This is Mendel.  He is two years and a couple months old.  He is  sweet and at the same time super mischievous, as I'm sure many two year old boys are. 

Mendel loves to play with his sisters and can in one moment be kissing his baby sister, Basya, and then next whacking her with his hand (of course, a more aggressive form of love, :D)

Mendel is also my sensitive and soft one.  He really wants to do the right thing, as most kids do, and if he doesn't do it right, wow, does he get affected!

This is a true story that happened over Pesach one yom tov evening around bedtime.  I was upstairs finishing putting the baby to sleep and on my way downstairs heard my father tell Mendel to be careful with the milk because it would spill.  So as soon as I arrived on the scene, Mendel knocked over the milk and it spilled some on the carpet, some on the table, in h is chair and on him.  I got all upset, slammed the milk down on the table and picked him up and put him on the ground.  He then ran off upstairs and said "I'm mad!!!"  I quickly cleaned up what I could of the mess and ran after him upstairs.  When I caught up with him he said to me "I' m not good anymore!"  As soon as I heard that my heart totally melted and I told him that "I'm sorry i got upset ,Mendel, I know it was an accident.   It's okay I'm not mad anymore and you are such a good boy! " He started crying and I started crying and we were holding each other.  I was so floored by his reaction and told him how much I loved him and apologized again.  As I went to finish with my baby he went downstairs back to my father.  Later on my father told me that when Mendel came downstairs he said "I'm good!!!" In a very proud voice. 

This story with pretty much speaks for itself.  I was fortunate enough to see my son's emotions unfold and be expressed right in front of me but that doesn't always happen.   I do hope that this experience will help guide my reactions in the future with all of my children and help me guard my own emotions  and words.  

Thank you Mendel for letting e into your world and thank you G-d for showing me this immediate cause and effect of my parenting.

I really can't wait to get my ipad in the mail so that I can start taking normal pictures instead of the abnormal and fuzzy ones that my phone takes.  

In any case, we had a really awesome first seder.  I aimed to keep it focused on the kids and besides for both sets of grandparents joining us, we also had a friend of mine who's a single mom, with her 4 year old.  

My mother had made the first few plagues with the kids using big construction paper and craft stuff on large sticks, we had plague finger puppets from last year, and I bought those awesome glasses for the plague of darkness for each kid in the dollar section of Target.

My daughter and son both dressed and ready for the seder sat so beautifully, drinking their kiddush grape juice and talking away.  As my husband led them along the steps of the seder, my daughter followed along in her Haggada that she made in school and my son sort of used one that he had colored before yom tov.  

They were so excited and when it came time to ask the four questions, my daughter stood up nice and proud and sang it so well!  She looked ready and confident and proud as can be.  She had been waiting for this moment.  It struck me then how big she really is.  Last year she sung it well too, actually, but this year, I could tell she was more involved and into it.  

It  made me realize though, that it's not just our kids that need that inspiration and hands on involvement.   Truth be told, once we reached the story part of the Seder, I quietly excused myself and went to take a nap upstairs for about a half hour.  Besides for being exhausted, I just could not sit through the entire thing and read Hebrew!  I didn't even feel really bad because I knew that I had done my job as a hostess and mom.  I also recognized that I'm no longer at a stage where I can just read, read, read without some interaction.  My brain capacity and patience and very limited and I just wasn't up to it.

The second night, I really tried to convince my husband to skip a lot of the wording but apparently that's not really ideal.  However, it did prompt a discussion on what the point of  all the lengthy discussion was as well as how to make it more engaging and interesting for everyone, since the second night was filled with our families and friends, and quite a large crowd.  With a mixture of my husband's speed and my summarizing of the different lengthy parts, we managed to make it pretty enjoyable.  It was also good for me to notice that I was much more interested when I took on the role of explaining and summarizing.

As moms with busy lives and kids vying for our attention all the time, it's really important to find the ways that keep us interested in our family customs and religious activities and know that we can't do everything the same way we used to.  That's okay too!  But we do have to keep ourselves into things enough so we can pass it along to our kids with enthusiasm.

Happy Passover!

After not being able to make an update about my Pesach accomplishments, 
I finally am able to sit down and write.  I am really proud to say that I did it!!   All the shopping, all the cooking, all the cleaning.  It was fun going to Costco to get a ton of fruits and veggies and we actually got a family picture in on Erev Yom Tov!  

To take stock:

I cleaned the upstairs first, all the bedrooms and upstairs toys/clothes. The whole downstairs is kind of one big space so I had to just leave that till right before kashering the kitchen.  

Then just made sure to toivel things  and do last minute yom tov shopping for clothing, shoes, kitchen stuff.  In the end it really came down to the last week before though.  We finally decided to kasher the kitchen a few days before shabbos hagadol (the Shabbos before Pesach).  So with  a ton of help from my housekeeper, we cleaned the downstairs, section by section, delegated our outside porch to hold all of our chametz, and then turned the kitchen over.  I got a new oven for Pesach also, which being that it's self cleaning, I think I'm going to keep for the rest of the year as well!   

By Thursday before Shabbos, everything was basically turned over and I started cooking and freezing:

Froze: chicken soup, shnitzel, ratatouille, chicken burgers, banana ice cream, sweet potato kugel (with pineapple - yum!) .  

Then Shabbos Hagadol came and went with not too much fan fare.  Sunday was a big cooking day.    I ended up working on Monday, erev yom tov and the truth is, it wasn't even that bad.  It was kind of nice to be forced to take a break from standing in the kitchen.    The night before I just made the charoses, and eggs and left the lettuce, marror, and zroa until the end.  I also pre-boiled some beets and potatoes so I could put together some beet and potato salads easily.

I actually was able to get my nails done and get a massage on erev yom tov and take a shower like a normal person!!!!  

Although Pesach isn't over, since the seders came and went already, I definitely can say that my first Pesach was a success!  I'm going to do  a separate post about the seders just because they were so special in their own right!