Miriam Adahan

Miriam Adahan has been giving shiurim on our yishuv for the past two weeks. I love her stuff and have heard her speak before. She's just great. The only way I'd miss a class is if I either give birth on the day of a class or am too tired to attend with a two day old. She always says such great things in a new way. She breaks things down so that her methods are doable and she is very into encouragement. I hope that these shiurim will allow me to work on my middot.

Right now I'm going through a real slump. I'm in my ninth month and am exhausted all the time. My daughter is being potty trained and is having accidents about once a day. She is also regressing and decided to stop talking and start grunting and crying. I don't know if this has to do with the toilet learning or the new baby who will arrive soon enough. All I know is that it's too hard for me to deal with this in my ninth month.

So Miriam Adahan was talking about overcoming little obstacles in our daily lives. She gave tons of examples and it sounds so good. But then I get home and get lazy and although I really try to follow her guidlines I'm just too tired to do so. If this were at any other point in my life I'd probably take to it much better. I really have to force myself to get more into this avodat hamidot. It's something that I've been meaning to do for a while and that I really would like to do not just for me, but for my husband and kids.

Last year I learned Tanach in memory of my grandmother. I tried to learn one chapter every day but it didn't always work. This year maybe my focus will be more mussar and midot. I don't feel that I'm in a position to commit to anything though. I don't know what will be after I give birth. If my kiddies are acting up now, before the baby is out of my belly then what will be later. Because I am a realist let's assume that the situation will not be getting much better later on. Later I'll have to divide my attention in three. As it is I have a hard time sitting and doing homework with my oldest. My daughter needs tons of attention and she's an off the wall toddler so she really needs to be watched 100% of the time. Maybe a different time I'll detail some of the wild and crazy things she's done in her short lifetime so far. How on earth am I going to nurse a baby, do homework, and give attention to a bouncy toddler? Help! I feel like I'm already drowing and I haven't even tried to swim yet. That's basically why I feel like I can't commit to a nightly learning plan. We'll see what happens in the end.