As most of you know, Yom Kippur is the most important holiday of the Jewish year. It is the Day of Atonement, a day of quiet reflection, atoning, and, for most, fasting. Not a day for chocolate cake. But as I have been saying to David a lot recently, some things you have a choice on and some you don't, and I made some choices.

Things have been better the last few days, but High Holy days hit smack in the middle of David's major bout of defiance. Getting to swim class involved a temper tantrum with absolute nos! And, don't you understand? I am not going! We had one day of school like that, and the same thing happened for Rosh Hashannah. Plus, just the run of the mill clear your dishes, clean up the legos. I understand that he was in transition--school was asking a lot of compliance from him, so he was resisting at home. Plus, he really doesn't like going to High Holy Days services, and we get this kind of resistance every year. Too bad. The 45 minute children's service is not a choice. Nor was shopping for the food bank.

As part of the celebration of the new year, the harvest bounty, and focusing on how we can be better people and help others, the Jewish community does a huge food drive during this ten day period. I have gotten in the habit of taking the kids to the store with the list of suggested items and letting them pick out whatever they like. It's a blast. They love thinking about what other kids might want to eat, and this year we made a special focus on getting gluten free products.

David came to the store kicking and screaming, insisting he was not going to help. And then, as so often happens, he started to get really into it and have fun. But I abetted this with a lot of yes. Can he pick out the overly priced tuna and cracker combo? Yes! What about the individually packaged applesauce? Absolutely. And the gluten free cake, cookie, and brownie mixes? Bring it on! What about the cake mix for our house? Mommy says yes.

And that is how we ended with 130.00 in groceries for the food bank, and g-f chocolate cake mix, g-f chocolate covered pretzels, fritos, and cinnamon flavored applesauce for us.

John was a little shocked when I walked in the door with chocolate cake mix. Despite being the non-Jewish partner, he didn't think it was appropriate for Kol Nidre (the evening start to Yom Kipor). Yeah well, he could use his non-Jewish status to be in charge of the project. They made the cake that night, iced it the next day, and no one actually ate it until after dinner, so that was technically in the spirit of the holiday.

This is not going to be a new ritual in our house. (I hope!) But it did let me feel better about the next day when I calmly threatened to eliminate David's t.v. privileges for a week if he didn't get in the car for services by the count of twenty. And the day after that when I dragged him to the warehouse for the big food sort, which we all had a blast at.

The High Holy days are over, the cake is gone, and we have a couple of calm days before I remind him that Sunday school starts this week.