I hope everyone had a good Pesach. Ours was good, weather was beautiful (finally!) and as usual, we were sad to see it go. I know many people can’t wait for the last days to finish, but all of us really like the entire Yom Tov and we savor every minute. Â We had a trip to the zoo as well as a hike putting Egypt behind us. (Yes, Egypt, NY!) (And yes, Daddy had a second surgery on his ankle erev Pesach to clear away scar tissue and loose stuff from the accident, which we found out 45 minutes before the surgery that he was going to have it for Worker’s Comp. finally approved it. Bonus – he was home the entire Pesach!) Just a few short weeks left until the next Yom Tov! đ
My little one and I had a good walk to shul one morning. I told him it would make a good story for my blog and he reminded me that I needed to write it up. It had rained the night before and therefore we saw all sorts worms on the sidewalk- big worms, small worms, large worms, thin worms, moving worms, stationary worms, etc. We talked about why the worms were not in their homes in the dirt. He was so fascinated about it all (as he should be for he is a boy!) Half way to shul we crossed the street. Boy, was he so not happy with me! “There won’t be any worms on 
the other side of the street!!!!” Of course there will be I said, why not? It rained on that side of the street as well! Boy, was I wrong and I had a very disappointed little boy. We looked and looked but could not a single worm! Who would have thought? I figured there must be a good reason why just a few feet away there were worms on the other side of the street and about a block from shul we started seeing worms again. After thinking and looking around me a bit, I think we figured it out. Anyone want to take a guess why the worms on one side did not want to come out of the ground after the rain? đ Hint: the side with no worms had huge trees all over. Why would that affect the worms?
I finally figured it out – not the worms, but our other problem. It finally dawned on me why the past 4 or 5 months have been so busy that I have had a hard time keeping my head above water (and hence why I have not blogged much either during this time.) This year 3 boys were going to learning at shul, at 2 different times, twice a week. This severely cut down on the evening times where we could catch up on any missed school work, or work that their father wanted to do with all the boys for as soon as he would get home, 2 boys were ready to leave and once they returned, the third went out learning. I was feeling like I was always trying to tread water and was not able to start swimming to shore. It just took me 4 months to figure this out. I was finding that I was going from school to making supper to coordinating boys’ learning outside the home and then bed. No time to relax, laundry nor other cleanup. Well, the truth is, if I was a robot, I would have had the time, but since I am not, as a human I need to have some down time to re-organize my mind so I can be efficient.
So, now that I figured that out, what the problem was, the question is what can we do about it? The boys really like their learning. The two middle boys has their own personal chavrusa and the oldest has a nice group and they had made a siyum on Gemara Esther right after Purim. I hated to think about cancelling any learning, especially since we could see they all really enjoy it. Hashem has a nice way of making things happen on their own when need be. It turns out that the chavrusa for the middle boys is moving to just once a week, and on a Sunday evening at that, so that just leaves the oldest going to minyan and learning afterwards. I can handle that! I am hoping that gives me just a few extra minutes to re-organize my mind at supper time for the rest of the evening so we can get all we want done done and I hope I will feel a bit more relaxed at that time as well. (And maybe even be able to blog more often again!)
In the meantime a few days ago, we went to Michaels to see if we can find a certain sized container to help organize our napkins so that they don’t go
flying all over the floor when someone goes to take one. We did not find what we were looking for, but of course, I could not leave without buying something for each boy. I limited them to one of the $1 items each. Walked out with paying $15, and I am still trying to figure out how that happened. The little one insisted on me getting him a $1 sewing kit. He has since sewed up a hole in his sock and has made himself a little stuffed bear and is biting at the bullet to make more things. đ
Anyways, I’m off, need to check on work (supposedly) in progress and then with Daddy still home and ready to work with older boys, I am going to take a younger boy for a nap. ‘Night!