An update for the three readers who were waiting on pins and needles all weekend

"Waiting on pins and needles" -- is that really how the expression goes? It looks decidedly odd in print. I'm inclined to think I probably butchered it terribly.

But I digress. I'm quite confident that all three of you who actually commented on the Shabbat dilemma post have been waiting with baited breath all weekend to find out how I handled my latest minor household crisis. (No? Well then, could you at least feign a little interest since I'm talking about it yet again?) After delaying the inevitable as long as possible, I had a stroke of genius at the eleventh hour and went with an entirely different tactic:

D) THE "LET THE CHILD MAKE HER OWN CHOICES" APPROACH: You get to make a special Shabbat decision tonight! Should we use our super deluxe green Shabbat candles or the cool wooden ones that are in your pretend Shabbat set?

Julia cheerfully picked the wooden ones, I tried to keep a straight face as I recited the prayers over a pair of carved and painted wooden candles and everyone was happy. (Well, almost everyone. Evan really wanted me to light those wooden candles on fire.) I felt like Super Mommy. "They write articles in parenting magazines about doing things just like this," I thought proudly. It was a beautiful moment.

And then, 10 minutes later, both kids were in tears because they couldn't agree on a television show to watch. Having blown my entire parenting wad on the Shabbat crisis, I found myself completely incapable of calming either one of them down. As my kids whined and cried and I floundered in a fit of "which child do I side with this time" indecision, I knew that my brilliant parenting moment had come and gone. But in the flickering light of the compromise television show that I finally got them to agree on, those pretend wooden candles sure did look pretty.