April Fool's Day

I have strict rules about April Fool's pranks (that I perpetrate).

1. No lying. No "Hey, there's a dragon in the backyard!" No telling the children that they are actually adopted, or are alien spawn.
2. Nothing too messy. The saran-wrap-on-the-toilet bowl thing is right out.
3. Nothing that puts other people to an obnoxious amount of trouble, like when you tell your husband that a Mr. Bayer called for him and give him the callback number for the zoo, and the poor people at the zoo have to answer that stupid phone call about 5000 times.

This leaves plenty of room for entertainment. This morning I dyed the milk blue. I also put scotch tape over the bathroom faucet, and cinched down the sprayer handle on the kitchen sink with a rubber band, hoping to spray Dale not once but twice. Sadly, both arrangements were technically imperfect and the water just spluttered instead of spraying. It still made him laugh, though. He had not realized what day it was.

How did I not suspect what he would be up to while I was in the shower? I tried to open my laptop and something seemed to be very wrong with the latch, but no, it was ... taped shut. Perhaps with the tape from the bathroom faucet. When putting said laptop in my bookbag I found it was already full of Harry Potter volumes. And when I went to put my boots on, they had underwear in them. Jordan especially liked that one.

We collaborated on the kids' lunches: each got a small tupperware container full of sock. (That's in addition to the food, not instead of it.)

Passover (III)

Tonight was the night of the Four Questions. It's Jordan's job to ask them (as the youngest one who can pull it off), and he's very pleased to be able to sing in Hebrew. For the English, he made himself a "cheat sheet."



Since the questions are all "why" questions, he drew the participant shrugging dramatically in each picture. Click on the image to enlarge it.

For those of you who are not Passover-savvy, here is a key.
1. On all other nights we eat either bread or matzah. Why on this night do we eat only matzah?
2. On all other nights we eat all kinds of vegetables. Why on this night do we especially eat bitter herbs?
3. On all other nights we do not dip herbs even once. Why on this night do we dip them two times? (Note the number 2, and the arrows for the dipping.)
4. On all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining. Why on this night do we eat reclining? (You can tell the participant is slouching because he can barely see over the table. And he has a soft pillow on his seat.)

Jordan recognized these as "known information" questions: he knows he is not asking them to find out the answers, because he knows the answers. Thus, he has concluded, he is asking them in order to test the rest of us, "like a teacher." Here's how it went tonight:

Jordan: Everyone, please be quiet now.
[Rachel and Dale and Aaron, reclining in the playroom tent, are as still as statues.]
Jordan: Why do we only eat matzah on this night?
[Dale raises his hand.]
Jordan: Daddy?
Dale: Because when we escaped from Egypt we were in a big rush and we didn't have time for the bread to rise.
Jordan: Right!

And so on. I am fondly hoping that he repeats this performance at the big family seder on Saturday in San Francisco.

Epistemology

Jordan built a pyramid out of yellow legos. When I realized his pyramid was part of his imaginative Passover storytelling, I told him that I was pretty sure the Israelites did not build the Egyptian pyramids. (I read that somewhere.)

Jordan: No, Mommy, they did. Trust me. I know it.
Rachel: How do you know it?
Jordan: I saw a picture.
[He shows me the Passover placemat he got at religious school.]
Rachel: What if I say the picture is a mistake? How would we decide who is right?
[He looks at me blankly.]
Rachel: What if I say "No, that picture is not right, the people who drew it didn't know, and I know, and the Israelites did not build the pyramids." How could we decide who is right?
[Long pause.]
Jordan: The picture is right.
Rachel: Anytime Mommy says one thing and a picture says another thing, the picture is right?
Jordan: Yes.
Rachel: Why?
Jordan: Because they would have done a test before they drew it.

I'm not sure what he meant by a test, but I took him to be saying that printed pictures are officially sanctioned documents, and thus have been vetted in some way. Which is not unreasonable. Although it is undermined somewhat by the fact that the placemat has spelling errors on it.

In case you are interested in the content of the discussion and not only the views of knowledge implied therein: Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, says that ancient Egyptians built the pyramids, not foreign slaves:

"The scenario of whip-driven slaves received support from the biblical account of Moses and the Exodus and the first-century A.D. historian Josephus. In our era, Cecil B. de Mille's galvanizing screen images reinforced this popular misconception. The pyramid builders were not slaves but peasants conscripted on a rotating part-time basis, working under the supervision of skilled artisans and craftsmen who not only built the pyramid complexes for the kings and nobility, but also designed and constructed their own, more modest tombs."

In case you don't want to take my (or his) word for it, scholarly research is referenced on Hawass's page. (And I will add that I don't think the Bible mentions the pyramids at all, with regard to the Hebrew slaves' work - just Pithom and Ramses, the treasure cities of those pharaohs.)

Passover (II)

Tonight's festivities were too whirlwind for pictures, sadly, but very experiential. We were again in the tent, and the task of the night was to tell the story of the exodus from Egypt. When we got to the part about having to leave quickly, we talked about what that would be like -- as in, what would we pack? I had suitcases at the ready: the boys hurriedly threw toys into them and ran around the playroom with their roller bags. Jordan was quite fierce as Moses, shouting, "Let my people go!" Then he led the way through the Reed Sea, which was simulated by two blue sheets wiggled energetically by Dale and me. There they were, escaping from Egypt with their roller bags. At last we were free to have dinner.

Passover (I)

We like to spread Passover out over a few nights, to make it less onerous and more fun for all involved. It really started yesterday, with a truly grand quantity of cleaning done pretty much entirely by Dale. A truly thorough sweeping and mopping turned up an amazing quantity of chametz. Jordan was delighted to sweep some of it into a paper bag with a giant blue feather he had gotten at religious school, and according to tradition, we took the paper bag outside last night and burned it. Way cool. I hope we are not struck down by lightning for doing the bedikat chametz without actually intending to keep kosher for passover... We're just not up for that level of observance.

Tonight we assembled the seder plate, matzah, juice, and salt water, using my cake platter as a seder plate and substituting arugula from the farmer's market for parsley. (It just has to be greens, right?) Then we carefully brought these fine items upstairs, and did the first few blessings (the openers and the karpas).... in a TENT. In the playroom. (Which Dale had not only cleaned to a shine, but had also totally rearranged and reorganized. wow!) We pretended we were camping in the desert. After just a few minutes of ceremony, we went downstairs for a delicious dinner of slow-cooked farmer's market lamb, root vegetable kugel, and radishes. Delicious. The lamb was shoulder, rather than shank, which is why the bone on the seder plate is not the usual shape. Aaron tried to eat it and said it was too crunchy.

Twenty questions

Jordan and Aaron are both very into "Twenty Questions" lately. Jordan is downright sneaky: his recent selections have included a water skater, a chimaera, and air.

Aaron is less sneaky but entirely charming. This morning he said, "I have a trunk, big tusks, and stompy feet. What am I?" He was delighted when we guessed correctly.

Thiiiiis much

I took the boys out to a favorite restaurant.

Jordan: "You know how much I love mac and cheese? I would have to attach my hands and then split my body in half to make my hands go so far apart to show how much."
Rachel (loving the idea but distracted by a detail): "Attach your hands? To each other? How would that work?"
Jordan (not distracted): "Not to each other. Attach my hands to the two halves of my body, to hold it up."