Sunday, June 19, 2005

Exhaustion

So here I am in the Galut (aka America) and Shabbat ended a little while ago. I have two more "Shabbatot" here, and I'm afraid this might kill me.

My parents are not sabbath observant, and my four year old has started to notice. Not even discussing the halachic problems I had here, here are a few of the questions/statements I received from my daughter:
  • *I want a hardboiled egg for breakfast just like my cousin.
  • Why can't I go for a ride in the car with my Aunt and Grandma?
  • **Why is Grandpa mowing the lawn on Shabbat?
Let's not discuss the fact that there is no eruv there, and the weather was sunny and nice, so we were outside much of the day. This brings up issues of carrying, moving chairs, spreading sunscreeen...

Luckily, some fellow bloggers will be in the area this week, and maybe I will have someone to sympathize with me.


* That one was solved with a combination of a promised egg that she could make herself on Sunday, and a few cookies---the cookies were used a few other times during the day.

**I said something along the lines of Grandpa has lots to do, so he doesn't like to rest on Shabbat...she actually responded that she likes resting on Shabbat :)

4 comments :

treppenwitz said...

We go through the same challenges when we visit with my parents in CT. All I can say is it is an unparallelled opportunity to teach kids (and parents) about tolerance and acceptance. And you'd be surprised how flexible a kids worldview is if you don't make too big a deal out of things.

Send regards to Psychotoddler for me... we haven't seen each other in years!

Oh, and obviously have a safe trip home.

PsychoToddler said...

Hang on! We're coming as fast as we can!

I've had similar situations myself BTW. It's hard to explain the subtleties to a 4 year old. And you definitely don't want to do anything to give them a negative impression of your folks. Still, the "it's ok for them, but not us" is hard to comprehend, even for adults.

Liza said...

Hi! Great surprise to find your blog, and am really enjoying reading it! Looking forward to checking out more entries. Regards, Your first ever friend in USY (think you can figure it out...)

Safranit said...

Yes, Ly_ly...I know who you are :)

Nice to see you stop by...now it is time for you to get to work on your own blog ;)