The third night of Chanukah (which, by the way, coincided with my birthday) had me pulling the car over to the side of a snowy suburban street and announcing that there was no law — Jewish or otherwise — that stipulated that I was required to give presents to anyone, and that everyone in the backseat had ZERO chances left to be gracious about their Chanukah gifts, or we were done with this present racket for the year. PERIOD.

And I meant it.

And I was right.

From that point, my children’s present-receiving skills improved markedly. By which I mean there was no more bursting into tears or pitching of tantrums following the opening of festive holiday gifts. Gifts, by the way, that they wholeheartedly (or begrudgingly) loved and played with in the minutes and days following said tears and tantrums.

Without wanting to get into a treatise on the subject, because I’m sure there are plenty out there, I will say that I have a lot of discomfort around present-receiving culture, in particular at this time of year. I don’t like the commercialism, the impetus to go shopping because somebody has told you to. I’m a bit of a control freak and I hate clutter and waste, which means that most of the time I’d rather pick out my own stuff rather than risk the problematics of gifts I don’t want or need. With several birthdays near the end of the year and a household with strong ties to both Chanukah and Christmas, this time of year starts to feel slightly unmanageable. Years ago, Rachel and I stopped giving holiday and birthday gifts to each other: it felt too loaded, too stressful. Now, if I see something I think she’ll like, I just buy it for her, preferably in, say, July.

At the moment, though, we do buy Chanukah gifts for the kids: one modest present each night for eight nights. It’s an arrangement born out of a certain amount of compromise (Rachel, bless her, adores present culture), a nod to tradition, and at least a smidgen or two of glee and fun. In a perfect world, each gift would be thoughtfully and artfully chosen, locally or sustainably made, nonviolent, affordable, a reflection of my sons’ unique tastes and abilities, sheathed in reusable or recyclable wrapping. Each gift would provoke joy and hours of stimulating play, would broaden their worlds and fill them with extra wonder, new curiosity.

In reality, there’s an awful lot of scouring the toy shelves at Winners.

Because, you know, who has time for that kind of ridiculous? It’s a full-time job to find 16 perfect presents, and I already have a job, writing things on the Internet for free. Among other things. I mean, maybe some year I’ll get my shit together and start thinking of these things in July, but the likelihood of that happening is low. And even if I did, there’s no guarantee that those thoughtfully chosen gifts would be met with anywhere near the grace they merit.

Put simply, my kids need a refresher on their present-receiving skills.

Because, let’s face it: when you are a child (and, ahem, maybe when you’re a grownup), every wrapped present contains a pony. A full on, sparkly pony with diamonds on the soles of its horseshoes and a saddle made out of pure candy. All wrapped packages contain Barbie dream homes or life-size Lego unicorns or undefeatable, gold-plated Pokémon cards. And when that’s the case, sometimes it can be hard to unwrap Boggle. Even when the following day you will spend a rapt hour finding new words with your mother, who had children precisely so that one day she might play Boggle with them.

Nights four through eight of Chanukah involved pre-gift coaching sessions:

“What will you say when you get this present?” we asked.

“Thank you,” they droned, like the perfect little zombies of gratitude we force them to be.

“And what will you say if it’s something that you don’t like?”

“I will say, I will say,” — Rowan has thought this one through, obviously — “‘I don’t really like this present but thank you for it anyway.’”

We’re working on it. By God, we’re working on it.

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It’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Which probably means that I shouldn’t be writing on the computer, but I’m not really that kind of Jew, so that’s okay.

I don’t tend to make New Year’s resolutions, not because I’m not the type of person who doesn’t totally freaking adore the concept of New Year’s resolutions, what with their promise of self-improvement and lists and all. No, I don’t tend to make New Year’s resolutions because therein lies the possibility of, shall we say, going overboard. I mean, once you resolve to do one thing, about 72 others seem to want to follow and then life becomes an endless pursuit of perfection, which leads to strife. So, usually, if anything, I resolve to do something relatively benign like “See more movies” or “Be nicer to the grey cat.”

But this year, this Rosh Hashanah, I have been mulling over one resolution that I think I actually need to resolve. It involves my children, and for this reason alone I will now take a short break in order to pick them up from their various after-school activities because a corollary to this resolution may just be that I will not be late for picking them up because I am blogging about how I am going to change my behaviour around them. It’s okay, though, because you won’t actually notice that I took a short break.

See! I’m back! No noticing, all good.

So, yes. My resolution. I will… I’m not sure exactly how to phrase this in a sentence so I will give you an example:

One evening this past summer, the kids were being, shall we say, high-energy but also very happy, and also — unrelated — we needed lemons. So, for a change of scenery, I decided to take them to the store to buy said lemons. And so we got to the store and we got lemons and I was heading to the checkout counter (and hoping that the cashier wasn’t going to talk to me too much) and the kids they were all like, “Can we go see the lobsters?”, as in the live lobsters in the tank at the back of the grocery store.

And I was all like, “No, no, we’ve just got to buy the lemons and go home.” And they were all like, lobsters, and I was all like, no no no we can’t have any fun and why can’t you just frog-march like some unsmiling little prisoners in some Gulag quietly through the grocery store and not have any fun any time ever instead of WASTING MY TIME with requests full of childlike wonder and awe to see the live lobsters in the back of the store? To paraphrase.

Fortunately, I came to my senses long enough to realize what a jerk I sounded like. A no you can’t go see the lobsters kind of jerk. And I realize that, yes, this is too often a lot of parents: we are tired and fed up and we must process eleventy million requests each hour, the vast majority of which are unreasonable. But still, still, too often I default to the automatic no, the impulse to squelch any and all joy from a situation because it is inconvenient and I am tired.

And so I said to the kids, “Yes. Let’s go see the lobsters.” And then I watched them hop merrily down the aisle of the grocery store, stepping only on the dark checkerboard tiles on the floor, because they are children, and that is what children do.

So my resolution is Remember to Say Yes to the Lobsters. As often as I can, say yes to them.

Lobsters are not kosher, but that’s okay cause I’m not really that kind of Jew anyway.

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It’s a rainy Monday, and I’ve just dropped donor-dad (dad-donor? Dad? The “pretty much perfect”?) Rob off at the airport after a fantastic visit. Pathetic fallacy? I think so. Given that Air Canada decided not to go on strike and keep him here, Rachel and I are just going to have to take on all the soccer-playing, Pokémon-hustling, latte-making and chase-playing duties ourselves once again. This is hard, but we will prevail.

So here’s a little shout out to Rob and all the other queer parents who helped inspire my latest musings over at interfaithfamily.com today. Here’s a taste :

My partner, Rachel, met, Rob, the man who would eventually become our sperm donor, during her first year in grad school. Within weeks, she’d accomplished a major feat of advanced family planning: she managed to get him to commit his genetic material to us, well in advance of any concrete plans we actually had to have kids.

Finding Rob was a major coup. He’s pretty much perfect: kind, smart, good-looking, no unmanageable issues, interested in being involved with the kids but absolutely uninterested in parenting full time or having any say in parenting decisions. We’d struck gold with him — but it’s also true that he was the only man out of several we asked who was even willing to consider the possibility. The whole idea of “choosing” a donor is, actually, kind of misleading, implying that would-be same-sex moms can simply pick one of the dozens of tempting options dangling in front of them like ripe fruit.

So the fact that Rob wasn’t Jewish seemed like a minor blip to me.

Please read the rest and let me know what you think here or over at IFF.

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It’s been a good couple of weeks for writing — for me, at least. Today, I have an essay featured on interfaithfamily.com: “When interfaith meets same-sex, assumptions get challenged” continues my thoughts on Jewish identity and the matrilineal principle and just what happens when those smack into the realities of queer parenting. Have a look (once you’re finished with Ms., that is).

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I remember clearly the day that my religious studies teacher, Rabbi Meyerovitch, explained to us — a group of seventh-grade girls at the private Jewish elementary school I attended in Vancouver, British Columbia — the rabbinic law that determined who got to be “born Jewish.”

He was about as direct as one might expect a grizzled, sixtysomething Orthodox man to be about such matters, but he tried his best. A child follows the religion of the mother, he explained, because — and here he coughed — “well … you can always be sure of who the mother is.”

We looked at him blankly.

He continued: “But …you can’t always be sure of the father.”

It took me a few minutes, but I caught on eventually. At the time, the rabbinic logic made perfect sense to my 12-year-old mind: if any poor shmuck pointed out by the mother could conceivably be the father, then of course the baby should follow the religion of the “knowable” parent, the parent to whose body it was irrefutably, undeniably tethered. Fatherhood as a concept was murky, shifting. But motherhood? You could count on that. You could see it with the naked eye.

That’s the beginning of my essay, “Que(e)rying the Matrilineal Principle,” published in the current issue of Lilith magazine. It’s part of a themed section on “Naming the Matriarchy,” in which, as the magazine puts it, “three ‘deciders’ seize the power of choosing, in ways big and small, bullish and inventive, multicultural and intellectual, norm-shattering and unapologetically subversive.” Aw. More specifically, it’s the story of my ongoing understanding of what it means to reconcile Jewish and queer identities when they collide with parenthood.  You can download and read it here.

And for those of you who’ve been hankering for even more Jewish feminism (and even if you weren’t, bet you now are — kind of like if I mention sushi or brownies you immediately want some, don’t you?), the  good folks at Lilith have kindly provided me with some extra copies of the magazine. If you’d like one, please leave a comment below (yes, you can just say, “I want one,” but I’d also love your feedback on the article itself, if you’re so inclined). On Tuesday, February 7, I’ll randomly choose five of the commenters to receive a copy . I’m reserving a sixth and seventh copy for new Facebook “Friends” of this blog — if you’ve been hesitating to click that “like” button over to the right, hesitate no more! Some independent, Jewish and frankly feminist reading awaits you!

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Ye gods people, it’s Friday, and all I’ve posted this week is a picture of some toilet paper. I can totally do better. Here, for example, is Rowan, engaged in the time-honoured public-school tradition of writing Valentine’s Day cards. Or, as he calls them, Valentime’s Day cards.

I feel the need to point out that this photograph was taken two and a half weeks ago, when Rachel had enough foresight to pick up a couple of boxes of 99-cent V-day cards at Zellers and Rowan got on the project like white on rice. ORGANIZED MUCH? That’s us: totally on the ball. Lunches made and clothes laid out the night before. No rushing around in the morning trying to find that other mitten or realizing that you’ve dropped your kid off at senior kindergarten but have neglected to brush your teeth. We are with it, people. WITH IT. If I actually had ever done Christmas shopping in my life, I would venture to guess that the feeling I got when dropping a package of 14, pre-written, sealed Valentine’s Day cards into my son’s communication folder of a Thursday morning would be akin to having all my Yuletide gifts purchased by mid-October.

Rowan is at the lovely stage where everybody gives and everybody gets (except for the two Jehovah’s Witness kids in the class, who don’t participate in the holiday), where popularity doesn’t yet dictate how many cards will populate your little paper-plate Valentine’s Day mailbox. I went to a private Jewish day school as a kid, so valentines weren’t part of the curriculum (read: goyish, feh), and by the time I entered the public system in eighth grade, they were just one more instrument in the torture rack of the junior-high pecking order. In Grade 9, though, I remember that three kids at the top of that pecking order — Noel, Josh, and Joanna — made valentines for every kid in the grade. Every single one of us, from the computer nerds in the gifted class to the library club president, got a personalized Valentine, signed, with love, from the three of them. It stood out, you know? Interestingly, Joanna now runs a lifestyle website called The Sweet Spot, while Noel is president and CEO of AshleyMadison.com — yes, the site with the tagline, “Life is short, have an affair.” Who knew?

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I’m thrilled to have an essay published in the current issue of Lilith Magazine. Check out “Four (Same-Sex, Half-Jewish) Weddings and a Funeral,” in which, as the magazine puts it, “the author’s unconventional wedding plans get less conventional as she lets her mother, fighting breast cancer, take over the planning.”

You want talking about death? We got that, plus weddings and babies. What more could you want? If you can’t find the mag in, say, Thunder Bay, you can order it online.

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… can be heard today — talking about (what else?) And Baby Makes More — on CFUV 101.9 FM. That is, they can be heard on the radio for those of you lucky enough to actually be in Victoria, BC, today, where I’m guessing that the illusion that it’s still fall is being perpetuated. Tune in between 1 and 2 PM Pacific time. For those of you elsewhere, you can listen in online at www.cfuv.uvic.ca.

It’s a good thing “Women on Air” didn’t try to interview me last week, because the interview would have been punctuated by coughing fits and extended nose-blowing sessions. So sexy. Yes, hot on the heels of H1N1, the dreaded, month-long sinus infection with the bonus pack of hacking cough has returned. I’d like to think that the germs have rendered my voice appropriately Kathleen Turner-esque, but really I sound like Harvey Fierstein just inhaled some helium.

Speaking of Harvey, if I hadn’t already given away my right thumb to the past year, I would give it away now to go see him play Tevye in the production of Fiddler on the Roof currently touring North America but — surprisingly — not stopping in Thunder Bay. What, David Mirvish, the 30-odd Jews up here weren’t a big enough draw? I guess I can’t blame you when the local Santa-meter is already pushing 11. Exhibit A.: my son’s PUBLIC SCHOOL senior kindergarten curriculum, which seems to have emerged intact from the 1950s. It’s all decorated with pictures of Santa and Christmas trees and reindeer and the like, and filled with chirpy instructions to “Decorate your tree and bring it to school this week!” “Write a letter to Santa!” “Practice your holiday songs and teach them to your family!” “Count the days until Christmas!” “Put out milk and cookies for Santa and a carrot for his reindeer!” (Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. I did add in those exclamation marks.)

Discussion with the school is ensuing. Wish us luck in convincing the powers that be that it’s time to break with, as Tevye would say, “Tradition! Tradition!” in favour of some December activities that feel just a wee bit more, oh, multicultural. Inclusive. You know — something that makes me feel less like I’m living in a ghetto.

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For the greater good of art, I present to you this unflattering photograph of my back to the camera, as an illustration of this morning’s ritual Making of the Challah.

Do you like my apron? It was my grandmother’s: my father’s mother, who, during my childhood, made the journey from the steppes of Russia her apartment in Winnipeg to our house in Toronto twice a year, at Passover and Rosh Hashanah, and cooked her heart out. Traditional stuff: gefilte fish, honey cake, Passover rolls, kugel. She and I had a little bit of a tortured relationship in my late teens, her being all about tradition and me being, well, not so much traditional. But I do like to think that she would be pleased to see me sporting the halushious apron each week as my sons and I make Friday-night challah. Even if we do use a bread maker.

Sometimes, when time and patience are in short supply, I wait until after the kids have left for the babysitter before I get going on the braided bread routine. But this morning (despite the fact that it started, as per the current usual, at 5 AM) everything was going so swimmingly that I decided what the hell. Rowan was so eager to help that he went as far as to get his own self dressed — right down to his Home Depot apron — in order to participate. Then Isaac got in on the action, and demanded his own apron, too: we improvised with a vintage yellow bib with a Mickey Mouse decal painstakingly handstitched onto it. With him perched on the counter and Rowan on the stool, we were ready to go.

Baking with Rowan used to completely unnerve me: all those jerky movements and flying flour and overzealous mixing and the hands in the batter and the way he’d tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap an egg on the counter for a full minute without so much as bruising the shell, only to crush the thing in his fist a moment later. These days, it’s either that I’m more relaxed or he’s more skilled, because he doesn’t faze me the way he used to. Even with Isaac sitting crosslegged on the counter, repeating, “I help!” and poking teaspoons into everything, it was an entirely enjoyable exercise.

And just look at this!

Every week, it’s a struggle not to tear into one of these babies, just warm from the oven, instead of waiting until we’re at the table and the candles are lit. But I don’t, because to do that would mess with tradition, which around here dictates that Friday night dinner consists of challah and roast chicken, yam frites and broccoli. We’ve fallen into the pattern, and now there is no deviating. Not even for, say, the organic wild salmon fillets purchased for last night’s dinner that never got cooked because we were too busy enjoying soccer in the park. At snack time before bed last night, I casually put the question to Rowan as to whether he’d mind if we skipped roast chicken in favour of salmon, and he burst into tears. Don’t fuck with tradition, man. Or the wrath of the bubbies and the four-year-olds will be upon you.

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As overheard in our house, on Friday, and transcribed not quite verbatim here.

Me: When are you going to make hamantaschen?

Rachel: I already made hamantaschen.

Me: But do you think you’ll make more?

Rachel: Why would I make more?

Me: Well, because I kind of wrote this article about you making hamantaschen for the blog.

Rachel: So?

Me: But then I sold the article to Interfaith Family.

Rachel: Uh huh …

Me: And so now I need you to make more hamantaschen so that I can take a photo.

Rachel: This is the most twisted kind of Jewish guilt I have ever experienced.

Me: At least I can write off the apricots and dried prunes.

Rachel: They’re really just Fig Newtons, you know.

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