Purim - Panic = Success!

I was talking to a relative on Friday and telling them about Sunday's party. He asked, "why is it that you always have to host the party every Purim?" "Because I LIKE to!," I replied automatically. And I do. The one year I didn't host Purim I was literally depressed all day. Despite my usual panic, I really do love throwing parties. Which brings us to yesterday's party.

This year's annual Purim bash was SO MUCH FUN! We decided to go with a Sesame Street theme. I was Grover, Shimmy was Big Bird, Sophie was Abby, and Lilah was Cookie Monster. We had a great group of friends over, great food, and no pre-party panic! I'm not even sure how that happened. I'm always prepared, so it's not the last minute rush that stresses me out. I have been known to have the pre-party panic even if everything is 100% ready and I am sitting down waiting for guests to arrive. Maybe blogging about it last week helped? If I put it out there in the universe (or internetz) it can no longer attack me from within? Who knows. All I know is that yesterday we had one heck of a good time.

Since Lilah's birthday is this coming Sunday, I had already thrown parties the previous two Sundays, and the same group of friends would have been invited to a separate birthday party, we decided to celebrate her birthday yesterday too. This weekend we will celebrate with family!


(Best family pic of the day even though Shimmy had lost his costume by this point, Lilah took off her hood, revealing very messy hair, and Sophie is wearing/holding the entire contents of the dress up bin. Hey, I look okay.)

Location:
Our house, which was clearly made for entertaining. We can seat 30+ people around tables comfortably in our dining room. Love it.



Menu:
Glazed corned beef
Sweet and sour meatballs
Chicken stuffed wontons
Mock shrimp cocktail
Sesame noodles
Whipped potatoes in phylo shells
Vegetables and dips

and for dessert:
Ambrosia (I cannot wait to make this again- it was SO GOOD)
Pumpkin muffins (per Miss Abby Cadaby aka Sophie's request)
Hamantashen of course, with a BIG birthday hamantashen for Lilah (also Sophie's idea)



Activities:
Eating, hanging out, and a costume contest for the kids, which Lilah won! I think people voted for her because it was her birthday party. She was super cute in her cookie monster costume, but she had some good competition.


(Sophie was Hawaiian Abby Princess Aurora- she definitely got points for creativity)

Party favor:
Our Mishloach Manot bags, which were Sesame Street themed to match our costumes! The bags contained Bert's Oatmeal, Cookie Monster's Cookies, Oscar's Mud Cakes (brownies), Big Bird's Bird Seed (sunflower seeds), and Elmo's Juice Box



As successful as it was, I'm taking a break from parties for a while. As the host, that is. I'd love to be a guest if anyone else is so inclined to do the planning :)

If it weren't for the panic attacks, I could be a party planner!

I enjoy entertaining. I really, really do. And also, it really stresses me out. I enjoy planning parties, sometimes themed ones. I enjoy sending out invitations, planning the menu, decorating, searching for party favors. I enjoy preparing the food, trying out new recipes, designing the presentation of the food. The hours before the party I am a wreck. I am in a constant dialogue with myself that goes something like this:
"Oh crap, crap, crap."
"Everything is going to be fine. You ROCK at this."
"I am literally shaking."
"You have planned everything to perfection and now it's just in its final stages."
"I want to throw up."
"This is going to be FUN."
"I've changed my mind. I want to spend the night in bed watching TV instead."
"Pull yourself together- it's all going to be FINE."
And it IS. It's better than fine, it's amazing. I have fun, the guests have fun. I spend the next day looking at pictures over and over again, smiling, because everything was so great!

Most Recent Party: Shimmy's 30th Birthday Booze Cruise

Location:
An electric boat that toured the harbor for 2 hours

Menu:
Mexican pinwheels
Cheese ball and crackers
Babaganoush and veggies
Caprese salads in tomato bowls
Mini fruit tarts
Birthday cake made to look like a life preserver

Party favor:
Koozies that said "Shimmy's 30th Birthday Booze Cruise"






Next up: Purim Party on Sunday
We're expecting a large crowd of great friends. The menu is planned. The party favors are assembled. It's going to be awesome! Except for the panic attack that will ensue shortly beforehand.

UNION!

I am ready to organize. Who's in?

I am waiting for my kids to burst in the door any minute. It is Saturday night. It is past their bedtime. They are supposed to be at my parents' house until tomorrow afternoon. Apparently my four-year-old can manipulate a couple of 54-year-olds into making the 45-minute trip to take her home early. On one hand, I get it. She's a little kid and at that age (really, at any age) homesickness is real and hard to work through. One the other hand, I am angry. LIVID, actually. She has been spending a few weekends a year at my parents' house for entire life. Though I am sure there were some tears at some point during previous visits, she was never driven back early.

The real cause for my anger is that I feel cheated out of what was supposed to be a break. Breaks that come few and far between for me. Being a stay-at-home-mom is a full time job for me. I do EVERYTHING from the minute the kids wake up until they go to bed at night, and I hope and pray they stay asleep all night so I can at least clock out until the next morning. I don't have the weekends to look forward too, in fact, they are worse than the weekdays in many ways. 99% of the time I do this all alone, with no other parent present due to a demanding job of his own. I need a freaking break once in a while. Not to mention the conditions under which I work. I often eat scraps for meals. I am not afforded proper bathroom breaks. I get no sick leave at all whatsoever. And I'm tired of it. Let's organize! Union!

(Another) Stroke of Genius

Sophie: What comes after Sunday?
Me: Monday
Sophie: And then what?
Me: Tuesday
Sophie: And then what?
Me: Wednesday
Sophie: And then what?
Me: Thursday
Sophie: And then what?
Me: Friday
Sophie: And then what?
Me: Shabbat
Sophie: And then what?
Me: Sunday
Sophie: What comes after Sunday again?
Lilah (who had been listening to the whole conversation): Monday

Keeping Busy

To borrow some lyrics from George Harrison, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter. The wind, cold, snow, and ice make winter unbearable for me. The days are short and bitter. Someone is sick at any given time. As if that wasn’t enough to bring me down, I’ve been a parenting by myself for most of the past few months. I have felt like a shadow of my normal self for too long now. It’s been hard. Whenever I am in a rut, funk, or just a difficult period of time, my strategy for surviving it is to stay busy. As Lucille Ball once said, "keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.” I believe this. It does work. Staying busy and telling myself that this period of time will pass gives me the motivation to keep on keeping on. And that makes me feel like I am doing a good job. I just try to get through each day. Several days become several weeks and several months. Before long I am looking back over the past months feeling satisfied that I survived them, and knowing that I will survive the next ones. I keep busy by signing us up for music classes, mommy and me, playgroups, and other activities. I arrange play dates and dinner company. I plan events and stay busy with the planning, executing, and recovering from them.

Recently we celebrated Sophie's birthday:



My birthday:

And had a family and family friends reunion of sorts:

I’m already onto the next things: Shimmy’s birthday (his 30^th!), Purim, and Lilah’s birthday. It’s good to stay busy. I know this difficult period of time will pass… Punxsutawney Phil predicts an early spring and I believe it. There is no snow in the forecast for the first time in weeks. I can see patches of grass. I have seen and heard birds outside- actual birds, not just the wretched crows that pick at the neighbors’ trash! I see that ice slowly melting. Smiles are returning to the faces. Here comes the sun.

Four Years of Birthdays

Happy Birthday to my sweet Sophia Grace :)

Good (Mama)Vibrations

Once, when I was pregnant with Sophie, I had a vivid dream. I dreamt I was this mama fish. I was in the deep sea, swimming along the ocean floor and there was some sort of predator, a bigger fish, perhaps. My heart was pounding as I tried to herd (school?) all of my baby fish to safety under a large rock/coral thing. It was so real. I woke up feeling panicked and exhausted. It was my first time experiencing that protective mother feeling and I hadn’t even given birth yet!

We have always had a fish tank in our home. I used to think of the fish as I think of a houseplant. It’s something nice to look at, it requires some care once in a while, and that’s about it. Since becoming a mom; however, the fish have become other beings that I care for. And, I SWEAR to you that they know I am the mama. If anyone else is in the room, they hardly notice. They go about their regular business of swimming and poking around. As soon as I WALK PAST THE DOORWAY they immediately form a school and all swim to the top of the tank. It’s so obvious that Shimmy even acknowledges it. And I can’t ignore them. It’s as if one of my children is standing at my feet asking to be held. If I haven’t fed the fish that day, I will feed them. If I have just fed them an hour earlier, I will stand there and talk to them for a while. It’s like they can just sense my mama vibes. And I accept this. I know I am the nurturer of the house and that this applies to nurturing every living thing, be it a human, a fish, or a plant.

Going about their business:

I've been spotted:

HI, MAMA!!!