Take, for example, Get dressed up and go on dates. Yes! Even when the kids were very little, Saturday night was date night for Amy and me. If I had it to do over, I’m not sure I’d still leave a thirteen-year-old girl in charge of three small children; but she was reliable, the kids liked her, and she seemed to enjoy it.
We’d begin with a yoga session in Amy’s home office. Then we’d get showered and nicely dressed and leave instructions for the babysitter: “We picked out a VHS from Blockbuster. Here you go. Pizza’s in the freezer. We won’t be late.”
It never really mattered where we went or what we did. Dinner and a martini at a local joint, typically sitting at the bar. Out with friends. Music. Lots of live music. The point was being together, making time for each other, seeing to it that the noise of life, kids, work, whatever, didn’t drown out the amazing “us” at the core of it all. Our weekly dates were the equivalent of recharging an electric vehicle, sitting for a good meditation, or taking a short vacation. They never became stale. In fact, somehow they always seemed to infuse new life into a relationship that was already thriving.
One of the spots we loved to return to on these dates was Millennium Park. Their programming was filled with contemporary music and world music on some nights and classical on others. We developed a routine of taking the CTA train to the park. But sometimes, since the park was close to my office, I would meet Amy there after work; she would walk the entire way from our house, an approximately two-hour journey. I think she could have kept going all the way to Indiana. I usually packed a picnic for us. Cheese, lots of cheese, an AKR favorite. A charcuterie assortment, fruit, and either a roadie martini or red wine. We also had an entire assembly of blankets, Crazy Creek chairs, and a snazzy backpack with plates and cups. This type of evening was so beautiful, taking in the Chicago skyline and the warm summer nights. It became “our spot” and the setting for many future Amy events.
Another favorite was a neighborhood joint called Katerina’s. Katerina was a lovely woman who opened a coffee shop near our house. Amy spent many days there working on her writing and encountered quite a cast of characters over the years. Katerina always wanted to open a jazz club and have a liquor license. Eventually she managed to navigate the bureaucracy, obtain the appropriate licensing, and open a bar and jazz music venue. Amy and I spent frequent date nights enjoying Katerina’s hospitality. We would sit at the bar and order a martini. Typically, as was not uncommon for Amy’s thirst for all things, she would order one martini, quickly down it, and order another. One hundred percent of the time, she took a sip or two of the second and reached her limit. In all of our years together, in fact, I never saw her have more than two drinks. Katerina’s was filled with good traditional Greek food and inspiring live music. It was a perfect date for us, combining many of our favorite things.
Keep our cupboards & fridge continually stocked with good, healthy food. Absolutely. With the exception of Amy’s propensity toward mayonnaise and her infatuation with chips, we insisted on and modeled healthy eating for our kids. Believe me, we knew how fortunate we were to be able to provide those healthy options, too. Living in our divided city of Chicago, I’ve been exposed to all types of people; and I’m well aware that many families don’t understand what healthy eating even means—parents were either never exposed to it in their lives or lived below the poverty line and thought they couldn’t afford it. I’ve seen more than my share of kids walking to school drinking grape soda and reaching into bags of flamin’ hot chips with their orange-stained fingers. That Amy and I had the backgrounds and education to raise our children knowing the importance of good nutrition and fill our cupboards and fridge accordingly, and that the message has stayed with them as they’ve begun to navigate the world as young adults, are things I’ve never taken for granted.
Dinner time = time2B2gether. Music in the background is fine, TV is not. Amy and I followed that rule religiously when it was just the two of us. It became even more ingrained in our family when it was the five of us. Throughout my professional life, I was able to work hard six days a week and still manage to be home every night for dinner. It was an invaluable daily chance for us to check in and stay current with each other, as individuals and as a family. It’s amazing how freely information can flow when there’s no agenda, nothing specific to talk about or serve as a “teaching moment.” Sometimes the conversations would be intense. Sometimes they’d be trivial, just typical observations and events in the lives of working parents and the progressions of their children from grade school through high school. “Trivial” never meant “unimportant,” though, so no one ever left the dinner feeling as if what they had to say didn’t matter.
Mostly, though, our nightly dinners included a lot of laughter. Sometimes we were funny or silly together. And okay, we weren’t above involuntarily laughing when someone let loose with an inappropriate bodily sound or decided to try out cursing as a possible new means of communication. The kids enjoyed those family dinners together as much as Amy and I did.
From time to time, as a reflection of the joyful, innately fun tone Amy set for her life and ours, we’d celebrate Backwards Night. The evening would start with bedtime stories, affectionately known as “yellows” in our house because some of the stories came from a yellow-covered book. This would transition into bath time, invariably a raucous exercise in silliness that included lions and tigers, Pokémon, and artwork on the chalkboard-painted wall around the tub. Next up was dessert, followed by our usual family dinner. This whimsical tradition is just one example of how parenting with Amy was such a joy.
Before the kids entered preschool, Amy and I agreed that infusing their lives with Jewish culture was important to us. I’d attended a Jewish day school in Chicago. Amy? She and her dad would leave the house every week so that he could take her to Sunday school. More times than not he’d end up taking her out to eat instead. But despite our detachment from organized religion, we had great mutual respect for our cultural traditions and values and wanted them for our family. So we sent the children to a Jewish preschool, and then day school, where they learned some of those traditions and brought them home.
One that stuck, and became meaningful in so many ways, was our Friday-night Shabbat dinners. They were a time to enjoy not only each other but our extended family and our wider community as well. Many of the dinners were just us five “Rosies,” as we were affectionately known. Sometimes family joined in. Other times, family friends and their kids came over, or we would go to their homes instead. Whatever the details, Shabbat dinners meant slowing down from a hectic week. They meant being together for traditional prayers, including a prayer Amy always recited specifically for the children. Candles were lit, wine was poured, and bread was broken. Simple. Quietly reverent. And always, always full of gratitude.
Before long we added a personal tradition to our Shabbat dinners that became a family favorite. Amy and I had a green letter R made of metal we’d acquired over the years, and we began passing the R among everyone who’d joined us at the table. Whoever ended up holding the R had to share a story from the previous week, some moment or event that had an emotional impact on them, good or bad. It was a little nerve-racking at first for those who were shy about opening up to a room full of people, but before long, because there was plenty of support and no judgment at that table, they began looking forward to passing the R at the Rosenthal Shabbat dinners. Many of our kids’ friends, who are now young adults, still look back fondly on those wonderful Friday evenings. So do our kids. So do I. As much as I treasured them, I never stop appreciating how much richer they were because Justin, Miles, and Paris were part of them.