On Homes and Yons

Ten days into February. It has been a weird one.
I started writing this post in my head a couple of days ago, then yesterday I sat down to put my words on paper (so to speak), and here I am now, and I have 3 different posts. One was happy, one was reflective, one was just plain sad. Like I said, a weird one.

We have a Facebook friend, she isn't really a real-life friend, who's daughter was born with a genetic syndrom that required her to undergo 8 surgeries so far, and caused her some cognitive and developmental problems. We learned about that when she wrote all that on Facebook as a part of a "birthday card" for her daughter's third birthday. Today she commented on an article about another family with a child who suffers from the same thing, and posted it again on Facebook. It completely changed what I wanted to write about. I used to think about stories like that that they are sad, unfortunate, unlucky, terrible or whatever, and then move on with my life. I can't do that anymore. Now when I read a story like that it totally shutters my defences, my wall of repression and denial that I try so hard to build and cultivate. Yon's situation is very far from that, and by no mean is he considered a special needs child, but he will forever be "special" and not in the good way. We've been taking Yon to doctors, specialists and hospitals every 6-8 weeks since the day he turned six months old, but we've been watching him and worrying about him almost from the day he was born. We've been to doctors in Gib, Spain, Israel, London. We've had him struggle through painful tests, unfriendly doctors, hours in waiting rooms, and so many strangers that want answers he can't give. We went through the shock of discovering our six months old baby has a squint, will need glasses forever, might lose his eyesight in one eye, and might need an operation that nobody can guaranty will help. We've struggled with the guilt that it took until he was 10 months old to get him the glasses. On top of that we now have to deal with discovering that he also has a genetic condition that will leave him partially blind forever. How partially? Nobody knows. Right now he has 70% sight. There is nothing we can do to help. Nothing. Except continue to take him every 6-12 weeks to the doctors, for... Forever.
So we build a wall of denial and repression. Otherwise we keep watching him. Otherwise we keep feeling sorry for him. Otherwise we can't cope when well meaning people asks us how is he. Otherwise we keep blaming ourselves for our bad genes, for not discovering it sooner, for the 4 months it took the doctors to decide he needs the glasses, for everything. This wall is shaky at the best of times, and is very hard to build again after every visit to yet another doctor, or after yet another set of bad news, or after every time we discover how bad his eyesight really is. We have one month and four days before his next appointment, with yet another new specialists, who will probably want another set of tests... I should be in the middle of my denial period. This is usually the stage where my wall is the strongest. But I find that every doctor visit, every month that pass, every piece of bad news, they all chip away at my wall. My wall is cracking. Having a "special" child, and in this regard I don't think it matters why or how he is different, and I know we got off easy, but still, it weighs on you. It is not something you can be optimistic about. Positive about. To be able to deal with it all I need my wall.

My Yon

We've had a few things this week that raised the "home" issue. Not home as in the apartment we live in and being able to make rent. Home in the big sense, as in the feeling of.
Ron's class is learning about different countries in the world, and each child is preparing a presentation on the country he/ his parents/ grandparents came from. Ron is presenting Israel, and in it Haifa, the city we come from and that he was born in.
The kids were in a nostalgic mood and wanted to see baby pictures of themselves, and since we have about a million, it was a very long a trip down memory-lane.
My brother gave us an Israel as Home lecture on Saturday.
I went to Golders Green on Friday to buy some Israeli food and Purim things (Purim, for non-Jewish and a simple explanation, is our Halloween).
When all these things happen together I usually sit down, put on my "Orli When Needed" playlist on iTunes, look at the rain pouring down outside, dig into a big bag of Oreos (can't help it, I have a craving these days...), and think about homes.
The truth is, and sappy as it may sound, Hidai is my home. From the day Hidai and I met we've practically moved in together. Our family is our home. We are not nostalgic people, we don't miss the way things were, the way we were, the places we've been in. Live to the full, No regrets, and Always look ahead. What can I say, when we do look back it is always with a sense of "how the hell did we survive that?!" or "what were we thinking?!" I guess it has something to do with our tendency to do everything in the same time and early on in life. It had led to the fact that we have been through a lot. It had also probably led, at least partially, to us not missing any one point in life. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved looking at the baby pictures, Ron was so cute when he was a baby, especially in the pictures. But I didn't miss it, given the choice I wouldn't want to go back (probably part of the reason there will be no third child here). I wouldn't go back to anywhere and anyplace. There are three things I miss when we leave places: the food, the people and the feeling of belonging somewhere, of knowing. As to that feeling, going back to visits made it clear to us that we don't have that feeling in Israel anymore. We don't feel we belong there anymore, we don't remember how to live in Israel, we don't understand it. As time passes we move far away from the way we lived in Gib, and we don't belong there as well. As for the people, we try and take them with us wherever we go, keep the people we love as a part of our lives. Sometimes it does not survive the distance, the time difference and the gaps in the way we live. As for the food, that is probably where we feel "home" the strongest. Whenever my parents bring us our list of necessities :) or whenever I take a trip to Golders Green, and the house is filled with things we used to eat way back, or things that I can't get used to how they taste here, or things that flood us with memories, that is when we feel a little like we belong somewhere. Where? I don't have an answer for that. We probably don't really belong anywhere. We don't have too many or too strong roots anywhere. Is it sad? Is it hard living like that? I have no answer for that either. It is and it isn't, depends on the day you ask... One thing is for sure though, writing this made me understand why every time Yon wants me to pick an animal myself (instead of the Hippo he usually assigns me), I pick a turtle. My home is on my back, or maybe wherever I lay my hat (and also, as Hidai assured me more than once, I walk very slowly).

As it happen we are also starting now the second half of our first year in London (yes, that is the long way of saying we've been here for 6 months), and as this week reminded us - it's starting to feel a little different all of a sudden. It's starting to feel a bit... Easier. I can't believe it's been six months already, and at the same time I can't believe it's been just six months...
We had a chance to visit Ron's class this week to observe a math lesson, and frankly I was amazed. We've never been inside the classroom, let alone saw a lesson, and it really felt like such a privilege to be able to be part of it, see Ron in action, understand what he talks about when he explains about his day. The classroom was great, so full of light and happiness and love. And the lesson itself. I seriously have to say I worship Ron's teacher. He is beyond amazing, he does such good work with the kids. The lesson we saw could be labeled as math-under-pressure. They have to explain how they are going to answer a series of different questions, to the class, and then answer them in under 4 minutes (and they have a timer. In the class). And still, he kept all the kids interested, engaged, wanting to answer. he never loses his cool, his patience or his smile.

I don't think I can have Ron's class on the blog, so this is Ron working on his Israel presentation

We have 2 weeks of back to regular exercising, which means two things - no one is sick (now that I wrote that someone, probably me, will for sure get sick), and we can eat as much chocolate as we want without feeling guilty (the guilty part is the difference here really).
Hidai got an email from LinkedIn saying he has one of the top 1% most viewed profiles for 2012. Which was very cool :). 
I got my first real blog-related inquiry from someone I don't know, who had a real question, which led to the new Kids and Moving page in the blog. It was very exciting, and made me feel like my blog is growing up :).
This weekend we had visitors, we had my brother & his wife over for coffee and cookies, and Ron had his best friend from his class over after 4 weeks of trying to set up the visit. They were both so excited about it that they haven't stop fighting the whole time...
We had pizza (because Ron was star of the day. I know, we are such good parents. We'll do everything for those kids), and ice-cream , and so much Israeli goods from Golders Green...

My Golders Green bags. This is the photo I sent hidai so he would want to come home :)

Hidai has a hobby. I know it might seem strange, but the last time Hidai had a hobby was somewhere around 2002 I think. He has a Facebook group for football talking, betting, smirking and basically being an idiot with other men. He loves it because it's fun for him. I love it because I don't have to pretend to like football anymore.
Oh, and Arsenal won this week.
We taught Yon to play Uno (all Israeli readers - Taki is called Uno everywhere else). He really likes it, and actually almost doesn't cheat (which is what happens usually in other games...). The success led him to try and do more on the WII, and the computer (he does it all in nursery, but never before at home).

Playing Uno

I had a chance to restart some projects that were waiting patiently for me for the last year or two to have time, patience, and energy. I am very excited about it, and am hoping to still have all three after half-term break next week...
We found money. Doesn't that sound so nice? Yes, we were walking around and found some money. Oh, if only it was true. So no, that is not what happened but we were supposed to get some money in Israel, and not only did we get it on time and without the mandatory 15 phone calls, we actually got a bit more. Always fun :).

Like I said, a weird one.
I just can't seem to make up my mind if it was a good weird or a bad weird...

Being weird (Yon's idea obviously)