In the past I’ve been matter of fact when reserving a wedding hall, but this time, I cheered out loud after putting down the phone and finding out a hall was available for the date we wanted.

We found something quickly and easily, and I’m relieved and grateful to have a spacious and comfortable hall that will amply accommodate all of our guests. My hope is that everyone involved will feel it is a joyous and expansive event.

I have already reserved the hall and caterer, and sent the advance partial payment to each, and contacted the band to let them know about the location change.

In the last few weeks, every time I spoke with my son about wedding plans, he’d ask me what was happening and sounded stressed. I kept trying to be reassuring, saying, “It’s fine, I’m not organizing it but someone else is; this is what’s happening and it’s going to be done.” When I told him the night of my last post that I had spoken to his kallah and was considering a location change, I expected him to sound even more stressed.

I was surprised that he was very chilled and positive about the possibility. He had absolutely no concern about the location being changed at this late stage.

The next morning, I called my son to tell him I found a wedding hall available for the date we wanted. When I told him which it was, he told me it was the hall he liked most! I had no idea – after they got engaged I asked what he preferred as far as a hall, and he said he didn’t really care, as long as his kallah was happy.

But he did care. So finding out I was about to reserve the hall he was most partial to added to my happiness.

I spoke to him later that day and updated him, letting him know I had booked the hall and the caterer, and filling him in on some other details. He sounded pleased about it all. I told him, “I don’t understand. Every time I spoke to you about wedding plans, you sounded stressed; now I’m making these changes at this point, and you sound so relaxed and calm. Why?”

He told me that now that I’m in charge of arranging the details, he feels more relaxed because I have a lot of experience.

My energy has shifted from being uneasy about the wedding to feeling relaxed and positive again. It wasn’t easy for me to speak up – it really was unpleasant to bring up concerns that could inconvenience and frustrate others because of the late date – but I’m so glad I did. I was concerned there was a likelihood for a lot of frustration with so many different details to coordinate in making a non-wedding hall into a wedding hall. I hope that it will be a relaxed and enjoyable wedding for everyone.

Avivah

PS – You may be wondering about how much more this upgrade is going to cost. We’ll actually be spending a drop less for a much larger and nicer hall, double the guests for the meal and a couple of nicer touches that we weren’t going to have before, as well as the planning being much more streamlined. Isn’t that nice?

I always have a full schedule but the last month has been over- the-top busy.

I recently noticed that I’m overreacting to things the kids are doing that I don’t like. Yes, sometimes whatever it is is annoying, but I have demonstrated high levels of patience and forbearance in situations much more challenging than these. So I know it’s not the situation that’s the problem, but something about me.

When reflecting on this, I realized two things:

Realization 1: I have too many time dependent activities I need to be at with the kids. I’ve known for years about myself that time pressure brings out my absolute worst qualities, and to compensate, try to build margin around time dependent activities and schedule them cautiously.

Well, cautious scheduling is not what I have going on now. There are many appointments to take care of in addition to extracurricular summer activities for the kids at home in Camp Mommy, and I’ve been out daily with the kids at these different commitments. I realized, I’ve got too much going on and I’ve got to cut this down.

All of the doctor/dental/hearing test stuff has to be done, as do visitations with the twins’ parents, a National Insurance committee meeting to determine eligibility for ds6 since the country is changing the rules of child allowances for foster children, social worker visits, preparatory school meetings – but I have changed what I can and that has made a difference.

In the last week we’ve finished the swimming lessons that had us out three days a week, and cancelled horseback riding, which I had only recently begun two weeks before. (That decision deserves a post of its own because it was a very empowering choice.)

I enjoy going out with the kids daily for some kind of activity, particularly now that it’s the Nine Days and they can’t use the pool. Going out breaks up our day and is a nice change of pace for us all. It’s not a time pressure when it’s dependent on me, I can go where and when I want, and stay as long or as short a time as I want.

A couple of recent outings included:

Playing with newborn puppies- We were invited by one of our Shabbos guests to come visit his newborn puppies. The puppies still had their eyes shut and were crawling around; we were there quite a long time and the kids enjoyed them very much. We were invited to come regularly to play with them and we will probably go back, but I won’t make a commitment to a regular day or time because I don’t want to create pressure for myself.

Another trip was to the public sprinklers in the center of Tiberias. We packed a picnic lunch and the kids had a wonderful time. It’s fascinating to watch how much enjoyment children can generate with almost no props – other than two plastic bags they found, it was just the sprinklers. But they played with the water in various ways, had different kinds of races with one another, and just kept finding new ways to entertain themselves in this one area.

I find that the lower key an activity is, the less expectation and pressure there is and the more enjoyment we all have. This morning I was thinking of taking the kids to the cable cars in Haifa, but hesitated, wondering if it would be worth the effort to find parking and then the money spent. Instead, I took them to a park in the city we were in that I found after cruising around for just a few minutes. The park was built on a steep hill so there were four levels to the park – each level had just a couple of items on it; there was nothing spectacular or especially engaging about any individual part of it. But the kids loved going from one level to another, and we spent almost three hours there.

Realization 2: I have been recognizing that I’m using all of my patience in the course of a day and don’t have extra margin. And that’s true.

It’s also true that our physical capacities are affected by our thoughts, and I’m disempowering myself by defining myself as having my patience maxxed out, and mentally going over all the things I’m doing to explain to myself why I’m feeling my patience is wearing thin.

I was out with the kids for eight hours today – it was a really good day for everyone but tiring as well. I was driving home at the end of all of the activities and the thought flashed through my mind, “I’m so tired.” Then I caught myself and asked myself, why am I telling myself that? Why not think about how energized I am by the things I do, how blessed I am to have plenty of energy to do all that I need to do, how patient and loving a parent I am? That’s a much more helpful focus and feels a lot better, and it’s just the flip side of the same coin. We can focus on what isn’t and what we aren’t, or on what we is good and what we want to be.

Can you see how thinking the two different sets of thoughts will impact how a person feels?

I truly have a lot going on now, that requires me to carefully and proactively schedule commitments to myself and others in to my planner so that everything gets done and I still get sleep. I burned the candle at both ends for too many years, and I choose not to shortchange myself in that way anymore.

Every day when I start to feel a little tense about how much I’m doing, I remind myself how grateful I am that I can do the things that are important to me, that my schedule is full of things that are meaningful and stimulating for me. And I mean it. But you can’t say it too often!

Avivah