Challah Day

Between a good, solid fourteen weeks of all-day morning sickness followed directly by this pesky and lingering chest infection, I kind of feel like I've been sick forever.  I am grateful that underneath these (rather minor in the grand scheme of things) ailments lies a healthy body and a healthy pregnancy, but I can't deny that feeling this rundown for this long is taking a bit of a toll on my general attitude.  Two nearly non-stop weeks of rain also aren't helping.  I get that rain is good, and the trees are a glorious green for being so well-watered, but I'm totally running out of indoor toddler activities at this point.  And the more we stay indoors, the more my belongings taunt me, saying, "you should be packing/selling/tossing me right now, but you are watercoloring/playing stickers/having a toddler instrument jam session/watching Curious George instead!  Moving day is coming, you fool!!!"  All in all, we've got some festering, moving-stress-enhanced cabin fever going on.

When I awoke to another day of pouring rain and another round of morning coughing, I knew we had to change it up today.  The husband took our car to a meeting for the day, so we are truly housebound, and I can no longer bear another round of messy watercoloring or round of Frere Jacques.  No friends, today we bake. And not just any baking project, but one that requires us to tend to it for hours and hours, transforming our housebound status from something aggravating to something useful!  Today, we bake challah!

We get books every month from the PJ Library, a non-profit with a mission to share Jewish literature and music with children.  We always look forward to the book or CD arriving in the mail, and they're always unique titles that would be hard to find elsewhere.  This month we got A Holiday for Noah, which is basically a love story between a pre-school aged boy and his favorite challah snack (he's always waiting for a "challah-day"... get it? Hahaha.  I digress...).  Little J adores this book, so I thought he'd get a kick out of spending our day indoors making, kneading, rising, punching, and braiding this special bread.  And I could use the uplifting aromatherapy of a couple of loaves in the oven.  So, off we go.  In case you are trapped inside with your little ones (or your dog, or just yourself) today, I thought I'd share our plans and our recipe so that you can play along at home.

We're going to use the Best Challah recipe from Smitten Kitchen and we're going to get started as soon as I finish this cup of coffee.

Holla!!!

It's a challah-day, yo.  Play along with us?

Also, what is your favorite and most creative way to pass a rainy day indoors?