halloween parade

our neighborhood had a halloween parade yesterday. all the kids and parents walked up the main street in the neighborhood and ended up at the big lawn. the garden club was selling cider and treats to raise money to plant new tulips beds and the kids ran around hyped up on sugar. after the parade, everyone piled into the clubhouse for a carnival - there were a few games and some arts and crafts. there was a costume contest and even a magician. at the end, all the kids got goodie bags. it was a great, great event and the kids had a blast (jeff and i enjoyed it, too).

some photos:

snow camels

last night as i was putting on jack's pajamas after his bath, we started talking about the colder weather and how winter would be here in a few months.

jack: is it going to snow?

me: maybe. sometimes it snows during the winter and sometimes it doesn't

jack: will you go with me in the snow so i'm not scared?

me: what is scary about the snow?

jack: the snow camels.

me: the snow camels??

jack: YES! the snow camels.

me: what are snow camels?

jack: you know, the camels with the horns on their heads in the snow.

me: (thinking, thinking, thinking) do you mean reindeer?

jack: um, yes! weindeer!


tell me where on earth that kid got snow camels from reindeer.

new jew

so about two years ago i started thinking about converting to judaism. not necessarily because i think it's the "right" religion or because i've done an intense soul searching. it's simply because my family is jewish and i want to be a part of that.

jeff and i live a jewish life, meaning we don't celebrate christian holidays and we are raising kate and jack jewish. the kids will go to hebrew school and have bar and bat mitzvahs. it's the deal we made before we got engaged; jeff said it was important to him to raise his kids jewish and i said, 'eh. fine by me. religion is religion.'

when jeff and i got married, people asked me a lot if i was going to convert. i always said that i wasn't planning on it but that if the time came when i wanted to or felt the need to that i would.

and now that time has come. or came two years ago. kate was in her first year at a jewish preschool and she was coming home with all sorts of projects i knew nothing about (the lulav and the etrog? i had no idea what these were or why she made them in class). for the first time i began to see a division between me and my family. they were jewish and i was not.

and then hurricane katrina hit new orleans. i was so moved by the jewish community's response and heard for the first time about the jewish concept of tikkun olam: repair the world. it spoke deeply to the part of me that values volunteer work and the idea of helping others. i decided that i wanted to convert.

the journey the past two years has had starts and stops. i thought i wanted to join a temple and be mentored by the rabbi there but he never returned my calls and i found out later that he took a sabbatical from the congregation to teach a congregation down south somewhere. which left me back at the beginning. i always thought the converting would require a year or so of studying and learning and the thought of a year of school slowed my fervor to convert.

i took an intro to judaism class in the spring at the temple where the kids go to preschool. i'd never been a fan of the rabbi there but in a classroom setting and one-on-one, i saw him in a new light and realized he wasn't as aloof and removed as i had always thought.

so. i made an appointment for this morning to talk to him about converting. i thought i'd go in and we'd talk about setting up a study course and he would tell me how hard it was going to be and how long it was going to take. instead, he asked me how i came about the decision to convert and then told me what would happen. turns out i don't need to do any (more) studying. he said the fact that i've been living a jewish life is far more valuable than any studying i could do (of course, the fact that i took the intro class didn't hurt).

so i filled out my application to convert and just need to decide on my hebrew name. the rabbi is going to contact two baltimore rabbis to make up the beit din. then i go through the mikvah and voila - i'm a jew.

i can't believe it's happening so quickly. it could be just a few weeks; the rabbi said the hardest part was coordinating three rabbi's schedules.

so there you go. from catholic, to home churched, to born-again, to jewish. maybe this one will stick.

the kids

i've been struggling with being a parent lately. not just being a parent, but parenting my two kids. i wake up in the mornings hoping it won't be another day of jack crying and whining about the fact that he had to wake up and breathe today and that kate won't answer with a stifled scream to every question i ask her. is it something about the ages of 3 and 5? the physically demanding part of being a parent to a newborn is long gone but in its place is the mentally exhausting chore of trying to raise two whine-free, responsible, happy kids.

and i seem to be failing miserably.

it seems that all kate thinks about or talks about (or, let's be truthful here, whines about) is that someone has something that she doesn't have or jack got to do something that she didn't and IT'S. NOT. FAIR. nothing is fair. the poor child has the most miserable existence any kid could have what with the three meals and two snacks she gets daily, the closet full of clothes and the toys she has to play with. how do you teach a 5-year-old to be thankful? seriously. what is an age appropriate way to teach them? do i take her to volunteer at a homeless shelter? would she even understand that? do i take her on a walking tour of east baltimore and hope we don't get shot in the process of showing her the boarded up houses and the homeless people wandering the streets? HOW do i teach her? because right now i just want to throw out all her clothes and toys and make her live in the garage to wipe that smug smile of entitlement off her face.

and jack? good lord. jack is just another can of worms. his teachers love him. other parents think he's adorable and funny and entertaining. so why is he a whining, miserable mess at home? i know he's got it rough what with his own room and a playroom full of toys and endless viewings of the jungle book and high school musical. but still.

how do you give your kids things without also giving them a sense of entitlement? we don't buy our kids everything they want. but we do give them a lot. do i stop buying things we want to buy them just to prove a point? i don't know. i just know that whatever i'm doing isn't working.

or am i being unrealistic that a 3 and a 5 year old should be mature enough to grasp the concepts of being thankful and giving to others?

help?

back in the saddle

it's been a while since the last time i blogged. life got busy, the kids got needy and blogging was just the last on a long list of things i needed/wanted to do.

the thing is, i've wanted to post for a few weeks but felt the pressure of jumping back in after a long absence. like, the return post had to be profound or insightful or ridiculously funny. and nothing i had to blog about was any of those things.

so, instead, i'm just plunging in. ripping off the band-aid. getting back on the horse.

here's hoping this sparks some more posts.