Passover is now behind this year, and with it our celebration of the exodus from Egypt. In the middle of the Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, we find tzar, narrowness or constriction; yet, surrounding that narrowness, is mayim, water, fluidity, expansiveness.

As a mother of a 6-month-old, my days oscillate between mayim and tzar, tzar and mayim, expansiveness, then constriction, and then back again.

We come home late – me and my baby, Caleb, who I nursed and rocked through an intensive training for work – both of us exhausted.
Isaac, my husband, isn’t home,
and it takes all of my energy just to hold Caleb.
We are so tired, tzar,
so in love, mayim.

Isaac comes home,
we eat pasta in the dark, alternating turns walking our baby around.
Then, my head starts narrowing, squeezing, the light becomes too bright,
our baby won’t fall asleep, Isaac puts him down in the crib to cry,
TZAR, TZAR, TZAR,
my head pounds, my sweet baby wails,
TZAR, TZAR, TZAR. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Passover, poetry

I recently returned from spending Passover at a beautiful hotel in California with my two kids. One of the great perks of being married to a musician (and don’t throw a virtual shoe at me; there are negatives to being a wife in music life, too) is that so far, I get to go away for Passover, and thus bypass all the meticulous cleaning, multi-meal cooking, and various other daunting tasks that the holiday entails.

Now, I had realized that once we returned home,  if we wanted to eat, we’d have to actually cook something ourselves; there would be no lavish tea room to quell hunger pangs between meals and I correctly anticipated seven loads of laundry (my baby likes to spit up on a brand-new dress approximately three seconds after I change her into it). Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Passover, stay at home moms, work-life balance, working moms

It’s that special time during mid-week Passover where if you’re not entirely too sick of eating matzah, you’re entirely too sick of cleaning up all its crumbs. But do not fear: the end is in sight.

The last two days of Passover are Monday and Tuesday, which means Kveller is closing up shop. We’ll be back on Wednesday, probably posting pictures of challah and bagels all day just because we can.

In the meantime, we do have some recipes to get you through these last few days, like salami and eggs matzah brei, cast iron potato kugel, and Mayim Bialik’s recipe for vegan eggplant casserole.

Or you can go Tamara Reese-style with guacamole on matzah, though she warns: “Eating homemade guacamole off matzah is like licking hot fudge off of the driveway.”

Whatever you’re eating, enjoy the rest of your Passover and we’ll see you all next week.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Passover

After a really fun family seder, I was beaming with pride as I cleaned up some puzzles on the floor. My firstborn was running the house naked waiting for the baby to be done in the bath. A split second later, I look up and he is peeing all over me. All over the carpet, the puzzles, my pants. FOUR CUPS OF GRAPE JUICE WORTH OF WIZ! He was laughing and wiggling around, a hose of urine streaming back and forth. At first I sat there completely stunned and then I started shouting for him to stop peeing on me and begging, “Why are you doing this? WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: gentle discipline, Passover, peeing, toddlers

I was standing on my front step, shaking out the hallway rug as part of my Passover cleaning, when the thought suddenly appeared in my mind, in large bold letters that erased everything else I had been thinking about.

“I am so lucky to have my own home to clean.”

The intensity of my gratitude in that moment surprised me. I hadn’t been thinking about the many blessings of my life, as I try to do on a regular basis. Quite the opposite: I was silently bemoaning the challenges of the holiday, as I have done every year since we started observing Passover more seriously. The cleaning is laborious, the dietary restrictions increasingly challenging as my daughter’s range of acceptable foods becomes smaller and smaller. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure why I kept with it year after year–probably because it is important to my husband, and because I want our daughters to grow up in a home that is Jewish in more than name and mezuzah in the doorway.  Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: featured, gay marriage, holocaust, Passover

“Dear God, how many hours until bedtime?” I mutter from my prone position on the playroom floor as Legos bounce off of my head.

And how long have I been doing this, anyway? I’m home with the kids today, and my husband left for work at 7:30, so it’s been eight hours (not all of them involved being pummeled by Legos, but still). Now the Legos are hitting me in the arm as my toddler flings them into the air, his giggles piercing the torpid afternoon. Let’s see…if there are no major meltdowns, I can reasonably expect to get both kids into bed by 8:30, so I’ve got five more hours to go. Five more hours is doable, right? Five is a lot less than eight, so clearly I’ve reached the downhill part of my day. No problem, I think. I’m golden. I’m coasting. I’m… oh, for crying out loud, can’t they make Legos out of something softer? Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: featured, milestones, omer, Passover, Shavuot

Via BustedBinkyDesigns on Etsy

As you probably could have guessed we’re closing up shop here early today. In preparation for Passover I’m eating a giant bagel and trying to think of genius way to get my daughter to sit at the seder table for more than five minutes.

This morning my husband tried to go over a very G-rated version of the exodus story. When he explained that slaves “worked all day long” she turned to us and said, “like you?” And she wasn’t so into our rendition of “Let My People Go,” but preferred her own version, “Let My People Dance,” which I think has great potential for a viral YouTube video.

That is all to say that I’m not sure how meaningful the holiday will be for her beyond an understanding that there is this tradition where we eat crackers and all sit down for a fancy dinner. And Mama buys us weird kitchy things like matzah bibs (yep) and onesies and t-shirts for all the kids with their names on it next to a piece of embroidered matzah. (Is there a name for the mom that thinks she’s crafty because she buys cute, crafty stuff on Etsy for her kids that other moms have made? Anyhoo, that’s me.)

Because my daughter doesn’t attend a Jewish preschool, we feel an extra pressure to explain the holidays in a way that makes them sound accessible, fun, and not totally bonkers. We have our work cut out for us. (Check out this video if you’re looking for a kid friendly explanation of the Passover story.)

So, this is all to say that we’re wishing you and your families a meaningful and joyous Passover no matter how you celebrate it. And we’ll be back on Thursday to bitch and moan about not eating bread (while secretly hoping that the mini-Atkins diets helps melt away the baby weight).

Chag pesach sameach!

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: featured, Passover

Photo by by Ben Husmann via Flickr

Coastal Georgia is not an ideal place for a novice to make gefilte fish.  I realized this at the counter of City Market, Brunswick’s fish market.  The display case was filled with fresh shrimp.

“Do you have any carp?” The man looked at me quizzically. “Um, what about pike?” He shook his head slowly. “What kind of fresh fish do you have?”

“We have grouper. How were you planning to cook it?”

“I’m going to – er, make fish meatballs out of it,” I said.

The shopkeeper looked at the meaty pink fillets sadly, then back at me with a raised eyebrow. “Fish meatballs?”

“Well, yeah it’s this tradition …” I trailed off.  Passover in the South, I had learned, was a tradition unto itself.

John and I were newlyweds when we moved to Columbia, South Carolina in 2006.  We embraced the south with all our might, and were soon eating grits, drinking tea and bourbon in rocking chairs on our front porch, and resting on Sundays – not because it was our Sabbath, but because nothing was open. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Passover, seder

Passover is my favorite Jewish holiday. A meal and story followed by an entire week of daily (albeit minimal) sacrifices made in mindful celebration of our ancestors’ exodus from Egypt. Admittedly I can’t pass up an opportunity to smear horseradish on things and the beet juice variety literally makes me swoon. I’m excited to pull out the little book collection for our boys and tuck matzah into the afikomen bag I sewed myself. For eight days, the usual chore of dinner gives way to a food challenge where none of the usual players are allowed. And the last day I always get a text from my husband that says, “can we eat real food tonight?” and we head out for burgers after sundown. The kitchen is cleaned out and we start fresh when the week is over.

I am a Jew by choice married to a humbly secular tribe member. We light candles every Friday, pay temple dues and with each passing year grow more in our observance. Do we throw away every bit of chametz? No. We can’t afford to. What we didn’t consume prior to the holiday, we box up in plastic tubs and lock it away in our storage unit. Does that make us less Jewish? I hope not. To gentiles we seem like uber-Jews while Orthodox families may scoff at our attempts at Halacha. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: friday night, Passover, shabbat

We asked for your favorite Passover desserts, and you delivered. After much deliberation and mouth watering, we were able to choose a winning recipe that can actually be used all year (i.e. it doesn’t require any matzah flour or other special Passover ingredients). Plus, it’s super easy, and with so many other things going on during Passover, we thought our readers might appreciate that.

So, without further ado, here’s the winning recipe from Caroline Berkowitz for her Chocolate Covered Strawberries (dairy): Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: dessert, Passover, passover recipes