Saturday night both kids had bad nights. We all hung out in the morning playing dreidels and eating breakfast and then we were going to go the the DCJCC Chanukah carnival but by 10:30 both kids were napping and they did not get up till after 12... the carnival was over by then.
Jocelyn then had to go to work and then the kids woke up - raring to go! It was warm out yesterday and it wasn't really raining. I figured this was the year to go to the Mall. Jonah & Vera were very excited.
We drove down around 3pm. We made it in good time but then it took forever to find a parking spot - but we finally managed to find a garage that would let us park for a mere $20...
We walked up to the Menorah and got on line. The line moved pretty quickly and then we approached the gate - and guess what - a good buddy from our old neighborhood was at the gate meeting her friend?!? So we totally said hi and she was all like - come sit with us we are in the front row - so we did. We were hoping to meet up with some other buddies so we scored seats for us and seats for them in the front row. The Navy band was playing the kids liked that. We were in our seats (the kids in the stroller - the new double jogging stroller I scored from a friend - for my jogging in 2013 plan) by 4pm. I was OK keeping the kids busy for a bit and it was good the music was loud but signs it was not going to go well were there early on... About 30 minutes into it, our other buddies showed up - calm and collected...
It started like this, Vera started screaming her head off and Jonah had shpilchis so I took them over to the side and they were running around. It was OK because the music was loud enough. Then there was a ceremony part where kids who had won the essay contest got up to read their stories... that was so not going to work with my crew. I gathered our crap up, put them in stroller and went to the back. En route a good thing happened, Jonah told me he needed to use the potty... so we used the port-o-potty... good job Jonah. I wheeled them around for a bit but I had to let them out. Then for about 20 minutes at least my kids were the happiest kids in the world. They were running, laughing, and squealing with delight as they jumped in huge puddles and got soaking wet!!!! I kept saying - look guys they are lighting the menorah??! And they were like "PUDDLES!!! YEAHHH"
One woman standing there was laughing at the scene and looked and me and said, "menorah, schamenorah - they've got puddles!!!"
I figured I would just go with it - you know all that mindfulness training - just be in the moment - with my kids, on the Mall, right in front of the White House and watching the National Menorah being lit with my kids running and laughing all around me... not such a bad scene!
So that was it. We went to the Mall to see the Menorah and we got wet! and found puddles of joy!
And we also happened to be first on line for the jelly donuts!
We hightailed it home around 5:30 and met mama at the house for a quick dinner, candle lighting of our own, presents, baths and bed time.
Happy Chanukah Everyone! Our Chanukah posts may be out order this week - but don't worry you'll get them all!
No comments:
Post a Comment