Odd Experience

I got to go to a "concert" tonight at our synagogue, by two Israeli women. It was not quite what I expected. One was sort of a singer, the other was sort of a storyteller. Unfortunately, the storyteller would frequently sing, and the singer would frequently talk. And they were very Orthodox women, talking to a group of very Conservative women. It was not a good match. The frames of reference were so off, it was sort of painful.

One of their songs was about braiding challah, and the lyric went something along the lines of "help me see that there is meaning in this work" - I just wanted to yell out "get that woman some therapy!" Two of the stories, although traditional Chassidic stories, were so offensive to women that I had to fight myself not to stand up and walk out in the middle (fortunately I did get to escape with a friend at the intermission).

But another story really bothered me: this one was also a Chassidic folk tale, about a "crippled" groom who tells his bride-to-be (who has of course rejected him because he is a cripple) that before they were born he realized that she was supposed to be the cripple and he chose to save her from that fate and take it on himself instead. UGH. Besides the use of the word "crippled" (over and over again), it really bothered me to think that any of my kids need "saving" from their particular gifts.

I feel strongly that each of these challenges - Down syndrome, dyslexia, food allergies - serves a purpose, and that my job is to both help my children learn how to make their ways successfully in this world with those differences, and to learn for myself how to deal with things better.

Harump. I'm a grumpy mama now. Oh, and the singing was just painful! Oy.

(Oh! But the one cool thing about the concert was that the last song they did before intermission was the song used in the Gifts photo montage!)


To cheer up, I direct you to Nicole's Blog, http://all4gals.blogspot.com/. She's got some really powerful comments about her wonderful daughter, along with some horrible stories of the insulting and idiotic ways people can look at our kids, and some ideas for how to respond back.

In other news, both my Hebrew teacher and my program advisor want me to continue taking Hebrew. My advisor wants me to take the placement exam for the in-house class, but then I'd need to find a babysitter and shlep into Newton for class. My teacher is going to talk to her director about a plan she's wanted to implement anyway, letting people take twice as long for this particular class - apparently I'm not the only one who's had this problem at this level.

Miss Sofia refused to nap today, and was really really tired by the end of Tae Kwan Do (although she kept trying to join the class and practice her kicks!). So she fell asleep just before we got home - I dropped the boys off (the babysitter had already arrived) and drove around another 10 minutes. Whew.