Melissa Anne Cohen

1 – We still play musical beds most nights.  The only constant is that I sleep in my bed.  Everyone else sort of rotates.  I know it’s odd, but it works for our family.

2 – We’ve moved Botulism Night (the night where I open the fridge and tell the kids to pick what they want from the leftovers and we hope it tastes good) into what we now call “Daddy’s Restaurant.”  Marc’s better at cooking leftovers and making them actually palatable – and the kids love placing their order and having Daddy cook it on demand.

3 – We’ve had to move Julianna’s car seat into the middle of the back seat, because putting Jessica Mary and Samuel Earl next to each other for car rides is a recipe for disaster.

4 – Jessie and I know read the same books.  Not all the time, but we can read a book together and talk about it.  I love that.

5 – Julianna now demands every night that I make her teeth dirty again (after we brush them) and last night was bitterly upset that I had forced her to pee against her will.  I put her on the potty, and told her that she had to go – and the look on her little face when she actually peed – it was like her body had betrayed her by listening to me.

6 – Sam is amazingly good with his little sister and cousin Abby-with-a-bow.  He’s ultra-responsible, caring and protective.  And teaches them about swords, what “ABANDON SHIP” means and the wonders of potty talk.

7 – Jessie is signed up (okay, not yet, but I will sign her up, I promise) for the Red Cross Babysitting Course in February, and I’ve made preliminary arrangements for her to volunteer at the JCC this summer as part of her bat mitzvah project.

8 – I’ve come to realize that December is the month where my friends and beloved husband will feel ultra defensive about Christmas, and I’ll feel the most alienated from mainstream Judaism.  Making a mental note to table all interfaith discussions for anytime other than the months of December.

9 – That being said, my Jewish husband is now adding a new tradition every year for celebrating Christmas, and is actively on the hunt for a train to run around the bottom of our tree.  Another mental note to pay attention to what Marc DOES, and not what he says.

10.  I’m never ever going to get caught up on the laundry. Ever.  I should just accept that, and move on with my life.

I put up my tree last night.  And on Sunday, I was at a PJ event, and one of my friends confided that her kids were picking out their tree later on that afternoon.  Confided, because it’s something that is still somewhat shameful.  And while a part of me understands the secrecy, I do, there’s a huge part of me that doesn’t.

I’m Jewish, and I’m doing my best to raise the next generation of Jewish children.  I worked HARD for this Jewish label, I met with a rabbi for close to a year on a monthly basis.  I took my two oldest children to a mikvah, and sat before a Conservative Beit Din.  I dunked my screaming toddler three times (okay, only twice, because the rabbi took pity on him and said enough was enough).  I’ve got my own challah and hamentaschen recipe, candlesticks, I crocheted matching yamulkes for my husband and son.  I’ve read and studied and thought and debated and discussed.  I’m proud of my Judaism.

But I’m never going to be a Jewish woman who grew up steeped in the culture.  My grandmother didn’t make matzoh ball soup, my grandmother was Irish and English and Catholic.  I’m not ashamed of that.  My mother isn’t a Bubbe with her own challah recipe, she’s Grammy and she decorates wildly and enthusiastically for all holidays, from Valentines Day straight through until Christmas.  My kids come from that.  I don’t feel like I need to hide that, or be ashamed of it, or pretend that it’s not a part of who I am, and who they are.

I know not everyone agrees with me.  I know that there are lots of people who really, really don’t agree with me.  People who think that being Jewish is, in large part, defined by what you don’t do, and putting up a Christmas tree and celebrating what, for many, is absolutely a Christian holiday, is perhaps one of the biggest signalers of being Jewish.  People who think I’m confusing my kids, and watering down Judaism and perhaps I never should have converted in the first place.  I know that.

But I truly believe that I’m a good Jewish mom.  I think I’m a good Jewish wife.  I think I’m doing my best, to be the best Jewish woman I can be.  By showing my kids that you need to honor all that you are, not just the parts that society deems acceptable.  That, in the end, all you can do is be true to who you are.

If that means that my family doesn’t understand why I converted, then it’s up to me to educate them.  To teach them what Judaism is, to show them why it’s so important to me.  To bring them in, as much as I can, so that they can see what I see when I see my oldest teaching my son how to read Hebrew, and hear my baby recite the blessings.  If being who I am means that there are members of my community who disagree with me, and think my tree has no place in a Jewish home, it’s up to me to show them that maybe they need to look past the tree to see the Jewish home.  To see the PJ Library books scattered all over the rug, and the Shabbat box that came home from preschool on Friday.  To see the Siddur on my daughters bedside table, and the bag of yamulkes I keep in my china closet so that guests in our home on Friday night can put one on.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s my job to make it a little easier for the woman who married a Jewish guy and is trying to figure out how to raise her children in a tradition that isn’t hers by birth.  Because it’s hard.  Really hard.  It takes determination, and flexibility and a lot of encouragement and acceptance.   There’s a huge number of us, non-Jews who married Jews and we want to do it right.  We want our kids to grow up feeling secure and welcomed and happy about both sides of their heritage.  Whether that means exploring Judaism and converting ourselves, or not.  I converted, and I’m so grateful I did.  For my family, for me, it was the right choice.   But a dip in the mikvah doesn’t change the thirty plus years of not being Jewish, nor should it.  I’m not ashamed of converting, and I’m not going to tell my children that they aren’t a part of my family’s traditions.  They are.   Their story starts with ours, with my husband’s journey as well as mine.

And in our house, we put up a tree.  And we don’t hide it.

1. Aimee was the one who suggested that it was possible that I might be pregnant, and I’ll never, ever forget that feeling when I looked at the calendar and realized that I actually might be.  We were in the kitchen in our old apartment on Harriman Court, and she was standing by the refrigerator.  I looked at the calendar, remembered that I had celebrated my birthday the month and that I had definitely had my period then.  And it was holy moly, OH-MY-GOD, I was more than a week late.  I have never, in my entire life, been as shocked as I was that day.  That’s why Marc says that I’ve successfully predicted thirty six of my last three pregnancies.  I know predict I’m pregnant all the time, because I was surprised so completely the first time.

2. I threw up consistently, all nine months, with all three of my babies. And it was still my favorite pregnancy symptom, because in my head, if I was vomiting, it was a healthy pregnancy.  In fact, I think I talked myself into puking on several occasions, because when I was puking, I KNEW it was a good pregnancy.

3. I ended up in the hospital with both Sam and Julie’s pregnancies, because the vomiting got so bad in the first trimester that I was dehydrated to the point where I couldn’t hold anything down.  I’d feel so sick I couldn’t eat or drink, which, ironically, just made me feel sicker.  Once I was on that cycle, it only stopped when I’d get hooked up to an IV and rehydrated.

4. Jessie was breech and wouldn’t turn. So we scheduled a c-section. I went on maternity leave early, then she flipped. And was then so overdue, that they scheduled an induction for the following Monday. On Friday morning, at the start of a massive snowstorm, I went into labor on my own, and still ended up with a c-section after my contractions stalled out at nine centimeters.

5. My blood pressure dropped really low after Jessie was born, and I couldn’t stop shaking. I had passed out and it gets a little fuzzy now that I’m remembering it. But I know that nothing about the situation stabilized until Marc brought my baby girl over and laid her next to me. Once I had her with me, I was fine.  It was an instant connection and unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.  She was MINE in a way that I could never have imagined, and I couldn’t imagine my life without her in it.  I remember consciously thinking that I couldn’t stop shaking and because I was so violently shaking, I couldn’t hold her.  And since I couldn’t hold her, I might as well just pass out.  So I did.  And it wasn’t until Marc brought her to me, and I looked into her eyes that I stopped shaking and the blood pressure stabilized.

6. My water broke, in the glass elevator at St. V’s, when I was two weeks away from my due date with Sam. Standing there, holding onto my little three year old Jessie.  It was July, I was hot and miserable and absolutely delighted (although mortified that I appeared to have wet my pants in the elevator) that it was happening a week earlier than expected.  Jessie had been close to a week overdue.  I was completely shocked, and the fact that his delivery was so quick and so easy (I went from five to ten centimeters in a half hour), and then he was a boy (I was positive he was a girl) – I spent the first 24 hours after he was born still trying to catch up.

7. He was born separation anxiety, and knew, right from the very first minute, who I was, who he was, and that when we were separated, it was bad. Kids really are exactly who they are from the very beginning.

8. Julie was my worst pregnancy, I was so sick and so itchy and I cried all the time – but her birth was beautiful and peaceful and lovely. She was born after only two pushes and Marc and I were laughing when she arrived.  There have been lots of times, over the past almost twelve years, when I’ve really, really loved him.  But that moment, when he was right beside me, with his arms around me, laughing with utter delight as we welcomed our baby girl is one of my all time favorites.

9. I love the three to four year age difference between my kids – it’s perfect for our family.   I love having a ten year old, a seven year old, and a three year old.  And it was just as cool when they were 9,6, and 2, and all the way down.  Each one is at a different stage, a different place and they’re close enough so that they can be buddies as well.

10. As much as I loved being pregnant, and as much as I loved being a mama with tiny babies – I think we’re done. I don’t think we’ll ever KNOW for sure that we’re not having anymore (until it’s just a physical impossibility) but our family feels complete in a way that it didn’t before.

It was, in some ways, my best Thanksgiving ever.  In some ways, it was really the worst.

It started out well.  Marc was working on the Wednesday before, so I took all three kids down to Pie Day II at my mother’s house.  We had already observed Pie Day I on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  The same people were all there, for the most part, with the added bonus of my cousin Becky, her mother Aimee, and her daughter Abby-with-a-bow.  Pie Day was delightful.  Jessie, in particular, really, really loves cooking and baking.  So she was very into every little bit of it, designing pie crust decorations and whipping cream.   The kids were crazy, which is exactly what they should be at a family holiday, tearing around the house, screaming wildly and playing games all over the place.

That night, Marc arrived after work.  Everyone had gone home, so it was just my little family and my parents.  We lit the menorah for the first time this year, and sang the blessings.  I gave the kids each a gift (Sam and Jessie both got those loom things that they’ve been dying for, and Miss Jules got a tea set that she’s still playing with, more than four days later – major success).  Our tradition has always been that I sleep over at my mother’s house the night before Thanksgiving and get up early with her to make the turkey and stuffing.  Jessie has been staying with me since she was born, but Sam started going home with Marc when he was around four.  He and Marc created their own tradition of going out for Chinese food, and then going home to fall asleep watching SpongeBob (strictly forbidden when Mama is at home) and then the Macy’s Parade the next morning, before coming down to meet us at my mother’s house.

This year, Sam wanted Julie to come with him.  He likes her.  Both my older two dote on her, but Jessie has a more maternal relationship with her.  She’s her big sister, but also steps into the mother role (oftentimes, more than I want/need her to do so).  Sam is much more her peer.  They play together, and he was so cute, trying to talk her into staying with him and Daddy.   And she wanted to go.  Even though she’s only three, and still nurses to sleep every night.  I didn’t want her to go – I admit it.   Classic Mama didn’t want to let go, she was still so little, and overtired, and I knew she’d cry herself to sleep without me.  But she wanted to go, and was able to actually express it (in toddler speak) that she wanted to go, but was struggling with it because I was making it hard for her.  That awed me.  At three years old, to be able to be as clear about what she was feeling:  she was ready to do it, to take the risk of sleeping without me, but I was making her feel afraid and guilty about doing it – I was easily in my early thirties before I could articulate something like that.

So she went – and it was perfect.  Marc had a great night with the two little ones, and I had a lovely time with some one-on-one Jessie time.  The morning was busy and fun, we baked and got the turkey stuffed and in the oven.  Made challah and peeled potatoes and even made latkes.  Tables set, everything was clicking along and ten minutes before the turkey was to come out of the oven – we realized that it wasn’t actually on.

Marc had planned another Thanksgiving.  On the same day.  I have awesome friends, really.  So it wasn’t that my friends were coming to the party – it was that it was another party.  I’m enough of an introvert so that back to back to back parties is more party than this girl can happily handle.  And I was exhausted.  Because it had been a lot of work getting ready at my mother’s house, all day Wednesday and then all morning on Thursday.  Even though Marc did all the work for the party at home (and I mean all the cooking work, he did every bit of it, except for the potato peeling – the man is utter crap at peeling), there was still extra clean up work to be done, making my house borderline presentable, and getting the furniture moved and table set and kids happy (did I mention that all of my kids are more introverted than I am?).  Jessie was furious – she hadn’t wanted a second Thanksgiving in the first place, and the extra hour and a half that we lost waiting for the first turkey to get ready meant that her dinner, the one she had worked so hard to prepare, was rushed and not at all fun.

So she was miserable, and mad.  And I was exhausted and stressed… it wasn’t fun.  As much as I love my friends, and as much as I appreciate the hard work Marc did (he put the turkey in a brine – a la Alton Brown – and it was the best turkey I’ve ever had), it wasn’t fun.  Up until about noontime on Thanksgiving, it was wonderful.  Lots of mother daughter bonding, fun time cooking and talking and getting ready, and then it went rapidly downhill.  There was a very unsuccessful call to the Butterball Hotline (still very bitter that there was no operator available to talk to me), a lot of alcohol consumed, and a lot of tears and frustration.

Things have been so hectic and busy, I’ve had this window open for the last three days, trying to finish this blog post.   We’re on the seventh night of Hanukkah, and I’m so tired.  It’s after eleven, and my baby girl is a complete wreck, in terms of sleep schedules.  She napped for two hours, during Jessie’s open house earlier, and is still wide awake.  On the upside, she was asleep in my arms, and thus, completely quiet and not at all a distraction.  She was, however, achingly heavy and napping from 5:30-7:30 p.m. is not conducive to a normal bedtime.  So we’re watching Peppa Pig.  Again.[subscribe2]

I started going back thru my old blog posts (really, that’s one of the major perks to having a blog, being able to go back and see where we were, and how much things have changed – and how much they haven’t).  In honor of today being December first – I thought I’d repost one of my earlier entries on the December Dilemma.  And if anyone in the Worcester area is reading this and it’s before December 11 – my synagogue (Beth Israel in Worcester) is hosting it’s first ever discussion group on the December Dilemma on 12/11, from 4:15-5:15.  This is an event that I’ve wanted to have for years – and I’m hoping for a good turn out.

The December Dilemma – repost from December, 2009

It’s an actual dilemma – I didn’t make up the name. This whole December/holiday problem comes up every year for families that are interfaith. Not that we’re technically interfaith anymore, because the kids and I converted to Judaism earlier this year. But unfortunately – it’s still a dilemma.

This morning, Marc and I had our annual battle over the holidays. The worst part is that it’s all theoretical – we weren’t fighting over whether we’d be celebrating Hanukkah (we are) or if we’d be putting up a tree (we’re doing that too). For me, Christmas isn’t a religious holiday – but it’s still a beautiful one, filled with tradition and peace and goodwill towards men. I have wonderful memories of Christmas as a child. And because we were never really a traditional Catholic family (most of my family would self identify as pagan or wiccan if asked), I don’t have any religious associations with it.

But for a Jewish person – someone who was raised Jewish – Christmas does have all sorts of negative religious associations. And it’s hard for Marc to compromise. Not that he’s not going to compromise, not that he’s ever said that I can’t get a tree or put up my little nativity scene that my mom made me when I was a kid. But he’s not thrilled with it – and I want him to feel better about it. I essentially was fighting with him about the way he feels and not the way he’s acting. Because actions – he’s great with that. He’ll go get me my tree, and let me string up the lights and hang the candy canes. He enthusiastically watches all the Christmas specials with the kids, and will come with me to my mother’s house on Christmas Day.

I didn’t grow up Jewish, and I’m okay with that. I’m very happy with my spiritual path, the road I’ve taken to get to where I am, and I wouldn’t change that. I don’t want to pretend that I didn’t celebrate what, for me, is a wonderful, life affirming, joyous time of year – and I don’t want to deprive my kids from that. But I AM Jewish – and I don’t want to change that either. Left to my own devices, I don’t have any conflict with lighting the menorah and making potato latkes and putting up a tree and leaving cookies out for Santa. Because one is spritual, one is a celebration of a miracle, it’s a way of bringing light into the darkest time of the year – and one is just fun, pretty lights, candy canes and jingle bells. My kids know the difference – and are able to appreciate each holiday for what it represents to them. I just wish sometimes it was easier for Marc to get there.

It would be easier, I think, if Marc had gone thru a conversion process similiar to the one that I went thru. If he had thought about all of this, figured out what’s important to him, what he’ll compromise on, what he can’t, how he wants to raise the kids, etc. But there’s no conversion process for Jews who marry girls who aren’t Jewish. And even though I’ve converted, there are still compromises that he has to make, just because I’m not, nor will I ever be, a person who grew up Jewish. I can’t magically erase my past, and more importantly, I don’t want to. I don’t want to hide who I am and my family’s traditions from my kids. I’m perfectly comfortable with being a Jewish woman who celebrates Christmas as well as Hanukkah. I’m very comfortable with the December Dilemma – I worked my way thru it over the past couple of years ago. It’s just occuring to me that Marc missed out on that – he missed out on that introspection, that really deep thinking about what our marriage means to him, what it means to raise children with someone of a different background.

We’ll survive the December Dilemma – we do every year. And in the end, it’s precisely because of who we are that keeps us together. I know that he loves me, exactly as I am, and I know that I feel the same about him. Our children will grow up with a strong Jewish identity – but they’re also going to grow up knowing all the words to the 12 Days of Christmas and craving candy canes every December. And that’s exactly the way I want it to be.

My kids are growing up.  Each one,  in his/her own way, and sometimes it’s beautiful and sweet, and sometimes it’s wistful and kind of sad, and sometimes it’s just irritating and frustrating.

We had a rough Thanksgiving, in a lot of ways.  (Future post to follow)  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in a lot of ways (ibid).  But the biggest takeaway from yesterday was that I need to really pay attention, because my kids are growing up when I’m not paying attention and I’m consistently being shocked by these sweeping changes that have happened, and I end up playing catch up.

We (and by we, I mean Marc, because I thought he was mostly crazy) decided to make an elaborate and cook-everything-from-scratch-because-that’s-how-the-Pilgrims-did-it kind of Thanksgiving.   For sixteen people at our house last night.  Which would have been delightful and fun, if I hadn’t already spent the last 36 hours prepping Thanksgiving for fifteen people at my mother’s house.  So I was tired, and frustrated, and the quick, quick, rush, rush, eat really fast because Daddy has to get home to cook (complicated by the fact that it took an addition two hours of cooking time for my turkey) didn’t make for a restful and gratitude filled meal at my mom’s.

I’m a grown up, and I had at least nominally agreed to the program.  My ten year old had not.  Thanksgiving was her favorite holiday, she had been right beside me prepping everything, had cooked her little heart out and was furious and hurt that she had to cut it short.  And she was right.  Marc and I are very used to being parents of little kids.  We make the decisions, we execute them.  And while we make every effort to include the kids in the process, sometimes we forget.  But she’s almost eleven, and we can’t forget anymore.  She had every right to get mad, and I apologized to her.  Because she ended up having a crappy holiday, and I still feel awful about that.

My Sammy – my boy, he’s going thru a stage that’s not entirely delightful for anyone.  He’s kind of a pain.  Not all the time, but this is a kid who’s always, always been my easiest, most laid back, most relaxed and eager to please kid at home.   It may be a different story out in public – and he’s got some pretty intense anxiety that makes going to school and going to parties more challenging, but at home – my Sammy was my easiest.  By the time last night rolled around, I wanted to squish him.  He wasn’t listening to a word anyone said, he was bugging his sisters just for the sake of hearing them scream in frustration.   I know it’s a stage, I even recognize that it’s just part of the growing process.  He’s a kid, and he’s going to test the limits and push the envelope, and it’s precisely because he hasn’t for so long that it’s so challenging now.  We had a long discussion last night before bed, and I’m going to keep working on it.  Part of it is bumping up positive reinforcement when he does listen and do as I ask, when he’s patient and doesn’t scream at his baby sister, and giving him lots of opportunities to relate with Jessie on a positive level.   But part of it, too, is making sure that he knows that the expectations are clear at home, and enforcing the rules.  I’m really hoping for an easier day today.

And hold the phone – JULIANNA RUTH SLEPT WITHOUT ME ALL NIGHT FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME.  Part of our Thanksgiving tradition is that Marc takes Sam out for Chinese food and they stay home and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade the next morning, before meeting the girls and I at my mother’s.  I’ve been spending the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving at my mother’s house since I moved out, and it’s Jessie’s favorite part of the holiday.  We bake the desserts the day before and get up super early to get everything ready on Thanksgiving.  This year, Julie chose to go home with her Boy instead.

I knew it wasn’t going to work, she was exhausted and overtired, and Girlfriend still nurses to sleep.  But she really wanted to – and at one point, actually told me that she really wanted to go to Daddy, but I kept making her feel bad about doing it.  She phrased it differently, but my three year old was able to look at me and express very clearly that she knew what she wanted, and I was making it harder by not encouraging her to take the risk.  Way to put Mama in her place.  So I smiled and told her to go with Daddy and have fun.  I spent the rest of the night waiting for the phone call announcing that she had changed her mind and wanted to come sleep with me, and it didn’t come.  She was fine.  She cried a little before falling asleep, and cried a little when she woke up and realized that I wasn’t there – but she was fine.  My baby isn’t a baby anymore.

I feel entirely worn out and I’m guessing so does the rest of my little troop.   Because it’s quarter of nine, and nobody’s awake except for me. It’s entirely possible that yesterday was so crappy because everyone was just flat out exhausted.  But today is a catch up and clean up day, and we’ll have the whole day to calm down, to regain some equilibrium, and possibly even catch up on the laundry and finish decorating for Hannukkah.  Tonight, we’ll like the Shabbat candles, along with the third night menorahs, and maybe tonight will be book night.  Or slipper night.

Although, as I type it, I’m realizing that if I feel as though I have to formally declare it – I’ve got a problem.

But it’s not my fault.  Not entirely.

I blame the kids. Of course.  And Marc.  The kids, because they believe that everything, absolutely everything, that they may have touched, played with, thought about, however briefly, needs to be kept.  And Marc, because he truly doesn’t care.  There are items he cares about – woe to the person who touches his books or moves his CLEAN laundry onto his dresser and disrupts his stuff, but for the most part, he doesn’t care about the state of the house, how many toys the kids have, or it what condition it’s kept.

And I’m not all that tense about it either.   Therein lies the problem.  Between the kids collecting everything, Marc not caring, and me being me – scattered, doing a thousand things at once and putting organizing toys at the bottom of the list entitled – Stuff I Wish I Had The Time and Inclination to Care About – all of this means that periodically, I look around, see my house through other’s eyes, and realize that yeah, I’m a damn hoarder.  I didn’t mean it, I don’t want to be, but yeah – there’s no good reason why I have all this stuff.

This morning, Marc had to work at the crack of dawn.  Earlier, because the sun wasn’t actually up by the time I got back from dropping him off.  And I chilled for a bit.  I sipped my coffee, did a little writing work, and then I got down to business.  First up was my bookcase.  I have a giant four shelf bookcase in the living room, and it ends up being the receptacle for anything literary/arts and crafts/library book related.  I had weeded thru the books several weeks ago, so I didn’t have to get rid of anything, just put it all into order.  All the Dr. Suess books (and related, beginning easy reader books), all the Biscuit books (and related, same size starting reader books), all the Little Golden books, found a few library books that had slipped in there somehow, and then all the PJ Library books.  I even sorted out the PJ books I want to keep and the ones that I’ll swap at the party on December 8.  I got rid of papers that had already been colored on (why do I save them in the first place??) and stacked all the coloring/educational books neatly.  I threw away broken crayons and dried out markers, and neatly stacked books I own, books I borrowed, books to return, and books still to read.

Then I moved on to the dining room.  I’m still not done, because honestly, there’s just a ton of crap, and I’m tired.  I emptied out one basket of toys nobody touches, and repurposed the basket to hold little cardboard blocks, and put them next to the big cardboard blocks.  I folded up the little chair and table set, and put that away. I put baby dolls in a basket, and stuffed animals in another.  I put wooden blocks in a bucket and big duplo blocks in another.

And then… I dumped out the shoe basket, started sorting shoes we want to keep, shoes to get rid of, shoes that are summer and should be put away, and shoes that need to stay in the dining room.    Inspiration struck, and I cleaned off the desk (recycling SO much paper) and then moved the entire desk over against the wall.  I broke down the shelves from Sam’s room, and brought them into the dining room/play room.  Now I just have to FINISH the whole project – I’ve got remnants of each project scattered all over the place.

I’m not a hoarder.  I promise.

It was twenty nine years ago that my grandmother passed away.  She was a smoker, and it was a long, slow, excruciating process, watching her die of lung cancer.   We had a hospital bed in the living room at their house, and I’ll never forget the way my mother and her siblings took care of their mother.  I’ll never forget watching my grandmother cry at how weak she was, how she couldn’t pick up my newest cousin, my aunt’s first baby boy.

It was twenty nine years ago, my mother was seven years younger than I am right now.  I was the same age my oldest daughter is.  I wonder how she got through losing her mother.  I can’t even fathom what that was like, to lose your mother.  I look at Jessie now, and wonder at myself at that age.  My grandmother died first, and in the next three years, I lost both my great grandparents and then my cousin Bridget died.  She was two years younger than I was, and I had grown up with her.  The deaths are linked in my mind.  One after another after another after another.

We were at my cousin Becky’s house the morning she died.  It was Becky’s  birthday, she had just turned twelve.  She and Bridget and I had been up really late the night before, and were playing in their bedroom.  Barbies – we always played Barbies.  Not that Bridget and I liked Barbies, because we didn’t, but Becky really did.  I remember my aunt Aimee telling us, not the words she used, but I remember being in her living room, and knowing that Grammy had died.  We all knew, on some level, that it was going to happen.  She was so sick, and had been for so long.  But it was my first experience with death, and I was shocked and devastated.

We drove down to my grandparent’s house in Maynard.  Aimee lived in Holliston at that time, and it wasn’t a long ride.  But we were mostly silent in the car.   What I remember most about going into the house was that I was the last one in, first Aimee and then Becky and Bridgett.  My mother had met us at the door, and I remember her hugging first her older sister, and then my cousins.

When you’re a child, you’re not used to being needed.  Being useful or of support.  You’re a child.  You are the one who needs comfort, you run to your mother for a hug when you get hurt, or when you have a nightmare.   But on that day, twenty nine years ago, I was achingly aware that my mother needed me.   She reached for me, and started crying all over again.  She was first and foremost a daughter on that day, and she had lost her mom.  I’ll never forget that feeling, that sense that my presence made it better for her, that being able to hold onto her daughter on that day made it a little bit easier.

I’m thinking today of mothers and daughters.  Of my grandmother, who died when I was the same age as my Jessie.  I think of Jessie’s relationship to my mother, how little she really knows her.  She loves her, of course, but there’s so much to my mother that Jessie just can’t know yet.  How much of my grandmother did I miss?  I loved her, but most of my memories are filtered through my mother’s eyes.  Most of my connection with her comes from my grandfather, who I loved and adored, and had until I was thirty four years old.  I’m realizing today that we missed so much with her.   I am my grandmother’s granddaughter, and raising her great grandchildren.   I am who I am, in large part, because of everything that came before.  Because I was raised by her daughter.   Her impact is still felt, it’s still a part of who I am and who my children are.   And today, I’m mourning the loss not just of the grandmother I loved, but all that we lost on that day.  A lifetime of  knowledge and love.  She never saw me as an adult, she never looked at my baby girl and saw her daughter’s eyes looking back at her.

She was just fourteen years older than I am right now.

My daughter loves preschool. And I couldn’t be happier.

We had a very rough transition to preschool. She’s only three and a half, and there was a part of me that thought that she could wait and just have the one year of preschool before starting kindergarten. I had made a similar decision with my son, and then ended up pulling him out of preschool entirely and giving him an extra year at home (which, for the record, did not make that transition to kindergarten any easier).

Each child benefits from coming after the one before. Which, as an oldest child, I recognize as unfair but totally true. Sam got a more experienced mom because I had learned from Jessie and Julie gets an even better mom because I’ve learned from him. What I learned from Sam was that the easier I could make the transition from being at home full time to being an independent and confident little kid, the better.

So – preschool. Two mornings a week, two and a half hours a day. A gentle little introduction into being without Mama. Learning to trust her teachers, to have fun with kids her own age. The JCC even throws swimming lessons into the mix, so she gets to swim on a morning when there’s snow falling on the ground.

The first few weeks were hellish. Absolutely awful, and I wanted to quit so many times – whisk her into my arms, and bring her home and keep her with me forever. She cried every single day. Worse on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but she’s cry on a Saturday afternoon because Tuesday was coming up next week and she’d have to go to preschool. She spent the first couple of weeks of preschool sequestered up in the “castle” – a tiny little loft type thing. I’d walk her into school, and put her in what felt like a cage (because it’s got bars) and leave her there to sob for two hours. Even though her teachers assured me that she was doing great – she was actually learning to self-soothe and take what she needed to calm down. She was observing everything, and would come home and tell us about her adventures like she had actually participated, instead of watching. Eventually, she started coming out of the castle. She started bringing pictures home, and when I’d come to get her, she’d be running around the playground and hugging her friends. Chattering about her teachers and bragging about things she did in preschool.

She was out sick last week with a cold, and had missed both days. So I was prepared this morning for a massive regression. But…she was fine. She woke up a little fussy, but was quickly distracted by the snow falling. She happily ate her breakfast (insisting on eating the same as her big sister), and they picked out hats and gloves and scarves for the snow. She bounced into school and was happy about seeing her cubby, hanging up her stuff and going inside. She got a little misty-eyed then, and asked me to pick her up, but I let her pick out a book and put her up in the castle. She gave me a soggy kiss, and then her teacher came over and showed her the new art project that she’d be working on today – and Julie forgot about me and immediately clambered down to start coloring.

I’m so, so glad that I didn’t listen to my instincts, that I didn’t give in to all of my urges to NOT send her. Because she’s so delighted with herself, so happy about going to school and learning and hanging out with her friends. My baby girl loves preschool, and in the end, this will mean that transitioning to kindergarten will be so much easier for her.

I’m not yelling at Jewish people.  Not really.  But I have been thinking a lot, lately, about all of the articles and columns and discussions that have been going on all over the place on the internet.  I’ve waded in on a few of them, and I know that I need to hold back.  Stop.

There was a book released recently called Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family by Susan Katz Miller.   I’d have read it anyway, because I tend to like reading books about interfaith families, but I was especially eager to read this one.  There really aren’t any other books out there that are as openly supportive and encouraging of raising children in more than one tradition.

It’s sort of accepted lore by EVERYONE that you must choose one religion to raise your children.  Kids will be confused, it’s a watering down of both traditions and in the end, by not choosing one tradition, you’re, in essence, choosing no tradition that your child will be fully comfortable in.  Don’t do both – do just one.  If you’re Jewish – BE Jewish.  Do it all the way.  And if you are going to do it halfway, at least acknowledge that you are going to have hopefully confused and bewildered kids, with no real spiritual grounding or traditions to fall back on.

At least, that’s the message I’ve always gotten.  And I’ve been doing this for a while now, we’re coming up on our twelve year anniversary.  And what I’ve found, for us, is that the message is wrong.   I’m convinced that we, as a Jewish community, need to really think about the message we send when we claim that interfaith is wrong, and in light of the overwhelming number of kids with one Jewish parent and one non-Jewish parent – we need to be a whole lot more inclusive and accepting and supportive.  Judaism has lasted for thousands of years, I don’t think that my marriage, and others like it, are going to do any damage.  We might even be part of a Jewish revival.

First, I have to acknowledge that we’re not technically interfaith.  I’m Jewish, and Jessie and Sam went to the mikvah along with me.  Julianna was born after the conversion, so her Judaism is assured as well.  Jessie knew she was Jewish from an early age, and it became clear that according to Jewish law, technically, she wasn’t.  I didn’t want her to feel torn or like she wasn’t able to claim her Judaism, and took the steps to make sure that she was officially Jewish.  Even though there are still a lot of Jewish rabbis who would still claim that her conversion isn’t valid because it wasn’t thru an Orthodox rabbi.  But I did all I could to make sure that she and Sam would feel as at home and as comfortable in the religion and spiritual community we were raising them in.

Even before conversion – I was never a particularly observant Catholic.  Spiritual, yes, but not particularly “religious.”  So in many ways, we didn’t face the same kind of religious discussions that other interfaith families had.  Jewish theology has always made sense to me, it was always a good fit for what I had sort of figured out on my own.   So while I still feel very much like we’re an interfaith family – we’re not.  We’re an “interculture” family.  Because spiritually, we’re pretty much on the same page.  Marc and I aren’t identical in our beliefs, but we’re close enough, closer probably than many couples where both members grew up Jewish.  But culturally – we’re still very different.

I love Christmas, he doesn’t.  I downplay it in our home, but still actively celebrate – and he celebrates it a lot more than he’d like to, I’m sure.  It’s a cultural difference.  Neither of our parents are delighted with it – mine worry that the kids are missing out, and his don’t really understand why I keep insisting on having a tree every year.  Not every difference is as weighted – I like milk with dinner and butter on my bagels – and he doesn’t.  I’ll never remember to get gefilte fish for Passover without being reminded, and I still think horse radish is gross.  He prefers to have the prayers and blessings in Hebrew, I’d rather English, so we do both.

But we have three kids, five including my (Jewish) stepdaughters, and we’re raising them in a Jewish household.   And I get mad, I know I need to stop, but I get hurt and mad and offended when I read that our parenting style  is “wrong,”  and that our kids are only half Jewish and thus not as “Jewish” as kids who weren’t afflicted with a  non-Jewish parent.   I get hurt and frustrated when I think about my kids reading some of this – debates over whether or not they’re actually Jewish, discussions over how their upbringing may be leading to the demise of the Jewish people as a whole, and why putting up a Christmas tree is so, so wrong.

Because my kids are Jewish.  They know that they are part of an ancient tradition, repeating prayers and celebrating holidays that go back for thousands of years.  But they’re also proud descendants of Irish, Scottish and English colonists, and have a branch of the family tree for the lone man who was put to death during the Salem Witch Trials.  My family believes in fairies and Christmas trees, too much candy on Easter and that going to the ocean is a spiritual experience.  That’s as much a part of them as matzoh on Passover and singing the shema.  They shouldn’t feel as though to be one, they can’t have the other.