It's the High Holy Days and part of the tradition is to make a concerted effort to restock the food bank shelves. All of which are in serious need, as I'm sure you know. In the last few years, I've made this my job for the extended family. This year I thought I'd take all the kids including Miriam whom was with us while Julia and Dan were at services. Yes, I went shopping on Yom Kipor instead of going to services.

I almost gave up.

I don't know what Rose's problem was yesterday. She spent a lot of time whining, moaning, sulking, and complaining. (Boy, was she going to have a lot of teshuvah to do!) Then David joined in about wanting to keep playing their game. I thought this would be fun for them. I thought they would be eager. I thought maybe I should just leave them to their game and get the job done in half the time.

But, I didn't. I just pretended I had heard no objections and handed out the shopping lists. David had wanted pictograms on his since, as he pointed, he couldn't read. But I couldn't make the clip art work and gave up. David solved the problem by drawing his own pictures of peanut butter, toothpaste, canned soup, etc.

I gave them lists of about 10 items and told them to pick 5 each. Once they started circling their items, everyone had a grand old time. We found our aisles, price compared, and got to pick out our very own items. I'm sure the food bank shoppers don't need SpongeBob Square Pants canned soup with real figures of SpongeBob made out of pasta. Regular soup and pasta is plenty hearty. But I remember how thrilled I was when I discovered kid shaped pasta in the gluten free section. So, maybe they do need a little goofiness in their food, and maybe they'll know a kid was thinking of other kids.

Rose got to pay. At least the first five bucks. We give Rose a three part allowance: 25 cents for savings, 25 cents for spending, and 25 cents for tzedakah. A couple weeks ago I helped her make a list of all the types of causes she'd like to give her tzedakah to, and then she divided it up. (Clean water and homeless also made the list.) This was our chance to use the "feed the hungry" section. We made a big production of her turning the money over and the poor clerk having to recount all those quarters.

The fun didn't stop there. Rose and Miriam loved loading the bags into the car and delivering them to the truck at synagogue. I knew they would love it once we got moving.