Category Archives: aliyah

Musings on attending and giving parenting classes

aliyah, Parenting

On Tuesday night, I was ready to leave for a class on parenting, and said to my kids, “I’m leaving to my parenting class in a few minutes”.  Dd17 looked up and said, “Oh, nice.  Are you giving it in English or Hebrew?”   She hadn’t heard that I’m obligated to attend these for the program that ds9 will be participating in at school!

>>I wonder what you think of the parenting classes? Are they totally different than the way you successfully run the home? Can you give one instead to fill your obligation?<<

I’ve only attended one class so far, so I can’t really judge.  The teacher is very nice and everything she said was good.  I didn’t feel the topic was especially compelling to me, since she was talking most of the time about report cards and how to help our children not feel their value was totally determined by grade.  Personally, I don’t especially value report cards and my kids haven’t yet internalized the message that these are the end all and be all of who they are as people, so this isn’t much of an issue in our house.  But I think the reminder to reflect back to our children their good qualities is a good one and this is what I took home with me.  I really enjoy hearing lectures in Hebrew since I hear vocabulary that isn’t used in day to day conversations, so it helps me boost my language skills.

What I think defines how I approach parenting is two things: a) I’m very strongly a developmentalist versus a behaviorist, and try to understand where the root of an issue is coming from,  rather than get distracted by the misbehavior.  b)  I have a very strong focus on the importance of emotional connection as a critical factor in development.  I’ve read many, many parenting books over the years, but I’ve only seen these mirrored (and definitely expounded on) in what I’ve read/learned from Dr. Gordon Neufeld.  This is why I loved it when I found his book six years ago – I kept telling my husband, ‘he’s saying what I’ve been saying!’ – and have invested in his parent training dvds just because I wanted to have an expanded understanding of the principles he talks about.  He provided me with a deepened intellectual understanding of why what I was doing as a parent was effective, which took it from ‘this is what I do that works for me’ to ‘this is how anyone can be effective in different situations than mine’.

Afterward, the teacher told me she heard that I had ‘learned how to teach parenting’ and said she hoped that I wouldn’t be bored.  I told her what I’ll say here – just because you already know something, doesn’t mean it’s not helpful to hear it again from a different perspective.  If we did even a fraction of the things we knew we should do as parents, we’d all be amazing!

After the other parenting lecture I attended at the beginning of the week, a couple of mothers shared with me their discouragement about realizing how far they were from their ideals, and said they couldn’t imagine that was an issue for me.  As if any of us has perfect control of ourselves all the time!!  Of course I make mistakes (every single day!), I say things I shouldn’t, and more often, say the right things but in the wrong way.  I’ve also had the  same feelings sometimes, of falling short of where I want to be.  We parents are so busy that it’s hard to constantly pause and respond to our children the way we should.  So I appreciated that lecture as well, which talked about the importance of body language over the spoken content of what we say.

I was asked before leaving the US if I’d continue giving classes via telephone to women from my past classes, and said I’d seriously consider it.  I really thought within 8 weeks that I’d restart my teaching.  Then I got here, and I felt like I needed to put my emotional energy into being available for my kids, not talking about it!  I didn’t want to be telling others what to do when we might be facing parenting issues we would have to struggle to figure out, and it’s critical to me that I share from a position of personal integrity.  The lectures that are most meaningful and helpful to me are when I sense the teacher and their material are one, and that’s the person I want to be.  I’m not inspired by great speaking skills or presentation, when I sense that someone can say the right things but isn’t really living it.

(That reminds me of a lecture I attended years ago.  There was a large crowd of at least two hundred women, and afterward I went up to the very well-known speaker and chatted with her.   I was implementing a strategy on a daily basis that she recommended during her talk, so I wanted to share with her what I was doing – and that’s when she told me she read about the idea but that she didn’t do any of it herself.  Then she asked about where my kids were in school, and when I told her we homeschooled, she exclaimed, “I’d have gone crazy if I had to be around my kids all day  How can you stand it?!”   This isn’t an unfamiliar sentiment that I’ve heard expressed, but to hear it from someone who just inspired a large auditorium of women about personal development and advises many others on parenting made me feel that she was speaking about ideas that had only superficially impacted her as a person.)

I felt my kids might go through a difficult time and wanted them to have the privacy of their experiences without people expecting more of them because their mother is a parenting advisor.  And for myself, I did something that I thought would give me more emotional space to have my own transitional experience, and that was, I purposely masked my strengths as a parent and educator so that I wouldn’t feel pressure to be a role model for anyone.

A couple of women who came with their families to our home for Shabbos meals commented on some things they saw in our home and asked about how we got those results, and I answered something vague like, “We’ve been lucky, they’re good kids.”  When two local women asked me if I would give parenting classes (not knowing this is something I’ve done), I casually dismissed it and changed the topic.

All of this made sense to me at the time – I had so much emotionally to deal with when moving here, that I didn’t want to do it with me or my children under the spotlight of raised expectations.  As it is, I’ve found that almost none of the teachers or principals have a real understanding of how difficult it  is for immigrant children to make a huge lifestyle transition here that goes beyond just learning the language.

A couple of weeks ago, someone said she felt I would be a good person to facilitate the discussion group of a video shiur that will be starting next month.  Someone else overheard and strongly added her agreement.  A little light in my heart flared and I felt so happy inside at the idea of sharing in a wider forum again.  These last couple of weeks, I’ve been reflecting on all of this and I wonder if I made a mistake.  Or maybe it’s more accurate to say, maybe it’s time to reevaluate this approach.    What I did made a lot of sense, and I do think it created the space for everyone to have their process.  But at the same time, I cut myself off from something that is integral to my nature, that gives me inner light and happiness, while socially cutting myself off from being able to share an integral aspect of who I am with those I come into contact personally.

My realization this week is how deeply intrinsic to my emotional and spiritual makeup is the desire to empower and inspire others, to share meaningful and significant ideas that are of practical value.  And though there is sometimes the pressure of the expections from others (and worse, myself!), and there is the work of organizing material for presentation, overall it’s something that fills me up rather than depletes me.  I think that consciously avoiding letting anyone see this part of me, while it felt easier in the beginning, in the long run was in large part responsible for the feelings of discouragement and loneliness that I was feeling a couple of months ago.

It’s true that it was compounded by extreme tiredness of the first trimester,  transitioning to life in a new country, the cold weather, making a bar mitzva far away from family and friends in a community we haven’t yet made many significant relationships in – but I wasn’t giving my inner sense of mission and purpose expression in my day to day interactions, or even in my own heart.

What does this mean practically?  It really would take a lot of work for me to re-create all of my classes – I left behind all of my notes (part of the brutal decluttering process that got us here!), and when I did this, I relied on the fact I have recordings of my classes.  But honestly, I don’t have lots of extra time to sit around and take notes on myself!   So I’m not sure what I’ll do or when I’ll do it.  Maybe I’ll sit with this until after Pesach (Passover) and the longer days of warmth and light return!

However, I believe that clarity about what really is important to you is critical, and having this realization about myself gave me a boost that made me feel like myself again.  Now that my eyes are open and I’m being honest with myself about what I really love, I’ll be able to recognize opportunities for self-expression that I’ve been consciously closing the door on until now.

Avivah

Availability of organics and green products in Israel

aliyah, Healthy Living, Intentional Spending

>>Sorry to open a can of worms (and feel free to ignore the question if it’s too complicated)– what is the organic situation in Israel? My friends in Jerusalem subscribe to an organic CSA for weekly produce delivery, do you have any options like that up north?<<

And from someone else a few days ago:

>>  Is organic produce available and how expensive is it? We shop here at Trader Joe’s where the organic produce is relatively reasonable.

We get our natural household products without the sulfates, parabens, phalates, etc. from places like Whole Foods. Are such products available over there? Are they exorbitantly priced?

I am wondering if dairy products are healthier over there. (Does the Israeli government allow bovine growth hormone to be used?) My kids don’t drink milk (only rice milk) b/c of the toxicity. Can you get raw milk there any easier than over here?

In general, from my research over the past year and a half on all health fronts, it seems that our wonderful U.S. government is literally the worst in the world when it comes to protecting the health of its citizens. Whether it’s the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry, or the cancer industry, healthful information is deliberately hidden from the public, while any and all toxic substances are allowed to pass, as long as it will be profitable for them. I know that the Israelis in government are no saints but the question is, are they any better than the U.S.? I hear they are trying to get a law passed now over here to somehow shut down all health related websites so that we will no longer have any way of accessing info on health.<<

Organics – as I’ve written before, my budget unfortunately doesn’t have room for the extra cost of organics.  In the past I’ve bought them when I could find them at a comparable price (eg salvage/discount stores).  The only vegetables that we eat that I’m sure are organic are the things I harvest myself from local vegetation/fruit trees.  So I haven’t yet found a local source because I haven’t looked.

However, I have seen notices of people posting about organic produce in various communities, and am sure this isn’t  something that is difficult to do, as long as you have the budget for it.

Natural health products – I’m not sure what you use in the US.  I use baking soda and vinegar for just about everything, and don’t buy any ‘green’ products. I found a place here where I was able to buy a 50 lb sack of baking soda, which was great since the teeny tiny containers they sell here are something like 40x the bulk price.  I’ve been making my own laundry detergent for quite a while,  but since all of the necessary ingredients aren’t available for purchase locally, have been buying the regular detergent and sometimes I add baking soda for an added boost.  We use baking soda for toothbrushing and deodorant (works better than anything else I’ve ever tried!) and use regular shampoo without artificial colors added.  There are health stores where overpriced ‘green’ products are sold, just like in the US – pretty much anything you would want here, I think you can find.  There seems to be a lot of interest in the alternative health realm; to me it seems like more interest and openness than the US.

Raw milk – someone told me about raw cow milk, but it seems much easier to find raw goat milk.  (Which is pretty understandable, being that this  country is so tiny and cows take up much more space than goats.)  I’ve been in touch with a couple of people about this and found sources about a 40 minute drive away, but not having a car makes this very difficult to arrange, particularly since those raising goats are usually living in areas with irregular bus transportation.  It’s  not realistic for us to take a bus to get the milk, due to cost and difficulty in bringing home an adequate amount for our family.  The other option is renting a car for the day to get the milk, which also makes the cost shoot up (not to mention gas that costs $8 a gallon!).  So we’ve pretty much cut out dairy, and the answer to how healthy the regular milk sold in the store is, I don’t know.

So basically these are lots of questions I’d also like more details on but don’t know the answers to. 🙂  However, I’m sure some of my readers do, so please share relevant details, suggestions, and contact information for people in the comments!

Avivah

(This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays.)

School participation takes a lot of time!

aliyah, Homeschooling

One thing I’ve appreciated about not homeschooling right now, is that I’m less torn between what I want to do with the kids and what I need to do otherwise.  I have more time available.  But then I started thinking about all the time having the kids in school entails, and that isn’t insignificant.

First of all, there’s the daily effort of getting them ready on time, sending them out happy even when they’d rather stay home.  (For ds4, this is a huge daily effort – he would almost always rather stay home.)  Then there’s taking them to and from school, helping the older ones with homework, and being emotionally available to support them when they get home.  If they want to have a playdate, that’s something else to facilitate.

As new immigrants, our children need a lot more help and support than children who grew up with this language – someone who made aliyah two years ago told me that every new immigrant is a special needs student, and though that doesn’t sound so pleasant, it’s pretty accurate.  This means me working with them daily on Hebrew reading and language, and translating the homework they bring home before they can even start answering the questions.  Being a new immigrant also brings with it the need for a lot more advocacy on my part with the schools they attend – last week I had appointments with the principal of the girls’ high school as well as the principal of ds9.

Then there’s the regular stuff.  I need to register ds4 for next year’s kindergarten this week, and since the mandatory education law passed regarding three year olds and up, this means taking care of the paperwork at the city municipality.  On Sunday evening, I’m attending a parenting workshop arranged by the administration of ds13’s school.  On Monday morning, I’m taking ds5 to a school psychologist to be assessed for readiness for first grade, which is mandatory before he can be registered.

On Tuesday, I have another parenting class to attend.  This one is a result of the meeting with ds9’s principal last week (which went very well).  A concrete result of our discussion is that  ds9 will be able to participate in a special program to facilitate his absorption, but this is generally only open to children who come from difficult home situations or have emotional difficulties.  A mandatory component is that I have to attend weekly parenting classes at 6 pm every week (since it’s scheduled during dinner hour, it’s almost like testing how dedicated a parent you are to see if you show up!).

This week also marks parent teacher conferences.  I’m scheduled for a meeting with dd11’s teacher on Weds. morning, and a meeting with ds9’s teacher that evening.

For years I’ve told people that homeschooling doesn’t take nearly the time and effort they think it does.  I think a difference is that when you’re homeschooling, you’re being proactive and generally avoiding a lot of issues that would otherwise come up.  (For example,  ds9 is being bullied – this wouldn’t be an issue at home.)  Once your kids are in school, you’re often reacting to the factors surrounding them – peers, teachers, academic expectations.

Avivah

Cost breakdown of weekly grocery shopping trip

aliyah, Intentional Spending

This week I did a biggish shopping trip – nothing major compared to my big stock-ups in the US, but I got a nice amount of staples for this month.  Since I spent a  little over 500 shekels, this trip comprised about 1/4 of our monthly food budget (which is 2000 shekels), and people have asked me for more specifics of what I buy and how much I pay, I’m sharing the details of my receipt here. 

This is the store that I get the bulk of  my vegetables, grains, and beans from.  I was delighted when in December they began offering home delivery, since it was physically very exhausting for me to bring home even enough food for a week for our family by bus.  Then I switched to calling a taxi to bring my order home, but I still had to pack up the groceries (cashiers here don’t bag your groceries unless you’re paying for home delivery), load them in the taxi, unload them at home, and carry them up a flight of steps to our apartment.  I’m not complaining, just explaining why it was a real physical effort to go shopping in the past at this store, particularly for the quantities we need.  But now for just 15 shekels, I can have my order packed up and brought into my house!  While I used to go every week and would consciously think about the weight of every item I wanted to buy, knowing the physical effort involved, now I can make a big order once or twice a month and not have to deal with it – I LOVE this! 

Here’s what I bought:

  • red lentils (8.99 shekels kg x 3.94 kg) – 35.42
  • dried chickpeas (9.99 shekels kg x 3.065 kg) – 30.62
  • buckwheat (12.99 shekels kg x 2.475 kg) – 32.15
  • quinoa (18.99 shekels kg x 1.100 kg) – 20.89
  • black eyed peas (10 shekels kg x 2.085) – 20.85
  • split peas (11.99 shekels kg x 4.85 kg) – 58.15
  • rice (6.99 shekels kg x 5.165) – 36.10
  • brown lentils ( 7.99 shekels kg x 3.125 kg) – 24.97
  • popcorn (6.99 shekels kg x 2.130 kg) – 14.89
  • navy beans (7.99 shekels kg x 4.070 kg) – 32.52
  • coarse cornmeal (2.77 shekels -500 grams x 8 pkg) – 24.26
  • broccoli (4.99 shekels kg x 3.465 kg) – 17.29
  • avocado (4.99 shekels kg x 9.425) – 47.03
  • granny smith apples (4.99 shekels kg x .460) – 2.30 (this was snack for ds2 who was with me, plus some to share with his siblings when they got home)
  • fennel (4.99 shekels kg x 1.080 kg) – 5.39
  • 2 large heads lettuce (2.99 each) – 5.98
  • cucumbers (3.99 shekels kg x 1.015 kg) – 4.05
  • tomatoes (1.99 shekels kg x 3.140 kg) – 6.25
  • 3 –  1 kg containers of prepared hummus (9.99 ea) – 29.97
  • 6 – 580 gram cans tomato paste (4.99 ea) – 29.94
  • 2 – 540 gram cans sliced olives (7.99 ea) – 15.98
  • 1 – kg sugar – 4.99
  • 1 – 150 gram container powdered ginger – 6.99

My intent for this trip was to get enough staples to last through the end of the month; this was 77 pounds of grains/legumes and I think that will be enough.  The grains are purchased from the bulk bins; there’s someone who works there, and I tell her how many kilograms I want of each item, she bags and prices everything for each customer.  That’s why the grain/legume amounts aren’t in standard bag sizes of 500 grams or 1 kg.   This is cheaper than buying the prepacked bags of these same items, usually about 20 – 25% cheaper.  Someone  last week said about a 6 shekel item, ‘Oh, it’s only 2 shekels less like that”, and I explained that paying 4 shekels a kilo instead of six was a savings of 30%!  Small sums add up, though people often get stuck on the tiny amounts saved instead of looking at the overall picture of how much is saved in a month when you buy everything at discounted prices.

This time, I bought a couple of the more expensive grains that I’ve been avoiding for cost reasons until now: buckwheat and quinoa.  By the way, I find it very funny that in Hebrew, it’s called kee-no-ah, based on the English spelling (instead of the proper pronunciation, keen-wa), so I have to consciously say the word incorrectly even though it’s an English word!  I added these grains in because I wanted some more variety; meals were feeling too repetitive to me.  I didn’t get a lot of them, just enough for to add a little something different to the menu.  I had oats and barley at home. 

As far as the vegetables, these are intended to last for a couple of weeks until my next trip, not through the end of the month.  However, this trip isn’t representative of my typical buying habits since I usually don’t buy vegetables unless they’re under 3.99 kg (except for avocados), and really try to stay closer to 1.99 shekels a kilo.  But I realized I haven’t been eating many fresh veggies, since the inexpensive root veggies that I’m buying at this season aren’t appealing when eaten raw.  And then I end up not having such a good breakfast (I try to have protein and vegetables for breakfast) since I want to make something quick, and instead end up eating grains for breakfast and throughout the day.  So call it a pregnancy splurge if you like, but the option is eating bread with hummus for breakfast, or what ends up happening more often is I don’t eat breakfast until lunchtime. 

When I shop at the other supermarket I go to, I stick with the loss leaders on vegetables, usually limited to 1.99 kg (.25 cents lb).  At this place, I get what is the best buy.  I was really suprised that tomatoes were so cheap- why should tomatoes be only .25 cents a pound in the winter?  They’re local, too.  The heads of lettuce were huge and looked beautiful, which is typical of greens in this season.  This produce is supplementing what I already had at home: carrots, onions, potatoes, kohlrabi, mushrooms, garlic, peppers,  green and red cabbage, clementines, and grapefruits.  So I have a decent variety of vegetables to use. 

I buy prepared hummus rather than make my own, even though I have a really good recipe, it’s not hard, and would save me money, because I don’t have an immersion blender or food processor to make it with.  So I buy it at the best price I can find it, and use this for the kids’ sandwiches for school every day, as well as for a spread on Shabbos.  I bought the sliced olives with the intent to add it to the sandwiches sometimes, but saw that once I opened the can of olives, they all got snacked away, so I probably won’t do that often!

For those who may be wondering, no, we aren’t vegetarian.  This shopping trip also supplemented the chickens, giblets, and liver that we bought last week (that order was also around 1/4 of our monthly budget).  We usually have a meat meal daily, for lunch; I use the chicken that we buy as an ingredient in a dish, which extends it significantly over serving each person his own piece of chicken (which I do on Shabbos).   We also buy about 7 trays of eggs every couple of weeks (a tray is 2.5 dozen), so that works out to about 32 – 35 dozen eggs a month (we used to buy 60 dozen a month). 

Dairy has become a real splurge here.  Last week dh picked up some milk and high fat yogurts for me to have for breakfast (because I seem to be reacting with indigestion to everything I eat, similar to what I usually feel in the ninth month of pregnancy, and I’m trying to figure out what proteins won’t trigger it).  But dairy products are expensive here.  For example, a liter of milk is about 5 shekels ($5.70 gallon).  Cottage cheese, and cheese spreads are sold in these little containers that are about a cup big, enough for one person, but are over 5 shekels each ($1.40 per cup), single serving yogurts are cheaper at 1.50 – 4 shekel each.   The  organic cottage cheese and sour cream I used to use as a staple, as well as the shredded cheese I regularly cooked with is definitely a thing of the past! 

Though prices aren’t low, I feel we still eat well.  It’s true that we have more beans and grains, and hardly any nuts, no raw milk or pastured eggs, but we still have plenty to eat!  My monthly budget is lower than it was in the US, and despite the higher prices here on every single category of food except produce, we’re managing just fine.  We were sent what we needed in the US to stick with our budget, and the same One who took care of  us there continues to send us what we need here in Israel!

Avivah

Conversations to enjoy, conversations to grow with

aliyah, Homeschooling

Today I went to the Ministry of the Interior to get a new identity card.  I can’t even guess what happened to my old one, which hardly ever is taken out of my wallet, but one day I went to a lawyer to sign on as a power of attorney for someone, reached in for it, and it wasn’t there!

I went twice before to the Ministry of the Interior to take care of this, but both times the gate was locked.  I called the local municipality, and the woman who answered told me the office moved.  I asked for the address, but she said she doesn’t have it – ‘next to a bank and opposite the phone company’ were the instructions.  I made it there, and was pleased that the  line was short and the person helping me was quick and efficient.

While I was there, I also needed to get some documentation for the girls’ high school about their entrance and exit dates from the country.  That was harder to take care of – the only dates that came up were for our visit last year, but the Ministry of Education needs proof that they are the children of returning citizens and have been living overseas for a number of years.  You’d think since I already have documentation from other offices, it would be enough, but no, every office needs its specific documentation in the way it wants it.

He managed to pull up the details for dd17, but for dd15 said I have to come back with her passport.  I explained to him that a child’s passport is only good for five years, and the old passport has to be given in when you get a new one.  So I can’t show the passport from when she was four years old that shows that she left Israel.  Don’t you think this information should be stored in some governmental office computer somewhere?  I’m sure it is, since we have the approval of their status and all of this had to be verified months ago.  But not on the computers at this office.

From there, I went to the girls’ high school to give them the documentation I managed to get. The principal saw me there and called me into her office for a chat.  She said another teacher has been trying to reach me, and then called that teacher in to join our powwow, and we all had a nice hour long conversation.  They were both very effusive about how special my girls are.  The principal said she was hesitant when accepting them because they had been homeschooled all of their lives, thinking they wouldn’t be able to transition well to a school framework.  But, she said, she was taken by not just that they adjusted well, but by their good character and the mature way they both think about things that is very different from what she’s used to seeing in high school girls.  (Her words, not mine.)  She said she sees that there was something special about their education based on the results she sees.  That was really affirming to hear!

We spent a long time discussing if when dd17 leaves school, dd15 should be jumped up to the eleventh grade.  There’s so much involved technically and it’s really hard for me to make a call on this since skipping her for the coming year means that she won’t be able to take her national matriculation exams and get the accompanying certificate.  I’m inclined to skip her since socially it will be drastically better for her, and I think school is mostly about friends and a social life.  But I don’t want her to be in a bad position after high school when certain paths will be closed off to her without this bagrut (matriculation) certificate (though she can make this up on her own, kind of like the SAT).  Her teacher maintains that it will be close to impossible for her to succeed in passing all the bagrut tests which are challenging even for native Israelis, so it’s a shame not to skip her to a class she could really enjoy being part of.  We finished our discussion by agreeing to talk about it later on, but I came away with a nice feeling of working together with the administration, with a feeling of mutual respect on all sides. (The principal even said that they’d love it if I would teach for them!)

From there I picked up the littles from gan, then walked to the school where dd11 and ds9 are.  I wanted to make an appointment to speak with the principal of the boys’ school about some concerns I have regarding ds9 before I take conclusive action of my own, as well as to get the numbers of his tutor and teacher so I can call them tonight about these same concerns.  When I walked in, I encountered a woman about my age who happens to be the daughter of the chief rabbi of the city who somehow has a very nice impression of me, who  enthusiastically kissed me and told me, “There’s no one like you!”  (I’m  mentioning this for a reason, not to include self-inflating details.)

(Edited to delete entire sequence of events – in my  blog, I try not to give details that would badly reflect on someone else or make me the bearer of idle gossip.  After rereading, I’m afraid that someone local might be able to make an educated guess about who was being referenced, and cause them to think less positively of this person.)  

Remember I said how one woman earlier was glowing about my wonderfulness, and then this person was totally disgusted with me?  That I was told these things within a half hour was a good reminder to me not to give more weight to people’s opinions of me than they warrant!  I’m not so wonderful and I’m not so terrible; like most of humanity, I’m somewhere in the middle.  I have a tendency to want people to like me, and I have to remind myself that I can’t allow other people to define who I am, but to try to act as G-d wants me to (even though I usually fall short).

I really try to get along with everyone and it’s very unpleasant to know that someone is so angry at me.  But I also believe that every single situation that is sent to me, is sent to me for my growth.  Right now my practical focus is on a few things: appreciating the person for who he is and remembering that he wants to be helpful, not taking his comments personally or allow myself to see him in a negative light, and taking steps to  protect my/my child’s boundaries and respect my own needs.

I’m really grateful that this was balanced by an overall productive and positive day; it makes it easier to have perspective!  It seems that life provides constant chances to be stretched beyond our comfort zones….

Avivah

Planning for homebirth in Israel

aliyah, pregnancy

>>I’m looking forward to finding out whether or not you will choose to home or hospital birth here, considering that hospital births are free and homebirths are around 5000 shekel.  <<

I’m planning another homebirth!  There are many areas in life to save money on, but in my opinion, having a homebirth is a transformative experience, with the safety rate being higher in so many areas than in the hospital, that this isn’t an area that I’m choosing to save money on.  I cut costs  in lots of areas to make it possible for me to be able to this important decision without money being the deciding factor.

In the US I also had to pay out of pocket for my homebirths ($1800), and the hospital experience would have been fully covered by my insurance.  What’s different here is that if you have a baby in the hospital, the government gives you a sum of money, that has to be added to what a homebirth will cost you since that’s money you’ll no longer get (unless you show up at the hospital within twelve hours after giving birth).  Right now that’s only 500 shekels, though I was told for twins it jumps to 8000 shekels!

>>Have you found a home birth midwife to use yet?<<

Yes, I have!  We spoke last week so I’m glad to have that piece in place.  I pretty much decided I’d use this  midwife before I ever spoke with her, if she agreed to come to this area for the birth.

I started researching homebirth midwives here way before I was pregnant, to help someone else in my area find out about homebirth midwives.  I didn’t come up with much to start with, but then I got a call from someone who took childbirth classes with me over 13 years ago, whose birth I also attended.  She heard I was back in Israel and called to find out my opinion of homebirth!  She lives in the north and had a much longer list of midwives than I had, and gave me contact info for each of them, as well as the details of her conversations with each.  (I wasn’t asking about this because I was expecting – I don’t think I was at the time – but she wanted my opinion of who she should use so she needed to go through each option in detail.)   Then a blog reader called to give me information regarding something I wrote about here, who had also checked out the homebirth options in the north.

What I found initially left me discouraged.  The midwives were risking out the friend I was researching for, since here in Karmiel we are 35 minutes from a hospital, rather than 30.  Another factor that made her ‘high risk’ was that her baby was estimated to be over 4 kg (about 8.5 lb, even though all her others had been similarly sized).  Then the second person called me back and said none of the certified midwives were willing to attend her birth, either, even though she’s 5 minutes from a hospital and has a perfect birthing history – because it’s her ninth birth.

I was very bothered by this medicalized and fearful approach to childbirth, because I don’t expect that from homebirth midwives.  As far as the closest hospital choices, it’s either Tzfat and Nahariya, and I haven’t heard anything encouraging about either of them.  When friend #1 asked what I would do in her situation, I told her I really didn’t know, since there didn’t seem to be any good choices.  I just couldn’t understand the midwifery attitude here.

Then in December I read about the new rules they want to pass to further restrict homebirth in Israel – http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-ministry-drafts-new-rules-to-restrict-home-births-1.401485?mid=55429.  When I read this, I understood that the licensed midwives were refusing to attend births that didn’t meet the Health Ministry’s requirements, because they could lose their license.  This made it clear that licensed midwives sometimes have their hands tied, not necessarily based on medical evidence of what is in the best interests of the health of a woman, but by the government.  (And since the health care system here is run by the government, you can’t be too suprised that the official position is strongly in favor of hospital birth.)  What I see as the biggest advantage of using a licensed midwife is that they can sign the necessary paperwork to get an Israeli identification number for the newborn, which can be a big hassle otherwise.

Working with someone who isn’t certified doesn’t scare me at all- unlicensed doesn’t mean untrained and unskilled.  The midwife who will be attending my birth (assuming she makes it in time :)) isn’t a licensed midwife in Israel, but is US licensed as a midwife, has worked in an Israeli hospital as a midwife, and is a licensed nurse in Israel.  Licensing is so often a game of paperwork.  I think it’s ironic that someone would be fine going to a hospital and being attended by any midwife on duty – generally most of us wouldn’t even think to inquire about the credentials of the hospital professional assisting us there! – and yet would tell someone she was irresponsible to have someone with the same credentials at a homebirth.

In general, I’m not a person who is impressed by letters after a name.  There are plenty of parenting ‘professionals’ who I’d never want to take advice from, and many great parents I’d be happy to emulate who earned their knowledge and skill in the trenches of parenthood.  Similarly, when it comes to finding a homebirth midwife, I look for experience, knowledge, and positive outcomes, and when I find someone who has all of that, that’s what makes me comfortable.

Avivah

Search for spirituality – an answer at the bus stop

aliyah, Homemaking

A few days ago, I was waiting at a bus stop with ds4 and ds5, when an older woman commented on how cute ds4’s dimples are.  I smiled back at her and told her that it’s a gift from Heaven.  She agreed, and told me that she’s chiloni (secular), but she believes in G-d.  I smiled.

A minute later, I glanced in her direction and she looked as if she wanted to say something to me.  She then said, “I keep looking at you because I can see you’re  a religious woman and I want to ask for your help with something.”  So I told her I don’t know how helpful I can be, but I’m happy to help if I can.

She continued, “Even though I’m secular, I truly believe there is a G-d.  But sometimes I feel a heavy weight on my heart.  What do you think I can do about this?”  Now, that’s a big question to answer while waiting for a bus that was supposed to arrive in about two minutes!

I’m not a spiritual counselor or anything like that, but generally I would ask someone more about what they were feeling if they said something like this to me.  That not being an option, I told her the following.

“I can only tell you what has been helpful for me personally, and that’s to try to speak to G-d directly. I don’t mean formal prayer from a prayerbook or in a synagogue, because sometimes people do that but there’s still a disconnect (stumbled here while I tried to remember the word I needed in Hebrew) between the heart and the head.  Intellectually you know G-d is there but you still don’t feel it.  I mean just talking throughout the day to Him, asking for whatever you need.”

“If I need to be somewhere by a certain time time and am waiting for a bus, I ask G-d to send me the bus you need, and thank Him when He does.  If I’m in the store shopping, I ask Him to help me find the groceries I need within your my budget, that whatever money I have will be enough.  Little things like that.  G-d truly is our father, He cares about us and wants us to be happy, and He’s always there for us – but we have to move towards Him.  When I speak to Him and I see He answers me, it helps me to feel more connected.”

The bus pulled up as I was finishing saying this, so I warmly wished her well and she thanked me very warmly, too.

Spirituality is very individual and everyone finds their own answers to their search for meaning and deeper connection.

What would you have said if you were asked this?  Would you have found this a helpful suggestion, or would you have suggested something different entirely?

Avivah

Five month aliyah update: kids learning Hebrew

aliyah

>>Are the kids picking up Hebrew well?<<

Before we came, everyone said the kids will pick up the language in no time.  “By Chanuka”, they predicted, “your kids will be fluent”.

Nonsense.  Fortunately I didn’t believe this before I got here or I’d be wondering where I went wrong.  I think it’s accurate to say for a child under the age of 5, by Chanuka/December, they’ll be basically able to figure out what’s going on.  It’s very wrong to assume that older kids will learn at the same rate as younger kids, and I don’t think this is just how the brain processes. It’s how the language is presented.

When you’re in a playgroup or kindergarten, the teacher says something like, “Come, children” and motions at the same time.  Your child watches what everyone else does, and sees the hand motions.  Then it’s time for a project, and the teacher says, “Everyone take out a scissor” – holds scissor in the air for everyone to see – “and cut your paper” – again demonstrating.  At a young age, a good part of the language is show and tell.  This makes it drastically easier to pick up a language, because you have clues about what the words mean.

Last week on Thursday, I picked up ds5 from school, and his teacher was so excited to tell me how much Hebrew he’s speaking to his classmates.  I think she might have been more excited than me!  He understands most of what goes on; comprehension precedes speech, and thankfully he’s now at the point he can talk to his peers.  A couple of mothers at the recent party told me their children had told them that ds5 used to not speak Hebrew, but now he does.

Ds4 knows a lot more than I think his teachers realize.  He often says things in Hebrew at home, which annoys dd17 because she wants them to exclusively speak English at home so they’ll maintain their fluency.  I feel that home is a safe place for him to try out his vocabulary, so I don’t  mind the Hebrew, but she told me that this is how it begins, Anglo parents let their kids speak Hebrew at home and then they don’t speak English well.  She’s right about that, but told her that we have to balance a few things, and right now need to make the immediate transition as comfortable as possible for the littles.

Now let’s jump to an elementary or high school class.  Kids are sitting there the entire day, with no visual cues at all.  Notes are written on the board and have to be copied, and the kids can copy what they see without any idea what they’re writing.  There is no hook to hang information on – it’s very hard to guess what anything means, and it’s not until you have a baseline working grasp of the language that you can make those educated guesses.

Dd11 and ds9 have two hours a week of tutoring – leaving hours a day to sit in a classroom with very little idea of what is going on.  I think ds9 is picking it up faster, from his comments at home, but then again, he got tutoring help immediately.  Dd11 didn’t get help right away, and when she did, I shared a while back how she was being expected during her tutoring sessions to do complex translations of biblical texts.  Not helpful.  Ds9 sometimes says things to his younger siblings in Hebrew; again, I think this is a ‘practice where you feel secure’ thing.

Dd11 has yet to say a word to anyone in Hebrew.  Her tutor is concerned but I told her that dd11 will speak when she’s ready.  At this age, you don’t want to say two word sentences to your peers; it’s embarrassing.  Her older siblings are trying to encourage her to speak with them to help her over this initial challenging stage.  Sometimes I speak to her in Hebrew as well, saying a sentence first at a normal pace, the second time slowly, and then break it down so she can hear the specific words.

A huge reason for putting the kids in school was I thought they’d learn Hebrew faster and better than if they stayed at home.  I don’t regret sending them to school, but I do think that I underestimated what I could have done at home.  I definitely feel they would be more advanced in Hebrew if I was working with them daily.  I planned for them to supplement with Rosetta Stone each afternoon, but when my husband’s computer went down about seven weeks ago, he needed to use mine all day long and then the kids couldn’t access the program.

I haven’t made myself their ‘tutor’ at home, though I do have them practice reading and sometimes translations when I can find suitable reading material.  Two weeks ago dd11 read all the headlines of the easy reader version of the newspaper, which was great because then she knew about things that were happening that later came up in discussion at our dinner table.  I skipped last week because of the bar mitzva preparations, but plan to get back to actively working on Hebrew with them – I can see that the tutoring and being in a Hebrew immersion environment is good, but they would still benefit from more assistance; it would help them build the critical language base sooner.

Ds13 is doing well, but he went in with a decent biblical vocabulary.   So he had much more of a starting framework to figure things out.  That being said, what it means is that he can speak in simple sentences with his peers.  In a way, his working vocabulary was picked up in a similar way to the littles – on the playground, he quickly learned the words for: throw, catch, foul, idiot.  Smiles or yelling clued him in quickly to how boys were reacting to different plays.  He’s not getting any tutoring, because his school doesn’t want to bother with filing to get the government approved hours – but I somehow didn’t think of getting him tutoring help until recently, because he seemed to be managing without it.  Even though he’s doing okay, he would be picking things up faster if he had some help.  I was relying too much on him being a smart kid who gets things quickly.

Dd15 is picking up the language nicely.  She recently started having simple conversations in Hebrew, but can understand much more than she can speak.  She has applied herself from the beginning to learning the language.  She makes notes daily on her notepad of words she hears, and asks me for translation when she gets home.  She’s learning the grammatical structure of Hebrew, which she’s finding extremely helpful.  She’s in class with a difficult social framework so she doesn’t have peers to practice speaking with, but she’s finding opportunities.  Last week her principal determined that since her comprehension is growing, her two weekly hours of tutoring should be spent on doing the tests given to everyone else in class instead of learning the language.  Right, she doesn’t understand a lot of what’s going on in class but it should be a priority for her to take the tests so they can have the feeling she’s a real student getting grades.  I really don’t understand the mindset of the administration sometimes – or maybe I do, but it’s so focused on fitting into the system rather than what’s best for the student – but fortunately her tutor doesn’t agree with this either.  So she and dd have determined a respectful way to deal with the administration’s demands, and I didn’t have to go to the school again to make ‘suggestions’ of how to adjust their handling of the situation.   (Too hard to discuss these things on the phone, particularly on cell phones which are constantly breaking up- I find in person works best.)

Dd17 started the school year with the best vocabulary of them all, thanks to being in Israel last year.  She was in an English speaking program, but still picked up enough Hebrew to ease the transition this year.  She’s not anywhere close to sounding like a native speaker, and it’s likely she’ll end up speaking with a light American accent but speaking pretty fluently.  That’s assuming she stays in a Hebrew speaking environment for the next year and a half.

Ds18 isn’t learning Hebrew at all, and I’m letting him deal with all of the beauracratic stuff on his own – health insurance, the army – I hope that realizing how much he needs the language will motivate him to make achieving Hebrew fluency more of a priority.  But honestly, he is exactly the age and stage of boys who spend a couple of years learning here, and is in a program set up for Americans.  I’ve made a suggestion that I hope in another year he’ll follow up with that will allow him to learn the language well (in addition to meeting other goals), but for now I’ve agreed not to ruin his visits home by talking about it.  🙂  When your child gets to a certain age, you really realize that you’ve had your chance to actively raise them.  Now it’s his turn to raise himself and make his own decisions, and it’s not in my hands.  He’s a mature and well-thought out young man, and I’m trying to trust him to make good life choices, even though they may be different from what I would suggest.  It’s a lot of letting go!   So at this stage, how well he speaks Hebrew isn’t really a big issue.

One thing I think we did well in was coming to a community that isn’t Anglo dominated.  There’s no question my kids are picking up the language much faster than if they had English speaking peers to interact with.  That would have definitely been nice for them and eased their initial transition, but this is the country and culture we live in, and I want them to have the tools to effectively navigate life herer.   It may be a little harder for them at the beginning stage (and I think we’re at the end of the very beginning!), but it will be easier in the long term.

Oh – I almost forgot to mention what I think a realistic expectation for a child to learn the language is.  I’ll update when we get further along, but my expectation is that after within a year, the kids will be socially fluent, but from  upper elemenatary and up, will probably still need remedial help academically with challenging subjects.

Avivah

Yerushalayim themed kindergarten party

aliyah, Parenting

This past week I attended a special party at ds5’s kindergarten, as the gala event following weeks of learning about Yerushalayim (Jerusalem).   It was only for mothers and the children in the kindergarten, but the day of the party the teacher told me that I was welcome to bring my older girls.  They were happy to come along and share in their little brother’s excitement about his special party – there have been lots of preparations going on in his class!

Ds5 with his big sisters in front of Kotel/Western Wall display

It was beautifully set up, and what was unusual for Israel is that the children made everything – often you see a huge amount of teacher decoration and wonder where the kids’ part was.  This particular teacher is extremely good; she and I have very similar ideas about education at this age.  She does lots of educational games, integrates writing and math into the games, and so on, so the kids think of learning as fun.

Every corner of the classroom had different aspects of the Yerushalayim theme  – for example, one side had a model of the famous outdoor market, Machaneh Yehuda – the boys had made tiny miniature fruits and vegetables and fish from clay, rolls of fabric from small pieces of cloth.

Another corner had a replica of the Biblical Zoo, another was the transportation of Jerusalem and the boys built a city of blocks with roads and cars leading to it…all very nice.

Then the boys performed a few songs – they were so cute!  The teacher had put music on for them to sing with, and as I listened, I noticed the music was from an American boys’s choir, with the American accents singing Hebrew words.  I suddenly and unexpectedly got a big lump in my throat hearing those familiar accents.  An Israeli mother commented to during the singing that ds5 was singing just like an Israeli, and he really was!  He was very cute as he did the hand motions to accompany the songs.

Light refreshments were provided, and a couple of mothers brought themed cakes for the party – here’s one that was decorated as the Western Wall.  I enjoy baking but my creativity in doing stuff like this is very low!

This is the second time that all the mothers have had an opportunity to meet, and with time, these are people that I would look forward to getting to know over the years as we would continue to meet for school events.  However, it looks like I’ll be sending ds5 to a different school next year than most of his peers.  Seriously, I don’t think that making a decision about first grade should be so heart wrenching.  But it is, and not because I’m overemotionalizing about it.

Maybe I’ll write another post about the social realities here, the fear people have about sending to a school that’s different than their neighbors, the frustration I feel that everyone – everyone – that I’ve spoken to about the concerns I have regarding the popular local boys’ school choice seems to agree with me but practically still keep their kids in the same educational framework…

Ds5 and best friend - hopefully when the year ends their relationship will continue

For now, I’ll say just that going to these events is a bittersweet feeling; I hope that in the future we won’t be viewed as no longer belonging socially in the same way we do now.

Avivah

Bar mitzva review

aliyah

This will be the last of the bar mitzva posts for quite a while – we won’t have another bar mitzva for 3.5 years, though we will have a bas mitzva coming up in the fall!

On Friday, we rented a car for a few hours so we’d be able to take all the food to the hall.  Ds18 and dh took care of all the loading and unloading  – it was a lot of food and supplies and a lot of work.  This was the part I was least comfortable with – all the people who knew what was cooked and for when weren’t at the hall to unpack it and know where things were being put.  But someone needed to be at home to greet our guests arriving from out of town and take them to the homes where they were staying.

I got to the hall about 3:30 pm, bringing dd11 and the three littles with me.  I took the littles so that the older girls wouldn’t have to worry about getting them ready, and would be able to get there quickly.  This was very nice of me :)(since having them running around when I was trying to get things done really wasn’t helpful), but in the end everyone arrived at the hall about five minutes before what I thought was the latest candlelighting time (I found out later that there were ten minutes more than I thought)!

(Tonight dd17 was able to recover the pictures we thought were lost!)

Dd15 and ds13 having fun
Dd15 and ds13 looking like themselves
Ds13 and dd17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since there was so little time, our family photo was very rushed – there was no time to set everyone up.  Basically we quickly called everyone in and said, ‘look at the camera’!  But I’m happy we got everyone in at one time!  That doesn’t happen often anymore, especially now that ds18 doesn’t live at home.  (If it looks like a lot of people, we actually have one more than usual – my mom is on the left.)

We had our own minyan in the hall for Friday night – there was a separate room that we set up as our synagogue.  It was kind of funny – for kabbalas Shabbos (first prayer service when the Sabbath begins), ds wasn’t able to be counted in the minyan, but for maariv he was, since he turned 13 when Shabbos began.

After the services, we had dinner together – such a nice group of people!  I’ll have to go in order of when we knew people from.  First of all was the 18 year old daughter of a friend of mine, who is studying in seminary in Jerusalem this year.  I’m putting her in chronological order first since our connection with her family began when I was twelve – her mother and I walked down the aisle to our eighth grade graduation together!  We later became good friends when we lived a couple of doors away from one another as mothers of young families, and became walking partners.  It’s been over 12.5 years since we’ve been neighbors, but we’ve stayed in touch through the years.

One older couple came from Beitar – we met them when we were married just a few months and spent Shabbos there to see if it was a place we’d want to move to.  Now I’m just about at the stage of life they were when we first met – they made aliyah with a family of ten children, when their oldest was 18.  Their oldest daughter had just gotten married when we met, and during my visit last year to Israel, they married off their ninth child.  We did end up moving to Beitar, and they were there for the bris of ds13!

Then was a family of 6 who came from Raanana; I met the wife the first week that we moved to Seattle when we were both watching our kids play in the kiddie playground of Volunteer Park.  When she told me she was Jewish, I invited them to our home for Shabbos lunch, and our friendship grew from there.  Later we moved to Baltimore, and they visited us there a couple of times when they were on the east coast.  Then in 2006 they moved to Israel, and we lost touch.  Thanks to Linked In we were able to find each other again, and they made the trip up with their four lovely daughters.  (This was really nice since a couple of our girls connected with theirs and spent all Shabbos together.)

Then a couple came from Efrat.  We met them at our wonderful shul in Baltimore.  You don’t get to know every person who is in the same synagoge as you, but we got to know them better when my older kids helped prepare the food for the annual Simchas Torah meal that this couple arranged each year for the shul, before they made aliyah.  We were reminiscing about this as they cut up the chicken prior to the lunch meal on Shabbos day!  This same couple met us at the airport when we arrived, bringing us food and drinks and arranging our transportation from the airport to Karmiel.  They were our Baltimore connection.

Then we had three young men: best friend of ds13, son of my dearest friend in Baltimore; 19 year old next door neighbor of this same friend who we’ve known for nine years; and 19 year old cousin of ds13’s best friend – after being friends with the family for so many years, we know just about everyone in their extended family!

During this dinner meal my husband spoke about ds13.  Following that, I shared with everyone a family custom we have: at every person’s birthday, we go around the table and everyone shares something nice that they appreciate about that person.  I hadn’t asked the kids to prepare anything in advance and made it clear that no one was being put on the spot, but anyone who wanted to say something was welcome to.  I was pleasantly surprised that a number of our guests shared some nice thoughts, in addition to most of my kids.

After the meal, dh went home with the littles, and I stayed with a number of the older kids and guests to get ready for our kiddush the next morning.  We got home after midnight, but it was nice to know that we could be more relaxed the next morning.

The next morning we got up really late – 8 am – and we were supposed to be dressed and out of the house by 8:15 so we could be at shul on time to hear ds reading the Torah!  I really didn’t want to wake the littles up, knowing they hadn’t gotten to sleep until 11 pm, and they wouldn’t have a chance to take a nap until much later that day.  But we got them up and with their groggy participation, got them dressed.  We got to shul literally three minutes before ds13 was called up to read the Torah.  I had a couple of minutes of worry, not being sure when to throw the candy – I could see the little kids had all come in from outside and were looking expectantly to where we were at – but I was having a very hard time hearing the services and couldn’t tell exactly what they were up to.  Fortunately, we threw it at just the right time and it was fun watching all the little kids scrambling (not mine, though, and I had kept a few back since I knew they wouldn’t elbow their way in a crowd to get candies).  Ds did a great job reading; dd15 commented that it must be a lot of pressure to have the chief rabbi of the city right at your elbow, but he didn’t get flustered.

After the Torah reading, we went to the hall to get ready for the kiddush/meal.  It was gray and rainy, the worst kind of weather for a kiddush because who wants to go out in the cold and wet?  A half hour before the kiddush began, the sun emerged from the clouds and began to shine brightly – it turned into a beautiful day!  And it stayed that way until an hour after our lunch meal was finished.

There were a lot of people who came – I really wasn’t able to guesstimate in advance how many people would feel enough of a connection to us to come, particularly since the kiddush wasn’t held at the shul, so people had to make more of an effort to get out.  It’s not an automatic given that people go to a kiddush – they don’t, unless they know someone, and we’ve only been living here for five months – so it was really, really nice.  I felt very surrounded by communal warmth.

After the kiddush, we set up for the lunch meal.  Ds13 told me that at the bar mitzvas he’s been to here, everyone has a full mechitza (divider) between the men and women.  Well, I told him, we’re not going to.  ‘But Mommy, you can’t!  Everyone does it.’  Yes, that really swayed me.  🙂  We had the table of ds13 and his friends at one end of the hall, the table of older girls at the other end, and all the other tables filled with families.  Someone at the end of the meal told me they had made a bris in the same hall, but it wasn’t nearly as nice.  I asked her why?  And she said, she thinks that having the mechitza changed the entire atmosphere – women couldn’t see when someone on the other side was speaking, so they continued talking and the speaker couldn’t be heard, little kids went back and forth from parent to parent, and it just didn’t seem as cohesive.  She said it was so much nicer the way we did it, without compromising in any way.

There was loads of singing by ds13’s classmates – a nice thing about ds being the youngest in the class is that they’ve been to so many bar mitzvas, they all know how to act properly, sing the same songs, etc.  Then at some point they did some fun stuff with all of the older boys in the hall – lifting ds13, building a human pyramid – I watched them but I don’t know exactly what they were doing, but they had fun and it was appropriate.  And entertaining for the rest of us to watch!   (The mother of one of the Israeli boys there later told me, ‘I heard that the boys had a lot of fun at your bar mitzva!’  I don’t know what, if anything, was different than any other bar mitzva, but I’m glad they all had a good time.)

During this meal, dh spoke again – in English – and then one of our guests spoke – in Hebrew.  (The night before, a couple of ds’s classmates who had been invited to stay for dinner asked me if the meal was going to be in Hebrew.  ‘Nope, all in English’, I told them.  ‘What about tomorrow?’  they wanted to know, ‘will it be 50/50?’  I laughed and told them, ‘maybe 2/3 English, 1/3 Hebrew’.  When first thinking about this, I had been a little apprehensive since most of his classmates don’t speak any English, but we felt that as our family celebration, it was more important that it be in a language our family was comfortable with.  This worked out really nicely.

Everyone who wanted to was welcome to hang out after the meal, but otherwise was invited back for the third meal later on.  Later on, people trickled in, and it was a very relaxed and comfortable atmosphere –  by this point, our guests had a chance to get to know one another, so they were interacting with each other very naturally.  After that we again had a private minyan for maariv, and made havdala there.

It was such a nice, nice Shabbos!  Every single person who came really enhanced our joy.  Sometimes people assume that lots of other people will go to an event, and their presence won’t be noticed, but I appreciated every single person – and this isn’t just because we were new here.  I’ve felt this at every one of our family celebrations that when people take time to share our joy, it enhanced the experience for us all.

I’m really so grateful for how smoothly everything went.  I kept whispering ‘thank you’ to Hashem (G-d) throughout the day; sometimes you feel very aware of everything being done for you, almost a conscious feeling of being given a gift, and this was one of those times.  I was also very grateful to have been emotionally present and relaxed for the entire weekend; sometimes people get so busy with the technical aspect of arranging a simcha that they lose sight of the bigger picture, and can get irritable and irritated with their family members.  I really didn’t want that to be me.

To sum up, it was a wonderful weekend in every way, and especially since until three weeks ago I had been dreading the entire experience, am very, very, very grateful for how it all went!

Avivah