How Many Matzah Balls Can You Do?

There's an ad on TV and radio at the moment for Weet Bix - which are those strange Australian breakfast bricks I've written about previously. The ad centres around the idea that big, strong people (mostly athletes) eat a whole bunch of these bricks in one sitting. So - "Important Athlete does 8 Weet-Bix. How many can do YOU do?"

It's not an ad I understand at all, because it seems to promote over-eating and stuffing one's face with wet concrete, but whatever. I had to tell you the background to the title of this post before getting to the real topic - which is that I've spent many, many hours in the past day and a half attending a LOT of school seders.

A seder is the word for the feast eaten at the start of the holiday of Passover which is coming up soon. SSOTH had each class do a (admittedly, really lovely) seder activity to which parents were all invited. Naturally, as my kids are in separate classes, I had to attend three of these. Each of them went for about 2 hours or so, and consisted of a number of 'stations' you went to. Each station was related to the holiday. Like I said, it was a really nice event and I'm glad I could go and support and love my kids....but by the end of it I think I'd "done" enough matzah balls for several elite athletes.

Of course this would not be a blog post without some snarkiness on my part, so I made the following observations while at these events:

- The events took place in a kitchen garden (eg a massive vegetable patch). I was one of the few mothers not wearing high heels. Henceforth I was capable of walking on the gravel while the rest of them slid around. Would be funny if it were not so sad.

- The Dads all seem to have penis extensions known as massive digital cameras, or else they all think they are Ansel Adams. Seriously. Never seen so many thousands of dollars of Nikons all in one place before.

- Last I checked, making matzah by hand was not an athletic, competitive sport....but apparently I'm wrong about that. Competition is alive and well in the matzah making stakes.

- Because there is no such thing as a Jewish event with no food, at the end of each of these we were invited to have some chicken soup and matzah balls with the kids. Just as entertaining as it was to eat out of a really tiny bowl with an ineffective plastic spoon was watching how many mothers rejected the soup. Maybe it's not approved by their personal trainers?

- If one more person looked at my quasi-sympathetically and said, "Oh, you again! You're the triplet Mum, right? You have to go through THREE of these things, you poor thing!" then I was surely going to sock someone right in the eye. Which I'm pretty sure would embarrass my kids.

- I can apparently "do" 6 matzah balls in the space of a day and a half. Kinda pathetic, really. Might be time to increase my weights at the gym.

I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I actually had a lovely time - even though I had to hear the same shpiel 3 times, sing along to the same songs 3 times, make matzah 3 times, and do all the rest of it 3 times (and there was rather a lot of "the rest of it.") But I certainly earned my Mum brownie points for being there as much as I was, and for looking interested as much as I could. Tomorrow night, I've got parent/teacher interviews - which, according to the timetable they sent me, will take around 2 hours. I've got to meet no less than 6 teachers (minimum of 2 per kid) plus some others I probably forgot about. I've got to look interested and aware and excited and informed and involved...and there is no matzah ball soup at the end of it.

I'm pretty sure there is a special place up in heaven reserved just for me.