Ima 2 Eight

I haven’t been posting much on the progress towards Purim. I have pretty good reasons, both compelling and dramatic. I was a “key” witness in a high-profile case in another country. Yeah, that sounds like a whopper of an excuse, right? Well, it happens to be true.

I prefer the drama of seven children and a first wife, frankly. I haven’t written about it because I couldn’t- can’t. It was a suprising, excrutiating and emotional experience, and I hope I can write about it at some point.

But now isn’t that point, now is the “oh my gosh, I lost the two weeks before Purim to some nutty trial and now I don’t have time to get ready for it, never mind blog about it” point.

Here is my run-down. What should be several posts is rolled into one.

1. One son wants to be a robot. I made very cool malleable costume by putting silver duct tape on shopping bags. It wasn’t my idea; I scoured on-line for non-cardboard box robot costumes, until I found one. I added glitter foam with adhesive backing as buttons. My super amazing architect brother has made a light up board for the front. When it gets here I will post a pic.

2. One of my sons has decided on Indiana Jones. I did ruin a Shabbat shirt, but it was pretty gross already. I had to make a sidebag out of brown construction paper, but he doesn’t seem to mind.He has a gun…and the whip is a jumprope.

I know he's my kid, but couldn't you just eat him up?

3. For some reason, every single year my first batch of hamentaschen are awful. I have just accepted the need to have a starter batch. I don’t know if it is just me. This year I made three batches with two recipes. The second dough was the best one I have ever made. It was easy, but made really good cookies.

This is the first batch:

The yucky batch.

The recipe for the  second set came from the Jewish Hostess.   The look much better, don’t they?

4.  Every year I go to a good dollar store to buy things for Mishloach Manot and to save money. I NEVER save money; I always wind up finding lots of cool stuff and spending money. Maybe since I am now blogging about it, I will remember next year and finally wise up.

5.  This year the megillah reading at night is quite late.  I wrote last year that lack of sleep on everyone’s part ruined my Purim, so we are trying something new this time. One of us is going to stay home and put the littlest guys to sleep before Purim even starts. The lucky parent will go to a late megillah reading. Wish us luck – I hope it works out a lot better.

I hope to put up some after-the-fact Purim costume pictures, but I don’t think that will help anyone much for Purim, it just might make me feel good about having them recorded.

6. I want to leave you with one beautiful Purim idea I learned this year from Rabbi Aba Wagensberg: Why do we say “Mi Shenichnas Adar Marbim B’Simcha” – One ushering in Adar should increase their joy? Not be happy, or revel, but increase one’s joy. He explains that the Rabbis tell us that we need to be “b’simcha”, joyful because we have the gift of Torah all year round. We simply increase that joy in Adar.  Given the horrendous tragedy in Israel this week and the suffering going on in Japan right now it helps me to have a reminder that we are supposed to remain joyful of Hashem’s Divine Plan, even when that seems hard.

May you have a Purim filled with joy, non-cranky children, and Mishloach Manot that contain things you actually like!