My best friend, Amy, is visiting.

This coincided perfectly with my daughter, Mimi, seven, getting out of school. The two have been inseparable. It's such a joy to listen and watch them interact. Amy doesn't have children so she takes her responsibility of being a godmother and Mimi's favorite "aunt" very seriously.

That means some hard core silliness, tickles, playing with stuffed animals, and chasing each other. Mimi will affectionately lay her head on Amy's chest, while her aunt holds her close. 

The loud moments are as precious as the quiet ones.

Amy has been my closest friend since we were both eleven. To see her being as tight with my daughter as she is with me makes me enormously happy. 

Mimi has it all figured out. Amy, her husband, "Uncle Vinnie," Maggie, her cat and Mimi's other "aunt," and godmother, Cal, and her family (husband and dog) will move to California so we can all be together all the time.

Amy can't move. She likes where she lives in Washington state, she has clients and her husband has a job. Cal would love to move to California but circumstances at the moment dictate it will likely be a few years before that becomes a reality. 

I wish both lived here, too.

While Amy remains I revel in the pristine love between her and my daughter, as she delights in everything Mimi says and does. I observe this close-up and at a distance. Mimi is so easy to love. She's a sweet girl, with a kind heart, a fun disposition, and a fast mind. 

Of course, I do enjoy that while Amy plays with Mimi I get a bit of a respite from parenting. But it is only momentarily as Mimi comes bounding over to share the love, which I love.

Mimi is my greatest gift. My absolute joy. She makes me smile. 

While children can sometimes be pains in the ass -- be honest! -- the vast majority of the time they are our greatest source of pleasure.

There are only has a few more days left with Amy. Mimi will treasure each one. When we take her to the airport on Saturday, my daughter will cry. The memories she will have, that all three of us will hold, shall last forever.

By Dawn Yun

I still think she does not know that she is Jewish.

I worry that our holidays as fun facsimile of religion is so ultra-light it seems like another version of Halloween. A gimmick, some funny food and a costume if we’re lucky. Once again, bad mommy has reared her head. My lack of resolve with my very Orthodox background has shown up in my consistent forgetting to teach my children that they are Jewish.

Now, I am an East Coast Jewish girl, daughter of a mom from Flatbush Avenue through and through. I am neurotic, talk too much and consider any headache fair warning of an imminent aneurysm. But it is a culture, rich and old and idiosyncratic that I feel a part of, not the group of holidays and face it, odd laws.

Old ladies from Miami arriving at my Bat Mitzvah in bright red lipstick, smelling like Chanel No.5 and hugging me with crushing love and Yiddish expressions, that is the true religion I feel in my bones.

The Old Testament God? I’ve had a hard relationship with him from the start. And Passover is a great example of my rather embarrassed feelings about this Jewish God that I can’t quite see selling my daughters on.

Look no further than those plagues. An escalating level of rage and bloodthirstiness to creepy proportions? Turning water to blood, covering people with boils and lice? This is not my definition of divine design! When people treat you poorly, stand back and watch the vengeful bloodbath roar down the street, sweetheart. Don’t worry, if life is hard, at least you’re backed by a moody, wrathful capricious force you can count on to help you… or not.

I will keep up my attempt to pass on Judaism to my kids. I am a card-carrying member of people who fight to the end for the freedom to be who they are, who can make a life out of a barren desert and a holiday around forgiving yourself once a year for falling short. But I wish for my kids to know a life without revenge, without having to feel better than somebody to know who you are, and without violence.

Amen and Happy Passover!

By Avvy Mar