Stuck at the Airport with Kids? Here’s what to do!
As I write this, the curse of the Philadelphia International Airport has struck my family once again. I last saw my husband through half-asleep eyes as he kissed me goodbye at 4 a.m. last Sunday. A conference out in California was taking him away during our February “vacation.” My vacation home with the three children. He is now stuck in Philadelphia. I’ve shoveled nine inches of snow off our driveway. I really don’t know when he will be home.
I am sure that the curse of delayed or canceled flights due to the weather is not reserved just for those in the Philadelphia airport. No, with this winter, and this winter vacation coming to a close at the same time another snowstorm rattles our air traffic patterns, our story is not unique.
So this blog post is dedicated to all of you out there who have been stuck at an airport with children.
I really think that going away to get a few days of sunshine over February break is just not worth it in our age of “Welcome to the Hellish Skies.” Indeed, we did a few years ago make an attempt at a Florida getaway. But due to storms, we instead had a 13-hour destination vacation to the Philadelphia International Airport!
My son, an avid New York Mets fan, was dressed head to toe in Orange and Blue Mets paraphernalia. He cowered the whole time in his jacket, hood pulled up all the way. He actually believed that because he loved the Mets and hated the Phillies, someone in the airport of the City of Brotherly Love was going to kill him.
Our efforts to escape the cold of Rochester for just one week had failed. We missed our connecting flight from Philadelphia to West Palm Beach. Every flight to southern Florida was booked and overbooked for the next three days.
As we looked at the flight board, we slowly came to the harsh realization that the palm trees of our vacation dreams had been yanked out by the roots. We could stay in the airport as standby refugees, or head back to cold icy Rochester. We were not going anywhere.
But then I had an epiphany. I realized, Hey! We are still on vacation! Vacation can be a state of mind, even if you did not make it to the Sunshine State.
So here are my hard-earned tips of what to do you if you are on a 13-hour standby hoping in vain to get your flight to paradise:
- Immediately go to the “customer service” line and demand you get a pillow. Take two or three and don’t feel guilty. The airline has ruined your original vacation destination and they owe it to you to make you as comfortable as possible.
- Forget the food court. You are on vacation and deserve the best of airport dining. In our case, it was Applebees. Any frugalities of ordering from a restaurant menu with children- like sharing – should be lifted. We were on vacation. Kids, if you want a beverage other than water, go for it! That naturally blue-colored smoothie? Go for it!
- As far as the adults in your party, order an alcoholic beverage. You are going to need it.
- After your meal, order dessert. Those desserts that stare at you all throughout your meal from those triangular placards placed strategically on the table. Remember, this may be your only vacation meal!
- After your meal, don’t bother checking on your flight status. You know you are not boarding any time soon, if you board at all.
- Find out if the airport you are stranded in has a Sharper Image or a Brookstones. Loiter there for an hour or so. Spend most of this time on one of their massage chairs. Ignore looks from salesperson.
- Is the hot stuffy airport getting to your children? Do what my kids did and let them pretend that the bathroom is their own personal water park. Cool off by dunking your child’s head in the sink. Just like dunking into the pool at grandma and grandpa’s condo. How refreshing!
- Around 10:00 p.m., entire sections of the airport should be clear enough to let your kids run completely wild. Make sure you pack a jumprope and maybe some in-line skates in addition to some healthy and sugary snacks.
- At 11 p.m or later, if you are still waiting on standby in a nearly empty airport, abandon the rule about indoor voices. And the no running rule. And the no climbing and jumping on furniture rule. Moms, that glass of wine at Applebees must have worn off by now. Use the extra space to do a little yoga stretching to relieve the stress.
Airport authorities, if you cannot tolerate the wildness of unruly children, who have spent over 10 hours cooped up in your airport, you should have done more to get good, hardworking parents to their original vacation destinations. Airlines, you should have done the decent thing and not have overbooked your flights. So go ahead kids and parents, make all the outdoor voices, and screams, and wild laughter you can conjure up. This is family time!
YOU ARE ON VACATION, REMEMBER?
Snow Blower vs. Snow Shovel
So here we go again. Another week, another snow storm.
And this time, Rochester isn’t going to get off Scott-free like we have so far this winter. As we await the next deluge of snow, I know you are all sick of it. But up here in Rochester, we’ve only had 77 inches fall this winter. Only. But only in terms of “lake effect” showers and flurries. Never a mention of a storm. Just enough snow to fall each day to cover the ugly grey snow. And not enough to justify a snow day.
But our day may be coming this week. Finally!
This is a piece I wrote a few years back that I figure would be very timely right about now. I know it’s tough, but do try to enjoy and appreciate the quiet and beauty of the snow. Because in a few months, we’ll be wishing for some cool weather.
We actually do have a snow blower. A Toro Powerlite snow blower that our relatives gave to us as a housewarming gift when my husband and I moved to Rochester from New Jersey with our two small children nearly a decade ago. It is nestled on the left side of our Tudor’s tiny one-car garage – a garage that was built to fit 1920’s model cars, not today’s SUVs or minivans. Over the years, it has certainly served us well. My husband uses the snow blower on mornings when he has to get out early On early winter mornings I often wake to the sound of him repeatedly pulling on its cord to get it whirring to a shuddering start, the smell of the gasoline seeping upward from the garage directly overhead to our bedroom.
But I left the snow blower in the garage today and opted for my ergonomic snow shovel. If I used the snow blower, I wouldn’t have delighted in the soundlessness that a snowstorm creates, the snow’s ability to absorb noise in our motorized world. I wouldn’t have had the chance to watch the snow change from white to the slightest tinge of blue when it is pushed aside by the shovel’s blade. Or hear the chickadees chirping in the backyard and think about how I may at some point want to train them to feed out of my hand.
The snowy weather does get a bit old here in Rochester, here at January’s end when at least two more months of snow await us and with the knowledge that we could not afford plane tickets to Florida for this year’s February break.
You can’t stir a sleepy child out of bed at January’s end with the exclamation of
“Look! It snowed last night”.
Maybe you can get away with that in November, or even mid-December, when snow is still a novelty. But when one’s alarm has been buzzing before dawn since November, and grass and brick and garden beds have not been seen for over a month, the child looks at you as if to say “big freaking deal, MOM” and rolls over in a vain attempt for one more minute of sleep.
We are not bears. And we cannot sleep all winter. So out we go into it. Whether it is to school, work, food shopping, we must.
And you know something? If you are wearing enough layers, and there is no bitter wind to bite your face, shoveling snow by hand, and then taking a walk in it can be very invigorating, just about as invigorating as the Zumba class that I decided to blow off today. As I walk, I turn my feet outwards, and then in, just like that boy in Ezra Jack Keat’s beloved children’s book. (Need I tell you the name?) I think about diverting my children from the television and getting them into the snow to play as they get off the schoolbus. I feel the gentleness of the flakes hit against my hat. And when the one other person out walking today in my neighborhood passes me, we smile at each other knowingly, as if we are privy to a very well kept secret.
As I turn home, an enormous truck with an eight-foot high snowplow turns the corner and packs the snow bank blocking our driveway even higher. Okay, there is no romanticizing anymore, and I head to my garage to start up the noisy, smelly snow blower.
I will not go quiet into that Kindle Light
I will not go quiet into that Kindle light.
I don’t ever see myself curling up with a Kindle, or a Nook, or any other e-book for that matter.
I will not go quiet into that Kindle light.
I don’t ever see myself curling up with a Kindle, or a Nook, or any other e-book for that matter.
There has been so much news about books. The drop in the sale of physical books and the recent scanning of 5.2 billion books into digital form to study trends in culture and literature, as reported by the New York Times. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Barnes & Noble recently cited studies that suggest consumer spending on new physical books will fall to $19 billion in 2014 from $20.5 billion in 2009.
But books are more than carefully strung words. Books create communities and friendships. A book has physical attributes – the feel of its Tattered Cover, the texture of the dog-eared pages inside and the wonder about by whom the book has been previously held and read.
A few years ago, a friend of mine was making what she thought at the time a permanent move back to her home of Cape town South Africa. The trans-Atlantic container could only carry so much of her possessions, so she held a yard sale.
Among the precious things she agreed to part with was her vast collection of books. An avid reader, my friend always had a stack of books – from the library, finds at other yard sales or book sales – on her nightstand. From the pile of books that was spread on a blanket, I picked up “The Notebook” by Nicholas Sparks and offered her the asking price of a dollar. She refused to take money from me and instead, pressed the book into my hand, smiled, and just said “enjoy.”
So I took it home and read it. I’ll admit it wasn’t my favorite. But it was a book given to me by a friend, a friend I feared I would never see again short of a very long plane ride. So, the year she was away, I had her book on my shelf as a reminder of our friendship. I have given and received many previously enjoyed books, as a symbol of family and friendship. Before a family vacation, my doorbell rang and it was another friend, who, just because, wanted to give me a book to read on the beach. It was The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd.
I have also given my books away to friends: like Sarah’s Key and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan to my mom, and A Thousand Splendid Suns to my dad.
Can you do that with a Kindle?
Now I know that e-books have their advantages: less trees are cut down to make and read books, less clutter in one’s home, ease of traveling with multiple books, instant gratification of downloading the latest book, and so on. But the clutter of books is legacies of family and friendships that our society will lose with the emerging popularity of the e-book. No, I fear that this next generation coming up, if predictions hold true and purchases of physical books will fall away to one more screen that we must stare at for information. Something will be lost.
Because of paper books, a multi-generation legacy of books rests in my house.
My grandparents lived in a tiny apartment in Bensonhurst Brooklyn for over 60 years. In the foyer, they had their treasured library. Into each book that was added to their collection – books like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson- a seal was placed, saying that this book was part of the Library of Pauline and Milton Kasmere. Some of these books, with their spines embellished with fading gold lettering, are now propped on the bookshelves in my home. I hope that my kids will read these classics from the pages that their great-grandparents held, not an e-book.
In the future, what will we put on our bookshelves?
Now, call me a luddite, but I can go on about how much I like e-books, if only for sentimental reasons. I’d write more about my feelings and dislikes about e-books, but I am off to a book exchange at my son’s middle school – off to sort books that will be donated to a city Literacy project to share with inner city schools in Rochester.
Tell me, in the future, if physical books go away, will there be books to share and book exchanges to give away books?
Kiss Me On the Bus: A Second Grader’s Tale
A few posts ago, some readers may have mistakenly thought I was down on myself for not being gainfully employed in my originally intended career path. But, if I had been working full-time the other day, I would not have been home to see my youngest off the bus and would have missed this exchange with him:
Toby bounded off the bus about a week or so before Thanksgiving, a look of shock combined with shades of amusement on his face. His red backpack, nearly as big as he, was quickly thrust into my arms as he stomped into the house.
“Mom! You will not believe this. Sarah — this girl on my bus — said she has a crush on ME!”
“Really,” I responded, as I got out the Ovaltine and milk and searched in the cabinet for some cookies. “Well, Toby, I have to say, she has good taste, whoever this Sarah is.” Of COURSE some little girl would have a crush on my Toby. I mean, what grade school girl, or any woman in the future for that matter, could resist those grey-blue eyes, the lashes, the dimples. This is the only reason he gets away with half the trouble he gets into at home.
He continued. “Mom, how can she have a crush on me? I mean, there are far better looking boys on my bus.”
Again, I think, who does this boy think he is talking to? I’m his mom! In my unbiased opinions about my son, could he even think that I could imagine a boy in the second grade cuter than him? On the 10 bus? Or any schoolbus toting small children home that afternoon? Impossible!
He stirs his chocolate milk, still looking confused and pensive. He concludes with, “I just can’t believe she has a crush on me. I mean, she’s only FIVE, and I’m SEVEN. SEVEN! Hello? I’m two whole years older than her! Mom, isn’t that a little — strange?”
To this, I have nothing to say. I sip my afternoon coffee and just take this all in. You just can’t make this up. You just have to be there when that school bus opens its doors at the end of the day to hear what your kids will come up with next.
Over the River and Through the Woods: Tips from Thankful Road Warriors
How do you get from here to there?
Thank goodness for Thanksgiving. The long weekend affords most of us a breather from modern life’s breakneck pace. We pause to focus on coming together with family and friends, preparing a meal, tossing a football and sleeping late in your own bed.
But, if you are like my family – transplants – Thanksgiving means hitting the road. Or, heaven forbid, the airports. That is the only way the family-coming-together aspect of the holiday happens for us.
In our case, traveling is not as idyllic as over the river and through the woods. It’s more like Down the Thruway and over the Outerbridge Crossing to Staten Island We Go. Where there are hardly any woods left to go through.
For eleven years now, we have traveled to see our family every Thanksgiving but one. This is another consequence of being Transplantednorth. If you leave the area where one’s family roots are still entrenched, the roads are rarely traversed the other way. It’s just expected. We are the only part of the family “upstate.” We left. Everyone else still lives Home — the New York Metro Area. Or, in a term I only learned when transplantednorth – “downstate.”
And on Thanksgiving, just as the larger planet pulls on its smaller orbiting moons, down the Thruway we go.
One especially hectic year, we stayed in Rochester for Thanksgiving. The weather was beautiful – warm even — and we spent a relaxing weekend feasting and playing into the evening at the Brighton Town Hall playground. I prepared perhaps the only Thanksgiving feast I will ever make. I made the turkey on the barbecue. I made a chestnut stuffing ala Martha Stewart. Everything tasted delicious. But the lonely looks on my childrens’ faces taught me a lesson: Thanksgiving tables are too empty without grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
So, after traveling for 11 years with two and then three kids in tow, I have become thankful for a thing or two on what I have learned and would like to share them with you, especially if you are a novice at parenting on the go:
- I am thankful that cries for Sippy cup refills and diaper changes have been replaced by three contented souls in the back who can pass snacks to each other, operate the remote to the car DVD player, and participate in family sing downs and games of 20 Questions.
- I am thankful for every rest stop we have discovered between here and there, especially to kind workers who have supplied us with buckets, hoses and slop sinks for carsickness cleanups. Really, if you do have a kid that gets sick in the car, find a truck stop like the Flying J Travel Plazas that have showers and washing machines. The folks there are all too kind to help you in your distress.
- I am thankful that we finally come “home,” we have relatives who bound down steps and out into driveways to greet us, no matter the lateness of the hour.
In our 11 years of travelling down to New York City, here are my family’s dos and don’ts when traveling the Western New York-to-New York City Route:
- DO strap everything down very carefully. On our first trip back to Rochester, on a windy, windy passage of Route 78 in New Jersey, our Peg Perego Stroller came loose and flew off our roof rack. One minute, there it was, and then it was on the side of the road, thankfully killing or injuring no one in its catapulted flight.
- If you are traveling with very young children that might become carsick, but may not alert you at the most opportune time that they will become carsick, DO pack a puke kit. This kit includes a roll of paper towels, a bottle of Lysol all-purpose liquid cleaner, and a change of clothes that is easily accessible.
- If traveling with those same small children, DO invest in one of those Art Cart on the Go Tables that can be placed over a child’s lap. The Art Cart has legs that double as side pockets that keep paper, crayons and markers handy. Or, in the worst case scenario, those pockets also can come to the aid of the carsick child. I speak from experience.
- For a meal break, DO stop in Scranton or Dickson City, Pa. It is exit 191 A or B on Route 81. Home of The Office, it is a great little town to stop for meals. If we hit Scranton for lunch or dinner, we eat at Tonalteca. The place is clean, the decor features hand crafted carved booths from Mexican artisans, and there are plenty of choices for vegetarians. The guacamole is outstanding. And, for those of you who get stir crazy in the car, they play great salsa music in the bathroom. If they have the security camera going by the sinks in the ladies room, they might have footage of me doing some salsa steps I learned in Zumba for all I know. Anything to work off that guacamole.
- DON’T stop in the Poconos for any reason. There really is no place to stop. The gas stations for bathrooms have nothing more than outhouses or bathrooms around back that you have to carry in those huge keys for admittance. And, if you see a billboard for The Cheesecake Factory, don’t believe it. No, it isn’t The Cheesecake Factory, the upscale eatery. It’s just – a cheesecake factory. So, unless you want to sit in your car with your family consuming a cheesecake for a meal, ignore the sign and keep driving.
- DO find the small village of Whitney Point along Route 81 and stop at Aiellos Italian Restaurant for the best pizza you can find in Western NY. And I am not saying this is good pizza for Western New York. I mean, this is thin-crust Brooklyn Pizza that somehow found its way to Western New York. And, the quaint restaurant in the back will be decked in its Christmas decorations this time of year. You won’t want to miss out on this.
And as for traffic…..
- DON’T be anywhere near Binghamton or Syracuse on Sunday afternoon if you can at all avoid it: college kids coming back from Thanksgiving break.
- DON’T go near the Delaware Water Gap if you don’t want to get stuck in traffic during peak hours
- DON’T go over the George Washington Bridge or traverse the Cross Bronx Expressway. Ever.
Safe travels to you and a very happy Thanksgiving.
Fall Leaves: Rake Many, Turn a Few into a Turkey
By now, in Western New York, the fall foliage has long reached its peak of yellows and reds.
Now, when I look up at the massive sugar maples in my neighborhood (the ones that are covered with snow in my homepage picture), sadly the branches are mostly bare. The only color they will be covered with over the next four months or so, is white.
Wherever you are living now, I bet you are thinking: how to get rid of all the leaves? Rake them? Mulch them? Sick the leaf blower on them?
But before you rake, blow, or mow every last leaf away and before the snows fall, admire the carpets of red and yellow that lie at your feet.
Then, save a few of nature’s castoffs for craft supplies that can last the whole winter through. Here’s how:
- First, find a preschooler to help you with this task. They are low to the ground and can teach you how to appreciate the simple, beautiful perfection that is found in one leaf that is the color of fire.
- Then, show that preschooler a telephone book. Theirs will probably the last generation that will actually come in contact with one of these volumes of bound, thin yellow paper volumes. None of them I bet ever had a parent use them as a makeshift booster seat or a stepstool. Show them that these yellow or white clunky books were once used by people to look up numbers for plumbers or dog groomers but now come in handy for pressing leaves.
- Next take a few of your leafy treasures and pat them dry with a paper towel, and place them between the pages of the book.
- While the leaves are drying and pressing, read to them a wonderful book like Leaf Man, by Lois Ehlert to get inspiration as to what to do with all those pressed leaves.
Our preschool class used leaves to represent the feathers of turkeys in our thanksgiving cards, like this:
Fall leaves are abundant - and free - and make for great crafts like this turkey
Send me your comments and pictures about what you made with your leaves.
I melted my kid’s Halloween Candy
Even when it is melted and refrozen, chocolate still tastes good!
Anyone who thinks that they are up for the Most Evil Mom of the Year Award, they can just go home now.
I melted one of my children’s Halloween candy, the candy they trick-or-treated for in one of the coldest, wettest, and snowiest Halloweens in recent Rochester memory.
Yes, an adjustment one must make when you are Transplantednorth is to allow for the possibility that it may snow for Halloween.
My brave son made not one, not two, but three trick-or-treating runs this Halloween to collect the mother lode of chocolate, lollipops and other chewy, sticky treats. The numb toes and frozen fingers were completely worth it.
And then, I had to go melt it all.
It is partially his fault. If I didn’t hear him sneak candy at 6:15 a.m., if I didn’t hear the thudthud of the cabinets in the kitchen, if he would have had the discipline of self-control and not found every hiding place I ever imagined over the last 10 years of post-Halloween parenting, the candy would have gone unliquified.
And how do I know my kids sneak candy from their Halloween stash early in the morning? The incriminating Kit-Kat wrappers left between the sofa cushions and NOT buried deep in the garbage can give them away every time. If you are going to sneak candy, do it right.
Perhaps it is in my upbringing that I feel compelled to hide the Halloween candy. After all, I am the daughter of a dental hygeienist. Before the day when all Halloween treats must be pre-wrapped and store-bought, my family made bag after bag of buttered popcorn to give for Halloween, because mom thought this would be a more nutritious, less sugary treat for All Hallow’s Eve.
My brother and I eagerly headed out the door for the real stuff.
And after trick-or-treating, my brother and I, like any kids, dumped all the candy all over the first available indoor floor surface to assess the booty. After we gleefully eyed our treasure, mom would swoop in, eliminating anything that might stick to our teeth and cause tooth decay.
Sugar Daddies? We could keep a few. Taffy and caramels? Out of the question, they were removed from our collection and immediately discarded.
The rest of the candy was hidden at an undisclosed time after we went to bed. As hard as my brother and I tried to find the stash, my mom devised a hiding place system that was more complex than that of Sadaam Hussein’s during the invasion of Iraq.
At my mom’s office, children visiting the dentist during month of October would be lectured in my mom’s dental chair about the evils of sticky sweets that cause plaque, cavities and tooth decay.
But upstairs, in the staff lounge, far away from the X-ray machines and the drill and the spit sink, it was like Sodom and Gomorrah meets Candyland. All rules preached downstairs were broken, and there were bowls of candy everywhere!
So, in a desperate attempt to hide the candy and protect my son’s mouth, soon to be fitted with braces, from all that sugar, I found a new hiding place: The warming drawer of my Kenmore oven.
No one knows about the warming drawer. I barely even realize I have a warming drawer until I cook a big holiday meal.
And, as I placed the bag into this hiding place, I told myself “Just PLEASE remember to take out the candy from here before you use the oven!”
I guess should have told myself this after I had my first cup of coffee that morning. Last night, I roasted chicken for dinner, at 400 for one hour.
It’s a good thing chocolate refreezes.
Traversing The Swiss Family Robinson – and use of the “A” Word – with my six-year-old
Time magazine’s July 22 cover story was “The case Against Summer Vacation,” an article that posed the argument that our romanticized notion of summer vacation can be blamed on Tom Sawyer and is merely the remnant of our vanished agrarian society. Kids had off in the summer hundreds of years ago because Ma and Pa needed them to work the fields. Now, enriched summer vacations are a privilege only bestowed to the middle and upper class, while inner-city kids run the risk of summer learning loss if they spend too much inside with TV and video games.
I know how lucky we are that we can afford – barely – to send our kids to summer camp. It’s not just kids in lower economic brackets who tend to veg out before the plasma god in the summer. At the beginning of the summer, I feel it is my parental duty to program every art project, play date and forced nature hike. What happens if I take the laissez-faire approach? Let’s just say I wish I had a quarter for every time I scream “TURN THE TV OFF!”
I know that kids can backslide during months of summer slacking. So I have really tried to get my kids into summer reading. I’ve enlisted them in our local library’s summer reading programs. I don’t know if my kids are reading while away at summer camp, but I know that my 11-year-old son voraciously plowed through four books before he packed up and left for sleep-a-way camp. My teen daughter? She put up a bit of resistance to reading this summer. I will attempt to get her bit by the literacy bug before the summer is through. Her school does have required reading book lists, after all, it’s not mom that wants her to read, it’s SCHOOL!
While the big kids are at their heavily-programmed, up-at-dawn sleep-a-way camp, my youngest child gets to be an only child for one solid month. That means mom and dad are all his. With all this quality one-on-one bed-time reading time on our hands, I figured we would tackle a classic. No Captain Underpants for us! With visions of climbing that immense artificial treehouse at Disney World and bowls made of coconut shells dancing in my head, Toby and I cashed in a 10-month gift card at Barnes & Noble and bought The Swiss Family Robinson.
We get through a chapter each night. The language, let’s just say, was far more complex back then. I checked the year Swiss Family Robinson was written. 1812.
“I believe there was a war that year,” my husband jokingly said.
Yes. This book is almost 200 years old. And some of the sentences were as heavy as the sugar canes that Fritz and Father carried on their shoulders on their Voyage of Discovery in Chapter Three.
I’ll give you examples of how I offer my son modern interpretation as I read along.
“I awoke my wife, and we consulted together as to the occupations we should engage in.”
I woke up my wife, and we talked and made a to-do list of all the jobs we needed to get done for the day.
“When we had gone about two leagues…”
After walking two miles
“we entered a wood situated a little further from the sea…took out some provisions and refreshed ourselves.”
We went into a forest located further from the sea, got out some snacks and refreshments.
At one point, my son asked me to read the book exactly as it was written. Three sentences later, he again asked for my interpretation and complained, “mom, I have no idea what you are talking about!”
But, he urged me to read on. We got to the chapter about rescuing the animals off of the shipwreck, and the challenge faced by the father and the oldest son.
I read,”What a difficulty in making it! and how could we induce”
umm.. make
“a cow”
a cow
“a sow”
a pig
“and an ass”
…….ummm, a donkey
“either to get upon a raft, or when there , to remain motionless and quiet?”
At that point, my young son stopped me.
“Wait, Wait! Moooooom, you changed that word, the word for donkey!! You were going to say one word, but you said “donkey.” Does this book have — the A word — in it??” He had deliciously naughty grin on his face, both dimples showing. Reading a 200-year-old book cannot be all that boring if you might catch your mom saying the “A” word, after all.
Tonight, Chapter Seven: Second Journey of Discovery Performed by the Mother of the Family. I can’t wait.
Hungry, Fasting, yet Happy Campers
It’s the middle of the afternoon and it hasn’t quite hit me yet, that my two oldest children left this morning for a month of sleep-a-way camp at Camp Ramah in Canada. Even though we packed them up, four duffel bags worth, handed their passports over to a young capable looking bus counselor, and hugged and kissed them goodbye.
After all, I say goodbye to my kids every morning for the entire school year – sometimes with a kiss, sometimes not.
It’s tonight that will be hard. When they don’t come home. When there will be two less at the dinner table and when my daughter’s bedroom will be empty. When my oldest son won’t be in the top bunk and my youngest son will have no one to fight with or talk to all hours of the night as he usually does. Then it will hit me.
Tonight will also be hard because tonight begins one of the saddest days on the Jewish calendar — the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, or Tisha B’Av.
This is the first blog entry I have mentioned I am Jewish. I don’t intend to make this a blog about Judaism, or write this blog only for Jews. But because I am Jewish, and a Jewish educator, Judaism may come up from time to time. And if it helps to lift some of the mystique of what Judaism is beyond Hava Nagila and Hanukkah, all the better!
What makes this day a sad one? On this date in the Hebrew Calendar many tragedies fell on the Jewish people -including the destruction of the two Temples – one in 586 BCE, or BC and the other in 70 CE or AD by the Romans, followed by a 2,000 year exile of the Jewish people. Heavy, sad stuff.
Jews observing this solemn day hold a fast from sundown to sundown, starting tonight, and read from the Book of Lamentations. To demonstrate the sadness, many sit on the floor.
I can just imagine the scene at their arrival at camp: my kids will have to get off the bus, have a screaming, squealing joyful reunion with friends, and then get ready to fast. Because this holiday falls in the summer, when school and Hebrew school is not in session, many Jews don’t know much about it.
Unless, you go to a Jewish summer camp. Tish B’Av has claimed its right in the Jewish religion as a very campy holiday.
A camping experience that begins with a fast to commemorate the saddest moments in Jewish history probably does not sound like a good time to the outside world. But my kids live for their time at Camp Ramah. They talk about all the fun they have there, the friends they make and the songs they sing, the whole year long. They count down the days until they return, to live Jewishly every day with friends they only see this one month a year.
Unlike most who will be fasting alone or at work tomorrow, in the supportive community of camp, I know that my son and daughter will find encouragement to either fast the whole day, or the wisdom from counselors and staff who will determine it’s time to get something to eat or drink.
Next, I will write about the good points and adjustments of having two out of three children away at sleep-a-way camp. And to all of you who are observing, an easy and meaningful fast.
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Stacy Gittleman 