This year the girls are actually able to be part of the process which is new to me. Four years ago I was waddling around the house doing the minimum because I was huge and tired. That was the year Aba rolled me to a friends house for lunch on the second day and I slept through the meal on a chair pushed out-of-the-way. (I also managed to impress everyone walking with us when we hit a bump in the sidewalk and Aba nearly flipped me out of the wheelchair but I just stood up and walked out of the way.)
The following year I had three one year-olds so things were pretty easy. We had gates up and they weren't eating much chametz anyways. Last year I still had some gates up and they were limited to what food I put within reach but they were all over the place. They also didn't understand about Pesah beyond that people were coming over and we were going places. In my opinion, that was the hardest year.
We haven't gotten heavily into Pesah preparations yet so this might change, but this year is shaping up to be fun. We are working with the simplified explanation that chametz is anything you say the bracha mezonot over. I've marked the calendar with a large star showing when we will be getting rid of the chametz in the house. I've also made up signs with similar stars for each room as it is cleaned. When we go shopping we are looking for non-chametz snacks to bring in as well as working towards consuming all of the chametz in the house.
Project wise, the girls will be making seder plates, cups for Eliyahu haNavi and pillows for the family.
22 days to go...
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