Need not be present to win

Happy Passover! We had a lovely first seder at friends J & S's house. The boys did great, both sharing the coveted (cue heavenly chorus) cars of our hosts and even occasionally sitting at the table and enjoying some food. We'll just ignore that most of Z's choices were chametz (Cheerios, goldfish...) - I was stunned to see him actually try the parsley that's ceremonially dipped in salt water. In the meantime, O was his fairly adventurous culinary self, trying matzoh, charoset (which he keeps calling 'jam'), and one of the fun square eggs that J & S had made into a fabulous pyramid scene complete with lego slaves and taskmasters (the latter of whom were cast as Star Wars stormtroopers). The boys made it fairly far into the evening, though mima and Meh eventually took them home when they started turning into pumpkins, while papa and I stayed to the end.

One of the traditions of Passover involves the person leading the seder slipping away and hiding a piece of matzoh (always impressive that this succeeds when ostensibly everyone is sitting at the table - just a sign of the chaos and distractions I guess?) for the kids to try to find; the meal technically can't conclude until it's found, and there's often a prize involved for the lucky winner. I didn't even really notice that the matzoh was gone, nor that it had reappeared in time to conclude the seder -- but friend J indicated that it had been found by Z. Really? Well, it had originally been hidden in plain sight in their son L's jumperoo, and the next time they looked, it was over in the living room changing table/pack and play. Since Z was the only child tall enough to get it over the bars -- or old enough to have the coordination to throw it I guess -- he was declared the finder in absentia. His reward? A wrapped box that he eagerly tore open the next day ("present!"), which contained the hit new board game "Matzkoman". We've had no opportunity to play the actual game yet, but the boys helped me sort through the many shapes and sizes of playing cards. Owen spotted the four brightly colored dreidels, and has been asking for them ever since, walking around the house happily with fists clenched around them -- we'll see if they disappear before we get our opportunity to, um, free slaves and make matzah while avoiding plague cards! While I somehow forgot to snap any during tonight's slightly smaller but still very nice dinner at home, a full set of first night seder pictures can be found here.