Longest Shabbat

It is 4:40pm on Friday afternoon and I am lounging around as if it is Tuesday. I have plenty of time! Just three days from the Summer Solstice, candle lighting in our neck of the woods is not until 8:30pm. But you would think I would know by now that there is NEVER enough time to get ready for Shabbat whether it is winter and candle lighting is closer to 3:30 in the afternoon or you live in the Arctic, as I once did , and in the summer it is closer to mid-night.

Truthfully I find the late Shabbats much harder than the earlier ones. Sure I complain vociferously in January when I have to cook starting no later than Wednesday and I am arriving home within 15 minutes of candle lightening even when I take the absolute earliest bus from the city. Despite the grousing, it is fun, we are all in it together. We are a little club with a common mission, trudging through the snow to get our last minute ingredients. And as soon as Shabbat starts, it is over as quickly. Havadalah and then there is time for a movie, and I am not talking a 10:15pm show! A reasonably time show - one where you can be home and in bed by 10:15pm.

So with my late Shabbat today, once my cooking is done (assuming I get off this couch), Yair and I plan to wander to the other side of the golf course and listen to the FREE Jazz in the Woods concert. We will be able to hear two hours of it before we need to come home to daven and light. There will be no Saturday night movie this week, but we will still have a good time. When we walk into the house we will be welcomed with a scrumptious meal of kebab and rice with African peanut sauce.

Next week, Shabbat is almost equally as late. I think a few hours of swimming in the Delaware River is in order! See you Up-Camp!

Never too early to start reading

A dear friend and colleague of mine sent our little boy a gift certificate to buy books. Boy did we have fun!

The whole family loaded into the rig (with specific instructions) so we could pick the "perfect" books.

We looked at lots of books. We went with a few classics and a few that were just fun to read. We made sure not to buy any books we already had. That was the hard part because we have lots of books already.

Thank you Carl! Our library is five books happier! Maybe someday we will have a Nobel Prize in Literature.

What Dat! A baby?

The bambino and I just got back from a whirlwind tour of New Orleans! We flew in late one day and left dark and early 36 hours later. He is a charm - he really is, but I forgot just how challenging it is to travel alone with a little one. They like to be fed, and they like to be fed every 2.5-3 hours!!! Plus the diaper bag needs all sorts of extras - a change of clothing (or two), bottles, burp cloth, toys, etc. All of this competing for space with the standard laptop carry-on. Navigating the conveyor belt, taking off the shoes, not dropping the baby (or the laptop), not losing the wallet or the ticket can all be very very stressful at 6:00am!

I just heard on television that the airlines are ranked 49/49 in customer service with other service industries. I usually am fairly forgiving, but this morning I saw the industry at its absolute lowest, and I was not feeling so generous with my wailing 5 month old in my arms only wanting to eat. I rarely pull rank, but felt it best for everyone that I move myself to the "first class" line and told them I was active duty and on orders. I left out the part about the crying infant since that part seemed self evident. He told me he would help me next. Wow! I should have thought of that sooner. Not one of the other couple hundred people batted an eye when I moved myself to first class. I think they all felt like my little boy did, and had it been socially acceptable for us all to be crying this morning, I think many more of us would have been. Later, when I was on the plane, people from the line came up to express their empathy with me. And to think I was afraid I was bothering everyone.

Once we breezed through TSA (and I am not joking - TSA has been fabulous on my last several flights) and I was able to get him feed, he started making friends with everyone in the terminal. He actually made friends with everyone on our 36 hour trip. Holding a baby makes people want to talk with you! Strangers on the street, people on the elevator, LTJGs at my meeting, Navy Rear Admirals, children, the elderly, parents missing their own children, men, women - everyone wanted to come talk to my baby.

I felt fairly honored. I am his mother and do think he is one cute little kid, but then I realized the magical power of a baby and how as a society we are taught to tuck our children away so they are not a "bother". Here, I had brought my baby out into the world - first to a professional conference and then through the airport. People were just not used to seeing this little bit of perfection in their otherwise drab world. He smiled and coo'd and finally fell asleep. Then he would wake and do it all again. Believe me, the whole time it was running though my head whether I had been too presumptive to bring an infant to a professional conference. In the end, the little voice inside my head was quieted. The world needs to see more babies!

With that revelation, the two of us will be flying again next week. Not sure I have the energy to do it all again so soon, but here goes. Yair will be out as an ambassador for all the babies, and I as his mother will not be so worried that he is bothering everyone.

Small things make me happy

With five kids, dates are hard to come by.

Yet my husband and I have managed to make the ritual of tea drinking our daily date. It may only be 10-minutes but it is 10-minutes once, maybe twice, a day we manage to keep sacred.

Dates are even more important when an already crazy schedule is being asked to 'flex' just a little bit more. We are finishing up home-school this week; preparing for Shabbat; making logistical arrangements for the mutt; the baby;  and my job; while packing for a three+ week road trip (crossing into Canada) for the majority of the family; camp for my daughter, and road trip/business trips (Yes-PURAL) for me and the baby. My head hurts just typing about it.

6/7th of the family have their passports. Upon investigation the world wide web last night, it appears the baby will be able to pass through with just his birth certificate. But eeks - one more thing to remember to pack (and more importantly not lose while trekking). Never the less, it is not our nature to let the littlest among us be without passport, so David is off getting his photo taken, and we will have the application submitted prior to pulling out of the driveway.

Now that it is summer, we have moved away from our creamy British tea in the ceramic winter mugs and have moved to Earl Grey with Fresh tea leaves and Lemon Verbena in clear glass cups, with an optional splash of agave. Needless to say, I am looking forward to my evening tea break with David. It will be a well-deserved 10-minute island of time to ask him how is day was between Kumon math lessons and the mounds of laundry.