Dear Henry,
Long time no speak. Its definitely been way too long. I actually wanted to share with you a little bit about my week! My week was more interesting than my drunken tweets. But Henry, my week was not only interesting-- for it was also informative. Heck, it was more informative than a mall directory, which informs me where Lidz is, so that I could go ahead and purchase a new lid. I am so frustrated that I looked in the whole store, and I didn't even find one lid-- I only found ball caps! Go figure! As Christopher, AKA Chris Rock once famously said, "That Aint a Right!" But I digress. Anyways, I think I will now go ahead and share with you what I did this week, from the very beginning...
At my own strong urging, my wife agreed to go to a Rebbetzin's aka. (Rabbis wife) three-day conference. When I had encouraged her to go, I was very excited for all the inspiration she would take. I figured she would even be half as inspired as a person who has the privilege to hear Yours Truly dazzling an audience with a life-changing lecture. Interestingly enough though, it did not occur to me that if she would be away for three days, then it would necessarily mean that it would be I who would change every single diaper. It never once dawned on me, that with her away for three days, it would be me who would be cleaning up the house. It never occurred to me that it would be I, who cooked dinners, packed lunches, washed dishes, and worked out carpools and took out carseats.
I began to get an inkling of what I was in for when we-- Yours truly, The Eldest, and The Princess pulled into the garage after dropping off Momma and the baby at the rental car place. The Eldest gave a mighty, thunderous sneeze, and then clutched his ear in agony. He started crying, telling me how much his ear was hurting. I figured this would be a little stage that he was going through for like 3 minutes, and by the time we got upstairs, he would be out of the kvetching-about-my-hurting-ear- stage. To my horror and dismay, when we got upstairs, he did not start playing with his cars, or color, or even draw, or do finger paints, but he lay down on the couch, all the while grasping his ear in agony. I didn't find all that amusing that he had never had such an ear ache before, and the first time he had such a thing, my wife was almost in New Baltimore (20 LONG miles away).
I quickly called the doctor, who said they weren't open on Sundays, but maybe I should go to an urgent care center, or just wait till tomorrow. I then looked in every cabinet and drawer I could find, hoping against all hope I could find that silly kiddies tylenol bottle-- and then I remembered that I am a male, who cannot even find where the forks go. I grabbed The Eldest in one hand, The Princess in the other hand, and before one could say "Bunny Bunny", we were back in the car. I sped out of the drive way to CVS, and grabbed not one, but the first two bottles I could find. As soon as I paid, and put the kids back in the car, I gave the little man some tylenol to sooth the pain. With the help of the Al-mighty, his ears were as good as new by the time we got to the grocery store 13 minutes later. Phew!
Everything was going great from that point on-- I went to the gym to become Brolic and Dikembe Mujumbo, and when I got home, for dinner, I even made the kids eggs and quinoia, (Im good-- I know) and as I put them to sleep, I reflected how cool it was that tonight, I would get a solid night sleep, as my 6 month old baby was with the Mrs. at the conference 150 miles away.
Everything was going great-- until about 3 AM. My slumber was suddenly, rudely, and abruptly interrupted by obnoxiously obnoxious chirping sounds, which sounded once every 47 seconds from my Carbon Monoxide alarm. I got up, googled how to stop it, and it seemed like maybe the battery was low. I switched out the battery, and the darn thing kept chirping. I googled it again, and saw a suggestion to call the fire department to come take a CO reading-- and that is exactly what I did. So at 3:20 AM I had 5 firemen in my house, with their tools, checking things out. Again, with the help of the Lord Above, there was no CO whatsoever-- as it was either battery problem or the alarm was defective. So I tried again to fix the battery, but to my dismay-- the darn thing kept chirping. I gave up, and by 4:00, went back to sleep. For the next two and a half hours I would sleep for 46 seconds at a time before I would rudely be interrupted at the 47th second, until 6:30 when The Eldest woke up. The chirping continued all day long, until my dear friend and esteemed colleague, Rabbi Yakov Schorr came over, and properly installed the battery-- something one would thing a college educated, ordained rabbi like myself could figure out how to do by himself.
For the next day and a half, as I made the kids lunches and cooked them dinners, (as my devoted tweeter followers know, I made them one night, fries and hashbrowns), I realized how awesome it was to be able to give so intensely to my kids, whom I love more than anything in the world. I felt closer to them than ever before, being able to give so much to them, who were relying exclusively on me. And it just confirmed to me something that our rabbis teach-- That the Torah requires that each person love their neighbor like they love themselves. The obvious question is, how in world can the Torah require an emotion? Either you love someone, or, you don't! One answer given is that the hebrew word for love is "AHAV." The word "hav" also means "give". So we learn that when someone wants to love someone, they should give to them, and they will come to love them. I never saw a more profound example of this, than when I was providing so much for my precious children. It made me feel so close and connected to them. I wanted to be a fly on the wall, to watch their little faces when they discovered the treats I snuck in their lunches. It made me feel something that I didn't think was possible-- an even deeper, and more profound love for those precious little buggers.
Henry, you have been a good listener. But I am not done. But this piece is already to long. So the rest will have to wait-- and it will have to: TO BE CONTINUED.....
Sincerely,
Danny Wolfe, AKA Rabbi D TRAIN aka Rabbi D UNIT
