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.