December Dilemma

The December Dilemma

As an interfaith family, it’s been fun to celebrate two December holidays. But we are very aware of the focus that is spent on Christmas compared to Hanukkah. While we plan many Hanukkah celebrations and have great fun at synagogue, it is hard to ignore the plethora of Christmas trees, Santas and Reindeer all around. Even at Sarah’s preschool, kids and teachers are talking about behaving nicely to ensure a visit from Santa. Recently, however, I’ve come to notice how broad Sarah’s perspective has grown without much prompting from us at all. She is quick to tell her friends, child and adult, that she celebrates Hanukkah. Recently, she even said to another child, “families can celebrate all kinds of things like birthday parties or Hanukkah.” I suppose that’s the best thing a parent can ask for – a kid who can recognize difference and find it cool. Perhaps she can teach that same openness to us all!

 

Happy Holidays!

Lisa

From Clara's Point of View: Take 2

Clara continues to take more photos and videos than I can keep up with. Look here to see some of her photos from last summer.

Here are some of my favorite recent shots of hers. I thought the lighting and positioning of the dolls below was quite creative, and I love the starkness of her portrait of her foot.

I have always been a fan of close-ups in photos and video. It's fun for me to see her experimenting with close-ups and perspective in her photos and to see that she takes after me in the way that she sees the world through a lens.

-Ellyn

Swimming & Dancing: A little one with big confidence

Lila had a busy weekend. On Friday night, she started her new swimming class.  Lila refused to eat before class because she was way "too excited." She got dressed a full hour before her lesson-- Speedo, swim cap, goggles, water shoes. Needless to say, she was ready!

Lila has been taking swimming lessons since she was two (a wonderful birthday gift from Grandma). From that very first lesson, she naturally took to swimming. She's a little fish and as she progresses, my husband and I daydream aloud about Lila taking the gold as an Olympic swimmer. We are totally amazed and proud of her development, skill, and determination. She is so young, but we can't help but think this may be her "thing" for the long term-- Swim team? Trophies? College scholarship? Professional athlete? Okay, I know we need to remember she's only four but at night, when I put her to bed, I ask"Lila, do you know how well you did at swim class?" She responds not like a four year old but more like an athlete in training-- "Yes, but I need to work on my diving."

Saturday morning she switched gears and gear for an audition for the Nutcracker. Lila hasn't had formal dance lessons other than "creative movement" in preschool, but she looooves the Nutcracker. The last time we went to see it, she pointed to the stage and said "Mama, I need to be up there." So, when auditions rolled around this year, I felt she should have the chance to try out. (Clara tried out too! It will be so cool if they are in it together!)

My husband took Lila to the audition. She was the first to arrive, looking the part in her newly purchased, never worn Danskin attire. She was soon joined by young dancers, many who already had a couple years of lessons, one stretching her little leg straight up to her head. And her dad soon found himself amongst some experienced dance moms with an agenda: to ensure their little ones land a part. Despite the seriousness of some, Lila went in and had fun. She told me all about how she acted like a mouse eating cheese and pretended to be chased by a cat.

Lila can't wait to win a swim meet and perform on stage in the Nutcracker. She is so confident. For her, it's not "if," it's "when." "When I win the race..." or "When I am in the Nutcracker..."

She has this competitive nature that I've never had. In a recent game of Memory (during which I was losing, horribly), I told Lila, "Next time I am going to win." Lila looks me straight in the eyes and says, "You could try, Mama, but I accomplish things." She talks junk and flaunts her big vocabulary.

This is what I love and admire about her. As an aspiring writer myself, I reflect back about all the times I let fear of failure and competition stand in my way. Based on my own life experiences, I can't help but think about what will happen if Lila doesn't achieve a goal.

I am on the edge of my seat about the results of the audition. How will Lila handle it if she is not chosen? The bigger question is, how will I handle it? I am hoping that my fear will not rub off on Lila and that instead she will continue to influence me with her four-year-old wisdom and untainted confidence.

I remain in awe.

-Tara

From Clara's Point of View

Not surprisingly, given the high number of photographers in our family, Clara caught the photography bug at an early age. She frequently borrows my phone to take pictures of life around her. The subjects of her photos are mostly her dolls, dolls I see every day on the bed, on the floor, on the couch. And yet, these dolls that I am usually bending down to pick up look quite different from Clara's point of view- they are her friends, her equals, her playmates.

Clara usually takes these photos when I am busy doing something else, and so it won't be for days or sometimes weeks that I stumble across a dolly portrait in my phone and realize that Clara has been to work. I love the directness and closeness of her photos-- the earnestness that shines through. Although my little girl seems so grown up in so many ways, these photos remind me that she is still a little one seeing the same things I see each day from a very different perspective.

 -Ellyn

Dream Child

During the school year, morning is a hazy rush of admonitions starting with a gentle nudge and "Get up, Clara" to a firmer command of "Get up NOW, Clara." Breakfast often shifts from a bowl of cereal to a little plastic bag filled with cereal since by the time Clara is finally sitting down to eat breakfast, it is time to leave for school, and she has to eat her breakfast in the car. It is fair to say that Clara and I are not "morning people." One of the benefits of us both being home in the summer is that we can wake up when we feel like it, and one of my favorite side effects of these leisurely mornings is that we have time to share our dreams from the night before.

Clara has an active dream life, and each morning, she invariably begins the recounting of her dream with an announcement of what type of dream she had. Her dreams come in four main categories: happy, scary, sad, and silly.

 

Happy Dreams:

Clara's happy dreams are usually involve one or more of the following: watching the Nutcracker,  her birthday party, going on rides, swimming, Christmas, Canada, Cape Cod, fireworks, and rainbows. There is not a plot to these dreams; instead, these dreams seem to be one ongoing impressionistic celebration of her favorite moments in life. Sounds pretty nice to me.

Scary Dreams:

The first dream I remember Clara recounting is when she had spiked a fever and had a nightmare about little Elmo characters multiplying all around her- multiple Elmo heads sounded pretty scary to me, too!

Sad Dreams:

Clara said, "I had a sad dream like when you (mama) had a broken arm. A monster or whatever or something else that’s scary took off your arm with their large teeth. Then, I got totally sad. I went to the hospital to see the doctor. I glued your arm back on with big glue." 

This is somewhat of a recurring dream or else it was so powerful the first time that she remembers it. She talks about the broken arm dream a lot. I am very careful with both of my arms as a result of hearing this dream on a regular basis.

Silly Dreams:

One of Clara's favorite types of dreams to talk about is her silly dreams.

Clara said, “I had a silly dream. It was about pancakes. It was about all the things my dollies liked to put syrup on. Chou-Chou likes syrup on his pizza. And Purple Dolly likes syrup with pancakes. And Fiona likes syrup on her tomato sauce..."

At this point, I suspect that her dream actually ended, but Clara wanted to keep on telling her story, so she looked around the room for one last character to add. Her eyes fixed on her doll, Isabella.

"...And my new doll, Isabella... her favorite thing is chicken sauce on top of her tomato, too. That’s pretty silly!” Clara broke into giggle as she finished her recounting of this silly dream.

I don't tend to have too many silly dreams these days, but it is uncanny the number of times that Clara awakes to share a sad, happy, or scary dream in which the mood of her dream resonates with my own dreams. It feels like our dreams connect us in a way that sometimes transcends and deepens our relationship as mother and daughter.

I have talked to other working mothers who choose to have their children sleep in the same bed with them as a way to connect at night. Even if they are not outwardly interacting with one another during these night-time hours, it helps some mothers to feel connected to their child-- night time becomes "their" time together. Clara has spent her fair share of time sleeping in and out of our room during these past few years. Now that she sleeps regularly in her own "big girl bed," I have to admit it feels nice to know that even though she is slumbering in another room that perhaps our thoughts and dreams are nonetheless mingling in the night air.

-Ellyn

Why I’m Afraid of This Blog and/or Sorry, Did I Offend You?

I like to write. I have kept a journal since I was 11 years old. My first journal was bound by a lovely pink and green floral print cover emblazoned with a heart with my name on it and, most importantly, it had a gold lock. I could always assure that my carefully written thoughts remained private, secure, and protected (or so it felt at the time) by that 10-cent lock.

My lock got so much use, it eventually broke.

When I started reading other people’s blogs a few years ago, I felt like I had found my own tribe. Here were other people writing journal-like entries, sharing personal details of their lives, expressing emotions that resonated with my own. Although I had so much in common with what they wrote, I couldn’t imagine actually sharing these thoughts with the world. What good was my pretty gold lock if I was going to hit “publish” and let anyone who came along just pick up my “journal” and start reading?

My friend, Tara, helped to pry me out of my shell by proposing that three of us write a blog together, sharing the responsibility. Besides my fear of sharing too much, I also had to work through some other baggage to get to the point of writing this blog.

TOP THREE REASONS IT HAS TAKEN ME THIS LONG TO WRITE A BLOG:

Some of my favorite journals

1. The Stalkers, Rapists, and Murderers who are lurking on the Internet waiting for their next prey. These fears were fostered at an early age, pre-Internet, by my mom who warned me not to give any information to strangers. The only way that anyone other than my parents was allowed to talk to me or pick me up from school was if they knew the super-secret password that my mom taught us (the name of our first pet). Do you know that secret password? If not, please stop reading here. :)

2. The Computer Nerds, Scam-artists, and other Tech-savvy ill-doers who might not only read this blog, but might also magically extrapolate my social security number, SAT scores, and personal bank account passwords from my posts. This fear was fostered by my super security-conscious husband who knows quite a bit about computers and is incredibly cautious about the digital footprint that one creates. He is skeptical, but supportive, as I start this endeavor.

3. My Fear of Offending You. My number one fear about writing for a blog is an emotional quirk all of my own creating. I am most worried about offending you. That’s right. I’m worried that your feelings may be hurt or perhaps you might think less of me after reading a post. I am not someone who likes to offend. I try very hard in life to keep the peace, find commonalities, make connections. If I’m talking to you, my lovely organic produce-eating, homemade almond milk-making friend, I might not bring up my love of salt and vinegar potato chips or the occasional bowl of mint oreo ice cream. I steer away from talking about food too much with you; instead, I keep the peace by talking about our shared love of our kids.

My very first journal entry

I once read that we are as many personalities as we have relationships, that what we share about ourselves molds and moves slightly for every single relationship that we have. So, if I have 67 friends, does that mean I have 67 slightly different selves? The idea seems a little extreme, but ultimately it makes a lot of sense to me that I’m perhaps slightly, almost imperceptibly, different in each relationship.

I don’t like to think that I am hiding who I am in certain relationships, but that when I am with you, talking to you, I am bringing up topics that are relevant to both of us. I am reading your emotional cues and responding accordingly with how much and what I share. With this blog, you are sitting at a computer somewhere perhaps very far away and I can’t see if your head is slowly moving up and down in an “Aaahh, yes, I agree with you nod” or if you’re rolling your eyes in annoyance about my latest proud mama moment describing Clara’s accomplishments in way too much detail.

So, ultimately, writing in this blog is taking a risk for me, stepping outside of my comfort zone, and confronting fears (some that go all the way back to childhood. Thanks, Mom!). It’s a step that I’m scared and happy to take. Most of all, I’m glad you’re coming along for the ride. Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear from you along this journey (whether you agree... or disagree) in the comment section.

-Ellyn