What do the movie Frozen, charities, and proud mommies have in common?

Brenna started Sunday school this past year, and she loves it. (Her Sunday school is called "Jewish Kids Group".) She loves it so much that she has told me on numerous occasions that she doesn't want to go to the YWCA (her regular preschool) anymore, she only wants to go to "Jewish School".  She loves her teacher Ms. Maya. She loves her class. And, she finally admitted, she loves that she doesn't have to take naps at Jewish school (because she is only there for 2.5 hrs) but she does at the Y (because she is there for 8 hrs/day) and she doesn't like taking naps because she "doesn't know how to sleep".

(Which, isn't that far off from the truth and why I am now used to being awoken way before the sun...and now that I have memorized Frozen, every time I am awoken by the pat-pat of a little hand I hear this little voice in my head say "The sky is awake. So I'm awake!")

But I digress.

One of the first things Brenna learned about at Sunday school was tzedakah and mitzvot (charity and good deeds). Every week I give Brenna $0.36 to bring for tzedakah. 36 cents is equal to 2 x the number chai (18). Chai is a mystical/good luck number. ("Chai" is pronounced with a gutteral loogie hawking noise at the start, almost "HHHhhheye", rather than the hard "CH" like chai tea (it's charity not a starbucks drink!!)  Often when Jews make donations to charity or gifts of money they will be made in multiples of 18 for good luck, hence $0.36. So she doesn't lose her tzedakah (between the car and her classroom), she carries it in an Angry Birds pencil case - probably the first and only known Angry Birds Tzedakah Case. :)

Fancy cape = Elsa..................Of course it does.

This past week was her last Sunday school class until next fall. Each child made his/her own tzedakah box to bring home. While all the other kids decorated the box itself, Brenna attached what looks like toilet paper (but is actually torn paper towel - still, a little creepy) to her box, stuck "jewels" onto it and made an Elsa tzedakah box. (Of course she did.) See the "cape"? that's how you can tell it is Elsa....because "Elsa wears a beautiful cape". (Duh, mommmy.)

I asked Brenna if we should put the tzedakah she would have taken to Sunday school into her Elsa box for the summer and at the end of the summer we can donate it to a charity of her choice. She said yes, she liked that idea.

I asked her what charity she would like to collect tzedakah for...

M: Do you want to collect money to help animals that don't have homes?
B: Mmmmm. No.
M: No? Umm, ok. Maybe collect money for kids and babies?
B: No. I want to collect money for people who don't have jobs, so they can have money and also buy toys for their kids.

I am so proud.

JKG Preschool class 2013-14