Archives for September 2008

Doings

We are still working on clarifying exactly what renovations we want to do, but we are very close to complete agreement. Then only item that is still unclear is one we only decided on adding within the last week. I am hoping that this week we will have a final plan and then can begin the process.

We had the pleasure of hosting a cousin of mine and her husband and daughter for shabbat. They are really wonderful people and we enjoy their visits a great deal. We were happy that as usual, our younger daughter and her husband and their daughter Kinneret were at services with us on Friday evening and very pleasantly surprised when our granddaughters Hadas, Lilach, Abigail, & Nomi came in followed by their mom and baby brother Yirmi (their brother Matan went to sit next to his Saba). How beautiful to see all of those gorgeous happy faces!

Last night we brought Sweet Pea and her parents home from the hospital.

We are on alert for the next birth… baby is due in 2 more days and mom is usually on time (this is her 6th!!!!!!)

And for the most distinctive aspect of this day– Today is the 9th birthday of the lovely Miss Dina Michelson!!

Notes

Note to OB/GYN staff: If the woman is doubled over in pain by contractions that have been coming every 2.5 minutes for the last 6 hours, she *is* in labor and deserves a place to lie down.

Note to charge person at labor and delivery: If a patient’s advocate tells you that there is no staff person– no doctor, nurse, midwife, or janitor– in the triage area for the last 20 minutes and then tells you they’ve checked by opening the doors of all of the rooms (all 4 of them) and finding no one, please try not to say “There is a midwife there.”

Note to big hospital complex: A place that sells foodstuffs other than soda, coffee and over-sugared pastries (perhaps even a vending machine!) should be open 24 hours.

Note to Hadassah ladies: We love your medical center. It is big and beautiful. It has lots of nice buildings, lots of intelligent, innovative and very kind people working there. Please send us some more anesthesiologists so that a woman in labor can get an epidural in less than 5 hours from when she is promised.

Note to G-d: Thank you for letting me witness a miracle today.

First day of school

About 27 years ago I took my youngest child to nursery school. She was the fifth child in the family and as with the others, I felt happy.

The parents were asked to stay for the introductory session and after the teachers greeted the children and the parents, they gave out little paper cups with juice. As I watched my little girl take the paper cup in her two tiny hands and lift it to her mouth, tears filled my eyes. All I could think of was her vulnerability. She accepted and trusted that what the world was going to give her was healthy and good. She was so vulnerable, so trusting, so fragile and I was to some extent removing myself from the sole job of protecting her. Now I was relying on teachers to do it. But how could they ever care about her the way that I did?

Today I took Abigail to nursery school. It was not her first day; she was in school last year too, but it was her first day this year. She is three years old and looks very much like her mother (my second child). She resembles her in personality as well. She is very verbal, very clever, and she thinks about things you tell her. Today I watched her string beads with a deep concentration, choosing each bead carefully. I watched her play doctor as she typed on the computer keyboard and took a telephone call and checked all of the meds in the medicine cabinet. I watched her in the playground as holding my hand, she balanced herself walking across the tops of tires placed in the sand. As I looked at her serious face, I remembered my education professor reminding us all semester “children’s play is their work.”

I watched Abigail taking her first steps on those tires, spending her first day at school, and I felt incredibly sad.