Coasters and Cotton Candy

I took my son to the local amusement park today. He had been begging for months, and after finding out that today was the Jewish Community Day, I thought it would be the perfect time to go. I left my younger daughter with my parents so that we could have a special day.

We had so much fun! He's a really incredible kid, but we've been at each others throats lately. He's been anxious and annoying and teasing his sister a lot and I had found myself nagging at him incessantly. Getting him alone and just spending quality time is one of the best things I've ever done as a parent. I really got to see him as he truly is-away from pressure and disappointment-he was just so happy. We rode all of the rollercoasters he was tall enough to go on and towards the end, got soaked on the water rides. That was a little weird-since I had on tznius clothing. I'm watching all of the other people walk buy in their bathing suits, and I'm in long sleeves and a denim skirt. At first I felt that we stuck out, but I started to notice other frummies and my son got so excited. It must be what it feels like to live in Boro Park. To be somewhere completely secular, but to see kippot and tzitzit, and women in tichels. It was very comforting. One of the local restaurants catered in, so the kids could have kosher food. Isn't that incredible? I know the guy didn't make a lot of money, but he's a mentch to do that. I've never had to tell my kids no before-I couldn't imagine what it feels like to see all of the other kids with treats and to be told no.

I loved being his partner for the rides, and how he laughed as we went up and down on the tracks. I will never forget that smile. I even caved and bought a crappy souveneir pic of us. He said he never wanted to leave-that it was the most fun he'd ever had and "everyone we knew" was there. He saw the other Jewish families and knew that those were our people, from our community-even the families we had never met. He will be starting school later this week, so it's great that he already feels comfortable. I'm blessed to have had this day. He said I was a cool mom because I went on everything. As we were leaving, I ran into other friends-they looked perfect and put together-they even had their sheitls on. At first I felt kind of frumpy and messy, my hair was wild and I had powdered sugar on my t shirt-and then I realized that I just didn't care. The other moms missed out on what I had experienced. I'm sure that their husbands felt very proud of how good they looked, but my son, in his innocence, felt even prouder of me...