Passover is over. Well, it’s not over until tomorrow night, but for all intents and purposes, it’s over for me. Tonight, we’re having beans and hot dogs, a hugely popular meal that doesn’t involve any bread on a non-Passover day. We survived Easter too – it’s not a great holiday for me. Not because of any negative associations, but just because it’s feels extraneous, if that makes sense. Like it’s enough already with all the spring celebrations, can’t we just chill out for a day and relax?
Jessie kept kosher for Passover the whole week, with the exception of yesterday. She asked for some cupcakes and stuffing at my mother’s house, and we discussed it and decided that it was okay to not keep kosher for Passover at Grammy’s house for Easter, because we were celebrating Easter the way that Grammy celebrated it, and that was okay. Judgement free – that’s me. What happens at Grammy’s, stays at Grammy’s. Sam did pretty well, in terms of keeping kosher for Passover. It doesn’t come as easily to him – but that’s an age thing, I think, more than anything else, and I don’t want to have him resent Passover because of the dietary restrictions, so I’m easing up on it for him. Julie and I have been munching bagels since Saturday, so we gave up pretty early on in the process.
Rough morning today – Sam was flat out furious that he had to go back to school, and expressed himself rather loudly. But I’m approaching his temper tantrums with a new attitude, which is that he doesn’t get a pass to lose his little mind screaming with rage and frustration. Part of my hesitation to punish him for getting so upset was that it was motivated by anxiety or nerves on his part. Because separation is so hard for him, it seemed ridiculous and overly harsh to compound it by punishing him for getting upset. But it’s not helping him – it’s just teaching him that temper tantrums are a handy tool to get out of doing stuff you don’t want to do. He can and will control himself, he just needs to know that there are negative consequences to temper tantrums. Said negative consequences being loss of the DSI. And once he realized that I was serious, and he was going to school regardless, he pulled it together and went happily enough. So I feel vindicated, and actually a lot more relaxed. Because he kissed me goodbye and bounced out the car door like a perfectly content six year old boy.
Busy day planned, with errands all over the place, and I’m really behind in my writing. Not just this blog post (which doesn’t feel all that well-written, I apologize to anyone who’s reading it) but also my book proposal. I’m supposed to have several partial chapters to attach to the proposal and start researching editors and agents and publishers, and I spent most of last week in a matzah induced haze, careening from Seder to Seder to party to egg decorating to Easter shopping… so today is my catch-up day for everything. Laundry, dishes, reading, writing and a thousand errands. I’m brewing another pot of coffee, and hoping for the best.
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