Feel the love.

I must take this moment to rave about just how very much I love my husband and my kids.

I wound up going to the ER as soon as dh came home last Thursday. What started out as a bothersome ankle became very painful. It got to the point where I couldn't walk on it at all. So we all headed to the ER. No broken bones (woo hoo), but I had soft tissue damage in my ankle and in my foot. I went home with an oh so fashionable orthopedic shoe and a pair of crutches oh and some pain medication. Can't forget the pain medication. I tend to scorn much of Western medicine, but bless them and their pain meds.

My husband is the most wonderful man in the world. Our house is designed for tiny little people (I'm not just talking about the kids), so trying to get crutches to fit through doorways, hallways, and around furniture was not fun. My amazing dh not only brought me whatever I needed, but he wrangled all three kids. Without being asked, he took off from work on Friday because he realized (long before I did) that I couldn't take care of the kids when I couldn't even pick The Boy (who isn't yet walking) up. Dh didn't complain once. I adore my husband.

And now we move on to my kids. I must say thank you, Irim, for your lovely compliment the other day. That really made me step back and realize that even though my kids have a tendency to drive me nuts, they are very sweet and very polite. We went out the other day and dh got annoyed with them over something. I told him, "Someone on the blog commented on how polite they are and you know what? They really are. We need to remember that." He agreed and wasn't nearly as annoyed with them as he had been.

Yesterday, they came home from Sunday school with a note from their teacher. The girls have homework. They discussed the things you find in a Jewish home. So we're to take them on a tour of the Jewish items in our home and they're to bring one in to class next week. We went on a tour and they have some ideas for what they want to bring (I'm going to cheat. In addition to whatever they pick, I'm sending them with their Mizpah necklaces. The Mizpah means "Watch-tower." It's taken from Genesis: May the L-rd watch between me and thee when we are apart from another." I said that prayer when dh was gone before we had kids, I said it when the girls were in the NICU and I taught it to the girls and we said it every night in dh's absence. They got their necklaces at their naming ceremony when they were tiny).

After our tour, I asked them, "What is the most important thing in a Jewish home? What is in our house that REALLY lets people know we're Jewish?" Girl1 blew me away when she answered, "G-d." I was thinking, "The people," but you know what, I like her answer even better. I made sure to tell her that and then we discussed how the people are important too and how our behavior is important because we reflect G-d.

Oh and on that note, I want to share this discussion with you. The girls left me a struggling a bit the other day. In the car, they asked, "How do we hear G-d? Because we can't hear what He's saying." I was taken aback, but I told them that we don't really need to hear Him with our ears. His words are in the Torah and by learning Torah, we can learn what He wants us to do. Then, we can hear him in our hearts because we know how He wants us to behave. Girl2 protested, "But I can't read Hebrew. So I can't read the Torah. Then I can't hear G-d." I explained that they're learning Torah every day. When they share and play nicely, they're learning Torah because they're learning that's what G-d wants them to do. When they go to Sunday school and they learn about shul, Hebrew, and our ancestors, all those things are found in Torah. When we say prayers, those are all from the Torah. Once I explained that, they were quite pleased with themselves for being so very smart. :-)

I love my kids. They may leave me exhausted, but they also leave me giggling, beaming with pride, and in awe.