Wednesdays with Ephraim

Wednesday morning

I get into the car.
My husband drives me to the train station.
I put my backpack through the X-ray machine, take the escalator downstairs.
There he is, smiling. “Savta!” he says.
His mom is there too, prepared for the trip.
I buy the tickets- one adult, one senior citizen (me???)
We get onto the train.
He sits on the seat and looks out the window.
“Tunnel!” he says.
We leave the tunnel and outside is interesting “trees! cars! bus!”
But after a while, it gets boring.
We take out the notebook computer.
He puts on the headphones and watches Dora.
He smiles.
Dora is over, he is ready to do something else.
“We’ll be there soon”
His mom gives him something to drink, a granola bar.
I give him my magnetic necklace.
Each occupies him for a minute or two.
“We’ll be there soon.”
Binyamina
It should be soon now.
Trees, cars, bus.
But it goes on and on.
Twenty minutes with a two year old who is bored is not easy.
Finally we arrive.
The taxi driver calls out our destination address. He took us there two weeks ago.
In the taxi the driver says, in English, “Wake up!”
Two weeks ago our two year old almost fell asleep in the taxi.
This week, he also looks like he will fall asleep.
He closes his eyes.
We say, “Wake up!”
His eyes stay closed, but a mischievous grin appears on his face.
This happens a few more times during our 7 minute trip up the mountain.
We arrive.
We walk up the stairs.
The waiting room has toys that by now are familiar.
He wants coffee.
They take him into the other room.
He doesn’t like when they look at his eyes.
They don’t touch him, but still he holds his hands across his eyes.
Each time they want to see his eyes, we distract him with something else.
The same item doesn’t work twice.
Finally, they are finished looking at him and we can go.
He still wants coffee.
His mother gives him a little tea with a lot of milk.
He is happy.
We walk to the taxi stand.
Soon we are at the train station.
In a few minutes, the train arrives.
The train is full.
But we find seats.
He is not pleased.
He screams and wails.
We take out the notebook computer once again.
This time he sits in his stroller and like any guy in a recliner, he settles back and watches another episode of Dora.

Near the end of the ride he becomes bored again.
We try to find something to entertain him.
Even my Chinese fan loses its attraction in a short time.
Finally we approach the station.
Next week, we get to do it all over again.