A Year in Mommy Land

Shimshony Baloney- I will eventually have to stop calling him this.

My big girl with a bruise on her head. She's a climber, it happens. 

Reading older posts, from Naomi Bracha's early babyhood, I realize that so many milestones have gone by! 

She walks, she talks a bit, she 'helps', she goes to Gan (preschool). Shimshon has teeth- I'm not even sure how many! This is because he is my second child- with Naomi I knew how many teeth, how many days and weeks and months old she was, and so on. He walks a bit and is going to need real shoes (as opposed to Robeez) for Sukkos. They play little games together. 

Nowadays, I have to remind myself that Shimshon, my tiny baby, is big enough to actually play at the park. I think of her as the climber and interactor, and him as the baby in the stroller who is content to watch the branches sway in the breeze and hear the birds overhead and the sounds of the playground. Not so!
His favorite activity on the playground is to plant himself at the bottom of the slide and wait for children to basically crash into him. No joke. He also enjoys trying to eat all the bits of litter on the playground and pick up any broken glass he finds...

Rosh Hashana is on Sunday night. Shimshon's birthday is Rosh Chodesh Elul so a year ago, he was one month old and Naomi was 13 months- exactly the age that Shimshon will be on Rosh Hashana of this year. All I remember from last year's Rosh HaShana, other than the meals that people either hosted us for, or sent to our house (you know who you are and thank you so much), was a conflict: the need for Naomi Bracha to go to the park, vs. my inability to look after them both simultaneously in the park.My husband, like all husbands, was in shul (synagogue) for most of the day, and I had long hours with them that needed to be filled with park time.

But at the park, Shimshon needed to be held all. the. time. I couldn't just leave him in the bassinet at the perimeter of the playground and chase after Naomi Bracha in the park, or he would scream. Yet Naomi needed to be supervised all. the. time.

Last Rosh Hashana, I remember holding him, a one-month-old, while diving Vietnam-style to save her when she toddled over to a swing set full of big kids and sat down in the line of fire. She didn't yet have spatial awareness or a sense of danger, but she could get around all the same. It was scary.

I also remember a lady coming up to me, asking the age difference between my kids, and saying 'don't even try to cook for the next three months!' It made me feel better but I cooked anyway because, well, we were hungry. 

This year has flown by. For three main reasons:

1) I've been busier (Baruch Hashem) with my semi-twins than ever before- early mornings, mealtimes, bedtimes, bath times, multiple clothing changes per day, projects, doctor's appointments, pajamas, etc etc. 

2) We've moved out of the city and back in, within the year. That's a lot of packing and unpacking, and a lot of change. 

3) I've gone through 3 career changes (from a work-from-home tax job aka my attempt to be normal, to running a school of the arts, to focusing solely on private and group vocal coaching) since Shimshon's birth, excluding performing in Escalators which I was doing all along. Well, I was also teaching voice all along. But it wasn't my sole focus. 

These moves and the career choices were all made with the Daas Torah (consultation with our Rav) and I strongly recommend this to anyone. Don't ask questions to your Rav on Halacha alone- ask about priorities, ask about relationships, ask about your livelihood, ask about parenting! We have seen major bracha come from following our Rav's advice (okay he's a Rebbe but he's a Rav as well). It also allows us to make decisions from a broader perspective, and feel peaceful and clear about them, at the end of the day.

So this was my year in Mommy Land. I hope that I have progressed spiritually, just as my children have progressed physically. I hope I am more coordinated, more capable, more developed in my character traits than ever before. How was your year?