Dear That's Life: Almost there

Issue of September 4,  2009 / 15 Elul 5769 Isn’t this break between camp and school fun? It’s always a challenge to find daily activities to keep the kids occupied, especially after they are used to the fun-filled, packed days of a camp schedule. “What are we doing tomorrow?” is a question I have become accustomed to hearing but, nevertheless, it is still incredibly irritating. I am not Julie the Cruise Director and there will be no shuffleboard on the Promenade Deck. Some days, we just all have to lay low. That’s the activity. All work and no play do make for a dull life and so there are some activities planned. Having bought tickets in advance, in an effort to plan something exciting, we went to see the Gazillion Bubble Show in Manhattan. If you have not seen it, you should know that it is exactly what it sounds like: over an hour, a woman, who has dubbed herself a ‘bubble artist’ (no comment), blowing and doing tricks with bubbles. It happens to be pretty interesting for a while, although my husband wanted to know why our kids could not just do this in our backyard. Varying in age, some of my children enjoyed it more than others. It was when the ‘artist’ brought different audience members on stage that I thought the show was the most entertaining. In her admittedly broken English, she chose certain young children on stage to help her with her act. She said she was looking for ‘big smiles’ and despite their great efforts and Cheshire-like grins, no Wallach child was chosen. Her loss. Each child, however, was asked the same questions:  what is your name and where are you from? The volunteers were all able to answer the first part without a problem, but it was the second question that tripped them up. Actually, it is not that straightforward of a question. One small boy had no clue where he came from. One girl said she came from her mommy and daddy. Another boy said he came from New Jersey. My son, however, was still wondering what his answer should be if he were to be chosen from the audience for the next round. “Mommy, where do I come from?” he asked me, and before I could even answer, he responded, “Do I come from the Kotel?” Smiling, I said, “No, you do not come from the Kotel.” And then quickly he tried again. “Oh! Do I come from Hashem?” he asked. “Yes, you do,” I responded, only to add, “but I think for this show, you can just say you come from Woodmere.” That seemed to suffice. MLW P.S. There is no five-second rule, under any circumstance, if your ice cream falls on the sidewalk in Manhattan. Dear That’s Life, I spent the summer working as a counselor at a local day camp. One of my camper’s parents had some interesting pet names for her daughter, so when I received a text message reading, “Is e/t okay?” — I made an assumption. Well, we all know what happens when we assume. Later at dismissal, I asked the mother — “Did you really call your daughter E.T.?” As cute as E.T. the extra-terrestrial may have been and as cute as her daughter was — she assured me that I need to work on my texting language — as we all know “e/t” means everything. Yes everything was okay! Another language story — our lifeguard asked me to do a “background check” on one of my campers. I looked at him quite strangely to try to figure out why I would need to do a background check on one of my campers. The lifeguards face said it all. I needed to check a diaper! Lisa Fishbein Woodmere