Our first Easter egg hunt

We were so fortunate to be invited to an Easter egg hunt and brunch. Laura and John were our downstairs neighbors in our condo building in Lincoln Park 6 years ago, and they recently moved to Oak Park themselves. Aside from being some of the nicest, most genuine people you'd ever meet, their children are exactly one year older than our kids--right down to the month.

Anyway, Z and A had a wonderful time scouting for eggs and playing with the dozen other kids. It was sunny and in the 70s and there were nice people, mango mimosas and Bloody Marys. What more can you ask for? Since Josh and I keep Passover, I brought this delicious Apple-Matzoh Kugel, which was variously identified by the others as "apple turnover," "cracker French toast" and "strudel." One person said, "I don't know what this apple dish is, but it's the best thing I've ever eaten!" Rare words for a kosher-for-Passover dish, right?

If you have a moment, click over to Devra Renner's post on going to the White House Easter Egg Roll. She includes a wonderful allegory that helps explain to kids how and why we share others' traditions.

West Chester, PA: The highlights

We flew Southwest to West Chester Saturday morning, arriving in time for lunch (with milkshakes!) at Ruby's Diner, conveniently located in the upscale strip mall 1 mile from my in-laws' house. [And can I mention here that they bought coordinating hot pink car seats for the kids so that we didn't have to lug them along? Such a luxury!]

While A napped, my MIL took me and Z to the local mall ("It's in Delaware, a different state!" Z exclaimed) for new shoes. Although the old-school children's shoe boat Shirley wanted to take us to was shuttered for good, we found a ghetto fabulous Kids Foot Locker selling Converse sneakers, which was what we wanted anyway. Z picked out these cool kicks and Shirley wisely bought A a matching pair.

On Sunday Josh and I left the girls with their grandparents and caught a matinee of Hot Tub Time Machine, which is as dumb as it sounds, but I still enjoyed it. [Incidentally, my favorite joke was from one of the previews, when a send up of McGyver confesses to leaving an "upper decker" in the captain's quarters. An upper-decker being a shit in the toilet tank, not the bowl. Yes, I have the world's most juvenile sense of humor. Tears are spilling down my cheeks as I type this.]

Ahem. After the movie, we took Z and A off Shirley and Joel's hands for a little while, driving to a nearby playground. (You can't walk to anything from their place.) It was cool, damp and windy, but the kids had a blast anyway.

On Monday Shirley had a ton of cooking to do for the seder, so Josh and I drove the girls into the city (the long, long way thanks to screwy GPS directions) to meet his high school friend Erica and 2 of her 3 kids at the amazing Please Touch museum. Thank you to all my Twitter followers who recommended it, it was as great as you promised. So appealing to kids, in fact, that we lost our wandering 2 year old twice. (Both times I found her within 5 minutes, hanging out with a uniformed employee.)

Finally, late Monday afternoon, people started arriving for the Passover seder. Josh's aunt and uncle, his dad's cousin and her husband and his cousin and her family were all in attendance, but the only cousins who counted to Z and A were the two other kids, 6 year old Daniel and 4 year old Jessica. Aside from A, who missed her nap, the kids were fairly well behaved. A and Z wouldn't eat matzo, parsley or maror, but they did dig into the matzo ball soup with gusto.

Dinner conversation was a little too politically charged for my taste (although it might have been made more pleasant had we be drinking something other than sweet Manischewitz). I always forget that my father-in-law, his brother and his brother's wife are really right of center, so I found myself defending health care reform and mocking birthers and tea party haters to people who responded with "I don't personally know anyone who doesn't have health insurance" and "If Obama's birth certificate is authentic, why was there any question about it's authenticity?" Yeah, and there are anti-Semites who deny the Holocaust too, but we don't give them their own cable news channel.

Flying their 3/4 Jewish flag high

I'm half-Jewish, but I was raised mostly Jewish. We went to synagogue instead of church and wore Star of David necklaces instead of crosses, but my mom (the Jewish one) incorporated some of the more secular Christian traditions into our family observances. We had the occasional Christmas tree, we ate lentil soup flavored with pork sausage at Chanukah and our Passover seder plate usually boasted a hard-boiled egg dyed some lovely pastel shade.

But since I always identified pretty strongly with my Jewish half and ended up marrying a full-blooded member of the tribe, I've been raising Z and A as Jews--fairly secular Reform Jews, but Jews nonetheless. So I was pretty psyched to hear Z Skyping with my Mom (Nanny) this morning.

Nanny: Do you know what holiday is today?
Z: I don't have school today.
Me: Yes, but you never have school on Sunday.
Nanny: What holiday is it today?
Z: It's Passover! It's the Passover holiday. We eat matzo on Passover.
Nanny: Well, yes, it's still Passover, but what holiday has bunnies and chocolate eggs?
Z: Easter! My neighbors have Easter.
Nanny: Do they have an Easter egg hunt?
Z: ?!? [She's utterly bewildered as she's never heard of or participated in an Easter egg hunt]
Nanny: Do they look all over to find hidden eggs?
Z: Um, they gave me some jelly beans, but I didn't like them.

From NPR: They Tried to Kill Us, We Survived, Let's Eat

Passover granola? Yes!

I asked my tweeps for non-seder Passover recipes, and Twitter delivered. Here's Marilyn's Pesach Granola, modified to suit my tastes. It's almost as good as my regular granola!

5 cups matzah farfel

3/4 cup slivered almonds

1/4 cup walnut pieces
1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/3 cup canola oil

1/3 cup honey

2 tbs. water

1-2 tbs brown sugar (or to taste)

1 cup golden raisins

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 300.

Put farfel, nuts, coconut and cinnamon into a large bowl and stir. Blend together the oil, honey and water and pour over the mixture. Stir well, coating the mixture. Sprinkle with sugar.

Spread granola in prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 min or until it seems dry. Remove from oven and break it up to loosen it. When cool, add raisins. Store in plastic bag or container.

Makes about 8 cups.

A very brief seder

Even though I'd invested in special kiddie Haggadahs, tonight's seder was an abridged affair. We managed to quickly bless the candles, wine and matzo, dunk our parsley in salt water and make a maror sandwich, but very little of the Passover story sunk in over Z's whining about the meal options ("I don't like matzo! I don't like apples and nuts! I don't want soup!"). And while Z complained about how awful the food looked, A and our friends' kids, 5 and 2, were ready to eat.

We had matzo ball soup (and ran out of the matzo balls long before the broth was gone), two kinds of charoset (I highly recommend Epicurious' Sephardic charoset--it really looks like mortar and it tastes divine), Mark Bittman's Braised Lamb with Horseradish and Parsley and steamed broccoli (I think A ended up eating 8 or 9 "trees"). We ended the meal with a chaotic hunt for the Afikomen, a toddler dance party and this absolutely addictive Matzo Toffee, which is the very first Kosher for Passover dessert I'd consider eating any time of year.

Later this week I want to try Sara's Apple Kugel and a K for P granola recipe a Twitter follower emailed me.

Recovery in progress

Last night was rough. Z had a temperature above 103 degrees, and she was so miserable she was reduced to a pitiful little whimper-cry. At least I was able to provide her with some comfort. About every hour or so. All night long.

Josh took the morning shift of watching DVDs on the couch with our little hot potato, and I made it home around 2pm to take over. By late afternoon, Z was able to hold her head up and keep liquids and a few bites of food down. She still has pretty loud, frequent and frightening diarrhea, but I think we're over the hump. Her fever is way down and she's taking an interest in the world outside. We even ventured onto the back porch to watch the neighbor kids run around.

I'm sad we missed out on having a Passover seder with our friends Julie and Steve and their kids, but we had a nice traditional meal while Z watched Alice in Wonderland for the second or third time today.

Tonight I'm going to go to bed early to make up for last night's fitful rest. I guess women who space their children really closely are pregnant before their first is sleeping through the night, but I'm not cut out for it.