Time Enough

It's not just me, I know. We all get busy. It's efficient, I think. To bathe them first and then give them dinner in pajamas, and them smoothly trasition them to bed. I read them a book, we say shema.

And it is good, it is efficient, and probably better for them, to bathe when they can play and not when they are cranky and attempt to drown each other.

Everything has its times. You don't start baking cookies at 5 oclock, or they will be late for bedtime. Homework is right when you come home. And you come home right after school, because we go to the park after homework is done and lunch is eaten.

I have a friend who baked challas with her kids a hour before candlelighting. I was there for shabbas and I was thinking, then when is clean-up time? It turned out that there was no cleanup time, and I ended up sneaking into her kitchen to sweep because yes, I am that crazy. I spent the whole shabbas wishing I was her. Then after shabbas the maid came, and I said, oh. So that's how she does it. Because I need it clean. And she doesn't, and then anyway someone cleans it for her, so that's why she can sit on the couch with her kids, braiding their hair, while the table is covered in crumbs, and the drink--look at it!--it's still spilling slowly onto the floor! Drip. Drip. Dri----ah! I can't take it anymore! I confess! I confess! My need to clean is stronger than my need to do what you are doing right now, dear friend, which is gazing deeply into your daughter eyes and saying, "I love you. You are my treasure."

But I want that. I want to do that. I just want to do it in a clean, efficient house. I want both.

Yesterday, I sent Princess to get Coco-pop from gan. I wait on the corner and she runs up to get her. She feels grown-up like that, and I don't have to bounce the stroller up a gazillion steps. Win-win. Efficient.

The sound of wailing filled the Jerusalem afternoon a full moment before Princess dashed over to me, out of breath. "Coco-pop fell on the steps!"

I ran over as fast as I could. Coco-pop was lying on the steps, wailing, and a woman was bending over her. "I'm here! I'm the Ima! Thank you!" I called in Hebrew.

The woman didn't move away from her until I was almost on top of her. Her hair was orange and poufy like cotton candy, and if I was not a very polite and adult woman, I would have reached out and touched it. Her nails were blue and short.

I smiled my thanks again, then assessed the situation. Coco-pop was crying, but nothing was torn and there was no sign of blood or broken anything. "You okay, sweety?" I said as I picked her up and dusted her off.

She wailed, and nodded."I feeell," she said.

"I know. That must have hurt. You're okay," I said.

The woman was still standing there. "Hold her," she said to me.

"I am--"

"Hold her close to your heart."

Awkwardly, I pulled Coco-pop closer. She hiccuped.

"Keep on holding her. Let her feel your heartbeat. Feel hers. It is healing for both of you."

We were in the middle of a busy sidwalk. I help Coco-pop so close that I could hear the beating of her heart. Carriages angled around me.

"It only works if you can hear her heart and she can hear hers. Keep on holding her, and don't let go."

I held her for another minute or two, until Coco-pop pulled away and took my hand. "You know Ima," she said as we started to walk, "I saw a bird in the Chatzer and it was maybe dead but then it flew away and it wasn't even dead!"

Hold her close to your heart, or it doesn't work.

I looked up again to see the woman, but she was gone.

Blink

I put the baby in for the night (well, one can always hope) and then served the girls dinner. I then ran to the computer to squeeze in a few minutes of writing.

"Ima sit with us," said Princess.

"How do you ask for something?" The question rises automatically. I didn't even hear what she said. 'Slither' is a better word than 'slide,' I thought. I changed the word. Then I changed it back. Hmmm.

"Ima, can you please sit with us?"

"Much better," I said. Slither. Slide. I stare at the sentence.

"...so, can you now?"

"Now what?" I look up at them, sitting by the table. They are both holding their forks. It is a dinner that they both like. Did they want something else? "Do you want ketchup with that?"

"No!" Princess said. "SIT with us."

"How do you ask?" says I.

Really? said Princess' eyebrows.

Did I already say that? "I'm coming!" I said. I came. I sat down. I wiggled a bit. "Eat your dinner, girls," I said. Slither...?

"Ima, can you feed me?" said Coco-pop.

"Three bites, and then you eat the rest yourself, okay?" Slide.

"Also me," said Princess.

I nod. They're both good words. I think I can use both if I--oh, perfect! "One second, okay?" I bolt over to the computer and quickly type in the sentence. "The smile slithered off of his face like raw egg sliding down the wall."

"Ima!"

I hurried over and sat. I faced my girls and fed them each three bites and thought about the sentence. Was it too fun? Was it kind of gross? Was it gross but also funny? Does the grossness cancel out the funny? I wanted to run back to the computer and look at it, in black and white. Coco-pop wiggled her nose at me. I wiggled mine back. We both laughed. I fed her one more bite and pinched her nose lightly. Then I pinched Princess'. She made an I am too big for this face but her dimple peeked out.

"Ima, you know that today when I was walking to school I fell on my knee and I cried because I had blood and then I walked to school like this--" she slid off of her chair and demonstrated a hobble--"and then I got there and showed it to my morah and she said she gave me a band-aid."

Princess cries when she hurts her finger and there is not a mark. She asks for band-aids anyway, saying, "Any MINUTE now it's going to bleed, I know it!" I could not picture her walking to school with torn tights and a bloody knee.

"You were walking with M?"

"No, because she walked ahead."

"You were walking by yourself?"

"Yes."

I blinked at her, this big girl of mine. "And you just walked to school?"

"Yes because then I would be late if I just stayed and cried and cried!"

Big girl. Great big girl, walking to school by herself ignoring her fears and pain because she would be late.

Blink and you miss it. There they are, eating dinner, and here I am, at the table with them. The story is not yet done, the laundry not yet folded, but we are sitting in the middle of all of that, a moment in time that I can see and be a part of as long as I keep my eyes open.

(She threw a fit five minutes later about a cuticle, my big little girl. But you have to watch all of the minutes for the kind of moments that make you realize why.)

With the Moon on their Wing

"Ima, sing a new song that we never ever never heard before," said Princess.

"Ever never," added Coco-pop.

I scoured my mind. My head is full of countless musicals, and my kids have never seen a movie or show. They think that I make them up. Ima is Magic.I don't discourage this.

"Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens," I started."Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite things."

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad!

They loved it. They made me sing it over and over with all the stanzas until they knew all the words, too. I thought it was time for A Lesson For Life.

"You can sing this song when you're feeling sad! Or you can just close your eyes and think of all the things that you love, all the things that make you feel happy and safe. All the things that you are grateful for."

Princess had a dentist appointment the next day. I thought it was hashgacha pratis.

The next day in the dentist chair, her eyes were bugging out of her head and full of unshed tears. I held her hand gently and started singing, "Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudles, doorbells--"

She shot up, pushed the dentist's hands out of her mouth. The tears spilled down her cheeks. "Don't sing that!" she yelled. "Don't sing that song!"

Every friday night when I light the candles I thank Hashem for my family and children and husband and friends, and then I think of something new to be thankful for. I think of something every week, but in order to be sincere I need to be calm and comfortable. When it was a hard week, a hard day, or even, honesty forces me to admit, a hard last five minutes (think: the baby pulled the tablecloth off and he hasn't quite mastered the technique of leaving the dishes on when he does that) that put me into a bad mood, it's hard to find something new to feel grateful for.

We made a thanksgiving dinner on friday night and invited a bunch of friends. Jut for fun, really; we are stricter about Thanksgiving in Israel that we ever were in America. I looked around the table and thought about what a hard year it's been so far. And also what a wonderful year, and when things were hard, how my friends pitched in and helped. I felt an unexpected wave of happiness right there over my turkey and green beans. This is It. Knowing that there is bad and there is good and usually both at the same time. And knowing that there are people who love you who will help you through the bad and eat turkey with you through the good.

It wasn't until the next day that I realized I'd forgotten to serve the cranberry sauce.

"The cranberry sauce!" I wailed to Outdoorsman. "How could I have forgotten to serve that?! It's one of my favorite things with turkey!"

Coco-pop's ears perked up at the phrase My Favorite Things. "You love it like you love girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes?"

Princess said, "And snowflakes that stay on my nose and eylashes?"

"Hey," I said, because I am petty, "when you were at the dentist--"

But they were already twirling around the living room. "silver-white winters that melt into spring, these are a few of my favorite things!"

So much just in this room. And it's not old, to thank Hashem every week--every day, every moment--for my tempestuous dancing butterflies--because every second, they are renewed. Every second, they are made over fresh again for me.

I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad.

Don't Worry 'bout a Thing

When I freelance,after I send an article or story in, I sit on the computer. I leave my e-mail open, and will it to show new mail. I peek at it all day long and then pretend that I did no such thing. When I make the baby' bottle at 2:45 in the morning I tiptoe, bleary-eyed and without my glasses to the computer to see if the editor wrote back. I sit on that story or article with a gun to its head. "Accept my story! Or this article gets it!"

I cannot leave good enough alone. Living with a variable is hard.

So multiply that a multiple amount of time, this inability to live with an unknown. Say your landlord--completely hypothetically of course!--tells you one day that he's selling, the next day maybe not, the third day selling and also but maybe not selling...yeah, I have no hair left in my scalp.

I have often thought of how wonderful it was that kids' skin and bones heal so quickly. How quickly they bounce back from a fall! But also, this afternoon, Coco-pop was playing with a friend in her room. This involved piling every toy we own onto her bed and making a three foot high Ima-Will-Cry-When-She-Sees-This. ANYWAY, they were busy turning my hair grey (I guess I do have a few strands left just for that purpose) and I escaped to the bathroom to resist the urge to straighten as they sit there playing. Because yes, I am that crazy. Also, I had to go to the bathroom. Turtle had been smearing eating a peanut butter cracker sandwhich, but in my momentary absence galloped at full crawl into Coco-pop's room.

"Ima!" She shrieked.

"Yeah?" I called from the bathroom.

"He's ruining everything!"

I sighed. "Coco-pop, I'm in the bathroom."

"But Ima!"

I waited a beat. I hate this, I always have to rush out of the bath--

"Okay!" I heard Coco-pop's sweet little voice. "So it's his birthday and so the tower is a cake and he can eat the whole thing!"

The variable, effortlessly incorporated into her reality.

I have so much to learn from my 4 year-old.