Dear Past, Present and Future Self

I have upwards of 250 notes on my phone. Musings, journaling, comments, kids’ cute quotes, frustrations, and dreams. I found this note from six years ago and am repurposing it as a letter to myself, sharing it with you in case you need to hear it as well.

12 April 2015

Dear Dena,

Pesach just ended. We made a lot of fruit salad, some of the children like fruit salad and some don't, this is consistent with most of their likes and wants.

Some do and some don't.

Some will and some won’t.

Some can and some can’t.

If much of the food was a hit or miss, we still had a wonderful eight days altogether.

What made this holiday different from all other holidays?

Where was the bickering, the bantering, the stress, the turmoil that goes hand-in-hand with having many young children and teenagers and twin three-nagers in one family?

It was all there. Yet, it was different.

Well, something was different, that is, Me--- and Eliyahu.

Before Pesach, we sat down together and made a very conscious decision to change our perspective, have a paradigm shift of sorts, and look at each of our children--- and see them differently.

This decision made all the difference.

Each one acted as usual because you can be sure none of the kiddos took time out before the holiday to-do deep soul searching and figure out how to make this Yom Tov less stressful or be on their A-game.

Nope, That was us- the adults in their lives.

Fruit salad---you can say we have a fruit salad of sorts in our house.

I didn't say fruitcakes!

We have a healthful, colorful, and refreshing fruit salad. Our salad is filled with sweet stuff, tart, sour, soft mushy hard prickly. You get the picture.

We so often hear others, or we groan,

"what do I do about ----- she/he's acting so ---- I'm going out of my-----!"

Here is what I learned: Each of the children is who they are--- but it is the choice we, the parents, make and how we deal with them that makes all the difference in the flavor.

Maybe it is with eight children that you cannot get away (anymore) by blaming each of them for all your problems; perhaps that is why we took the leap of faith and owned this whole week.

And, it worked.

Nothing was different; it was all the same. The children played, fought, bantered, and laughed. It was wild, loud, messy, and crazy- But it was different. It felt good. It felt peaceful. I, the Mom, was in control of --- MYSELF.

Remember this always. Love, Me