Avivah Werner

Category: Parenting

  • A trip to the eye doctor – why bother to go with an 18 year old?

    Someone asked me yesterday for an update regarding the army status of ds18 and dd17.  Dd17 received her permanent exemption from army service a couple of weeks after my post on the topic.  After lots more paperwork and visits since my post on this a while back, ds18 was told that he will be given a deferment for a year, dependent on some medical forms they want him to have filled out.

    This morning ds18 went to the doctor to get the first of these forms filled out, and then was told he also needed to make an appointment with an eye doctor to get the second form taken care of.  He mentioned to me that he had a 7 pm appointment for the eye doctor, and I later overheard him asking dd15 if she wanted to come to translate in case he needed help with the language, since her Hebrew is better than his.  Since I needed to drop off some paperwork for the lawyer (as mentioned yesterday) around the same time as his appointment, and the law office was at the halfway point from our house and the doctor’s office, I told him I’d be happy to go with him if he’d like (I checked this with dd15 first; I didn’t want to horn in on their time together if this was something she wanted to do with him).  He accepted.

    As a parent of maturing children, there can be a feeling of conflict between wanting to give to them and take care of them, while also giving them the chance to be independent and do things for themselves that they might be uncomfortable with.  Often this means pushing them beyond their comfort zones, to do things alone that you could easily take care of for them.  And sometimes you need to step back and away from the issue of independence and grab the opportunity to be nurturing!

    It’s really an issue of balance and of knowing your child.  When we got here, I felt I needed to push ds18 to deal with some big things that came up as a result of making aliyah (like mandatory army service) on his own, because it was way outside of his comfort zone and something he would have gladly deferred to us to deal with.  I knew he had the ability to do it, and that taking care of these foreign issues on his own would give him the confidence that comes from acting in spite of your fears of not knowing/being enough, and comes from dealing with challenging things and rising to the occasion.

    I’ve been very impressed with how ds18 has gotten lots of technical and legal things done on his own in a country where the language and mentality is a challenge for him, and has done it with a really great attitude.  So I don’t need to worry that by offering help I’m creating passivity or dependence on my assistance.

    We do things for people we love not because they can’t do it on their own, but because we want to show them we care.  A wonderful way to nurture someone is to offer to do something for them before they ask for your help.  It’s nice to be responsive to requests, but so much more powerful when you initiate the giving exchange.   This is apparent when you think about marriage – you offer to bring your spouse a drink or pick up something unsolicited from the store that you know they’d like because you know it will make them happy; giving them what they ask for is nice but doesn’t have the same emotional punch.

    When I heard ds18 talking with ds15, I saw an opportunity to be the care provider in the relationship, something that gets harder to do as your children get older.  But don’t think this was a one sided proposition!

    I really am loving watching my teen children grow up – I don’t tell them enough how amazing and special each of them is – and when I tell them, they think I’m biased because I’m their mother.  I probably am biased, and that’s okay – it doesn’t mean my perception isn’t accurate!  Each of them has very different personalities and strengths, but are all growing into such wonderful people that I sometimes feel very humbled to be their mother.  So while I took the opportunity to accompany ds18 with the intent to give to him, it ended up a treat for me to have three hours to spend together with him (we took care of a couple of other errands while we were out).

    Avivah

  • Ds18 is home!

    Ds18 is home for Pesach!  He got here Thursday night, and everyone is so happy to have him home!  It’s kind of funny how excited everyone gets about him coming – it really underscores that he doesn’t live at home anymore.

    Ds comes about every 2 – 3 months and usually stays just for the weekend.  Most recently he was home for the bar mitzva in January.  Everyone looks forward to his visits so much – he’s a fantastic big brother and every single person loves spending time with him.  (He learns daily with ds6, ds9, ds13, reads and plays with the littles, and spends time talking with each of his sisters.)  This is the longest visit home he’ll have with us since last summer – he’ll be here for two weeks, and ds4 is already saying he wants ds18 to stay here forever.

    This past Shabbos was so, so special.  The singing was wonderful and it was really nice having meaningful and stimulating conversations with all of the older kids together that don’t happen in the same way when he’s not here.  Having all of our children home really makes a difference – it’s not the same when even one person isn’t there – and ds18 truly enhances our home environment.  Something nice about raising your older children well is that they are then a good influence on their younger siblings.  🙂

    It’s not always easy watching your kids grow up and move away, but that’s what parenting is about, giving them the roots and then the wings to live their own lives.  And there’s so much joy….

    Avivah

  • Just in time for Pesach – the plague of lice

    Head lice are more common here than the US (probably because insistence on kids going to school lice-free isn’t strictly enforced), and knowing that, I’ve kept a watchful eye on everyone since our move.  And it’s consistently been fine.

    But recently when all the kids were sick for a while, it wasn’t on my radar to think about this and I overlooked one child scratching his head, something I would have usually jumped on immediately.  It wasn’t until two weeks after that that I checked the kids last week, and I saw signs of lice in three of them.  It was actually amazing that so few of them had it, being that it spreads so quickly and easily when children put their heads next to each other.

    Of the three kids who had signs of lice, two had a very small amount that was easily taken care of.  The third was so heavily infested that I felt almost hopeless for the first few hours I was working on him on day one.  But when I started on day two, there was such an obvious difference thanks to all I did on the first day, and I’m happy to say that the issue is now resolved!

    Since I lived here when my oldest four children were young, I had to deal with lice on an ongoing basis, so I’ve developed my approach to handling it that has been pretty effective.  There are many tips available about how to get rid of lice, but I’m going to share what I do.

    Firstly, never use the poisonous lice shampoos like RID.  They are dangerous, and even carry warnings on them not to use them too frequently.  Not only that, I don’t think they’re very effective!

    I’ve seen suggestions about using vinegar, mayonnaise, Listerine and other things to wash out the hair and smother the lice.  But unless it makes you feel like you’re doing something, it’s just extra work without much added benefit.

    The first critical step is to make sure there are no live bugs in your child’s hair.  I have a two pronged approach to this – I check manually and I use a fine toothed metal lice comb to thoroughly comb through their hair. (I bought the least expensive one available at the pharmacy – 35 shekels.  Don’t bother with the cheap plastic ones, which don’t work at all.)  I absolutely don’t rely on lice combs on their own, since I used to see how much they missed, but if you use them regularly and well, they’re probably enough.  It’s like someone speeding – the cops might not catch you the first few times, but eventually you’ll get ticketed.  So if you  keep combing you’ll eventually catch the lice even though the comb will miss a few times.

    It’s helpful to condition the hair well before combing.  (Ideally, combing their hair after every bath and shower should be done proactively to prevent lice in the first place – I wasn’t doing this, but now it’s been instituted as standard protocol for everyone.)  I comb firmly against the scalp, to get off anything that might be there.  Lice live close to the scalp, so that’s where you’ll generally find them, not further down the hair shaft.  I do this every day or two once for about two or three weeks if I see a sign of lice, since new eggs can hatch and then mature after the point you think there are no bugs left.  The newly hatched eggs are tiny – about the same as a speck of sand.  You’d have to look closely to even realize that it’s a louse and even then you might be hard pressed to believe it!  They don’t reach sexual maturity until 5 – 10 days, so you don’t have to worry about them laying eggs until then.

    After being sure that there are no live bugs, you’ll need to attend to the removal of the nits.  This is a painstaking job (though I personally find it gratifying and don’t mind it), which is where the term nitpicking comes from!  A nit looks like a tiny teardrop shaped bump on a hair – you can tell it’s a nit and not dandruff by touching it.  A nit is firmly attached to a hair, and the only way to get it off is to pull it off each hair individually.   Dandruff can be flicked away. (A couple of kids had dandruff, and I asked them to do a vinegar treatment to get rid of dandruff before I checked them to make it easier for me – I didn’t want to look at every fleck on their heads.)

    Nits are different colors depending on their age, so based on this you tell what’s been freshly laid and what’s oldest and about to hatch – white when just laid, getting darker brown and finally black right before hatching.  This can be of practical value to know when there are so many nits that you give priority to those that are the oldest – this is what I did with ds over the two day period I was cleaning him out; I took out the darkest nits and left the lighter ones for the next day.  I know some people rely on combs to get the nits out, but I really don’t think they work for nit removal – what I think you’re relying on is that the nits that hatch will eventually be caught by the comb.

    Look particularly behind the ears and by the nape of the neck for both lice and nits.  For some reason, lice seem to love these locations.  I give these areas extra checks and go through the hairs in this area extra carefully.

    A couple of myths to debunk:

    – You don’t have to disinfect every corner of your house when a child gets lice.  The things people do in this area don’t do anything but make themselves crazy  – the vaccuming, bleaching, etc.  Lice need the head of a host to live, and nits certainly can’t hatch once they’re removed.  I kill every louse that I remove if it’s big enough; the small ones go into a container of water while I comb and then are flushed down the toilet. I wouldn’t drop the nits onto a pillowcase 🙂 but you can do what you want with them; it really doesn’t matter.

    – Lice do jump.  I’ve read that people say they only can crawl from one head to another, and it’s true that heads need to be next to each other.  But I’ve repeatedly seen lice jump several inches when I’ve been combing them out.

    Prevention: comb out regularly, use a rosemary essential oil/shampoo on your hair (lice don’t like the smell), and if you see a child scratch his head, immediately check them.

    I’m happy to be going into Pesach having dealt with this, so that when we talk at the seder about the plague of lice, it will be past history!

    If you’ve ever had to deal with head lice, what are the tips that have worked for you?

    Avivah

  • Message from bereaved Tolouse wife and mother

    Last week, a gunman claiming sympathy with terrorist group Al Quaeda murdered four Jews in front of a Jewish school in France: Yonatan Sandler, with his two children Aryeh (6) and Gavriel (3), in addition to eight year old Miriam Monsonego.  As a particularly tragic aside, I read that three year old Gavriel was named after Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was murdered by terrorists in Mumbai, India.

    As a mother, it’s beyond me the kind of pain the mother of even one child who is killed must be feeling.  To think of losing one’s husband and two children within just minutes is horrifying.  I don’t this woman and in all likelihood never will meet her,  but she’s been on my mind all this past week.  How is she coping?  How will she find the strength to go on?

    (The Sandler family earlier this year. From the left Gavriel (6), Rabbi Yonatan, Aryeh (3), and Eva carrying baby daughter.)

    Today someone forwarded to me this message from Eva Sandler, and I wanted to share it with all of you.  It’s in difficult times that a person’s true essence shines through, and the strength of this woman’s faith is something we can all learn from.

    >>My heart is broken. I am unable to speak. There are no ways for me to be able to express the great and all-consuming pain resulting from the murder of my dear husband Rabbi Jonathan and our sons, Aryeh and Gavriel, and of Miriam Monsonego, daughter of the dedicated principal of Ozar Hatorah and his wife, Rabbi Yaakov and Mrs. Monsonego.

    May no one ever have to endure such pain and suffering.

    Because so many of you, my cherished brothers and sisters in France and around the world, are asking what you can do on my behalf, on behalf of my daughter Liora and on behalf of the souls of my dear husband and children, I feel that, difficult though it may be, it is incumbent upon me to answer your entreaties.

    My husband’s life was dedicated to teaching Torah. We moved back to the country of his birth to help young people learn about the beauty of Torah. He was truly a good man, loving, giving, and selfless. He was sensitive to all of G‑d’s creatures, always searching for ways to reveal the goodness in others.

    He and I raised Aryeh and Gavriel to live the ways of Torah. Who would have known how short would be their time on this Earth, how short would be the time I would be with them as their mother?

    I don’t know how I and my husband’s parents and sister will find the consolation and strength to carry on, but I know that the ways of G‑d are good, and He will reveal the path and give us the strength to continue. I know that their holy souls will remain with us forever, and I know that very soon the time will come when we will be together again with the coming of Moshiach (the messiah).

    I wholeheartedly believe in the words of the verse: “The L-ord has given, and the L-ord has taken away; blessed be the Name of the L-ord.” I thank the Almighty for the privilege, short though it was, of raising my children together with my husband.  Now the Almighty wants them back with Him.

    To all those who wish to bring consolation to our family and contentment to the souls of the departed: Let’s continue their lives on this Earth.

    Parents, please kiss your children. Tell them how much you love them, and how dear it is to your heart that they be living examples of our Torah, imbued with the fear of Heaven and with love of their fellow man.

    Please increase your study of Torah, whether on your own or with your family and friends. Help others who may find study difficult to achieve alone.

    Please bring more light into the world by kindling the Sabbath candles this and every Friday night. (Please do so a bit earlier than the published times as a way to add holiness to our world.)

    The holiday of Passover is approaching. Please invite another person into your homes so that all have a place at a Seder to celebrate the holiday of our freedom.

    Along with our tearful remembrance of our trials in Egypt so many years ago, we still tell over how “in each and every generation, they have stood against us to destroy us.”  We all will announce in a loud and clear voice: “G‑d saves us from their hands.”

    The spirit of the Jewish people can never be extinguished; its connection with Torah and its commandments can never be destroyed.

    May it be G‑d’s will that from this moment on, we will all only know happiness.

    I send my heartfelt condolences to the Monsonego family for the loss of their daughter Miriam, and I pray for the speedy recovery of Aharon ben Leah, who was injured in the attack.

    Thank you for your support and love.<<

    May we all be blessed with strength during difficult times, and may we never be faced with tragedies such as these again.  And please, do something, some good deed in the merit of this special family who was suddenly torn apart.

    Avivah

  • Ds4 is now out of preschool and at home

    It’s amazing to me how many things I want to write about and how many things I either don’t get to or get to after a long time!

    One of these things has been the process my four year old is going through in the last couple of months.  Beginning in February, he increasingly requested to stay home.  It was making mornings much less relaxed since he would be ready to go out the door, and would suddenly balk and refuse to leave. This made ds9 and dd11 feel pressured, since they walk him to school and didn’t want to be late for class.  Sometimes he’d get almost to school and suddenly something very small would happen, and he’d refuse to go to in and they’d have to bring him home.

    I asked him about why he didn’t want to go, but he wasn’t really able to articulate it.  Which is normal, since he’s only four!  I let him stay home once a week, then twice a week, wanting to see where his feeling about not wanting to go to school was coming from.   He was happy to stay home even if it meant taking a long nap instead of doing fun activities at preschool.

    So this continued through the month of February, with him staying home more and more often.  By the time we had our family trip to Tzfat at the end of February, he was staying home most of the week.  After that trip, ds4 went back to preschool just one more time a week later, for the Purim party at his school (which was held after school hours).

    I know you’d think it would be a no-brainer for me to let him stay home full-time, being the long time homeschooler that I am, but it wasn’t.  I kept thinking that it will be easier for him next year if he starts kindergarten understanding and speaking Hebrew well; that’s the main reason I put him in preschool and I had to work through my conflicting thoughts about this.  It’s also very different not putting your child into school, than actively pulling them out of a framework – I really had no desire to  insult anyone and having to start explain myself.  In this country, having a 2.5 year old at home with you is strange, and having a four year old with you is so outside of the norm that I think most people have never seen it.

    But I saw that ds4 really didn’t want to go to school, and saw no point in insisting a four year be somewhere that wasn’t serving his needs if I had a better option – so I decided to keep him home with me for the rest of the year.  (I waited a month before making this decision, to see if he just wanted to stay home occasionally or if the long term choice would be better.)  I called the school to stop payments, and one of the secretaries told me that I’m making a mistake, that next year is kindergarten and it’s so academic that he won’t be able to keep up if he’s not in preschool this year.  I politely told her that I have a child in the kindergarten this year and know exactly what the learning expectations are (actually, the kindergarten teacher is fantastic and all the learning is through games – she’s very against all the academic pressure that many kindergartens have), and I thought he would be okay.  (When I told dd15 about the secretary’s comment, she lifted an eyebrow and skeptically said, “He knows the English and Hebrew alphabets, his colors and numbers, and can do basic math – how is he not going to be ready for kindergarten?”)

    I wondered about the secretary’s comment because it really didn’t seem logical to me, and what I think is that many people don’t really stop to question what their children are learning in school, or what the value of it is.  When I told her ds4 would be staying home with me, it prompted an instinctive response from her that I must be wrong if I was doing something different than what she did.  It wasn’t an unpleasant conversation because she’s a nice person, but it’s never fun to be told by someone (particularly someone who doesn’t really know you) that you’re being an irresponsible parent.  She also said she didn’t know if they’d be able to stop our monthly payments, and would speak to the person in charge about it.

    A couple of days went by and I didn’t hear from them.  I really didn’t feel like pursuing this, but it had to be done so I called back and this time got a different secretary.  As soon as she heard my name – oh, my goodness, what a difference!  She started talking to me in such a friendly and warm way, but I was sure I didn’t know who she was.  I soon realized that the kindergarten teacher had told her just a short time before I called about her dilemma – she needed to leave half an hour early and after hours of calls the night before, she couldn’t find anyone to substitute for her – until I heard about it and volunteered to come in and help her out.  Who would have thought a tiny thing like that would be mentioned to anyone?

    This secretary right away understood the situation and and made a special effort to call the person in charge at home, who was out that day, to get the financial piece straightened out for me.  So dd4 is officially now off the school books and I have the money that would have otherwise gone to tuition to use towards supplies for him at home.

    So how is he doing at home?  He is so much happier and calmer.  Before we moved, I remember often thinking that he was so sweet it was hard to imagine ever getting upset with him.  He was just so full of love and cuddles all the time.  This is something that changed once he went to school, when we began seeing an upswing in resistance, defiance, and aggression.   Some of my older kids wanted me to clamp down on his behavior, but it has to be recognized that a child who feels very securely attached to you emotionally and one who is away for five hours a day are going to behave very different, and have to be responded to with the root issue in mind.  (I have to add here that the behaviors we were seeing are considered ‘typical’ issues for this age  – but what is typical is that most young children have too much separation and frustration in their lives, and it has to show up somewhere.)

    Fortunately, I’m home in the mornings – it’s not like I have to be out of the house and I can’t have him home with me.  And I since I have ds2 at home, it’s not like I’m used to having the morning to myself, though having ds4 home definitely changes the dynamic.  Dh and I both feel grateful that we have the luxury of being able to do have him at home now.  So once it was clear that going to preschool wasn’t a good option for him, the logistics of making this decision were pretty easy; I realize that many parents wouldn’t be able to do this even if they wanted to and have no judgments about that.

    What was the issue with school?  I wish I could elaborate on what I’ve seen in the preschools and why I feel they are a concern, but don’t want anyone who reads this locally to think I’m saying anything negative about his teachers, who are warm, caring, and dedicated.  One point I will share is that he was in a class of 33 other boys, and I don’t think he felt connected to those taking care of him – when you’re a teacher managing such a large group, your priority is on management, not attachment.  This is reality, not a criticism.  (And this can easily be an issue in a much smaller class.)

    So it’s not surprising that he’d rather be home with me, where even if I only read him a book for five minutes and ignored him the next few hours, he’d have more emotional connection and security than he did in preschool (we spend a lot of time interacting together in the morning so I’m not saying that I ignore him but that even if I did, he’s still be coming out ahead).  It’s not surprising that with so much time to connect with me daily, that his frustration and aggression level dropped dramatically (ds13 said, ‘Wow, he’s such a nice kid again now that he’s staying at home!”) and that the supposed discipline issues kind of evaporated.  And now he falls asleep for a very long nap voluntarily every day about an hour before he used to come home from school –  so he’s consistently well-rested now.

    What’s better for him about being at home? He feels loved and secure, and gets lots of time with me.  He doesn’t have to vie with a huge group of other kids for a minimal amount of attention.  He doesn’t get lost in the crowd as a result of being a well-behaved child (I saw this happen at the party we were on his final day – it was like he was invisible even when he was standing right where he was supposed to be, waiting to be noticed and responded to).

    There’s absolutely no question that he can learn lots more at home than in preschool, in a much more fun and relaxed way.  He has lots of time for free play, we read and cook and clean together…it’s really nice when it’s so easy to change a troublesome situation and meet your child’s needs.  And it’s really nice to have him home.

    Avivah

  • Seven month aliyah update: emotional transitioning

    Today marks seven months since we’ve moved to Israel!

    I’ve been thinking alot about making a big lifestyle transition like this – I don’t know if you can overstate what is involved.  Some people are so flexible and fluid that they won’t be as aware of the transitions they have to make on a daily basis, while others will be aware of every bit of effort.  I’ve seen this with a number of people, including our own family.

    Dh and I were recently discussing how each of our children has transitioned to living in Israel.  Two of our middle kids have been having the most difficulty, and I commented to him that we have to remember that seven months isn’t really that long a time.  I’ve heard people say that for adults it takes about three years of living here to really feel integrated, with constant and gradual adaptations that need to be made during that time.  I don’t think it takes children that long, but I do think that 1 – 2 years is very reasonable for children of this age.

    Had we moved to a city with lots of English speakers, I think in some ways the transition would have been easier for the kids – at least in the short term.  The older kids (13, 15, 17) are all glad we came specifically to a place without many Anglos, and told me that they definitely have been forced to learn Hebrew much faster and better than they would have in an Anglo enclave.  It was important to me that my kids learned Hebrew, and it’s well-known that in Anglo enclaves the kids are delayed in this area, and often don’t learn to speak Hebrew well.

    But for those who are having a hard time picking up the language, friendships aren’t happening for them, and this is something that isn’t an issue for them when they interact with English speakers.  Dd11’s tutor was at our bar mitzva seven weeks ago, and saw her interacting very comfortably and animatedly with English speaking guests – the tutor told me later that when she saw this, she realized that this was who dd11 really was, not the shadow of personality they see in school.  It totally changed her picture of her.

    I think we’re fortunate in that I’ve never placed a huge emphasis on friendships outside the family, and this experience of not having friends would be much more painful if they were used to their social orbit being filled by peers.  Our children still have each other, and this isn’t a small thing.  However, I think it’s difficult for them to spend hours in an environment every day in which they are basically social wallflowers.

    I think a lot about how to support them in this, and take a two pronged attitude towards this.  One is that I try to support their Hebrew language learning at home.  The other isn’t concrete, but I feel is much more significant – I work to shore up the relationship with them, the goal being that their inner needs for emotional connection and being known are being met.  I want them to have a full enough sense of themselves that they can withstand the daily beating that their self-esteem is taking.  It still won’t be fun for them, but at least it won’t be too damaging.  That’s my goal, anyway.   Dr. Gordon Neufeld explains that a parent can protect a child without even being physically present, by having established a strong and deep emotional attachment with them – because what you think of them informs their self-image more than what those around them think of them.

    A couple of quick points about what a transition to a new country entails.  The first thing that comes to mind is the language.  When you can’t express yourself, you can’t be seen for who you are, and it is very difficult to interact with others knowing that they really can’t see you for yourself.  Since one of the deepest desires of a human is to be truly known and valued, language struggles aren’t just a superficial issue.

    Since moving means leaving behind your family and friends, you’re leaving behind your emotional base at a time when you are most challenged to replace it.  It’s a lonely feeling.  This can be alleviated by moving to a place with more Anglos and a wider support system, but that doesn’t yet exist here.  We were very much on our own, and I think our expectation that we’d have to be our own support network was what saved us from the frustrations and compounded difficulties that others experienced who came here expecting more outside support.

    Another issue is that different cultures have different unspoken rules.  I’ve tried to teach my children to be polite and considerate, and the way these qualities are expressed here are different; I’m not sure that what in the US was constantly commented favorably upon serves them well now.  Ds13 told me he realized that when he spoke in a way to his peers that would have been understood as being nice in the US, boys didn’t respond well to it.  He has learned that here, being very direct is respected, and has changed his communication style with his peers as a result.

    This is a reality among all cultures – there are inherent differences even when there’s a common language.  I had a British neighbor (who later became a good friend) who early on in our relationship told me how frustrating it was to speak with me – what to an American was considered friendly and open seemed intrusive and nosy to her.  So I learned to tone down my ‘Americanness’ when I spoke with her.    And here we’ll all need time to learn the culture and figure out how to effectively be part of it without losing who we are.

    All in all, I think we’re in a good place.  Some of us are thriving, others are getting used to things more slowly.  No one says they are unhappy or wish we didn’t come.  However, time takes time, and I think it’s important to allow each of our family members their own time frame for adjustment.

    If you have experience or insights with living in a culture different from one you were raised in, I’d love it if you shared!  How long did it take you to really feel like part of your new culture?  Did you ever really make the transition?  Whether you did or didn’t, what do you think were the critical factors for your experience?

    Avivah

  • Developing an attitude of gratitude

    Today I was home with eight sick kids.  Yesterday there were seven, and the day before I started off with only four!  A couple hours into that morning I had to go pick up dd17 from school because she was sick, too, and the rules are that they couldn’t let her go home herself, so we had five sick kids home by noon. 🙂

    It’s actually been a nice period – I’m not glad everyone is sick, but it’s nice to have everyone home at once.  My living room is filled with kids lined up on blankets on the floor (their choice – they seem to be enjoying the chance to camp out together) and on all the couches – our homestyle infirmary!  But after a couple of people responded to me mentioning having eight sick kids home today, I was thinking about how easily it could be turned around to be something to grumble about.  It reminds me of a kids’ book we used to have – there was a dual storyline; on the top of the page was the positive interpretation, and on the bottom of the page was the negative interpretation of the same event.  And that’s really how life is, very open to our interpretation of things.

    Many years ago I started keeping a gratitude notebook.  I didn’t do this consistently – it’s been on and off since I was about 18 or 19.  Since moving here, I’ve gotten out the habit of writing a gratitude list every night before bed, just because I didn’t think to keep a notebook next to my bed when we moved (got to do that now that I’m consciously thinking about it!).

    But even so, I’ve still tried to make mental gratitude lists, and often will write things down when I have a scrap of paper in front of me.  Tonight I was writing some things in my planner at the end of today, since I had empty space in today’s date, and decided to share some of them with you.  Don’t think I have a perfect life and nothing to focus on but the positive – I have challenges just like everyone, but it  helps me keep my spirits up when I focus on the many blessings I experience every day.

    As you’ll see in my list below, I don’t write about the big things – being able to walk, talk, see, breathe – which are in and of themselves so huge and amazing that if we really thought about the significance of them, we’d never find anything to complain about.  I write about the smaller mundane things.  We all have lots of these, but sometimes we have to attune our eyes to seeing the blessings around us all the time.

    • no missiles fell in northern Israel today (they’ve been raining down in the south these last few days from terrorists) and we don’t have to live with the fear that we have thirty seconds to get to safety
    • kids are all sick but are sleeping a lot and with the exception of one, not complaining much
    • was able to salvage most of the carrots that were beginning to get soft due to heat
    • ate three healthy and nutritious meals today
    • dh took stroller down the stairs of our building for me when I went to the park with the littles so I wouldn’t have to carry it
    • took the littles to the park and enjoyed the wonderful feeling of sun shining on us
    • a neighbor smiled at me on my way into the building
    • my mother brought another kilogram of powdered vitamin C when she visited six weeks ago, and I got a few bottles of grape juice on sale last week – just in time to have on hand for this bout of sickness
    •  had plenty of toilet paper for the kids to blow their nose on (we’ve used about twenty plus rolls in the last few days)
    • my arms and legs were feeling very weak and achy this morning, and I was afraid I was coming down with what the kids have – but pushed myself to do a fifteen minute workout since I mentally committed to it last night – and when I finished, all the achiness was gone (the benefit of pumping my lymph system?)
    • got all the laundry washed – no dirty clothes left anywhere in the house!
    • washed all the dishes and enjoyed seeing an empty sink for a little while
    • the clothes dry quickly in warm weather like this
    • got call to remind me about parenting class (I had mentally mixed up the day it was held with another class) and thanks to this didn’t miss tonight’s class
    • parenting instructor voluntarily made a call for me to school advisor of one of kids’ after hearing difficulty I was having reaching him
    • instructor understood significance of idea I shared despite my concern that in Hebrew I couldn’t express the depth properly
    • after two weeks of work, dh’s employer told him he wants to give him a raise (he was told when hired that it would be four months before it would be considered)
    • had a refreshing afternoon nap
    • someone gifted us with four school sweatshirts at our front door (don’t know who but we appreciate it!)
    • got a ride home from the parenting class to right in front of my building
    • someone saved me some food from dinner and I didn’t have to prepare something to eat when I got home
    • dh went out to buy more toilet paper and diapers without me mentioning it and saved me the trip
    • diapers happened to be on sale just when we needed them
    • we’re centrally located and don’t need a car; a walk to the store is just five minutes
    • borrowed two English books that I’ll enjoy reading with the kids
    • littles were still up when I got back so I could tell them goodnight
    • once they went to sleep, enjoyed listening to a Torah lecture with dd15
    • took the clothes that had dried in before it started raining

    There are a lot more things I could write about, but you get the point!  I try to write or think of at least ten things a day, which isn’t hard once you get used to looking for them.  However, that can be intimidating in the beginning.  I heard the suggestion at a lecture to try to stop once a day and just think of two things to be grateful for, and this alone can help shift your perception dramatically.

    Focusing on noticing all that I have has been huge for me in helping me become a more positive person.  I’ve also increasingly come to believe that we draw more miracles and blessings into our life when we notice all that are already present.  So if you want more good things to come into your life, start noticing all that’s already there!

    Avivah

  • The Connected Baby – film

    I started watching the new film The Connected Baby this morning, and hoped to watch all of it to be able to share my thoughts on it with you.  But my ds2 and ds4 were making it hard to hear and after a half hour I decided to put off watching the rest of it until it was quiet.  (The program in its entirety is an hour and fifteen minutes.)  Then I had such a full day that there was no time to finish viewing the rest of it today.

    Since this is able to be viewed for free online only through March 1, I wanted to share the link here to give you a chance to see it for yourselves.  It wouldn’t help much if I told you about it after the deadline, would it?!  My dd15 watched the entire thing and found it interesting; she said it basically scientifically backs up what you know already about babies if you’ve been around enough of them.  And that is, that babies are connected and responding to those around them from the very beginning, not reflexively, but purposefully.

    If you’d like to review something a little more detailed about the film before watching, here’s a review by Peggy O’Mara.  Here’s the site where the The Connected Baby can be watched free through Mar. 1  – enjoy!

    Avivah

  • Our Tzfat vacation accommodations

    We initially thought to go to Tzfat last week, but dd15 had a school commitment that she didn’t want to back out of, so we pushed our trip off for a week.  This worked out to be a fortuitous arrangement, since that weekend was extremely cold and wet, and it would have literally put a real ‘damper’ on our trip!

    We rescheduled for this week, but not having been here long, didn’t think to consider the consequences of planning for something around the beginning of the Hebrew month of Adar.  All of a sudden, all the kids had parties and trips planned for exactly these few days!  I was a little dismayed, since I really was looking forward to a few days of togetherness with our family.  We had planned to leave on Thursday, but pushed this off until early afternoon on Friday, to accomodate the Thursday activities, and then resigned myself to the fact that some of us would have to leave early.  I miss the days of everyone being on the same schedule….

    After some research and deliberation, we realized it would be less expensive to rent a van for a couple of days than pay for bus fares for everyone on the way there (some of us later took the bus home).  In between the week we had been invited for originally and this weekend, dh had gotten a job and wouldn’t be able to be with us for more than Shabbos.  Dd11 had a two day trip to Mt. Hermon (the location for snow activities in Israel) Sun/Mon and dd17 had a three day school trip Mon/Tues/Wed.  Ds13 missed a lot of school when his best friend was here and didn’t want to miss anymore (though he decided in the end to stay on with me in Tzfat).   So those kids planned to travel back home with dh on Saturday night.

    It was nice being able to drive there, since we had sleeping bags and a box of food supplies that we wouldn’t have been able to take on the bus (I would have shopped at the local grocery if I couldn’t have done this).  It just made everything so much easier!  It took just 45 minutes to get from Karmiel to Tzfat.  When we got there, our hostess served everyone homemade pizza (I told her before coming that since I know what a hectic time this can be, I was coming prepared to take care of providing this meal for us), and this was a nice treat for the kids.

    After that, we unpacked our stuff.  First I have to share about our accommodations, which were the first big step to our wonderful visit, and something that continued to enhance every single day there.  The vacation until we had is in the first straw bale home ever built in Israel.   There was a large bedroom for the children with four beds and two additional mattresses that our hosts put in for us.  We brought sheets but they provided blankets and pillows, which was a huge help since those things would have been so bulky to bring along.  There was a smaller bedroom with two single beds.  Dh and I took the smaller room, and ds2 slept with me.  For Shabbos, a couple of the kids doubled up on one bed; after that, everyone had their own bed (except me, since ds2 was happy to keep me as his familiar bed partner while we were there).

    There was a small kitchenette and eating area, a bathroom, and a large covered outdoor porch, where the kids played with games and toys that we borrowed from our hosts, and where we also gathered to eat together on our last day when it was really warm outside.

    While we were unpacking, the littles quickly made themselves at home.  The property is at the end of a street, backing up to a mountain, and there was so much space and freedom for them to wander around the property.  The view is simply amazing – they are at the edge of a cliff and all buildings are below their home, so the view is unobstructed and you can see the mountains all around you.  (You can get a tiny peek of the view here – imagine that one mountain you see multiplied by them all around.)   I see beautiful views often in Israel, but this one was incredible.  Ds4 was walking with me on the lower level of the property, stopped and looked out at the view, and said, “It’s so boo-tiful here, Mommy!”

    They usually have dairy goats, which I would have loved for the kids to see and interact with, but they were temporarily away and wouldn’t be back until the following week.  I also had hopes of buying some raw goats’ milk while staying there, which obviously wasn’t possible!  There was a chicken running around the front yard, which ds5 began chasing (our hostess told him he’s welcome to chase her, that the reason she’s the only one of their chickens that wasn’t killed by stray dogs or mongooses is because she’s so fast); the chicken never seemed to mind and the littles who chased her during our days there had fun, too.  They enjoyed their dog, were fascinated by their parakeets and cockatiel, and when one of the littles saw the guinea pig, told me that ‘they have a rat’ in a cage.

    Mostly there was plenty of time and space for them to run around, and they enjoyed meeting the children of our hosts, who they spent hours playing outside with.  I knew that living in an apartment and constantly being aware of noise levels was a bit wearing on me, and while we were in Tzfat,  I really recognized how much tension this has caused me – because all of that was totally gone.  I appreciated this literally every time one of us moved a chair or dropped something, that I wasn’t feeling the need to monitor all of our daily life sounds.

    The boys played lots of ball, climbed the mountainous cliff behind the house, and ds5 brought me ‘sour stuff’ to eat’ – he learned to identify wild growing sorrel.  Yes, we did other things and I’ll share more about that in my next post, but they were pretty much outside all day long, and when it was time for bed, they were asleep within a few minutes.

    Avivah

  • Musings on attending and giving parenting classes

    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