Textbook parenting that works in real life! Look forward to personal perspectives, musings on motherhood, and some "been there, done that" tips or tricks to make motherhood better for you and your child (age 0-6). I'm an educator and mom of 4... so I get it, and I'm in it too!
do yourself a favor
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Today a Whatsapp group called “Pesach 2024” started buzzing with requests for shopping lists and a bunch of “what did we do last year???” messages. What we did last year: rented a bunch of houses with my husband’s siblings and made a huge Pesach all together. Except we wayyy overbought. I’m the list girl, so I pulled up my Google Doc to check if I had any notes about the quantities. Wow. I didn’t just have notes. Mushka of 2023 had pasted messages, typed up store receipts and online invoices, added comments about what was eaten and what was extra… and even written tentative shopping lists for “Pesach 2024.” Sometimes I just do things that make me sooo grateful to my past self. She's so clever! (I should be as smart as her!) Planning for “your future self” is something I don’t always remember to do. I’d much rather do busy work, ie procrasti-work. Or do no work at all 😂 But it’s absolutely always worth it. If you Google it (this article is actually really good), you’ll get classic advice like: save for retirement, eat healthy, exercise, take one action today towards your goal, etc. I really should save for retirement. And write these emails in advance. In the meantime, here are some small ways I make life better for my future self:
Feel free to implement any of the above. Or reply and tell me what you do that makes you really appreciate your past self. Two more ways you can gift your future self:
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Parenting for Jewish Mothers
Textbook parenting that works in real life! Look forward to personal perspectives, musings on motherhood, and some "been there, done that" tips or tricks to make motherhood better for you and your child (age 0-6). I'm an educator and mom of 4... so I get it, and I'm in it too!
Man, today* was a lot. Of money. And sensory overload. And too much time sitting in traffic. What happened: my oldest son, who’s a Benny Friedman superfan, really wanted to go to his concert. His younger brother, who wouldn’t have enjoyed a minute of it, insisted he was also old enough to attend. So now, in addition to 1) finding a nearby attraction 2) to which I could easily take three kids solo, it had to 3) be cool enough that the 5 year old wouldn’t feel like he was part of the younger...
The one response I consistently get to this letter to a mother staying home on Yom Kippur is: I cried reading it. I teared up writing it, so words that come from the heart, and all. But that's not why it makes you cry. It makes you cry because it so deeply validates your experience as a mother. Nobody tells you that after you have a baby, you're going to have an identity crisis. You wouldn't understand it even if they did. You're too busy keeping yourself and a new baby alive, trying to be an...
“Hey! I want a cupcake!” said Mr 4 (turning 5). Oh man. He was in quite a mood, and I’d finally cajoled him into sitting at the supper table. Now he saw the last banana muffin, which Mr 3.5 had just put on his plate. This could go really bad, really quickly. Lucky for me, I had a few tricks up my sleeve. (I’ll star * and explain at the end, so you can learn them too!) “Two boys and one cupcake, what should we do?” I said. * “Cupcake? I want a cupcake!” called Mr 7 from the living room. Great....