We’re off to Teva!

A little over 15 years ago, I had my one great idea.

After spending two years working at Nature’s Classroom, a five-day environmental ed program for elementary schools, hosted at an overnight camp, I thought “We could do this.” And by “we”, I meant, Jews. Why not create a program for Jewish day schools, that brought children to camp to spend time in the outdoors, exploring the natural world and learning Jewish traditions and values of environmental stewardship.

I brought my idea to a number of camp directors, and one was crazy enough to let a 25 year old with no administrative experience try to get a program off the ground. A handful of Solomon Schechter schools in New Jersey were crazy enough to sign up for the first season. And a group of staff were crazy enough to drop whatever they were doing to work three weeks at this pioneer program (more than one were good friends of mine, to whom I am eternally grateful.)

Thus was born the Teva Learning Center, which has grown through the contributions of hundreds of fine staff and under Nili Simhai’s wise and visionary leadership into “North America’s foremost Jewish Environmental Education Institute…(which touches).. the lives of 4,000 participants annually.” Kids who come to Teva get to see a completely different model of Jewish life than exists almost anywhere else in the world – dynamic, alive, creative, a little “out there”…. and it’s super green. It’s wish it existed when I was a kid. Fortunately, my carob seeds have borne fruit in only one generation, and in five years, my own daughter’s sixth grade class will heads off to Teva on a big yellow school bus.

And this weekend, I’m attending the Teva staff reunion with the girls. Yay and Shabbat Shalom!

The weekly Jewish Blog Carnival is up

Every week, Jewish bloggers from all around the world are featured in Havel Havalim. Check it out at Ima on the Bima, one of my favorite Jewish parenting blogs.

It’s time for another Jewish Mama (and Papa) Meme (but not peepee)

get it?

I made up a Jewish mama meme when I first started this blog, mostly as a way to connect to other Jewish parenting bloggers. Now that my blog is a little more established, I’d like to try it again. So, with the “holiday season” fast approaching, I hereby introduce the Holiday version of the Jewish Mommy Meme:

One menorah, or several? Hillel or Shammai? (just kidding about that part)

So far, one for the grownups and one for the kids. And that’s your idea of a joke?

Do you buy your children gifts for every night of Chanukah?

They get a gift every night, but not necessarily from their parents. Also, most of the gifts are small and some are for the girls to share.

Do you and your spouse/partner or any other adults in your life exchange gifts?

No, this one’s for the kids only. Though I have a suprise in store for DH this year.

Special family chanukah traditions?

We buy the girls a big box of new art supplies every year – new markers, new paper, and a few surprises. Also, bubbe comes and makes latkes.

Latkes or sufganiyot? If latkes, sour cream or applesauce?

We are totally about latkes. But only Bubbe’s latkes. With both, of course.

Favorite chanukah book?

An old chapter book I had growing up called “The Magic Top” by Rosalind Welcher. It’s out of print, but I still have the 1965 edition.

Do you actually play dreidl? If so, what do you use for counters?

Sometimes, when bubbe visits. We use black beans (dry.)

What relationship, if any, do you have with Christmas and all things Christmas-y?

Sometimes we visit my husband’s parents on X-mas eve. This year we may watch a few of the classic tv specials. And sometimes, to amuse myself, I tell my kids that Santa is Moshe Rabeinu.

I’m tagging everyone named below plus anyone else who is reading this and wants to join in. If you can think of any better questions, please add them, because mine are really lame.

• Ashi & Rami
• Bible Belt Balabusta
• Frume Sarah’s World
• Ima on the Bima
• Mommy’s Going Meshugganah
• Sheitels and Strollers
• Standing in the Shadows
• Super Raizy
• Sell Crazy Someplace Else
• Torah Dinner
• Midianite Manna
• Bullseye Baby
• Yo Yenta

Who knew?

Ella has the flu and no appetite to speak of. My mom’s advice? Jell-o. Ever the only-somewhat-dutiful daughter, I went to the local co-op and asked for “something resembling jello, but not jello.” They knew just what I meant, and sent me home with 2 boxes of this. Kosher, vegan, “jel dessert” with no artifical colors or flavors. Just what the doctor ordered.

It looked like this. For about a minute, until my flu-y daughter gobbled it down. (To the extent that you can call jello-eating “gobbling.” I guess it’s more like shlurpling. )Anyway, she’s on her third bowl tonight. It has virtually no nutritious value, just like real Jell-o, but at least it’s not full of poisons. And animal bones.

Get well soon!

Come out, come out, wherever you are

After blogging for eight months, I’m beginning to discover that I have readers who aren’t, you know, my mom.

Who are you? How did you find my blog?

Please post! (You too, mom!)

Baby Einstein Refund – a great talmudic debate?

When I was pregnant, I fully expected to keep my kids away from tv for a good, long time. I managed to live up to this goal for about a year. That’s not to say that I didn’t watch tv while breastfeeding, especially once Ella became too active for me to read or use the computer while she was latched on. But I never actually planted her in front of the tube. However, shortly after Ella turned one, I became pregnant with her sister Zoe. Suffering (and I do mean suffering) from  nausea and exhaustion for most of those nine months, while her daily naps simultaneously dropped from 3 at their peak, to 2, and finally to 1, suddenly I needed help, and 16.99 for a Baby Einstein dvd was a lot cheaper than a babysitter.

Did I think the dvd’s would make her smarter? Did I expect her to learn anything, other than the fact the mommy is only human? No. I chose the dvd’s because they were colorful, much slower paced than most  tv (Miffy and that guy on PBS who used to teach people how to paint excluded, of course), and not too-too annoying. At least not the first 50 times or so.

Disney, however, made some lofty claims about the Baby Einstein series, which are well-documented here. Here’s one testimonial that ran on their website: My son, JJ, was born a month premature and was hospitalized for about 2 1/2 weeks. Some of the medications he was on can cause some delays and learning disabilities. He first received the Baby Einstein video at two months old. The first thing I noticed was how quickly it captured his attention. I also noticed how it increased the length of his attention span significantly. Unlike in the diet ads, nowhere did it say “results not typical.”

After threat of a class-action lawsuit, Disney agreed to offer a full refund for up to four dvd’s. That’s $67.96 that I never expected to see again (assuming I even bought the dvd’s, when in fact, I think we received them all as gifts.) All of which leaves me with a dilemma worthy of some real shakla vetarya (talmudic back and forth.) Even though I never believed the false advertising, am I entitled to the rebate? On the one hand, I applaud Disney’s being held accountable for deceptive sales practices. On the other hand, the rebate offer specifically stipulates “If you are not satisfied with the Baby Einstein dvd you purchased….” And I was satisfied. Totally satisfied.

So, readers, what do you think? Send the dvd’s back, or not?

Thanks, Mom

My mom sent me a link to a wonderful article by Anne Roiphe for grandparents.com, called Grandmothers Should Be Seen and Not Heard. It’s written for grandmothers, but it actually was a wonderful read for me. I wish I didn’t agree with almost everything she said, but I do. My mom is a superb bubbe, and I know that she thinks I’m a wonderful mom, but I still can’t handle her criticisms, or even her suggestions (even the good ones), very gracefully. The comments on the article are all from grandparents – I’d love to hear what some moms think about it.

Of course, I too need to be reminded to shut up from time to time. Here’s a great poem to that effect (sort of) that I read on the bullseye, baby blog. Warning: contains the f word a few times. Thanks, Jena!

How lucky am I?

Today, after school, I took my girls to a book fair with 16 local authors and illustrators. We got to meet and talk to Jane Dyer, Rich Michelson, Mo Willems (gasp) and Patricia Maclachlan (author of Sarah, Plain and Tall) and a dozen others, in a tiny school gymnasium. And it wasn’t even crowded. I shelled out $50 in the course of a few minutes, and could easily have spent $500 if I had the funds.

My daughters sort of think everyone’s an author, and don’t get that it’s a much bigger deal to get a signed book from the author of Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus than the author of A Mezuzah on the Door. But me? I’m star struck.

Yummy but ugly

 

click me!

One of my all time favorite casseroles, posted by request for our shabbat guests this week. I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture, to prove how unappealing it looks. But….YUM. And while it has more prepared products in one dish than I usually use in an entire week, it’s also the kind of entree you can throw together when you get home from work at 4 and shabbat starts at 5:30…..

 

My favorite part is the hominy. It makes me think of Jackie Gleason every time I say it.

My Pagan Daughters

Pics, as promised:

Now we face the real dilemma – what to do with all this candy? While we usually have cookies in the house, and occasionally ice cream, we don’t ever buy candy. My children have had so little in their lifetime, that at every house we went to, Zoe (my self-described treat-atarian) would point to the candy in the bowl and ask wonderously, like the simple son at the seder, “what is this?”Most candy-givers would patiently try to describe of the confection, but after seeing no glimmer of recognition on her face, they would look upon her with pity and exclaim  something like “It’s good! You’ll like it!” (and then, more softly….”you poor, deprived child.”)

My husband and I decided that candy will be freely given for the next week (well, one or two pieces a day) and then removed from the premises.  I explained this to the girls while we were trick or treating, and it in no way dampened their enthusiasm for collecting 13 pounds of crap. Each. But they did want to know what we would do with the rest. Since I didn’t want to tell them that we would probably take it to work, I asked them what they thought we should do with it.

“Can we save it for special occasions?” asked Ella.

“How about shabbat?” I suggested.

“YESSSSS,” they exclaimed, in unison.

I may have spoken before I thought this through. In any case, do stay tuned for the future adventures of Home Shuling and her shabbat crap fests.

ps – would love hear how the rest of you handle the heaps of candy