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A Party of 8 / Anniversary 43

July 3, 2009 by

If I had been smart, 43 years ago today, I would have prayed that my marriage would be happy. I would have prayed that it be fruitful and yield us a houseful of healthy, beautiful, bright children. I would have prayed that we would live to see them have children of their own.

I didn’t. I was so young and naive and trusting, I just believed that I was walking into a new and wonderful life. I never thought about the details.

And now here I sit with all of those prayers more than answered.

This past week we took six of the oldest grandchildren on a four day cruise on the Mediterranean to celebrate their having reached the age of bar/bat mitzvah (two of them well before the event). I roomed with the three girls and my husband was with the three boys. The children were wonderful. We had only happy times with all of them. They loved exploring the ship, watching the sunset, feeling the strong headwinds while on deck one night, and eating from the buffet. Most of all they enjoyed the land excursions to Marmaris (Turkey), Kos (Greece), and Limassol (Cyprus). They loved shopping and bargaining. They loved interacting with the people on shore.

What I loved was the time to get to know them when no one had to think about preparing meals or washing dishes or cleaning up afterwards. It was just pure pleasure to be with them.

The whole crew in Marmaris

The whole crew in Marmaris

Grandparents: Don’t miss an opportunity to do this for your grandchildren! (and I have a great tour to China that would be just perfect…)

Filed Under: China, Family life, Parenting, Ramblings Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Today at the hospital

June 5, 2009 by

I’ve been pretty lucky. I raised 5 children and never had to endure surgery on any of the children. My daughter is not so lucky. Her son, Ephraim, 5 months old, had his second surgery today. He is fine. He was back to himself in no time and he is a healthy little boy who has every chance at living a perfectly normal life. But today was hard.

Yesterday, I referred to the prep day at Hadassah Hospital for children about to have surgery. I thought that it was wonderful for the older children although Ephraim much preferred to think about drinking milk and manipulating his little teething rings.

Today we saw all of the same parents and children. Two by two, children were sent up to the operating suites accompanied by family members. When Ephraim’s turn came, his mom was able to enter the operating room with him and to stay with him until the anesthesia took effect.

Then we waited. The truth is that the surgery didn’t take very long. I think he was out of our sight for about a half an hour. But it was a difficult time. My daughter went to get some coffee, anticipating a much longer wait. While she was gone, the doctor came to call her to be with her child. I went with him and when I heard Ephraim crying I got tears in my eyes, grateful that he was awake and alert and hungry. I started feeding him the milk his mother had expressed and when his mother came in a minute or two later, he snuggled into her arms and continued to feed, feeling safe and secure.

The staff was amazingly kind and friendly. The doctor explained what he had done and assured us that everything was fine and he should have no problems in the future. The clown from yesterday returned to spend time with the children in the recovery room and although Ephraim was not old enough to appreciate him, my daughter and I appreciated his clever way of dealing with us and the others. He was funny and gentle and caring.

Once we left the recovery room we went back to the children’s area where we had been yesterday and where we started out in the morning. The nurse there, the other parents and children, the national service volunteer, all made the stay pleasant. When finally the anesthesiologist came to release the children, we left with our little Ephraim, relieved.

Filed Under: Family life, Parenting, Ramblings Tagged With: , , ,

Norms and deviations

May 24, 2009 by

Many years ago when I was studying for my doctorate, I took a course in psychological testing at the graduate school of education at the University of Pennsylvania. My professor, a singularly brilliant man, made this seemingly dry subject fascinating. He also helped us to understand tests and measurements in a new way. He gave us, for our final exam, a matching exam. On the left side of the page were 36 terms and on the right side of the page were 36 answers. We simply had to match the right one on the left side to the right one on the right side. As simple as that seems, my classmates and I puzzled over the answers for 2.5 to 3 hours. Not one person left the room before 2.5 hours were over– because for every term on the left, there were easily 2 and sometimes 3 or 4 answers on the right- and we had to find the correct one for each.

One of the terms on the left was “John’s IQ.” Strangely, that was the easiest one to answer. Because, of course, his IQ was 100. We knew that the mean score on an IQ test was 100. We knew that with a normal distribution, which IQ tests had, that within one standard deviation, 68% of the people tested would fit. We also knew that with the principle of regression to the mean, those who scored very high, would likely score lower the next time they were tested and those who scored very low, would likely score higher the next time they were tested. It was a good guess that John’s score would be 100.

I bring this up because although all of us are unique individuals, we also share a lot that makes us human. That means that none of us can fly without any apparatus on our own power. It means that all of us need to eat and to sleep. It is possible to posit certain norms.

So, when I have a family with a “problem child” who is noisy, rambunctious, demanding, and intrusive, I often will ask “How much sleep is this child getting?” Invariably, the response I get is, “He/she doesn’t require that much sleep.” The parents then go on to tell me that the child is up until midnight or later, but s/he is “wide awake” and “active” and “raring to go.” If the parents are willing to listen, the very first thing I tell them is this: “Your child does require a good night’s sleep and you need to help him/her get in the habit of getting it.” If the parents listen to me (and usually they do because they’ve invested their time, energy and money into the session) and begin to enforce reasonable sleep hours for their child, usually the second session begins like this:

“S/he’s a different child! I can’t believe it!”

And it’s true. People, all people, even your child, need adequate sleep or they become hyperactive, hypersensitive, irritable, and just plain annoying to be around. I used to tell my children, “I know it’s time for you to go to sleep because I am tired of your behavior.” I said it in a joking manner, but it was true. When children become unruly, often it is because they are tired.

Of course a side benefit of getting children into bed at a reasonable hour each evening is that the parents have a bit of time to themselves, something that is essential to keep the marriage healthy.

So, trust me, your child does require a full night’s sleep. I guarantee it!

Sleeping Abigail and friend

Sleeping Abigail and friend

Filed Under: Family life, Parenting Tagged With: , , ,

Mazal tov, Matan!

May 12, 2009 by

It’s hard to believe, but we are in the full swing of Bar/Bat Mitzvah season… I expect it to last for many years even as wedding season will begin to overlap.

By now there are 3 Bat Mitzvah girls and 2 Bar Mitzvah boys and today, the third put on his tfillin for the first time. All of us went out to celebrate together. OK, not ALL of us, but all of my children and some of the grandchildren.

It says so much about the future- not just the future of our family, but the future of the Jewish people, as I see these young people take their place as contributing members of the community with dedication. Their bright beautiful faces give me hope.

Read what my daughter Rachel said about this special day in her son’s life. here

Filed Under: Family life, Israel, Parenting, Ramblings Tagged With: , , , , ,

My father and my grandchildren

May 3, 2009 by

My father died too young.

He was a good man. He was kind and gentle and he loved his family. He loved nature and he loved beauty. He had a pleasant demeanor and everyone he met liked him. He had artistic gifts and was able to draw, paint, sculpt, build furniture, and take amazing photographs. Above all, he was my father.

He lived to see all 5 of his grandchildren. He got a tremendous amount of pleasure from spending time with them and learning of their achievements. I remember the day my oldest son went with him to a Radio Shack and he showed my father what he could make the TRS80 do. My father was completely stunned and amazed. Whenever we visited, he would tell me the same thing as I left: “Drive carefully; you have precious cargo.” He would tell me, “You are rich; you have 5 million dollars.”

As we all do, when happy times come, I think about my father and how I would have wanted him to be with us. Sometimes, though, I get a very clear picture of how it would be. For example, on Yom HaAtzmaut.

He would see and talk to each of my grandchildren. I can see his face beaming as one after the other was a delight for him to meet and get to know. I can see him laughing and joking with them. I can see him looking up in the trees at my little monkeys who have climbed them and shaking his finger and saying “Get down now, boys!” with a big smile on his face. I see him watching the little girls walking to and fro and enjoying the babies and then I see him talking to the children and telling them he wanted to take them up to Titora Hill to take some pictures of them, knowing all along that he would be pointing out the birds and the flowers along the way. I hear him calling them, “Come along, kinderlach!” and I see them happily skipping away after him.

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Ahhhh

April 8, 2009 by

A sigh of relief. It’s almost done. Can’t wait to see all of the happy smiling faces. It’s worth it. All of it.

Filed Under: Family life, Parenting, Ramblings, Spirituality Tagged With: ,

After the surgery

February 19, 2009 by

It is Thursday. Surgery was Tuesday and rather than summarizing the medical aspects, I will refer you to my daughter’s web site http://trilcat.blogspot.com/

I have a few observations:
1. My daughter is an amazing person. She provided a safe, loving environment for her little guy throughout this ordeal. She dealt with the entire process with equanimity. May no one I love ever be tested like this, but she passed with flying colors.
2. The doctor was enormously professional and inspired confidence. His manner was calm and he was clear and honest when he told us how the surgery had gone. I appreciate that.
3. The eye hospital at Tel Hashomer treated my daughter and grandson with caring and kindness. My daughter had a bed to sleep in each night.
4. Despite the fact that we have socialized medicine, we had very few hassles associated with the hospitalization. We walked out of the hospital without having to pay a sheqel.

Most important, Ephraim Yehoshua continues to be a blessing. He is a healthy, sweet, precious baby with a beautiful face and we couldn’t possibly love him more.

Filed Under: Israel, Parenting, Ramblings

Predictability

February 15, 2009 by

It’s interesting what we humans do. We are born into a world that has some degree of predictability– the sun will rise in the morning and set at night, but a very large degree of randomness. If we look at our lives, we realize that very little is in our control. We cannot control the other driver- who may be talking on his cell phone or just not paying attention. We cannot control the illnesses that we are subject to. Oh yes, researchers work on treatments and cures, but aside from taking precautions not to do things that are dangerous to our health (smoking, excessive use of alcohol, tanning, eating large quantities of artery-clogging foods), we have very little control.

But we long for control. We long for predictability. We try to find reasons why others have hardships and heartaches and disabilities in order to protect ourselves from the realization that all of us are vulnerable. But when we are being rational, we know that the terror victim happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We understand that cancer began to grow in someone as a random occurrence. We comprehend that we are vulnerable.

We teach our children that this is an ordered universe- that if they behave nicely, good things will happen to them. And, we hope, we pray, this is true. We want so much to create for them a world without pain. And then the randomness of the universe once again shows itself.

Where is G-d in all of this? I wish I had an answer. I know that I cannot understand. I am not sure that humans are meant to understand. I have read more than once of life on earth as a tapestry. Just as a magnificent tapestry may have areas that are dark or bent or frayed, but when seen in the full context, they only add to the beauty, so we may see our lives. It’s a beautiful metaphor, but it doesn’t answer the question. Why can’t all of the people I love be part of the bright and beautiful part of the tapestry?

I think the answer to the lack of control is to take control of the part that we can. We CAN be kind to each other. We CAN help each other. We CAN value each other. We CAN provide the listening ear, the gentle touch, the warm embrace. We may not be able to control the world, but we can control how we act in it. And we have the ability to make it a better place.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Parenting, Ramblings, Relationships, Spirituality

Safety nets

December 15, 2008 by

If you’ve ever been to the circus, you know that you, the audience member, feel much better if the trapeze artists and the tightrope walkers have safety nets beneath them. For although some of the lure of the circus is the danger element, none of us really want to watch someone get hurt or worse.

In fact, many years ago I took my children to an air show in Mainz, Germany. We watched all sorts of aeronautic maneuvers. It was fun– until we looked over to the right, out of the performance area and saw a plane spiraling downward and then fire and smoke. The pilot was killed. A couple of weeks later, I took those same, traumatized children to a rodeo. It was all going fine until a bull stomped on the stomach of one of the riders. He waved as they carried him out. “He’s going to be fine,” I reassured my children. He wasn’t. He died.

So for me, safety nets are a very important part of a performance that has any danger.

Like life

…an inherently dangerous performance.

I thought about my early life and how I didn’t live in a very emotionally safe environment and how in my own childish way, I constructed a safety net for myself. It consisted of my grandmothers, one or two aunts, a random teacher or two… OK, it wasn’t very strong, but it was enough to sustain me.

I think about how now my children and grandchildren have wide safety nets- strong ones because of all of the positive family connections– of people who may be too busy to talk to on a daily basis, but people who can absolutely be relied upon in times of need. I remember how the family pulled together to assist me in bringing my father-in-law to live in Israel. Everyone played a part in making that transition possible. I remember when my children were going through difficult times, they really were there emotionally and physically for each other. I think of my grandchildren who are embraced on all sides by siblings and by cousins from both sides of their families, and I realize that they must feel safe and secure.

And maybe that is what is really tough about life in some places where people move far away from family… Unless they are able to form close attachments in their community, they are walking this tightrope of life without a safety net.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Parenting

On obligations

November 4, 2008 by

My husband and I have had the same discussion for the last two weeks as we got within a block or two of our house on shabbat morning as we were returning from services. It started as we were talking about a problem that we have here in Modi’in.

It is not unusual to hear teens in the parks, on the streets, talking loudly at 12, 1, 2, 3, and even 4 a.m. These same teens have burnt a wooden bridge in one of the parks several times, destroyed park benches, broken beer bottles, and torn up play equipment. The answer many if not most people have to the problem is more teen clubs, more sports halls open because the poor little children are bored and have nothing to do other than wreak havoc on our city leaving wailing babies they have woken in their wake.

To me it seems clear that the problem is not boredom (I don’t yell, scream, and destroy public property when I am bored). Neither is it the lack of places to congregate (as kids when we wanted to be with our friends, we usually would go to the house of one of the group where we coincidentally had chaperones, their parents). The problem, it seems to me, is that their parents have abdicated their responsibilities. Where do the parents think their children are night after night? These are children between the ages of 14 and 18. They have school in the morning. They need sleep so that they won’t be irritable and so that they are able to concentrate and learn.

Parents counter “everybody’s doing it.” Wrong answer. For a lot of reasons, we had to raise our children as different from the norm. And we did. We felt it was our job to give the children our values. We thought it was our job to keep our children safe. What we didn’t think was that other parents or kids on the neighborhood should have veto power over the decisions that we made to educate and protect our children.

We think that our commitment to standing for what we think is important came from the obligation we feel toward generations past and their values, wishes, and dreams for us. After all, we are standing on the shoulders of giants– people who lived difficult lives and sacrificed for their children’s well being, for their education… and we both have felt the obligation to raise our children and to live our lives in the way that would please those who came before us.

So we take responsibility for ourselves and our actions and for trying to educate and protect our children and grandchildren– and we hope that others will do the same.

Filed Under: Family life, Parenting
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