Passover

We were guests at two wonderful Seders this year, both very interactive and engaging as well as meaningful and delicious, but only one with photos. Here we are at the Weinstein's on the first night of Passover, with the Bersons as well.

The table was gorgeous.

Amara and Emanuel wowed us with songs at every opportunity.

To better experience what it was like to be a slave (or a slave-driver?), we whipped each other with scallions.

There were ten Plague Masks.

Grandpa was a particularly frightening Death Of The First Born.

 Everyone read and acted and ate and drank and had a great time.

We had a very involved skit to re-enact the story of Exodus. Here is Amara as Moses, John's brother in-law as Pharaoh, and me as a slave. A whole team of children acted out each plague

Finally the Red Sea parted and we ran to freedom. (That is hail and locusts on the ground.)

And delicious passover desserts... flourless cake with strawberries and cream from Hannah, matzah roca, almond lace cookies, and coconut-raspberry macaroons from me.

 It was really all we could possibly have asked for in a Seder! And after that we were pretty much done for the week. :)

Fundraising

Jordan has had an extraordinary series of learning experiences this week selling raffle tickets for the Northwest Boychoir. Last year we did this mostly door to door. Jordan was terrific at this: polite, charming, and reasonably informative. This photo is from last year, at a neighbor's house.

Though it is fun to go to your friends' houses, going door to door is very slow and not very lucrative. Very often no one is home, and very often people say no, and each house takes multiple minutes. Since Jordan is required to sell at least 75 raffle tickets (our family has to buy whatever he doesn't sell), we needed something more efficient. Last year I saw another Boychoir family using a system that seemed like total genius to me: The mom and her son were in front of Whole Foods, and the boy (in his Boychoir uniform) strolled around singing, and the mom had a little portable table with her iPad and a Square thingy to take credit cards, and a sign at the table said "Ask Me To Sing!" They appeared to me to be making money hand over fist. So I totally copied them. I got us a little portable table at a thrift store, and a Square reader, and put together a whole little setup. I got pretty excited.

Jordan was enthusiastic about the plan, but the first time we tried it did not go well at all. The whole thing was much more scary and embarrassing than he had anticipated. He hated it. He would not speak, he would not look at anyone, he hunched over, he did everything he could to disappear into the display of potted tulips behind him. I pep-talked him like crazy but he just dug in his heels. It was very unpleasant. For twenty minutes we were at an impasse. Here he is with the nifty setup, giving me his "I want to get out of here" look.

Then an angel descended in the form of a woman about my age. She saw exactly what was going on, walked right into Jordan's space, and said, "Hello! Are you selling raffle tickets? What are they for? What could I win? Are you in the boychoir?" She very pleasantly dragged him through his spiel, bought two tickets, and complimented the heck out of him. And that was exactly what he needed. He was unlocked. He would not sing, but he cheerfully pitched his pitch to a hundred people, and sold a nice little bunch of tickets, and went home happy.

The next time we tried it the weather was bad and there was competition from a grumpy homeless gentleman; we didn't stay long. Yesterday, though, the weather was good, we had all the time we needed, and Jordan had a great evening of sales. He learned to speak more loudly and to move up to people instead of being rooted in one spot. He observed that even though a lot of people say no, there are so many people that even if only a small fraction of them stop, he can sell a lot of tickets. He got a lot of practice hearing people say no, and instead of getting discouraged, just kept asking the next person. He honed his pitch. A super guy who was doing some fundraising across the street for another cause came over and actually coached him: he explained that people are more interested in the cause than in the raffle, so instead of saying "Would you like to buy a raffle ticket?" he advised Jordan to say "Help the Northwest Boychoir!" Jordan found that this absolutely worked, and was amazed, and very grateful. Another woman told Jordan that he was lucky to get a chance to develop these skills, because they were skills he would use all his life; she herself was a political organizer. Another man said he would love to contribute because he was in a boychoir himself (in San Francisco) and it was a huge influence on him; he is now a professor of music at UW. Another woman, the mother of a girl Jordan had waved over because he knew her from zoo camp, said Jordan was "such a gentleman, in those nice pants." Jordan was thrilled. He sold his whole minimum, and is eager to sell more (which will put money directly into our account for summer camp). Here he is at the end of our evening, feeling great about himself.

I felt great too. I felt like a spontaneous community of total strangers was rooting for him, some by buying tickets and some with other kinds of encouragement. We talked on the way home about how fantastic it was, that he could just ask people, and some of them were happy to help. I still think he would make a ton more money if he would sing! He says no; but maybe next time.

Support the arts

Hebrew names

The day that our kids visited SJCS, the first-grade teacher was introducing herself to Aaron, and asked him his Hebrew name, because at SJCS all the kids go by their Hebrew names. Aaron had no idea what she was talking about. "I think you should just call me Aaron," he said. She explained that she would be calling everyone else by a name that was not the same as their usual name; Aaron's friend Adam, for example, is called Shalom in her class. (Adam finds this hilarious because it means to say hello to him you say, "Shalom, Shalom!") Aaron insisted that she should just call him Aaron. She didn't push it.

The truth is that we did not give our kids Hebrew names when they were babies. Hebrew names are normally given at the bris, and we did not circumcise our children. We didn't do it to our boys for the same reason we wouldn't have done it to daughters; we think it is not right, and hope this tradition changes. This was a decision Dale and I made very thoughtfully. It was also a decision made outside community, and we have never had much opportunity to reconcile our decision with whatever our community might think of it. So when the teacher asked for Aaron's Hebrew name, I stood nearby feeling like there was a whole lot I was not saying.

When I got out in the hall with my friend I blurted out the whole thing, probably in one sentence, including how nervous I was. She was great; she said, "Well, we don't check for that," which made me laugh. She shared that her family had had the opposite experience; they had made a rather mindless decision to circumcise their boys (and give them Hebrew names), just because it is what one does. I relaxed. 

That night, Dale and I decided this was a good topic for a dinner table conversation. We told the boys that we had not given them Hebrew names because that is usually done at the time of circumcision and we had not circumcised them. (I am going to use "us" for Dale/me and "them" for Jordan/Aaron because mostly I don't remember who said what.)

Us: Do you know what circumcision is?

Them: No. 

Us: It's when they stretch out the piece of skin over the end of your penis and cut it off.

Them: Aaaaghh! Whaaat!

Us: Seriously. I am sorry to tell you this but it is true. Most Jewish families do this to their boys.

[Both of them had their hands clapped over their groins and were looking at us wide-eyed. I think they were not sure whether to laugh or run.]

Dale: You could have this done now if you choose to.

Them: NooOOOOooo! I do not want that!

Rachel: That's why we didn't do it. We thought you would not want that.

Aaron: [jumps out of his chair and throws his arms around me] Mommy, you made the right decision! Thank you so much!

Now isn't that the moment a mother waits for? The whole thing was very entertaining. We went on.

Rachel: Now as far as a Hebrew name goes, you have some choices. You could pick your own Hebrew name. Or Daddy and I could pick names for you; that is traditional. We could just agree on your names in our family. Or, we could ask Rabbi Jason if he would be willing to give you your Hebrew name in a special ceremony, with a special blessing, without cutting off the end of your penis. 

Them: Aaaaghh! Mommy stop saying that!

Rachel: Okay. We will just say "circumcision" instead. Is that okay?

Them: Yes.

Rachel: Okay. So if we want to we can ask Rabbi Jason. I don't know if his answer would be yes or no. For some people the circumcision and the Hebrew name go together. For others, maybe not.

This seemed like enough for the kids to take in at the dinner table. Later, though, I read up on Hebrew names, and was impressed by Chabad's assertion that a parent's choice of a Hebrew name for their child constitutes a "minor prophecy." Dale and I remembered that we had actually chosen a Hebrew name for Jordan (but not told anyone else). We had not done this for Aaron, but we quickly realized what Aaron's Hebrew name should be. The next night, we told the kids their Hebrew names, and they were pleased. So really I think we're all set. I don't know if we (or they) will want a ceremony at some point, but for now, the matter feels pleasantly resolved. 

Schools

I am the sort of person that likes to get a jump on things, so last month, I visited a middle school. I worry about middle school. Not only is middle school a tough time in life, I think it is likely to be especially daunting for Jordan, not so much socially but organizationally. Six different teachers, six different homework schedules, certain things you need to bring to or from school only on Tuesdays, stuff you have to get from your locker before 4th period because you won't have time after 4th period and you need to bring it home to finish in time for 2nd period on Friday morning... I don't want to undersell Jordan, but I think this kind of thing is likely to totally snow him. Our neighborhood middle school has a good reputation with some people, especially its music program, but it is huge: there are six hundred sixth graders. Our friend with a sixth-grade son says he can't physically get to his locker in the middle of the day because it's just too far to walk. This is not promising.

So we are looking around. The public school system offers a few "option schools," which are lottery schools with a special theme or emphasis. I went on a tour of the option school nearest us and I liked it pretty darned well. It is a K-8, which I like philosophically (I think it's good for the middle school kids to have leadership opportunities, and a reason not to swear in the hallways), and it is an "E-STEM" school (Environmental Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), which I think our kids would go for. It is a fairly new school (5 years old) with a hardworking visionary principal who has assembled a team of teachers who very much share her vision. And there are only 725 kids in the whole school (350 in the middle school, 6-7-8); so the scale of the thing is just a lot more manageable. In this environment, I would have more hope that someone would be keeping track of Jordan. 

In fact, I liked it enough that we started to think... why wait? Why not switch now? We could switch them both. I don't want to get into the details, but much as it pains us, we are not happy with our neighborhood school. We put in the paperwork. The lottery is this month.

Meanwhile, our friend Jessica is the admissions director for the Seattle Jewish Community School, which is K-5. It's a wonderful school, which we know because we have a lot of happy friends there -- much of our old SJCC preschool crowd, who are still some of our (and our kids') best friends. It has a big price tag, so we were prepared to be satisfied with our neighborhood school. Except now we're unsatisfied. When Jessica heard that we had put in to change to the K-8, she politely asked to have one conversation with us about her school. It is quite an awesome place; for one thing, the maximum class size is 20, and for that size class there are two full-time teachers who team-teach, one leading in the morning and one leading in the afternoon. In addition, a learning specialist spends all day supporting kids whose learning needs are different than the rest of the class, either needing extra challenges or extra support. And we have been made aware... that the sticker price is not the price we would pay. There is quite a lot of tuition assistance. (This is thanks in part to the extraordinary Samis Foundation, founded by a guy (Sam Israel) who was an immigrant cobbler who moved to Seattle before WWII, got lucrative contracts to make Army boots, used the profit to buy downtown real estate, and had no heirs; his foundation is partly dedicated to funding Jewish education for Seattle families.)

Dale and I went on a tour the other day, and we were practically in tears the whole time, it was so touching. When we visited the first grade classroom, so many of Aaron's friends (including Emanuel, Amara, and Adam) jumped up and cheered that the class's official greeter could hardly get over to greet us. Their teacher invited them to tell us some reasons why we should send our kids there, and the kids said, "Because the teachers are so awesome! Because we use art and games to learn better! Because we learn Hebrew! Because we are already their friends!" Both of our kids would join classes that literally have one of their best friends in them, as well as multiple other kids that they know from preschool and summer camp. The whole thing is just too good. Though it is a little weird to move Jordan for only one year, every year counts, and we feel sure that he can have a really good year at SJCS. And Aaron can have four. We don't feel at all sure of that elsewhere.

The kids liked the idea. They were very relaxed about it. The application includes them spending a day at SJCS for assessment; they did this this week, and had a great time. They were greeted like rock stars. Aaron's class sang him a Hello Song (and they were so excited they kind of freaked Aaron out; they had to be asked to do it again more calmly). The fourth graders, meanwhile, had each written Jordan a welcome letter saying how they looked forward to spending the day with him and why they like their school. The kids came home saying it was a wonderful place and they would be happy to go there.

So assuming that Sam Israel comes through for us, we're going. It feels like a big deal, to move out of our neighborhood school; but what we are moving into just seems way too good to pass up. Wish us luck.