As a follow-up to my Letter to Hillel, I realized that I must apologize to Hillel, because the truth is, complaining about how yontov falls out is a special part of being Jewish. We're gonna do it no matter what. It's in our blood. (Only on weekends? Good for work, but totally exhausting. Middle of the week? Bad for work and a month of "Thursday nights." Three day yontov? Blearghhhh.)
But back to Yom Kippur: Some Highlights
1. The kids slept in - till 6:00!! Whoo hoo! That meant that by the time Donny left for shul at 7:10, breakfast was finished and the Mommy-I'm-Bored whining had officially commenced. With only 11 hours to go! Whoo hoo!
2. Kol Nidre night we experienced something that we had never seen before - Chag HaOfanayim (Bike holiday). On YK night, there are no cars on the roads. I'm not sure if this is something officially mandated or just accepted custom, but the roads are empty. So out come the bikes! Any Israeli who is not in shul is out on the roads - kids whizzing down Sderot Chashmonaim on their bikes, parents strolling in the middle of the street, little kids in strollers and tricycles. Ariella and Yaakov enjoyed watching the bicycles (yay! an activity!) for a while, until Ariella got jealous. First, she wanted to go out and ride her bike with all the other kids, then she realized she didn't have a bike and begged me for one.
3. I did not get a migraine, which meant I did not spend quality time with my head in a toilet. Yay! Many women rate their YK by how much time they got to spend in shul. My standards are much lower. No puke? Success!
4. The secret to my survival was not getting up from the couch the entire day. I dictated, directed and supervised as well as I could from my perch. I only got up to daven (briefly), help Yaakov with his bathroom needs, and make lunch (fancy meal of noodles and sliced cheese.)
5. The children and I were in pajamas. All day. We were a pretty sight.
6. We survived, through some miracle of the new kitchen toy, beads, bike-watching, me reading LOTS of books (something I could do successfully from the couch), building, cars, more books, Monster with Daddy, Calisthenics with Mommy, and MORE books - but it was a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong day.
7. Very looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong.
8. And the best part of today? It's an ENTIRE YEAR until we have to do Yom Kippur again! Hopefully by then we will have rebuilt the Beit HaMikdash and we will only have to fast till after Mussaf! Amen.
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5 comments:
I agree, it was a long day! My kids (the 3 that are still at home) were stir crazy by then (since it was the third day and all) and had WAY TOO MUCH energy. And volume.
my kids only got out of PJs under extreme duress, so we could visit the park in the late afternoon. where we were thankfully not treated to the same "fun" (a bloody nose) that we had had while at the same park during kol nidrei.
the yamim noraim have lost a lot of their oomph for me; i hope it's temporary and has to do with the fact that i spend all of YK as a waitress, librarian, and referee--maybe in 2-3 years they will get their own cereal, make their own sandwiches, and be appropriately behaved in shul so i can go.
and? when i was davening neilah the two of them decided to daven also, dragged two mini chairs to "play shul" approximately four inches from me, and proceeded to sing modeh ani at the top of their lungs. while adorable, this made it slightly difficult to concentrate on vidui.
Girls, I remember those years. Yom Kippur was looooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggggg. And then come the in between years, before you realize, hey I actually could spend all day in shul, but I'd rather spend it in pajamas on the couch. You may even actually think about having more kids just for that purpose. And then you find yourself sitting with your children next to you in shul, and hoping they don't see you checking out how many more pages are left till avinu malkeinu....
Hi, I've been lurking around and enjoying your blog!
My youngest is 4 and I actually had my babysitter come in for the day. They went to the park for a few hours but when they came home my 4 year old wanted nothing to do with my sitter who she always loves to be with and only wanted me. I ended up sending my sitter home and having to entertain my 4 year old because her older siblings were not home. I did get her to nap with me for about an hour but then she was up until almost midnight.
The best part of my day though was sitting in Shul with my almost 10 year old daughter and actually davening with her (she usually goes to groups on Shabbat). I kind of had a view of Yom Kippur past and Yom Kippur future.
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