Monday, October 17, 2011

Timing is everything!

True story:
Playing in the kitchen, the big kids were hiding to try sneak up on me (not very well, mind you) and to jump out and scare me. I was pretending to ignore them - looking in the pantry for something or other. Dad was in on the joke...
Then, I literally shrieked and jumped, just the reaction they were looking for, only I intended to fake it. I didn't have to.
At just the moment the big kids were getting ready to "scare" me, one of the babies banged the metal loaf pan on the ceramic tile floor at the very moment the kids jumped out.
Haven't laughed so hard in ages. I doubled over laughing so hard. It was a good day.

Monday, September 26, 2011

A Boy and his Ball

place holder post

I will never in a million years be able to erase the memory of my boy standing on the side of the road - traumatized - and crying for his new ball

Update:

This was the scene after I ran over a large branch in the road just outside of our cousins's house in Bossier City in north Louisiana. The branch had a rather large root system attached that was hard to see at dark-thirty (it was only 7:40ish at night, but it was after a long day outside and there were no street lights at the intersection where I was trying to merge onto the Interstate)
Nevertheless, I dramtically poked a large hole in the oil pan and with a smoky flourish we swept all the kids out of the car (just in case there was more damage that wasn't obvious that might have ignited something under the hood or in the car - too many action films I guess)
We were stranded on the side of the road for about the longest 20 minutes ever. We were literally 5 minutes outside the subdivision where my family lives, and out of the courtesy of strangers, a couple who saw the accident turned around and came back to make sure we were all ok. I think they were shocked to see 4 kids on the side of the road and out of the vehicle already...They were the ones who called 911 and reported the incident since I had no idea where we were.
We had earlier in the trip stopped to get birthday presents and bought a couple of plastic balls that had comic heros emblazoned on the side, which was to replace similar balls that got wrecked by overzealous teething babies and a spiky lemon tree in our rain-starved back yard. So the obvious thing for my son to be upset about, in his universe was the loss (even temporarily) of these new playthings. Funnily enough though, he also lamented his Kumon work (not his schoolwork which was in the same backpack, but the Kumon zipper case which also just happend to house his incentive rewards for doing his Kumon work) Crazy kid!
So now you know, and now I know what is truly important in my oldest son's universe.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Yamim Noraim


Yamim Noraim

Teresa’s mom fell and broke her hip in FLA (my friend and coworker) :(
Frail older lady who suffers from osteoporosis and anemia (come to find out that she needed blood transfusions after the surgery because she lost so much blood) 
Teresa and I have become pretty close these last few years...

Alarm to our house went off – constables dispatched, kids re-living trauma: 
No harm, no foul - there was really no reason for the alarm to have gone off - I remember checking the mail and then turning the key in the lock, but the front door was open when the officers arrived. I also remember setting the alarm off before I left, and checking the keypad to make sure the proper lights were lit and nothing was red or yellow or some number indication. It all looked good so I left and rearmed the alarm.
When I first walked in and it looked like the place had been ransacked (as is the normal state of my house on most days) I only saw the coffee table which is pushed in front of the TV table so my new walkers won't topple the TV over on themselves. So I initially though the plasma screen was gone, but it was there as was the XBox which the officer noticed I didn't seem too worried about. For some reason all that was different is that we were left with a mysterious white medical grade cord in the middle of the living room that we can't figure out what it belongs to.

Mezuzah question from officer- "What is this?"
my simplified answer - "It protects the house." 
His retort -  “It sure did it’s job this time”

Dr Katkin’s office – clinic visit at TCH
Panic attack – walking through doors of the bldg information center which is next to the ER. No fear until we entered the building and then a continuous building shaky feeling all through the lobby area to the area where we waited for the elevator to the clinic. Too much anguish there in the building? Or maybe my residual trauma from all we have endured there? I think I may need some therapy LOL!
Once we reached the check-in desk and started the feelings subsided. 
Jonathan showed  his devilish side for the apt. much to my mommy chagrin.
Good news is that 1.doc says you would never know by listening to him that he is missing a chunk of his lung (YAY!) and 2. we are off the asthma meds (I never believed he had asthma in the first place) and on to allergy meds instead. Also evaluating getting the tonsils taken out....

Today Jonathan is headed to the Astros game with his camp and I was given vendor tix 2 hours before the game for much better tickets than those. Then tonight we (3 tix bought) are headed to the fundraising event of the Dynamo game where we will also be getting custom T-shirts with Houston Dynamo in Hebrew. Sure to be favorite t-shirts for the near future.

Friday, July 01, 2011

hand foot and mouth disease - still developing

from my twitter feed this weekend:

glad my kids know how to #share. hand foot & mouth disease shared w/ older brother & both miserable. #matzohballsoup #minttea to the rescue

Updates are in purple

 
Since one of the first notes I saw from our new camp this summer politely informed us that one of the kids in machane aleph (thats the little kids who share everything) group came down with hand foot and mouth disease I just hung my head. That would explain why my princess was acting so out of sorts and ill feeling. Turns out she had a pretty mild case that lasted a few days with a few blisters and her swollen lips. And one dramatic instance of bleeding gums toward the end when she was brushing her teeth.


Yael joined me and bubbie for a fancy lunch and a few hours at my office, but she was unable to eat much. So I got her a shake and some yogurt and she still wasn't eating. Other than that she was in pretty good spirits most of the time she was sick and even went to camp the same week she got sick (Friday) so she could have some Tasti-D-lite when the ice cream truck came for a visit.



Not the case with Jonathan. As per his usual sicky self, he got a brutal case of mouth sores that led into some major swelling of his mouth and then a putrid smell emmanated when he would get it open at all.

Finally took him to the dr after a few days (his dr was of course out of the office but we saw a colleague) who suggested that it may be another strain of the virus since his gums were so swollen also and that we could only dull the pain until the thing had a chance to run its course. So he got 2 prescriptions in 2 days of Tylenol with codine [the first got spilled all over the floor by a well-meaning butterfingers who shall remain nameless]

He eventually got severly dehydrated and I made some poor parenting choices in not taking him to get IV fluids when he was too weak to eat/drink or do anything but sleep. When he finally did urinate after several days, it was the color of our beloved iced tea and a few hours later he went all clammy. I knew that the two were connected but it was only in later research (thank you internet medical websites that list scary symptoms and what they might mean) that I discovered that my poor sick kiddo was probably in shock. It's a good thing he was in a bed under a ton of blankets in the middle of the hottest Texas June on record.  Poor parenting choice maybe, in that he probably would have benefited from a bunch of IV fluids, but I was too nervous about him becoming a pin cushion at the hospital to take him to the ER or the medical center. When he finally did go back to camp after a week at home, I called to check up on him and was told that there was no nurse on staff, but that they had an ER dr at their disposal [dr d happens to be the father of one of J's classmates] so it was all good and he was eventually a pretty happy camper. He lost a lot of weight between not being able to eat or drink anything and what I think may have been a growth spurt as his feet peeled which is usually my sign that he is growing.

In fact, he may have lost almost 15% of his weight, all of his favorite shirts are literally falling off him!

One other thing I did notice was that he was not coughing, not during the day, not at night, not at all.
and he did not have any asthma related problems the whole time he was sick, and that he slept much better. He didn't get up every night and roam the house [read: get a drink of water and end up in my bed]  He also had a nasty looking blister on one of his thumbs that is turning into a black blood blister as it is trying to be reabsorbed by the body. And on the other thumb, he had a blister/sore that popped that was on the edge of/under his nail and thank goodness for chlorinated pools, that the finger looks a lot better [I originally thought the infection was so bad that he was gonna lose part or all of his fingernail]
Good note: he hasn't sucked his thumb in almost a month!

Also, my kids who were sick (not the babies thus far) were so kind to their caretakers. They gave a version of the virus to both grandparents in some form or other.

Monday, June 20, 2011

hand foot and mouth hell

from my twitter feed this weekend:

glad my kids know how to #share. hand foot & mouth disease shared w/ older brother & both miserable. #matzohballsoup #minttea to the rescue
 
Since one of the first notes I saw from our new camp this summer politely informed us that one of the kids in machane aleph (thats the little kids who share everything) group came down with hand foot and mouth disease I just hung my head. That would explain why my princess was acting so out of sorts and ill feeling. Turns out she had a pretty mild case that lasted a few days with a few blisters and her swollen lips. And one dramatic instance of bleeding gums toward the end when she was brushing her teeth.


Yael joined me and bubbie for a fancy lunch and a few hours at my office, but she was unable to eat much. So I got her a shake and some yogurt and she still wasn't eating. Other than that she was in pretty good spirits most of the time she was sick and even went to camp the same week she got sick (Friday) so she could have some Tasti-D-lite when the ice cream truck came for a visit.



Not the case with Jonathan. As per his usual sicky self, he got a brutal case of mouth sores that led into some major swelling of his mouth and then a putrid smell emmanated when he would get it open at all.

Finally took him to the dr after a few days (his dr was of course out of the office but we saw a colleague) who suggested that it may be another strain of the virus since his gums were so swollen also and that we could only dull the pain until the thing had a chance to run its course. So he got 2 prescriptions in 2 days of Tylenol with codine [the first got spilled all over the floor by a well-meaning butterfingers who shall remain nameless]

He eventually got severly dehydrated and I made some poor parenting choices in not taking him to get IV fluids when he was too weak to eat/drink or do anything but sleep. When he finally did urinate after several days, it was the color of our beloved iced tea and a few hours later he went all clammy. I knew that the two were connected but it was only in later research (thank you internet medical websites that list scary symptoms and what they might mean) that I discovered that my poor sick kiddo was probably in shock. It's a good thing he was in a bed under a ton of blankets in the middle of the hottest Texas June on record.  Poor parenting choice maybe, in that he probably would have benefited from a bunch of IV fluids, but I was too nervous about him becoming a pin cushion at the hospital to take him to the ER or the medical center. When he finally did go back to camp after a week at home, I called to check up on him and was told that there was no nurse on staff, but that they had an ER dr at their disposal [dr d happens to be the father of one of J's classmates so it was all good and he was a pretty happy camper. He lost a lot of weight between not being able to eat or drink anything and what I think may have been a growth spurt as his feet peeled which is usually my sign that he is growing.

In fact, he may have lost almost 20% of his weight, all of his favorite shirts are literally falling off him!
One other thing I did notice was that he was not coughing, not during the day, not at night, not at all
and he did not have any asthma related problems the whole time he was sick, and that he slept much better. He didn't get up every night and roam the house [read end up in my bed]  He also had a nasty looking blister on one of his thumbs that is turning into a black blood blister as it is trying to be reabsorbed by the body. And on the other thumb, he had a blister/sore that popped that was on the edge of/under his nail and thank goodness for chlorinated pools, that the finger looks a lot better [I originally thought the infection was so bad that he was gonna lose part or all of his fingernail]
Good note: he hasn't sucked his thumb in almost a month!

Also, my kids who were sick (not the babies thus far) were so kind to their caretakers. They gave a version of the virus to both grandparents in some form or other.

Monday, March 21, 2011

obstruction

Never a fun word to hear from a medical practioner and not one you want to hear in conjunction with bowel or any part of the human body that expells waste.
Thank goodness the one that we were concerned about in our extended family managed to find a way to work itself out, sparing the patient and all involved a nasty bout with surgery.
It is most obvious that she does not have the "pissy poor protoplasm" that plagues those of my blood relatives - wherein if there is to be a problem to be found, we will rewrite the book on it.
For example, with Jonathan the moment they brought up surgery as a final option, I started wondering how long it would be till we did that and after about 2 weeks, I started to get antsy to get on with it already so we could get on with our lives.
Funny that it may be, I ran into his pulmonologist just yesterday at our ourdoor block party, who re-admitted him to the hospital after the intial pneumonia. She wanted to know where he was (just so she could keep tabs on him I'm sure) and being the wonderful mother that I am I answered "I dunno"
You see I was late in arriving to the party after my nap and redressing the twins.
So I really had no idea, but it was likely that he was jumping around in the bounce house or climbing the rock wall or otherwise enjoying himself in the spring weather.
So you see, when I overheard the flamboyant XRay tech (who explained everything on Jonathan's films to me-and even got a dig in at the original dr about using a smaller tube rather than a more effective one-this was my favorite tech for sure!) nonchalantly chat about my son's case with the surgeon outside the elevator after it was all over, in one of those medical term kinda ways...you know that it is obvious that Jonathan, just like his grandmother and his great grandmother and his mother before him, re-wrote the manual on how his body works.
They told me to expect him to be intubated in recovery, he was not and his oxygen levels barely ever dipped below 90 even with the "obstruction"
Here's a hearty Hooray that the current obstruction was able to mostly work itself out and that we won't have any more of that anytime soon.
And its a good thing our ppp isn't catchy. My mother's best friend had a 7 cm obstruction removed from her nether regions. The prognosis on the biopsies was not good, but my mom is going in for some hand holding and meetings with doctors in the next few weeks since she understands the lingo and the severity of the situation much better than the one who is going through it. Not a good year for that family as the patriarch shattered his hip in a fall on a slick porch stair.
Guess these things come in 3s and now we're done!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

June Cleaver

upon re-reading my Itamar post that was hastily pecked out and has now undergone 2 revisions for clarity. I found this nugget of wisdom. This about sums up my current state of affairs:

  • I'm a June Cleaver, albeit it with an outside the home, FT J-O-B in a downtown office building, but my mind is filled with-and therefore I'm talking-about raising kids and Japanese nuclear horrors in the same POST as ANOTHER terrorist attack in Israel dammit! SIGH!***
I just have to laugh. I am not a very GOOD June Cleaver since my house is constantly in a state of chaos-just ask my husband-it drives him NUTS. But the point was, that I focus more on my family and I am most definitely not a Holly Homemaker except when the mood strikes me to get in the kitchen. Then I can bake or cook or whatever for days at a time, but just don't expect me to have dinner on the table every night at 6.

I am constantly on the computer, for hours at a time at the office, and sometimes I come home and want to be connected too. I follow friends and cooking blogs and jewish stuff and all of it is relevant to the jigsaw puzzle person that I am. [wish I could claim that this is my art work. I found it here]




Wednesday, March 16, 2011

more musings

so my Itamar post from earlier this week was still a work in progress as far as helping to solidify my views on the matter.

yesterday, when picking up E I literally jumped down his throat. I guess its not fair to take out my frustrations on where I am on him, but he was an easy target and was totally unprepared for my barrage.

All the hard issues I want him to realize that we are in a different position now than when we left Israel. Granted I left in a bad way. I was DONE. I was going through my first pregnancy alone (my mother and other family were in Texas) and it was a difficult pregnancy at that. Ignorance is bliss - I didn't know it was that bad even, though I was hospitalized 3 different times for observation because of high BP [which still plagues me today] and had bi-weekly clinic appointments complete with urine-protein checks, fetal baby monitoring, ultrasounds with doppler to see and hear the heartbeat of the baby. Thank G-d it was all worth it in the end, but I somehow blindly knew everything was ok, and I realize now that E needed to go through the journey of asking all the rabbunim to pray for the safety of his unborn child who had some potentially catastrophic virus in-vitro.

So I left with a small teaching job that he had arranged for me (less than 10 hrs a week) and he is concerned that I will go back to that low point in my life. That is why I ended up leaving Israel. And that my mother's cancer diagnosis was in the next few months was a really stong coincidence, but that is how my life works. I just knew it was time to come back to TX. I am not 100% sure that the time is right to move back to Israel for me and my family, but the first draft rumblings and warning signs are coming into view.

on their recent trip here, the in-laws and their myriad issues weighed heavily on my mind and on my heart. These are truly simple, down to earth, small town, muddle through life without pretention people, who probably never thought they would travel to America and have now been twice to see their son and maybe more importantly their grandchildren. Now they are not extremely healthy people (nor are my parents, for different reasons, who are maybe 10 or more years their senior) and the fact that we are so far away has been extra difficult on them. The internet is almost foreign to them so even a Skype chat with us has to be at the home of one of the many relatives.
The vast distance and the fact that my mother in law can not readily see her son and grandchildren is becoming more and more of an issue. She calls literally every day and if she does not speak to her son she is not calm till she can reach him or get me word that she is looking for him. They dote on their other grandchild (which is a whole other set of issues) and would love to have all their grandchildren grow up and play together as that is the heart of the culture.

This added to the fact that E is not overly happy with the way things are going here is a big factor. I know he needs to make a trip to Israel, but he is not willing to do so in his current state and this is a vicious cycle.
He is not aware of all the support systems that exist as an anglo oleh. Having been there once and not having completely gotten it out of my system, I know that these things exist and the networks are different even than when I was a single girl as opposed to a wife and mother with small children. which was part of my railing at him yesterday. He has goals and numbers in his head that may or may not be realistic and I think he needs to be made aware of some of the other options that are out there that he is completely oblivious to. He still watches his Israeli TV almost every night and will always and forever be the Israeli he is (see these former posts for proof) Why should he continue to be miserable here amongst things that have no real meaning to us other than an expensive roof over our heads.
His boss recently moved his whole family back to live in Ceasaria in a villa overlooking the sea close to Israel's only golf course. Obviously this would not be the kind of life that we would choose to live. We are living now in a Jewish bubble of sorts. Our kids thankfully go to private school with much financial assistance. Maybe a prolonged visit to Israel would make me see things in a different light. The more things change the more they stay the same. My summer trip felt very comfortable, albeit not in the right medium. My time was not enough of my own and I was forced to some things that were not of my liking.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

flower picking

Now that I have yesterday's ranting out of my system, I can refocus on the fact that my kiddos are absolutely scrumptious!

The weeds we try so very hard to eradicate from our lawns, the ones that make little flowers that spread their pollen to further populate the weed garden, are the very flowers that my munchkins have been enjoying.
The love to pick the flowers and bring me sweaty bunches of pure and innocent pleasure. The pleasure of bringing me the flowers (which they think are the most beautiful thing in the world for their mommy)
The joy they get in going out and finding every last bloom in the yard and proudly announcing that I am now the proud recipient of ALL the flowers in the yard.
It is such a childish thing to do - to have the joy in picking flowers for your favorite people.
The best part is that when they have too many to hold they improvise. Instead of a basket they have used a coffee cup or even most recently the blue bucket we would normally use to mop the floor. And then when their friends came over for a visit, the 4 of them were in the yard, eradicating all the helpless flowers and piling them high in the bucket.
Too bad the big dog across the back fence scares Yael and her friend is seriously allergic
x

Oh to be so entertained by the garden flowers that others want to eliminate. It is what makes childhood so amazing and such a shame that it is but a fleeting memory before they move on to other more important and crucial things like homework and reading.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Itamar and Monday Musings

So I heard about the slaying of the 5 memebers of the Israeli family that chose to make their home in Itamar. Eran mentioned it in passing, asking nochalantly if I had heard about the "pigua*" that his mom had just told him about. Since I tend to shy away from the computer over the weekend when I prefer to spend my time coddling my babies who won't be babies for long, and clamoring over my daughter who will forever be my little princess even as I watch her grow before my eyes, and "fighting" with the choices of shows my oldest chooses to watch -from annoying Spongebob to annoying sports (esp basketball), but in the same breath explaining how I prefer basesball, and that it drives his dad crazy just like the basketball drives me nuts.
But back to the tragedy at hand. I feel like that is so far away from my world - but it is not just because I am completely tied up in baby-land. I feel like I am so far removed from that part of the current conflict. I feel (and this admission in hard for me to make) that maybe the "settlers" were asking for it - not this kind of murderous event, but by choosing to make their home in the place that they made it fenced off from their completly surrounded by hostile neighbors - I can't even beleive I am typing this sentence much less thinking it, since that is probably what the rest of the uniformed world feels about Israel being surrounded by Arab neighbors that are now in turmoil since we are living in these "cursed interesting" times. ***

***Note: It is also because I am a news junkie. I was really sick of hearing about the Charlie Sheen antics and cannot bear to watch the devestation in Japan including all the impending horrors that are on the horizon with the nuclear meltdown looming-did I just wake up and find myself in 1950? I'm a June Cleaver, albeit it with an outside the home, FT J-O-B in a downtown office building, but my mind is filled with-and therefore I'm talking-about raising kids and Japanese nuclear horrors in the same POST as ANOTHER terrorist attack in Israel dammit! SIGH!***

And until I read this, (several hours later ) and came back to this post to "finish" it,
I was pretty indifferent about the whole thing. Then I realized how it was to be in her shoes - the women who choose to build their homes and raise their children in such a place. They would rather think of themselves as the pioneering spirit of today's generation - ones that will face the brunt of the fight and rely on their enourmous faith in Hashem to keep them from harm's way.

some of the more recent posts I have seen have alluded to the fact that perhaps the whole disgusting incident was a result of a foreign worker not getting his salary and that the Fogel family was somehow responsible for not properly compensating their help. If that is truly a motivator and I am not convinced that it is, isn't it more likely that the man would still want to see his money and would more likely resort to petty sabotage and other misdemeanors of the same ilk. He would want the family to pay in money and not in blood.

The fact that there have not been many incidents that have come to light in the past few months, years or however long ago the last event was does not diminsh the fact that the danger is always there in the back of the minds of the people who live there. The PA claims that their "citizens" are banned from entering the yishuvim, but clearly what took place was not carried out by a law-abiding citizen of any nature. Just typing this out and really lettting the words flow from my fingers is more about clarifying my positions and my way of thinking than my over-tired, sleep-deprived, dis-engaged confused brain can actually manage.

I was disgusted with myself. Why was I not able to muster up the usual and natural feelings of solidarity and "how horrible", etc until I hunted - and I choose to use the word hunted here - because it wasn't enough for my brain to know the images were readily available and then to leave well enough alone. The original sites that I turned to made mention of the disturbing images and made concerted efforts not to display them or make it too easy to stumble across them. I had to make a concerted effort on my part to find a site that displayed a link to them, and then at that point I had to really decide to look at the images after I clicked. It was literally a 3 step process. 1. Know they exist somewhere within reach, 2. find a site that had the link to the images (and in doing that research I was exposed to other interesting sites and other points of view that inadvertently broadened my horizons - Steven Amsel and Pam Gellar were unknown to me before today) 3. press the link which opened another small window which I had to choose to enlarge to view. This last step was the hardest.  I literally turned my head away from the screen as I glimpsed the first view of the small window that only showed a part of a sleeve. 
In the end I looked and the reaction was what I used to be able to come up with all on my own without needing the violent images to prompt it. It makes me wonder about the person I have morphed into and whether I want to encourage this somewhat more laid-back outlook or be horrified by the fact that I needed a journey to get to the place where I once was.

*Usually "pigua" to me means a bombing. I know the literal translation is something like terrorist attack, but in my mind the first jump is to bombing and then when I hear the details I categorize it appropriately. This attack in Itamar has many (too many) causualties and in my mind it is classified as a senseless murder - no matter of who carried it out. Babies and small children can not make the choice to live where they do and so are of course the innocent victims. The Fogels made the choices that were right for their family and that is their right to be able to do so. I, however, would not necessarily knowingly put my kids in that particular kind of danger on a daily basis. This is something that is a hard issue for me to struggle with as well. I know that we ultimately want to live in Eretz Yisrael, but in a place that my Americanized children will feel comfortable adapting to.

Another interesting thing is the offhanded remark made by another new mother who I know from a meeting or two at the supermarket and as the guidance counsellor at the HS part of my oldest's school. She mentioned that they had just come off of a recent trip to Israel to scope things out. She has a small baby (maybe 3 months old) and 4 or more other kids in tow. This was one thing  - that if we are really considering a move to Israel at this point, then a pilot trip is a natural progression. Another family I know who has 3 boys (and the head of the family is a lawyer-ie they're not hurting for $$$) made a stab at a year-long stay in Israel and the experiment was over after the summer citing money as the #1 issue. But back to the offhand remark...After asking if I hadn't gotten Israel out of my system having lived there previuosly and my emphatic, no pause answer of no, that every day is literally a struggle for us, she said that it is really easier to move as a family if you move with another family or more of a support group. Much food for thought!

Thursday, February 03, 2011

who do they think they are?

May I be somewhat controversial for a moment...and perhaps rain the wrath of the more wealthier Jews than I, upon me.
Last summer - July 2009 (not this past summer when I gave birth to the most smunchable little twinnie babies you've ever met) I went on a "Mission" trip to Israel. Being of the Jewish persuasion, that moniker did not sit well with me but I was so excited to be part of a cheap trip to Israel. Needless to say it was not what I expected and there were a lot of things that did not sit well with me.
One of those things was the constant bombardment of us for money for various hand-picked charities.
We went to an army base - let's support this one soldier support organization and not even the one that provides the lone soldiers a connection...
we went to see the new Aish Building in Jerusalem overlooking the Western Wall = a modern day construction that could be construed as a temple of its own since there will be lots of learning Torah going on there and the location is prime real estate overlooking one of the holiest spots on earth. Let's see how fast we can open our checkbooks to give to this enormous monumental obelisk at the corner of the western wall plaza. This one really has me hot!
Who do they think they are? No matter how much good outreach the Aish people are responsible for, this building is like an ivory tower, a testament to the fact that they have the funds to build such a temple. Sure there will be plenty of learning and probably a good deal of brainwashing moldable minds as well, but will the learning promote only one way of thinking and maybe not true outreach. I for one was not comfortable in such a lavish (or what was supposed to become lavish when it is completed) ostentatious showy place. Somehow, visiting the amazing artists galleries in tzfat (where they were way outside my price range) followed by the wonders of the kotel plaza just didn't speak to me except to say, please give me your money. Bad taste in my mind and in my mouth. Much prefered the little time I had with (both old and new)friends in chic coffee houses or quaint restauarnts overlooking the countryside.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

totally schleeping nachas


This is the last minute reminder for the big event of the semester, where my first grader gets up with his classmates and does the song and dance number for us parents to kvell over. And at the end of it all they get their very own siddur with an inscription from Mommy and Abba and a one-of-a-kind, mommy-designed book cover so that it doesn't get messed up in all the trials and tribulations of the daily life of an elementary school-book. This thing has been so hyped, and I have covered enough boxes in brown butcher paper after all the kids have gone off to bed (more than 10 of the required 22), that I think I have built half of their Kotel.[For the Chanukah party, which incidentally coincided with the last day of the book fair, I was in tears watching the little ones get up and recite their parts - I'm such a sap] (totally bringing my box of tissues in from the car!)

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Piano Bar

The hopeless romantic in me wants to think that this piano (click here for the story) was lovingly transported to the highest point of the sandbar for an amazing marriage proposal for some lucky lady or maybe just to serenade the fish.
Aren't I silly :)
In any case, I'd like to think the piano is getting to see some beautiful hand-painted sunrises and sunsets that I like to tell my kids that G-d paints just for us to enjoy every day. What a view over the water, at least from the picture in the story.
And I hope it doesn't get ruined by the elements...Maybe someone should waterseal the wood. can't fathom what to do about the insides though...

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Party of 4, 6...8, 10, 13 - oh I give up!

We went to San Antonio over the winter break when all the kids were off. It was just far enough away to require an overnight stay so we could do all the fun things we wanted to do and not far enough to make the drive there unbearable (like to say Florida a few years ago)

Well when I say WE let me be a little more specific. We means my immediate family of 2 adults and two kids, plus two more babies. And then the grandparents...both sets - since the ones from Israel are a part of the household right now. So make that 4 more adults. Then unbeknownst to us, the Austin crew came to join us for a late lunch with their adorable Elliot (who is almost 7 weeks old now) so that makes 2 more adults and another baby added to the mix.

Needless to say, we ditched the small crowded deli (intentions were good, but logistics, not so much) which would have made everything and everyone uncomfortable anyway [ham/deli and cheese sandwiches aside, the whole place was just cramped for all of us large-boned people and then add in a couple of bulky baby strollers] so we moseyed our way to a more spacious place where we still had to break off into two groups to keep things manageable (and civil - because at this point there were simmering issues that still needed to be addressed).

And to top things off, we were down near the Dome where later in the day there was a nationally televised college football matchup between Oklahoma and Arizona (orange vs red and black) and there was a sea of people crowding all the places. Not especially good to start with for my sporadic claustrophobic panic attacks usually triggered when I get overloaded off the energy of so many people.

Forgetting that Israeli antiquities are thousands of years old, and the Alamo only dates from the 1800s plus its story deals with a Christian mission that was converted into a fort, needless to say, the trip to the Alamo was anti-climactic, even with the explanation cleverly provided by my father that the Alamo was the Texan version of Massada.



Of course to keep things interesting, there was the requisite drama accompanying large a family trip...this one not speaking to that one, mad at everyone in sight and then to top it all off, a huge scene [screaming in Hebrew] in front of the Alamo with hundreds of confused Americans staring at this lady who was screaming in tongues....

And then there was the next day trip to Sea World's Christmas extravaganza. That should have been my first clue. We rode the Shamu Express roller coaster (for kids) and then Yael was barely big enough to ride the Journey to Adventure (or whatever it was called) where we were warned in the waiting line signage that "You will get wet!" And we all did! And it was cool because the boat thing turned 360 degress in the air and we got a great view of the huge parking lot and all of sea world.We did also see 3 shows the Shamu Miracle show, Seasame Street Christmas and Azul, the perfect choice for our finale.

Of course there was drama there too. First off, Yoni got a little too big for his britches and flitted between the boys and the girls at the Sesame Street show. So of course each team thought that he was with the other and he got lost for a good 10 minutes as we all scrambled to find each other at the end of the show. And Safta had a miniture fainting spell, but it didn't worry the kids too much as we were already sitting down for an ice cream break as it was. As usual they were reluctant to get professional medical help since she is now under doctor supervision at home, we let her have some water, collect herself and we sat for a few minutes more as we finished the ice cream treats. We took some pics and I actuall bought the picture from the adventure ride since we 4 sat in the same row and it looked as if I was waving specifically to the camera - which was not the case I was waving to the fraidy cats from Israel that wouldn't join us on our ride...