Getting to sleep

This is Melissa writing. It's Monday night, November 30. We just got back from Thanksgiving vacation in DC with my family, including my parents and brother's family. Tani particularly loved the time with cousin Max, who is the same age as him (turning 3 in January!). He was very sad to leave today. As I write this, Tani is screaming and crying, "I have a nightmare, I'm lonely." We had gotten into the habit of laying down with him until he was asleep, which meant that whichever one of us put him to bed would doze off and then wake up disoriented without much of an evening left. Tani's teacher encouraged us to help him to put himself to sleep--both for our sakes and for his sake, so that he is able to put himself to sleep. These transitions are hard! Tani just said, "I'm really sad...I want Momma but she's not letting me into her room and I have a nightmare." He also shrieks as part of his cry. The dance of parenting has meant a lot of learning for both of us. I feel calm right now, knowing that this is the right thing to do for our family and for Tani in the long run, even considering how distressed he is right now. He's processing his feelings. If only I could cry like that and let out my anxiety that way! Neysa just whispered that she's not convinced that he's in his bed--I'm thinking it's best to not engage him right now, to let him work through his feelings of separation, abandonment?, loneliness. "Mom, I'm lonely," he just shouted. It's interesting that he hasn't barged into our room-- he understands that he needs to stay in his room. I pray for Tani that the angels watch over him and help him to sleep...it's now forty-five minutes later and all appears to be quiet on the home front. Amen.

Sunday at Valley Green

This morning we went to Esther and Toby's daughter's baby naming. Tani wasn't sure he wanted to go but decided to give it a try. When we arrived the kiddush had been set up in the back which included three plates of cookies. He planted himself in front of one - reaching for a cookie I told him not until after the ceremony. He stayed in front of the cookies commenting "they smell so good". But didn't eat any until it was time. Melissa headed off on her retreat afterwards - we said goodbye to her and drove to Valley Green where Deborah and Levana were celebrating Deborah's birthday with a few friends and cake! Tani was interested in the cake, but when he got to the park was more interested in singing the Tom Chapin "Happy Birthday" song to Deborah and hanging out with Levana. A nice man gave out a piece of bread to each child and they happily threw it to the geese and ducks. We then had cake but Tani was not really interested. He'd had many cookies at the kiddush. We then took a walk down Forbidden Drive. Tani ran down the path and then climbed on the wooden fence to look over the Wissahickon creek. Levana joined him on the fence and they happily stood there taking in the beauty of the park. People needed to go and everyone left except the four of us - but then Levana was tired and hungry so they went home too. I had thought about trying to have brunch at the Valley Green Inn but decided against it as it's kind of fancy and there's no grilled cheese option for Mr. T. Tani played with the small pumpkin decorations on the steps - a two year old who looked exactly like Katie Aronson came up to play too with an adult I didn't recognize. Later, when Tani and I went to the snack bar for ice cream and french fries I saw Katie's Mom Beth and realized it was her after all. The line was long but Tani was patient. He sat on a picnic table and schmoozed with folks in line. By the time I was third in line Tani was ready for his ice cream - he had decided on a chocolate soft serve cone. A few minutes later he had his ice cream and we hung around waiting for the fries to be ready. Tani makes many people smile by his friendliness but this time by his chocolate face and hands and his enjoyment of the ice cream cone. I had two big napkins and used them both. When my fries were ready we both sat down and shared - Tani exclaiming how these were the best french fries and ice cream in the world! (I shared some of his ice cream.) When we were done Tani went to go check out a limosine that had pulled up with some wedding guests. Valley Green is often booked for weekend weddings. As the staff set up Tani chatted with them and checked out the limo. He actually got in line with the guests to climb into the limo - they all smiled. After the limo drove off two musicians were setting up - one with an electric guitar and the other a bass. Tani enjoyed watching them practice and the guitarist let him strum his guitar. Soon after a horse and carriage pulled up - it was to take the newly married couple off - Tani wanted to wait for the ceremony to be complete so he could watch it go. He got to pet the horse while we waited. After the bride and groom rode off down Forbidden Dr, it was time to go. We went home and Tani watched a video. I cleaned up the kitchen and made Tani a grilled cheese. He sat down for dinner and by the time he was almost finished with his grilled cheese, he had slumped onto me and fallen asleep. It was 6 pm. So much for the much needed bath. I better go to bed now as I suspect he will wake up early tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Does God have a back?

From Melissa:

With the beginning of the new cycle of Torah readings, I have started telling Tani stories from the Torah, starting with the first day of creation. We are fostering a culture of love for Torah, including serving him tofu Torahs and cheddar cheese Torahs (I have a cookie cutter that my parents had when I was a kid). Tani came from home from school the other day and announced that he had eaten his tofu Torah. I began my story with chanting the first line of the Torah, "bereishit bara..." in the beginning, when God began creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was tohu vavohu and there was darkness everywhere and water and God's spirit/ ruah sweeping upon the water. And God was lonely and in the dark and so God decided to create light. So God said, "yehi or" Let there be light! and there was light, and God saw that it was good. It was also very, very bright, like being out on a sunny day walking with the sun in your eyes, in all directions-- it was a little too bright, so God created a beautiful treasure chest to store the light, in order to separate the light from the darkness. (During various tellings of the story, Tani would mention the moon, and I would tell him that we have to wait until the 4th day of creation for the moon-- we were still on the first day. Tani loves the moon-- we have the book Harold and the Purple Crayon, which was a gift to me from Heather years ago, where Harold takes a walk with the moon and it follows him. Tani noticed tonight that the moon was following us--the full moon which I'm convinced made Tani a bit devilish all day, from the moment he woke up this morning). Back to creation...I told Tani an adaptation of the kabbalistic myth about this first light--how the light was so powerful inside the treasure chest that it exploded and bits of this light went everywhere-- there's some hidden in each of us, waiting to be discovered. The first time I told it, he was curious about this idea, but yesterday he got upset by the idea that this light is in him, even when I said that it's good light...I'm not quite sure what this reaction is about, but perhaps Lurianic kabbalah is not meant for two-year-olds. I'm also realizing that it would be helpful for me to look up the original source to get a better sense of how the light is described and what the process of returning the light to source might look like.

Back to bedtime tonight. When Tani says the shema by himself, it's a blend of the first few words of the shema and then the candlelighting blessing. So then we say it together. He recites some of the words with a bit of attitude--not sure what that's about--months ago, I tried to work with him on saying it more respectfully, but for now, I think it's better to ignore his playfulness when saying shema. I tried chanting v'ahavta, which he didn't want, and we started talking about how God loves us-- how God loves Tani and Mommy Malka (and he immediately added Mommy Neysa) and then Grandmas and Grandpas and Uncle Mitch and Aunt Val and Aunt Shari and Cousin Max. He had such a big smile as we said each person's name.

We were at a program for young children today where the presenter referred to God as a "he", which I don't like. So tonight I also mentioned that God is not a he or a she. Why? Tani asked (which he asks often!). Because God doesn't have a body-- God is not a person, God is not separate the way we are (and yet I found myself wanting to offer something about what God is, not just what God is not, even though Maimonides would argue that all we can say about God is statements about what God is not...I'm revisiting what I learned in rabbinical school and what I really believe as Tani and I begin our first encounters with these rich and deep questions.) A little later, Tani asks: Does God have a mouth? No, I said. Does God have a back? Not really, although we can imagine that God does (I say, recalling the story of Moshe seeing God's back). Does God have a bed? No, but we can imagine that God has one, but God doesn't need to sleep the way we do (and yet, what about Shabbat? When we get to the seventh day, God will need rest!) A few minutes later, Tani put his head on me and fell fast asleep. Good night! Laila Tov!

Tani's first Halloween

Melissa and I took Tani to the Halloween parade at the corner of Carpenter and Greene Sts in front of the Henry School. Melissa had bought Tani a skeleton costume at a thrift store for a few dollars, but Tani decided he wanted to be a train conductor instead. So he dressed up in overalls and a junior conductor train hat he received from his recent Amtrak ride from DC to Philly and took a stack of post-its to be train tickets. We walked down Westview ST to the start of the parade. A few trick-or-treaters were dashing up and down the pathways to the front porches of these homes. I explained to Tani we could go up to a porch and get a treat. One owner beckoned us to come up. So we walked up the pathway to his porch. People were enjoying dinner and wine on their porch and had a basket of candy to give out. Tani cautiously went up and picked out a piece of candy when it was offered. The owner told us for the past few years they have dinner on their porch and give out candy to the trick-or-treaters. It turns out that people within a few blocks of the parade get a lot of Halloween traffic as people drive in to march in the parade and go trick or treating as most homes in the area participate. As we walked closer to the parade start Tani was a bit overwhelmed by all the people and commotion. He wasn't sure what to make of people wearing masks that covered their faces or costumes that were "a little bit scary". I carried him for the first part of the parade and he watched with deep interest. Eventually he wanted to get down and go up to a few more houses to trick-or-treat. He was catching on. He collected some treats from a few more houses and then we decided to go over to Sara and Shai's house - Tani likes their daughter Sophia. Sophia was out trick-or-treating and a family friend was giving out candy at her house. Levana and her Mom Deborah were going home and were parked up the block so Melissa was helping them into their car. I walked up with Tani and decided to go up on the porch of the house where Manel and Jordi live a few days a week. Their landlord was giving out candy and Tani took a piece. We came back down to find Melissa when we saw Jordi drive up! This was a surprise because they normally aren't in Mt Airy on Saturday night - but they had come in for a party. Jordi though was on a mission to somehow get his things into his apartment amid the mayhem of the trick-or-treaters and lack of parking. We helped him get his things in and he invited us up to his apartment - Tani was very excited. Soon Manel came up having parked many blocks away. Tani enjoyed meeting their new cat Una and looking at Manel's special lamp that made music, sounds and colors. We stayed for half an hour and then made our way home - it had started raining a few minutes after we saw Jordi and Manel and had been raining off and on. Tani had been eating some of his candy. After 2 or 3 small pieces Melissa explained thereafter he could have one piece a day. Tani seemed fine with this. Although we all had rain jackets on we got home a bit wet but happy to have been part of this fun Mt. Airy Halloween event.