Birthday Cocooning is the New Cool

Examiner, Nov. 2009

I’ve always thought an excellent way to measure the success of a child’s birthday party is to check whether the adults are having any fun. This may seem counter-intuitive; after all, it’s the child’s birthday, not his parents’. Having said that, a singular focus on whether your child is entertained enough, combined with the stress of getting everyone to the birthday location on time (not to mention making sure every parent fills out the permission slip, lest someone breaks an arm on the jumpy castle) often leads to an over-produced and expensive affair. There is a simpler way to do this.

Fire the balloon man, and cancel the ponies. Skip the activities, the scavenger hunts, and stay home. Invite your guests –and their families- to come to your house, and hang out. Plan nothing, leave the kids alone, and see what happens. It’s a revolutionary idea that more and more parents are going for.

Last night, one of my son’s friends celebrated his fifth birthday. We all went, and it was fabulous to, for once, not simply drop him off and pick him up: instead, we got to stay, eat, hang out, and have actual conversations with other parents, making this feel more like a family get together than anything. Actually, we needed a bit of a sit-down, since the house we went to was outside the city limits, and we almost killed a deer on the way. See: we weren’t even there yet, and already had a ton of excitement.

The food was safe; my children could eat everything. This was a nice change from many of the public birthday destinations, where I often have to explain to the kids that the hamburger-and-bacon pizza with extra cheese is probably not kosher.

There are additional benefits. My daughter experienced how annoying and loud an entire herd of five-year-olds can be. This should help her be more tolerant at home, where she has to put up with just one. Although, on second thought, that might take some of the fun out of having a younger brother: what good is he if you can’t blame him for random stuff?

Of course, simply playing without itinerary takes its toll. By the end of the evening, little Mendel was exhausted and expressed this by refusing a bathroom break. I explained that the drive back would take about a year, and his only option was to go now. He responded by doing some unmentionable things with the toilet lid, and having a good cry. After half an hour or so, he peed, and was ready to go home. He even had the good sense to fall asleep in the car, so we could put him straight to bed after coming home around 9:15.
I should mention he woke back up at midnight, ready to party some more, making his actual bedtime 2 pm. Still, that puts the total amount of sleep at approximately 10 hours, which is extremely successful in our house. No way would he sleep that well after visiting the jumpy castles.

Last but not least, you can skip the stranger talk: “Don’t trust anybody just because they wear a party hat!” “If the clown makes you uncomfortable, scream!” “Don’t go to the bathroom alone, come find me first, which will take forever and you’ll run the risk of peeing yourself in front of your friends!”

These are necessary warnings at any public venue these days, which take all the fun out of the party. At someone’s house, there is no risk of running into trouble; the only thing to worry about is that your kid breaks someone else’s stuff or drops some cherry soda on the sofa, which is the host’s fault anyway, since they invited us in the first place. At-home birthday parties, I think, are the new cool.

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The Upsherin

Jewish Advocate, March 2009

 

In spite of the fact that I claim no anxiety (as if), I wake up at four in the morning, without being able to go back to sleep.  To make matters worse, the clocks are adjusted, so I get an extra hour of sleeplessness, and an extra hour to ponder, walk around aimlessly, stare at the clock that just won’t move. I have much to think about: today is the day my son will have his haircut.  This will be a big change; from now one, everybody will be able to see his face, strangers will no longer call him a girl, and if he gets gum in his hair again, we can just grab the scissors.  

Of course, this is much more than a haircut.  After today, my son will be a “big boy”, and no longer a baby.  He will have responsibilities. Jewish responsibilities, no less.  Mostly, this means we have to be his teachers; more responsibility for him means more responsibility for us.  Just like his Bris, this ceremony serves as a reminder to parents that we have these children on loan, and that we need to take care of business. It’s time to make up the balance regarding our son’s Jewish education; what are we doing right, in what areas are we lacking?  

He has been learning his Brachot, although at this time, they mostly sound like “mumble, mumble, mumble” followed by a loud and heartfelt: “Omeyn!”  He knows how to wash his hands, and give Tzedakah.   He can recognize a Gimel, though no other letters, but it’s a start.  He is twisting his tongue around the jargon of his identity; we go to ‘Shabbat’ to celebrate ‘Chabad’, a Mogen David is a ‘Chanukah’, and kippahs are a nuisance, to be thrown across the room like a Frisbee.  When I show him a picture of Latkes in his Chanukah book, he insists it’s a Challah, on Friday mornings he goes to ‘Torah Tops’, and he continues to think that Shabbat Candles need to be A) blown out, and B) accompanied by a birthday song.

Most of the time I feel there is a lot of knowledge bubbling beneath the surface, ready to erupt.  So what if he only knows the “Torah” part of the Torah-song; it’s the most important part, isn’t it? It’s so tempting to feel overwhelmed by the amount of things we have to teach him; it’s easier to focus on all the things he doesn’t know, than on the things he does know.  

At the ceremony, I see my baby amidst a throng of gathered friends, and Naches replaces apprehension.  During the ceremony he sits perfectly still, and not one complaint passes his lips as, lock by lock, his hair gets snipped; it’s as if he knows how important this moment is.  Sometimes, when our children go through such earth shattering transformations, time stands still and we know we will remember this moment forever. However, before I can dwell on the sentimentality of it all, the ceremony is over and he goes back to running around the synagogue. It occurs to me that small children don’t allow much room for parents to get all touchy-feely about these things.  He drives that point home when, after most of the guests have left, he climbs up on the podium, jumps off and hits his head.  Which is fine, it’s not the first time.  Except for the fact that now there is no hair to cover that big, blotchy-is that a rug burn??- thing on his forehead.

 

 

Dancing Barefoot in the Rain

This column previously appeared in The Jewish Press, June 2008

Spring is here; the jar that my daughter brings to me says so. Inside, I find a bug and some leafy greens; she proudly tells me she “screwed the lid on extra tight so Mr. Bug won’t escape”. I explain that Mr. Bug probably won’t survive the lack of oxygen, and with a disappointed look she takes her brand-new pet back outside and releases him.  In truth, I don’t have the faintest idea how long a bug can live in a jar, but I’m not willing to find out. There’s a reason I have the exterminator stop by my house every two months.

Fortunately, there are other ways to freak your parents out when the weather gets nice, and my children know them all. We’ve already had the first accident (our daughter Isabella falling out of a tree) and the first really dumb idea (our son Mendel using a rake to play horse while standing in a wheelbarrow). Our kids find that nice weather is best enjoyed in an atmosphere of danger.

            I am not entirely convinced I am the right parent for the season. I hate bugs, and I don’t like swimming. I despise that the maple tree in front of my house seems to drop a hundred branches every time the wind blows, and that the hot sun makes the trashcan smell like something furry died in there; most of all, I hate how by the time my house settles down it is too dark to truly enjoy my garden. Of course, I would love to be a fun mom, and sometimes I think I am, but these days I mostly hear myself say things like Stop stepping on the flowers, That roof is not for climbing, and, most popular of all: Get out of the compost heap! No wonder my children look at me as if they wish I’d turn into a garden gnome. What fun is a back yard if you can’t get dirty and destroy things? Where’s my summer spirit?

            When I was little, I practically lived outside during the summer. I grew up near the woods, and there wasn’t a tree I didn’t climb, an adventure I didn’t have, or a dare I didn’t fall for. The only rule my parents had was: “be home in time for dinner”, and even that I often didn’t stick to (Sorry, mom). Yet now that I am a mother myself, and my children’s outside is the size of a postage stamp compared to the world I used to play in, I am suddenly the biggest chicken on the block. Obviously, it’s time for an attitude adjustment.

            Someone very smart once told me that G-d does not perform unnecessary miracles; if you can fix things yourself, He will not split the Red Sea for you. So now what? I decide I have to set some new ground rules, starting with less interference on my part. This means, if Isabella and Mendel are outside, let them be outside in the fullest sense of the word. So what if they get dirty, so what if their shins bruise until they look like the map of Europe; it’s not the end of the world if they wear the signs of summer. And with Memorial Day just around the corner, we have many warm months ahead of us, so I might as well relax. And they don’t need to know that I peek out the window every two minutes, and then give myself a stern talking to. Maybe I’ll get really brave and introduce some shock treatment: next time there’s a summer storm, we can all go outside and dance barefoot in the rain.

Let’s hope it stays dry until deep into August.