On Sunday morning, my husband and I traveled to Jerusalem with the five youngest kids (almost 15, 11, 7, 6, 6) to be with my oldest son’s family for the “chalake” (first haircut) of his three year old son.

I was apprehensive about attending; this was the first time since the twins came over a year ago that we planned an outing like this and I was concerned about how they would deal with the long travel time, the large number of people, and the kind of effort it would take to supervise them.

But they handled it beautifully! I marvel thinking about how carefully we had to navigate every small situation a year ago, and now there were loads of people in an unfamiliar setting with stimulation of all kinds, mostly things I didn’t know to expect so didn’t prepare them for – and they took it in stride and enjoyed it all.

The chalake was beautiful; our son and his wife are a great team, it was a beautiful event and of course our grandson is adorable. It was lovely to be with all of the extended family on our side and my daughter-in-law’s side, whom we only see when there’s a family celebration. The company and food was wonderful and we spent four hours there instead of the two hours we anticipated.

We finally headed for home at 5:30 pm but hit unexpected delays on the highway. By 7 pm, I thought it would be a good idea time to stop at a rest stop to give everyone dinner and let them run around. My past experience has been that stopping for a break at a time of congestion ends up saving travel time: by the time you get back on the road the traffic is flowing freely again so you can travel much more quickly.

That was unfortunately not the case that night. After an extended dinner and play break at the rest stop, I assumed the children would fall asleep quickly in the car; if we had been traveling faster than five to ten kilometers an hour, that probably would have happened.

Instead, our tired and overextended children couldn’t stop picking at each other, physically and verbally. I commented to my husband that all that irritability is why people have screens in their vehicles to keep their children occupied instead of having to deal with their boredom and behaviors.

We’re faced with choices every day; how you respond time after time determines the person you become. My husband and I could verbally agitate about our own exasperation at the unusual congestion at a time and place there is rarely traffic and the difficulties of dealing with the kids in this situation. We could try to control our growing irritation at the repeated picking at one another, and try to patiently remind them to keep their hands to themselves and speak kindly.

Or we could embrace it as an opportunity. If it was sent to us, there’s something better we could do with it than tolerate it.

We decided to put on some music to shift the mood.

It instantaneously changed the atmosphere in the car. Not just for the kids, but for me. I was driving and was so tired that speaking was an effort; I had been up since 4:15 am and it was about 8:30 pm by that time. Initially I wanted to listen to something different we hadn’t heard before, and then realized the kids would enjoy familiar music much more.

So my husband put on a song they knew well and the kids cheered in delight! That was the end of any conflict and quarreling for the next two hours. We sang song after song together for the next ninety minutes, sometimes with clapping, sometimes with exaggerated funny or happy voices.

At 10 pm the traffic finally broke up and after ten minutes of driving at a normal speed, the four youngest were all soundly asleep. I turned off the music and my husband and I enjoyed an adult conversation for the final forty minutes of the drive. (Yes, it took us over five hours to get home.) At 10:45 pm we finally got home and we walked the kids straight to their beds.

It wasn’t an easy trip, but it was a very good trip, and all of us were left with a good feeling about the entire day.

Avivah