Avivah Werner

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  • Be willing to follow through to your children even if it’s hard

    After the bar mitzva weekend ended, one of my daughters stayed with her family for the rest of the week. We all really enjoyed having them for an extended stay.

    One morning the twins had a visitation with their father and for the rest of the day they needed repeated reminders about boundaries. I was exhausted by the end of the day! The nice feedback at the end of it all was when my daughter told me she learned about not giving in by watching me.

    In our home, our guidelines are that we don’t hurt people – not with our bodies and not with our words.

    Of course, just saying that doesn’t mean that everyone complies with the guidelines. If someone hurts someone physically, they get a five minute break to cool down, while sitting on the couch or on my lap, never being sent to a separate room. In those five minutes, they need to stay quiet because when children are actively verbalizing (usually their hostility), they aren’t able to feel the regret of what they did. So the five minutes begins once they are quiet.

    After that, I briefly address what they did, asking them what they think would be a good thing to do show they are sorry, and they generally apologize and hug the other person. (This response was internalized after a lot of conversations and repeated practice.)

    On this day, dd7, ds7 and ds8 were in the pool together. I heard crying from the two boys, and it quickly became obvious that dd7 had pinched both of them hard. I told her to come out of the pool for five minutes.

    Emboldened by the fact she was in the pool and seemingly untouchable, she yelled at me that she’s not coming out. I reminded her when someone hurts someone, they need to sit quietly for five minutes. She yelled at me again, “I’m not sitting for five minutes, I’m not coming out now, and I’m not coming out ever!”

    Them’s fightin’ words. 🙂 She’s thrown down the gauntlet.

    I calmly told her that it’s disrespectful to yell at Mommy and she’ll need to sit quietly for fifteen minutes instead of five. Fifteen minutes is the maximum I’ll have a child sit quietly and that’s when a child is really out of hand and needs more time to get regulated.

    She yelled at me again, this time adding hitting motions towards me with the toy in her hand, with a slight smile on her lips. She was sure she had the upper hand since she was in the pool and seemingly unreachable by me.

    “You need to come out now, and it’s better if you come out by yourself than if I have to help you get out.” (This is said in a calm voice, not threatening and not escalating my tone.) Her response – more refusal.

    I had clarified with her that she knew what she was supposed to do, I let her know she’d need to sit for 15 minutes for being disrespectful to me in addition to hurting two brothers, and I made sure she realized I was going to take her out if she didn’t come out on her own. My position was clear.

    I made a move towards her and she began to move to another part of the pool to evade me, with that same little smile.

    I’m not getting into power struggles with children. If it’s important enough for me to say something twice, I’m going to follow through, even if it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient for me. If you aren’t willing to follow through, don’t make verbalize an expectation of your child because he’ll learn you don’t mean what you say.

    I wasn’t going to make a mockery of myself trying to chase her from outside the pool while she swam away from side to side laughing. But I wasn’t going to overlook the challenge to my authority.

    Without saying anything else, I went to my room and changed into a bathing suit. I went back outside, and her eyes widened as I climbed into the pool. Still not saying anything, I took her in my arms. I went to the ladder with her, and she insisted she wasn’t going to go on the ladder. She was still trying to maintain control of the interaction.

    Since what matters to me was that she got out of the pool, not specifically using the ladder, I lifted her over the side. I hardly said anything during this time; the talking time had passed and now it was about action.

    I carried her inside, put her on my lap, and reminded her she’d be sitting for fifteen minutes. She screamed and threw herself on the floor. This is classic testing behavior, when the child wants to see if you’ll stand your ground or not. It’s much easier to consistently stand your ground since if you sometimes give in to the screaming, it reinforces to the child that it’s worth it to act out because maybe this time is the time you’ll give in.

    I told her we’d start the time when she was sitting quietly. She continued yelling and scooting around all over the floor. I picked her up and put her on the stairs, and told her this is where she needed to sit.

    She finally quieted down, and after fifteen minutes, I told her she could get up and gave her a hug and kiss. What is always interesting to me is how peaceful a child becomes after what looks like a battle of wills.

    They’ve fought for their ability to be in control, and while it looks like they want to win, they don’t – they want to know you’re strong enough to take care of them. It gives them a feeling of security and safety, because they know they’ve crossed a line, they know they’re getting out of control, and it doesn’t feel good to them. There’s an inner calmness that I feel from them after an interaction like this.

    Below are questions from my last parenting post that I’ll respond to here.

    >>What would you have done if other children also needed individual or group attention at the same time? Can this be effective even if you are intermittently responding?<<

    In the beginning of the interaction is when you decide if you have the ability to follow through. If you can’t, put it to the side and don’t verbalize expectations that you can’t reinforce. At the same time, other children are watching and learning from how you handle the situation, so there is magnified value in your interaction when other children are there.

    I’d generally recommend to focus your attention on this child at the moment as much as possible to address the situation as quickly and effectively as possible, but if you can stay consistent with interruptions from other children, then go ahead. The reality of living with a house full of children is that others will need attention and much of the time it’s not realistic to exclusively interact with one child.

    Sometimes you recognize that moment isn’t the best time to be addressing the issue, and you can choose to put it to the side. For example, in my last post detailing a situation with my daughter, I was asked:

    >>I am wondering, what did you do with the kicking situation referenced in the beginning of the post? And what would you have done if she would not have calmed by you holding her outside by the bus, but would have been kicking and screaming?<<<<

    I had very limited time that morning, she was very emotionally volatile and due to those circumstances it wasn’t a teaching moment. As such, I didn’t raise the issue of her having kicked them since I couldn’t deal with it at that moment, but the boys knew that I knew she hurt them and was dealing with her, even though I didn’t have her sit for quiet time.

    As to what I would have done if she wouldn’t have calmed down when we were outside, I had that exact situation a couple of days later. It really depends what your priority is: I knew she was hoping she could stay home and my priority was to make sure she got on the bus. Therefore, I carried her onto the bus and put her seat belt on her myself.

    >> My 12 year old daughter does something similar when she is upset. How do you suggest calming a 12 year old who is screaming and getting angry about “little” things and trying to get the mother to fight back? I try to keep my calm voice and stay firm with my answer/decision but she continues…or refuses to do what she needs to do until I give in to her demand.<<

    I think the last part of your comment is the answer. A child will keep on trying to get her way until you give in, or she gives in. When she knows you’re going to stand your ground, she learns that it’s not worth the fight and everything gets much easier after that point.

    About the child who is trying to get you angry about little things:

    I want to clarify that I don’t advocate getting into power struggles. Communicating respectfully, listening to what they want and trying to find a way to help them get what they want is very important. Kindness matters! It’s not about making them bend to your will all of the time but about teaching them to respect you.

    As I wrote that last paragraph,dd7 woke up. Since it’s early in the morning, I told her it’s not yet time to get up, and she can take a book to look at in her bed for another half hour. She said she didn’t want to be in her bed in her room by herself. This isn’t disobedience – this is a child expressing what they want and now I need to find a way to meet both of our needs.

    I’m not going to insist she lay in her bed because that’s not what matters to me – what matters is that she lies down quietly. I told her she can bring out a mattress or a blanket to the living room and lay on the floor if she wants. (Both couches are occupied by the boys who woke up early and laid there when I told them it’s too early to get up.)

    She told me water spilled on the mattress and she wants a towel to put on top of it, so I got up to get a towel and spread it on the mattress for her. Now she’s laying on her mattress close by where I’m sitting.

    Let me know in the comments below if this clarified what you were wondering about, or if this brings up more questions for you.

    Avivah

  • The bar mitzva was so special!

    We had such a beautiful bar mitzva celebration.

    Here’s a message from someone who attended synagogue services on Shabbos morning:

    I had such a great time in shul. It was so heart warming to see all of Yirmi’s friends and fans coming together.

    It was so touching and encouraging to hear his Torah reading. Some were moved to tears.

    How blessed he is to have been put in such competent hands as yours, Avivah.

    I was surprised by how crowded it was during the Torah reading, and as it led up to Yirmi reading his portion, it was packed. I wasn’t focused on everyone around me, though, because my heart was full as I looked down at my son, waiting to begin his Torah reading.

    As I stood there, scenes from the last thirteen years flooded my mind. I expected we would be right here at this moment from the time he was very young. But it wasn’t a straightforward or easy path. The background to all of these years have been my steadfast conviction that regardless of the Down syndrome diagnosis, he is capable and intelligent, and should be treated as such.

    He sat calmly, handsome in his new suit and hat, waiting to be called to the Torah, and I knew he wasn’t nervous at all. When he was called up, first by his older brothers singing together for him (Yaamod) and then by the gabbai, he confidently began reading.

    I choked up, thinking of the years getting to this point.

    Not just last year when I learned an approach to teaching Hebrew reading to children with reading delays and then taught him myself, because the approach in his school was too slow and he wouldn’t have been ready for his bar mitzva. At the same time I learned the Verbal Motor Learning approach for speech and took him for private sessions for a year to work on articulation. That was last year.

    But there was so much more, year after year. Often I put in effort but didn’t follow through as I would have liked to, and wondered how much of a difference whatever I was doing made.

    Afterward a number of women came over to me to tell me how beautifully he read. Several were surprised to learn he had leined the maftir rather than the parsha because of the concern that his speech wasn’t clear enough for the parsha, and told me they had no problem understanding his leining. A number of them shared that they were crying as they listened to him.

    I had thought of this as our family celebration that we were sharing with the community, but as I listened to the women I realized that they saw it as a celebration for our entire community. Naturally as a mother my focus is on my child and what support to give him, but over Shabbos as I heard different feedback about Yirmi, I was able to zoom out and see a bigger picture.

    I’m never going to make raising a child with a disability sound like rainbows and unicorns, because it’s not. Raising children is hard work, and if your child has an extra challenge, it’s even harder. Yirmi is a young man with a lot of personality and independence, and it has required – and continues to need – a lot of energy raising him.

    It’s important for me to step back and recognize his accomplishments, to simply appreciate and enjoy him.

    ———————–

    I attended a retreat for mothers of children with Down syndrome the previous week, and it’s only been in the last year that I’ve understood what a parent of an older child with DS told me when Yirmi was two and a half. She told me, “You’re a very unusual special needs parent.” I asked her then why she said that, and I didn’t understand her answer. I told her I don’t do anything that any parent wouldn’t do.

    But ten years later, I now see what she meant. I was very aware of this at the retreat and also at the year end school party for both of my sons with DS. It’s obvious I have a different attitude toward raising my children than most of them. Maybe the mothers who think like me have their kids integrated in regular schools or maybe it’s just the minority of parents in any given setting who will be more proactive.

    What I recognized was that my expectations for my sons are different and my level of involvement in their lives is different. Expectations set the tone for what you do and how you do it.

    At the end of the year IEP meeting for ds8 (who also has Down syndrome), after saying that he is doing well in an area that most of his classmates struggle with, his teacher commented that most of the mothers would be jealous of me. That raised my hackles a bit and I told her, “No one has any right to be jealous of me. I took responsibility for this and didn’t leave it to the teachers. I did what they didn’t want to do. That’s fine, but I don’t want to hear how lucky I am.”

    Being actively involved with your child with special needs doesn’t mean that you’re going to get spectacular results. That’s not my goal and neither of my boys are poster children with impressive accomplishments. I don’t raise any of my children to be impressive, but to do what they can as best they can, without pressure. I do my part to be actively involved with supporting my children. So far that’s worked really well for us as a family with all of our children, and that’s the road I’ll continue to travel.

    Avivah

  • My card was declined at the checkout

    I made a trip to the store to pick up the things I needed for my son’s school birthday party and some items for the bar mitzva – cheese, vegetables, cake, snack bags, paper goods, drinks.

    I ran my card to pay, and the cashier told me, ‘Declined.’

    I thought I didn’t hear correctly. “What?”

    “Your card was declined.”

    “That’s not possible.” I ran it again. It was declined.

    Shrugging, I took out cash and paid for my purchase.

    When I got home, I checked my bank account. There was a healthy balance, the same as the night before when I reviewed my account. I had made a large transfer to the bank holding my mortgage to pay off a chunk of the principle the night before, and wondered if my bank had blocked my card for something related to that, but didn’t have time to call about it.

    As I thought about the potential embarrassment I could have felt that morning at the store, I realized that budgeting and being clear about my money kept me from feeling shame in the moment.

    Having your card declined can feel humiliating. But at that moment it was declined, I knew I had money in my account, I knew I was well within my spending limits, and I knew there had to be a mistake. So I didn’t feel embarrassed.

    Early the next morning I went out to the hardware store and, cash in hand just in case there was a problem, ran the card at the checkout. It was fine. Apparently the blip had been related to the first store, not to my card.

    Avivah

  • This is what progress in therapy looks like

    I began taking my seven year old daughter to therapy a year and a half ago, and she’s making great progress. Her therapist is very happy with how well she’s doing. A child in foster care is often afraid to express his authentic self out of fear that he won’t be accepted, so he supresses his real emotions in order to be the child he thinks you want.

    She’s had everything locked inside of her, and is beginning to express anger about her early years in her sessions. That’s really good, because you want whatever emotions have been pushed down to come out.

    That anger can’t be relegated to the therapy room once a week, though. It comes out at home. A lot.

    This began to be pronounced a couple of months ago. Every morning started with her being upset about something – eyes flashing defiance, she refused to do whatever she was meant to do in that moment. It didn’t really matter what the specifics were; whatever she claimed the issue was, was really just the pretext for her to get upset.

    We have a calm and predictable morning routine and there’s nothing to oppose except getting dressed and eating breakfast. So she refused to put on her clothes – maybe refusing to get dressed at all, or wearing this shirt, or wearing certain shoes.

    One day it was insisting she was going to wear her Shabbos shoes to school. She refused to put on any other shoes and when I finally put her school shoes on her since it was time for go out for the school bus, she screamed and cried until her eyes were red and puffy. (Below I’ll explain why I didn’t let her wear something else.)

    Heaven help any of the boys who look in her direction when she’s feeling unhappy, because she’ll scream at them for looking at her. It’s not easy to live with and my teens try to find humor in her screeching (commenting out of her earshot, “it’s amazing how loud one little girl can scream” or smiling wryly at me as I’m dealing with her). Both boys have enormous patience and tolerance, though they occasionally reach their limits and have asked how they’re supposed to respond when she is obnoxious towards them.

    When the younger children were having breakfast one morning, I went out of the room for a few minutes and returned in time to see to see her walk over and kick my eight year old, unprovoked. My thirteen year old told me that she kicked him right before that.

    While the screaming happens at all times of day, it’s far from all negative. She experiences and expresses a lot of genuine joy. Often I’ll hear her making up songs and singing about how happy she is. But there’s a lot of pain and confusion inside, and learning to navigate all of that emotion will take a lot of time.

    There’s a impulse to react to a child’s anger with your own anger, but that will always exacerbate everything. The most important thing a parent can do when your child is dysregulated, is to stay calm. You are their external brain; their brains can’t modulate themselves in the moment without help from you. It’s only when you stay calm that they can calm down.

    Your voice will naturally go up when you’re emotionally escalating, and the more your tone goes up, so will your negative emotion. One way to help keep yourself calm is to lower your voice and keep your tone level. Your outer actions will impact your own feelings, not just those of the child. My controlled tone calms me and keeps me from escalating my own emotions.

    There’s also a tendency to want to avoid conflict when a child is so easily upset. That sometimes that means letting things go in the moment because of the heightened emotions. Sometimes that’s the right thing to do, but I’m very, very cautious about giving too much leeway because there’s risk that the child will begin to see himself as able to get his way by acting out, or to think he controls the dynamics of the family.

    To have a feeling of safety and security, a child needs to know his parents are reliably in charge. It’s important that dd7 knows that she and her anger do not run this family. I do. Especially in the midst of strong emotion when it seems like the last thing she wants is to for me to stand my ground, she needs it.

    In the midst of getting dressed one morning, she came out and defiantly announced she’s going to wear the white shirt she put on because she can’t find any of her uniform shirts. They’re allowed to wear a white shirt, so I didn’t have a problem with her wearing it.

    But the disrespectful way she was speaking to me was an issue, and it was also an issue that she was telling me something that I knew wasn’t true (that she couldn’t find her uniform shirts).

    I said, “Hmm, your shirts are in your closet.”

    “Well, I didn’t see them.”

    I could completely have let this go. It really didn’t matter to me what shirt she wore. But being truthful goes together with taking personal responsibility, and those are very important.

    She was in the middle of putting on her tights, and I said, “Come with me now and let’s look in your closet together.” Her, yelling and refusing: “No, I’m putting on my tights.”

    I didn’t say anything. I took her hand and we walked to her room together despite her reluctance. I opened the closet, and there were three uniform shirts hanging there. They were impossible not to see. “I see there are three shirts here.”

    Her: “But I didn’t see them.”

    Me: “You didn’t look for the shirts so you didn’t see them. It’s okay if you want to wear a white shirt. But it’s not okay to tell me you looked for them if you didn’t, because that’s telling me something that isn’t true. (That’s enough said about that issue. Now I’ll move on to addressing the next issue.) If you want to wear something different, you can ask me in a nice way. Now, do you want to ask me something?”

    Her: “Mommy, please can I wear this shirt today?” (said with a pleasant tone)

    Me: “Yes, you can wear this shirt. If you’re going to wear this shirt, you need to turn it around because it’s backward. Can you do that?”

    She went back to her room and made the adjustments. She came out and wanted breakfast. I reminded her that everyone has to be ready for school before they eat, and asked her to bring a brush so I could fix her hair first. (This is the guideline for every single day so this wasn’t something new to her.)

    She began screaming again. This time I didn’t say anything else. You have to recognize when you can talk and when a child can hear you. We already had the dialogue above, and more talking would have been too much.

    I got the brush, gave her a hug, and calmly began brushing her hair. When I finished, unsurprisingly there wasn’t enough time for her to eat. (I told her earlier that it was getting late and that she needed to get ready then so she would have enough time to eat, which she ignored.) Understandably, she screamed more.

    I picked her up and held her. At first she was rigid like a board, but then she softened and put her cheek against my cheek. I held her for a couple of minutes. It was time to go outside to wait for her school van, and she wanted me to carry her there (trying to dictate my actions again – she needs tremendous consistency in my responses), but I told her I would hold her when we got to where we wait for the bus. We walked outside hand in hand together; I picked her up when we got there and held her until it was time to go on the bus. She went to school calm and regulated.

    Let me know in the comments if detailing this example of how I maintaining my boundaries with dd7 who was very dysregulated, while remaining firm and kind was helpful. Also let me know if you have questions about what I did or why.

    Avivah

  • Bar mitzva upcoming!

    How time flies by! I clearly remember writing the posts in which I shared with you when we received a surprise diagnosis of Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) after our son’s birth, and the uncanny feeling I had before he was born. And here we are, a week before his bar mitzva.

    Years ago I imagined that when he became bar mitzva it would be a huge celebration, that we would invite every teacher and therapist involved during the years. But it’s not going to be like that at all. First of all, we now live quite a distance from those who provided services in the past, so it’s not realistic for them to come. Secondly, we’ve raised him just like all of our other children, and it’s appropriate for him to have the same kind of bar mitzva they had – family centered and low key. He’s not going to have something radically different just because he has Down syndrome.

    He is the first of our sons to become bar mitzva since my father-in-law’s passing two years ago, and has the merit to inherit his grandfather’s tefillin. He began putting them several weeks ago, and within two days was putting them on independently.

    Since his school van comes early in the morning, he initially put on tefillin after he got home at around 2 pm. But he prefers to daven in shul in the morning like his siblings, so he’s found his own solution – on many days he’s been waking himself up around 5:45 so he has time to get dressed and go to shul, then davens and puts on tefillin there, getting back by 7 am – in time for his school bus.

    It’s beautiful to see him step into the role of a bar mitzva boy; we are seeing so much maturation. He’s been looking forward to his bar mitzva since he was eleven and a half, and has talked about it almost every day. I was concerned that the reality would be a let down for him, but that’s not the case so far.

    We had planned that next week he would have a ceremony/party at his school for friends and staff, which includes davening there and reading part of a Torah portion aloud, followed by a meal with his class and staff. But just a couple of days ago that changed, since it will be the Three Weeks when music isn’t allowed. We didn’t realize this would be a significant part of the program and since it’s absence will dramatically change the atmosphere of the party, the party is being rescheduled for September.

    For the meantime, to allay his disappointment, he’ll have a regular birthday party in school next week.

    He wanted to read his parsha/Torah portion in shul on Shabbos and we had hoped he would, but after he had been learning it for a while, we were told that his speech isn’t clear enough for those listening to easily understand him. Instead, he’ll read the maftir.

    This Shabbbos is his actual bar mitzva and this is the maftir he initially prepared, but we couldn’t find a house to rent that would fit all of our family members who will be coming. We did find a place to rent something for next week, so we changed the date to next week and our son has prepared a second maftir reading for that parsha.

    The community will be invited for the kiddush/buffet spread in shul on Shabbos morning. We’ll have three Shabbos meals together with all of our family, and ds has reminded me that we need to do a birthday circle for him. I can’t forget that!

    At the beginning of this week I went away for two and a half days to a mother’s retreat at a hotel opposite the beach, and the quiet time I had for reflection and renewal was priceless. Since I do all the catering myself, I would have liked to have this week and next to do all the baking and cooking I need to do, but having time for myself was important enough for me to push the preparations into a shorter time frame.

    Avivah

  • Anniversary reflections – my past didn’t determine my future

    Today was my wedding anniversary, and when I mentioned it tonight to one of my teens, he said, “Thirty three years, right?”

    “Yes, thirty three wonderful years!” I answered.

    Then I amended for the sake of being honest, “Actually, all of the years weren’t wonderful. Life isn’t always easy and we went through some very challenging times. But no matter what, I was always committed to making our marriage work, even when it felt hard.”

    Sometimes I regret that I didn’t know when I was a young married woman all that I know now about how to be in a relationship. I most regret not appreciating my husband enough and not respecting him enough.

    But what I did right was to keep trying. And there are times that that’s a very, very huge thing to do. Especially with the background that I came from, when divorce was the norm and I’m one of very few women throughout several generations that didn’t divorce.

    I didn’t grow up seeing healthy relationships, I didn’t know how to work out differences and how to communicate about hard things. I didn’t know how to directly ask for my needs to be met. Mostly I stuffed my feelings down, with occasional verbal outbursts when I felt very strained.

    We learn about relationships from the time we’re young, usually without recognizing the messages we’ve absorbed. We don’t generally question those messages because to us, they are the reality of how the world is and we assume it’s the same for everyone.

    I was fortunate (though it felt far from fortunate at the time) that a dramatic and painful event occurred in my life when I was seventeen years old. That event was the cataclysm that led me to everything I am and have today. The very first step was to consider a comment made by a family member: there was an unmistakable multigenerational pattern of dysfunctional and codependent marriages.

    That was far from something a teenager wants to hear, and I could have let that slip past me and discarded it immediately because it was so uncomfortable to consider. I didn’t – I reflected on that insight repeatedly.

    It wondered what caused all of these decent people to be unhappy in their marriages. They must have wanted to have good marriages, just as I did.

    But they didn’t succeed. Maybe because they didn’t know how? Maybe because they never saw it modelled for them? If none of them could do it, what did that mean for me?

    Realizing that I was no different than any of them and I had the same conditioning, I knew it was highly likely I would end up just like them if I didn’t learn new ways of being.

    I went to study overseas and when I was hosted by families, I paid attention to how the spouses interacted with one another. When I saw couples who were consistently kind and respectful of one another, and they invited me to come back, I went back – repeatedly. I doubt they knew how consciously I was observing how they interacted with one another.

    That was the beginning of looking for role models who had what I wanted, and creating a vision for the kind of marriage I wanted to have: one of mutual respect, kindness and love between two best friends.

    Several months into that school year, a friend mentioned having heard about workshops given by Dr. Miriam Adahan based on her EMETT method (Emotional Maturity Established Through Torah). She said she was thinking of going; she was delighted when I told her I’d go with her.

    Shortly after I turned eighteen, I attended my first workshop. My friend went for a while and then stopped, but I continued attending every week for the next four years (continuing through getting engaged, married and having my first two children).

    Around the same time I heard about EMETT, I also heard about a twelve step support program for people whose lives have been affected by someone else’s problematic behaviors. I don’t remember how I found out about that, but I began attending those meetings once a week as well, despite feeling extremely uncomfortable and out of place.

    The year that I attended was a valuable learning opportunity for me. I wasn’t spending these evenings in a way that was typical of students studying overseas for the first time, but I knew I had to do something to change myself if I was going to change my future.

    My involvement in those programs helped me develop self-awareness and learn emotional tools, and I had endless opportunities to practice them. I continued seeking out resources to support ongoing growth and learning throughout the years.

    Many times in my marriage I failed to respond the way I knew to be best. But I kept trying and I never broke the commitment I made to myself before I got married: I would do whatever I could to make things work, and I would never consider divorce. (Obviously, that presumed no abuse.) I had to make that commitment because what I had seen in my life was, ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’.

    —————–

    My husband has said many very nice things to me over the past three decades, but one of the nicest was a casual comment a few years ago.

    “You know, you’re a very pleasant person to live with.”

    I wasn’t always so nice to live with. Sometimes – too often – I was critical and impatient due to my own insecurities and frustration. But when he said this, I knew it wasn’t just his perception, but I had become that kind of person.

    If someone were to look at my first eighteen years, I doubt anyone would have predicted that I would end up with a strong marriage and amazing family. As I look back on thirty three years of marriage, my success came from continuing to take the next small step in the right direction and never giving up.

    Sometimes my efforts seemed almost imperceptible, but over time the small changes made a huge difference. My family life ended up being completely different from the family pattern that I had wanted to avoid so many years ago. I don’t say that with arrogance, but with gratitude and thankfulness.

    Avivah

    PS – To comment and/or read the comments, you’ll need to click on the post and then scroll all the way down.

  • Creating structure at a time of uncertainty – a must

    With the war on, it’s created a lot of uncertainty and changes in the day to day routines of most people. Uncertainty is a very difficult mental state to experience, for adults and children.

    The first day that the war began and it was announced school was cancelled for the day, I assumed that our kids would be home for the summer. I didn’t want to be waiting every day for an update, wondering if and when they’d go back to school. The determination was made immediately and then no mental energy was spent on wondering about it.

    My initial focus at this time was to create a feeling of stability for our family. That meant creating a predictable framework that could allow everyone to mentally relax.

    My routine isn’t rigid and blocked into time slots; it doesn’t need to be. For us, it’s creating a regular flow for the day:

    • wake up
    • get dressed
    • organize the safe room (particularly important since most family members are sleeping in this room)
    • breakfast (sometime between 7 – 8 am)
    • davening
    • learning activities – this includes reading together, playing games
    • snack
    • swimming – the kids go in and out through the day
    • lunch (around 1 pm)
    • quiet time – this is one hour that they need to stay in bed quietly but don’t have to nap
    • afternoon activities – similar to the morning, with a snack mid afternoon
    • dinner (we start between 6 – 6:30 pm)
    • bedtime

    This gives us flexibility at the same time there’s predictability.

    Predictability around food is also an important part of a schedule. While I prefer to plan meals a week in advance, right now I’m planning just a couple of days ahead, and sometimes even the night before. That’s still enough to have time to prep foods that need advance planning, to not feel the pressure at 5 pm of wondering what to make for dinner, and to have a ready answer first thing in the day when asked what we’ll be eating that day.

    I also plan for twice daily snacks. Since the twins still feel food insecurity and tend to ask for food all day long when at home (even right after finishing a meal), being able to tell them what snacks we’ll be having and when we’ll be having them is calming.

    I’m also trying to create some predictability for myself in my early morning so that I have a slice of time to meet my own needs. What worked when the kids were in school doesn’t work with everyone home, so my routine is now: wake up early, go outside immediately to soak in the early morning sun, daven/pray, feed the chickens, water the plants, and if there’s any time left before the kids wake up, sit and enjoy the sounds of nature.

    I do all of this (except davening) while grounding, also called earthing. Grounding is just connecting your body with the earth. Generally this is most easily done barefoot while sitting/standing/walking on the ground. I’m not a barefoot person at all; I get fully dressed the minute I wake up and always have, so this is a conscious shift for me. This is a simple action that has physical and mental benefits, one of which is modulating the autonomic nervous system – but honestly, it just feels good.

    If you’re feeling like things are out of control and stressful, try creating some structure in your day. Structure doesn’t create enjoyment or fun; you determine the kind of activities that you’ll do within the framework you create, so be sure to plan things that give you pleasure.

    There are many things outside of us that we can’t do anything about, but creating a routine puts your focus on something positive you can change that will create a more calm environment in your home.

    Avivah

    PS – I’m going to add this note to the next few messages until readers get used to the new format here. In this format, you can’t see any comments from the main page. To comment and/or read the comments, you’ll need to click on the post and then scroll all the way down.

  • Making mung bean flatbread, mustard, and canning baked beans

    With the kids home all day, there’s always someone asking for something to eat and while I have so many ideas of things to make, ds12 has dietary restrictions that are very limiting. It’s not fair to make foods that he can’t eat and then expect him to decline them when he sees everyone enjoying them. But it takes a lot of the pleasure out of cooking for me when I have so so few base ingredients to use. I like cooking and baking.

    I decided I need to redraw the lines of what I will and won’t make for the summer, and that will mean loosening the boundaries for ds12.

    Our foundation will continue to be high in animal proteins and have no processed foods. Though there are so many fun alternative grains to bake with, I’m choosing to limit them to infrequent appearances. I’ll include beans, potatoes and sweet potatoes regularly, and use more nuts and seeds for baking.

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    In preparation for a couple of meals planned for this week, a couple of days ago I soaked a big pan full of white beans, and another pan full of mung beans.

    After soaking for a day, I drained and rinsed them, then let them sit out for another day to start the sprouting process. Soaking and sprouting beans minimizes leptins, decreases digestive discomfort, and increases the nutritional benefit.

    I used the mung beans to make what were supposed to be wraps but were more like flat breads. The recipe is a simple concept – blend up the soaked mung beans with some water and a drop of salt, then fry them like a large pancake. (You can do something similar with soaked lentils.) I served them with tuna salad, and the kids liked them a lot so it was a successful experiment. I didn’t taste them but one of my teens said they’re perfect with filling but bland eaten on their own. I’ll experiment with adding seasonings next time, which will be in the next couple of days since I still have a large amount of batter waiting to be used. I’m thinking they could be used for enchiladas, burritos, and lasagna, so there are a number of potential ways to use them.

    I cooked all of the white beans on a very low flame overnight, so when I woke up they were ready to use. I made chicken chili for dinner, using chicken breasts that I canned in 2022 (I canned so much meat and chicken in 2022!! ).

    Since I only used six cups of beans for dinner and I had cooked a big pot full, I decided I’d can the remaining beans as baked beans. Every time I can something I’m doing something my future self thanks me for because it makes that future meal easier.

    I pulled up a baked bean recipe that called for barbeque sauce and mustard, neither of which I had in the house. For a moment I thought about reconsidering my intentions, then then realized there wouldn’t be any need to change plans, since I have ingredients and the willingness to cook from scratch.

    So often we don’t realize how many items we’re accustomed to purchasing in the store can be made quickly, easily and resulting in a much higher quality product – right in your own kitchen. And of course it saves you money as well!

    I had never made mustard until tonight, but it was quite simple. I buy mustard seeds to use for pickling, so I blended some into a powder, mixed in vinegar, salt, tumeric, garlic powder and paprika, then cooked the mixture until it thickened. Voila, mustard!

    I then prepared a recipe of barbeque sauce, which was tomato paste, vinegar, water, (brown sugar but I left it out since the tomato paste has sugar added – very annoying but that’s how it’s sold here and for this recipe it evened out), soy sauce, mustard, garlic powder, cumin, onion powder and smoked paprika. It tasted great.

    I mixed the barbeque sauce into the beans, then filled up jars until I used up all the cooked beans in the pot. I popped the five liters of baked beans into the pressure canner, and I’m writing this while waiting for them to finish processing.

    I also have a pan of potatoes baking in the oven for tomorrow’s lunch menu, which will feature double baked potatoes. Dinner will be sweet potato chicken casserole, and I’ll use canned chicken to prepare that. Knowing today what I’ll be serving tomorrow makes tomorrow an easier day.

    Avivah

    PS – I’m going to add this note to the next few messages until readers get used to the new format here. In this format, you can’t see any comments from the main page. To comment and/or read the comments, you’ll need to click on the post and then scroll all the way down.

  • There’s a war on and I’m so glad I did what I did the day it began

    Just a couple of weeks ago I shared that I had been feeling extremely depleted and overextended.

    Getting clarity on what a problem is, is the first step in solving the problem. Seeing very clearly how worn down I was caused me to pause, recognize something needed to change, and look for ways to lighten the burden I was feeling.

    My social worker called me and asked to have a meeting with me without the children present, having heard the alarm of the two therapists I mentioned how impossible life was feeling. When she came last week, I asked her if she had the patience to hear me out, because I wanted to detail what has happened in the order it’s happened since the twins came over two years ago. She said she had the time, and I shared everything that’s been happening, not piecemeal in a brief conversation here or there, but in an organized and systematic timeline.

    She affirmed everything I’ve been experiencing, and at the same time feels concerned that whatever help they can offer won’t make much of a difference. They can’t lighten any of the technical demands for various reasons. I told her any help would be beneficial. Even if there’s no help, being able to share what is happening and be heard was beneficial to me.

    After that conversation it was clear that I need to pursue my own solutions.

    I made arrangements for three of our four youngest children to attend summer camp for a few weeks, reached out to someone regarding cleaning help, and opened a file for my twelve year old son at the local municipality office so that he can attend the full day school program. Relief was on the horizon.

    Wednesday night last week, I asked myself a thought provoking question: “What would my ideal day look like?” My answer included spending time with my husband at the Kineret/Sea of Galillee, with no kids. I shared this with my husband and he immediately agreed to shift his schedule the next morning so we could do just that.

    First thing Thursday morning after putting the kids on their school buses, we drove to the Kineret, where we were unexpectedly blessed with completely empty beaches in all directions. We didn’t swim, but sat with the water lapping at our feet while we enjoyed the sound of the waves, the beautiful views in every direction, and most of all, time together without interruption. It was peaceful and renewing.

    We had less than two hours together, but it was enough for us to feel we had a mini-vacation. When we got home, he got to work and I decided to spend my time going slow before the kids were due home. Nothing externally had changed but we both felt filled up by our time together, and my life always feels better in every way when I have time to connect with my husband in a meaningful way.

    That night, I woke up to the sound of emergency sirens going off. While I was wondering if I needed to wake up all the children and move them to the safe room, an alert began beeping on my phone, notifying us there was imminent danger and we needed to be in proximity of a safe space. That alert alarmed and confused me since I’ve never received any message like this, and I didn’t understand why it was sent or what we were supposed to expect.

    I focused on getting the three youngest boys to the reinforced room (dd’s bedroom) as quickly as possible, while asking my husband and teen boys to put bedding in the room for all of us. They put down mattresses on the floor and we packed every inch of the room as we slept alongside one another.

    The next morning, dd7 exclaimed to me joyfully, “Thank you, Mommy, for everyone sleeping in my room last night!”

    When I saw how positively she processed the experience of the nighttime alarms and everyone moving into her room, it affirmed that the children had perceived us calmly dealing with the situation. It’s critical to a child’s sense of security and safety that he feels his parents are capable of handling whatever is going on. Children take their cues from us, so if we don’t seem worried or alarmed, neither are they.

    I am grateful that shortly before the war with Iran began I had a sliver of time to begin to mentally decompress. I’m very happy that I got to see my daughter and new granddaughter before this situation occurred, as it would be difficult to make the trip to Jerusalem now. And I’m extremely appreciative that my husband and I took the two hours to have a micro getaway.

    The help I was working on isn’t an option any more. There will be no extended school days, there will be no summer camps, and there currently is no school at all. Though no one has said it officially, I assume the kids won’t be going back to school until the coming school year.

    If that’s the case, the four youngest kids will be home for at least the next ten weeks,

    Two weeks ago, thinking of having the kids home for a regular summer felt suffocating.

    Something about being honest with myself and others about a situation that was becoming unbearable took mental pressure off of me, even without any external change in my reality. It’s amazing that sometimes you don’t need to change a lot in your life to feel a shift. That small bit of mental repose helped me to feel like myself again, even beginning to feel some positive anticipation rather than outright dread about the ‘Camp Mommy’ summer schedule.

    So here I am, there’s a war going on, there’s tension and anxiety in the air throughout the country, and the kids are home all day long without anywhere to go and anything outside of the home to do.

    Unexpectedly, after being overextended for so long with no relief, feeling I couldn’t handle even one more tiny request of me… I’m fine. I’m not resentful or stressed. I don’t feel like I’m walking a fine line and will snap any minute. I’m a little tired (waking up in the night due to missile warnings will do that) but overall I’m appreciating my time with all of them.

    In a post later this week I’ll share what an important tool for staying calm in the face of all the uncertainty we’re dealing with.

    Avivah

  • I found a solution! Replacing plastic containers and parchment paper

    Thank you to everyone who took time out to contact me privately to let me know the site wasn’t working. As one of you commented, it looked like my site was burned out, just like me. 🙂 Since I’ve been so busy, it took time until I could devote the necessary attention to remedying the issue, but I’m I’m grateful that all of the necessary technical updates have been made and it’s up and running again after a week and a half out of action.

    ——————

    I’ve been working on replacing plastics for weeks now, and I’m glad to be able to share with you what’s been working for me. I’ve gotten rid of everything related to food or drinks that has plastic in it, other than the lunch boxes for the kids and occasional sandwich bags.

    Most of the changes I made felt easy, but there were two items that were the most daunting to me because I used them so much and replacing them seemed impossible – plastic containers and parchment paper.

    I regularly used plastic containers for food storage in the refrigerator. While I never heated anything in them (I don’t have a microwave and never have other than for a very short time 26 years ago),I often didn’t wait for cooked foods to cool down before putting them away and heat leads to leaching of toxins. Additionally, ingredients like lemon juice, vinegar, and tomato sauce will cause the microplastics to leach out. So basically any food I stored was being contaminated with microplastics.

    (Edited to add – even if something is dry and cool, microplastics are released, so for that reason I’m replacing everything that I can.)

    As far as the parchment/baking paper, any paper good that repels water is coated with microplastics; that’s what keeps the water from soaking in. For years I’ve lined my baked dishes with parchment paper before covering them with aluminum foil, thinking I was protecting my food from toxins. I did protect the food from aluminum leaching in, but I didn’t know that I was showering my foods with microplastics.

    I found one solution that replaces both the plastic storage containers and parchment paper.

    Stainless steel pans with lids.

    So simple, and so genius. I don’t know I haven’t seen these offered as a solution, because they work so well.

    Caterers and hotel dining rooms around the world use these pans; there are six different sizes and each size has three different depths possible.

    I already had some of these pans, inherited years ago from the caterer my husband worked for, sans lids. The size I have is a 9 x 13 pan, referred to in catering terms as 1/2. (In Hebrew these are called a ‘gastronome’ in the singular, or ‘gastronomim’ in the plural.)

    It took me time until I got around to ordering lids for the pans I had since I was waiting to see if I wanted to order other sizes along with them. Before making that order, I bought a few trial pans locally (at Max Stock and Zol Stock – they had different sizes available) as well as a couple from Amazon. I used them for a few weeks to see what sizes were most useful for me, and then bought more of those sizes.

    The pans I bought included two pans that were like large loaf pans (1/3); this holds the same quantity as the shallow 1/2 pans but is half the width so it’s more compact for storage. I ordered four more, for a total of six, after finding it a very useful size for us.

    I also bought a couple of smaller loaf pans (1/4), two deep square pans (1/6), and then small (1/9) pans in two depths. All of those are shown in the picture below (this used to be my drawer for plastic containers); the 1/2 pans and lids are stored where I keep baking pans.

    We love using these!

    Instead of covering food with aluminum foil and parchment paper, I just pop the lid on. They stack beautifully and are space efficient. They can go directly from the oven to the fridge, and the fridge to the oven or hotplate when food needs to be reheated. No need to transfer food from the baking dish to the storage container. That saves time and cuts down on dishes needing to be washed.

    Below are smaller sizes with leftovers in them.

    When it’s time to wash them, they wash much more easily than the plastic containers that are grease magnets. And they look so nice! My teen boys and husband have all commented about liking the feel of them – solid and real.

    The one mistake I made was to buy pans of the same size from different stores. The sizes are supposedly universal, and while they stack inside of one another, the pans from Zol Stock have lids that are slightly different from the same size pans from Max Stock, and don’t fit one another. If you decide to replace your plastics with these pans, I’d strongly recommend you buy all of the pans in a given size from one place to avoid this issue.

    The smallest size from Max Stock has a sharp edge on the underside of the pans, and when I bought the more shallow pans in this same size from Zol Stock, I checked the bottom lip of the pan to be sure they wouldn’t have that problem.

    The other thing to be aware of is that while the pans nest inside of one another, the lids don’t. Pans can stack on top of one another, but the inner part of the lid is rounded, so they aren’t space efficient. It’s not a game changer, just something to be aware of.

    I labelled all of my plastic containers so I would know at a glance in the fridge what I have, and I do the same for these pans. I keep a roll of masking tape and a Sharpie marker in a drawer in the kitchen so it’s always on hand for use.

    If you’re thinking buying these pans is expensive, you can save by keeping your eyes open in thrift shops. Second hand stores can be a great place to find kitchen ware, often it’s older and much better made. You never know what you’ll find at thrift stores.

    After buying my stock of pans, I found four stainless steel pans with lids at a second hand shop and was amazed and delighted to find them! I paid seven shekels for each set. It made me think there must have been items like this around previously but I hadn’t been looking for them so didn’t see them.

    Two of the lids are completely flat, which I prefer. These pans are heavier duty than the other pans and lids that I’ve bought, which I also appreciate. However, they aren’t the standard catering sizes, and the pans don’t nest inside of one another so they aren’t space efficient when not in use.

    As when I replaced my non-stick skillet with a stainless steel frying pan, there’s a cost to making this switch. However, once you buy them, you aren’t going to need to replace them again and again, making it a one time expense. And you don’t have to buy them all at once – I didn’t.

    Questions about these pans that I haven’t addressed? Do you want me to share about other changes I’ve made away from plastic in the kitchen? Let me know!

    Avivah