive gift, but I'll hopefully make up for that at his graduation. I've been saving up for something special to mark such an auspicious occasion.

But we still have a ways to go.

Ten years from now, as we're (G-d willing!) celebrating our twentieth anniversary, marvelling that we had come so far, yet again, we will look over this brief episode in our lives, shake our heads, and laugh. Six weeks, shmix weeks.

Creative juices

There's nothing like the thawing feeling of Spring. I sense the budding of the trees before I actually see them. Even an impending cold snap or dreary rains don't dampen my mood once I recognize that, yes, I will be warm again.

Along with the warming Southern breezes come the cheering days of Purim, the Jewish holiday of costumes and food basket deliveries.

This year we took things a bit easier than usual. In the past I made close to a hundred mini banana breads, or jars of salsa. I just didn't have it in me this year to be creative and industrious. We opted out for the local Yeshiva's fundraiser. We checked off the names of our closest friends, sent in a check, and voila! Delivered Purim baskets, no fuss, no muss.

I have been feeling a bit guilty today as adorable kiddos in their costumes keep knocking softly at my door, presenting me their beautiful, tasty, and clever gift bags. It's not that I didn't try. I made a batch of homemade hamantaschen with real butter cookie dough and real fruit jelly inside. They came out horribly disfigured and ugly. If we had a dog, I would have fed them to him. Unfortunately, they're as delicious as they are hideous. I'm eating the diet-killers myself.

I managed to scrounge up enough decent ones to make some anemic baskets for the kids' teachers. A hamantachen, a clementine, and applesauce. How beneath my standards, I lamented this morning as I compiled them in Ziploc baggies and sent them with the kiddos to school.

I should have put the law school hubby up to the task. Several weeks ago we met with a social worker to discuss our baby's proclivity for creating chaos in her wake. The social worker suggested a behavioral approach, which is psycho-babble for "bribe her into behaving". We gave it a try. We offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of baking with Daddy (thank goodness she didn't want me!) in return for some minor lifestyle changes. You come to the table the first time you're asked and keep your effluvia in the commode, and you and daddy will make cookies!

After some serious negotiations - our three year old drives a hard bargain - we came to an agreement. She comes to the table on time, and dooties in the potty, and in return gets to make cupcakes with daddy. Not ordinary, plain boring cupcakes, but fancy ones. Monkey-faced ones. We have Tia Mirth to thank for that. Last time she visited, she brought us silicone cupcake baking cups with feet and a fancy book on decorating the delights. Nothing less would do for our little princess!

Spring has been ginning up the creative forces throughout the family. For Purim, our little cupcake chef wanted to be a fairy. Granma Thuthin gladly offered to help out, sewing a lovely costume with matching wings. Our pixie was enchanted by and enchanting in her attire. She informed everyone, whether they asked or not, that she was a fairy, NOT a butterfly!

The big kids couldn't make up their minds. My first grader wanted to be a bluebird at first, but a suitable pattern couldn't be found. My son mumbled something about Harry Potter, and stuck his nose back into a book.

But as the winter winds gave way to warming rays, something remarkable happened. My first grader went from See Jane Run to Ramona the Brave and Harry Potter: The Sorcerer's Stone. Seemingly overnight, our child turned into a voracious, capable reader. Her nose didn't come out of the first Harry Potter book for a two week period. When it finally emerged, her eyes had a glint to them, and she declared, "I want to be Hermione Granger for Purim!"

Unfortunately, it was a bit too late in the game. But motherhood is the necessity of invention, and with just two days to go, and no working internet, we hit the costume shops running. Thirty bucks! I hissed into my new Bluetooth at my husband. The costume shop was asking thirty dollars for a cheap, flimsy, nylon Harry Potter robe, and it didn't even include a wand. I reassured my children that we could do better. Truthfully, I wasn't so sure.

With hours left before the megilla reading, I found another costume store that had a lovely, velour-ish Harry Potter robe, for forty dollars. Inwardly, I gasped. Outwardly, I grumbled, and stomped out of the store, indignantly. Things were getting desperate. I ran off to Walmart to see if they had anything. The salesperson looked at me as if I were completely insane when I asked for costumes. "We haven't had those in a few months." She flatly informed me.

I went to the men's department and found the last black XL pocketless t-shirt there, and an adorable boy's shirt and tie in a lovely peach color. It worked for my son's birthday party, I thought. It'll have to do. I rushed to pick up the kids from school, ran home, and began compiling Harry Potter costumes from household supplies: old hat pins, binder clips, scissors, and tape. The results were surprising.


My son's costume was a little easier. My mother-in-law had sent an old graduation robe, hemmed for his height, last year, and she had given him a real tie in the family tartan for Chanukah (yes, that last phrase is a complete contradiction in terms). So, with the purchase of a pair of plastic glasses, the wands from his 8th birthday party, and a make-up scar, we were set!

The Purim services were a lot of fun. The big kids sat with Daddy, and the little fairy sat with me, asking me a million and one questions, and making noise to her heart's content.

And my kids looked great.

The beautiful baskets keep coming, and I feel so embarrassed that I have nothing to give in return. I learned an important lesson this Purim: plan ahead, put in real effort, and the results will be worth the trouble.

Oh, yeah. And get a better Hamantaschen recipe.