Milestone Moments  

I’m always up for a party — so let’s raise a glass in praise of the lesser-known, more private, yet equally important accomplishments that deserve recognition, too. You can rank them in order of importance.

Once the hoopla of the wedding wears off, let’s have a high five for the first time you make a bed and set a table on the same day. Sometimes, as the decades progress and the enthusiasm diminishes, those conquests wane.

Making Shabbos for the first time (for two) is something you never forget. You’ve borrowed dishes and serving pieces, collected recipes from all your acquaintances, and stand on your feet for six solid days and nights in preparation. Washing the dishes after Shabbos together with your new husband is an experience all its own, and if you get him to wash out the cholent pot you deserve a crown. If he continues to do so every week thereafter, you’re in a class all your own — especially if he thinks it’s his idea. The fact that, a few decades later, you can shake a Shabbos (for 22) out of your sleeve in two hours just means you’re practiced enough.

Newly marrieds spend months trying to figure out exactly what the color and theme of their first mishloach manos should be, and then another three weeks in earnest discussion trying to decide exactly who to send them to. A green-iced cupcake and matching saran-wrapped taffies becomes the winner. It then takes two weeks to bake, freeze, and wrap all six. Giggling through the process is part of the joy, and so is wearing matching costumes when you deliver them.