Purim: Just what the doctor ordered

Found a costume in the attic for the Boy that I thought we’d given away years ago. It’s a bit small on him but he was Whinnie the Pooh (is that spelled right?) and he will be again tomorrow. Phew; that’s one crisis I won’t have to face. The girls were their usual array of princesses, ballerinas, etc., only this time RS was required to wear a skirt under her ballerina dress, about which she was very distressed, because “It looks stupid!” I assured her it looked great, but she’s neither blind nor stupid, so she knew better. Know what she said? “This isn’t fair! I don’t WANT to grow up!” Heh. I suppose that’s better than “I don’t WANT to have to wear a skirt!” but I figure it’s just a matter of time. Anyway, they all looked great, as per usual, and they stayed in shul for half the Megillah, and they all said “That was AWESOME!” Know what? I agree. I really, really enjoy the Megillah, especially when my tall handsome brother-in-law reads it, which he did, and he did a smashing job.

So here’s a funny story. This afternoon when we got home from shul, we were doing our usual thing of sitting around for a while digesting our kiddush food before attempting lunch, and the Boy was being all crazy and cranky and running around, etc., and suddenly he disappeared into the dining room and was silent. G and I were in the living room talking, and the Boy called something out to us, and I was able to discern the word “challah.” So I said “G, I think he’s in there eating the challah,” and G said “Oh,” which just about summed up my feelings on the matter. So we continued talking, and he continued being in the dining room, and the girls continued playing in the basement, and after a while RS showed up, and I asked her to check in the dining room to see if the Boy was eating the challah. So she went into the dining room and cried out “OH YES, he is!” and came back and said “He’s sitting there holding the big challah in his hands, taking bites!” So G and I went to check it out, and indeed, he was sitting at the head of the table in G’s chair, and the challah cover had been thrown off, and my son was grasping the large challah in his two hands, and the end of it — probably about 2 slices’ worth — had been gnawed off, and he was chewing rather happily, and he held the challah out when he saw us and shouted out “[Baby babble baby babble] CHALLAH!!”, and took another bite. I positively shrieked, and doubled over laughing so unbelievably hard that I ended up with tears in my eyes. G laughed too, but not quite as hard as I did, and when RS saw how hard I was laughing, she joined in and sort of forced herself to laugh harder, and the Boy saw all of this and his face lit up and he forced himself to laugh too. I begged G to let me go next door and get Babysitter Allison’s mother to take a picture — “It’s a דרבנן, and this is SO TOTALLY a צורך גדול!!” — but for some reason he didn’t agree, so I had to ingrain the image into my mind instead. And indeed, I hope I never forget it. It was positively hilarious, and adorable beyond description. And incidentally, when RS called the other girls in to see, R said to me “Ima, since we couldn’t take a picture with the camera, I took a picture in my mind,” so at least two of us have it down somewhere. I was pretty impressed that she said that; she’s not even the one who reads Cam Jansen.

Anyway, I wanted to be sure to get that down. It was One Of Those Moments. And tonight after Megillah reading, the quartet of Miriams (that is, Sisterhood President Miriam, Other Sisterhood Board Member Miriam, myself, and Other Miriam from shul) stayed at shul chopping and beating and simmering and whatnot in preparation for the brunch tomorrow (yes, all four of us are named Miriam, and one other non-Miriam was there for a while too), and it was great fun. There was no music playing, so I treated everyone to a partial rendition of the Monestriczer Shoshanat Yaakov, and everyone was gracious enough not to tell me to shut up. Remember the Monestriczer Shoshanat Yaakov? It will happen tomorrow, God willing. Can’t wait. We were practicing with the girls today, at least as much as we could with the Boy going bonkers and forcing them to hold his hands and dance in circles, like he does every time he hears singing. Going to try to record it tomorrow on RS’s iPod, and then get permission from everyone to post it here. We’ll see how that goes.

Ah, Purim. I like it. I’m maybe in a 20% better mood than I’ve been for the past several weeks, and I haven’t even had any wine.

Tags: Holidays, Raising girls, Shul, The Boy