Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday was my birthday and I turned 21! I had an amazing birthday Thanks to SN.

I went to SN for Shabbos, and got to see how his Shabbos routine goes. I enjoyed the zemiros and Divrei Torah from him and his family. I got to meet his friendly neighbors, and go to shiurim with him. I also got to go to Auror’s house, and talk with her and all her siblings. Over Shabbos I tasted so many new foods! Gefilte Fish, Bartenurah wine, eggs, and tomatoes, to name a few. I enjoyed spending time with SN, and learned more things about him that I admire.

Then Sunday, we looked at an apartment that I was really hoping would work out. B”H it did, and Monday we decided to take it! Now I feel relieved that we have an apartment, and can start focusing on buying stuff for it! Fun Fun!

Monday I went for my first gown fitting, and picked up one sheitel, which I’m going to bring back another time to have it styled some more.

Tuesday, was my Birthday! The day started off with me going to my future sister in law to check out the sheitel that she ordered for me. It was great talking with her, and she was so nice in helping me out with buying stuff, recommending where to go and what I would need to get.

Then I went to my grandparents store, where I picked out some robes and tried on some pre-tied’s, they gave me lots of stuff! It was fun trying on the pre-tied’s and looking like a “Mommy”!

Then after I finished with the robe store I was walking to try to find the city bus stop to go back home, but I didn’t know where it was, so I was walking down the Avenue. Then I BBM’d SN that I was done with my grandparents store, he BBM’d back that he was in the neighborhood, then he offered me a ride, happened to be we were a block away from each other.

So I meet him in front of a pizza store, and I see him coming to me with a huge Happy Birthday Balloon. It was such a nice surprise, and I loved how it wasn’t planned, and that we just happened to be in the same place at the same time. So we ate lunch together. Meanwhile it was still early, 3 ish, so SN was in middle of his working hours. So after lunch he was supposed to go to another place, but they were going close before we would be able to get there, so SN ended up coming to my house. I brought down my laptop and I got to watch SN work. It was fun to watch how he works.

Then after an hour, we went back to his house, where I helped him with some more invitations that he didn’t get to send out yet. Then we went to a candy store where we had fun going through the candies and picking some out. I saw 2 interesting “candies” there. One was Individually wrapped Jelly beans, and the other was a “coloring page cookie”, where you get to color on the cookie, to fill in the picture how ever you want it to look, and it’s all edible!

Then we went out to eat at a nice fancy restaurant, where we had yummy food! SN gave me a beautiful birthday present, of diamond earrings. He played a song for me on his phone that we both really like. Then we went back to the car, where we ate some candies and played “our song” for our wedding.

Then I got to see how SN does one of his side computer jobs. We went to this persons house, and it was cool watching SN doing stuff on the computer, and I can’t wait to learn how to do all kinds of things and help him out with his jobs. Then the mother in the house asked me if I wanted a tour of her house. So I said “okay” and boy what a tour it was! She had painted everything in her house, it was all amazing! She told me how she got lots of stuff from ikea and designed her house, and everything. I told he that she can be on one of those TV shows, doing home makeovers for people. Everything she painted was so professional and amazing. She painted on furniture into the kids bedroom, that look so real! She painted on the kitchen counter, and the backsplash of the kitchen, that all look so real! It was all really cool.

Then SN drove me home, and it was already late, where my family would be sleeping, so he didn’t get to come in and say hello to them. But we got to talk in the car some more, which I always enjoy. Lately, we’ve been talking till the clock turns _:00, but here it was at _:46, when a car needed to go into the driveway we were blocking, so we had to call it a night, and didn’t get to talk till the _:00.

I had an amazing Birthday! And great weekend leading up to my birthday! Our wedding is getting closer! I am so excited!

Twins!

I was reading what HSaboMilner had to say on being a twin, and it brought back memories of my own.

If I had a dollar for every time we were asked if our twin was identical. Identical means exactly the same.

So many times people would ask if we were identical, and this came from adults too.

My mother is a twin, and always tells over the story of how my grandmother was giving birth. My mother came first, and the doctor said “It’s a girl”. Then 2 minutes later the doctor said “It’s a boy”, so then my grandmother said “Is it a girl or a boy? you can’t tell?”. We would all laugh at the story, thinking about the olden days.

I obviously don’t know what it was like when my mother was pregnant with us, but I do remember what it was like when she was pregnant with the second set of twins. I remember being so excited to finally have younger siblings to take care of. It was exciting to have 2 babies, to play with them and feed them.

When me and my twin were younger we were really close. We played together and did everything together. We went to the same school together, separate building for boys and girls, but we were on the same bus. We would have walkie talkies, and talk to each other. It was a lot of fun. We were partners. We would play school together, and do homework together.

I had such a deep bond with him, that I felt everything he felt. I would hurt for him. I didn’t have that same bond with my older brother. Me and my twin always got a long and were best friends. My twin brother was always so good to me, and wanted to take care of me. He would protect me in school, and tried to take care of me when we got lost. Even now he is so good to me. He gave me his blackberry when he got a new phone, which made me so happy since SN has a blackberry too. He asked me what I want for my birthday present, even though it’s his birthday too.

HSaboMilner puts it very nicely:

There is something deeply magical and mystical about being created at the same time as someone else. Growing together from a cluster of cells into human beings. Our bond was created 9 months before our birth – there is no way that anyone could ever hope to recreate that in the physical world.

As the years gone by, and there started to be a separation between boys and girls, we drifted a part, and became like regular brother and sister. Then I started to think it would be better to be twins with a girl, cause then you would really get to do everything together, and if you were identical you would get to switch places on people, like “Elizabeth and Jessica” did, from some story book I used to love reading. But then I would read stories about twin girls being in competition with each other, and I was happy to be twins with a boy again.

With my younger brother and sister, they were a different type of twins. They weren’t always together. They were on different levels, which made it hard for them to play which each other. It’s easy to explain to an older child that the younger child can’t do certain things yet, or that you have to be the big one and give in. But with twins it’s hard, because their the same age, so you can’t tell one they have to be “older” and give in, or that the other is younger and that’s why they can’t do whatever it may be.

Being a twin was really fun as a child, and I’ll cherish the memories. Now I still have a connection with my twin, but it’s not the same as before. Though we still get a long great. Now I feel connected to SN and hope to grow our connection to the upmost. 

Being that it seems like twins is in the genes of my family (3 sets) it makes me wonder if I’ll have twins, and which I would rather. I used to think that twins are so cool, and you get a lot of attention because of it. But parenting wise, I think singles are easier. But whatever Hashem gives me I will be happy with!

Expectations

Friday night I went to a great shiur by R’ Ackerman from project Y.E.S on the topic of expectations with children.

There are 3 rules to follow when formulating an expectation:

1. The expectation has to be concrete. In that you can’t be vague in asking a child to do something.
   
   Example: Asking a child to clean their room is a vague request. What will happen if you tell a child to clean their room? You’ll come in and see a pile of clothing in the closet, and garbage there. So then you’ll get upset at the child, and say, “You didn’t clean your room!”, then they’ll say “But I did, look, there’s nothing on the floor, I put it all in the closet so that you won’t trip on anything. So the child had good intentions but just didn’t understand your request. Now if you would give a specific request, and say “I would like you to clean up the things from the floor, hang up the shirts in the closet and throw the garbage out.” Then that is a concrete expectation that the child can follow.
   
2. The expectation should be a positive one. A parent shouldn’t tell a kid “Get your feet off the table” because then they will put their feet on the wall or the chair or any other place besides the table, and if you don’t want their feet in those places then you have to be clear and say, Put your feet only on the floor. So before you make a request for a child to do, think about what you want them to do, if you can’t think of a positive way to ask it, then wait till you can think of one.
   
   Also, there’s a way to ask a child to do something. It shouldn’t be “You have to be in your room in 10 minutes”. Rather, “I would like you to be in your room in 10 minutes”. There are 2 differences between the 2 sentences. 1 is changing the sentence from a “you” to an “I”. 2 is leaving out the word “have to”. If you request from the child nicely to go into their room then they are more likely to listen, than if they are being told to. In addition, if you use words like “have to” then what will happen? 15 minutes later the child is not in their room, so they realize they didn’t have to go to their room, and it makes the parent loose authority in their eyes.
   
3. The expectation has to be realistic. You have to know what the child can handle at their age level, as well as the duration of how long they can do something. A little child most likely will not be able to sit at the Friday table for a long time. So you can’t expect them to. But yet, it doesn’t mean that it’s all or nothing. They can sit there for as much as they can handle. With such things, a parent shouldn’t ask the child “can you sit at the table?” because then it’s giving the child 2 choices, “yes” or “no”, but really they can sit at the table, just not for all of it, so rather you should ask “How long can you sit at the table for?”. Also, it is important to realize that each child is different, and that just because 95% of your other children were able to do something at a certain age, doesn’t mean it’s realistic for this child to.

Now after asking your child to do something, you should say over what you expect of them, and see if they understand. To clean up any misunderstandings. Then you should ask the child “What do you think of that”, so that you find out in advance feedback from the child whether they plan on doing what you expect or not. So that later when you have expected them to do something, and you find out they didn’t do it, you won’t be caught in the moment and get upset. So you talk it out in advance.

Now if the child has succeeded in doing what you asked them to, then you have to praise them on their success. You’re supposed to praise them, 500 times to the amount you criticize them. That is the key to building a child’s self esteem. If you find the child set the table, like you asked, then you say “Child’s name, you did such a great job setting the table, your such a good boy” or something like that. The praise should be able the child’s success and not about yourself, in that you shouldn’t say “you made me so happy by setting the table”. Though you can add that in to, but the focal point should be about the child accomplishing his task.

Now it says “adam nifal kefei poulasuf”, a child will become the way he acts. So that if you praise him for his success, then he will become successful. If on the other hand you always point out his failures, then he’ll think of himself as a failure. So that if a child does an expectation half way, you should praise him on that half way, so that you can build his success, rather than salvaging his failure. It’s much easier to build on success.

Now what if you asked the child to move some cups from the dining room table to the server, and then you find it wasn’t done, what do you do? You say to the child “I asked you to move the cups from the table to the server”. Then you say an observation, which should not be judgmental. You say, “I see the cups are still on the table”. Then it is very important to be dan likav zechus, and judge the child favorably, so that your not putting them on the defense. You shouldn’t say “why didn’t you put the cups on the server?” But rather say “what was hard for you?” Assuming that the child would have done what you asked if they had been able to.

Now when having a talk with a child about an important thing, you have to be Hakal Kan, all of you has to be there. You can’t have any outside distractions, as well as internal distractions, you have to realize everything is about the child, and not you being upset at the child. When talking with the child make sure you have eye contact, if their looking down, then say their name, to get their attention. Then go through the script, saying: “I asked you to do this, I see it is this way, what was hard for you?”

Then the reason will be one of 2 things. Either incompetence or non compliance. Which in most cases it’s incompetence, where the child was un capable of fulfilling your expectation. So they will explain to you why they couldn’t. Example: a child comes home and puts their coat on the floor, you find it there and then ask the child what happened, they will tell you that they hand to run to the bathroom so they couldn’t hang up their coat.

Now what happens if the child just says, “I didn’t do it because I didn’t want to”. Then you have to make sure it’s really not incompetence. You say to the child, “what happened when you tried to…” then  lots of times they will tell you, “I tried but then I couldn’t” They are just too ashamed to say that they couldn’t do something, so they say they didn’t want to do it. But once they see that you understand them, then they will open up to you and tell you why they couldn’t do what you asked. Now this is very important to find out that it’s really incompetence, as you’ll find out later.

If the child didn’t fulfill the expectation because of non compliance, there is one of 3 things that can be done:

1. You can let it slide, you can figure this isn’t an important thing, and the child doesn’t want to do it. This does not mean “choosing your battles” since really parenting is not about a battle between parent and child, but rather helping the child grow to be successful, so you’re just making a decision, that this request is not an important one.
   
2. You can threaten the child into submission. Now this one barely works, because then there will be a war between the child and parent, and you’ll be surprised how much punishment a child can handle, so that they shouldn’t loose. Rarely will they ever give in, and if they do give in, the relationship between parent and child has changed, and the child will not like his parent at all. So you have to question if this method will be worth it.
   
3. You can give the child an incentive. Notice this is not a bribe, since a bribe is given to a judge so that they should do the wrong thing. Here you want the child to do the right thing, just since they don’t want to, you want to give them motivation so that they should. A child is an expert of themselves. So you ask them “What would you like to earn in order to do this thing that you don’t want to do”. You’ll be surprised at what lots of children will say to this, One child said “I want to play checkers with Totty on Friday nights”.

Now here’s where it’s important that you made sure it really was non compliance and not incompetence. Because what happens, if really the child is not capable of doing something, and then you offer them a reward if they do it. It’s cruel, because your hanging something they want in front of their eyes, but yet saying they can’t have it. Since they won’t be able to fulfill your expectation they won’t be able to get the reward. So all the charts won’t help, unless the child is capable to meet the expectation.

Israel 2009

Earlier I had posted about Chanukah at the Kotel, and now it had actually happened. I went with my family to Israel for my little brothers Bar Mitzvah. He did a great job leining Parshas Meiketz, the longest Parsha, and I’m so proud of him! Since it was my little sister’s birthday also, she got a cake. It reminds me of my twin brothers bar mitzvah, when I got a cake too.

We left to Israel on December 6. It was nice having SN come over and see us off. I brought my laptop with me thinking I would have internet in Israel and be able to communicate with SN that way, but it wasn’t so simple. Everywhere I went I kept thinking about SN. We took lots of pictures and videos so that we would be able to share the experience.

I had a great time in Israel spending time with both of my grandparents, and meeting other relatives. We didn’t do much touring since the men and boys went to a lot of Kvarim.

While my father and brother were at Har Hazaisim they had an Arab aim a gun at them, and their taxi driver said he’ll protect them, and B”H nothing happened. Then they were walking around looking for Avremel Zalmanowitz’s Kever 2 men out of nowhere came to help them find it. Then after Davening there, they turned around and the men were gone. When I heard that it reminded me of the stories where Eliyahu Hanavi, or someone would just appear miraculously. 

We went to 4 places, the Kotel, Kever Rochel, Mearas Hamachpaila and Mini Israel.

Some interesting things I noticed about Israel:

1. The lights go from Red –> Yellow –> Green
2. People do not cross against the light, even if there are no cars coming.
3. Their latkes are not made from potatoes
4. The people want it to rain
5. There’s so much security, that they check your pocketbook at a grocery store
6. There are lions everywhere, looks like it’s their national symbol
7. The shuk sells everything loose, there are sacks of all different kinds of spices.

Last time I went to Israel I kept a diary of my trip. This time however, I e-mailed SN a daily summary of how my day in Israel was, instead. Interestingly most of my thoughts on my first Israel trip, apply to the second as well.

We left Israel December 21st, and arrived back in time to see all the snow on the ground. Our flight only got delayed about 3 hours. The day I was flying to come back, SN was flying to Florida, so we missed each other. Today SN is flying back from LA, and interestingly he’ll be arriving to snow too.

I had fun buying presents for friends and family. I gave the large family a present, and realized that the mother is expecting child number 13! (The oldest is now 18!). The 3 year old still didn’t get a hair cut! I think their afraid that he won’t want to wear his yarmulka and then he’ll look like a “goy”, this way he just looks like a 2 year old.

I spent a day with Auror and gave her some presents, she is really such a great friend! We had fun trying on dresses and perfume. She brings out the “girl” in me.

Tomorrow I get to see SN, and I can’t wait to finally see him and show him what I bought, and to give him some presents.

S.H.A.L.O.M

Motzei Shabbos I went with SN to a great workshop by the S.H.A.L.O.M taskforce. It lasted over 4 hours, but yet was so interesting that time just flew by. I would recommend all engaged couples to go to this workshop. The government provides grants to them, enabling them to give the workshop for free. They only charge 25 dollars to register and get a book they put together.

The workshop started with everyone receiving a piece of paper titled “Island Survival Exercise”, where there are 25 things listed on the list, and you have to choose 10 that you think are important in order to survive on an island. Then you compare it with your significant other and see how many you have in common. Then for the one’s you have different you have to come up with a compromise and see which one’s you would both choose. This exercise showed how couples think alike. In addition, it helps you practice compromising, and learning more about how the other thinks.

Then there is something called The Daily Temperature Reading by Virginia Satir. Couples should set a side 15 minutes a day to talk to each other and do the DTR.

1. Appreciations
2. New Information
3. Puzzles
4. Complaints with Request for Change
5. Wishes, Hopes and Dreams

(See link above for more info. Or watch the video below)

DTR by Lori Gordon, Founder of PAIRS

Then there’s the Guide for Confiding about a Complaint. They give you a wheel, with key words to begin your complaint. While one is making their complaint, the other parrots what they say, to make sure they understand what is being said. (Ex: “I notice that you…” “You notice that I…”). Then only after the whole wheel has been gone through, can the other explain and clear things up. This helps for complaints that involve emotional feelings, and involve more than a “quick fix” technique.

Then there is the emotional jug. Where sometimes you can be having a bad day, little things keep happening and you remain calm through it all. Then one last thing happens and you burst and lash out on someone. So to prevent this from happening, you realize when your emotional jug starts building up, and you tell your significant other that you have to empty your emotional jug.

The listener will then ask “What are you Mad/Sad/Scared/Glad about?” and then at the end ask “If there’s anything else you would be mad about, what would it be?”. This seems like a strange question, but it really works. Since you are emptying your emotional jug, you might as well let it all out, so that you start fresh.

Yesterday I got to practice emptying my emotional jug, and SN was a great listener and I thank him again! I was in such a good mood afterwards, that I even wanted to make others happy.

This is just a fraction of what the workshop consisted of, for more information check out their site and register for a course!

Segulos

I had a class on Segulos in Seminary that was very interesting, so I decided to share it.

We are not supposed to follow in the ways of the Goyim, but with health related issues you don’t have to worry about following in the ways of the goyim. In other words, you should use a doctor.

1- If a person is chocking on a bone, they should put a bone on their forehead and say  “חד חד נחית בלע בלע נחית חד חד " – it works.

“והיתם לי סגולה מכל העמים”, Something can just work even if it doesn’t make sense. Like medicine comes from grass, so too Segulos will work through Torah.

A person’s approach to a Segulah is to put their trust in Hashem, and by doing these things we believe Hashem will help us.

2- If a child talks in their sleep, take the tooth of a dog and put it on a necklace around the child.

3- For ear infection, Put the mothers milk in the ear of the child, or mix with white of egg and put in ear. – It works, it’s medicine.

4- If a Mezuzah is Posul then missing a Shmirah, so check the mezuzah’s 2 times in 7 years.

5- During pregnancy a baby is formed based on what the mother does, so shouldn’t stare at animals in the zoo, don’t go to the cemetery or a Livayah, careful with what you eat and see.

6- A woman in the 9th month should go to the mikvah to cleanse herself of things she did wrong during the pregnancy.

7- A woman that can’t have children should take water from a well in Eretz Yisroel. Best Segulah for health is to say Asher Yatzar.

8- For Parnassah bench with Kavanah

9- If a woman is pregnant, she should bake a cake when she feels like she’s going into labor, and say the name of a person who doesn’t have a child, and it’s a segulah that they’ll have a child.

10- If a person has warts, take the Havdallah wine and put it on, and the wart will go away. –It works.

11- If a person can’t have children, boil Aravos and drink it, same for migraines.

12- First time it snows, take snow and rub on forehead 3 times to have a good memory. Gematria of Sheleg and Shikcha is 33.

13- Pick up your head when your trying to remember, and put your head down to concentrate.

14- For bad burn say 3x “…יברכך ה׳ וישמרך”, “יאיר ה׳…” “ישא ה׳”. And have Kavanah that Hashem should heal you.

15- Garlic on child keeps away an Ayin Hora. People keep Garlic on pocket book to keep away Ayin Hora.

16-Small aquarium, necklace with ה׳, keep away Ayin Hora.

17- Bucharian, when children get scared take metal pot, heat up lead, take hat and put the led into it, put the hat on the child, led will turn into the form of what the child is thinking of, like a dog.

18- If you have a bad dream, you can sell it.

A Simcha Filled Week

Sunday evening SN’s family made a birthday party for SN’s father in his sister’s house. SN’s sister cooked an amazing meal with tons of food. I tasted carrot cake/kugel and loved it. While there SN’s brother in law told over a dvar torah about hachnasos archim. Where SN brought up a question, of how did Avraham know that he can tell Hashem to wait while he does the mitzvah of hachnasos archim, Then two answers were given.

After the birthday party, SN came to my house to work on the “Thank You” cards for the vort presents. After writing the messages I liked the way SN signed the cards he wrote, so I asked him to sign the one’s I wrote like that too. After we were done with the thank you cards. My little brother started talking to SN, and entertained him till Midnight! I enjoyed going through albums with SN showing him pictures of me when I was a little kid.

Monday night I went to my second New Square Wedding. It was a really interesting experience. I sat with 18 year old cousins who were engaged too. It’s funny how I felt like I fit in because I was engaged too, so we all had something to talk about. I had thought my 4 month engagement is a long time, but then I found out 1 cousin’s engagement is 14 months, and another 8 months! I was surprised when one of the girls showed me a picture of her chosson on her cell phone. It was a picture of a chassidish guy. I didn’t know what reaction she was expecting from me, so I just said “very nice”.

Tuesday night I had “Rain Strap’s” vort. It was really nice, and I was so happy for her, now that I knew what it felt like to be engaged. She introduced me to her chosson and they looked like a great happy lively couple. It made me realize how much more SN is such a great match for me, and I appreciate him so much!

Thursday morning I went to a cousin’s bris, that had twin boys. The really cool thing is that SN’s cousin also had twin boys the same day as my cousin! After the bris I went to SN’s sister’s sheitel place to see what size I am, and to match the color. The store was really pretty, and it was so much fun to try on sheitel’s. SN’s sister is really great!

Friday night, one of the mother’s I babysat for had a shiur in her house, where the Rebbitzen of my shul spoke. The 5 year old saw me coming in and ran to give me a hug and pulled me into her house so that she can sit on my lap. Then she said only I can sit on her chair because I’m a kallah. Then she introduced me to a lady, and said that I’m getting married. The lady then asked how old I was, and of course she said I looked younger.

Meanwhile, my father had gone to a “Buta” by my shul, and someone had asked a question about the parsha, the same question that SN had asked. I had already told my father the question and answer during the Friday night meal. So when my father heard the question, he recognized it and was able to answer it. The answer was that Avraham’s feet started moving to do hachnasas Orchim. Because a tzadik automatically starts doing a mitzvah, so that’s how he knew that he was supposed to greet the guests and was able to put Hashem “on hold”.

Motzei Shabbos I went with SN to his cousin’s vort, and met more of his family members. It was funny because my mother had babysat for his cousins, so his aunts and uncle’s knew my mother and they were really nice in welcoming me to the family.