Curtain call

Happy Jewish new year to those who observe; may you be well inscribed for a good year! O's second day of preschool wrapped up early for Rosh Hashana preparation, so I collected both boys (Z's school was a slight madhouse for their only second day of class, but I found him smiling in the elementary school lobby waiting for me with one of his teachers and one of his friends), and we then walked (with two of O's other classmates, friends J and A) literally across the street to a local synagogue's children's service. It was actually a decent turnout considering it was a 3 pm service, with maybe 30 kids and their parents. While I tried to get the boys to sit with me, they saw a gaggle of other kids up on the steps of the bimah and decided to join them - totally fine, though I noticed a big sign in front of the ark indicating there was an alarm set that would go off if anyone touched the doors. While the boys ended up getting the closest of all the kids to the sign, thankfully nothing was actually triggered. Towards the end of the service, plastic shofarot were distributed to all of the kids, and the racket that ensued... well, perhaps only slightly louder than World Cup vuvuzelas.

There was a little time to burn before meeting up with friends, mommy, and mima for a holiday dinner, so the three of us hopped down to a local park to burn some energy -- and for Owen to repeatedly ask me (and warn Z) about the geese and ducks leaving poop all over the footpath. At last it was time for dinner at friends J, A, and E's house, with a number of other young friends and their parents in attendance. Dinner was as hectic as you'd expect with 7 (!) kids, but it was wonderful to get to catch up with friends and the boys even shared E's toys pretty well with the others (in between fighting with each other). On the way home, O was telling mommy about how much fun we had at the "movies". Confused, I asked if he was talking about when he saw "Planes" a few weeks ago, but slowly from his descriptions I figured out that at the synagogue, the fact that there were rows of connected chairs, and that as we were leaving he'd noticed some dark, heavy curtains blocking off a larger area of the shul's sanctuary that wasn't needed for the kids service, meant that we'd clearly been to see a film. A live action one where he and O ran around and blew plastic shofars, but sure, it almost makes sense.

Today we took the boys to another kids' service at another shul, one we took them to perhaps two or three years ago. O made sure both his and Z's plastic shofars were in the car, and even carried his in with him (garnering compliments from a few greeters), though I warned him that we shouldn't play it in the synagogue (he agreed: "because it's too loud!"). There were songs and stories with a guitar-playing rabbi, Z did a great job of reading some words from the prayer book, and the boys had a good time once more. Hooray for positive Jewish experiences, and happy 5774!