Bagels at snacktime

As most Jewish parents know, Jewish Day Schools are expensive. And as a single mother, I have not been able to afford to send LO to one although I have never given up hope.

Florida is well-known for having some of the worst public schools. The saving grace for us is that my company has what is called a "satellite school" which is technically a public school but only children of the people who work for my company can attend. This makes for much smaller class sizes and allows for much more personal attention from teachers for the children. Ok, so it's no Jewish Day School but it has worked well for LO so far.

Snacks are provided for the children in the afternoon. Being the Kosher Police, LO is always checking for hechsherim but since the Pesach "rules" are a little different I made sure she knew that she should only eat what I had packed her in her lunchbox and nothing else.

When I picked her up from school I asked her what she had for snack. She told me that she had eaten the apple I packed her and then she said, "Mama! They had BAGELS for snack! Can you believe it?" How's that for chutzpah? No, I couldn't believe it.

Now where is that application for the Jewish day school? Maybe I should take out a second mortgage.

A LO Pesach moment

(This is a project LO did in Hebrew school. I think her depiction of boils may be my favorite of the lot.)

On the way to our first seder, I explained to LO that since she would most likely be the youngest child there she would be asked to say the "Ma Nistanah". Her Hebrew school class has been practicing it for weeks but I had only heard heard her singing the first verse and the refrain so I wasn't sure if she knew the whole thing or if she would need to read it. Since she is not the quickest reader when it comes to Hebrew, I asked her if she would be ok reading the Hebrew from the Haggadah or if she wanted me to find the transliteration for her. Her response?

"The Cantor told us in Hebrew school that one of the Ten Commandments is that we HAVE to read the Hebrew. It's against the law to read the transliteration."

I smiled and tried not to giggle. I explained that I was sure it was not one of the Ten Commandments but that I was THRILLED that she was choosing to work her way through the Hebrew rather than resorting to the transliteration.

She did a FABULOUS job at both seders. I am still kvelling.

Chag Kasher V'Sameach

Despite the fact that things are quite hectic here at this pre-Pesach hour, I thought I'd come and write a meaningful post to wish everyone a wonderful Passover, but I decided there was no way I could write anything as touching as Trepp has. Be sure to stop by his place to read this post.

Chag Kasher V'Sameach to all of you and your families from me and my little Orieyenta.

A trip to the Matzah Factory

LO's Hebrew school class just took a field trip to visit the "Matzah Factory" at our local Chabad. She was thrilled about this field trip because she LOVES matzah. Each of the children got a chance to make matzah from scratch. They went through the whole process starting with grinding the wheat all the way through the rolling and baking. When it was all over and done with, each child went home with a cute little box containing the matzah they made. (The matzah in the picture was indeed handmade by LO. Not bad huh?)

I asked LO if she liked the field trip. Her response was, "It was fun making the matzah. But only meshugganah people make matzah like that. Who grinds the wheat for matzah when you can just go to the store and buy it?" Oy...is that a sign of our times or what?

Wishing everyone a blessed Shabbat HaGadol.

Passing over just like Passover

I am not sure how popular these are elsewhere, but here in Miami you can hardly go anywhere that you don't see a child whizzing by on Heelys. (They are actually so popular for the kids and so distracting that many of the schools have banned the wearing of them during the school day!) For those of you who don't know what they are, they are sneakers that have wheels in the heels, hence the name "Heelys". As is any trend for kids these days, they are not inexpensive, but I gave in and got LO a pair. LO loves to skate (or heel as the case may be) around in these any time there seems to be an open space large enough (and much to my chagrin, even when the space isn't large enough.)

Yesterday we went to the large chain (non-Kosher) grocery store. It's not the one closest to our house but it's the one with the largest Kosher section and the only one in our area that carries fresh Kosher meats. We were surprised to walk in and find one of the largest Pesach sections we have ever seen in this store. LO was thrilled with what I can only describe as the Kosher chocolate aisle. Her favorites are the dark chocolate dinosaurs, which just so happened to be right at her height so she could grab several boxes. So, as I was filling the basket in preparation for Peasch, she was skating around me and all the other Pesach shoppers giving them a good rendition of Ma Nistanah followed by her version of Dayenu (let's just say that other than the actual word "Dayenu", I don't think any of the other words she said were Hebrew.) At one point as she was passing me by - she said, "Mama, I'm passing over just like Passover."

I had to laugh and just shake my head at this show she was giving the other shoppers. Where else in the world can you find a Chinese kid on skates rolling around the Pesach section at the grocery store and singing Pesach songs?

LO's Pre-Pesach Babbling

(My shiksa niece when I introduced her to matzah last Pesach!)

As many of you know, LO LOVES to talk. I often marvel at how much she talks because I feel like if my mouth moved as much as hers does, my jaws would hurt. Following Hebrew school yesterday, Pesach was clearly on her mind. In between her singing eight million refrains of "Halaileh hazeh, halaileh hazeh" here is some of what I heard from the back seat of my car:

"Eww...are we going to have to eat that ickity stuff on the matzah again?" (I'm assuming she meant maror.)

"No bread right? How about bagels? Ok, how about challah? Um...how about pita?" She named just about every bread product she could think of and I just kept saying no over and over until she said, "NO MATZAH BALL SOUP???" I automatically said no and then started to giggle since she caught me off guard.

And since we were on the subject of food...

"Can I have matzah with salami in my lunchbox? Can you make me maztah pizza? What else can you make me?"

Oy...what will drive me meshugganah first? The Pesach babbling or the Pesach cleaning?

*BTW - since we live in a predominately Spanish speaking city, one of the children at Hebrew school giggles every time they sing "haleilah hazeh kulo matzah". I shudder to think about the day that LO figures out what that word translates into in Spanish.