A funeral

Last Thursday night, a great tragedy occurred. 

I came home after taking Chaya to ballet and went to the kitchen, where David was making food for the children.  I set my cell phone down on the counter.  When I came back to get get it, I realized that there had been water on the counter.  I don't remember what David was cooking, the details are hazy in my mind.  I wiped it off, but it had turned itself off.  I opened up the battery case and wiped the water away.  Still, no sign of life.  I took my phone upstairs and plugged it into the charger, thinking I could revive it. No sign of life.  I felt that if my phone just had a night of rest, then, perhaps then, it would have a fighting chance.  The next morning, I woke up and turned on my phone.  Oh joy, oh happiness, it worked!  I was so happy!!!  Until I realized that I couldn't make or receive calls.  It said "No Network".  I tried everything to bring it back to it's full power.  But nothing, no amount of CPR worked.  So today, I took it to the cellphone company, where my beloved cellphone was admitted to cellphone ER, and after an hour and a half, Dr. Phonedreamy pronounced it beyond repair.  There was no chance of survival as it had suffered from damage due to corrosion. 

I drowned my cellphone in less than a millimeter of water. 

Fortunately, I was able to receive a new cellphone and the financial damage isn't quite as extensive as I was afraid it would be, as I had cellphone life insurance.  It's not quite as complete as the one that I had to bury tonight, but I am sure that I will love this new phone, even though I may not love it AS much as I loved my old phone, but perhaps, in a different way.

I am not really sure why i loved the phone so much.  I have never been partial to a phone, let alone a cellphone before.  I only even got a cellphone for the first time in Israel last year.  And Israel is a cell phone country.  Most people have one, if not two phones at the same time.  Everywhere you go, when you are asked for your phone number, they mean your cell phone number.  And if you say that you don't have one, they are shocked.  The conversation will generally look something like this:

Service person: What is your pelephone (cell) number?

Me: I don't have one.

Service person: stares at me with mouth open as they try to digest this information.

After a long pause...No pelephone?  At all?

Me:  No, but I have a home number.

Service person:  What about your husband?  Does he have one? 

Israeli's just don't understand how you live without a cell phone.  When I lived in Ashdod, it was very simple.  I didn't have any friends.  No friends means no phone calls, so it was completely pointless to pay for a phone that no one was going to phone me on.  Then I moved to Tekoa.  After I got through the initial fear of doing the hitchiking thing, I realized that it would probably be a useful thing to own in the event that I unintentionally got into trouble.  So I got a phone.  And since I now have a few friends in Tekoa and actually leave the house everyday at least once, if not more, they can reach me wherever I am and whenever they want. 

AND, I have become proficient in text messaging.  I have a certain friend who lives in another city in Israel and when I have some odd thoughts, I text them to her so that she can have a comedy break in her day.  I won't give examples of those messages, as they shall remain private and are probably only funny to the two of us (gotta love in jokes...). 

The other reason that I loved my cell phone, was because when I was buying it and we were checking for available numbers, the girl asked me what my home phone number was.  I told her and she did a check and almost had a heart attack when she found that I could have my home number as a cell phone number.  She told me she had never successfully been able to do that!  So I feel special.  Like me and this phone were meant to be.  We were besherte. (Besherte = soul mates)

And although I have the new one, that is EXACTLY the same as the old one, I know that there is a difference.  You may not, but I do.

Bye bye old cellphone.  We had a good life together.  May you rest in peace.

Thoughts on Motherhood

I have been contemplating the reasons that people have for procreating.  I know that in Judaism, it is a Torah commandment.  At least for men.  So there is certainly the religious aspect.  But what about for those who are not religious?  Is "be fruitful and multiply" really a valid reason for them, since they don't believe in religion anyway?

My Dad thinks that people who don't have children are selfish, but I think that people who have children for the wrong reasons are selfish.  But then again, I haven't fully defined what I think the right reasons are.  I know that I think that having children just as an extension of yourself is what I would consider a wrong reason.  Perhaps carrying on your blood line is a right reason.  If you like your bloodline, that is.

I know some people who don't have children yet.  And who have expressed a desire to have children.  But I am not sure that anyone who doesn't have children can fully understand what they are getting themselves into.

I find that it is increasingly difficult to describe exactly what it feels like to BE pregnant.  I wasn't one of those overall wearing, wheatgrass drinking glowing mother's to be.  I was tired and cranky and angry with the world.  I do, however, recognize, that I was suffering a lot of external stress that took away from the joy of pregnancy. 

I do remember thinking, though, after Chaya's birth "Why didn't anyone tell me it was going to be like that?"  I felt like all the women who had birthed a child were in on a conspiracy.  It was like they would only tell the good parts and leave out all the gross parts, because if they described them everything in detail, no woman would ever consciously CHOOSE to have a baby.  At least not through natural childbirth.  C section, perhaps.  I hear the recovery time is difficult, but an elected c section might be preferable.  AND you get a few more days in the hospital, with a nursery to take care of your baby when you want to sleep and food cooked for you. 

I remember with Chaya, that the 3 days in the hospital  (which you get in Israel) seemed like a holiday to me.  I felt like I was in a hotel and I was a little sad to leave.  I figured that is why the ultra religious women have a baby every year or so, because they get an all expense paid stay in a hospital for three days.  So they have to push a baby through their vagina - no pain, no gain, right?

To be truthful, I can't even tell you what childbirth is like, 3 years on.  I have forgotten.  I remember it was intense and painful, but it is such a traumatic experience, I think we women block it out.  Because, again, if we remembered it, we would never do it again.  I do know that I was devastated when I found out I was pregnant again, 3 months after giving birth to Chaya.  I hadn't forgotten the pain of her birth yet, so I remember being furious at David.  Basically, I went to sleep breastfeeding and woke up pregnant.  I am still not exactly sure how it happened. 

Then the baby comes home.  All of your energy is spent feeding this baby, changing it's diaper and trying to catch up on the sleep that you aren't getting.  Day 3 after birth, you spend the whole day crying, but not exactly sure why you feel like crying.  I cried after a nurse at the hospital asked me why I didn't speak Hebrew.  For some reason, this was absolutely devastating for me.  Day 7 it comes back, but now, you are a week without sleep, so you are not only feeling like crying, but you are pissed off at anyone or anything that crosses your path.  David forgot to bring a baby seat for the car and I was meeting him later, with the intention of walking to where we were going with the baby.  But because he forgot the car seat, when he came back to pick it up, I threw the phone at him.  Day 30 is another big day.  Now, you are just plain in a rage, because it is now 30 days without more than 2 hours sleep in row.  Now you just want to kill someone and I believe divorce was on the table for me at that point.  I do believe that if I had had a car, I would have left David.  But you can't go far with a baby in a stroller...

As time goes on, baby starts sleeping longer and you eventually start to feel rested.  But your life is now changed forever.  There is always someone there, demanding something from you.  Every single time I sit down, it seems that my children need something.  And when a child needs something, they want it NOW!!!  So even if you say, I will do it in a second, they repeat what they want over and over and over again until you actually do it.

This morning, I set my alarm for 6 am, thinking that I would take at least half an hour of alone time.  But my children seem to have a sixth sense for when mommy wants alone time (see mommy sits down, above) and wake up with me.  And then it's hard to be resentful of them for horning in on your alone time when they smile at you with their amazing smiles and say "Mornin' mommy!  I waked up!!!" 

I realize that I am probably going to have to wake up at 4 in the morning, just to get 30 seconds of alone time.  Awake.  So, right now, for some reason, I seem to have to go to the bathroom a lot in the night and I can't tell you how much I am enjoying the stillness of the night as I walk blind eyed to the bathroom. 

And then there is your "relationship" with your husband.  Sarah is a Daddy's girl.  Everytime I even attempt to hug him, she horns her way in there and takes over.  He is unequivocally hers.  In order to be even remotely affectionate with him, I have to wait until the girls aren't looking and do it quickly.  I feel like I am 14 again, and don't want my parents to know that I have a boyfriend...

What you learn fast, though, as a parent, is that life is no longer about you.  One of the hardest things that I find that my friends with children have, is the dilemma of keeping their own identities.  Feeling like one is not just a milking machine, but also keeping you in your life.  I mean, it's one thing to read these articles about keeping the romance in your life, within your marriage, but holy cow, keeping you in you????  Feeling like a woman when you have been walking around all day smelling of baby puke and poo because you pulled on yesterday's clothes when you were too tired to create another outfit?

If I find time to myself in a day, it is a miracle.  I don't have family close by and not a lot of options for calling other's to take over my kids.  So trying to find time alone with my husband is just as impossible.  I have compromised.  I take time to myself on Fridays, for a couple of hours.  And if I can during the day, I do.  When the kids are sleeping and I have either finished or am ignoring my household chores.  But time with my husband is something we are still trying to figure out.  I have heard that there are couples who try to have date night once a month.  That's pretty cool.  David and I went out for dinner last week.  That was nice. 

I teach my kids this: Sharing is caring.  That's what having kids has taught me.  Sharing is Caring.  That and caffeine is my friend...

Sister Wives

I have been thinking a lot about this whole idea of plural marriage lately.  Well, for the last two years, really, since I started watching the show "Big Love".  I heard that there is a new reality show in America, featuring a family with multiple wives in it.  Called, of course, Sister Wives.

I liked the show Big Love.  It was like those women always had someone to back them up and that their Sister wives were their best friends.

We had a guest for shabbos, who was telling us about a family in her neighborhood who are in a plural marriage.  She was saying that the women were the ones who recruited the new wives for their husband.  There are currently something like 9 wives although at the time, it was just 5 wives.  They wanted this woman to be wife number 6.  She couldn't understand what the women had to gain from recruiting new wives.

I can tell you exactly.

At this point in time, what I really need more than anything, is a wife.  I need someone to help with the cooking and the cleaning, the childcare, the shopping, someone to prepare me a bath when I am tired.  Someone to understand when I am tired, or have PMS or on my period.  I need a wife.

Many people complain loudly that it is so sexist that it is always the men's right to have more than one wife. 

But I know why. 

The fact is, that men are a lot of work.  Pretty much more work than one woman can handle.  We need help.  Especially in today's world, where we are expected to work, maintain a house, birth children, breastfeed them and then take on most of the responsibility of their daily lives until they leave the house or we die.  I think that we, as women, have bitten off more than we can chew.  So since we are expected to do the work of the traditional man, in addition to the work of a traditional woman, we should also be allowed the option of taking a wife.  I am telling you, life would be a lot easier if we could share the responsibility. 

If I were to choose a wife, I would get one who could cook, clean, hang and fold laundry, take care of my kids.  That would free up a lot of my time.  In fact, I could, as first wife, make her work in addition to everything else, freeing up my time to pursue any whim that I had at that moment. 

It sounds heavenly to me. 

But can you imagine the other way around?  A woman with more than one husband?  If my husband were in the government, there would never be unemployment, because he is a make work project.  My house can be perfectly clean, even after a full day of having a daycare in my house, but seconds after he enters the house, it looks like a cyclone hit.  And he doesn't even seem to notice that he has left his sock in the hallway or his underwear balled up in the corner of the living room (why he takes them off there, I have no idea).  They can stay there for weeks and he won't notice (I know this, as I have tested this theory).  Can you imagine having to have two of these?  In addition to your children and full time job?  It would kill you. 

I, as a woman, am happy that there is no culture or religion that I am aware of where a woman can have multiple husbands.  We don't need it.  It is detrimental to our health. 

What we do need, though, is a wife.  Or four.

Ballet

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a ballet dancer.  Probably most little girls had the same dream.  So, I bugged my mother until she enrolled me in ballet class.  Mrs. Lecky's school of dance.  It was Saturday mornings, in the basement of an office complex.  I must have been about 6 or 7 years old.  The problem was, that my mother and stepfather used to like to sleep in on Saturday mornings, so I often missed my class.   Ballet just wasn't all I thought it would be - tutu's and buns and beauty.

I was obsessed with princesses when I was a little girl.  I loved the Fairy Tales.  Cinderella was always my favorite.  Something about the overworked and underloved little girl, suddenly turning into the most beautiful girl in the kingdom, being chosen by the handsome Prince, over all other's. 

I think I just wanted to feel special and special was not something I felt.

So I quit ballet and moved on to Jazz dancing.  It was in the afternoons in the middle of the week, so the only way that I could get there was to go by myself, since my mother and stepfather were working at that hour.  I took public transit to get myself to class and then used to stand around with the other girls while they waited for their mother's to come and pick them up.  I used to pretend that my mother was coming too.  I longed for the kind of mother that spent all of her time devoted to me and my siblings.  The kind of mother that served a warm plate of chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk after school.  That baked her own bread and did my hair in intricate hairstyles each morning before school.  Who dropped me off and picked me up at school.

My mother didn't have that luxury.  She worked long hours and was so tired when she came home that all she could do was plant herself in front of the television to watch the news and/or sleep.

I knew from an early age that when I had kids, it was most important to me to be there with them.  I wanted them to have what I didn't have.  A stay at home mom, the Beaver Cleaver mommy.

I am not a Beaver Cleaver mommy and I am far from the kind of mother I envisioned for myself, but, every once in awhile, I do things that are Beaver Cleaver mommy like.

Today, I took Chaya to her very first Ballet Class.  She told me on the way "Ballet is scary.  And if I want to cry, then I just cry."  I explained to her that she didn't have to stay at the ballet class and that if she didn't like it, we would just go home, but also that I would be there, in the room with her the whole time.  Chaya is much younger than I was when I went to my first dance class, but I think I would have liked to have known that my mother was outside waiting for me.  She told her sister, father and brother before we left that she was going to ballet to be pretty.

When the class started, she didn't want to go by herself to the group, so I went with her and after about 5 minutes, I sat down on the sidelines and watched my little girl.  She has the added disadvantage that she is not perfectly fluent in Hebrew, but she watched the others and did the best that she could.  And when the teacher complimented her, she beamed a smile so bright, it could light up the sky in the darkest night.  She did wonderfully.

Is my daughter a future ballerina?  I don't know and I don't care.  I just want her to have this experience.  I want her to be exposed to things from a young age that I always wished that I had had the opportunity to be.

The most beautiful part of it, was watching my daughter walk through her fear and come away with a beatific smile and a happiness that is beyond what any toy from Toys R Us could give her.

I was, and still am, 5 hours later, the proudest mother in the universe.  I have so far, raised a little girl who is happy, beautiful and smart.  A little girl who knows that her mommy is there for her.  Who loves her beyond words.

But I still think she has the potential to be the lead dancer in the most famous ballet company in the world, whatever that may be...I guess I better Internet research it.  And learn what a port au bras is.

Airports

I love airports.  I get butterflies every time I go to one.  It doesn't matter if I am leaving on a trip or just picking someone up.  I always have the same nervous "Will I get there in time?  Will the flight be on time?  Will I see someone famous?"  I have never seen anyone famous, at an airport or otherwise.  Well, that's not true.  Yick, from Degrassi Junior High, used to be the bartender at the bar I frequented in my 20's. 

Last week, I went to pick up my friend Jenn at the airport.  Ben Gurion airport is an experience.  I arrived at the time the plane was due to land and waited an hour and a half for my friend to deplane, get through customs and immigration and collect her luggage. 

I was so full of excitement I felt like I was going to pee my pants.  Although I think that that had more to do with the fact that I really had to pee but was afraid to use the bathroom in case I missed her exit from the arrivals gate. 

There were hundreds of people arriving.  In an hour and a half.  Hundreds.  And Ben Gurion is an incredible place to watch people arrive.  You have Orthodox Jews, with their black hats and coats, arriving together with their wives and large families, children clinging to their mother's, babies screaming.  You have large tour groups with strange things attached to their clothes, signifying that they belong to the Texas Holyland tours, or some such group.  Camera's slung around their necks as they arrive and stare mercilessly at the Black Hat Jews around them.  Peering as discreetly as they can at the women with colorful scarves on their heads.  Priests and Nuns with their collars and Habits.  Muslims.  It's a truly international crowd.

I saw a family enter the airport from the arrivals gate, with two small children, when suddenly two women in their late 20's went racing towards them, screaming, clutching bouquets of balloons.  The children suddenly grabbed their mother's leg, unsure of what to do with these crazy, screaming women.  I watched this and was overcome with laughter and tears.

Thoughts of visiting my family flooded me.  I imagined my own girls clinging to me as my sisters and mother ran towards me.  But my family doesn't do things like that.  We are more reserved. 

Husbands and wives deplaning, being met by their spouses. 

Watching these reunions, it made me think "I wish my husband was a travelling salesmen or something where he had to travel for work.  We would see each other once a month and I would meet him at the airport, where we would rush into each other's arms and be so happy to see one another.  If he was never home, we would have a great marriage."

I love airports.

Mahane Yehuda

Mahane Yehuda is a huge market in Jerusalem.  I have lived in Israel for almost 5 years, in February and the first time that I came here was about a month ago.  I have really not seen the tourist sites in Jerusalem.  Jenn's sister in laws boyfriend (do you follow that?) kept asking if I had seen this or that place in Israel and I kept saying no.  It's so sad that there is this beautiful country and I haven't seen much of it.  So filled with history and I have bypassed most of it. 

Today I had booked someone to take care of my daycare for Jenn's visit, but Jenn has travelled north and left yesterday during shabbat, so it was not possible for me to accompany them.  Plus, I didn't want to take too many days off of work - it costs me money!!! 

So today, I find myself in Jerusalem, at the shuk (market) sitting having a coffee.  David has gone to sort out some things at a governmental office and I considered doing some shopping, but I don't want to carry around bags and stuff, plus, I needed to eat and have a coffee.  So I will wait for a bit to see how long it will take him and then at 12 I have to be somewhere. 

The shuk is amazing.  There are people strolling all over, tourists and Israeli's alike.

Here you can pick up good deals.  Fruits and vegetables tend to be much cheaper here and you can pick up bargains on clothes as well.  I am wearing a Mahane Yehuda special, in fact, that I picked up last week, when I was here with Jenn.

Nail Polish

I bet you thought that I was on a roll and then lost interest in the blog and you would have to wait another 3 years for my next entry.

Fooled you!

My friend came to visit from Canada and I got caught up in the whirlwind tour of Israel.  She arrived on Sunday afternoon, after having had a two day delay in getting here.  We jetted off (well, more like bussed off) to the Dead Sea.  I brought my computer, with the intention of blogging while I was there, but time to myself got away from me. 

We arrived at the Dead Sea on Tuesday afternoon, after having spent Monday morning playing in the park here in Tekoa with the kids and then doing an afternoon trip to the Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem.  I introduced her to the art of hitchhiking out to the settlements, which is our preferred method of transportation, for us "settlers".  The bus only comes every two or three hours, so it is faster to hitchhike.  We had a bit of a hard time getting a ride back, since we were travelling with her baby.  People didn't want to take the chance of travelling with a baby and we finally found someone who had a baby seat, willing to take her and her baby.  The driver didn't have room for me, as she was waiting on her brother and his girlfriend, but luckily I found a ride immediately and actually ended up getting to Tekoa first.  We had made a plan to meet at the hitchhikers post in Tekoa and I sat down to wait for her.  All of a sudden I got nervous, trying to think back to the woman who picked her up, what she looked like, what her Hebrew sounded like, did she have an accent, etc.  As I sat waiting for her, I started imagining the worst.  I imagined myself calling my husband, saying "I lost Jenn!"  It was terrible.  But she arrived safe and sound and actually got a ride all the way to my house, whizzing past me at the hitchhikers post.

She got a good taste of public transportation here, though.  The bus ride to the Dead Sea took two hours and we went through all of the tourist spots. 

On Wednesday morning she decided to hike up Massada with her sister in law and sister in law's boyfriend, along with her baby.  I declined this opportunity.  The way I figured it was like this:  I was on holiday.  Hiking up a mountain sounded suspiciously like exercise.  And exercise is work.  And I was on holiday.  If it involved exertion on my part, I wasn't doing it.  So I stayed back. 

Instead I went to the spa. 

Mmmm....

Alone. 

I opted for a facial and much needed pedicure. 

The facial was nice, but the pedicure was heavenly.  It has been 4 years since I have had a professional pedicure.  My feet were in terrible condition.  4 years of running around after small children had taken a toll.  And I have the bad habit of picking my nails, both on my feet and hands.  Somehow, in the last week or so, my nails have started to grow and I have restrained myself from picking them and managed to grow a little white area where there is supposed to be a white area on your nail. 

I feel triumphant.

After almost 12 hours of being on holiday without my children, I was starting to feel like "me" again.  Like a person independent of being a mother, or even a wife, for that matter.  But here is the thing.  A mother can go on vacation, but she is always a mother.  How do I know this?  Because when the Esthetician asked me which color I wanted to paint my nails, I looked at the bottles, sitting in the box so nicely and thought, "Which color would my girls think is the most fun?"  I picked a metallic purple. 

And you know what?  It was the most fun.  Normally I would go for a staid red or light pink, but I decided to be adventurous, for the sake of my children!!!

Even on holiday, I was thinking of them....

Of course, it wasn't until the last morning there, that I started to miss them.  It was nice to be away from them for a couple of days.  To have my breakfast, lunch and dinner made for me, to not have to do laundry or make a bed (not that I make the beds at home, this is a defect of mine that I am working on...).  On the last morning there, however, I was watching my friend play with her son and thought, I miss my girls' hugs.  I can't wait to see them!

They were asleep when I got home, but Friday morning, when Chaya woke up, she saw me and gave me a HUGE smile and said "You came back!".  I am still her favorite. 

It was all worth it!