Gobble Gobble and Challah Baking!

It always amazes me (though by now it probably should not,) how Hashem arranges things to happen at the “right time,” and it is all a very customized right time for each one of us.  We have gone away for Thanksgiving to my husband’s side of the family for our entire married life, except for the one year when I was almost 9 months pregnant with our first child and then my in-laws came to us.  (Being from Canada, and Thanksgiving a month and a half earlier, visiting my side of the family was never an option at this time.)  Our family celebrates Thanksgiving.  It is a time to be thankful for the sacrifices of others to let us be who we want to be today.  Baruch Hashem we are allowed our own religion and to observe it the way we choose as well as choose various life paths as we see fit.

This year we were unfortunately not able to make our yearly pilgrimage to the southern part of the country for the prices of the plane tickets DOUBLED and with 6 people that makes one big difference!  We were sad and disappointed for that means there will be only 1, not 5 boys running around Aunty’s house and no visiting with their Uncle and Grandpa either.  There is a rhyme and reason to all that happens in this world and the more I look for it the more I see it.  We do not always get to see the intricate web of life that is woven but if we are on the lookout, sometimes we are lucky to catch a few glimpses.

Since we will be at home, I decided to add some decoration to the kitchen.  My oldest printed out some place cards with everyone’s name on them and I went to a neat website called The Toy Maker which is filled with various paper toys and projects for everyone.  There are a lot of wonderful neat ideas to print out and fold.  There is even a newsletter to join to receive emails 3-4 times a year with links to various seasonal projects that the author has created.  In keeping with our “I’m Thankful to Hashem for…” theme we have been on this past month, we printed out some pretty cards from her Thanksgiving page and we all wrote out various things we are thankful for.  There are the standard thank you’s about the pilgrims, pumpkin pie and turkey, as well as some non-standard one such as being thankful for being able to go to a friend’s wedding this Thanksgiving weekend and even one that said, “I’m thankful that you are here!” (and yes, it really was directed to Mommy!)

Hashem really does work in mysterious and wondrous ways.  Having turkey on Thanksgiving seems to be a staple for many families who celebrate but not for us – for various reasons we have dairy on Thanksgiving so this will be our first Thanksgiving with a turkey and the boys are so very excited.  That definitely is something to be thankful for.  Baruch Hashem this weekend will be filled with more wonderful simchas with first a Bar Mitzvah on Shabbos and then the wedding of a friend on Sunday.  None of these we would be able to enjoy if we went away as usual.  Hashem knew.  Both simchas are ones I definitely did not want to have to miss and would have if the prices of the plane tickets did not double.  Yes, I will miss cooking a fun wonderful meal with my sister-in-law this year, but no longer am I disappointed in not being able to go.  IY”H the cooking will happen next year.

Aside from the turkey, 3 different kinds of potatoes (blue, yellow and red), homemade cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, lemon pie, yams with marshmallow fluff (a requirement by boys’ standard!), green beans, salad and fruit, as well as anything else I have forgotten to mention, I am most thankful today for my oldest asking me “when are we going today?” After going back and forth with him about what and when he was talking about, I remembered we were going to the Jewish Senior Home this morning to do a challah presentation.  Baruch Hashem he reminded me before we had to be there!  After several minutes of running around getting everyone ready, we were off and even arrived 5 minutes early.

Now, I hate to admit it, but this is only my second time being in the Jewish Home.  I do not have to be told how such a mitzvah it is to go there.  My Grandmother is in one and I did have the opportunity to visit with her twice last year, for which I am very grateful.  I just do not really know anyone who is in the senior home here and with being a very quiet person, I have a hard time going up and just talking.  That goes for sick people in the hospital as well.  The times I have visited someone in the hospital I have dragged a friend or two along or hidden amongst my boys in the room.  I’m just not a talker!

However, I do believe it is an extremely important mitzvah to do and I have struggled in my mind how to teach this to my boys.  Monkey See Monkey Do.  There are other things that I do and I make sure boys help participate.  If they see me doing something then it will be easier for them to do (and more likely they will do it.) But, if Mommy is not doing it, why should they?  I have found that if I can get myself to do something like this a few times, then the situation starts to get a little easier.  After 3 or 4 times going with a friend to visit a particular someone in the hospital, then going by myself does not seem as fearful for I will have a repertoire of things to say and talk about.

I was asked by a friend who works in the senior home if I would come and do a challah presentation over there.  I figured that was exactly what I needed – I needed a reason to be there to help “hide” behind; something I could use to talk about.  I know I have one outgoing boy, one sort of shy boy (whom I thought took after me in this area) and one EXTREMELY shy boy (whom I did not realize was that shy,) plus the little one who is both here and there.  I took them all with me.  It was the opportunity I was looking for to teach them about this big mitzvah.

The boys were all busy with their various degrees of shyness and using Mommy as their safety net that I do not think they realized they were used as a safety net as well!  I definitely had to step up to the plate for them but I think we all had fun.  As soon as I started talking to the Grandmas, I had all 4 boys beside me.  I was not planning on having them helping in that way, but realized that was their way of hiding behind me.  I talked and explained all I knew about bread making and challah making and the boys did.  They scooped the flour and sugar, poured the oil, mixed and kneaded and were all kept busy and (for the most part,) out of trouble.  They even braided and egged and sesamed the challah.  It gave them the courage to put away some of that shyness and do a mitzvah.  I was even asked again if I would come back in the spring.  (Phew! We were liked!)  That is just what we all need – a reason to go.  After another 1-2 times of doing this, I think that even the extremely shy one will have more confidence and none of us will need that safety net.

As we are remembering all the things to be thankful for, let us not forget to daven for the safety and well being of all our family and friends in Israel, especially the ones serving in the IDF.  The more things we can be thankful for the better.

Keeping Our Children

I am sitting here remembering that last night I thought of a good idea to write about but did not have the time.  Tonight, I have the time but do not have the idea.  My sister suggested talking about how my 3 year old vacuumed the area rug in our living room for 30 minutes (which normally does not get more than a minute or so of TLC time,) and how we should take those mundane tasks that we do and use those times wisely to clean ourselves spiritually and emotionally.  I guess that idea will also work with the kitchen and dining room floor that he insisted he mop after an older brother did his share.  There was so much opportunity to sit down and cleanse my soul while I waited for the inch of water on the floor to dry.  If we would to look around and snag a little time here and there to re-Jew-venate, we would be so much further ahead.  Alas, unfortunately I was busy trying to get all the BBB’s (beautiful bouncing boys) into bed!

The only thing I remember about the wonderful idea last night is that it was all about Emuna (faith/belief).  Over the past several weeks it seems to be a recurring theme, at least in my mind, and I know it has not been any coincidence! It is like when you get a new car, all of a sudden everyone has the exact same car, though they were always on the road, it is just that your eyes were closed to seeing them.  Only when we get that car do our eyes open.  Too often we (or should I say, I?) go through the day and do not think.  Life gets busy – teaching, coordinating children with schoolwork on computers, supper, nap time, house cleaning, etc. and before you know it, the day is done.  What happened to it?  Life can get meaningless and one  can start to wonder “why”?  When my children grow up and move out of the house, it will be harder to help them with these obstacles.  We all want our children to not only remain faithful to the Torah and its teachings, but to WANT to remain faithful.  I know that I want to remain, but will my children?  Now is the time to ingrain within them the answers before the questions arise.  The million dollar question – How?  How can I instill in my children a connection with Hashem that is strong enough to remain?

I am not sure I have all the answers, but I lately I have sure gotten a lot closer.  I have been trying to open up my children’s eyes by asking them what they are thankful for.  I enjoy listening to their answers.  Unfortunately I often forget, or should I say the day goes by and I remember too late to ask, but when I do it is nice to just listen.  This is one time I always smile and say, “Ok!” and never try to change or “correct” an answer.  After all, there is no right or wrong answer, and how can it be their answer if I butt in?  A few times I have asked, “Did you mean this, or that?” just to clarify in my mind, but never to change their answer. Every time they have to think, it helps create a slightly stronger bond with their Creator.

Our community was given the honor of having Rabbi Lazer Brody come and speak last week.  Rabbi Brody translated Rabbi Arush’s book, “Garden of Emuna”, among many other of Rabbi Arush’s works.  There was one thing he said that struck me.  Happiness.  Judaism IS happiness.  If you are not happy then something is wrong.  Judaism is not wrong, Hashem is not wrong, there is something with you that needs to be fixed.  Of course!  It was like a light bulb turned on in my head.  How many times have we heard of people who have gone astray because of all the arguing about minhagim (customs) or the strictness (with lack of happiness and love) in doing mitzvos?  Someone who grows up (or just sees) fighting about who is right and who is wrong, or feeling that we do the mitzvos because we have to and we better-do-it-right-or-else attitude, why should they remain?  There is a mitzvah in the Torah to be happy.  If we are happy to do a mitzvah or happy that we have Hashem, then we want to continue.  Yes, this is something that I knew, but it never dawned on me that this was the answer or was at least a huge part of the answer I was looking for for my children.  The next step is knowing how to be happy.  That answer is Emuna.  If we have emuna in Hashem in all that He does, we will be happy.  If not, we just need to have more emuna. (Now is the time for me to say that to help with emuna read, “The Garden of Emuna”!)

I need to ingrain into my children that Judaism is suppose to be happy and if one is not happy, they need to become happy, it is not Judaism that needs to be changed, chas v’shalom.  Also, I need to give them the tools needed to create emuna so that when tough times do happen, and yes they occasionally will, they will know with their heart that it is them that needs to change and they will have the knowledge and ability how to make that happen.

We can try the best we can and we should, but like the concept we are trying to teach our children, we have to practice what we preach.  We have to have emuna and daven ourselves that Hashem will help us all out in succeeding in this area.  We have to work on ourselves.  Not only will our children learn for it’s “Monkey See Monkey Do,” there is an added bonus that we ourselves will be more happy as well and what child does not want a happy parent!

With that said, tonight I am thankful that my rug is clean, my kitchen floor is now clean (and dry!) and the boys like coming to stores with me still. 🙂 What are you thankful for?

Thoughts on Sandy

This post is not really going to be about homeschooling, however, as the writer of the blog I reserve the right to occasionally deviate from the main topic.  Today, I feel it is more befitting to write about some of my thoughts and feelings about Hurricane Sandy.

Sandy was predicted to reach just east of us by Wednesday, by Monday we had already started feeling the effects, even though Sandy was several hundred miles away from us.  On Sunday, schools were closed for Tuesday.  We were not expecting Sandy to be a hurricane by the time it reached us, just a tropical storm, however, even tropical storms bring lots of wind and rain and that means potential flooding and fallen trees and limbs and loss of electricity.

My Mr. Ham Radio Boy got a message saying that the Amateur Radio club is covering the emergency communication for the Red Cross shelters and were looking for volunteers.  Of course Mr. HRB wanted to go, however, being not even 12, Daddy and Mommy had reservations.  After finding out that the shelter he would be going to was fully staffed with about 8 adults, and talking to him about the 2-deep leadership we have in Scouting (you need 2 adults in a room if you want to talk to a scout privately, or at least 2 scouts in the room if there is only 1 adult), and how it is for the safety of everyone, we let him go.  He spent 5 hours at a nearby shelter while the winds and the rain picked up.

It was (and still is) amazing how 400 miles away from the storm, we were getting such effects!  It was also amazing how the prediction was so far off. Sometime Tuesday morning, in the wee, wee early hours, it all basically stopped.  The path went from 70 miles east of us to way west of us.  Still, 12,000 homes lost power.  As of Wednesday morning, there were still 5,000 homes without power, and today, Thursday, there are still 3,000 homes without power.  Tonight, we have some wind and some rain again, and by looking at the map, the storm is yet again several hundred miles away from us this time northeast, but we are still feeling some of it’s strength even now.

I have listened to the radio and viewed photos.  The boys and I have talked about it.  The damage is amazing, this morning the estimates were around the $20 billion mark.  Such damage, such flooding is hard to really imagine unless one is right there, and even then it can take a while for reality to sit in.  Millions of people were left without power, and it will take many days (a week and a half one person said in the Jersey area) to restore power to everyone.

The amazing thing is that even with all this damage – damage that was more than predicted – only around 70 people lost their lives.  Of course it is saddening that even 1 person lost their life, but if we think about the millions of people that were affected, and only 70 fatalities?  I asked my boys how we know that Hashem is kind.  One boy answered that it was because He kept his promise and did not destroy the entire world.  Yes, that is true, but I was thinking that even with such terrible damage in such an extremely populated area, only 70 died.  What was destroyed were things that could be replaced.  Things can be replaced.  People cannot not.  Only Hashem can cause such damage and not destroy lives at the same time.

At times like this, people are asking “why?”  Why did Hashem do this?  The answer is that we do not really know why.  We can, however, see some amazing things come out of it.  All the way across the country in Los Angeles, there is a restaurant that offered a free meal to anyone who was stranded because their plane was cancelled due to the storm.  All they had to do is come in with their ticket and a free meal was given.  Such a mitzvah!  I teased my friend who was stranded there that she and her husband got an extended vacation.  However, I know that extending a vacation costs money – food in the least, and perhaps hotel, car rental, laundry and other unexpected expenses.  I believe on Tuesday I read an article about simchas that were suppose to happen on Monday and Tuesday of this week in the New York City area.  The person in charge of the catering mentioned that several years ago something similar happened and the simchas went on as planned.  There were three simchas that were suppose to occur – the Monday one was moved to today (Thursday), the other two on Tuesday occurred as planned.  The caterers and hotels had generators and extra food for the extra people that were going to show up.  The goal was to make everyone as happy and comfortable as possible.  Life does go on!  Simchas do still happen!

When events such as Sandy occur, it brings out the best in most people.  It is in times of hardships and sorrow that we all seem to pull together and help seems to flood in (excuse the pun.)  I was listening to the radio this evening in the car for a few minutes and it was talking about Meals-On-Wheels.  People are sending in food, but since there is so much damage for everyone, they are having problems getting enough food and enough volunteers.  The volunteers they have that are delivering have a hard time finding working elevators, so they have to walk up (as in the example they told on the radio) sometimes 29 flights of stairs…in the dark.  But they do that for they know the person on the 29th floor is in bed and cannot come out of his apartment to find anything.  It is in times like these that we often find ourselves going beyond what we thought possible.

These events also brings us closer to each other, and hopefully to Hashem.  It says in this week’s parsha (Vayaira), the angels who came to visit Avraham asked him, “Where is Sarah, your wife?” (Vayaira 18:9)  Rashi says this was to endear Sarah, his wife, to him.  Even though Avraham loved his wife we see it is good to be reminded.  Sometimes we all need reminding of what we already know.  Sometimes we need to have in our conscious minds that we love our family and friends.  It is hard to always remember when we are busy with our lives, so sometimes we need help remembering.  We hope that we can have more of a reminder like Avraham had and not have to go through hardships to be reminded.

Even through this pain, we can have comfort in knowing one thing – life will go on.  Houses will be rebuilt, businesses will be reopened, and we will live.  The people will not be the same, they will be stronger, better people.

That is all fine and dandy for me to say, as I sit in my comfortable warm house, with lights on in too many rooms while my boys play in their dry basement.  I checked in with my friends and everyone is safe and sound.  Who am I to say that life will go on? How do I know how it feels? I am just an outsider.

When I was about 8 or 9, we did have a flood in our house.  There was no hurricane, but the rains just kept coming down.  I remember looking outside and watching people with inflatable boats rowing down our street to friends houses and helping people who were stuck in their cars.  I remember how, as a little girl, how scared I was that the waters were going to get a lot higher.  I remember going downstairs to the basement where my bedroom was and moving everything off the floor and I remember we lost almost everything in the basement, except my bed for somehow the waters did not damage it enough.  I had that bed until almost exactly 16 years ago to date.

16 years ago, this month, while all us children were still living at home, I was out working and I got a frantic call from my sister.  Our house was on fire.  We lost just about everything in a matter of minutes.  The thoughts that first night of “I don’t even have pjs, let alone a toothbrush” ran through all our minds.  There was the call I made to my husband, who, at that time I was only dating and trying to get the words out of my mouth.  There was the first time I went to the house.  It was cold, very cold, there was already layers of snow and ice on the ground. The freezing fingers as we tried to pry frozen items from the ice, trip after trip, day after day and the time when my mother found her wedding rings but since her fingers were too cold to go back upstairs that last time, decided to go home; only to find out that by the time she got there the next day, they had been stolen!  The chuzpah!  How could someone be so low!  Going to a home that has already been destroyed and you take what precious little remains!  And don’t forget turning on the news, and for almost 2 weeks, the news channel showed OUR HOUSE burning, day, after day, after day.

But we got to see something else as well.  Something that I will never forget.  There was the warmth of friends who took us all into to their home the first night and the empty home that other people had that they gave to us, RENT FREE (though I think we got our insurance to pay something.)  Oh, and the dear friend of mine who not only sent over some crayons and papers for the littler children, but even a few needed rolls of toilet paper!  And not to forget the call my mother received from the JCC – “Are you going to come and take any of the clothes that we have collected here for you?” What clothes?  A previous teacher of my brother heard about what happened and started a collection at the JCC.  By the time my mother came to look, there was a mountain of clothes that was donated by the entire community!  Amazing!  The feeling of achdus from people we never knew.

So here I am, almost 16 years later, as someone who really knows what it is like and really has been there, and I can tell you from experience that yes, life really does go on.  Happiness will be had.  Initially things will be hard, that is a fact, but remember to look around you and see all the wonderful things – all the little things that people are doing for you and for others.  Perhaps, even with our own troubles, we can help someone else.  We do not know why these things really happen, or what exactly we are suppose to get out of them, but one thing is for sure- there really is good that comes out of it.  Good from others and good from ourselves.

To all those that were affected in any way – great or small – please remember that you are all in our thoughts and you really can get through this.  Remember what really counts – the house can be rebuilt, the pots can be replaced – make sure your friends and loved ones are safe and we all have each other.  May Hashem help you all and keep you strong. You can do it. I know.

A Full Week!

Wow, the middle of October and hard to believe that we only just finished a full week of school!  It’s been a tough week for boys for as soon as school work was finished, off to selling popcorn.  Baruch Hashem most of the time we were inside, though Baruch Hashem it has been wonderful out here!  I did have the next two days scheduled inside the JCC, but I think we have exhausted the crowd there and I will give some boys a happy break from selling popcorn so they can work on their Foliage Raking elective.  It has been hard to get outside when it is light when we come home at sunset time.  Our yard is wonderfully colored right now, but if we wait much longer I am afraid it will not and instead it will be dull and gloomy looking.

Even with the extra-curricular activity of socialization with selling popcorn, I have been able to spend some time outside getting my exercise with bike rides.  Daddy was even home one day to go out with me, which was an extra bonus. 🙂  I am not really looking forward to the diminishing light, however, on the flip side, the children have been going to sleep a little easier since they do not have the light shining in!  Baruch Hashem I moved south after getting married so the sun sets before 11pm in the summer…….

Over the last 4 months or so I have been going to a friend’s house to learn with a few other friends.  We are reading “Garden of Emuna (faith/belief)” by Rabbi Shalom Arush.  We read a few pages each week and talk about it, taking turns discussing and asking questions.  It is a nice heimishe group.  Over the last few weeks, I have noticed a change.  I do feel a closer connection to our Creator, and I find I am looking at things with a slightly new twist.  I enjoy the weekly getaway, and I feel better about myself and life in general.  I was wondering how I could instill the new feeling of emuna into my boys while they are young instead of waiting for them to get older to read such a book.  It is hard for children to really feel and learn some spiritual concepts while young, but it is so very important.

(Note: This book is not recommended for girls who are in school/seminary until after they have been married for a while – they need to be out in the real world a bit.  I would assume it would be similar for boys, though it is harder for me to tell for I was never a boy!)

To create emuna, one needs to have a connection to Hashem. Someone in our group told a nice parable.  A father had two daughters.  The first daughter was given a credit card and was told she could purchase anything she wanted.  The only condition was that she call before buying anything, but she was welcome to purchase anything.  The second daughter was given a credit card and told she could purchase anything.

The first daughter would find something and call, “Hi Dad, I found this nice skirt, and the price is right.”  “Sure, enjoy!”  The father always agreed to whatever she purchased.  The second daughter would find something and buy it.  No call.  She was not told to call.  At the end of the year, the first daughter had a much closer relationship with her father for she called all the time to touch base and the second daughter never called.

I want our boys to have a similar connection to their Father in Heaven as the first daughter.  Yes, I try to show by example, but I do not show everything I feel.  I do not verbalize all the times I thank Hashem for the little things, and they are not there when I cry out to Hashem to help me with rough days.  So, we have begun a new thing.  At least once a day, at various times in the day, I will sit down with all of them and ask each one of them to tell us for what they are thankful to Hashem for today.  At first it was hard for some of them, and yes, they would sometimes repeat what a brother before him had said, but they are slowly getting the idea.  It does not matter to me what they are thankful for and it does not matter how small the item is.  Actually, sometimes I think it is great that they come up with such tiny things to be thankful for because then they understand that everything is from Hashem, not just the big stuff, and will have a better understanding that Hashem is with them everywhere and at all times.

Today I asked for two things from each boy.  We were eating supper at the time.  I had made a double batch of split pea soup in the crock pot today and each boy, for one of his two things, said they were thankful for the pea soup that they were eating – and they each had a huge smile on their face!  *love*  I am doing somethings right! (And yes, each of the 4 boys had a second helping!)

The boys do like their Rebbe, and the Rabbi does offer a nice range of classes, but I only have one boy in a class at a time usually.  So, that means that not all the boys get all the classes.  It is not all that bad, for some of the classes I make up by teaching myself, and others I plan on having the younger ones take in future years when I age the older one out.  I do this for various reasons, mainly because I need to have time to teach all the boys, and if they are all taking most of the classes, then I would not have time to teach them all everything for they are all on different levels and time is a slight factor!

I feel it is best to teach the boys a couple more combined classes, similar to how we do parsha.  The thing is, I want something that is interesting that could be taught in small doses.  It keeps their interest better so that way they will hopefully remember more.  Davening is always something that is hard to do unless you know what you are saying.  I did find a nice tefillah curriculum that had 24 short lessons on chinuch.org. The lessons are to be done one a week. Something simple, but yet helps all the boys learn just a bit at a time, a nice small bite sized amount.  I like small amounts spread over a long period of time.  That is how we do our secular studies.  The idea is that time gives the person time to think about what was learned and gives the subconscious time to mull things over and to solidify the thoughts and ideas.  I have seen how this works well in many cases.  Last year I had a son discuss a reading with me and while he was talking to me he told me, “they did not say in this book, but in the other book we read they also mentioned xxx.”  It was so nice to hear him take things from various sources and put them together to create a whole picture and he was so excited to be able to do that for me and without me even prompting!

I’m signing off here to do some exercising before bed!

Fitting It All In

Fitting it all in does not just mean the school work I want the boys to do, nor does it mean how to juggle all the house cleaning, laundry, shopping, cooking and anything else that needs to be done.  Fitting it all in also includes having regular free time for myself so I do not feel so overwhelmed all the time.  When I have found free time on a regular basis, I find that I can and do have the energy and drive to actually do things such as cleaning, cooking and laundry without feeling so pressed for time or doing it begrudgingly.

There is always room for growth, no matter how much we work on improving, so even a seasoned homeschool parent is constantly learning and trying to improve things.  I have been looking for ways to make everything work, including making things more calm in the evening.  What I did not count on is that I have not only made my evenings more free and open, my days are calm AND we are fitting in more things!

When I first started homeschooling (over 7 years ago now,) it was not much of an issue.   As I mentioned before, but will recap briefly again, I used a regular school-like curriculum with textbooks, workbooks and tests.  I had one boy I was teaching, and we were able to complete everything in a couple hours in the morning and perhaps another hour in the afternoon. It became tricky once the younger boys were old enough to start school as well.  If one boy needed 3 or so hours of my time, then two boys needed at least 6 hours and 3… well, I was starting to wonder how I would be able to teach everyone.   We ended up doing some unit study/notebooking for two years, and that was a bit better, for I could actually include all three boys into most lessons, even though they were on various levels.  Those worked well for the years we did them, but I still was not happy.

Most of you know by now that we are doing the Ambleside Online (AO) curriculum, which is a Charlotte Mason (CM) based curriculum.  This style of teaching was calling out my name, and calling very loudly.  Not only is it a rigorous secular schedule and not only is it G-d based, meaning I do not have to worry about evolution based teaching, it also focuses on short days – 1.5-2.5 hours in the younger years and 3-3.5 hours in the older years. And when the boys are old enough, they actually do most of the work themselves and only come to me at the end of the readings to discuss and narrate. This means, I have plenty of time to teach all three boys, and by this time number 4 boy was already here, I had time to get our Judaic learning done as well!  That really made such a difference, not only on time, but with my mind, I was more at ease.

The change in the curriculum helped a lot, however, I was still very busy until bed time.  With children actually in the house and using it all day it gets, well, used, Baruch Hashem!  The drawback to it getting used is that there is more to clean up at the end of the day.  I felt I needed to stay up late just to chill out and de-stress and that is not the best for shalom bayis when my wonderful tired husband kept asking me when I was going to be ready.  I would feel rushed to de-stress and that is very hard to do!

There are two other changes I have made this year to my schedule and after just a few weeks, I have noticed such a tremendous and wonderful change.  The first change was in our schedule.  It is so easy to schedule one lesson after another – especially when it is going from one child to another for then the children can get breaks and I can get everything in that I want.  There is only one small snag in that theory, and that is… it does not work.  Even though we ONLY need 15 minutes for one subject and 20 afterwards with another boy, unless the children know how to pretend they are on an assembly line, it just won’t work.  Period.  Murphy’s Law will come into effect all the time, guaranteed. A child will not find a book (even though they had 15 minutes to get it,) a younger child will need attention, someone comes to the door, etc.  What happens then is that you feel like you did not get what you needed done and you feel like a failure.

This year I got smart.  Actually, it was more of luck, but yes, there was a little bit of smartness as well.  No matter how long we need for a lesson, I give it 45 minutes!  So, even if I need 15 minutes, I do not schedule anything else for 30 more minutes.  I did this for as my youngest needs more attention, this gives me the added minutes to cushion in time for him.  It also gives time for all the other distractions -CFAP Syndrome (Can’t Find A Pencil,) CFTB Syndrome (Can’t Find The Binder/Book,) IJNTBN Syndrome (I Just NEED The Bathroom NOW,) etc.  In other words, it gives the boys just a little bit extra free time during the day, with a less stressed Mom.  Even if the boys are all ready and I am all ready, I still give them the rest of the 45 minutes and we all love it!  It is cute watching a boy looking at his chart and saying “XXX we have 15 more minutes, come, let’s do YYY!”  The nice smiles on their faces somehow makes it all worthwhile.  I think it is the idea that playing is now mutar, now permitted, and they do not have to ask me to play or read or whatever, that is *their* time and there is even less CFAP, CFTB and IJNTBN Syndromes now!

I also started something else.  I did this a few times last year and it worked nice, and so this year I decided I was going to do it every week.  I make a list of meals and the grocery list on Sunday before shopping.  I was worried that I would forget or things would just happen and it would not get done, but I think that since I was determined to do this for the right reasons AND (and this is the most important thing,) I was ready for it, Hashem has helped me out so far.  Yes, I know friends that already do this and I even had at least one of them suggest it to me before, but I was not ready.  After really thinking about it and letting it simmer in my mind for many months, I am now ready.

This works wonders for not only do I have all the ingredients I need for the week, I do not have to worry or wonder what I am making for supper, this huge relief has been lifted from my shoulders.  I also have found that I do not mind making something that takes a little extra TLC for supper for I don’t have to spend the time thinking about it which gives more time to cook, if I so choose.

Now, I’m not saying now that I seem to have more free time that my house is spotless, I’m just saying that I have figured out how to keep the status quo and give myself regular free time.  At the same time, I am slowly (albeit very slowly,) working on raising the status quo.  I’m positive I will eventually get there. 🙂

Isrug Chag – The Day After and Our New Elective

I hope everyone had a wonderful Yom Tov.   We ended our Chol Hamoed with a mini birthday party for the now 9 year old (at a friend’s house!) and the two Big Boys had fun contacting more people on the radio together.  It was actually a very busy day on the radio and they just flipped from one frequency to another to another making contacts!

The last Yom Tov day was the busiest I think of them all.  I got the little one all pumped up on Sunday for dancing with the Torahs that after our “lesson,” he went around and collected most of our stuffed Torah collection.  I did not realize we had so many, Baruch Hashem, and I do believe he missed quite a few.  I am not sure where they all came from, for I only remember buying 4!  He came up to me and announced that he was going to take ALL the Torahs to shul to dance with.  I had to burst his bubble and tell him only 1.  He was amazingly okay with that.  And yes, he was sure to take the Torah of his choice (the BIGGEST one of course, and oh, it was red, just in case you were wondering,) both during the night and then again in the day.  Everyone had fun, we did not get home until 4pm!  I even let them bring over a friend after shul.

After all the treats, excitement and lack of sleep for boys, I have decided to put them to work immediately with school work.  We did not quite get a complete day in, but it was off to a good start and I think tomorrow will be even better.  We did, however, start a new course.  They will get the benefit of the great outdoors, exercise, comradeship and home caring all rolled into one.  In school, there are the required themes they have to cover, and then there are the electives that the teachers get to choose from to fill up the extra time.  My boys also have electives.

They have started the elective course on Foliage Raking. This is going to be an ongoing course, probably done several times a week for the next two months.  After that, I think there will be a course on Crystalline Ice Water.  This course will involve the gathering of the crystalline ice water with the use of hands, shovels and even the tongue.  We will also experiment with various uses of the crystalline ice water such as fort building and fort defending.  Perhaps even the use of it for house construction. This course will last at least 4 months and classes will be held several times a week at least, if not more.  Bet you cannot find these electives in a school!  To view some more great homeschool elective ideas, watch this video.

Aside from our new elective, we also had a huge case of Post Wonderful Yom Tov’d Ness.  In other words, children who have been on totally different cycles in eating, playing, and sleeping, and it finally caught up with them.  I knew that at least one boy was going to have a difficult day.  He crashed for a nap for several hours on Monday afternoon.  It did not help that he forced himself awake last night, after Yom Tov, to read in his room until after midnight. I knew last night I was going to have my day set out for me today, and that I was going to have to wake him up early to start him on a normal routine as quickly as possible.  If he was up early, he would actually sleep tonight and hopefully be almost his normal self for tomorrow.  Yes, it was a difficult day for him.  Everything set him off.  Unfortunately, I did quite a bit of practicing of my voice raising on him today.  Would have preferred voice training oppose to voice raising, but perhaps next time.

There is always good that comes out of everything.  His off attitude was just a heightened manifestation of where his attitude has been going over the last month.  Both Daddy and I have tried to check it and get it under control, but to no avail.  Today, after the voice raising, and his being upset at what he considered his harsh Mother, I stopped and had a little talk with him.  I have to admit, it is hard being a child, especially when you perceive yourself a lot more mature than your younger brothers.  One brother can get annoying and you just want him off your back.  You’re exhausted because you are reading a breathtaking book way too late and nothing seems to go your way.  Mommy seems to boss you around, and your brothers seem to always get away with things (in your eyes.)  *Sigh*  Yes, it is hard being the oldest.

I would like to think that my advice to him helped, just a little, for it did calm down a bit the rest of the afternoon and evening.  They all were warned they were going to bed early…. Well, I tried, however, they were all in bed at the regular bedtime, and yes, IN BED.  Now, I did not say asleep, and I did not say they stayed in bed.  Did have the little one come out because he was thirsty…. took several long gulps on multiple occasions before he finally went to bed and stayed there.  It really did not take that long for them to go to sleep.  I insisted that everyone was to be in their own bed.

Several loads of laundry have been done today (thanks in part to chores a poor boy racked up with his tantrums… I did fold all of the clothes for him,) the kitchen has been mostly cleaned up from some busy boys today by those busy boys (amazingly!) and now I’ll finish the kitchen, put another load of laundry on and do some exercising.  I think there might be some leftover time to veg and perhaps do some reading before my wonderful husband comes home from learning.

Wishing you all an easy transition back to your non-Yom Tov schedule!

Gut Moed!

***Please have Raphael Gavriel Simcha Chaim ben Shulamis in your prayers – (Note name addition, things are very serious. )he is a young man (early 20’s) who has a brain tumor.  It was mostly removed several months ago, but it has grown back.  He has remained in the hospital.***

We’re half way done the first half of the last set of Yomim Tovim, in other words – the middle of Sukkos. 🙂  The weather is beautiful, with just one meal being rained out on us.  It is definitely getting cooler, but still warm and I still do not need to wear a jacket – and that is coming from someone who wears jackets because she gets cold easily.  Yesterday I went for a bike ride, and I got in not just one, but two nice bike rides today.  I really enjoy looking at all the wonderful colors.

The little one has his own lulav and esrog and is very proud of it.  I even found last year’s lulav holder for him as well as a nice box to put the esrog.  When we got to shul, he was very excited to show it to his friend and share it with her.  The second day I made a point to get to shul earlier than we usually go so that he could make it for Hallel where they walk around the bima with their lulavim and esrogim.  We got there on the last circuit, just enough for a 3 year old to have fun and not get bored. 🙂

Yesterday started off nice with a bris (Yom Kippur baby!), buying a very excited 3 year old new Shabbos shoes for his got ruined and then a wonderful Room613 Virutual Sukkos party.  For those who are not sure what a virtual party can include, there were stories, songs, fun Sukkos riddles and a talent show.  Yes, a talent show!  There was a comedian telling riddles and jokes, bike tricks, karate tricks and a wonderful pianist.  Modern technology is amazing, with a laptop and a video camera, we were able to walk outside one of the homes of the boys and watch him ride his bike outside and do some tricks.  It was not perfect, the video cameras have a bit more to be desired sometimes for they did occasionally freeze up for the audience.  Aside from that, it was a lot of fun.  I have to put a nice plug in for homeschooling – it’s hard to watch bike riding tricks in a school, but it was so easy to do in a homeschool setting!

I had wanted to do some learning about the rest of the holidays.  I figured I have three days before Shabbos, and perhaps something (most likely  not) on Sunday before Yom Tov.  That was my plan.  As I mentioned in the last post, I love all the Yomim Tovim, however, it is hard to find all the time I would like to take to teach about every Yom Tov – before the Yom Tov.  We only had a couple of days after Yom Kippur before Sukkos, and so I figured it would be great to learn the rest during Chol Hamoed figuring it was a great way to increase Torah learning a little bit and not have a free for all holiday.  So I planned.

After the bris yesterday, I had one boy make a spontaneous play date (which turned into a sleep over) and another boy had the brother over to our house for his spontaneous play date.  Boy number 3 was happy as a clam to turn the radio on and call “CQ” in hopes to reach people in other parts of the world, which he did. (Amateur Radio aka Ham Radio.)  He also spent some time learning so he can upgrade his radio license from Technician to General so he can use more frequency bands.

After lunch today I had three boys come to the house (one was mine and the other two were the brothers from the spontaneous play dates).  One brother stayed to play with one of my boys and the other brother went with one of my other boys to yet another house for several hours!  My oldest, was still happy as a clam learning outside in the sukkah for his general class and talking to people on the radio. I do not really mind.  It is hard to play with friends who are at school during the day (imagine that!)  We also had a wonderful sukkah party for the Cub and Boy Scouts in our sukkah and a Mazal Tov to my oldest for earning his Second Class rank for Boy Scouts tonight! 😀

We did not get to sleep in the sukkah the first few nights for it did rain and drizzle on and off, however, last night and tonight the boys took advantage of the wonderful weather.  Unfortunately Mommy and Daddy are not out there for Daddy is a bit sick and does not want to get sicker.  I really enjoy the fresh air – it is not too hot nor too cold, just nice and cool and fresh and I wake up really refreshed in the morning when I do get to sleep outside.

I still have my plans… Baruch Hashem we still have tomorrow!  I am determined to get some learning done (will have to say no to play dates….. 🙁  )

It is late, and I’m off to finish making challah, so hope everyone has a wonderful Moed, Shabbos and Yom Tov!

 

Popcorn, Yomim Tovim, Yomim Tovim and More Yomim Tovim!

Rosh Hashanah has come, Yom Kippur will be here in less than 24 hours.  I have been trying to think of something to write, but nothing popped into mind.

Baruch Hashem we have been busy.  Our annual Scout popcorn fundraiser is in full swing now, with $4000 worth of popcorn already bought – and that does not include the chocolate flavors that we could not purchase this round (the chocolate melts too easily we are told.)  I am told the popcorn is much better than last year and not to mention it is in tins again.  (All popcorn is OU-D, with the plain unpopped kernels OU-Parve – anyone interested? 😉  )

This is the best and worst time of the year.  The best time for the boys to work on their socialization skills and go door-to-door and talk to all sorts of people – from young to old, from cranky to nice, from English speakers to non-English speakers.  They also get lots of exercise for they do a lot of walking!  It is the worst time for Daddy and Mommy have to go and take them all over, not just once, but twice when we have to deliver to the wonderful places that bought.  But soon it will be over and we are hoping that the older two will have earned enough to go to one week of Jewish Scout camp in the summer (the number 3 boy has one more year before he can go!)

We sure hit our new year off to a good start with missing the first 1.5 days of Room613!  Several boys thought they read there will be no classes the ENTIRE week, not just for Rosh Hashanah.  But after talking to my sister and a friend on the second day after Rosh Hashanah, I found out they were wrong.  Lesson learned: Read my emails more closely… It was not a total loss, I tried to add more secular work into the 2 days that would have been missed because of Rosh Hashanah.

We did not delve into Yom Kippur last week too much, probably should have, though I had other unrelated things on my mind.  Sometimes I find it hard to balance personal learning and introspection with teaching the boys and helping them out with the same things.  We did talk about some of the basic prayers and their meanings.  I also found some nice Kol Nidre songs on Youtube to help get us in the mood.  One thing I told the boys is that they should read the davening in English – especially the Al Chets.  Since all the davening we do is for us, not Hashem, how are we supposed to put ourselves in the correct frame of mind if we do not even know what we are saying?

This week we worked on Yonah and the Whale.  I found some nice one page versions for preschoolers and a cute song for the little one, as well as a translation of the Vilna Gaon’s work on sefer Yonah.  That is set for high school, however, my older boys are getting some of it.  They just had chapter 1 on chinuch.org, however, I was able to find the full English version at the  Daf Yomi Review website.  We are not going to finish what we have, but that is fine, that leaves more to learn another time. My youngest wanted stuff to color today, but the computer we use for printing was being used, so I will hopefully print out a copy of Yonah and the whale for him to color tomorrow while we sing our song or I’m working with the older boys.

Sukkos is right around the corner, and it is always tough to do Sukkos learning with very few days – I feel I should spend several days on Yom Kippur, and not just rush through it to start Sukkos material, but then I feel Sukkos gets jipped!  I did buy nice 8.5 x 11 charts from Torah U’Mesorah on Sukkos many years ago.  I do not always go over them with the boys, but I think it is time to do them again.  When the older boys were younger, I did manage to do several projects such as a styrofoam esrog and foam/feathered lulav, however, lately we have been focusing on getting the sukkah all up and set that we do not do very many crafts for we are also still doing school work.  We are fortunate for the front entrance to the house has three walls already and all we need to do is add schach on top.  We have most of the schach (about 70 individual bamboo sticks), but it is not quite enough, and we always have to figure out where to find more!  I think I will need to come up with one nice decoration they can each do, the previous ones are getting old.  Oh, and I think I have one more styrofoam ball the youngest can paint as well as some green foam.  I think an older brother might like to spend some quality time with his youngest bro. 🙂

I am going to finish up, drink more liquid, and try to finish getting myself ready for tomorrow night.  Wishing everyone a Gemar Chasima Tovah and an easy fast!

Our “First Day” Take Two!

Today was our first “real” day of school.  Yes, we did do school last week, however, Room613 did not start until today so it was our first day with a full schedule.  I was very impressed in how the day turned out.

We started the day with our davening.  It was cool today so most of us wore a sweater.  I thought it was a beautiful morning to daven outside.  My youngest has been into wearing at least his lion hat costume all day.  I have told him he needs to wear a kippah or hat for he is a Jewish boy.  Once he found out his lion hat worked, he has turned into a lion, only taking it off for nap times.  My Lion loves to daven.  He has his favorite siddur and loves to sit and stand and daven.  He is not upset in the above picture, he is putting his whole neshama into davening.  It is just that no sound comes out of his mouth.  He was so into davening this morning.  He is my inspiration. 🙂

Instead of Parsha, this week we are learning about Rosh Hashanah.  I did not want to do the same kind of thing as we have done in the past.  We have learned about Rosh Hashanah for years now, printing off various workbooks from chinuch.org.  I went online to chinuch.org last night to see what I could find.  I found some nice learning sheets, however, they were one to two page sheets.   So, I decided I was going to choose something different to learn about each day.  Today we learned about the 10 reasons we blow the shofar during Elul and on Rosh Hashanah. At the bottom was the option to re-write each reason in the child’s own words.  Unfortunately, I had only ink in the printer for the one paper, so we just talked a bit about Rosh Hashanah and then talked about the 10 reasons.

Tomorrow we are going to look at the worksheet talking about the explanation of Yamim Noraim Prayers.  This one is geared towards 6th and 7th grade, but I think all three older boys can appreciate it to an extent.  The explanation booklet can be reduced in size to fit into a machzor so the students have a handy guide to make their davening more meaningful.  Our new ink should be coming in this week so I will be able to print it out for each boy.  I am not sure how long it will take us to go through this book, it is only 9 pages long.  If needed, I will find something else to do on Thursday.  Oh, and I cannot forgot the little one!  Yes, I almost forgot, he is more than big enough to make projects and sing songs that my older ones are too “old” for!

The school day worked out well.  At lunch time, I was thinking that, ” Wow, I was still so relaxed!”  I remember how busy and full the days were last year.  This year our schedule seems more relaxed – longer, more to do, but relaxed.  I finally learned not to stuff the time to the hilt.  I scheduled a lot of time for each subject.  I will say, it does help that the boys have a set schedule on Room613.net.  Rabbi Resnick has 30 minutes classes with 15 minute breaks in between each class.  Altogether, that is 45 minutes from the beginning of one of his classes to the beginning of the next class.  I purposely limit the amount of time spent for each lesson – 15-20 minutes for the younger ones and 30-40 minutes for the oldest (though often times it takes less time for him.)  I added extra time so that I would have time to give attention to our 3 year old.  This, I believe, was one of the best things I have done for our schooling this year.  I had time to spend with the youngest, and I did not have to harass the older ones to get out the books for the next thing, or get going to Room613.  I could see how each of the older boys looked at their boards and they seemed so much more relaxed.  I do not know if this more relaxed atmosphere had anything to do with how my one boy did in math, but my tantrum prone boy had not a single tantrum today – not even during math when he kept getting one question wrong.  He just sat there and said, “hmm….” and tried again!

This afternoon I was reminded how vulnerable we all are.  Actually, I think there were many, many people who found out.  We have a few websites that are hosted on Godaddy.com.  Godaddy is a company that you can register domain names on as well as provides hosting and other related services.  It is fairly large.  This afternoon, there was a hacker that shut down all of Godaddy’s sites – at least thousands of sites were down starting after lunch.  The individual who was apparently responsible took sole responsibility shortly afterwards on Twitter.  There were many people who rely on websites hosted by Godaddy for work.  I too was wanting to do some stuff.  However, I realized that everything that happens, Hashem makes happen for a reason.  I then realized that I needed to do some paperwork to send into our school district.  If my website was not down, I would have forgotten yet again about the paperwork.

Coincidence? Of course not!  However, I do not think thousands or millions of people needed to be affected just for me…at least I would hope not.  I also know that this person I cannot really be mad at for this person was just the messenger.  Yes, he had the option of doing good or doing not good, it was his choice – as I like to tell my children, but Hashem wanted Godaddy to go down, it would have gone down in a different way if this person decided to use his amazing talents for a better use.  All afternoon I tried seeing if the websites were up yet, but it did not get me anxious, I was not too overly bothered by it.  At least not the 3 hours it took from when I learned about it to the time my websites were back up and running.

In the end, all my paperwork got done, I just need the ink to arrive at my doorstep to print it out and I realized how my mind’s perspective had an amazing effect on me and how I handled a situation.  Perhaps this is something that I need to try keep in mind when we have little situations arise at home.  There are things that happen that are out of my control, even if I try.  If I remember that Hashem is ultimately in control, there is no reason to get upset at individuals.  There are things that are supposed to happen and these are tests for me.  I know, that is much easier said than done, however, perhaps if I try to keep that in mind, there might be a few times where I can look at my beautiful boys and say “that is what they are supposed to be doing.  How am I supposed to react, how do I get what I need done the proper way?”  Perhaps my stress level will keep down a little bit (and stave those grey hairs away a little bit longer! 😉  )

I definitely know that how we feel definitely rubs off on others.  Was it that I was in a calm mood today that helped my son get through his math in such a wonderful way?  Was it all the time in between classes?  I am sure they both had a lot to do with it.  I definitely would prefer how today’s lesson went over any other day we have had.  Let’s see what tomorrow brings. 🙂  As I am trying to get myself ready for the coming year, I hope that I can grow just a little bit.  In the meantime, I need to read to my Lion for he tells me he cannot read yet.

Wishing everyone a sweet year – A L’Shanah Tovah Tikatevu – May you all be inscribed in the Book of Life!  Have a wonderful Rosh Hashanah!