Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Family Gatherings

About a week and a half ago, my first cousin gave birth to a baby boy. The bris was on Tisha B'av but the family is making a meal this coming Friday. My mother told me that she thinks we should go. My father said the same. The baby's grandparents, my aunt and uncle, who I am not particularly close with called to invite us. The only problem....well there are many problems.
1-It's a Friday. That means my hubby is home from work and can hang out with me and the kiddies. My son is also on vacation so that makes it twice as nice that they're both home.
2-The meal is at least an hour drive away and starts at 12:30 PM.
3- We're having guests for Shabbos. Because the meal starts so late (see #2), we would get back very late. This would mean that I would have to have all of the cooking and cleaning done before Friday morning. This would also mean that showers would be rushed, we'd have to leave our key with neighbors so the guests can drop off their stuff, we'd have to have their room ready early.

So we decided we wouldn't be going. I'm in my eighth month of pregnancy and the whole thing is just too hard. Do I think that anyone will care? No. They look at us as if we're always making excuses not to come to different things. Believe me, we are. But it is hard and they have to admit that. It's not like they've every come here and visited us. Well, once two of my uncles and a cousin drove into our yishuv to drop off my father. We were very impressed by that. I don't think they even entered our apartment though.

Anyway, the point is that everyone has their own calculations. We're not exactly expecting any of them to come all the way here to visit me when I give birth. If it's a boy we don't expect a huge family turn out at the bris.

I guess that by now anyone reading this can tell that I have a guilty conscience. That's right. That's how I was raised. That's for another post. Maybe in the future I'll discuss how my parents, from very very different backgrounds married each other. I turned out like one and not the other and therefore it's very hard for them to understand me sometimes. Ok, that's enough for now.

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