Category Archives: Parenting

A great meeting and update!

Foster Care

I’ve been a foster parent for over eight years and had monthly home visits by a social worker for all of these years. I’ve had additional walkthroughs with various social workers and officials since the twins came almost two years ago, and every single person has been very favorable – except the GAL.

There’s a tendency to say, ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire’, ie, if there’s a complaint, there must be a reason for that. I don’t want to defend myself from baseless claims from the GAL and when I mentioned the accusations against us in my post earlier this week, perhaps didn’t give a perspective and the might leave readers to think, ‘Maybe you think your house is clean and the kids are dressed appropriately but you don’t have a good sense of that, and these complaints are an indication of that’.

Yesterday we had three agency representatives come to visit. First they wanted to see our garden, and oohed and ahhed over how nice it is, while appreciating the goats and chickens. Then they went inside to see the bedrooms; they exclaimed over what a warm and appealing room our seven year daughter has. (This room has been the focus of the complaints; the last time the complaint was that she doesn’t have a desk to do her work at.)

I told them I’m going to show them everything because I don’t want to later have someone claim that they didn’t see something. I started by opening dd7’s drawer, and showed all of her folded clothes. Then I opened the closet door to show her dresses hanging there, then opened another closet door to show her seasonal clothing, and pulled out the large wheeled box under the bed that has all of the younger kids shoes, then the box next to it that has their boots.

I showed them where the toys are, then pointed out the boxes on top of the closet are the clothing and shoes for the upcoming season.

Then we went into the boys room and I did the same, showing the toys in storage boxes under the beds, the hanging clothing and toys in the cabinet, and even where the sheets and towels are stacked.

They were very pleased with everything, and told me my house already looks ready for Pesach. When their supervisor Zoomed in with us, the other supervisor told her that they had seen everything and everything is extremely orderly and pleasant. They even commented on how delicious the house smells. 🙂 (My son had finished baking muffins for his mishloach manos an hour before.)

This is how my house has looked every single time anyone has come. There’s nothing different I did that I hadn’t done before. Actually, this time I didn’t clean the walls the night before (last time they came when they had been freshly painted), because I really wanted to prepare mishloach manos to give to all of the teachers, school bus drivers and attendants, and school guard. The tradeoff of having cleaner walls but not being able to give to these people wasn’t something I was willing to do. It would have been compromising Purim preparations for the sake of this meeting.

I felt very calm and at peace in the two days before the meeting. Prior to that I was preoccupied thinking about the kids possibly being moved and the ramifications of that on ds8, but once I mentally accepted it might happen, I didn’t feel worried anymore.

My husband also spoke to a lawyer the morning before, and one of my married sons spoke to an advocate, so I felt we had people to help us if it came to that.

After the tour of our home, we sat down outside to talk. The head supervisor told me that they think we are the ideal family for the children. Their reason for coming is to first of all, be able to tell the court they were there, and secondly, to sit down with us and tell us they want us to know we have their full support.

They are concerned that all of these complaints are causing us stress and taking away the energy we need to parent the children (she’s right about that!). While they’ve told us what’s happening behind the scenes to be transparent with us, they don’t want us to be pressured and they will take care of everything in court. The judge may want to meet us at a later point, and they would be very glad for her to do so, since “in one minute she’ll see what kind of amazing parents you are”.

They said there’s absolutely no concern about the kids being removed or us being charged with anything, and all of them understand the claims against us are baseless. They want us to mentally put the GAL and all of her claims to the side, and keep our headspace for the kids.

It was really nice feedback for my husband and I, and very reassuring. It really took a load off of our minds and we are so grateful. Just in time to celebrate Purim!

Avivah

A disturbing phone call

Foster Care

I got a call from our social worker notifying me that she wants to set up a meeting with me and some other professionals. I was expecting her to call since I had a meeting with the therapist for help with the school situation with our seven year old son (that’s a topic for another post), and we agreed we’d set up a meeting with his principal, play therapist, social worker, this therapist and me, to jointly figure out a plan how to get him the support he needs.

But the social worker’s tone felt a bit urgent, so I asked her who was initiating this meeting. She clarified that it has nothing to do with school, that it’s going to be meeting with the head of the foster care agency along with her, her supervisor and maybe a couple of other people. This is not at all what I was expecting. Okay, I’ll come but why do you want to have a meeting?

Remember the guardian ad litem for the twins? I’ve never shared with you what has transpired and I still can’t. She hasn’t been pleasant to us, to put it mildly. The hope of the foster agency was that with time the GAL would see all the positive reports, see the dramatic improvement in the emotional state of the children and be appeased. We haven’t heard much since she was here for the home visit months ago and everyone assumed she was relaxing a bit.

It turns out she hasn’t been relaxing at all. She’s filed complaints with the court and now the court has sent that report to the foster care agency. I asked what the complaints about us are because I can’t think of anything. The social worker said that it’s very possible the GAL is lying/minimizing/exaggerating whatever she is reporting, but said the neglected appearance/hygiene of the children and our living conditions is a primary issue. She said they’ll go over in detail in our meeting what she’s saying.

I can’t even muster up anger about the absurdity of these claims. I am so done with defending myself from specious claims.

I asked if there are any reports from people who actually see the children documenting a problem with their appearance? It doesn’t seem so. It’s only been the parents who have complained in the past. They did the same thing to the past foster parents and it’s a typical thing that bio parents do so it should be understood in that context.

However, the children haven’t seen their parents for the last three months due to bureaucratic inefficiencies, so their parents can’t be complaining about how they look. Where could these complaints come from?

I asked the social worker what the GAL’s intention is, because we are we are and she is who she is, so nothing is going to be better than it is now. Does she want to take the kids away?

“No, she hasn’t outright said that.”

Well, to me it seems simple. If she doesn’t want them to stay with us, then they have to be removed to a different home or institution. There are no other options.

The meeting is late Wednesday afternoon. It was supposed to be at the foster care agency’s office, but then I was notified it would be at our home and the kids need to be there. Great, another walkthrough of our home, while trying to keep the oversugared twins calm after they get back from their school Purim parties while speaking to all of these people in a focused way. (My husband will take off from work to supervise the kids, which he did for the last home visit, too, and it was still very challenging.)

I wish it was next week since my schedule is packed this week and I don’t have much discretionary time but I’ll try to find some time to do some extra organizing in case they ask to open all the drawers and cabinets, as was done in the past.

My husband and I are having a conversation if continuing fostering these children is the right thing to do. The kids are very challenging, and though they are the best behaved around me, it’s not a walk in the part. It’s constant and draining and exhausting, and it takes so much time and energy. We’re willing to put in that time and treat them with the same love and care we give all of our children, and we do, but I am so weary of all of this extra oversight and investigation. I feel unsafe about someone filing complaints in court against us, no matter what we do and regardless of how well the kids are doing. I don’t have endless emotional energy and every bit that goes in the direction of the technicalities takes energy that I need to parent all of our children.

The question isn’t about how much harassment we can tolerate, but if we’re endangering our family to continue. My biggest concern is ds8. If they make a claim that we aren’t fit foster parents, that doesn’t affect just the twins – it would affect ds8.

The safety of my other children has has been my line in the sand from the beginning – I’ll do everything I can for the twins, but I won’t put my other children at risk.

This is very hard for me to contemplate. I feel our family is the only thing standing between the twins and a system that doesn’t prioritize their best interests. There’s no guarantee that they’ll grow up to be emotionally healthy if they stay with us, but I can sadly predict the chances go down to about zero if they leave – we’re their best hope. How can I give up on them?

I’m not making any decisions yet. My heart has been very heavy contemplating all of this. I put dd7 to bed and right before I left her room she told me, “You’re a lucky mommy!” “Yes, I am a lucky mommy, because I have such wonderful children. “

“And I’m a lucky girl!”

I swallowed the lump in my throat; she has no idea how fragile her place in our home is.

I’ll see what is said at the meeting, to learn more about what has been said to the court and how the agency wants to handle this situation. Hopefully it’s not as big a deal as it sounds right now; it’s possible we’ll hear what’s going on and it won’t be much of a concern after all. In any case, in a few days we’ll have a better idea of how to move forward.

Avivah

By 7 am they were ready to go!

Foster Care, Parenting

All of these extra school activities this month are very nice for the kids, but as a parent it’s a lot to do!

This is the first week of the Hebrew month of Adar, and in my daughter’s school there is a different theme each day to make it more fun. So one day she’s supposed to wear the class color, another day to bring something connected to clowns, babies, the yearly theme, etc.

This week she was also chosen to be Girl of the Week. I didn’t realize what it was going to add to my schedule on a very busy week! She went to school dressed in her Shabbos clothes and I made her two Dutch braids for the occasion. The braids took about fifteen minutes, which is a lot when there is so much to do for the four younger kids in the hour from when they wake up.

Yesterday before dinner we filled out the questionaire to help her prepare to talk about herself in front of the class – her favorite colors, school subjects, names of siblings, hobbies, etc. She’s supposed to take a book she enjoys, to share in the course of the week. (I assume the teacher will read it to the class.) I would have liked to have had time to spend choosing something with her, and reading it several times before she went, but I didn’t. The books we read together at this point are usually in English, and the ones we used to read regularly are no longer in good shape.

She also needs to bring a picture she drew – she made a couple and I hope there’s one in her backpack because after the school bus picked them up, I came in and saw the one I thought she was going to take on the kitchen counter.

She’s bringing prizes to distribute to the girls. Fortunately I had ordered these a week before it was announced that she would be the Girl of the Week, so that was nice to have something I didn’t have to prepare this week.

The final and most significant part of the list that I spent hours preparing for, is to bring in a photo montage of herself from the time she was born. The montage is hung in the classroom for an entire week. For months she’s been worried about the picture issue. She kept asking me when it’s her turn how she’s going to have pictures from when she was little, and I kept telling her not to worry about it, that I’ll make sure she has pictures.

Last year I asked the social worker at the mediation center to request pictures from her bio parents of the twins’ childhood. We never got any. It’s so important for them to have some connection to their early years. After waiting for weeks, I finally I went onto her bio parents Facebook accounts and saved the pictures I saw there. Unfortunately, someone dropped my computer and it was destroyed; all of the files were lost.

When I went back to Facebook, the accounts could only be viewed by ‘friends’. But then I found that her mother had more than one account, and hadn’t locked the older one. I saved the pictures that I found there – maybe ten total – so the kids would have them. From these I was able to put a few baby pictures on her montage.

Then I contacted her previous foster mother and asked her for pictures. She had deleted almost everything but found a few for me, which she sent.

Dd was so happy and excited when I showed her the pictures that I assembled. I printed and mounted about twenty pictures on a large plastic board and it looks really nice. I was planning to put the pictures in a photo album after she brings them home, but now I’m thinking of hanging it on her bedroom wall – I think she’ll love it.

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Also today, my twelve and eight year olds are having an early Purim party, complete with costumes and a communal meal. As far as costumes, I thought we were set a while back but then two days ago I learned my twelve year old has been telling everyone he’s going to be a policeman. I knew it was very important to him, so I took him to a store yesterday and explained that this is the only store we were going to be able to go to, and if we couldn’t find a costume he was going to have to dress up as something else. Good fortune shone upon us since there was only one men’s police costume and it was his size. Our seven year old is planning to be a policeman and I had purchased handcuffs and a gun for him to use next week, so our twelve year old was able to take them today.

Each child is supposed to bring the food item they’re assigned for the communal meal. Our twelve year old brought the hard boiled eggs, and our eight year old was tasked with bringing pitas or rolls. I took the pitas I bought out of the freezer last night so they would be defrosted when he left to school. When I got up this morning, the bag was open and two pitas were missing, so my husband made a trip at 6 am to the store to buy more.

Our eight year old also needed to bring mishloach manot for the class exchange – everyone brings one and then everyone gets one. I found out about it Wednesday afternoon and since I do errands in the morning, I only had Thursday to get something, but my morning was too full to add in another trip to the store. It felt like pulling a trick out of my hat to get it ready this morning since earlier in the week I hadn’t gone shopping with this in mind, but I made a nice one.

Every day when the kids get on the school bus dressed, ready and smiling, it feels like an accomplishment but today was on a different level.

Avivah

Our family Chanuka party

Parenting

It’s customary for families to have a family party on Chanuka and since we have several married children who will be having family parties on the side of their spouse (and those families have more married children who will be having parties for their families…), it’s a logistics issue to find an evening that everyone can come to. I didn’t want to wait until the last minute and not have an evening everyone was available, so six weeks ago I connected with my daughter in Jerusalem who usually does the hosting to plan a date.

Happily, all of the other family parties coordinated with our date – one son had one on Saturday night, one son and one daughter had a party on Sunday night, we had our party Monday night, and one son has a party on Wednesday night.

When children get married, the relationship with them changes and that continues to shift with time. Every family will have their own dynamic – ours includes living far from all of our married children, and having a wide range of ages that include children who still need a lot of supervision. Our married children visit periodically for Shabbos, but as time goes on and their families grow, naturally they come less frequently.

My husband and I discussed what we want our relationship with our married children to look like, and agreed that we don’t want to rely on them coming to visit as the only time we see them. For us to visit each family individually is right now not realistic, due to distance and work/school scheduling for everyone. Sometimes our married children get together and my husband and I agreed when they do this we’d like to make the effort to attend.

Last year attending the family Chanuka party was impossible, as the twins were so much in emotional transition that being in a group of people would have been overwhelming and been stressful for all of us. This year we’re in a different place and really wanted to be there, to spend time with our grandchildren and married children.

One daughter is in the US with her family, one son stayed at yeshiva and one daughter-in-law wasn’t feeling well, but otherwise everyone was there. And it was so, so nice to be together with them all.

It was low key and pleasant. We had a shared meal and everyone contributed something (except us, unfortunately the main dish I prepared was forgotten at home).

My husband planned an activity to do with the younger children, and exclaimed to me afterwards about how engaging all of our grandchildren are, and and how much he enjoyed spending this time with them.

We were pleasantly surprised that our younger four children were calm and engaged appropriately the entire time with hardly any need for input from us. That’s a Chanuka miracle of its own – that could never have happened even six months ago.

My youngest married daughter is a career coach and coordinated in advance with my husband a Chanuka-themed guided expressive drawing activity for the adults that she did at the end of the evening. When asked about it in advance I said I didn’t think this was the best venue for an activity like this because parents would need to be busy with their children, but I was completely wrong about that. The kids were busily and constructively occupied with the craft materials we brought while we did this activity. It was interesting to see as each person shared their drawing afterwards how reflective of their inner selves and aspirations each was.

It’s a lot of driving for us to get there – three and a half hours in driving rain on the way there, over two hours on the way back; we spent four hours in Jerusalem and got home at 2:30 in the morning. Today will be a day that I anticipate a lot of tiredness in the younger children that are likely to result in behaviours they’ll need guidance managing.

But it was worth being together with all of these amazing human beings who are our family. I’m so proud of each and every one of them, and my husband and I never stop feeling amazed and humbled by them all.

Avivah

Not giving up but letting go and renewing a sense of purpose

Foster Care, Parenting

I’ve been deeply reflective and feeling pensive about the foster care system for the last few days.

I shared with my social worker earlier this week how difficult it’s been for the last several months; I’m constantly dealing with emotional outbursts and one particular child who is seemingly oblivious to boundaries; it’s very draining and demands enormous patience. Ds7’s behavior has gotten quite obnoxious and all of us are finding it hard to be around him. (The therapist was happy to hear about this and told me they usually hope to see these behaviors at 2 – 3 years after placement so he’s ahead of schedule at less than a year and a half; I laughed and told her she’ll be even happier to know that dd7 is doing the same kind of things but less often.) It’s challenged me because there are things I have no tolerance for – specifically disrespect to parents – and his behaviors trip over that.

With the schools being closed and no other outlets outside of the home available due to the war, I’ve been stretched thin emotionally.

Usually I’m allotted additional babysitting hours during the summer or holiday months from the foster care agency. Since the kids can’t go to school because of the war, I requested additional hours, but this time was told I could have only a minimal number of hours, with the explanation that implied that I didn’t deserve more. I told the social worker I understand if they don’t have the funding now because everyone wants extra hours, but it’s very frustrating and invalidating to get the response I did, and I wonder if they understand the reality of living with emotionally needy and intense children.

I reminded her that we committed to what we were told would be involved, but more and more continues to be demanded of us without any additional support or even understanding of the difficulty of what we’re being asked to do being recognized.

She responded that she genuinely understands and any time it’s too much for us, I can tell her and they’ll rehome the twins (the likely placement would be to an institution).

I don’t know if the intention was to be reassuring – this is the second time I was told this, the first was after the harassment from the guardian ad litem – but I really wasn’t happy with this response.

I said very sharply, I’ve never said I want to find a new home for them, that’s not at all my intention and that’s not the point of anything I’ve said. Don’t you see the absurdity of spending 10 – 20,000 shekels a month on a dormitory school per child, but there’s not enough funding for even a few hundred shekels a month for respite for foster families, especially when everyone knows the outcome will be much better with a family than for children placed in institutions??

I’ve come to the realization that as well-intended as some in the foster care system are, the system itself is not there to help or support me as a foster parent – and that’s not the primary goal for foster children, either; in fact, their policies can work against the wellbeing of children. I see this again and again, that in the focus on minutiae the big picture is lost.

Here’s an example. The above conversation began when I was notified a couple of days ago that ds7 and dd7 won’t be getting therapy in school due to a shortage of in-school providers, despite the expectation that would be available for them. I was informed that as a result of this, I need to take them privately. To do that, I need to take each child to therapy, then drive them afterward to school, which is an hour away, and then come back home. That would be one entire morning every week of my time spent on one therapy appointment, for just one child.

But there are two children, so it’s not one morning, it’s two mornings. My schedule is already filled with commitments (like weekly speech therapy for ds7 and ds12 that takes one full morning, therapeutic horseback riding two afternoons a week and regular orthodontist appointments for two children). I have to go to parenting sessions as a foster parent because of the challenging situation we’re in so as to document our case and protect ourselves. That’s also hour away, every other week. Every other week I take the kids for visitation with their parents in the morning because there are no longer after school hours available at the mediation center, and then have to drive them to school. That’s four hours each time, so two more mornings gone.

I don’t have two mornings a week to dedicate to therapy. It’s not a question of unwillingness. I simply can’t. I told her I only have Friday mornings available – this isn’t exactly a free day; it’s the only day that my husband and I have that we don’t have commitments other than Shabbos preparations. Last year dd7 stayed home from school every Friday because I had to take her to therapy, and I’ve been really, really looking forward to some relief from that. While I offered to take them both on Fridays, which will take up my entire Friday morning and necessitate making all of my Shabbos preparations the day before, I can’t take two children to two different therapists in two different areas at the same time and the working hours on that day are limited. (Currently dd’s therapist is reaching out to other therapists in her area to see if anyone has availability so I could coordinate them both at a similar hour.)

There’s no possibility of anyone agreeing to them not having weekly therapy, because the law says the kids need to get it, and this is a good thing. It really is. They deserve every bit of support they can get.

What’s not good is that the system loses sight of the forest for the trees – if I can’t get them to their appointments, then I’m not fulfilling the necessary requirements as a foster parent. It isn’t relevant that we are a home that provides much more therapeutic emotional support than is usually available for foster children, and as a result, the children have been doing much, much better than the norm. In order for them to get a weekly 45 minute session of play or art therapy, they would be placed somewhere else if we can’t take them to these appointments – and this is intended to benefit the child. But when looking at the whole picture, it brings up the question if that really is to their benefit?

I can twist myself more and more into a pretzel to do all the things I’m told I need to do, none of which are unreasonable but have become very burdensome for me when taken as a whole. It’s hard to add these things in when the schedule for the year was planned and committed to, each activity having been considered for the value it brings and the price it will exact, before I was told about the changes for therapy and visitation that necessitate at least an additional ten hours a week of my active involvement.

Or I can tell them to take the kids and I’ll go back to living my more peaceful life that was quite full but had more white space.

But there’s no point in talking to anyone in the system, in sharing my thoughts or opinions or experience about anything. I thought that communicating would have some benefit, that some adjustments could be made, there would be some understanding or willingness to adapt or find solutions, but now it’s clear that they really have no help to offer except to rehome the twins. They aren’t being callous or unfeeling to offer that – it’s literally the only way they can offer support. It would devastate the kids and everyone knows that, but nonetheless that’s the only offer.

I’ve felt disappointed that due to the extremely full days with the kids home I haven’t had time to do a yearly cheshbon hanefesh, a spiritual review of the past year and make a plan for the areas I want to work on in coming year. But working through so much to move past the compassion fatigue and burnout, to remind myself why I’m doing this, and to renew my commitment to be the best parent I can to all of our children is my spiritual process at this time.

G-d knows I’m doing my best in a challenging situation. There’s so much I want to be doing that I can’t do, and I’ve had to work on letting go and putting to the side what I wanted to be doing at this time. I’m accepting that G-d has different plans for me than what I planned for myself. I can fight it and be frustrated and annoyed that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be, this isn’t what I committed to, this isn’t how I want to be using my time. Or I can go with the flow and consider that there are new ways to grow and learn that will benefit me on this path that I’m surrendering to.

The therapist gave me a gift today, a book called The Man Who Planted Trees. She said since the first time she met me she’s been continually reminded of this story when speaking to me. (Here’s a free pdf of the book – it’s a short and inspiring story.) It’s about planting seeds for the future at a time that those efforts seem small and unlikely to effect change, while holding on to the vision of the future results you want to have; small and consistent effort in the direction of your goal will yield beautiful results.

May we individually and collectively experience the coming year as one of peace and abundance of all sorts.

Avivah

The war is on and the kids are home

Parenting

As residents of the north we are affected by the war with Lebanon, though thankfully here in Yavneel not too dramatically so.

I’m grateful we haven’t had any sirens, though we do hear and see the missile interceptions. (**Edit at end of post) I feel like we live in a cocoon of safety; the adjoining towns have had sirens and even missiles landing, but we’re in a blessed island of safety. At the store today I chatted briefly with a woman who lives a twenty minute drive from me, who told me a missile fell on her next door neighbor’s home. But for us, our involvement has been limited to hearing the interceptions.

Here are more interceptions again as I’m writing this – three, four, five, six, seven, eight…nine. It sounds like that’s it for this round. I’ve only counted nine or ten at a time but on this same day my son heard and saw twenty two in one round. It’s miraculous that there have been so few injuries and I feel Hashem’s protective hand over us all.

I wasn’t talking to my children about the war because I didn’t think it’s necessary at that point but then a neighbor’s child was here when the booms of the interceptions happened, and he started excitedly exclaiming, “They’re shooting missiles!” The twins ran after him and repeated what he said very excitedly. Then ds7 stopped and asked me, “What does ‘shooting’ mean?” I wasn’t appreciative to have this concept introduced to them but now that it’s been said, it had to be addressed.

Before the kids weren’t aware of what the loud noises were – a new home began being built right across from us on the Sunday morning that the war began, and since since the machinery was so very loud, they didn’t realize that the sounds in the sky were something different from the heavy equipment. But now they’ve become aware of the interceptions, which in Hebrew are called ‘boomim'(booms).

I explained the booms by telling them, “Those are the sounds of Hashem protecting us.” Whenever we talk about anything related to the war, I keep it very low key. My message is, everything is okay and we’re not going to get excited about it. Kids take their cues from the adults around them, so it’s important not to project anxiety because they pick up on it and internalize it.

School hasn’t been in session in the north for the last week and a half, and no one has any idea when the kids will be returning to school. Three of the younger four kids have Zoom classes set up but I’m not interested in having our children participate. I don’t have any positive feelings about young children using Zoom as a substitute for school. Zoom is a decent option for adults who are very interested and motivated in their learning, though nothing compares to in person learning. But for kids, particularly in the earlier grades? I can immediately see their energy become more frenetic and disorganized when they get on a Zoom call.

Ds7.5’s teacher set up a phone line where she leaves a recording each day for the students, and they can call in and listen at their convenience. I like that much more. A couple of times I called for ds7.5, and he enjoyed hearing his teacher greet each child individually and then he davened out loud with the recording. I’ve only called in twice, and each time he listened for under ten minutes before he asked to hang up.

The kids have asked why they aren’t going to school, and I explained that there are children who would be scared if they were far away from their parents when they heard the booms, so all the children are staying home until there are no more booms. That was easy for them to understand.

After my posts about my appreciation of my schedule, now that’s all changing. It’s not only school that is cancelled. Our speech sessions are in an area where they are having a lot of sirens, and the therapist told me it’s not safe for us to come. I thought we’d be able to continue with horseback riding since it’s just a ten minute drive from here, but they are acting in accordance with the security recommendations for the north and also cancelled.

A couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted to dissemble the pool since the weather is getting cooler, and my son finished taking it down first thing last Sunday morning – yes, the first morning of the war. Now the kids are home, the temperatures are close to 100 degrees and they are so irritable. When we took the pool down, I thought that if the weather shifted and got hot again, I’d take the kids to the Kinneret. But now the beaches are closed because of the war, so that’s not an option.

During covid I embraced everyone being home for an extended time and deeply appreciated that period. That’s not my experience now.

Last year was very challenging for a number of reasons and most days at least one child stayed home with me. That was followed by a long summer with everyone home that demanded a lot of patience on my part. It wasn’t an easy year and it wasn’t an easy summer. I’ve gotten through it all with a good attitude but have very much looked forward to everyone being in school and having time to myself.

When the cancellation of school was announced, I couldn’t find any feelings of positivity about it, and I didn’t want to try to be positive. I was frustrated and resentful that my long awaited time was being stolen from me. After a couple of days I realized I needed to let myself feel the disappointment and everything else that was flooding me, before I could move into acceptance of the reality.

I’ve done some journaling about my concerns about losing this time, my distress about of losing my momentum and even my motivation to pursue my other goals, my fear that I’ll never do those things. I let myself be with that for a couple of days, and every day have been more able to be with the kids without thinking about what I should be doing instead percolating in the back of my mind.

At this point I’m in a place of acceptance. I’m letting go of expectations for myself and what I thought I would do, and also for the return to school. Maybe after Rosh Hashana the kids will go back to school. Maybe this will be a long term situation. No one knows. I’m able to honestly say I’m okay with that now.

Am I embracing having them home? Not yet. I’m at a stage that parenting is demanding and intensive, and takes a lot of emotional and physical energy. One child in particular is challenging from the minute he wakes up and it takes a lot of conscious effort to stay loving towards him. Right now he’s having a time-in with me, sitting in my room with me as I write this, stroking the dog as I have relaxing music playing in the background. It’s been twenty minutes so far and he’s finally moving from defiant and obnoxious to calming down and becoming sweet again. At 8 am, this is the first intervention for him of the morning, but it won’t be the last.

Acceptance is a good place to be for now.

** Edited to add – Ten hours after writing this, numerous ballistic missiles were sent from Iran. As I got home from errands, I saw them in the sky and heard them exploding before I the warning siren sounded to go to a safe room. Thank G-d, we continue to witness unfathomable miracles – how can there be so few deaths after a countrywide barrage like we just experienced? I will be going into Rosh Hashana with heightened appreciation and gratitude for Hashem’s overwhelming kindness. May we all have a good, safe year of many blessings!!**

Avivah

New wedding hall scheduled!

Parenting, Self-Growth

In the past I’ve been matter of fact when reserving a wedding hall, but this time, I cheered out loud after putting down the phone and finding out a hall was available for the date we wanted.

We found something quickly and easily, and I’m relieved and grateful to have a spacious and comfortable hall that will amply accommodate all of our guests. My hope is that everyone involved will feel it is a joyous and expansive event.

I have already reserved the hall and caterer, and sent the advance partial payment to each, and contacted the band to let them know about the location change.

In the last few weeks, every time I spoke with my son about wedding plans, he’d ask me what was happening and sounded stressed. I kept trying to be reassuring, saying, “It’s fine, I’m not organizing it but someone else is; this is what’s happening and it’s going to be done.” When I told him the night of my last post that I had spoken to his kallah and was considering a location change, I expected him to sound even more stressed.

I was surprised that he was very chilled and positive about the possibility. He had absolutely no concern about the location being changed at this late stage.

The next morning, I called my son to tell him I found a wedding hall available for the date we wanted. When I told him which it was, he told me it was the hall he liked most! I had no idea – after they got engaged I asked what he preferred as far as a hall, and he said he didn’t really care, as long as his kallah was happy.

But he did care. So finding out I was about to reserve the hall he was most partial to added to my happiness.

I spoke to him later that day and updated him, letting him know I had booked the hall and the caterer, and filling him in on some other details. He sounded pleased about it all. I told him, “I don’t understand. Every time I spoke to you about wedding plans, you sounded stressed; now I’m making these changes at this point, and you sound so relaxed and calm. Why?”

He told me that now that I’m in charge of arranging the details, he feels more relaxed because I have a lot of experience.

My energy has shifted from being uneasy about the wedding to feeling relaxed and positive again. It wasn’t easy for me to speak up – it really was unpleasant to bring up concerns that could inconvenience and frustrate others because of the late date – but I’m so glad I did. I was concerned there was a likelihood for a lot of frustration with so many different details to coordinate in making a non-wedding hall into a wedding hall. I hope that it will be a relaxed and enjoyable wedding for everyone.

Avivah

PS – You may be wondering about how much more this upgrade is going to cost. We’ll actually be spending a drop less for a much larger and nicer hall, double the guests for the meal and a couple of nicer touches that we weren’t going to have before, as well as the planning being much more streamlined. Isn’t that nice?

Running low on patience and reprogramming my thoughts

Foster Care, Parenting, Self-Growth

I always have a full schedule but the last month has been over- the-top busy.

I recently noticed that I’m overreacting to things the kids are doing that I don’t like. Yes, sometimes whatever it is is annoying, but I have demonstrated high levels of patience and forbearance in situations much more challenging than these. So I know it’s not the situation that’s the problem, but something about me.

When reflecting on this, I realized two things:

Realization 1: I have too many time dependent activities I need to be at with the kids. I’ve known for years about myself that time pressure brings out my absolute worst qualities, and to compensate, try to build margin around time dependent activities and schedule them cautiously.

Well, cautious scheduling is not what I have going on now. There are many appointments to take care of in addition to extracurricular summer activities for the kids at home in Camp Mommy, and I’ve been out daily with the kids at these different commitments. I realized, I’ve got too much going on and I’ve got to cut this down.

All of the doctor/dental/hearing test stuff has to be done, as do visitations with the twins’ parents, a National Insurance committee meeting to determine eligibility for ds6 since the country is changing the rules of child allowances for foster children, social worker visits, preparatory school meetings – but I have changed what I can and that has made a difference.

In the last week we’ve finished the swimming lessons that had us out three days a week, and cancelled horseback riding, which I had only recently begun two weeks before. (That decision deserves a post of its own because it was a very empowering choice.)

I enjoy going out with the kids daily for some kind of activity, particularly now that it’s the Nine Days and they can’t use the pool. Going out breaks up our day and is a nice change of pace for us all. It’s not a time pressure when it’s dependent on me, I can go where and when I want, and stay as long or as short a time as I want.

A couple of recent outings included:

Playing with newborn puppies- We were invited by one of our Shabbos guests to come visit his newborn puppies. The puppies still had their eyes shut and were crawling around; we were there quite a long time and the kids enjoyed them very much. We were invited to come regularly to play with them and we will probably go back, but I won’t make a commitment to a regular day or time because I don’t want to create pressure for myself.

Ds7 with a puppy
Ds6 and dd6 with puppies

Another trip was to the public sprinklers in the center of Tiberias. We packed a picnic lunch and the kids had a wonderful time. It’s fascinating to watch how much enjoyment children can generate with almost no props – other than two plastic bags they found, it was just the sprinklers. But they played with the water in various ways, had different kinds of races with one another, and just kept finding new ways to entertain themselves in this one area.

I find that the lower key an activity is, the less expectation and pressure there is and the more enjoyment we all have. This morning I was thinking of taking the kids to the cable cars in Haifa, but hesitated, wondering if it would be worth the effort to find parking and then the money spent. Instead, I took them to a park in the city we were in that I found after cruising around for just a few minutes. The park was built on a steep hill so there were four levels to the park – each level had just a couple of items on it; there was nothing spectacular or especially engaging about any individual part of it. But the kids loved going from one level to another, and we spent almost three hours there.

Realization 2: I have been recognizing that I’m using all of my patience in the course of a day and don’t have extra margin. And that’s true.

It’s also true that our physical capacities are affected by our thoughts, and I’m disempowering myself by defining myself as having my patience maxxed out, and mentally going over all the things I’m doing to explain to myself why I’m feeling my patience is wearing thin.

I was out with the kids for eight hours today – it was a really good day for everyone but tiring as well. I was driving home at the end of all of the activities and the thought flashed through my mind, “I’m so tired.” Then I caught myself and asked myself, why am I telling myself that? Why not think about how energized I am by the things I do, how blessed I am to have plenty of energy to do all that I need to do, how patient and loving a parent I am? That’s a much more helpful focus and feels a lot better, and it’s just the flip side of the same coin. We can focus on what isn’t and what we aren’t, or on what we is good and what we want to be.

Can you see how thinking the two different sets of thoughts will impact how a person feels?

I truly have a lot going on now, that requires me to carefully and proactively schedule commitments to myself and others in to my planner so that everything gets done and I still get sleep. I burned the candle at both ends for too many years, and I choose not to shortchange myself in that way anymore.

Every day when I start to feel a little tense about how much I’m doing, I remind myself how grateful I am that I can do the things that are important to me, that my schedule is full of things that are meaningful and stimulating for me. And I mean it. But you can’t say it too often!

Avivah

Excited to be planning an intimate wedding

Intentional Spending, Parenting

Years ago, my husband and I talked about how we would like to handle wedding planning. Our ideal was to set aside an amount of money for each child’s wedding, and then let each couple determine how they wanted to spend it. If they wanted to spent it all on a one night event, that was fine. If they wanted to make a smaller or simpler event, they could keep the difference between what they spent on the wedding and what was remaining.

That was our ideal but we never had the opportunity to make that offer until now.

When you’re making a bar mitzva, you can do what you want because it’s only your family you have to consider. When you’re making a wedding, you need to take into account the preferences of another family.

Before each engagement, we meet with the parents of the other side and agree as to what our financial contribution will be for the wedding: what will be the overall budget and how will the expenses we distributed. We did that this time as well, and our baseline number was based on the sums we spent on our last two weddings.

However, the morning after the engagement, I was thinking that this would be the time when something smaller would be a better fit for the couple as well as both families. She is from England so neither she nor her family have a huge social circle that expects to attend.

Living in a small community in the north, we also don’t have a large number of people who will be attending.

The standard wedding halls have a minimum of 300 people for the meal, and 300 for the dessert buffet. We just don’t have a need for those numbers at all.

My husband called me from work the morning after the l’chaim and told me he had been thinking that this wedding could be smaller than our usual weddings, and reminded me of what we had said our ideal was: to give the couple the money to spend as they wished. It happens so often that we both think of the same idea at the same time without discussing it with one another, but he was still surprised when I told him I had been thinking exactly the same thing!

So what are we planning for this wedding?

Three years ago the son before this one got married on a Friday and it was a very good experience for us all for a number of reasons. When my daughter got married a year and a half later in the heart of the winter, a Friday wedding wasn’t an option since Shabbos begins so early. My son who is now engaged remembered how positive an experience it was, and talked to his fiance about it, who agreed to have a Friday wedding.

Next is the wedding venue. While the scale of the wedding will be adjusted (we’re thinking we’ll have about 100 guests for the meal), our new couple isn’t looking to do something radically different to save every possible penny, like having a potluck in someone’s basement. They want a beautiful hall with a nice catered meal. But once you aren’t having a very large crowd, there are many smaller halls that become an option.

Since smaller halls don’t have room for people to be seated at tables for the meal and to simultaneously have a large area available for dancing, we’ll be changing the standard wedding schedule. First will be the chupa, then the entire meal will be served, and then dancing will take place at the end. The tables will be cleared away at the end of the meal to make room for dancing, and dessert tables will be assembled around the perimeter of the hall.

After we made this arrangement, we realized that this set up will also cut the cost of the band, since their charge is based on the number of hours they need to be there. Usually the band arrives for the chupa and stays throughout the night until the final dance; this is around five or six hours. Since my son asked two or three of his younger brothers to sing at his chupa, and someone else will arrange for recorded background dinner music to be played for the meal on the speakers the musicians will set up in advance, we only need a live band for the dancing at the end.

We haven’t yet contacted a photographer but the photographer at our last Friday wedding gave us a discounted price because it was on Friday. Friday isn’t prime time for weddings so it’s likely there will be other costs that will be less than if the wedding was held in the evening.

The hall is located in the neighborhood where the new couple will be living, the same one where his yeshiva is located. This is incredibly convenient for his friends. This makes it possible for as many of the students who want to attend to come for the chupa, leave for the meal (other than his close friends), and return for dancing.

When I told a friend our plans, she said that when her daughter got married during covid, they were only allowed to have fifty guests total. She shared that it was the nicest and most meaningful of all of their weddings, and she wishes that all of her weddings could be like that. Every single person who was there was someone they were close to and felt emotionally invested in adding to the joyous atmosphere at the wedding. She also enjoyed being able to connect with all of her guests in a way that she couldn’t at a huge wedding with hundreds of guests.

I’ve heard a number of people say they regret that when the covid restrictions lifted, weddings went back to the same way they had been before. The smaller weddings were a beautiful blip on the social scene but seen as a choice people were forced to make legally and didn’t endure as a socially normative option when people had their choice of venues afterwards.

It will take some time to get an idea of what all the final costs will be, but I anticipate the savings will be substantial. I love that the couple will have a beautiful wedding surrounded by all of the people who care about them most, and at the same time have the benefit of the money saved to create some financial margin as they start their lives together.

Avivah

When it’s so easy – a kiss from Heaven

Parenting

At the beginning of June I received a call from one of my married daughters.

She had been approached by a neighbor who wanted to know if our twenty one year old son was dating yet. I answered no, he’s not. It was almost his birthday but our sons wait until 22 before going out.

She commented that several people over the course of the last year have made the same suggestion to the neighbor, who is the aunt of the young woman suggested, as well as to my daughter. When my daughter was approached about it a few months ago she told them he wasn’t starting but at this point called since she wasn’t sure of his timeframe.

For me, hearing that a few people thought of the same idea is interesting but not enough to change my time line. When my last son was dating, eleven different people made the same suggestion of a young lady, people who knew him and her well. It seemed so perfect on paper that it seemed everyone was sure it was going to work out.

They went out once and my son came back and told me she’s definitely not a match for him.

So with this current suggestion, I was kind of like, that’s nice but he’s not dating now.

Then my daughter added, “I also know her pretty well and I think it’s a really good idea.”

As soon as she said those words, it became something for me to consider seriously. My daughter not only obviously knows our family and her brother well, but is an excellent judge of character and has a lot of insight. I asked her for more information, and she gave me a very good picture of who the young woman is.

I told her I needed to rethink my position on delaying him starting to date and would get back to her. I thought about why I was hesitant for him to begin dating and realized it had nothing to do with his emotional readiness, but with my desire to delay having to deal with the technicalities of the dating process.

I recognized that there was no reason for me to hold him back when someone who sounded perfect for him was being suggested. After getting clarity on some things we wanted to know, a date was set up.

From the start felt comfortable and relaxed with each other. I know he has the ability to synthesize a lot of details quickly and accurately, and shouldn’t have been surprised when after the second date, he told me he was confident she was right for him.

When he came home from the fourth date, he told me he was ready to propose whenever she would be ready. Early into the fifth date the topic of engagement came up and it was clear they were on the same page. He called to ask when I would be able to meet her, so my husband and I drove in the next night to meet her; that was Monday. Two and a half weeks after their first date they got engaged; last night shortly after he proposed we celebrated the l’chaim in Jerusalem with family and close friends. The official engagement party will be next week.

We’ve never had a child find his soulmate as quickly and easily as this. It’s an amazing kindness from Heaven.

——————–

This will be my sixth child in seven years to get married. They were born within nine years of one another but somehow it still feels astonishing that they’re all getting married in what is relatively a short time.

When I was a teenager and heard of people getting engaged after going out for two or three weeks, I couldn’t imagine how that was a good thing. They hardly know each other, for goodness sakes!

Yet, the charedi shidduch system is one that works very, very well. There are divorces in our world, we have unhappy marriages just like every society – but there is a strong positive value on marriage and on family; we believe a soul is incomplete until he is reunited with his other half. And the very positive results in our society reflect those values.

I deeply appreciate the shidduch system and the wisdom that is behind it. Young men and women go out with one another after a lot of thought beforehand – by people who know them well who want to see them happy – regarding compatibility in terms of personality, life direction and outlook and families. This narrows their dating to people who have a good chance of being a good fit for them.

I look at all of our married children and their spouses, I look at all of their parents, and I marvel…how did Hashem send so many wonderful people to our family? While I’ve heard many stories of the sets of parents of the couple having a lot of intense conflict, we’ve never experienced that while planning any weddings. Obviously there will be differences in expectations that need to be ironed out, but we’ve been very blessed with very, very good people who have been reasonable and accommodating, and now another great family is joining the mix.

Hashem is always taking care of each of us, but there are times the extra kindness inherent in a situation that feels like a kiss from Heaven, and this engagement is one of those times.

Avivah