glenrockschwartz

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 f...

The following is a poem written by Alex in October of 2012 for his third grade class and I really love it. Brave to be brave is to stand up for something that no one else wants to do like to fight a bear

Oh Alex, I know I promised to share the good, the bad and the ugly and I know that probably I should just have a "this too shall pass" attitude toward this moment in time, but instead I find myself wanting to protect you from this anxious, stress-ridden version of yourself. You are my child, you are driven by a need to be perfect, to be better than everyone else, a better student, a better athlete, a better friend, a better musician, to be the best at everything from the moment you try.  This autumn, there has been so much more and so much new all at once between four days a week of football, two days a week of Hebrew school, more homework in more subjects, more pressure to be seen as "cool", to play kickball well during recess, to have more play-dates, to be a part of everything.  It is indeed overwhelming. The result has been some crying (on your part and on my part), some frustration and some insomnia (last night I awoke at 230 am to you and Avery playing wit...

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

Dear Alex, You are sleeping right now, which is the reason that I am typing this letter to you and no longer yelling and screaming. You are eight and a half years old and in third grade right now.  You are learning about boundaries and lying and telling the truth and doing the right thing.  (You are also learning reading comprehension, math, science and social studies.) Tonight you did something perhaps accidental and no doubt an incredibly stupid and expensive mistake.  You were taking a shower in our bathroom which has a stall shower.  Your sat down and covered the drain with your body to see just how high you could get the water to go.  Stall showers are not made to do this and so you caused a flood.  A flood not just in my bathroom, but also into my bedroom, also through the floor and ceiling below and into the hallway and coat closet. It was raining in my hallway downstairs. I am furious.  Intellectually, I know that eventually I will ca...

Dear Alex, You will watch many movies and TV shows in your life in which you get to watch someone testify in court. (Testify means to tell the truth)  Whenever someone goes up on the witness stand in these movies and shows, the lawyer will always ask first, "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" I couldn't help but think of this phrase today after you complained that Jenny would not let you do your homework in your room yesterday.   We had told you that if you were having trouble concentrating with your sister running around and making noise that we were perfectly comfortable with you sitting at your desk in your room by yourself. You told us that Jenny told you "no" when you asked.  I really couldn't believe that Jenny would say that to you, so I challenged you, "You know I'm going to ask her about it" and you challenged me right back, "Go ahead, she did say 'no'!" When Jenny ar...

So I've been thinking about writing a novel.  But I have no discipline.  And I don't really know how to get started.  I do know that I'd like the protagonist to be an American woman whose grandparents are Holocaust survivors. I've even thought about the opening lines: "She walked up to the bema to read, an honor bestowed upon her by the synagogue on this particular Shabbat.  Before she had even finished speaking the first sentence, I felt the familiar prick of tears at the corner of my eyes; we were instantly connected by something as simple as a European accent" I hope I figure out how to write this one day.