Team mommy gets the Gold

The music in the background is usually the tranquility of my day, but today it seems to be the thing that brings all the chaos together in one large symphony of crying babies and running water from the dishes. I'm scrambling to finish up the last of the dishes knowing that if I stop now I will never get to finish it today. The girl is propped up on her knees, tugging at me and whining to please pick her up as the guy runs around in circles, only a diaper on, and screams at the top of his lungs in a pitch even the music playing in the background can't seem drown out. Coupled with the sound of the hard running water and the cars outside honking, buses starting and stopping, I look up above my sink and glance at my sign that reads, "SMILE, LAUGH, YOU ARE SO LUCKY, GET OVER YOURSELF, IS LIFE SO HARD, YOU POOR THING, HEALTHY BABIES, AMAZING HUSBAND, GORGEOUS LIFE." See Bob is a Jerk post for reference. And I think to myself, no not what a wonderful world even though it is, I think,

"Wow parenting is hard work."

I'm not sure where anyone got the idea that parenting would be easy, or marriage, or relationships or really anything in life. But for some reason, so many of us still hold on to the idea that if we just do something right, read the right book, get the exact parenting tactic down, life will be very simple and serene, something like from the pages of a parenting magazine where the mother is wearing a wrinkle free linen suit in the middle of the day, her makeup is just perfect and her children are sitting next to her in a peaceful recline in their polished shoes while the light of day shines on their spotless, freshly cleaned floors.

I was recently out somewhere and an adorable girl who I've known for only a short while asked me, "How's life?" I told her, "Amazing!" She asked me what I do and as I began to tell her that I am with my two babies all day her face began to transform from one of delight to one of complete despair. She looked at me with so much empathy and said to me in the sweetest voice,

"You must be so tired!"

Yes, it's hard work. But it's like an Olympic athlete. He trains his whole life, focuses his entire strengths on just one thing, the gold medal. While he is training do you think it's easy? Do you think for a second he thinks to himself "when will this get easier?" The secret is that in life, our greatest pleasures come from the things that require the most effort. The more effort we put in, the greater the experience of pleasure we will feel. Who has more fun, the spectator watching the game or the Olympic athlete who is working so hard his body aches and cries for him to stop but he pushes through with his eye on the target? It seems that the spectator is having the most fun, besides he's the one with the beer in hand, body relaxed, couldn't get easier than this! It's true, that spectator is experiencing a dose of pleasure but the athlete is tapping into a much higher level of pleasure unmeasurable to the entire audience's experience put together. And I'm sure he's tired.

The deeper reality is that the pain he feels is actually the best feeling pain in the world. It's the feeling of accomplishment, of growth and of meaning.

Parenting is hard. We're tired. And it feels fantastic.

It's like my household's chaos is the American Hockey team in overtime and I'm team Canada. I'm going for the Gold.

Broken pipes and the Fast of Esther

Today is a fast day known as the Fast of Esther.

Today is day two of us not having running water in our apartment.

How are the two connected?

It's nearing the end of my fast, my husband has gone out to shul (synagogue), the kids are tucked in bed (after a baby wipe 'bath' of sorts) and I'm sitting on the couch in silence at the battlefield that is my home which was attacked by two very small predators who consume most of my day.

I can't help but think, did I actually grow spiritually from this fast? Isn't that what a fast is supposed to do? What did I get out of it besides diapers, playing with kids and broken pipes?

In Judaism, we learn that the aim of the fast of Esther is to affirm that man does not prevail by physical or military strength, rather by lifting his eyes heavenward in prayer so that God might give him strength to prevail in the battle.

This statement is packed with questions, but I'll just tell you how I caught a glimpse of what the fast is all about today from some broken pipes.

We have no water, and you can only think of all the inconveniences that we might be facing as a result of it. The Abba came home today and upon hearing that we still have no water, replied with "Wow thank God."

What is he talking about? I wanted to bite his head off.

But he explained:

The fact that you don't have water right now, is a testament to the fact that God loves you!

Oh now I was really losing it.

Please explain my dear, humor me.

The Abba went on to explain to me that it's really quite simple. If God didn't love us, He wouldn't be involved in our daily lives. He would just give us everything we need, at all times, no matter what so that we would never have the opportunity to even ask him for a single thing. If he didn't want a relationship with us, it would be very smart to just cut us off from Him, by giving us all that we need. Smart equation.

The Torah teaches that this is the reason why the snake in the Garden of Eden was cursed to slither on the ground. Before the snake sinned, he was a walking being of some sort. After he sinned, the curse put on him was that he would slither on the dust of the Earth, which in turn means he will always have his sustenance there for him without having to turn to God to ask for it.

Man on the other hand was put in the situation where he would only receive his sustenance through hard labor and toiling, which really means he would have to ask God for EVERYTHING.

Now if you want a close relationship with someone, you would probably choose the second option, and obviously God did. He wants to be close with us and therefore at times it might seem like a harsh punishment, but really all His messages and opportunities for us to reach out to Him are acts of love. Just like a father punishes a child to teach him a lesson, it is only done out of love. If the father didn't care, he would not waste his time trying to teach the child lessons about life.

And this is what the fast day teaches us. We are meant to stop for a day and recognize that we do not prevail by physical strength, rather by turning to God. We won't get the pipes fixed by getting all flared up about the 'bad plumber' or 'bad management'. I'm sure there are buildings with tremendous management and top of the line plumbers who sometimes can't solve every problem. The bottom line is we have to do our efforts in this world out of love, call the plumber call the city and of course pray, and God will in turn see that we are putting in our efforts all the while recognizing that He is ultimately the only One in charge.

All day I was trying to tap into the spiritual energy of this holy day and I have to say it is hard at times when you are so engulfed in the mundane activities of life. Changing diapers, feeding, putting to sleep, okay so today there was no bathing but still. You can get wrapped up in all of that if you don't stop to think 'what are the messages here, what am I trying to accomplish with this fast?'

And that's the story of Esther in a nutshell. Finding God in the hidden darkness of the world. If I can connect to the deeper meaning of my life and who I am and what I'm living for from diapers and feeding and broken pipes, then I can break through any darkness the world brings my way and find meaning in everything from the small 'insignificant' things, to the big issues we are meant to face in life.

Thank God for those broken pipes.

If your child is not perfect, you are a bad parent.

Apparently, if my child pushes another child it means I'm a bad parent.

But does it really?

At an indoor playground recently a little girl who couldn't have been older than 1 stepped right into the battlefield that is 'The Exhausted Noam (TM)' and got herself quite the push so he could make headway toward the slide. Where was I? I was sitting about 8 feet away feeding my baby Adina. I had my eye on Noam but I couldn't possibly get to him in time to stop him from the inevitable fate that was awaiting this poor innocent child.

The incident: Noam shoves the girl, girl falls to the floor and begins to cry, girl's mother appears in 2.6 seconds and grabs Noam's wrist frantically looking around for this "animals" mother. She didn't say that, I added it for extra drama but in all truth I know that's what she was thinking.

So many wrong things here, let me just begin with the mother's response.

Instead of girls mother rushing to her daughter to make sure she was okay, she ran to rebuke my son and to try eagerly to find his mother in order to reprimand her as well. Because, apparently, that is more important than checking to see if her daughter was well.

See this just sets off alarms in my head about parenting in general. Firstly this was the mother of a little baby girl who is probably more gentle than a kitten and doesn't even know what hitting is. But, sorry mother of girl, one day your child too will push, shove, hit or call someone names and the question is what will you do to deal with it? I mean besides the fact that if you are taking your child to an indoor playground you have to be realistic and plan that these things happen amongst kids, we must be realistic insomuch as life in general with kids is like an indoor playground with a bunch of little tired, overly stimulated animals running around.

In my opinion of parenting, which may be limited but in defense I believe is thought out and based on real sources, is that we are here to prepare our children with the challenges of the world and to give them the tools as to how to deal with those things as they come.

Are we going to run up to every kid's parents when something happens to our child and try to parent their children or change the parents parenting tactics? That is never going to work. You will not change others this way. You can only work on your own parenting and teach your children how to stand up to adversary in life, and then in turn through example we stand a chance at teaching others how to appropriately act.

If her child is acting up in class or isn't thriving in school later in life, will she try to change the child's teacher in hopes of having her child thrive better? I'm sure there are times when changing a teacher is appropriate but in most cases, we are probably better of teaching the child that there may even be teachers they don't jive with, but regardless, they are responsible for being good students and that's that. No exception.

I fear with this approach we are robbing our children of their independence and of their entire purpose in life at that. We are taking from them the basic fundamental principal of being an adult, which is to take responsibility for yourself and to learn to deal with life in an appropriate way.

In defense of my own parenting tactics, don't think for a second that I didn't have a serious (however serious can get with a 2 year old) talk with the guy about hitting. Don't think I didn't speak about it all the way up until he went to bed and told him how important it is to be kind and gentle. And regardless of this incident, don't think that I don't praise my son every time he is gentle with his sister. The reason I say this is because I fear that mothers or fathers reactions to a child hitting their child can result in a lot of judgment of the parents or the household. I am very quickly changing my mind as to the judgments I make about parents based on their children. I think at an older age you can probably make a better judgment as to the values being taught in someone's home based on their kid's character traits, but hardly when they're two years old.

The end of the story goes that the woman found the "animals' mother (me) and yelled at me, projecting her voice higher and higher to overcast my apologies as if not to hear it, and continued with, "Your son just.....etc etc......you should have intervened!" And then, no joke, she picked up her baby and stormed out of the playground with a thick cloud of angry smoke trailing behind. Okay the smoke is an exaggeration but you get the picture.

What are we teaching our children? Are we teaching them that they must be perfect and that if something "wrong" happens it's the end of the world? Or better yet, if something "wrong" happens, it is an excuse to completely lose it on someone? This is detrimental to our children if we teach them to think they can act like angels and not like humans who make mistakes. When a child hits my child now, I really do try to feel for the parent as they look at me with those guilty eyes. Right away I tell the parent, "It's okay these things happen now let's deal with it" because I know the pressure put on us parents to have these perfect children who don't hit, scream or have tantrums. We have to be realistic and arm ourselves for when these things happen because they are going to.

What will you teach your child to do when someone hits them?
How will you respond when your child is acting up in class and the teacher is "picking" (in his opinion) on him, and he's not doing well in that class?
How will we respond when our children get fired from a job?
What will we tell our children if, God forbid, we are faced with a tragedy such as death?

We can give them the tools to deal with it. Imagine the scenario: A boy comes home from school to tell his parents that a boy in class is picking on him. The parent sits down with the child and explains to him that all he needs to do is be true to himself. Don't feel insecure about yourself because this boy doesn't know you and is picking on you only because he is not happy with himself. The parent explains that the best thing to do is to ignore the bully because that is the ultimate defeat to someone who is trying to get a reaction. Later in life, the parent tells the child, you will see that this person will come out of his shell and try to rectify these bad behaviors and relationships he's made for himself, whereas you will still be you and not have sunk to any levels below yourself.

Or we could just teach them that when things are tough, don't deal with the issue yourself just go directly to the source. If a child hits you, go yell at his mother. If school is hard, yell at the principal. If your job isn't working out, curse out your boss. If life is tough, go yell at God for all the bad in your life.

Time flies

Oh my gosh is it really Thursday already?

I was at a wedding recently and saw many people I hadn't seen in years and after hearing that I now have two kids and have been married almost 4.5 years, their jaws drop and they all say the same thing, "Wow, how time flies!"

It's true! I'm not mocking them. I say it all the time, no pun intended.

Last week alone both my mother and my mother in law both made jokes about how they're getting "old" and it's so sad! I took this as a sign to hear the messages and perhaps find a big life lesson in it all.

So I began to question myself. Is that it? Can that really be it? When we're young we enjoy ourselves and when we get "old" it just becomes this depressing downwards spiral into a useless existence of rocking chairs and tales of "back in the day?"

Not even close.

This is exactly what Shabbat comes to teach us.
A parallel:

After 6 days of working, the sun sets on Friday night and that means that we can no longer do any acts of creation (ie. cooking, some cleaning, bathing, driving, etc.). We work hard to prepare all week for the day of Shabbat, we shop for food, we cook, bathe, clean our clothes, polish the silver. We get ready to sit and feast like Kings and Queens. Whatever we prepared during the week is the only thing we will have to eat on Shabbat because once the sun sets, we can no longer continue to cook. On a deeper level we are told that God Himself is our guest on Shabbat! What a tremendous honor for us to "host" Godliness in our homes, which really means to connect with the reality of what we're living for and focus on the things that matter.

After 120 years of living in this world (6 days of the week), the sun will one day "set" (Friday night) and we too will die. We must work hard to prepare all our lives (6 days of the week) for that special day (Shabbat) when we leave this world and go on to the World to Come. We prepare our (clothing) spiritual garments, ie. perfecting our character traits, and we get ready to sit and feast in the glory of all our hard work! Whatever we prepared during (the week) our lives, is the only thing we will have to (eat) show for what we made of ourselves here. This is truly our sustenance. Once the sun sets (Shabbat starts) we can no longer continue to (cook/prepare) work on ourselves or prepare anything because our time will be up. On a deeper level we will be God's guests!

The week passes us by so fast. I often catch myself asking "What do I have to show for this week?" I'm not asking what did I buy, or how much money did I make. What I'm asking is "Did I work on myself? Did I "toil" and labor at working on being patient, giving, caring? That's all I will have to show when I'm gone. So each week we are truly blessed to have this reminder that although the week did "fly by" you have a chance, 25 hours, to sit and contemplate about what was last week and what will be this coming week. We have the opportunity to sit and reflect so that each week that passes by is not a week that goes with nothing to show for it.

Shabbat is our reminder that one day, the sun will set for us too, and we need to prepare.

This is love, and it's beautiful.

Everyday, at 6:26p.m. the Abba walks in with a gigantic smile. He tells me it's the best part of his day, and I believe him because it's mine too. He hangs his coat, puts away his briefcase, and sits down at the table with me.

The first thing the Abba asks is, "So, how was their day?" in the most enthusiastic voice I have ever heard.

It's quite adorable, in so much as I know he really misses them during the day and can't wait to 'catch up' on all the things they've been up to. Most days, he hears the same things and each time he hears it its as if he's hearing it for the first time.

So tonight when I told the Abba about the guy's day, I learned a tremendous lesson about life and I had to share it.

Today the guy had an interesting day starting with a really early wake up time of 5:00 am, to a very rare 'short' nap as apposed to a 2 hour well rested nap, and some tantrums here and there. Yet, when the Abba asked how the guys day was, I told him all about how cute they were and how much they took care of each other and how much we all laughed!

Judaism teaches us that love is the feeling you get when you focus on the positive attributes of another person.

There is good and bad in this world. People have positive and negative traits and the most amazing feeling in the world is when you know someone so well that you can see both but you focus on the positive.

When I think of my family and my friends, I am able to focus on the positive. This is love. It's really not a complicated thing. It doesn't have to hurt and it doesn't have to be confusing. It's a pretty simple equation and we just have to realign our thinking to it. This is love, and it's beautiful.

Puzzles

Who would have thought that making a puzzle with a 2 year old can be such inspiration to connecting to the true meaning of life?

That's what happened today. As the guys and I were busy making our World puzzle I was very inspired.

With the natural compassion bestowed to mothers, I gave the guy pieces to fit into the puzzle and asked him, "Hmm, Noam, maybe this piece goes here wanna try?"

And of course his world lit up when, behold, the piece fit! He felt so proud.

We too are here to fit pieces into a puzzle.

In reality I could have built the puzzle for him in about 4 minutes, it was one of those gigantic size piece puzzles, you know what I mean? But why did I help him and allow him to figure it out?

The reason is obvious yet profound in our understanding of our relationship to this world, our potential and to our creator.

We want our children to accomplish. That's it really. We can give them all the answers and do things for them and spoon feed them until they are adults, but we choose to guide them along in a way that gives them safety within the boundaries but free will to blossom into free will thinkers who will feel a sense of accomplishment in their tasks.

We too, like the little guys, are here in this world to feel that sense of accomplishment. God really could have gotten you that job, that man, that car, that personality trait, whatever it may be that you feel you are working towards in life. But then we'd be robots and God doesn't need that and you don't want that. He wants a relationship with us where we are actively choosing and seeking out meaning in everything we do. Even in making a puzzle with a baby.

Brush your teeth!

In desperation to get the guy to brush his teeth, I had to think up something really clever.

BUGS!

That's right, no lying as germs are really a sort of bug right? I told the little guy that we had to get the bugs out of his teeth. I'm happy to say the guy enthusiastically brushes his teeth now.

So I was trying to get in the mind of this little guy and began to think of how this relates to me? Here he is, this helpless little...guy...his entire life rests in my hands and pretty much anything I say or tell him to do he has to do it. But it's always for his good (provided that I am being a 'good' parent).

See this is exactly how we are with God.

We seem to think that we know everything because we've been classified as 'adults'. We think we know to the ends of the earth and back. Until we learn something from a mistake, and it hurts, and we promise ourselves next time we'll be more open to realizing we don't know it all, and then we do it again. Essentially this is the life of a toddler.

Sometimes we have to do things in life that we don't fully understand because we're essentially God's babies and don't 'know it all' and in the kindness that is Godliness, He speaks to us on our level. He speaks to us so we can understand what it is He knows is best for us.

We shouldn't fool ourselves, the same little guy who needs to be told to brush his teeth to get the buggys out, is the same person who has to go to work and put in a lot of effort to make money and then get paid and feel superior to the rest of the world because, well, now I am responsible and making my own decisions. And well yes, it is true, we do need to 'grow up' and take responsibility for our lives and make decisions like a free thinking adult. But we should never lose sight of the greatness of our Creator who knows far more than we will ever know. It is not to make us feel bad about ourselves, rather it should make us feel small like a child in the sense of humility and awesome to know that we are His 'babies'.

Who are we to think we know it all?

It's like the classic example of the small child who is taken to the dentists office with his father. The child is sitting in the chair with his father standing right next to him and the dentist begins to work. In the child's eyes, this mad man in a white suit is trying to kill him and daddy is just standing by his side and watching the whole thing! 'Why isn't daddy helping me?' the poor boy thinks to himself.

This is really the mind of a child! He is not able to trust yet that the father knows what is best for the child, even if it does hurt a little at times.

Our father, God, knows what's best for us, and sometimes it hurts a little. We can't always see it but there is a formula in being able to tap into it much more and it's simple. Just think of all the good in your life, all the blessings, and all the times where you really needed something and it came through or when something looked bad and ended up being the best thing for you. Think about what a great track record God has in giving you LIFE, and everything in between and realize that this too is just part of that beautiful tapestry.

When you're so close to the painting while it's being drawn you may only see a big mess, but when you stand back and look at it from a distance you see a beautiful masterpiece.

Every father wants what's best for their child. Sometimes God has to speak to us on our level, most of the time, it may seem like a daunting task but really all he's telling us is to brush our teeth, to get the buggys out, because He wants only what's best for us.