Winter is here
Winter is here. The Chanukah menorahs are bunched up by the window like small children watching the snow accumulate below. Fresh wax has hardened on the homemade chanukiahs and presents are piled up on the table. Chanukah has begun, and in the age-honored Jewish tradition I have wrapped up packages of socks and underwear in sparkly paper and curly ribbons to give to my family as gifts. This may help to explain why they have been so very challenging these days.
I made the obligatory latkes, and then ate them after my children turned their noses up at my intensive labor. Really, I pleaded, if you put ketchup on them they taste just like french fries! It didn't work. Begging, pleading, and outright lies have yet to succeed in convincing my children to eat what I feed them. And it's not that I'm a bad cook.
My big catering debut was last week, and much to my relief, nobody died of food poisoning or ran out screaming, "I paid for this?!" Actually, the meal was quite the success. The Yemenite soup was a tremendous hit, and even the black beans and rice earned rave reviews. And despite slicing my finger open on the first onion I diced, it was a lot of fun. Of course, my children were not impressed, and barely deigned to try the chicken. You can't please 'em all.
My husband finished up his last class presentation yesterday, then called me in a panic from the bus stop. "I left my wallet on the bus and I can't get home!" I called the landlady downstairs and asked her to send up her daughter to babysit while I braved the frigid and snowy weather to rescue my stranded husband. We spent the next half hour chasing down the bus to to retrieve the wallet. As we passed the university my husband called out, "that's the bus!" I stopped my van, forced it to U-turn against its lugubrious will, and followed the bus in hot pursuit for a block or two. My husband, Indiana Jones-style, jumped out of the van, ran down the block chasing after the bus. He flung himself onto the bus, and minutes later emerged victorious, with a huge smile on his face and the wallet in his triumphantly raised hand.
We returned home to our ecstatic children, up past their bedtimes, playing Life with our adorable teenage neighbor. I looked around at the piles of folded laundry, the torn wrapping paper on the floor, and the sinks full of dishes, praying the landlady hadn't noticed. Despite the embarrassment of displaying a disorderly abode, I was relieved to see my children smiling and laughing, even if it was an hour and a half past bedtime.
It dawned on me that I don't plan enough fun activities with my children. I have been promising to bake Chanukah cookies with my daughter for several days now, but the time keeps slipping away from us.
I was heartened. Tonight was the synagogue Chanukah Party and the kids were bound to have a great time; pizza, cotton candy, cream-filled doughnuts, tubes of powder candy, decorate-your-own cookies, oh, and a magician, were the on the docket for the evening. I was certain we'd have a sure-fire winner. "I don't want to go." My son declared. "But I do!" my daughter responded angrily. A battle erupted between the two while I cowered in the front seat of the van, hoping to stay out of the crossfire. I finally got them to agree to go, but the baby then decided to stage her own protest.
My husband was in the library, and I, once again, had the unenviable chore of taking all three children to an event, and bringing them back home again. It sounds simple enough, but the kids have been on a holiday high all week. The sugar-and-fat buzz didn't help matters. I had teenagers chasing after the baby to get her back into her coat, I had a screaming match with my son about why he had to throw out the tube of saliva-melted discolored mush of powder candy when he got home, and I had to threaten my children with all sorts of horrible punishments if they didn't brush their teeth. I'm still chasing a sugar-rushed infant back into bed every five minutes.
It's one thing if I were making my children clean their rooms or do their homework, but they put up a fight when I offer to take them to a party! And a word of thanks when I do drag them out and they have a great time? Fat chance. I suspect it's just the age, and gratitude is not yet written into a child's DNA. I know they are gracious, fun-loving and polite children to everyone but me. My friends and their teachers, and complete strangers tell me as much.
Moms get the special treatment. We bear the brunt of their rapidly developing emotions and social skills. We see every nuanced and not-so-nuanced mood their brain chemicals produce. We see them at their sweetest and at their absolute worst. I suppose I should take it as a compliment. Who else has the privilege of being called "the meanest" by the child she bore in her womb for nine months and endured a C-section to bring into the world?
Parenting is the most exhilarating roller coaster ride in the world: the highs of tender and affectionate moments, the lows of bitter strife. At the end of the day I'm a wrecked shell of a woman, only to wake up again to the sweet smiling face of a toddler climbing in bed for a morning snuggle.
My husband is now studying for final exams. At long last there is a light at the end of this very long and dark tunnel known as the 2L fall semester. It won't come a moment too soon. I'm ready to stage my own sort of protest soon, and I've had more than enough examples to emulate.
I'm getting grumpy again. Winter's here.
I made the obligatory latkes, and then ate them after my children turned their noses up at my intensive labor. Really, I pleaded, if you put ketchup on them they taste just like french fries! It didn't work. Begging, pleading, and outright lies have yet to succeed in convincing my children to eat what I feed them. And it's not that I'm a bad cook.
My big catering debut was last week, and much to my relief, nobody died of food poisoning or ran out screaming, "I paid for this?!" Actually, the meal was quite the success. The Yemenite soup was a tremendous hit, and even the black beans and rice earned rave reviews. And despite slicing my finger open on the first onion I diced, it was a lot of fun. Of course, my children were not impressed, and barely deigned to try the chicken. You can't please 'em all.
My husband finished up his last class presentation yesterday, then called me in a panic from the bus stop. "I left my wallet on the bus and I can't get home!" I called the landlady downstairs and asked her to send up her daughter to babysit while I braved the frigid and snowy weather to rescue my stranded husband. We spent the next half hour chasing down the bus to to retrieve the wallet. As we passed the university my husband called out, "that's the bus!" I stopped my van, forced it to U-turn against its lugubrious will, and followed the bus in hot pursuit for a block or two. My husband, Indiana Jones-style, jumped out of the van, ran down the block chasing after the bus. He flung himself onto the bus, and minutes later emerged victorious, with a huge smile on his face and the wallet in his triumphantly raised hand.
We returned home to our ecstatic children, up past their bedtimes, playing Life with our adorable teenage neighbor. I looked around at the piles of folded laundry, the torn wrapping paper on the floor, and the sinks full of dishes, praying the landlady hadn't noticed. Despite the embarrassment of displaying a disorderly abode, I was relieved to see my children smiling and laughing, even if it was an hour and a half past bedtime.
It dawned on me that I don't plan enough fun activities with my children. I have been promising to bake Chanukah cookies with my daughter for several days now, but the time keeps slipping away from us.
I was heartened. Tonight was the synagogue Chanukah Party and the kids were bound to have a great time; pizza, cotton candy, cream-filled doughnuts, tubes of powder candy, decorate-your-own cookies, oh, and a magician, were the on the docket for the evening. I was certain we'd have a sure-fire winner. "I don't want to go." My son declared. "But I do!" my daughter responded angrily. A battle erupted between the two while I cowered in the front seat of the van, hoping to stay out of the crossfire. I finally got them to agree to go, but the baby then decided to stage her own protest.
My husband was in the library, and I, once again, had the unenviable chore of taking all three children to an event, and bringing them back home again. It sounds simple enough, but the kids have been on a holiday high all week. The sugar-and-fat buzz didn't help matters. I had teenagers chasing after the baby to get her back into her coat, I had a screaming match with my son about why he had to throw out the tube of saliva-melted discolored mush of powder candy when he got home, and I had to threaten my children with all sorts of horrible punishments if they didn't brush their teeth. I'm still chasing a sugar-rushed infant back into bed every five minutes.
It's one thing if I were making my children clean their rooms or do their homework, but they put up a fight when I offer to take them to a party! And a word of thanks when I do drag them out and they have a great time? Fat chance. I suspect it's just the age, and gratitude is not yet written into a child's DNA. I know they are gracious, fun-loving and polite children to everyone but me. My friends and their teachers, and complete strangers tell me as much.
Moms get the special treatment. We bear the brunt of their rapidly developing emotions and social skills. We see every nuanced and not-so-nuanced mood their brain chemicals produce. We see them at their sweetest and at their absolute worst. I suppose I should take it as a compliment. Who else has the privilege of being called "the meanest" by the child she bore in her womb for nine months and endured a C-section to bring into the world?
Parenting is the most exhilarating roller coaster ride in the world: the highs of tender and affectionate moments, the lows of bitter strife. At the end of the day I'm a wrecked shell of a woman, only to wake up again to the sweet smiling face of a toddler climbing in bed for a morning snuggle.
My husband is now studying for final exams. At long last there is a light at the end of this very long and dark tunnel known as the 2L fall semester. It won't come a moment too soon. I'm ready to stage my own sort of protest soon, and I've had more than enough examples to emulate.
I'm getting grumpy again. Winter's here.
posted by law school widow at 2:19 PM
1 Comments:
Oh my gosh, I LOVE your cooking! What's in Yeminite soup? I have an idea, let's combine our children for meal time and put them in a separate room with washable walls and lock the door. Just think, as soon as they leave home they'll be calling you every day to ask you how you cook their favorite dishes. They'll tell their spouses, "it's okay, but it's not like my mother's latkes. Nobody makes them like she does!"
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