My Jenn-eration

My egg cracks and bubbles in the pan. I’m the last one to eat breakfast. I pour too much water in the mini Keurig and it overflows, again. I look at the puddles on the counter and turn it on. The coffee it promises seems like a greater priority than the spill. I hear the baby crying, fighting her morning nap. I struggle with whether to go to her or flip the egg. I think I can do both. I run upstairs to quickly give her a binky and soothe her, back down to flip the egg. Acoustic sunrise is on the radio and even though I can barely here it over the bubbling egg and the whirring coffee machine and the crying baby, I keep it on because I know there is a small part of me somewhere in there that likes it, and should honor that. Ruby is watching the Mickey Mouse Club. She is answering all of Mickey’s questions. Dylan is reading the second installment of Harry Potter. These are the sounds of our Sunday morning. For some reason I want to write that down, record them. I want to remember what ...

I believe in many things. Most importantly, I believe that faith and organized religion are two entirely different things.   I want my children to have faith in themselves and in a guiding set of principles and beliefs that generally speaking encourages them to almost always choose what is right even when that is the harder choice. I want them to find peace in the knowledge that there is someone or thing in this world that is greater than themselves. I hope that they will find this in Judaism. But more than that, I just want them to find that space. My youngest baby, Hope, is fast approaching 7 months old. Though we are not currently members of any synagogue, our lack of shul membership doesn’t necessarily translate into a lack of faith. My husband and I are Jewish and we want to raise our children Jewish. One of their first introductions to this faith is the ceremony where we give them their Hebrew name. Though I expect we should’ve done this months ago when she was newly minte...