glenrockschwartz

Dear Alex, I will never stop being your mom.  I will never stop shining a light on all that is wonderful about you. I may however decide to stop writing these birthday letters to you.  Not sure what the age will be, but I don't feel ready yet as you turn 22. So here goes, a short top ten list of things that I love about you that I want you to remember from that time you turned 22 (in no particular order): 1. I love your passion for bringing better teaching to young kids.  I also love that I have access to your google photos and can see the videos of you in action with your third-grade class. 2. I love your friendships and relationships (Callie!) and how true you are to them and to yourself. 3. I love how you have embraced your nerd.  You make Pokémon and Renaissance Faires and Star Wars, and a list of classically nerd things actually cool. 4. I love that we both share a love of music and that the same artists alternately bring us to tears or a state of Zen. Zeppelin ...

Dear Avery, Seventeen years old! What in the world can I write to you that you do not already know about yourself?!? It is kind of amazing how once your personality shone through that I could pretty much copy and paste from recent years' birthday posts and it would probably hold true today.  But I want to dig deep over the past year and hold a mirror up to you so that you can see what I see; the evolution to an even more incredible version of yourself. Because one thing I know, is that over the past year you have lived life on your terms. Has there been fighting? Yes. Crying? That too. More good days, than bad? Absolutely. So, I've decided to show you a year in the life by simply reviewing a year of my digital photo albums as I write - noting that these are the events worth photographing - it goes something like this: May 2024 - We finished shopping for sophomore semi formal dresses; you officially got your permit and started driving school lessons. You bid Alex a fond farewell...

Dear Alex, Happy 21st Birthday!  Typing this feels unbelievable as it is inherently American to believe that a person is a true and complete adult when he reaches the age of 21.  (Of course, us mamas like to hold onto the fact that your prefrontal cortex wont fully develop for another four to five years, which means, thankfully, that you will still need us.)  And yet there has been tremendous growth over this past year.  When you turned 20, I was intimately involved in the day-to-day aspects of your life.  It was a privilege to talk to you daily about general nonsense aka "stuff and things".  The reality was that the daily check ins were a necessity to combat my own fears, to make sure I was doing my job as a parent to help you grow into a healthy and content adult.  I am still here, a year later, to catch you if you fall, however you have learned the skills, you have the skills to catch yourself.  So far there hasn't been a stumble, or maybe ther...

Dear Avery, The day before your 16th birthday you woke up and told me your dream.  You dreamed that you were at camp and you and I had walkie-talkies and you kept letting me know everything that you had forgotten to pack. We will come back to what that means and the bond between us, but first let me reflect more broadly on your growth over the past year. I would not find myself being honest if I did not first write about how many times the universe has pushed you down over the past year.  Mainly social of course and I don't want to focus on the specifics (aka not being invited, loss of friend groups, stress with camp friends and boys asking and then rescinding dance invites), what I want to write about is your response to these events.  You are so resilient, it actually blows my mind.  I'm not saying that you are a robot who is completely unaffected; rather you have a well deserved cry, some rotting in bed scrolling Tik-Tok on your phone, and then you dry your tears,...

Sometimes when I'm sitting around thinking about my kids, I call them by their Hebrew names - Elazar and Aviva - in my head.  It's 2024 and I feel like we are completely secular at this point; "two day a year" Jews. Even though my kids learned to read Torah and haftarah (or memorized phonetically), even though we light candles when we remember and buy challah on the regular.  Even though we are sustaining members of our synagogue and whenever they ask I will read Torah or haftarah or whatever is needed.  Even though my heart aches for Ha'Aretz. My heart. Aches. For Ha'Aretz. I would resent the people in my life who do not align with my way of thinking, but who is to say that their way of thinking and living is wrong?  So what I find myself resenting at times are the choices that I have made

  Dear Alex, I was awakened at 5am today, a little bit by the snoring going on right next to me but also because my mind was swirling with what I wanted to convey to you today on your 20th birthday.  You are 20, but today you are also three months old. And that is because three months ago today we got into your car in Boulder and began the journey back to Glen Rock, back to the place where you would do the really hard work of becoming a stronger and more content human being. You did this among the naysayers thinking that taking a break from a linear path in life was for the weak, who believed that using your anxiety to drive you forward was the path to success, when you have realized that it is quite the opposite.  So on your three month birthday, here’s what I want you to know about yourself: 1. You are incredibly strong. Thank you for speaking up for yourself and for doing the hard work 2. You are infinitely interesting. When you speak, people are drawn to you and want ...