I go to peek in on the boys on the patio at about noon, and I’m surprised to see they’re almost done with the succah. It usually takes my men two or three days to get it up — a luxury of time we did not have with the way Yuntiff falls out this year.

“Guys, this looks amazing,” I say happily. All three spin around guiltily.

Oh, boy. “What?” I ask.

Chezky hides something behind his back. “Nothing.”

Oh, I wasn’t born yesterday. “Did Ta say you could buy a nail gun in the end?”

My 15-year-old looks to the side in an exaggerated guilty expression.

“Chezky!” I point at Moish and the grandchildren who have now meandered outside to watch the grand succah building. “There are infants here.”

“Moish is nine,” Chezky says gently.

“Chaim Dovid and Pinchus are four and two,” I say. “But also Moishy. Do not let him hold that death trap please.”

The boys are all looking at me, slightly concerned for my sanity, so I hold up my hands. “Fine! But if anyone needs stitches, I’m not taking them.”

I head back to the kitchen to slice the roasts for both Shabbos and Yuntiff. I greet the teens who have stumbled in from the woodwork, and after checking that everyone hydrated after the fast, I put them to work.

I want to make a potato kugel and mini sweet potato kuglettes — literally three steps, I promise — that the boys polished last night. Motzaei Shabbos would be the apple kugels, and of course, the teen masterpieces, and then Sunday and Monday, we’ll do the salmon and various veggie dishes. I also want to take Tehillah out for a new robe if there’s time.

I’m just peeling my first potato when a scream from the porch sends me flying.

Three stitches. Moish needs three stitches. I’m still panting from the adrenaline as Dr. Leeder calmly takes out his needle — or maybe I’m hyperventilating from watching him literally sew my son’s finger together. I squeeze his other hand; he’s so brave. Braver than I am.

I look at my watch. It’s 2:30 p.m. Forget the potato kugel — I hope someone took care of the challah or we are doomed. At least the roasts were all in the fridge before the Incident. Tehillah texts that she’s making the potato kugels, may Hashem bless her soul, and that she put the girls to work and threatened them with no dessert making if they don’t grill the vegetables and make the dips. I snort at that; it’s a good threat.

Moish and I head to 7-Eleven for a quick Slurpee for the brave patient, and I take a minute to gaze at my youngest. It’s funny, I remember when Tehillah was nine I thought she was so big and mature and she had all these responsibilities like cleaning off the coffee table every Friday and vacuuming the rugs. Moishy, in comparison, is a toddler. Albeit, a toddler we apparently trusted with a nail gun. Sigh.

I’m running through my lists in my head as we head home; the panic is definitely rising. I just need to sit down, have a hot cup of coffee, and a moment of silence.

Instead, I walk in to find Tehillah’s little Chaim Dovid in the midst of a full-fledged… temper tantrum? I mean, I remember temper tantrums, they weren’t that long ago. Sitting on the floor, screaming so loudly you’re afraid the kid will pass out, and also, you have to stop yourself from abandoning them and hiding in your room.

But this… this is different somehow. I duck as a marker goes flying past. Peeking into the kitchen, I notice the other 35 markers littering the floor.

Oh. Wow. Deep breaths.

Moishy scampers inside, squealing at his nephews, excited to show them his finger, apparently unafraid of being a marker-target. The exuberance of youth.

I look around for my daughter. She’s… sitting on the couch, holding the baby, and she smiles when she sees me and starts to get up. I wave her back down — I need to sit anyway — and give her a one-armed hug.

“Tehillah!” I stroke the baby’s cheek. “How’s everything here? The kugels smell amazing. Uh, is Chaim Dovid okay?”

Tehillah smiles at me serenely. “How’s Moish? Can’t believe the guys let a nine-year-old use a nail gun. And thanks, I made your recipe, of course. Chaim Dovid? He’s fine. Just self-regulating. I told him we’re not having pizza for lunch.”

Self-regulating? That’s a new one. I get up, contemplating whether Savta can give pizza to an exhausted four-year-old in the middle of a tantrum. Will that be undermining my daughter? I look up in guilty relief as Yaeli and Devorah come into the room to ply him with cheese sticks and yogurt drinks and macaroni with just ketchup.

In the end, it’s curiosity over Moishy’s finger that does the trick, and I get the girls into the kitchen to get it ready for Shabbos. Then it’s time to hint to Tehillah to start bathing her kids so there’s hot water for everyone and we are in business.

Shabbos is beautiful, if a bit stressful. We’re all a bit cranky — post Yom Kippur letdown? — and Tehillah’s parenting has us all just a bit confused.

Maybe it’s an L.A. thing? She keeps allowing them to have “freedom” and “autonomy.” On Friday night, she gave them the choice of whether to stay awake for the seudah, and then, when staying up was no longer an option, she asked Chaim Dovid where he wanted to sleep, as though I hadn’t set up beds for the kids.

“You don’t want to go to your bed? Okay, do you want to sleep on the couch or go into Uncle Moishy’s bed?”

He finally decided on Chezky’s bed, offered without consulting me or Chezky. Of all people, Chezky is my biggest mefunak; having a four-year-old in his bed is a lot to ask of him.

Tehillah does not agree. “Chezky, please, he’s a baby and he’s overtired. As soon as you’re ready to go to sleep, I’ll move him, okay?”

Chezky is not okay. He doesn’t say anything to Tehillah, but I can hear him stomping his way back to the seudah as I help Tehillah remove Chaim Dovid’s shoes and socks. I want to say something, but I also want my grandchild to sleep, so I opt to compensate Chezky with the beef jerky I was saving for Yuntiff.

Then, in the morning, while we are preparing the seudah, I ask Tehillah to bring in the lettuce from the fridge in the garage, and she goes out, a bored Chaim Dovid trailing behind.

When they make it back into the kitchen, Chaim Dovid is holding two of the miniature dessert cups Yaeli made last week.

“Tehillah!” Yaeli screams.

I have a flashback to the nail gun and turn, my heart pounding.

“He can’t have them! Those are my seven-layer mousse cups!”

Tehillah closes her eyes and holds up a hand. “Relax, Yals. I told him he had the choice, he can have it now, or on Yom Tov, and he chose now.”

From the other side of the counter, Devorah snorts. “Like yeah, because when everyone is sitting around the seudah eating theirs, his four-year-old mind is totally going to understand that he had his three days ago.”

Tehillah shoots her a dirty look.

Privately, I’m with Devorah on this, but the damage has been done — the mousse cup eaten — and I’m not sure it’s worth saying anything. But later that afternoon, Yaeli is still smoldering, looking like she might start throwing markers when Tehillah adds insult to injury by asking her to watch the kids while she takes a nap with baby Yitz.

I can see the struggle: her anger at Tehillah or her desire to show her friends the cutest nephews in the world. The cuteness factor wins out and Yaeli snaps a begrudging yes and starts to get the kids’ shoes on.

And then Pinchus loses it.

Yaeli looks at Tehillah helplessly. “I guess he doesn’t want to go to the park,” my older daughter says through a massive yawn. “Give it ten minutes, he’ll calm down, and then you can suggest another activity,” she advises, and then she scoops up Yitz… and goes upstairs.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more shocked in my entire life.

We take turns trying to calm Pinchus, and then I feel like I need to soothe Yaeli, and finally, after 20 minutes, things are quiet and I can go rest. But my adrenaline is still pumping, and I get no sleep.

I wake up with the roosters on Sunday morning, and after davening brachos and drinking a coffee strong enough to elecrocute an elephant I dive right in.

I get as far as taking the cutting board and onions out of their respective cabinets, when two little whirlwinds fly down the steps.

“See, Savta’s here!” Chaim Dovid tells Pinchus, and I give each child a hug and bring them to the sink to wash negel vasser. There goes my morning, but I’m happy to give Tehillah time to sleep in. I give them each a bowl of cereal, very firmly removing the Trix from my four-year-old grandson’s surprisingly strong grip, only to find him on the top shelf of my pantry in the time it took to fetch a bottle of milk.

“Mommy lets!”

I do not doubt it. “In this house, Trix is for Shabbos. What do you have for Shabbos cereal in your house?”

“Whatever we want. My mommy lets us have whatever we want. You’re not my mommy. You can’t say what we can have.”

“In this house, I’m the mommy of everyone,” I tell Chaim Dovid.

Well, apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. Because when Ari walks in from Shacharis, he finds me mopping up milk from the floor, close to tears, the kids happily slurping puddings at the table.

He makes me sit down, drink a hot tea, and repeat after him, “I love my grandchildren, and they are a handful.”

We say it together, five times, before we start laughing.

Then Ari bundles them outside to the succah to hang lights and I start cooking.

At nine thirty I stop to quickly set out muffins — fresh from Bakeloft, and five bucks a piece — and yogurts for the hard workers, and finally, at ten, Tehillah stumbles into the kitchen, yawning, a grinning Yitzy held aloft. I need a baby after my morning, and I gather him into my arms. He doesn’t smell fresh, but he’s delicious and I want to inhale him anyway.

Tehillah pours herself a coffee and bites into a muffin, eyes still half closed. I smile, watching her enjoy. The whole morning was worth it for this.

“Ma, thanks so much for watching the kids this morning. You have no idea what it did for me, I usually have to get up at the crack of dawn.”

“My pleasure,” I respond. Her boys seem to have sensed her presence because they are now back in the kitchen, tugging at her robe.

They each reach for a muffin.

“Do you guys want to taste one before you open both?” I ask perkily. I catch myself, but reason that I’m not offering them choices, Tehillah-style, it’s just that the hostess in me can’t stand to tell them they can’t have muffins just because they’re expensive.

Still, five bucks a piece, I say mentally. No one is listening. They each take a huge bite — one into lemon, one into blueberry, and then, in unison, spit them out.

Oh.

Tehillah smiles tiredly. “We saw that coming, hmm? Guys, what would you like to eat instead? Yogurt?”

Maybe they should just eat the muffins they ruined, I think. But my boys come in from the arba minim shuk just then, crowing over their purchases, and the moment passes.

I’d really wanted to take Tehillah shopping, but the day runs away in a blur of cooking and breaking up fights between toddlers. Me breaking up fights, that is. It’s after noon when she finally gets herself together and sets the boys up with markers in the den. Then she comes into the kitchen, all ready to roll up her sleeves. Yaeli and Devorah are deep in recipe land, and I really would like to get the staples out of the way so they can do their thing. I show Tehillah a salmon marinade I wanted to try. She gets as far as taking the olive oil out of the cabinet when Pinchus runs into the kitchen screaming, Chaim Dovid chasing him with a Purim zombie mask that I really wish Chezky would just throw out. I’m throwing it out now, that’s for sure.

I stare as my daughter calmly sidesteps the line of fire and resumes her recipe making. It’s up to Devorah to bring the boys back into the den and break up the fight, and I’m about to say something, when Tehillah preempts me.

“I’ve been taking this parenting class. It’s so amazing, all about how only one person can take responsibility for each thing, and if you take responsibility for your kids, they won’t ever learn to hold their own, whether it’s food choices, or fighting, or anything.”

“But they’re babies,” I answer her logically. “So we need to take responsibility for them, no?”

Tehillah shakes her head. “That’s not what Rebbetzin Levine says. She says you can start as young as Yitz’s age. Between you and me, I don’t see how, but everyone I speak to tells me how she changed their life, so I believe her.”

“Oh,” I say. Though with all due respect to Rebbetzin Levine, I’m the one seeing my daughter in action. And she does not look happy or rested. She looks miserable and seems to be trying to escape actually spending any time with her children.

Devorah comes back into the kitchen with a scratch on her face, and I convince Tehillah to take the boys out on the swings, no really, I got this, it’s totally fine, we’ll cook later, no seriously, no, JUST GO.

And before I know it, it’s 5 p.m. and my grandchildren need supper. I’d gotten used to being an old family; on a day like today, we could totally hold out until eight or nine, and I’m embarrassed to say I have nothing to give them.

I quickly order Chinese. The app says it’ll be here in 35 minutes, and we all just manage to make it through with our dignity intact, although most of my kids seem to be avoiding any room that has a cranky child in it.

When the food finally arrives, we all start cheering and I set it out happily — hey, I’m hungry, too — and then Chaim Dovid demands red chicken.

“He means General Tso!” Tehillah calls out.

I nod and load him up a plate. Which he promptly throws on the floor.

“That’s not red, that’s orange,” he hisses.

He happens to be right. But it is General Tso.

Well, he won’t eat it. Not on a plane, not on a train, not with a fox, and not in a box.

I’m going to need a train out of here very, very soon if we don’t get these kids fed and put to bed. Tehillah orders pizza. I’m not even kidding. And I pop two Advil and two Tylenol.

That night, after all the little ones are in bed,  I set up the Abie Rotenberg playlist on Spotify — our old go-to for cooking. I’m still optimistic that tonight will be about me and Tehillah — Yaeli and Devorah are into decorating the succah with ambience, the boys are having their arba minim checked by the rav — cooking our way down memory lane.

It’s just two roasts, a thing of schnitzel, and then ten more pounds of challah. We got this.

Tehillah comes in, pushing Yitz in the Doona, cracking up when she sees the aprons I’ve laid out.

“You kept these? You know I made them by Shira Yehudis Kramer’s bas mitzvah party.”

“Oh, I know,” I say, rolling my eyes. “And Ta won’t let me throw them out.”

“Never!” she crows, parking Yitz in the corner and donning hers. “These took some serious puff-paint skills!”

“Neshomele” fills the kitchen, and we slice and dice in unison, schmoozing and laughing.

Nachshon sticks his head in just as we’re researching a recipe for rack of ribs I’d purchased l’kavod Yuntiff.

“Look at this one, Ma, you just need honey and crushed ga— oh, hey, Nach. What’s going on?”

“Pinchus,” he says, around a giant yawn. “He’s crying and won’t go back to sleep.”

“Oh, gosh,” she says, getting to her feet and handing me the phone. “Look at this one, Ma, I’ll be right back.”

But she’s not. She comes back an hour later after I finished with schnitzel, a pouting Pinchus on her hip. “Hiiii, Savta, we just popped in for a sweet treat,” she says, rolling her eyes at me.

“So sorry,” she whispers, as Pinchus downs a chocolate pudding. “I’ll try to be back down as soon as he’s sleeping. I know Rebbetzin Levine would tell me to allow him to stay awake if he chooses, but sometimes I just can’t do what she says. I can’t have him being a wreck tomorrow, but I know I need to follow her guidance all or nothing.”

Which renders me speechless. I spend a ridiculous amount of time formulating responses in my head, but Tehillah doesn’t come back down. Instead, the rest of the family troops in for their own midnight snack, and I’m fielding questions like, “Hey, Ma, where are those ‘raw tuna patties’ that were here the other day?” (Tee and co. ate them obviously), while I try to clean up and reassess my freezer stash. I keep hoping Tehillah will come down and we can salvage a little bit of the night, but she stays upstairs through everything and I finally admit defeat when the birds start to chirp and the last roast comes out of the oven.

The next day, I am obviously exhausted beyond the realm of normalcy, but I still want to take Tehillah to get something nice for Yuntiff. The stores are open until noon, and I’m riding on three hours of sleep, plus taking care of two very poorly parented toddlers (I’m fast becoming Mean Savta, which saddens me), but it’s now or never, and I know she was really looking forward to this.

I want Nachshon to watch the boys, but he has a work call to attend to, and Tehillah is totally fine having them come along. She does leave Yitz napping, though, so there’s that, I guess.

Until we get to the store.

If you haven’t yet taken two toddlers to the Robe Kingdom a day before Yuntiff, do yourself a favor… and don’t.

There’s a kids’ toy section, bless their brilliant minds, which occupies the boys for a grand total of seven minutes. Then we plop them on the overstuffed couches, which they promptly wiggle their way off, and then I spend the rest of our time chasing them out of people’s dressing rooms. Of course, there’s the heart-stopping moment when Pinchus sweetly waddles over to me and hands me… a hand.

I scream before realizing it’s from the mannequin in the window. Then I’m just mortified.

So yes, I almost have a nervous breakdown while Tehillah twirls in front of the mirror.

My daughter, on the other hand, is completely unfazed. “They’re little boys, Ma, they’re fine. They need to run around.”

I refuse to make eye contact with the many horrified shoppers surrounding us, swipe my card for whatever Tehillah wants, plus the poor one-handed mannequin, and we hustle out of there.

ON the first night of Yuntiff, it’s all I can do not to beg Tehillah to put her kids to bed.

“Maybe they’d do better if they were on a schedule,” I suggest.

“But Maaa! It’s Yuntiff! The first night! Onion-flanken soup! It’s Chaim Dovid’s favorite, and I kept telling him to wait until we get to Savta, you make it best.”

“I can give him a bowl of soup now, Tee,” I say. “It’s already seven, and the men won’t be home for another hour. Isn’t it late?”

But then she reenacts the Friday night scene, asking her children, at eye level and everything, if they’d rather eat a bowl of soup now or wait until Daddy came home and everyone has soup in the succah.

Guess what they chose. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes at Devorah.

And I am sorry to say, it gets worse.

I’m just coming in with the plates from the sesame chicken appetizer on the first day when I overhear Devorah hissing at Tehillah that she better get her boys away from my new cream leather settee — the one I finally farginned myself to purchase as a strictly Shabbos and Yuntiff couch when my baby turned nine — with their schnitzel wrapped in napkins.

I tense up, thinking about all the components of the schnitzel and sauce that will stain the couch, and listen for Tehillah’s response. This is no longer about boys and their autonomy. This is about someone else’s property.

“Tehillah, that couch is literally Ma’s baby. They cannot eat sesame chicken on it.”

“Dev, it’s a couch. My kids are actual babies. Can we not be dramatic? Ma probably doesn’t care.”

Oh, yes, I do, I shriek silently.

Devorah snorts. “Oh, really. Want to ask her?”

“No,” Tehillah says sharply. “I want to ask my children where they want to eat.”

Suprise, surprise: They choose the couch.

I will not cry over a couch, I will not cry over a couch, I think desperately.

I try laying down some rules after this: No walking around with food, toys stay in the den, we all listen to the Savta in this house. But Tehillah finds it all amusing, saying, “Maaaa, they’re babies.”

And then Tehillah’s childhood friends, Leah and Baily, come over in the afternoon; it’s the cutest thing to see them all reunited, and suddenly, they’re 12 again, giggling about Chinese jump rope.

They sit in the succah, staying until close to shkiah, and when they leave, I look around. The boys had worked their way through a bag of taffies, and wrappers now littered the floor.

I jerk my head at them and make eyes at Tehillah… who starts offering them choices.

“You don’t want to go inside to throw your wrapper out? Okay, do you want to put it on the table or on the porch swing, we don’t leave things on the floor.”

WHAT?! I want to scream. At my daughter, who is a mother herself. I want to tell her to just tell the child to go inside and put it in the trash can.

What on earth is happening? I’m not one of those stuffy bubbies. I’m still raising young children myself!

“She’s making me feel like the worst version of myself,” I complain to Ari. “All this holding it in is making me uptight and snappish. I feel high maintenance, but also I just don’t understand what she could possibly be thinking half the time.”

“She’s your daughter,” my husband reminds me patiently. “She still needs your guidance. Parenting doesn’t end just because she’s a mom of her own. Say something to her.”

“And what about all of those articles that say shut your mouth, open your wallet, keep the communication flowing and let her do her own thing?” I throw back at him.

He shrugs. “They never spent Succos with Tehillah’s kids.”

Ari might be right, but I still don’t say anything.

Finally, finally, my daughter and her family pack up to travel to Queens, and it is with more relief than sadness that I wave them out of the driveway.

That breaks my heart. I’d been counting down to Tehillah’s arrival; why should I be counting down until her departure? Should I have spoken my mind? Or would it have backfired, as I suspected?

Contribute to this column as a Second Guesser! Email your response, including your name as you want it to appear, to familyfirst@mishpacha.com with Second Guessing in the subject.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 963)