First day

Today was my son's first day of school, and my day to drive the carpool there. We packed up his backpack and lunch the night before, and woke up extra early to get ready. He dressed smartly in khaki pants and a short-sleeved button down blue shirt. He was so handsome! I loaded my son into his booster seat, his sisters into their car seats, and headed off clutching directions, names, addresses and phone numbers. I was terrified of getting lost on my first day!

My son's adorable 2nd grade friend was the first to be picked up, in her mis-buttoned strawberry raincoat and uneven piggytails. I could have eaten her up! Then we picked up a good natured 5th grade girl, followed by another 5th grader. He got stuck sitting between the baby who was trying to bite him and my 4-year old who wouldn't stop talking nonsensically the whole way to school. I couldn't stop grinning. Six excited, sweet kids in my minivan. I should paint this thing yellow.

I dropped my son off with an embarrassing hug and kiss, and a love note in his lunch bag. He looked so grown up.

After depositing the carpoolers at the school, I dragged my girls to Walmart to pick up more school supplies. I got us hopelessly lost trying to find my daughter's nursery school, but we got their just in time. They had an interesting orientation procedure. The class was divided into three groups. Each group had a set 45-minute time period to check out the classroom, meet the teachers, and meet some of their classmates. We were in the class with a little boy and a set of triplets. My little lady introduced herself, painted a beautiful picture, and kept herself entertained.

Meanwhile, the baby made herself a new friend. While big sister kept mostly to herself, the other little singlet in her class played house with my baby, making her a little meal in the pretend kitchen, which she obligingly pretended to eat. At least, I think she was pretending. It was the most remarkable thing I have seen. I didn't know the little teether actually interacted with other children, especially older boys. She's already got them serving her dinner! Should I be worried?

I also met some more cool moms. One interesting note: one of my daughter's teachers is an Argentinian-born Israeli. I'm hoping she'll encourage my little girl to continue learning Spanish. The rest of the day was my typical battle of wills with my independent, hard-headed angel and wrestling to keep the baby on solid ground. Thank G-D one of them will be starting nursery school tomorrow!

I bought a new bread machine today! I'll be happy to bake my own challah's again. I feel so indulgent buying challah at a store. Here in Chicago they come in all different brands and types. I'm not even sure what some of them are, but I've been trying a new one each week. I'm getting spoiled rotten. Challah baking has become a part of bringing in shabbat for me. I have my whole-wheat recipe down pat, and my four strand braid looking quite professional. And, of course, I LOVE saying, why, yes! I did bake it!

At 4:15 pm, the girls and I ran downstairs to meet the school bus my son will be taking home each day. The bright-eyed, big smile on his face was absolutely priceless. It said everything I needed to know about his first day.

My husband came home for dinner. His smile wasn't quite as big, but I can tell he's exactly where he wants to and needs to be. He's started his homework and reading assignments, already, and the semester doesn't officially start until the next Tuesday. It's nice of them to ease us into the salt mines.

As always, finding a job is in the back of my mind. Waaaay in the back!

Reserving Judgment

I have to learn to slow down. I have to learn to breath deeply, count to ten, and wait to pass judgment.

We woke up this morning earlier than we have in weeks to meet with the woman who turned out to be the head of the special education programming at my son's new school, and the principal and the head of general studies. This followed calls the previous night to our friend, the head of kindergarten and first grade curricula at my son's old school in San Antonio, who, coincidentally, used to teach at the school in Chicago. We called our friend because she had taught my son in kindergarten and had she also worked with the woman who was making me see red. I figured she could give us some insight into what was going on.

What followed was a game of musical phones. We called our friend who called the special education administrator who called us, and then we called our friend again, etc.

It was an absurd dance between neurotic parents, an intense New Yorker, and a calm smiling friend in between. She set us all straight. To the anxious parents she assured us that the special education administrator was top-notch, a great educator, a kind-hearted person, and not the negative burn-out I had imagined. I suspect she told the administrator to be more positive and gentle with us. We were, afterall, fresh off the boat from genteel, laid-back San Antonio.

The upshot was a more positive, conciliatory tone. My boy's admirable attributes were addressed first, a description of the current class dynamics followed, and suggestions and strategies for dealing with my creative but absent-minded blossom were exchanged. We all left happy and relieved. He is in a good place where he will be loved, nurtured, encouraged, and enriched.

I learned several important lessons here. Back in San Antonio, I used to go walking with my friends late at night, when the temperatures had dropped from 104 to a cool, breezy 98 degrees. These walks were always part exercise, part therapy, and part life coaching for each other. One of the main topics covered on our evening strolls, after we tackled the ups and downs of marriage, disciplining our children, and problems at work, was our children's education.

Jewish parents are rarely satisfied with their children's education. The secular studies are never strong enough, the Jewish content is never religious enough, or else it's too religious. The teachers never challenge our kids enough, or they push them too hard. We're a tough crowd to please.

As an educator and the wife of a former Jewish Day School administrator/teacher, I always tried to be a voice of reason.

The teachers are professionals, they're doing the best they can. I would counsel.

Parents have to take an active role in their kid's education. Talk to your child's teacher! I would advise. She's on your side!

The teacher only sees your child in the classroom, she doesn't know what he's like at home. Give her a chance, talk to her. I would suggest.

Did I listen to my advice?

Are you nuts? This is my son we're talking about! In the end, my sage advice turned out to be pretty good. I just wish I had listened to it before going off half-cocked.

Genteel, laid-back San Antonians, indeed.

I'm also learning to keep my opinions to myself, although this is much harder lesson to internalize. Opinions, like sorority girls, get around. We are a nation of instant opiners. With very little information, we pass down judgments with authority and certainty, rarely letting the facts get in the way, if we ever bother to find them.

Hence, the popularity of blogs.

And thanks to those blogs, those half-comprehended opinions expressed with the confidence of the blissfully ill-informed, are laid out for the world to see. All of this is my way of saying I'm sorry to anyone who happens to chance upon my writings only to find a less-than-flattering description of themselves.

And please don't call me "mom"!

* * *

You're not going to believe this, but I went shopping for school supplies for my children for the first time today. In San Antonio, the parent-teacher organization in my son's school always took care of that, although I'm not sure why. I just appreciated not having to do it myself.

I appreciate it even more now.

I dragged my three tired, hungry kids out in the rain today, fed them a donut (kosher Dunkin' Donuts, my friends!), and spent close to two hours hauling them around Target to find an endless list of specific demands: 12 pocket folders (with prongs or not?) in specific colors (No orange or white! What am I to do?), 2 boxes of 24 crayons (they only have 16 and 48!), a clear ruler (can it be a clear blue?), 2 pink erasers (is that more of a burgundy? Will the teacher know the difference?), 2 pencil sharpeners with tops, 6 yellow highlighters (2nd graders highlight?), hand soap, tissues, markers and colored pencils, a yellow spiral notebook, Polaroid 600 Series (not the 500 series, and certainly not the 700 series) film. One would think these were ubiquitous items in a store prior to the beginning of the school year. One would be wrong.

Meanwhile, my 4-year old princess kept disappearing only to come back with various Dora, Cinderella, or ballerina-themed toys, clothes, and school supplies she found. The big brown eyes would open wide, and she would say in a teeny-tiny voice,

"I really need this."

You need a pink fake-fur lined cellphone/MP3 carrier?

Atilla-the-baby kept trying to Houdini her way out of the shopping cart. If I turned my back on her for a second, I'd hear a shriek of delight as she prepared to leap from four feet off the ground.

My son, trying to be helpful, kept grabbing things off the shelf and asking,"Is this on my list?"

No, I don't think $400 graphing calculators are on the second grade list. Please be careful putting it back.

As the baby started a very loud and kinetic melt-down, the cash register rang up and up and up. Who knew school supplies could cost as much as a few months of private school tuition?

* * *

My son was invited to birthday party today. He made a friend at the playground three days after we moved. I made a friend, too. It was a great party with balloons, crafts projects, a sarcastic magician, pizza, cake, and lots of moms to meet.

I don't know who had more fun!

Den mother

My husband is at a Law Student social event at a bar. He's flying solo tonight. Am I worried? Nah. Just a bit bored. I could have gone, but that would have required finding a babysitter.

Our first attempt was a failure. $20 an hour?! This is going to be tougher than I thought. I asked a few teenagers I met along the way, but none were available. Long gone are the days when I could call my mom and say,

Hey, ya busy? Great, we're dropping the kids off.

We had a really nice Shabbat. We decided to invite some other law school students my husband had met. A young couple came, newlyweds, I think. Both were English majors who had studied in New York. He was a native Chicagoan, she was from a well-connected family in Pittsburg. They were adorable, charming and bright, and did I mention, young? At one point, the husband teased his blushing bride about not knowing how to wash dishes.

"We had three dishwashers in my house: Meat, dairy, and pareve! I never had to!" She perkily responded.

A fellow San Antonian starting law school at De Paul also joined us. The grandson of a very dear friend, he was also young, really young. He, too, was bright, energetic, and familiar and sweet, like a long-lost little cousin.

Thirty minutes into the meal, there was a knock at the door. My husband had invited a South African gentleman starting an international LLM at Northwestern whom he'd met at orientation. The poor guy showed up red-faced and sweaty. His train broke down, the whole public transportation system was backed up, and his taxi got lost. He ended up walking several miles to get to our apartment. We happily welcomed him in and gave him lots of water. Predictibly, he was also young in age, though thankfully, not in life experiences.

While the men discussed law, law school, and sports, my fellow law school widow and I pondered our future, and talked about literature, work, and life. For the moment I also felt young and full of excitement for our shared adventure, conversing with this Scarlett Johanssen double. I was glad, however, that I kept this latter opinion to myself, when the discussion turned to movies and she declared, "I hate Scarlett Johanssen! She's as dumb as a stick!"

My kids drifted in and out of the conversation, adding completely random comments and peculiar segues. They were thrilled for the new audience and for the extra attention. They were excited to show off the experimental pinwheel cookies they helped Mommy bake, and to share their complete misunderstanding of sports. Their new friends nodded indulgently, and often laughed at their precious non-sequitors. Baby Atilla screeched in delight at the admiring smiles.

The matza balls were a bit too fluffy, and the Israeli couscous too clumpy, but the Coq au Vin was tender and hot, and the experimental cookies were a success. Conversations flowed freely and budding friendships took root. I looked around this table of new law students, excited and eager to begin their new life, and I felt like... the den mother.

Ouch.

Maybe it's the Jewish mother thing, but I felt the urge to feed these young people, to look after them, to bake them cookies.

Ouch.

While preparing the Shabbat meal I got a call from my son's new elementary school. We had visited there this week, and had spoken with one of the administrators. At least I think this woman was an administrator. She didn't really give me her title. She just grabbed up the official documents we brought - my son's report card and his testing evaluations for learning disabilities - and trotted him off for an informal assessment.

We had our son tested for learning disabilities last year, not because we believed him to have one, but because my little prodigy, my musical, mathematical, bright, intelligent boy with a thousand great questions, and negotiating techniques these hot-shot law students could learn from, hates to write. It's not that he is unable to write, he would just prefer to do just about anything else. It once took him one hour to write four words for an assignment. He has plenty to say, and he's a crack speller. He was the only kid in his entire class who figured out how to spell segregation! He just despises doing his writing assignments.

I suspect he has too much to say, and writing it all down, getting those letters formed correctly, putting the proper space between the words, and sounding out all of the big words in his head, is just too slow a process. He forgets all of the great things he had to say before he can get it on paper. It's frustrating and torturous for the poor kid.

This woman with the secret job title looked at these official documents and declared my wonderful, sweet, brilliant, but challenging kid, a "behavioral problem". She called me before Shabbat to tell me we had to meet to discuss his behavior, and to figure out how we were going to handle the "class dynamics", and that his evaluations sent up red flags for her.

Ouch.

My hackles went up like a cornered alley cat. My son may have been a challenge to his teachers last year, but they loved him, adored him, saw his brilliance and potential, and his quirky, imaginative way of thinking. They recognized his creativity and spark. They recognized that the challenge was helping him reach his potential.

This woman just saw a boy who marches to the beat of a different drummer. And this, she proclaimed, was a problem.

I'm not one of those moms who monitors my kid's teachers. I'm not one of those moms who freaks out when a teacher expresses concerns with my kid's behavior or work. As an educator, I trust that my child's teachers are professionals and are doing their best to help my little guy develop into a smart, good, learned person. I do what I can to support the teachers, and help them do their job, but I am not the kind of mom who calls the principal to complain that the teacher is inadequate and my son a perfect angel.

That may change.

If there's one thing I don't have patience for, it's a burned out teacher who no longer sees the beauty and wonder in each child. I cannot tolerate an educator who sees problems in challenges, and sees obstacles in independence. And if this woman with the unkown position happens to be my son's new teacher, I will be pulling him out of the school immediately.

You'd better believe "ouch"!

My husband has come home, earlier than expected. "Four young, bright female law students invited me to a private party afterwards, but I told them no", He tells me, with a mischievious grin.

Can any of them babysit?

Dreams and wishes

The Mezuzahs are up, the apartment is officially a home, and law school orientation begins tomorrow. The moment of reckoning is upon us and my husband has been a flurry of activity. He's been helping me get the apartment set up, keeping the kids entertained, setting up bank accounts, getting his student ID and his new driver's license, parking permits, and city permits. He went downtown and purchased his textbooks this morning.

I got a call from the bank concerned about an unusually large charge from somewhere in downtown Chicago.

Unusually large? I asked.

Yep. Unusually large, unless you're comparing it to the unusually large amount we spent on furniture and the monstrous check I just wrote for my kids' Jewish education.

Unusually heavy, too. Law school books carry some heft. Poor guy came back home shlepping a hundred pounds of wisdom in three plastic bags. Getting them home is just the beginning. He's actually got to read them, now.

Despite this, my husband is positively giddy. He is ready to be a student again. He got his class schedule, his syllabi, and his first assignments. He's in heaven. Me? I have my first interview for a job next week. This is not my idea of heaven. In fact, the stress has been effecting me in peculiar ways.

I've been having strange dreams lately.

I dreamt my mom saved the universe by cooking a giant vat of chicken soup to trap sickly Klingons in the kitchen of the starship we were on. No, I'm not a secret Trekkie. But, maybe I'm secretly in awe of my mom's power in the kitchen!

I dreamt that I was enrolled in comedian school. I was confident in the research and scholarly aspects of the program. The practical "stand-up" exam terrified me. The most peculiar thing about this dream is that I'm the last person on this planet who would become a comedienne. We often joke that my sense of humor was surgically removed when my first child was born. I suspect that actually may be close to the truth.

My dream last night took me back to Dublin, Ireland, where close to twenty years ago I managed to visciously break a heart and get myself virtually banned from visiting the Emerald Isle again. In my dream, I was confronted by my ex-fiance's mother, and I begged her forgiveness for the pain I caused her and her family. The whole family was there as I remember them from so many years back. No forgiveness was granted.

What do these odd, vivid dreams have to do with my husband starting law school? Why is my subconscious mind churning out fantastic futures and painful pasts? What lessons, if any, are to be derived from this amalgam of random neural firings? Food, fear, redemption, and humor. The key to making it through the next three years is in there somewhere.

I got the new camera up and running, so here are a few photo updates:


My mom reading to the girls on my
new Ikea sleeper sofa!

My little man showing off his new loft bed

Celebrating my son's seventh birthday

My son making his special wish

Mom and the kids by the waters

of Lake Michigan

Baby talk

The Dining Set is in!

We spent our first Shabbat dinner on our sparkling new table, set with a white table cloth, the fine china and crystal, and a thick layer of protective plastic. That protective plastic will be there until baby Atilla stops trying to chew her way through all of the furniture and books. My baby teethes like a beaver.

Disclaimer: that's not actually my dining room.

That's a picture off of the furniture store website. Nothing in my apartment is that coordinated or free of books. The girl's room was more-or-less coordinated, if you ignored the white wrought-iron crib that clashed with the wood bed and dressers. I even had matching pink princess-motif duvet covers, until my sweet royal declared: "I'm itchy ootchie ouchie!"

As adorable as that sounded, the poor child was really scratching from head to toe. We pondered the possibilities: New shampoo? no. New detergent? no. Lice (heaven forbid!)? NO (thank g-d!). New comforter? Down comforter? Yes, and yes. My Dora look-alike's comforter was causing her great discomfort. Her daddy switched it for his synthetic fiber comforter, so until the cover is washed, daddy has a pink princess blanket draping his bed. Cute, cute, cute.

That's not the only mishap in the apartment.

My brand new, sleek, black cell phone is missing. This is my first cell phone, I've had it for less than a week, and I've already misplaced it. I strongly suspect the baby. She's a mischievous imp, and there's no telling what she's done with it. We've looked everywhere, but she's too clever to put it somewhere obvious. She may have flushed it down a toilet or gnawed it to bits and swallowed the evidence. There's no telling what a teething toddler is capable of.

We can't get her to talk. She's keeping mum. I can get her to say, "ba", which means ball, "gragger", which means cracker, and "a-da" which means all done. But when I try to get the location of the phone, I get an angelic smile, and incomprehensible babbling and cooing. That is clear evidence of her guilt. I just know it!

Not even grandma will be able to save her adorable behind if any part of my cell phone comes out if it.

Grandma went back to San Antonio yesterday. It was a really nice visit. We got to see Chicago, spend time together, and talk. I know she has concerns about me being so far from the family, and raising these kiddos on my own, once my husband starts school. I share her concerns. He's definitely the level-headed one in the family. I'm not the most patient mom in the world, especially under stress, which is always. I love those kids more than life itself, but I can be a pretty tough taskmaster. I pray that I'll find the serenity and humor to see us through my husband's first year of school. At the very least, I hope I get better at hiding those buttons they love to push.

Parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. It is such a balancing act of setting fair and reasonable limits. I don't want to be a pushover, but I don't want to be too demanding, either. I tend to err on the side of nit-picking. They are such good kids, I'm really blessed. They are smart, sweet, thoughtful, and funny. They have great instincts, and wonderful sensitivity. I could learn a lot from them, I think.

My husband's orientation starts Friday. I'm bracing myself for the flurry of activity to begin. I've seen the movies, I know what to expect. In fact, I've already warned him: you're going to have a reading assignment due the first day of class - the professor will pick on some poor shmuck who didn't get the assignment. Don't be that guy!

In a week, it all begins. Pray for me. Pray for my kids.

Don't worry too much about my husband - I've got his back.

A not so bad day, after all

Aaah, leave it to my thoughtful, sensitive husband. My kids came home from their adventure-packed outing in downtown Chicago talking a mile-a-minute about everything they saw: the art museum, the sculptures, the fountains, the orchestra rehearsal, the buildings. My kids have a real budding fascination with art, especially sculpture. I think it's a connection with the artist grandpa they never got to know.

My husband dragged the group, the three kids and my mom down Michigan
Avenue, the "magnificent Mile" of haute couture and conspicuous consumption, to the Picasso man/dog sculpture (right), the Miro sculpture (left), and millennium Park to see the big, silver bean, and the fiber optic face fountain. They also visited the art museum and spent loads of time looking at medieval arms and armor. My son is a chip off the old block - mine, of course. All told, my husband dragged my kids and my mom on a ten-mile walk. And the most amazing part of it all was they didn't complain one bit!

Not chips off of my old block. Thank goodness!

They came home to their grumpy mom elated, hungry, tired, wide-eyed, and anxious to share the highlights of their day. The baby, finally freed from the stroller, was excited to race through the house causing as much damage as all two feet of her could manage, which happens to be a lot. Three adults could not keep up with her path of destruction. I turned my back on her for one second and she went fishing in the toilet. My mom raced to stop her, but there was no prying her little hands off of the books she tore from the bookshelf. My husband turned his attention to my son and next thing you know, she was half-way up the ladder to my son's 6-foot loft bed.

I whipped up some bean and cheese tacos and tortilla soup for supper, and got the kids ready for bed. They weren't quite wound down enough from their day, but we managed to get the older two into bed at a reasonable time. The baby was not yet prepared to be caged in her crib, and she howled and howled and howled until Grandma couldn't take any more. That shrewd little imp figured out how to say grandma "a-ma" just for the occasion. A-ma couldn't resist.

In the middle of bed time, mom turned to my husband and said, "Why don't you take your wife out? I'll take care of the kids." Ah, thank You, again, dear Lord, for moms.

My husband would have preferred a nice, quiet evening at the movie theatre, but I had spent quite enough time sitting in front of a screen, so he offered to give me an abridged version of the ten-mile tour he had led earlier that day.

It was wonderful.

My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

I'm in a crummy mood. I'm in one of those moods where my eyeballs burn, my head aches, and everything is making me testy, snarky, and prone to kvetchiness. It's not pretty. These moods generally strike when I feel like I'm working and working and working and not accomplishing a blessed thing. I've tried every conceivable (to me) creative solution to complete my day's objectives, but all I've succeeded in doing is getting frustrated and pissy.

In the end, I didn't go sightseeing with my husband, my children, or my mom. Dell computers accidentally sent us two computers and a wireless router we didn't order. UPS was scheduled to pick up the extra boxes today, so someone had to stay home. I volunteered, after all, I needed to get my resume out, and I figured I'd get a lot done with the quiet of having the apartment all to myself. Anyway, I wouldn't have known where to begin playing tour guide. This city is still a mystery to me.

I spent the morning tracking down university physical education programs. There are fewer than you'd imagine here. Once I tracked them down, I started on my resume. That's where I ran into my first obstacle. We weren't able to install my Microsoft Office 2003 suite on the new computer. My license lapsed, I think. So, all I had to work with was Word Perfect, and I am perfectly clueless when it comes to this software program. After 30 minutes of editing, the formatting on my resume went completely haywire. I tried valiantly for hours to line things up, fix the spacing of my bullet points, and put a fine polish on my document. I merely managed to smoosh all the text together in a way I can't begin to explain. I don't know what I did, or how to fix it, and the slight throbbing in my occipital lobes was starting to attract my attention. I finally reasoned that any success I had with the formatting could easily be undone once I sent the document as an attachment. The recipient of my life's work was not likely to be so unfortunate to be using Word Perfect.

Relief came in the form of the front door buzzer. Aaah, the UPS man arrived! He whisked my boxes away, and brought me a brand new wireless router. An idea blossomed, brilliant in it's simplicity. I could edit to my heart's content on my husband's laptop and email the document using the wirless router to connect me to the internet.

It only took me a couple of hours to get the router plugged in and ready to access the web. I hooked up the wires to their proper jacks, outlets, and plugs, got the row of green lights, and began to register my new connection. Obstacle number two: the registration software was not recognizing my password. Happily, I spent only 30 minutes on the phone with tech support to sort that small mess out.

The router was ready, I took out the laptop and went to plug it in when dilemma number three struck: no power cord, and the battery was low. I searched and searched and searched (while downloading security updates, anyway) until the screen went blank. I called my husband in near hysterics, but he didn't have a clue where to even look.

So, here I sit at my desk. Six hours have passed. I have not edited my resume. I have not sent it out to any universities. I have not managed to set up the laptop to connect wirelessly to the internet, nor have I found the power cord. I'm tired, I'm frustrated, my head hurts, and I am not in a very good mood.

But I did get a call from my husband. They had a marvelous time listening to the Chicago orchestra rehearsing, doing art projects in the park, seeing museums and sculpture gardens, and having a lovely picnic under the lights of a computerized, fiber optic fountain. I'm happy for them.

Really, I am.

Comfort foods

We've been here for two weeks, and finally, the last of the boxes has been unpacked, the paintings have been hung, and the dining room set has been ordered.

We're in.

I can't say we're feeling at home here, yet. That will take longer. We're still two weeks from a routine. My husband and the kids are two weeks from school, and I'm two weeks from sanity. I do have to find a job and this is weighing pretty heavily on me at the moment, especially since we just dropped a couple K on the dining room furniture. I've really been looking forward to doing some sightseeing with my mom and the kids, so I was particularly incensed when my husband suggested he take the family on an outing tomorrow while I pound the pavement for a job. Of course, he's right, but I'd much rather check out the Sears tower than hawk my intellectual wares.

On the bright side, I had my first kosher Chinese take-out today.

My mom has been in town for a couple of days now. As predicted, she grudgingly agreed the apartment was nice, the furniture adequate, and my son's haircut, atrocious. We've had a nice time showing her the 'hood. She was especially impressed with the grocery store.

You have to be a Jew from a small Jewish community to get the significance of the whole grocery store thing. The kosher grocery section, deli, sushi, and Chinese take-out are quite impressive for a San Antonio Jew. Of course, I have yet to find decent kosher breakfast tacos here. I have to admit, though, that I'll trade those breakfast tacos for kosher moo goo gai pan any day. I don't exactly know what moo goo gai pan is, but I know I can make my own tacos.

My son turns 7 in two days. In San Antonio, this usually marks the beginning of the school year. Here, it's just another excuse to eat out at yet another kosher restaurant!

My husband is making up goofy lullabies for the baby right now. I sang her my six song repetoire, passed her to my mom who hummed for half an hour, and now Daddy is taking a shot at it. The kids are totally off schedule, and although we're trying to get them to bed in a timely manner (before their 8 pm meltdown), we're failing miserably. Part of the problem is that my son has given up his room for grandma. No, we're not making her sleep up on his loft, she's sacking-out on the mattress on the floor. So, my son is in his sisters' room, and he and my Dora look-alike keep each other up like teens on a slumber party. It's lucky for her she's so cute. I need order, routine, and set bedtimes or I'm going to wig out.

Of course, there's bound to be yet another kosher food solution to that, as well.

Settling in

Friday has snuck up on me again. We've been in Chicago for a week and a half now and we're finally at the end of unpacking. We've got some papers to file away, and the art left to hang, but things are more-or-less where we want them. At last, I know where my stuff is; I just don't know what day it is.

My husband has started to feel anxious about starting law school. He missed a couple of deadlines on orientation paper work and medical forms during the move, and has spent the last couple of days getting that sorted out. I'm starting to get anxious about finding a job. We spent a lot of money on moving and new furniture, and we still need a dining room set, and odds and ends. The kids, alone, are not feeling anxious at all, just a little bored. We haven't really taken them out to see the sights yet. I can't blame them. I'm also getting tired of moving piles of papers around the same six rooms.

My mom is coming in a couple of days to set things right. She'll help me arrange toys and kids clothing. She'll direct the hanging of the art. She'll get us out of the house and sightseeing like proper tourists. Thank the benevolent Lord above for Moms.

We have our first invitation to eat out on Shabbat. We were invited by a rabbi who is in charge of the Chicago orthodox community "welcome wagon", for lack of a better title. His wife is the cousin of a dear friend of ours, and the sister-in-law of another friend. The Orthodox community is very small and close-knit. I'm looking forward to the chance to socialize a bit, even if it is with someone with a tenuous connection.

I have yet to call the lists of people I've been asked to contact. Everyone has a friend or relative in Chicago whom I have to meet. I have a plan: once I get this apartment presentable, I'll invite everyone on all of the lists to help hang the mezuzahs. I'll feed them some home-cooked Mexican treats, and fulfill my social obligations all at once. Expedient, efficient, and entertaining: what could be better? A home should be filled with friends when the mezuzahs are hung, even if they're not quite friends, yet.

We live in an interesting neighborhood. Orthodox Jews, Indians, Arabs, and Eastern Europeans occupy the same streets and apartment blocks, but seem to move along on their own paths, not mingling too much. I seem to be lacking some cultural subtext, or the proper etiquette here. I get appreciative smiles when I greet people on the street; either that or their looking at me with condescending pity for the poor, naive southern girl.

One thing we have figured out is where not to take my son for a haircut. My husband took him to some old Yiddish-speaking gentleman who gave my son the worst haircut he has ever received. The child came home looking like a Chassidic street urchin with a shaved head and long, unevenly trimmed sideburns. I did my best to even them up, but I may have made matters worse. My mother is going to faint when she sees him.

Speaking of etiquette, I'm still trying to get used to cohabitation in an apartment complex. I'm used to my old house back in San Antonio where the neighbors were far enough away that my kids could squeal, shout, and zip about like budding running backs; and I could holler at them for being too loud without being concerned that anyone was evesdropping on my pathetic and desperate parenting. Here, I worry that the kids' dancing, wrestling, and running sound like a herd of elephants to my landlord below, and my shouts and screeches are wafting up to the divorced lawyer above. I worry that during the next three years, all people walking by our building will be serenaded by my high-pitched voice yelling,

Inside voices, please!!

Back in San Antonio, two more families have left the neighborhood. I think about my old, empty house filled with the dust and memories of a happy, loud family, their noises bouncing off the walls and setling into the soft furniture.

A loud stereo is blaring from the street below, accompanied by a teenager singing off key. My kids' squeals, shouts, and sounds are a symphony.

A long blog for the long slog

It's been a lifetime since I last blogged. We're finally in Chicago and we have been moving at lightspeed since I wrote my last entry. I don't know what day it is, and I can hardly remember what has happened this past week. I'm completely disoriented.

Our send off couldn't have been more poignant, heart-wrenching, or bittersweet. A big crowd came out to the synagogue to say their goodbyes. I couldn't believe how many friends, real, wonderful, beautiful friends, we had made in the past seven years. And they were all there to say goodbye. I was so warmed by the outpouring of love and kindness I felt; like I would be missed every bit us much as I'd be missing everyone. I made it through the kiddush luncheon without the floodgates opening, but during the evening services the dam burst, and I couldn't hold the surge back. It was so final, so darned sad. I was Chava/Eve being exiled from the Garden of Eden. I've left so many temporary homes - a year in Israel, college, grad school, grad school again, but this was different. Sholom Place became my home in the deepest sense of the word. It became my small ancestral village, and my sanguinal and adopted family. I was never more content than in my shtetl. It was so hard to leave.

The plan was simple. After Shabbat we would finish packing up and head out at 8 the next morning. By 3 am it was clear that this was fanciful, so we collapsed into bed and put the rest off until the next morning. I woke up in time to let the housekeeper in to work her magic, and we kept at packing, wrapping, boxing, and hauling. We finally finished by 11:30 am, and We strapped in the kids, locked up the U-Haul, and with the help of a friend, started the voyage north.

Twenty minutes out of town I got a call from my Mom: you left you purse at the house, we're on our way! A truly auspicious beginning! We drove and drove until we hit Ardmore, Oklahoma, where we stopped for the night. We were up bright and early, and ready to go by 7:30 am, only to discover the U-Haul had a flat. Was someone trying to tell us something?

A couple of hours later, we were back on the road, and we drove and we drove and we drove, until we arrived in Springfield, Illinois. We stopped there for the night. We woke up bright and early, and were ready to leave, when...nothing exciting happened! Whew! So we, drove and we drove and we finally arrived at our destination!

Chicago: the windy city, the second city, the city of the big shoulders.

We took the scenic route into the city. We headed down I-55 all the way to Lake Shore Drive for the most dramatic effect. The kids were in shock. My son gaped out the window saying, "oh my word!" over and over again. I'm not sure where he picked up that expression, but Chicago did herself proud that day.

We arrived at our apartment. It was nicer than I remembered it, and a hell of a lot hotter. This was the hottest day of the year. The air was thicker and soupier than San Antonio, but of course, there was no air conditioning. We unloaded the stuff from the minivan and went to lunch at a kosher pizza joint.

Nirvana!

I dropped off my husband and our friend back at the sauna, and I dropped the kids off at their aunt's home where my mother-in-law was waiting, and I did what any good wife would do in this situation - I went shopping - for air conditioning units.

Three hours later, I brought the kids, the A/C's and myself back to what can only be described as the most horrific scene I could imagine. The apartment was hot like a Turkish bath in August. There were boxes strewn chaotically about. It was 8:30 pm, and I had three tired, shell-shocked kids to get to bed - but where was I going to put them?

My son lucked out. He got the back room in the corner with two walls of windows. We cleared out some space there, opened all the windows. We put a box fan in one window, turned it on full blast, threw the mattresses on the floor, put up the portable crib, and put the kids to bed.

I then turned my attention (and fury) into putting the rest of the apartment into some semblance of order. All I could think was: I left my little corner of Jerusalem for this!? We got one of the A/C units jerry-rigged into our bedroom, the mattresses laid out, and we called it a night.

The next day, we emptied out more boxes, cleared out more space, tripped over each other, snapped at each other, and finally decided to go out and buy furniture, so we loaded up the kids in the minivan, my husband drove the U-Haul, and we went to Ikea. 5 hours, three hungry and grumpy kids, and several thousand dollars later, we had purchased enough furniture to fill up our apartment, but of course, nothing was to go smoothly on this trip. We discovered that my husband had left the U-Haul key back at the apartment, 30 miles away.

And it was an hour from the beginning of Tisha B'Av, a fast day commemorating the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. How appropos.

I piled the kids back into the minivan, and we sped off for the apartment to get the key, and of course ran straight into Chicago rush hour traffic.

Would the comedy of errors never cease?

In the end, My husband found a gas station with a bolt cutter, and got the U-Haul opened and the furniture loaded. He dined on a candy bar to start off his fast, and we collapses in our nice, cool, airconditioned apartment. Aaah, the kindly landlord is a saint!

My husband and I unloaded the U-Haul, as the hot weather broke into a spectacular rainstorm, and we finished by 10 pm, ready to collapse in bed again. In the morning we readied ourselves to tackle to sofa bed still snoozing in the U-Haul. Of course, after struggling to load the beast onto the dolly, and guide its wobbly mass down the ramp, we discovered that it was the wrong couch! I kid you not.

We loaded the @#!$%& wrong couch back onto the U-Haul, and my husband took it back to Ikea, where they reluctantly agreed to deliver the right couch the following week.

I don't know what day any of this stuff happened. All I know is that Shabbat suddenly snuck up on us. The beauty of living in a big city like Chicago is - kosher take-out! We had a feast! Rotisserie chicken, couscous salad, ratatouille, sushi, and three different kinds of Challah. My husband, the three kids, my mother-in-law, and I sat down for a nice meal, and a much needed breather.

On Saturday, we walked the six or seven blocks to synagogue, and I got lost in the crowd. I never felt more homesick, or missed my friends more than sitting in this big, unfamiliar synagogue surrounded by strangers. My husband introduced me to the rabbi after services. He was lovely, and pulled random people in to meet me. Everyone seemed so nice, but my head was in a whirl. After a comforting lunch of my homecooked cholent and a nice nap, we took the kids to a playground filled with orthodox men in black suits and hats pushing little kids on swings and talking. My husband put the baby on a swing, and started chatting with another dad.

On the other side of the playground was a large Mexican family setting up for a birthday fiesta, cooking fajitas on the grill, and hanging a giant Dora pinata. Aah, the sounds, smells, and sites of home. My daughter the Dora look-alike immediately made friends with a 5-year old Mexican girl, and I found another newcomer mom to commiserate with. After an hour, I was invited to a woman's house for a woman's Seudat Shlishit (the third Shabbat meal), and I was introduced around to lots of new faces.

It was a wonderful welcome to a new community. Friendly women, yummy food, and warmth and kindness. But it made me more homesick than ever. I walked my kids home, put them to bed, and waited for my husband to come back from synagogue. We put together some more furniture, and continued to chip away at the chaos to create a home.

Today we've assembled more furniture and we've gradually put things into order. It will be a long process, but we're definitely making progress. I manage to keep myself busy enough that I don't dwell on my sense of loss, but during the quiet moments, it comes back to me. I miss my friends and my family, and this city life scares the bejeezus out of me. So many people around - Indians, Russians, Mexicans, Orthodox Jews. In an earlier life the energy and diversity of this life would have thrilled me, but I'm a different person today. I cling to my kids in fear and pray that everything will be okay.