I wrote a list, then heralded the squealing children around the house as my husband joyously found one crumb after another

Iwas young. I was tired. And I was at the end of my rope.

My three little angels, ages six, four, and two, had been home all day, crawling under my feet as I chopped onions and tried to vacuum the last few cabinets. By the time suppertime rolled around, I shoved some macaroons and potato chips in their direction, eager for them to go to bed.

But well-educated children that they were, they wanted to stay up to watch bedikas chometz, performed with the candle-plastic spoon-feather craft their teachers had provided. By eight p.m., I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle another five minutes of their pajama-clad feet crushing ladyfinger crumbs into my freshly washed floors. Desperately, I called my husband for help.

“Why don’t you do bedikas chometz now?” I asked.

“We do it after Maariv,” he answered.

“Can you just pretend?”

Ever obliging, my husband agreed to light the play candle and pretend to search for chometz with the cracked plastic spoon and green feather in his hand. With fanfare, the children and I hid ten silver-foil covered crumbs in various locations around the house. I wrote a list, then heralded the squealing children around the house as my husband joyously found one crumb after another. Finally, finally, it was quiet.