hannukahfied: post-party wrap up

So, in fact, 56 people were at the Hannukah party at our house on Saturday. And here’s the thing I discovered: 1/2 lb of potatoes per person only applies to ADULTS. When a good 1/3 of your guests are 9 and under, 25 lbs of potatoes is too much. A lesson I learned only after I’d needlessly stood at the stove an extra 1-1/2 hours into the event.

Everybody with me: SIGH.

Otherwise, it was an awesome party. And more relevant to the Jonah-centric nature of this blog, the boy LOVED it.

He was the party ambassador. He chatted and played with everyone there. How often in his life does an entire room full, nay house full of people pay attention to him? Seriously. He had playmates for MILES.

And many guests brought presents for him, so that was, you know, AWESOME too.

For those who may be following along at home: we had a whole foil pan full of latkes left over but they were left to warm too long and were steamed to an unpleasant greasy black mush. We also had about three pounds of cut but not used potatoes floating in water (to keep them from turning gray). So, after all the guests had gone, at 9 o’clock at night, I ran those through the Cuisinart, froze some to experiment with hash browns at a future time, and mixed up the rest with eggs, onion, matzoh meal, salt, and pepper,and packed it into a Pyrex to make a potato kugel, which we’ve been eating for two days now. Delish.

Also, this year, clean-up included going back through all of the trash bags and sorting by garbage/compost/recycling because I hadn’t gotten it together to label bags beforehand. It wasn’t so bad a job, and it made us feel very noble. Almost canceled out the fact that we didn’t buy compostable flatware.

On Sunday we went to a Hannukah event at the local JCC. There were puppets, and a big ark full of fluffy stuffed torahs. Some had faces and some didn’t. Jonah’s didn’t so we had to barter with the family next to us to get a faced one. For the ten minutes that the kids got to hold them. And then there was a wonderful concert by Zum Gali, and then it was time to go home and nap. Which he didn’t.

Today the nap didn’t happen either. But I tried. Oh Lord, how I tried. To the point where Jonah was standing in his crib, screaming and yelling and crying and cajoling and begging and bargaining, and then for part of it I was sitting in the chair in his room, telling him to lie down. Over and over. It was a locked-horns battle of wills and none of us knew what the f*ck to do about it. Scott took a turn, too. We left, we came back, we stayed. We left.

After 40 minutes, I took him out of the crib.

“Jonah is ALL DONE NAP,” he said.

“Yes, you are all done nap.”

I put him on the floor, sat in the chair, put my head in my hands, and cried.

“Mommy is ALL DONE crying,” Jonah said. “Is Mommy okay?”

“Yes, Jonah. Mommy is okay.”

He sits on my lap. We read a book. Then he proceeds to narrate what had happened, “Jonah did NOT want to nap. Jonah screamed. Mommy left the room. Jonah was crying.”

OMG.

“Jonah, I am so sorry. I did not want you to be sad. I am sorry.”

We move on to snack at his request. Grapes, which he enjoys very much.

“When is thah next par-ty?” he asks.

“Well, Jonah, we aren’t going to be having another party for a while.”

He considers this for a moment.

“What is ha-ppen-ing on Wedn-es-day?”