Washable Workwear Wednesday: The O’Hara Boyfriend Blazer in Velveteen

I was surprised by the sheer volume of comments on the post yesterday about what to do with a 1 year old with a late thanksgiving dinner that evolved into, what is the ‘right’ time to eat Thanksgiving/is it rude/ok to ask to change something if you aren’t the host. I come from a family where traditions are very very important. We are Jewish and traditionally have gathered as an extended family for both Rosh Hashanah and Passover, which evolved into just Passover, now that we don’t all live as close. I think even like 3 years ago, if you had asked my older relatives (my parents’ generations) about the idea of having a Passover seder on a date different from when you are actually supposed to have the seder, they would have said absolutely not. In fact, a few years ago, when my 75 year old father told me about a friend of his whose family was having their Seder on a Sunday instead of Tuesday because that is what allowed the family to all gather, I thought it was super strange….now I do not. We are all very very culturally Jewish, not as religious and as my kids have gotten later into elementary school, i see that it is not so easy to fly across the country to attend a Passover seder on a Wednesday. We have people flying from WA, CO, TX, and driving in from MA, NY and MD to Philly. When my generation was kids we all lived up and down the east coast and typically had spring break during passover so it was nbd. We now have our family Seder on whatever Saturday falls during Passover. My nuclear family (DH and our two kids) still have 2 seders locally with friends on the ‘proper’ dates, but my kids love getting to see their extended family at the family seder, even though we are there for under 24 hours. If altering a tradition allows you to be more inclusive, consider it.

Combination of screaming into the void and wondering how your school community handles this kind of thing… I just found out that I’ve been excluded from a group text for the moms in my son’s grade since it was started over the summer. The person creating the group text encountered some kind of error with my number, and never followed up to figure it out with me. Our school is pretty small (3 classes per grade level) so the chat isn’t huge. A friend helped solve the error and add me, but I’m just feeling really upset about it. No wonder I was having trouble coordinating activity sign-ups, etc., and feeling out of the loop! It also hits hard because I was accidentally excluded from the mom chat for my daughter’s class last month, when the mom creating it input my number incorrectly. I figured that one out faster, but it still didn’t feel great. How does all this work in your school? Feeling particularly vulnerable and upset because I work and don’t always have a lot of extra time for mom coffees and that kind of thing. I really need to be connected digitally or my kids lose out. Both moms who created these chats, btw, stay home, and don’t really seem to get it. I am really trying to be so polite and “no big deal!” about it, but man am I angry and upset.

Our back door is located in our a carpeted family room. Every throw rug we put at the back door as a doormat gets all crumpled up, even with a sticky rug pad underneath. If we throw aesthetics out the window and get a waterhog mat, will it stay put on carpet or will it skid all over the place too?

The smugness with which I declared myself done Christmas shopping – and the realisation that my child is still formulating his Santa list in his head. Today’s additions – a big set of Plus Plus blocks, a log that you can grow mushrooms on, and cat shaped onigiri molds. I can’t even really grumble because it’s the 19th of November, a perfectly reasonable date by which to make Christmas requests and these are very modest requests.