Six weeks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But we still have a ways to go.

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

Creative juices

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

And my kids looked great.

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

Oh, yeah. And get a better Hamantaschen recipe.