Thursday Thirteen: 13 things I sent my husband

My husband was active duty military until very recently. The first time the military took him away from me (which was before the September 11th attacks), I made him a little box filled with trinkets to remind him of home. That box now lives in our son's room, but ever since I started doing these TT's, I've wanted to post about that box. Today, I have my chance.




Thirteen Things I sent my husband


1..... A ruby slipper earring to remind him, "There's no place like home."






2..... A shell we collected from the beach when we got married. He was gone for our anniversary, so I sent him that to remind him that I'd be thinking of him on that day even if we couldn't be together.









3.....Oh the foreshadowing! This is actually a pin I had from Operation Desert Storm. I included this to remind him that he was always on my mind. I had no idea that the future held another "War" and more deployments to frightening places.






4.....Corny as hell, I know, but I sent him a key because he had the key to my heart.








5.....I sent him this star to remind him that I made wishes for him on stars all the time.









6.....I did this drawing back in middle school. It was actually done on a book cover. I always liked it, so I saved it all these years. I sent it to him to remind him that I missed him.








7.....This is an angel earing I had. I sent it to him to remind him that I was praying for him.








8.....(not pictured) It's no longer in the box, but at the time, I included a burnt match that I had used to light the shabbas candles in his absence. I explained in the letter sent with the box that it was also a promise of the shabbas candles we would once again light together in the future.

The rest are fortunes we had saved which I included in the box. They're not pictured, but I'll share the text.

9.....You make people realize that there exist other beauties in the world.

10.....You have the ability to adapt to diverse situations.

11.....Good luck bestows upon you. You will get what your heart desires.

12.....Follow your heart's desire.

13.....Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you.

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The dream lives.

On Today's episode of Oprah, they featured people keeping Dr. King's dream alive. One story was about two unlikely cousins.

Vy, An African-American artist from Harlem found she and Marion, a white elderly cattle rancher from Missouri were cousins. When he first contacted her, he did not know she was African-American. It's unclear from the show or the article whether he was made aware of that, but there's footage of them meeting at the airport for the first time and it appears that's when he first learns of their differences. He throws down his coat, gives her a big bear hug and says in an astonished tone, "Cousins? Isn't that beautiful!"

That left me breathless and in tears. Their differences could have been startling or shocking or even disconcerting, but no, he found their differences and their ties beautiful. How wonderful!

Another benefit of breastfeeding: Breastmilk contains sanity

I've been feeling kind of numb. I haven't left the house. Haven't been to the gym in over a week (remember, I was there every day, 6 days a week and I usually go nuts if I have to miss even one day). I haven't felt much like dealing with the kids. I haven't done any school work with them (although, in an attempt to shut the bigger ones up, I gave them some work sheets to do by themselves yesterday).

So, today, I am especially grateful to be a breastfeeding mom.

When I got The Boy this morning, he immediately signed, "Milk please." I sighed because I really didn't want to. Reluctantly, I sat down on the couch, turned on the t.v. and nursed the baby. I was initially ignoring him and just flipping through news channels (I don't like Larry King in the evening hours. Why the hell does Headline News think I want to see him and his outdated guests in the morning? Dude, your channel is called "Headline NEWS." News is right there in the title. Quit showing all these idiotic commentators and their ridiculous shows and just give me my freaking news).

Then, I happened to get a whiff of the top of the baby's head. Luckily, he had a bath last night, so instead of that day-old spaghetti smell, it was that sweet baby scent. I closed my eyes and breathed him in. I noticed it calmed me down and made me feel better.

I turned off the t.v. and continued to sit there and sniff my son. For some reason, he wanted to nurse for a while and he asked to switch sides a few times. Normally, I would have been annoyed, but today, I didn't mind at all.

While nursing him, I noticed his sisters were playing pretend with their stuffed animals. So I started asking questions and talking to them about their pretend ice cream party with the 4-year-old panda bear and the 19-year-old giraffe who is training to be an astronaut.

When The Boy was done, he got down off the couch, flashed me a big grin and walked away.

A little while later, I said the Sheheheyanu quietly to myself so as to thank G-d for giving me the gift of breastfeeding and for allowing me to recognize the quiet beauty and serenity in the moment, in the act, in the children, and in myself.

Prayer of healing

Mi sheberakh avoteinu mekor habrakha l’imoteinu
May the Source of strength
Who blessed the ones before us
Help us find the courage
To make our lives a blessing,
And let us say: Amen.
Mi sheberakh imoteinu mekor habrakha l’avoteinu
Bless those in need of healing With refuah shleima:
The renewal of body,
The renewal of spirit,
And let us say: Amen

Born in Germany, she survived Hitler's regime. Her family lost everything--relatives and possessions. She escaped Nazi Germany and headed to a land she had never seen. It was here in the States that she married (another who fled Germany) and raised a family.

When I first heard her story, when dh and I were first dating, I told him, "We need to name a baby after her." We're Ashkenazi Jews and it's actually not our tradition to name after the living, but there was never any doubt that we needed to make an exception. Girl2 is named in her honor.

Now we're losing her. We don't know how much time dh's grandmother has left. After years of struggling with the hell that is Alzheimer's, she has taken a turn for the worse. She's in the hospital. She's DNR. Please keep her and dh's entire family in your thoughts and prayers.

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.

On the last night of Chanukah

my kids gave to Daddy

one pair of sunglasses and a bag of frozen french fries.

I kid you not.

I took the girls to the Dollar Tree to let them pick out a gift for dh. Oh boy was that fun! Before we even got there, Girl1 decided she wanted to buy a "robot with black sprinkles." Um...best of luck with that. When we found an orange robot-looking toy, that was not good enough for her because it lacked sprinkles and a dark color.

At one point, Girl2 wanted to get a pack of play dough. I couldn't fault her for it, though, because she explained, "I want to get that so daddy can play with me with that."

She settled for sunglasses (which was actually a good idea. dh always needs more). I preferred the first pair she picked, but she opted for the second one. Let me tell you, it was a HUGE struggle to let her make her own decision and not jump in for her.

After informing Girl1 that her father most definitely did not want a pink sparkly make-up bag, she opted for the robot sans black or sprinkles. That is, until we wandered past the frozen food (yes, our $tree has a frozen food section). There, low and behold, were the fries. She wanted to get that for daddy and she wanted him to share them with her.

Yes, we got them. Yes she did wrap them, but luckily, she wanted dh to open them right away. Girl2 also wrapped hers, but she held off on giving it to dh until after dinner (and yes, dinner did include french fries).

And get this, the girls insisted on getting a gift for their baby brother too. I told them they had to work together to agree on one gift (that baby does not need any more toys/bibs/anything that comes from the $tree). They agreed on a glow-in-the-dark skeleton shirt (Target reject, but I couldn't find anything wrong with it). We got it in a size bigger so he can wear it next Halloween, but they insisted he wear it to bed tonight. And so he did. Yes, they did come in in the dark to see it glow.

And so Chanukah ends. Big sigh from me. I love it. I love lighting the candles with them. I love singing the songs and reading books about it. And yes, the chanukah gelt is awfully tasty too. :-) As Chanukah ends, we'll clean off the silver menorah, take down the decorations, and pack it all up. I take heart in the fact that this year for the very first time, we'll also pack away the menorahs the girls made and lit themselves. This is what it's all about.

The real miracle of Chanukah isn't that a flame burned for 8 days. The real miracle is that Chanukah flames still burn over 2000 years later. Judah Macabee lit a flame, but it's our children who kindle that same fire today. THAT is the miracle of Chanukah.