Today being the first day of Rosh Hashanah, we went to shul as a family.
(No, don’t be shocked that I’m on the computer. :p )
Granted, the Monster’s school is closed today for the holiday, more perhaps a function of the number of observant staff than the student body. It’s slated to be open again tomorrow, and he’ll go to school for his therapies then. R’s school doesn’t close for the holidays, but he has an excused absence.
And this year, we decided to not just lurk in the quiet room…
Okay, okay, so maybe we didn’t take the kids into the main service either. (The wife took R in for a few minutes, but that didn’t last long.) Instead, we had arranged in advance to send both children to age-appropriate youth activities, the way I had been when I was their age. R was off with the children he goes to gan with, and the Monster went with the mingled second and third graders. (Setting aside a small snafu where the adult overseeing the Monster’s class said that he wasn’t on her list, which was funny because the shul had arranged a 1:1 for him, and she was present at the time.) And then we went to our adult services.
It actually went… well.
R seems to have had a good time with his friends. We got reports back that the Monster even participated in games with his age group (thank you very much, ABA!), and he seemed alright except for being ravenous due to the hour. And we were able to enjoy our seats in the main sanctuary and participate in the service for once, which is an all-too-rare thing when we’ve not just gotten a sitter or had respite care through a local organization. It felt very, very normal, really.
And the best is that I’m seeing more staff at the shul who are trying to engage with the Monster, so perhaps my little fit a few weeks ago about how things are with his (still not yet started) hebrew school was beneficial…
שנה טובה ומתוקה לכולם!