glenrockschwartz

Dear Alex, In just one short month, you will officially be an adult in the eyes of our country.  Old enough to vote, old enough to go to war (but not old enough to drink!) As Jewish parents in modern times, we laugh a bit at the thought of bar mitzvah being the age in which you are considered an adult by the Jewish community.  We can all agree that you are still a child at 13!  But can we also agree as Americans, that turning 18 doesn't automatically make you ready to take on the world without parent involvement? Do you know how to drive and/or navigate public transportation? Check.  How to get dressed, tie your shoes, make a grilled cheese and do your laundry? Check.  All the stuff on this list?  https://grownandflown.com/33-life-skills-college-kids-adult/ Okay, maybe we need to have a conversation about some of these. But does that mean that we can just send them out in the world and no longer worry? To this I would say, absolutely not!  18 year olds are still children.  They st

Dear kids Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown this evening and as it is meant to be a time of spiritual renewal, here I am reflecting on my world.  There are phrases like “a world forever changed” that are used after catastrophic events like the assassination of JFK (well before my time) or September 11 attacks (in my prime time as a newly married young adult). And it’s true, we can all talk with extreme clarity about exactly what happened in those moments. Our current world forever changed, the one we are living through, is different. Rather than a point in time and the aftermath, it’s a slow burning, multi year long, new way of life that has changed forever how we act, how we think, how we feel.  (Complete parenthetical side note before I return to gloom and doom. Worlds are forever changed with happy events as well. That moment I said to your dad “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li”, or when I first found out that I was going to be a mama, and sublimely (there may have been some drugs involved), when

Dear Avery, Recently you asked me if I have a favorite kid.  I honestly thought about it instead of giving you the standard parent answer of loving you both with all my heart (which I do!).  What I said to you after having thought about it for a while is that I love Alex because he is so much like me.  It is easy for me to proud or sad of things that he says, does, thinks, because I absolutely get his motivation.  But you sweet Avery, I love you because you are just like your daddy and he is the person that I love so much that I chose and continue to choose to spend my entire life with him every single day.  So maybe not the answer that you were looking for, but I love you both, with all my heart, just in different ways. Love Mom

Dear Avery, Growing up is hard.  I think particularly for a girl in our Western society that it is even more difficult.  Girls are mean to each other.  Emotions run strong.  And even at the young age of nine (almost ten!), you are exposed to nastiness in person, via social media, across all avenues.  I want to do everything I can to shield you from this to make sure that you can grow up as easily and stress free as possible.  This morning I decided to document the days that you feel happy and the days that you feel sad to show you that there are definitely more happy days than sad days.  Every morning before school, we will take a photo and talk about how you are feeling that day given what has transpired in your life over the previous 24 hours. I look forward to sharing your happy and counseling you through your sad. I love you with all my heart. Love, Mama PS - Day 1 = happy (also, I'm choosing to go blonde right now)

Dear Alex and Avery, It's hard to find the silver lining in our household tonight because your dad is REALLY angry with Alex for both not doing/handing in a bunch of homework assignments and for lying to us about it. But even with all the tears this evening, I managed to find a tiny bright spot that I will hold with me forever. Following is a conversation that I overheard between Eric and Avery.  Eric was yelling so loudly at Alex that Avery became scared and began to cry. I had escaped to my bedroom because while I support Eric in parenting to help Alex succeed in life, I too find Eric's loud screaming ways to be disconcerting.  Heightened with emotion, Eric happened upon Avery crying and said (still loudly and still passionately), "You should save your tears for something important!" Avery through her tears, but not afraid to stand up to her father, said "Alex IS important and you may not think so, but I do and I love him!" May you two always sha

Dear Avery, Last night you went to dinner at the Glen Rock Inn and were joined by me, Daddy, Alex and Auntie Dawn.  You are nearly nine years old (just to give some context to the story if you ever read this years from now).  It was Saturday, which meant that the bar was pretty crowded, but we ALWAYS sit at the bar because there is good energy and it is social and it is always an easy time waiting for a table since we tend to know a bunch of people there whenever we go. So we waited and chatted with people and each other. And then we sat and ordered dinner and drinks and more people came in who we knew and we caught up with them as well.  The positive energy enveloped our table like a warm and cozy blanket. At some point, you started to get tired (because you had been out since 8:30 a.m. when basketball started and hadn't had any time to just rest) and a wee bit cranky (because it's a bar and it's really loud and you were squished away in the corner of the table, oh y

Dear Alex, This week you came home from school and had this conversation with me: "I broke up with Adele today." Of course I questioned you about whether you hurt her feelings, was it a mutual break up, were you both okay.  The good news is that you promised me that you broke up with each other and that the main reason was because kids were teasing you at school so you guys just decided to remove the topic of teasing. Then I asked you, "Are you still going to be friends?" "Yes. "Are you still going to talk and text with each other?" "Yes." "Will you still hang out sometimes outside of school?" "Yes." "So basically, nothing has changed." "No.  We broke up.  We're no longer dating.  It's totally different." It's funny how much terminology matters to an eleven year old.  Don't grow up too quickly Alex.  Be friends with anyone and everyone.  Swing from the monkey bar

This weekend we were in the car for a longish drive so there was more talking and less listening to music than usual.  During the course of our conversation as a family, this gem occurred between myself and Alex. "Mom, would you consider yourself a hipster?" "No.  Not really." "What about a hipster mom?" "Again, not really, but why are you asking?" "Because compared to all the other moms I know, you are way more of a hipster than any of them are." When he wants to, this boy whom I love, hate and feel intensely connected, can be utterly and completely charming.

Today is mother's day.  I called my mom this morning to wish her well and in the midst of our conversation, I realized that all that I love about myself as a mother I patterned after what I learned from my own mom.  All that I am not as pleased about, all my crazy, that's all me (and all my mom's crazy, that's all her). Today is mother's day.  I have done three loads of laundry, shopped at two supermarkets, cleaned up from my breakfast in bed and from the spice rub for this afternoon's barbecue that left a mess on the counter.  This is the unsung work of mothers.  We who work full time, but also manage to schedule play dates and orthodontist appointments and to get the camp medical forms in on time.  We who regularly make sure our children are clean and fed and smiling.  And while unsung may sound like under-appreciated and it certainly feels like that in the worst of moments, it's not really that way.  The thank yous may not occur after each and every act

Dear Alex, Tomorrow marks the one-week anniversary of your having left for sleep away camp for the very first time.  When you left I didn't cry.  I'm generally stoic like that, so it wasn't so surprising.   I did however walk around for a few days with a funny feeling in my stomach because I didn't know what every minute of every day is like for you at Indian Head. The only way I could even glimpse into knowing was to scour the photo website for smiling pictures of you.  Pictures of you doing fun things.  Pictures of you with other campers with your arms slung around each other because you were the best of friends. Of course, I recognize that this is unrealistic.  Nobody becomes best friends overnight.  It takes time and "bonding" experiences for that to happen.  Intellectualizing didn't help the pit in my stomach.  In fact, it made it worse when I stopped to think about how you might be doing at any given moment.  You, my emotionally brilliant son w

Hi Alex and Avery, When you get older and have kids of your own, you will contemplate leaving the city for the space and greenery of the suburbs.  You will do this because the giant sized kid toys will be taking over your apartment and you will have convinced yourselves that your children need freedom to have fresh air whenever they want it, although in reality your kids will want to stay inside and watch tv, play video games or use the computer rather than go in the backyard.  You will also justify the decision to go suburban because of the schools, the excellent schools!  Before, during and after you make the suburban transition, you will bring up these justifications ad nauseum to your friends who have chosen to remain city dwellers, but in reality, you will be repeating these mantras to quell the fear in your own hearts. "Will I begin to wear mom jeans?" you wonder (or for Alex, whatever the male equivalent is to 'mom jeans').  Will I feel completely isolated

Dear kids, Last night our family had dinner together.  This is not something that we do together every night, but most Sundays we'll try to sit together. While we were eating, your dad said, "You know, I have to admit, I really like having dinner like this, all of us together." Kids, if you want to know what makes a man really manly and attractive to women, it is comments like this. Love, Mom

Dear Avery, I shared this comment on social media this morning, but maybe you will want to remember this years from now. Love, Your mommy

Dear Kids, Well this past week has been completely out of the ordinary. A giant hurricane has come our way.  Hurricane Sandy is her name and she has wiped out power in much of the New York metro area, including over seventy percent of the homes in Glen Rock.  Without power, we have no heat, no hot water, no lights and other things that we consider essentials like internet and cable.  How did we ever live without them in the past! During the time that we considered our home uninhabitable without all these modern conveniences, we stayed with our neighbors and friends, the Tufanos.  And my goodness, if I didn't think that they were a pretty amazing family before, after taking us into their home and sharing everything that they had with us for a full week, well, they are just amazing! Alex, I know you are kind of like me and are often astonished by friendship and how easy it can be for some people.  The lesson I would like you to learn from our neighbors and friends is that you s

These are my eight year old Alex and four year old Avery.  May they always be this close and this happy.

Hi Alex, Thanks for getting past your tantrum.about going to Florida instead of Jamaica this year (that was a sarcastic 'thank you', in case that was not utterly clear).  In any case, I wanted to write a bit more about your continued evolution of understanding privilege and wealth. We visited with friends that have a house in the Hamptons this past weekend.  From the moment we entered their house you began to speak about how you would really like to live in a house like this.  There were many instances throughout the weekend in which you made it clear that you were pleased with your surroundings.  The crown jewel of comments however, came when you and I went for a walk on Sunday afternoon.  Our hosts had told us which way to walk so that we could see the house that Beyonce and Jay-z own.  Standing in front of their estate, you counted seven chimneys, which meant seven fireplaces and you said, "This house is so huge it looks like a small factory with all those chimneys!

Hi Avery, I just had to write about this little tale. It is emblematic of one of the themes of this blog - finding humor in tragedy. Perhaps, that is how I should tag the posts that are now categorized as "therapy". Tragedy is a strong word, sometimes sadness or melancholy will do, but in this case I think it's appropriate. You see, there has been another unexpected death. Our friend, Andy has lost his dad, Paul. And so, the community has gotten together to mourn. That's when people either deal with their own grief and sadness or help friends and family to do so. When you're Jewish, this process is called shiva. If someone in your family died, you are "sitting shiva" and when you are helping someone mourn you "pay a shiva call". So when Andy's dad died, we were paying a shiva call.  I'll get into the rituals in a bit, but to begin with I just want to describe the wild scene at Katie and Andy's house.  It was one giant playdate

Hey guys, We're off to Hershey Park in a few hours.  Reminder -  that we went to Disney World earlier this year and have plans to go to Six Flags later this summer.  Reminder - that I HATE amusement parks, hate hanging out with the great unwashed (yes, I am a snob, get used to it), hate the rides that make my stomach feel all funny (too scary) as well as the rides that do not make my stomach feel all funny (too boring). But I LOVE you two and the joy and happiness that I get to witness when we take you guys to these places. Happy weekend! Love Mommy

I was reading one of my favorite blogs this evening and was saddened to discover that the writer had bared her soul and shared with the world that she and her husband had just separated.  Here is a woman that I have never met, yet I am invested in her daily life and believed that I understood the inner-workings of her family.   I do hope that she is able to work it out, but in a somewhat narcissistic way, reading that post had me being introspective about my own relationship.  I thought about how I could best express how I feel about Eric, the love of my life.  Because even on my darkest and crankiest of days, I simply love Eric.  The idea of being apart from him never crosses my mind.  I miss him when we are apart even for one evening.  I am lucky, I am blessed and I do not take the joy I get from this relationship for granted.  Eric is truly my beshert. Beshert is a Yiddish word for one's soulmate.  I was reading an article by Emuna Braverman, a clincial psychologist and marr

Alex and Eric were racing Ben and Gayle on their bikes. Team Schwartz versus Team 'whatever Ben and Gayle's last name is', per Alex. And Alex was thrilled that Team Schwartz won! I think that is probably the theme of the whole week - a winning vacation for Team Schwartz! Alex learns to dive (and inevitably gets swimmers ear), Avery loves the beach, sunsets on the bay are amazing, Eric cooks (and cooks and cooks). And come Sunday, I was not even ready to go back to work as I usually am after a 24-7 week with the same people, albeit my family. That's how I know it was so successful, because what's that cliche? Happy mom, happy home. Photo highlights (of course!)