David cried. I cried. Rose took over.

David so didn't want to go to services that he started crying and whining the minute I showed up at school. It did not get better. I was already heavily emotional thinking about all my sins that I started crying too.

Somehow I got them all into the car, but when we finally managed to park, David refused to get out of the car. I had no idea how I was going to make this happen, so I tried the ignoring approach. Rose and I delivered the foodbank food and by the time I returned to the car, David had made it as far as the driveway. We made it into the sanctuary with David creeping along behind and me pretending not to notice, and then Rose took over. She cuddled David, had him sit on her lap, made sure he stood at the standing time. David was still bitterly angry. His ears turned bright red and Rose started worrying that he had a fever he was so hot. No, just burning mad. But, he did get a lot of lovely attention from his sister, which doesn't happen every day. Rose and I cuddled and bonded over the sins in the kids' prayer book: tattling, acting obnoxious. . .

We came home, calmed down and went out to dinner, as planned, to the burger store. And then an amazing thing happened. Rose and I were telling John about the acrostic sins from the word Teshuvah (turning, repentance, new beginning), and I told Rose how at the grown-up service we atone for an entire alphabet of sins. So, the whole family started listing sins for each letter of the alphabet. Even David. And then we went back through the alphabet listing virtues, and David did a beautiful job on those. So, we had our own family Yom Kipor service right there at Red Mill surrounded by strawberry milkshakes and French fries. And it was good.