Homecoming

We've been in San Antonio for almost a week. Tomorrow we're heading back north to Minnesota to see my brother-in-law's new baby. And in a snap, vacation's over.

Coming home is often overrated. Catching up with old friends can be awkward when your lives have gone in different directions. Sometimes finding a place for yourself back in the social order can seem forced or unnatural. This trip was perfect, however. Perhaps four months isn't long enough for great changes to take place. But for me, late night walks through the neighborhood with my Israeli sisters couldn't have been more natural or more therapeutic. We fell into the same walking pace and the same conversational cadence. I hadn't missed a beat.

Shabbat at the synagogue was as warm and wonderful as ever. My kids joined their friends in Shabbat School as if a day hadn't gone by. And I felt the same way hugging my friends, wishing Mazal Tov to the new grandparents, and condolences to those who had suffered losses. My rabbi spoke beautifully and, as usual, brought me to tears of joy and laughter. He does it every time.

The only place where time didn't stand still was the babysitting room. Four months is long time in the life of an infant or toddler. babies when we left are crawling, toddlers are speaking, and newborns have begun to develop personalities. My baby, who spent every Saturday of her life in the babysitting room in my synagogue, cried herself to sleep in this strange environment. Everyone was delighted to see how she had grown taller, her hair curlier and wilder, and her vocabulary broader. I enjoyed seeing my family with different eyes.

Saturday was spent with our dearest friends. Our son played with his buddy, the baby played with their ten year-old babysitter in training, while the diva spent the afternoon at her friend's house. My husband and I got to really relax and enjoy the wonderful food, company, laughs, and a couple of cutthroat card games. Sabbath peace at its finest!

Today was spent in a frenzy of shopping, cleaning, and preparing for a New Year's Eve "Open House". "Open House" is what my mother calls a party when she's invited way too many people to fit into the house at one time. Since it's New Year's Eve, she's counting on people having other places to go. I don't have the heart to tell her orthodox families don't make plans for New Year's. She's going to have a packed house tonight.

She's been working like mad to prepare a fabulous event. She bought out all of the Kosher party snacks from Costco. Crackers, cheeses, lox, bagels, fruit, veggies, cookies, and snack mixes have found their final resting place in bowls, on trays, and on plastic party platters from Party City. We're loaded up with Kosher fizzy grape juice, too. It's going to be a wild time, or at least as wild as it gets with the PTA cohort. Mom spent the day worrying about everything being kosher, the house getting cleaned, and of course, every hostesses greatest nightmare: running out of food. Actually, allow me to revise that. Her worst nightmare is that she'll either run out of food, or she'll have enough leftovers to make it to 2008.

Note to hubby: that's where I get it from.

I'm going to be sad to leave tomorrow. The kids have had an amazing time visiting with their grandparents and friends. They've had their fill of Eskimo Pies, borekas, and playdates, and so have we. We'll be going home with heavy hearts, lighter suitcases, and a fabulous piece of art from an extremely talented artist friend. And possibly a second from my fabulously talented Abuela. It's hatd going back to the Chicago winter when the weather has been sunny and warmish-coolish in the 60s. It's even harder knowing a whole mess of work awaits my husband as soon as we get back.

It's an hour before the guests begin to arrive. My father has cranked up the air conditioning in order to light a fire in what should be an obsolete Texas fireplace. The food has been put out and the kids are finally coming down from their naptime meltdowns. It's time to come out of hiding.

Happy New Year's. May 2007 be happy, healthy, successful, prosperous, and full of inspiration and love!

Going home

Thursday we breathed a collective sigh of relief. My husband finished his exams. The weight didn't lift instantaneously from our shoulders, however. It took us a few good hours of recapping and reviewing before we could truly shake off the stress. Going out to the "Bar Review" that night helped.

My husband and I don't get out that often, and during his exams, we didn't go out at all. But I managed to find us a babysitter for Thursday night. We put the kids to bed and dressed up. I wore a nice brown mock turtleneck sweater and a cute pink and brown skirt that went just past my knees, and my cool brown boots. I thought I was looking pretty hip.

I picked up the babysitter and my husband and I drove down to a trendy bar in a happening part of town. We walked into the bar, showed our ID (you're just flattering me!), paid our cover, got our little wrist bands, and walked back to the private party room. A handful of law students were already there, drinking away their anxiety. My husband introduced me around to his classmates. The first woman we met was young, adorable and petite in an elfish way, dressed in a skimpy black top. She was smoking a cigarette, and looking like she hadn't had a decent meal in weeks. She talked about abandoning her cat, eating take out, and chain smoking during exams.

Wow! Ten or fifteen years ago I would have been nodding in concurrence. That night I was nodding in disbelief. I couldn't relate to thing this young girl was saying to me. Abandoning my kids was not an option. Take out every night was not an option, smoking was never an option. And the skimpy black top? Are you kidding me?

I saw many of those skimpy black tops that evening. They had different cuts, different trim, covered a varying amount of flesh. No one, oddly enough, showed up in a mock turtleneck anything. I looked like the resident nun. All of the Jewish students we met felt compelled to explain their lack of observance to me. Hey, I wanted to say, I didn't even say a bracha over this drink! Yeah, me, wild rebel. It didn't quite work anymore.

I enjoyed meeting my husband's classmates. They are a sweet, brilliant, and funny bunch. I laughed deep and hard for the first time in months, although that could have been the two drinks I had. My weekly kiddush doesn't quite keep my system lubricated for whiskey and Cokes. They made me feel welcome, and said such lovely things about my husband.

"He's a rockstar!" Explained one beautiful, young woman.

I beamed. Naches is naches!

* * *

Friday was the last night of Chanukah. We rushed around trying to pack and clean and cook. I made the traditional Shabbat meal of enchiladas and beans and rice. We lit our candles, opened the rest of the presents and ate our Shabbes Tacos.

My son lost a tooth on Friday, too. My son and I debated what we would do about the lost tooth. After all, our new tooth fairy in Chicago could be Sabbath observant, as well. We decided to put the tooth under the pillow on Saturday night, but when my son woke up, his tooth was still there! I suggested that perhaps we didn't have a very bright tooth fairy, so I suggested he check the other pillows in case the tooth fairy put the tooth under the wrong pillow. He found a dollar bill under his sister's pillow. Whew! Chicago tooth fairies, indeed!

* * *

We're packing up and getting ready to drive to San Antonio for our break. I can't wait to see my friends and family, to spend Shabbat at my shul. 24 hours in the car with my whole family.

Wish us luck!

Happy Chanukah!

Tonight the children and I lit six candles for Chanukah. My husband was passed out in bed. His last exam is tomorrow morning, and he's been up late every night studying. After a 45 minute cat nap, he's back to the grindstone. I'm exhausted just watching him hunched over his books. We're a pretty sympathetic couple. When I was pregnant, my husband gained thirty pounds. When he takes exams, I chew my nails. I'll be every bit as relieved as my legal scholar when it's over and done.

It's been a busy week for me, too. On Saturday night we went to a Chanukah carnival at the school. On Sunday, we had three parties. I hosted a small one for my son and four of his closest friends. That evening we were invited to two Chanukah parties, and we could have gone to two carnivals, if we had the time.

I threw a small party to celebrate a major milestone in my seven-year old's life: he finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. At almost four hundred pages, it took my son several weeks and tremendous perseverance to get through it, but I offered him an irresistible incentive. If he completed the book, I'd let him watch the movie.

Most children my son's age have seen the whole series of Harry Potter movies several times, but I have resisted the temptation. My son does not deal well with dramatic tension. The slightest hint of something startling or scary sends him out of the room with an, "I just want to play in my room now". When he was three years old we took him to see "Finding Nemo". He lasted ten minutes. Last year I took him to "Pooh's Heffalump Movie", and he squirmed. I couldn't subject him to trolls, three-headed dog's, and Voldemort until he was ready.

My son acquitted himself beautifully. The kids trickled in one at a time. Two girls and two boys came over. We started off decorating gingerbread cookies as their favorite Harry Potter character. The results were not surprising. The boys smeared frosting all over their cookies, and jammed as many candies as they could all over them, and finished up with a squiggly line on the forehead.

That must be Harry Potter! I observed as I walked past each candy-laden cookie. The boys grinned proudly.

And the girls? Hermione Granger, of course. I could tell be the blond hair they gave her, and no squiggly line. They ate more candies than they piled up on their cookies, which I reasoned was a good start. The movie started and the kids grew quiet.

Of course, that didn't last.

"Who's that?" My son queried. "What's he doing?" He demanded. "Where are they going?" He asked a few moments later. "Why are they doing that?"

His friends, having watched the movie several times, were thrilled to share their wisdom. After the first hour, the friends began drifting off to my son's room to find something else to do. This movie was old news. But not for my son who sat mesmerized, watching the pages of his book come to life before his eyes.

While they watched, I baked homemade pizzas, something I hadn't done since we moved to Chicago. Every second restaurant in this city serves pizza, why bother making it? For one thing, I knew my son would appreciate it, so I created two enormous and oddly shaped whole wheat pizzas with my special homemade sauce. I followed it up with cupcakes decorated with chocolate frosting and yellow gel in the shape, more or less, of broomsticks, lightning bolts, and golden snitches. All served on black paper plates. I felt like a regular Martha Stewart, without the centerpieces. Or the police record. Or the pay check.

Once the party was over I whipped up a banana bread and my special eight-layer dip, a heavenly Tex-Mex treat, to bring to that evening's main events. Once again, I piled the kids in the car to give my husband the space he needed to study. We arrived at the first party and I knew it was going to be a long night.

Friends of ours had invited us to this party, at their cousin's house, and asked me to bring something "Mexican and spicy". I showed up with three excited kids, a pan full of eight-layer dip, and a big stain on my sweater from the dip. Beans, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, cheese, tomatoes, olives and jalapenos do not look good on a lime green sweater.

The cousin's house was a brand new McMansion. We walked in tentatively, I put down the dip, and ran off to find my children, who had already disappeared into the basement with the other kids, and a bathroom, to clean off my sweater. The friends who had invited us were nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, my kids had made themselves at home in the basement, which was large enough to fit my whole apartment. I swallowed hard, and went upstairs to introduce myself to all of the strange faces. Each conversation began with a friendly,

"And who are you?" I swallowed hard again, and waited for my friends to arrive.

Thirty minutes later they strode in, the rabbi, his wife, and their five children, carrying trays of latkes and other assorted foods. Food was spread out, introductions were repeated, and the feast began. I watched tentatively as Midwesterners served themselves spoonfulls of my dip. It is common enough in San Antonio, but they eyed it warily before taking a bite.

"My mouth is on fire!" One woman complained. I apologized profusely, and mumbled something about warning her next time. "Oh, don't worry! This is my third serving!"

The kids came upstairs and helped themselves to marshmallows and chocolate fondue from a chocolate fountain. The hostess followed behind them with a rag, cleaning up the drops of chocolate that trailed behind the children. After five minutes she gave up and hid the whole chocolate contraption. That signalled the time for me to gather up my children and go to the next party.

With a banana bread in tow, I dragged the three kids to the next party. It was past their bedtimes, and they were beginning to meltdown, but I had explicit orders to tire them out before bringing them home. As I half dragged, half-carried the squirmy baby up three flights of stairs to the party, I muttered under my breath to no one in particular, my husband owes me BIG!

The party was fun and relaxed. I recognized people too! My son's lovely, adorable Hebrew teacher was there with her two year old baby and her swollen, pregnant belly. She told me lots of wonderful things about my son. She smiled as she recalled the first few days of class. My son had apparently picked up a strong Yemenite accent in San Antonio! Not bad for a peaches and cream complected kid with a smattering of freckles. I couldn't be prouder.

The home was a large, but cozy apartment, practically childproofed. And no chocolate fountain. We shmoozed, talked, played, and ate for an hour, but I was pushing my luck. At close to nine in the evening, the kids were beginning to melt down. So I gathered them up again, literally picking up children, putting shoes and coats on their limp bodies, and half dragging and half carrying them back to the car.

Tired, but happy, we made it home and collapsed into our beds, with thoughts of steaming latkes and spinning dreidels sprinkling our dreams. At least in the movie version.

As much fun as my daughter was having opening her Chanukah presents from her grandparents each night, nothing beat the excitement and anticipation of the Family Observation Day in her ballet class. For four months she waited anxiously to show her daddy her "shovels", plies, and "Greleves". Chairs were brought into the studio, parents, grandparents, and siblings watched as their little princesses engaged in graceful, organized chaos. Video cameras rolling, they aaahed and ooohed at their beaming girls. Then the "free dance" portion of the class began.



The moment my baby had been waiting for for four months finally came. Miss Katie invited her to join the dance!

We were sad to see it come to an end. My daughter gave her teacher a gift with a homemade card, and my husband rushed us out the door. He had more studying to do.

The costume has been ordered, tuition has been paid, the performance music has been recorded. My daughter is anxiously awaiting the real performance in June, on a real stage. You're all invited.

* * *

Chanukah is going by so fast, but last night we received the best gift of all: a new baby niece/cousin. Congratulations to brother- and sister-in-law, and welcome, little baby, to our family. We can't wait to meet you!

Holiday cheer

I don't know how he does it. I would be in a caffeine-frenzied panic right now, pouring hopelessly over textbooks, my notes, and old exams. I would be chewing my nails, praying, pacing manically. I would be a wreck.

My husband is in bed, watching some late night talk show before cashing in for the night. And he has his second final exam first thing in the morning! We are two very different people. He is calm, collected, organized, and completely on top of things. I am, well, not.

I am trying to help him as much as I can. Mostly, I feed him, keep the apartment in order, and keep the kids out of his hair. This is not as easy as it sounds. My four year old interprets a grownup sitting at a computer as a target for endless questions. The more you try to ignore her, the more creative she gets at drawing attention to herself.

"Can I write a story? How do you spell 'There'? How do you spell 'was'? How do you spell 'a'? How do you spell 'girl'? And in this way, my budding genius will "write" a complete story. It's amazing and brilliant. She knows her letters, she can write them beautifully, and she's unbelievably creative. It really makes us very proud. Unfortunately, she only plays this game when we're working on the computer. It makes us proud and crazy.

The baby has begun climbing on the radiator and flinging herself over the back of the couch...when we're on the computer.

My son has developed a nasty habit of torturing his sisters and making them scream...when we're on the computer.

So my job is to get them out of the house when my husband has to work. This is usually a wonderful opportunity to spend quality time with my children, and on Sunday, I was planning to take them to the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum. I prepared my children for this major event by showing them an important historical artifact relating to the boy king:

This accomplished the goal of getting my kids completely psyched for our outing.

Of course, the exhibit was sold out.

I almost panicked - in a car alone with three bright, curious kids, ready for action and adventure, I drove through this strange city trying to figure out what to do next. Going home simply wasn't an option.

Heading down Lake Shore Drive, I saw the sign for the Navy Pier, an outdoor tourist attraction with a giant Ferris wheel and a children's museum. I took the next exit and drove towards the flashy signs and throngs of weary parents with strollers. I didn't really have a plan in mind as we parked and entered the main building, but inspiration struck again. This time the sign read:

The LaSalle Bank® Winter WonderFest®at Navy Pier:

December 8th, 2006 - January 7th, 2007

Now in its sixth year, this favorite Chicago holiday tradition will once again delight visitors - both young and old - with a breathtaking winter wonderland of hundreds of trees, thousands of lights, non-stop holiday entertainment and family-style attractions.

Non-stop holiday entertainment was exactly what I was looking for, so I steered my kids towards the glittering lights of the Winter WonderFest® upstairs. A convention hall had been transformed into a sparkling, shimmering, magical playland carnival with hundreds of decorated Christmas trees, giant illuminated snowflakes, enormous gift boxes, teddy bears, and elves. It had an indoor Ferris wheel, ice skating rink, carousel, rock climbing walls, train, and a huge rocking horse. We stopped in our tracks, stunned by the sudden assault on our senses. I thought, how bad can this be? We can easily kill a three or four hours here!

My wallet was fifty-six dollars lighter, not including the twenty-two dollar parking, as we donned our hot-pink activity bands, and headed for the rides. Non-stop Christmas music played overhead as we walked around the Christmas trees from around the world. Consulates from Poland, Ukraine, China, the Czech Republic, Norway, and many more countries donated man-sized trees decorated in flags and other traditional ornaments. Each was more beautiful than the next. At the very end of the sweeping semi-circle of glimmering trees we saw a five foot tall, simple, white menorah with it's nine lightbulbs shining brightly, a gift from the Israeli consulate, and in front of it, a line of people waiting to take their pictures. As we ventured closer, the Christmas music gave way to a 1960s jazzy version of "I had a little dreidel". I was filled with dread. Just then a pair of teenagers dressed up as festive rag dolls with cheery red cheeks stopped my son and said, "Nice yarmulka!". I looked around and realized that for the first time since coming to Chicago, my son was the only one with a kippa.

We got in line for the Ferris wheel. The line dragged on. My son and his baby sister burst with anticipation, but the diva was strangely silent. When we finally got to the front of the line, after thirty minutes of impatience and excitement, she dug in her heels, and could not be persuaded to get on the intimidating ride. None of her big brother's pleas could convince her to give in. In the end, none of us could go, and my son was devastated.

It didn't take long for him to cheer up again. While the carousel was a poor substitute for the speedy, daring Ferris wheel, he hopped on a painted horse and tried to look grateful. The girls sat on their horses waiting for the ride to begin, unsure of what to expect. I held the baby on her steed. Her horse glided forward and rose up gently, and her eyes grew big as saucers. A great big smile spread over her face. Her big brother looked back and squealed, "You can't catch me!"

Even the diva smiled.

We waited in line after line. Four hours passed and we only made it onto five rides. My son wanted to try out the rock wall, but the line was the longest of all. I shook my head and dragged him, pouting, to an inflatable obstacle course that culminated in a giant slide. He ran ahead to join the queue. After ten minutes, he finally got to the front, and jumped in. The diva decided she wanted to try it, too. I sent my son on to the rock wall line and watched my daughter inch closer to the dreaded moonwalk. I was so proud of her as I recalled her fear of these contraptions. It was finally her turn. The attendant helped her in, and I braced myself.

It took less than a minute for my apprehension to be realized. High pitched, blood-curdling screams came out from the belly of the innocuous inflated beast, and the attendant swooped in to free my shrieking daughter from her nightmare. She immediately calmed down and said, "I got stuck" in a matter-of-fact voice. I shrugged and we moved on to the rock wall.

My son waited patiently for what seemed like hours for his last escapade. My girls were not so patient, and truth be told, either was I. It was getting late, close to suppertime. We had been in this overly stimulating, over-the-top fantasyland all afternoon, and it was taking a toll on us all. But my son's heart was set on conquering the great wall, so we waited and waited. We watched little half-pints scrambling up and tumbling down, and scrambling up again. determined to reach the top. Some of the more agile actually did, although most gave up after several heartening tries. I looked forward to watching my son test his mettle against the wall, fondly remembering my rock climbing days in Boston.

His turn finally came. The attendants strapped him into his harness and clipped him to the ropes. My son reached up to grab the handholds and pulled himself up a couple of feet. I stood by the sidelines cheering him on and offering him what little guidance I could. Grab the thingy right above your hand! That One! That One! Go for it! I sounded like the crazy relatives of a television gameshow contestant.

But after he made it up two or three feet, my son suddenly stopped and wouldn't go any farther. He waved the attendant over and asked her to take him down and unclip him. After one try, "It was too hard." He explained. I know the long day had taken its toll on him, too, but I was floored. We waited close to an hour for that? I couldn't get these tired, hungry, and kvetchy kids (and their grumpy mommy) home fast enough.

* * *

As much as the designers of the Winter WonderFest® tried to create magic in the Navy Pier conference hall, real magic happened at my son's school on Tuesday. It was the day of his "Kabbalat Chumash" or the day the second graders received their bibles. They performed a play they had been rehearsing for a month, entirely in Hebrew, and they sang and danced, and showed off all they had learned so far. Close to forty seven- and eight-year olds performed their little hearts out, and at the end, were called one by one to receive the holy texts they would be learning from for the next decade. My son sang every song loud and clear. He got up in his suit and tie and recited his lines clearly and with such an Israeli accent! Who knew he could roll his r's like that? He even danced in perfect rhythm as he sang an upbeat Hebrew song. My eyes welled up with tears of pride as the children told the story of the great Rabbi Akiva who did not begin to learn Torah until he was forty, and they sang a song reflecting his great lesson of loving and respecting one another.

Their performance was remarkable in its beauty and sincerity. More than the menorah in a sea of Christmas trees, or the jazzy, jingly dreidel song, the honest voices of children really remind us of the true meaning of Chanukah. That we are still here to watch our children grow and learn and carry on traditions that had been left for dead time and time again, while we have to pay to see the mighty and great Egyptian Pharoahs in a museum, is nothing short of a miracle.

I'm praying for another miracle right now.

O Benevolent One, please let my husband ace his law school exams. Amen.

Chag Sameach! Happy Holidays!

Birthday girl

Everyone asks me how I'm coping with the cold weather. The truth is, I'm not coping very well. In Chicago in mid-winter, you have two choices: bury yourself under your blankets and never come out, our bury yourself under several layers of clothing and tough it out. My personal inclination is the former, however, with three kids in tow, it really isn't a great choice. Kids, like certain household cleaning items, explode under pressure. Almost daily I weigh the options: is toilet paper worth wrestling the baby down and enveloping her in four or five layers of thick and puffy clothes while she protests loudly?

Usually the answer is: Eh. We still have tissues.

Last week we were invited over to a friend's home for Shabbat dinner. It was the day after a snow and ice storm, and my husband advised me to cancel. When a Minnesotan suggests that it may be too cold and the conditions too hazardous, this Texan listens. So we postponed until the next Friday night.

Friday came around again, and it was cold out. Any description I could give about the severity of the weather would sound like hyperbole, but all I could think about was Dante's lowest level of hell. So, there I was again, weighing my options: Do I cancel again, whip up a last minute Shabbat dinner and risk upsetting a new friend, or do I just suck it up and go?

The kids and my husband convinced me to go. We bundled ourselves up a ridiculous amount. The children were in long underwear, their clothes, a layer of sweaters and additional pants, mittens, hats, gloves, parkas, snow boots, and my son's now disintegrating balaclava. We brought a couple of extra blankets to wrap up the kids, and we set out walking with the stroller the two miles to our friend's home.

The walk was miserable. The kids bundled up on the stroller, the little baby fell asleep like a hibernating bear, as my husband and I took turns pushing the stroller over partially, or not at all, shovelled sidewalks. We trudged over uneven ice, and mushy, dirty snow, and finally arrived, numb, hungry, and sore from the physical effort it took to get there. But the meal was lovely, the company congenial and stimulating. The kids played with their friends while my husband and I enjoyed adult conversation.

Then it was time to come home again, and from years of experience, I can attest to the fact that the way back is always worse than the way there. This was no exception.

Remind me why we're doing this again! I pleaded with my husband. We finally made it home, even more numb, tired, and sore than when we had arrived at dinner. We put the kids to bed and my husband said a meek, apologetic, "Happy birthday".

At 7:30 the next morning, the baby, revelling in her new freedom, waddled into our bedroom and began my birthday with a big smile. It took us several hours to get ourselves and the kids moving this morning, but we were finally able to pull it together enough to march through the elements to synagogue.

I can't say I'm enjoying any of this. Winter is difficult. Everything takes longer and requires planning and consideration. I am finding every task to be more inconvenient and more challenging than at any other time of year. Every shopping trip, every outing to a post office or dry cleaners is fraught with hazards and obstacles.

If it were up to me, I'd just stay in bed.

* * *

It's Saturday night, the ninth anniversary of my 29th birthday. My husband bought me a wonderful gift of Ghirardelli chocolates and a toasty and stylish hat, gloves, and mitten set. He let me take a nap while he watched the kids, and he even did all of the dishes today. It's not the grandest of birthday celebrations, but with his first exam a mere 36 hours away, I'm feeling pretty loved.

I know he's feeling gut-wrenching pressure right now, but you wouldn't know it by looking at him. He has the same smiling, easy demeanor he always does. We couldn't be more opposite. When I'm asked how I'm coping with winter, I grimace. When he's asked how he's coping with law school, he smiles.

I know he loves me because he's working hard, trying to make a better life for his family. He's enduring copious amounts of rigorous reading assignments and brain-numbing exams. He's balancing a back-breaking study schedule with the demands of family life, and incurring frightening debts in the process. I don't know many people who could take these kinds of risks and commit themselves to these kinds of challenges. But my husband does it with a smile.

And how do I show him I love him?

Well, I'm here, ain't I?!

The blur

I now understand why Chicago has so many wonderful museums. When it's 18 degrees and icy out, what else are you going to do with three stir crazy children? On Sunday, my husband and I bundled up all three kids, and strapped them into the car, after we chipped enough ice off the doors to open them. I blasted the heater, and we headed south to the Museum of Science and Industry. It is housed in a grand old building from the Columbia Exposition of 1896 (for more information about the building, and a wonderful and creepy historical novel, check out The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson). The building was majestic with stately columns and green domes, but what really impressed the kids was the underground parking. Kept at a balmy 40 degrees, I was impressed, too.

We entered at the lower level, and were immediately drawn to the 1934 Pioneer Zephyr Streamlined train. Actually, we were more accurately dragged there by the chatty gentleman in the engineering costume. While we waited in line for the guided tour, we were regaled by his life story.

"You know, I almost moved to San Antonio! I applied for a job at San Antonio College, but I didn't get it." He trailed off dejectedly, looking all the more pitiable in his white train engineers jumpsuit and striped hat. My son nodded blankly.

I warned the woman giving us the tour to brace herself for lots of questions from my son, but he was too engaged in the talking exhibits to utter a word. I marvelled at the feat of engineering and exhibit planning that could keep my son silent for 15 minutes: a talking burro, a train car full of grey passengers chatting back and forth, and images off the passing countryside superimposed on the windows. I'm not sure how much of the substance of the exhibit they absorbed, but the style was engaging enough.

We set off to explore the other exhibits. Many of them were designed as methods of generating creative thinking, like this empty cartoon strip where children were encouraged to star in their own strips. My son enjoyed selecting the dialogue and lining himself up just right. The girls had little patience for it.

The next room we entered was a nautical exhibit, filled with dozens of models of old ships. The children decided that they would have to return with their Papa, an old sea salt, himself.

We visited the Fairy castle, which was an enormous model of a, well, fairy castle, with miniature details of a chapel, complete with stain glass windows, a banquet hall with tapestries and crystal goblets and itty bitty knives and forks, a bedroom with a tiny bear skin rug, and thousands of other small knickknacks that enchanted the crowds of little girls pressing against its glass enclosure. My daughter came out spellbound.

When you're a princess, will you live in a castle like that? I asked her. She just somberly nodded her head. My son rolled his eyes, and complained.

"That was boring."

The baby enjoyed the flat, rectangular hand-held earphones for a narrated tour of the structure she could barely see.

"Allo! Allo!" She called into each "phone".

We stopped for lunch in front of a Rube Goldberg-type contraption made by a Swiss engineer from scrap metal and toys, to celebrate the Swiss tourism industry. The kids watched a golf-sized silver ball ascended and descended, riding on buses, trains, trolleys and a boat, and phones rang, bells tinkled, light illuminated and went dark, in a rhythmical, mesmerizing cadence, back and forth, up and down. So many small contraptions whizzed and twirled, for the dozens of children who would come, stare for ten or fifteen minutes, then be dragged away by their parents.

The day seemed to whiz by in a blur, like a spinning flag on the Swiss Mountainside. We arrived soon after they opened at eleven, and left at the four o'clock closing. For close to five hours my children dreamed about voyages on trains and ships and flying contraptions, played with the many hands-on squirting, scooping, and sorting activities, explored the circus, the power grid, and the household plumbing system, imagined themselves into the Swiss countryside or in a tiny fairy castle, and ran around the cavernous halls. They spent the day in near-constant motion.

That night I smiled looking at the photographs I had taken, half I'd deleted because the kids had spun around as the camera flashed. In all of the pictures I kept, their faces were all blurry. I smiled because that was just the way I remembered it.

Snow day

The moment I have been dreading, and the children anticipating, has finally arrived: Our first real snow. School was cancelled for the children on Friday, as ice and snow blanketed the city. The kids awoke to the beautiful, shimmering display of their first winter storm. Their excitement was boundless. They jumped, squealed, and tried to figure out how to dress for their first foray into the world of snowballs, snowmen, and anything else their imagination could create. It took us hours to get them out the door.

Getting three children dressed in long underwear, pants, shirts, socks, sweaters, coats, snow pants, mittens, and hats, is an art I have yet to master. By the time I'd get one kid bundled up, the other would be peeling off his layers.

"It's hot in here!"

So, I'd get the little sister bundled, and return to help the big brother with his mittens and hat. Impatiently, little sister would begin undressing. After a couple of hours of going back and forth between the two older children, I finally got them dressed. The baby realized what was happening, ran to the closet, and tugged on her jacket.

"Coat!" She insisted, using one of her new words. So I began to bundle her up. The older two impatiently began to peel off their layers again, so I sent them out alone, while I wrestled the baby into her parka, one size too big.

My husband reluctantly pulled himself away from his work, put on his coat and hat, and got ready to take the baby out to play with her siblings. The poor thing was so bundled up, she couldn't walk. Nor could she get herself back up once she toppled over, painlessly padded in several layers of warm fluff. He peered out the window to check on the kids.

"I see I have to explain to them about yellow snow." He smiled.

I looked out the window to see my deliriously happy children building some sort of yellow and white snow structure on the sidewalk below. Their giggles and laughter audible from our warm apartment above.

"They are having a blast out there!" I observed. Sheer, boundless joy was, in fact, what I was observing in the swirling whiteness below. My daughter stretched herself out on the crunchy surface, while my son, looking surprisingly unmenacing in his balaclava, mashed, squished, and smooshed snow into bigger and bigger clumps of snow lumps. He wasn't exactly making a snowman, and they weren't snow balls, either. Later I asked him what he was building.

"A snow mountain!" He grinned from ear-to-ear. Ah. Of course. Presumably for skiing or sledding? "And digging tunnels!"

They played out there for hours. My husband raced to get his resumes out for summer jobs, and I tucked the baby away in her crib for a nap. The next couple of hours were spent preparing the Shabbat meal, since our dinner plans also had to be cancelled. Are you sure we won't be able to get the stroller through this stuff? I asked my wise-in-the-ways-of-winter husband. "I'm sure."
I was bummed about having to cook dinner, but one thought sustained me: At least the kids are tiring themselves out. They'll sleep well tonight.

We finally lured the kids back indoors with cups of hot chocolate, and sat down to dinner. When we were done, we stepped over an obstacle course of hats, boots, snow pants, and toys - hours after we had straightened up - and we got the kids dressed in warm pajamas. With the kids cozy in their beds, and the baby in her crib, my husband and I sat down to relax.

Were this a horror movie, the creepy music would have tipped us off to our impending doom; but nothing, musical or otherwise, could prepare us for the nightmare to which we were about to awake.

Collapsed on the couch too tired to face the dishes piled up in the sink, we heard a door creak open. Expecting to find the ballerina, or the big brother, we glanced over at the door, annoyed. But it wasn't one of the older sibling emerging from the room. The triumphant grin of our 20 month-old toddler peaked out, just seconds before the door swung open and the gleeful baby tore through the house giggling, or was it cackling? She cooed and gurgled something that sounded faintly like,

"I'm FREEEEEEEE!!!!!!!"

My husband and I looked at each other with our mouths gaping. Life as we knew it was over. The carefree, halcyon days of taking our unruly, wild, bent-on-destruction angel, and depositing her in her crib where she might howl, but could hardly do any damage, were over. Nap time, bed time, and time outs were no longer going to be a simple process. Gone where the days were I could simply say,

I love you dear, but it's time to go to bed!

No! I sobbed to my husband as he tore after the maniacal midget. The baby figured out how to climb out of her crib, and there was no turning the clock back.

We spent two hours tag-teaming her back to bed. We tried locking her in the room, but she howled and howled and kept her brother and sister up. My husband tried sleeping with her on her little mattress on the floor, but she wiggled away. He tried putting her in bed with her big sister, but she just wanted to play. I tried bringing her in my bed to sleep, but she climbed and bounced all over me. Finally, exhausted and determined, I carried her back into her room, tucked her snuggly into the little mattress on the floor, and sang her songs, while caressing her glowing face. By the sixth song, she began to yawn and stare glassy-eyed into space. By the eighth song, her eyelids grew heavy. By the tenth song, I had clinched the deal.

Dragging myself back into my room, I collapsed in bed.

I'm doomed, utterly doomed.

This morning we awoke to the gleeful chirping of a small bird reintroduced into the wild. The baby pushed the bedroom door open and toddled up to my bed. Her face shone with a sense of joy and accomplishment. She threw her arms up at me and said, "Huggy!"

I scooped her up into my arms and held her close. She held me tight in her small arms. One more milestone passed. My baby isn't a baby anymore, but a growing, independent child. She won't indulge me with long, delicious hugs and cuddles for too much longer. Her little, wobbly legs are too busy taking her wherever she wants to go: her sister's top bunk, her brother's six foot loft bed, the top of the couch. Especially at bedtime. She's waited and worked for this moment, as anticipated as the first snow.