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A last Shabbat at home for a while


When I was little I spent a huge amount of time worrying about which of the three of us my parents loved the best. Childhood is full of rankings. A child is expected to come up with their favorite color or ice cream flavor for strangers. That question of who my parents loved best was a big part of my mental life as a small child.

 Between  my own childhood and my own time being a parent I heard lots of different answers to that question of which which child is the favorite.. I knew that the commonly given answer of ," I love you all the same", was clearly a big lie that even a tiny child could see through.

As a parent, I know that the right answer for me has always been , "I love you all differently.". What I mean when I say that is that each of my kids has some characteristics that I deeply love and feel strongly connected to.



My older son was born with a double dose of empathy. When he was about five or so I couldn't find my son or his buddy Philip at synagogue. I checked with Philip's dad if he had seen the boys. He soon realized that the two of them had probably found a baby to play with or an old lady to help. They were both THAT sort of a kid. Eventually the two of them turned up.






My son has earned from an early age that everything is mastered with a struggle.Some kids get stopped in their tracks by the struggle and the feelings of failure. My son just keeps on keeping on. It is just admirable. That ability to keep on trucking, even through the hard stuff is my son's secret to his sucess.




 Monday our son leaves for Amarillo for the next year and a half or so. We are having a celebratory dinner tonight..












We have a couple of chickens stuffed with limoo, dried limes.


We are also having sweet and spicy wings.





I made a big kale, orange and date salad.


 Rice is cooking as I type. Dessert may have been a disaster.

I attempted to make an icebox cake. It may fall into the category of ugly but delicious, or simply just ugly.

To make up for the ugly dessert, here is a photo of a pretty rye bread that I baked earlier in the week.


I added cocoa to some of the dough and rolled the two doughs up together.



Shabbat Shalom to all of us.

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