Shattered dreams

Life is all about finding joy in the little things.

Which is why Jewish mothers everywhere derive such pleasure from that glorious moment each year when they get to crush their beloved children’s hopes and aspirations.

It happens on the last day of school before Pesach, when the kids come home filled with thrilling vacation plans.

All excited, they walk in the house - a spring in their steps and visions of 2½ weeks of unstructured bliss dancing in their heads.

And then, coldly and deliberately, you swoop in and ruin everything.

Because before anyone has a chance to yell, “I call the Kindle!” (more about THAT, perhaps, in a future post), you insist that they first get in touch with their inner Cinderella and tackle the giant mountain of clutter in their rooms.

And sure enough, right away after the requisite protests (“that’s not a MESS, that’s my STUFF!”), the not-quite sotto voce mutterings (“what’s the big rush? Pesach’s not until next week!”), and a few longing glances cast in the general direction of the computer, you manage to assemble a highly motivated labor force a mutinous team of workers, who will eventually get so desperate that they’ll decide that they’d actually prefer to study for their upcoming math matkonet and summarily quit.

But that’s okay.

Because you’re already busy thinking about NEXT year, when you’ll once again be able to shatter your darling offspring’s dreams…

What pre-Pesach assignments do you give your own slave laborers helpful young assistants*?

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*P.S. Kol hakavod and thank you to the wonderful Shiputzim kids, who’ve been working extremely hard and are doing a truly amazing job!!!