High Maintenance Mom

Rosh Hashanah starts tonight and I am still trying to figure out how to manage a nice dinner, services, soccer, and soccer pictures. Rosh Hashanah is one of two main Jewish holidays. It literally means "head of the year" but instead of a loud New Year's celebration, it is a time of reflection. The Ten Days of Repentance start tonight and end with Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement. These days are set aside to think about what we've done in the past year and ask others for forgiveness. One of the interesting traditions is to go to an area with natural flowing water, a stream, and symbolically cast the things we are sorry about into the water. Some people use small pieces of bread or pebbles to symbolize "sins". Although this may seem dark, it is an interesting time for kids because they can think about something they've done, say hit a sibling, ask the sibling for forgiveness, toss a pebble into a stream, and then have time outside to think about what their ideal next year would look like - whether that will be the case for the next 5 seconds or more at least we're reinforcing the thought process. In addition to all the thinking and planning, we also celebrate with sweet foods such as apples and honey.