Spring and Parents

Spring is here! We got daffodils blooming everywhere. Forsythias are clusters of happy yellow. Our 2 apricot trees both have blooms. Plum, peach, and nectarine blooms are are about to open.

We are behind on gardening. The soil needs to be turned over, the beds shaped, the peas planted... I don't think we will get to it until mid-April. This week is insanity at work. Next week we will be away. When we come back from our trip, it will be a rush to unpack, get ready for work and school, and before we can say "huh", it will be mid-April. And my mom's birthday!

I love my parents. I love spending time with them. My father - he can be so funny and crack middle-school style jokes (yes, yikes), but he is also such a calming influence and makes me feel so safe (is this weird - considering that I'm 45 - that my father makes me feel safe?) My mother - she is not calm - but she is brilliant and an amazing musician, and we can talk about books. Plus, my parents are willing to listen to me brag (usually about kids) or complain (about life in general) - and it feels so amazing to be the center of their attention.

Friendships

Part of being from a military family is that you don't get to grow up in a single place with the same kids. You move. Your friends move. 

One thing I learned - when people moved, and I lost a friend, and it felt like I would never have another friend like that - it was true. I would never meet another person exactly like that. I would go on to make other friends, but they would be different. The friendships would be different.

I don't make friends easily. 

I've been fortunate to have met some truly exceptional people. Sometimes, I can tell right away that we "click" and we will be friends. More often, I am completely clueless. It also happened (more than once) that there was initial dislike.

Back in the early 90's, after what felt like an eternity of not having any friends at all (we moved when I was 13 and the transition was extremely rough) - I finally had a best friend. We could talk for hours. We went on walks in the evenings, after dark (because "darkness was the young people's best friend," or "temnota - drug molodezhi" or something along those lines). We made each other laugh. We used to laugh so much... To this day, I have not met another person as ready to laugh, as ready to share her life, as easy to talk to (and to laugh with)... 

A few years later, in college, I had a best friend, a "kindred spirit". It felt like we were going through all the same major life events at the same time. She was like a sister I never had. I felt like I could tell her anything. These days, we are separated by a vast distance and we rarely talk because we get so busy with work and family, and the time difference makes things even more tricky. We drifted apart as we aged and formed new relationships that changed us. And yet - I still very much feel like she is my sister... and we share history from college days. I will never meet another person as determined and brilliant as she is. I miss that close friendship and I miss our late-night conversations about everything under the sun.

There was another friend in college who was like a brother I never had (but always wished I did). He moved to another country when I was finishing up my sophomore year. I haven't seen him or heard from him for more than 20 years. I suspect he is not alive (but I hope I am wrong). It is unlikely that I will meet anyone as frustrating, enraging, kind, confident, and angst-ridden as he was. I miss his friendship. 

Life's Not a Joke

Life feels like I am constantly failing at something: exercising. reading with kids, community obligations, being friendly, sense of humor... Even when I feel mostly caught up on life and work, there is always that one thing that I just don't get around to... emailing the rabbis about H's upcoming Bat Mitzvah, dusting, getting in touch with other Hebrew School parents, answering my emails...

Sense of humor - just today, E told me "yeah, mom, I can't tell when people are being sarcastic, just like you... but a least I get jokes - you really don't get humor, do you...."

It's true. I have a hard time understanding jokes - especially those told by people I don't know well. Probably a combination of not enough common reference (you got to have the same frame of reference to share jokes, or they'll make no sense), poor auditory comprehension (especially when I'm not used to the person's speech patterns and/or accent), and poor social skills.

Trying to tell a joke is a disaster - I can't tell jokes at all. It all comes out wrong. People give me odd looks. On the other hand, when I'm sharing my deepest, inner-most thoughts and feelings, people think I'm hilarious. So sad.

Half the comedies make me cry. Or stress me out to the point I have to leave the room.

Some comedies I do OK with. We just watched "Top Secret" with kids - that was good. I can watch Friends and The Big Bang Theory without hiding my head under the blanket. A lot of Monty Python I am good with even when I don't get 100% of the jokes. But shows like Seinfeld, or Borat, or even Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (to be fair: the 1/4 jokes that I was able to understand were fantastic) - I just can't. Or things like Dumb and Dumber - no way.

I wonder if sense of humor is a kind of a skill that can get better with practice... Perhaps I should try more comedies, or books that are funny, or practice telling jokes to my kids...

Parenting Fail

I have a lingering cold - I am almost over it but still have stuffiness and cough. My middle child developed the cold a couple of days after me. The oldest and the youngest are holding out... But probably not for long.

I made H tea with honey this morning to help her feel better. But then C, the youngest, wanted tea, too. No problem. They were sitting contentedly at the kitchen table, sipping their tea. When breakfast was ready, everyone moved to the dining room table. I brought the tea over. Except I gave H's tea (laden with germs, no doubt) to C... C took a couple of gulps before she realized she was drinking out of her sick sister's cup. 

Ugh. Seriously. This reminds me of a time when C was sick and after helping her brush her teeth, I (why? I don't know! my brain went to la-la land for a bit)  started brushing my own teeth using her toothbrush. I got sick less than 12 hours after that (it was a nasty, nasty cold, too!).

So... yeah... parenting fail number 1,095,435.

Things I Would Like to Say YES to

 I'm reading "Tell Me More" by Kelly Corrigan, and her "Yes" chapter got me thinking...

What am I already saying YES to? What should I say YES to more?

• Travel: with husband, solo, with family, with friends, with kids
• Music: playing, listening, going to concerts (especially if our kids are performing), free concerts at the nearby park
• Reading: by myself, aloud to the kids, in pajamas, on the train, in front of the fireplace, outside, different genres
• Board games with kids
• Dancing: alone or with kids
• Hiking
• Stargazing
• Throwing pebbles into a body of water
• Picking wild berries
• Going to thrift stores just to look at stuff
• Backrubs
• Hugs

Sneaking Matzos

My grandfathers did not want to have anything to do with religion. With all the death, horror, and upheavals they have lived through, is it really surprising?

My grandmothers were not so quick to dismiss G-d. With all the death, horror, and upheavals they have lived through, is it really surprising?

The only somewhat-observant person in our close family circle was my uncle's mother (my sort-of-grandmother through marriage  but not by blood). As kids, we would ask her, "Baba Tanya, why do you believe in G-d?" Because, of course, as proper Soviet children, we found the idea to be bewildering, as in why would any sane educated person believe such a thing?

She made a deal with G-d. 

When WWII started, her husband was drafted into the army during the early days. Then, her town in Belarus came under attack. The residents got some advanced warning over the radio. They knew the German planes were coming, they knew they had to evacuate. Imagine a column of people, carrying their most precious belongings, holding their children, all leaving the town. Baba Tanya was in such a column, with 3 young kids. Two older ones were walking, holding on to her skirt. She was carrying the youngest. They got to the bridge and started crossing over. That's when the German airplanes came, bombing the town. A crowd of people, on the bridge, exposed, can't turn back, can't run. Bombs falling all around. She made a deal with G-d. If she would cross the bridge with her kids, unharmed, then for the rest of her life she would do everything she could to follow the tradition. And so she did. Even if it meant she would sneak through late-night streets, her head covered in "platochek", her shoulders hunched, hoping no one would recognize her. Sneakily and stealthily, she would walk to the place that made Matzos for Pesah. 

Those secret Matzos - they made their way across the country, from Riga, where Baba Tanya ended up after the war, all the way to the Far East. Because our family mailed a package of Matzos to us. My parents did not do any religious stuff, but those Matzos - they were pretty special.

Baba Tanya's husband was killed in battle. 

Baba Tanya and her 3 children survived the war, Stalin times, perestroika, and collapse of the USSR. She emigrated to the US with her son and daughter back in the 90's. Her other daughter has emigrated to Israel.

Illusions

The kids and I went to Philly today, to the Museum of Illusions. It was small, but pretty neat and packed with various visual illusions. There were puzzles, there were "trick" rooms that made you appear bigger or smaller. "Infinity Room" was full of mirrors, reflecting us into infinity. It reminded me of my grandmother's apartment in Kharkiv.

My grandparents moved to Kharkiv in the early 80's, to be closer to my aunt and her family. They moved into a small 2-room "Khrushevka" style apartment, one of those where you had to go through one of the rooms to get to the other. There was a small entrance hallway that accessed the bathroom, kitchen, and the bigger of the 2 rooms (which served as a guest room, living room, and dining room). My uncle installed custom-made storage furniture in the hallway, making it kind of tight but functional. My grandparents hung 2 mirrors on the opposite walls of that narrow hallway. I am not sure if that was meant to visually enlarge the space or to enable my grandmother (who wore a wig) to see the back of her head before she went outside. But the effect was that of infinity mirrors - I could see myself reflecting in a reflection of a reflection of a reflection of a reflection....

The kitchen was cozy, with a kitchen table and stools next to the window, with built-in furniture (my uncle again; unlike the US, those kitchens did not come furnished - you got a sink and a gas range, if you were lucky, and would bring in your own refrigerator). The kitchen table had drop-leaves - it could be extended to accommodate guests. If the family didn't feel like having a more "formal" meal in the dining/living/guest room, we would eat in the kitchen, and I don't know how we managed to squeeze in 7 or 8 people at that table... All I remember, there was one special spot, right next to the range and underneath the water heating regulator - the only way to access it was to go under the table. So it was typically  reserved for the youngest kid in the family (me). It was so funny, to be cheered by the family for climbing under the table and coming out on the other side.

I came to Kharkiv every summer until 1994. Honestly, I don't remember that much of the city. Most of my time there was spent hanging out with grandparents, playing on the playground outside, and going to a nearby park to collect mineral water, feed pigeons and learn embroidery. I did not do a whole lot of sightseeing, although I haven been to the Kharkiv Zoo (it was rather awful in the 80's and 90's) and Park Gorkogo  (Gorky Park).

There was also a cableway in Kharkiv that I both loved and hated. When I was a kid, the cabins were open to the air - no glass in the window. The doors were more of a symbol than a safety feature.  Plus, the thing didn't stop - you had to get on and off while the cabins kept moving! My father (who never outgrew the middle school sense of humor) loved to bounce around in the cabin, making it sway. I was terrified!

I do not know if that apartment building in Pavlovo Pole neighborhood is still standing or if it has been destroyed in the war. I don't know if that playground, or park, or the nearby ice cream shop, or the cableway - if they only exist in my memory, an illusion of things that used to be but are no longer real.

Tall

My 14-year old son is now taller than me.

I knew it was going to happen - but it is still odd, my child now taller than me, and likely to be towering over me in a few years. Or in a few months? Kids growing is a spectacular thing that takes one by surprise. Even when you know to expect it.

He will be going into high school next fall - class selection is done. He is talking about college. I am going to be cheering him on - and I need to stay out of his way. Meaning, I shouldn't try to take him by the hand and lead him to where I think opportunities are best. Where is the line between helping your kids succeed and be happy versus shoving excessive help at them and making them passive passengers in their lives? 

So... 2023

I forgot to put together "Winter Fun List" this year and now it's too late. I better get working on the "Spring Fun List".

This winter was mostly a bust weather-wise. No snow. No sledding. I don't like warm winters. I like frozen trails, snow on the branches, and crisp air.

And yet - this winter did have it's moments. We had a few cold days in December. We were visiting my in-laws and stayed at their house overnight - and guess what I saw in the  morning? Frost pictures all over the windows! I swear, I haven't seen those since I was a kid - the forest-like patterns all over the glass. Magical.

There was a giant frozen puddle outside their house. The kids actually had their ice skates with them, so they put them on and went skating! And once again, I was reminded of my childhood. There was a burst pipe of some sort that flooded the area behind our apartment building when we lived in the Far East. My grandparents sent me a pair of ice skates and it was the best thing in the world - stumble out of the house, and the "skating rink" was right there! The ice was very much uneven but we (local kids) didn't care. I never got really good at skating, but I figured out the basics.

Another winter highlight: skiing. We took kids skiing for the first time ever. I've never done anything except a little cross-country skiing, and I've never been to a real skiing hill with lifts and stuff... so it was a completely novel experience for everyone involved. Even though I didn't try it - it was so much fun to watch the kids. Yes, the snow was artificial, but - it is what it is. I was amazed at how quickly they were picking it up - all 3 went on a lift and down a "beginners" hill (that looked rather large and terrifying to me). All 3 are much better coordinated, and much braver than I've ever been.

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Life sometimes feels like we keep treading water, barely keeping our heads up. The war in Ukraine keeps going. First thing every morning, I check the news to see if Putin is still in power, if he has used nuclear weapons, if the world has gone completely mad. East versus West. 

I escape into books, I escape into doing fun things with kids. Dear Reader, what's your escape?