Family visits - oh no they're here again...

"What time is it?", "When did they say the will get here?", "What's their flight number again? What do you mean they didn't give us the flight number? Why are they so irresponsible?", "Did they call already to let us know they landed?". You would think we were talking about teenagers on their first flight alone somewhere, but you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. We were talking about my parents, who visit every 3-4 months, and have made the trip from Israel to London many many times. More than we have. But they still don't give us their flight number.

Visits. If you've never lived far from your family, you would think I'm crazy, probably that I'm exaggerating, and more than that you will look around you and say - OMG. Thank God I don't have to go through that. And if you have lived far from your family and had to endure them -The Visits, tell me that you haven't uttered those same questions...

They travel light

Pre-visit.
A Visit starts about two months before the actual arrival time. It starts innocently enough with a "You didn't send us the shopping list for this time" I know. It's because it's still two months to go. In this moment in time I really prefer to not acknowledge that you are actually coming. Also, I still haven't manage to finish everything you brought last time. I promise I will "get right on it" and they ignore me and start buying things like crazy. We then move to what will be our main topic of conversation every call - "what do you think the weather will be like? What do you think I should pack?" To which there is only one correct answer - freezing cold. When you live in Israel, the weather in London is always considered winter. 20 degrees Celsius? winter. 18 is getting them to coat level, and below that it's snow-gear. "But what are YOU wearing?" I am wearing a short-sleeved everything because we are in the middle of a heat wave. How would I know what I will be wearing in two months time? "So do you think I need a coat? which one?".
As the weeks inch closer to the arrival date we add the entertainment issue to the mix "What do you have planned for us?" Ahem... Nothing. I learnt my lesson way back in 2008 when I really really tried to plan a family vacation in London. It was a disaster that almost cost us the relationship with my parents. Since then I limit my planning to one event per visit. "do you think Hidai will take days off?" Sure. Because we didn't just finish six weeks of summer holiday, where he took his time off, and his project is going live this month (tfu, tfu, tfu). Of course he can take more time off to spend with his in-laws. In fact, he is looking forward to it. "Will you come shopping with us? We didn't see you enough last time we were there" Sure I will. And so will Yon, whose school year starts on the 16th. And we all know how fun taking a four years old shopping is. No? oops. My bad. So we'll go after the school year starts. All the shopping you can do between nine to twelve pm.
From entertainment we move to communication and transportation - "do you think we have enough credit on the british sim-card to call you when we land?" no. Because last time we checked you only had 8 pounds, so obviously that is not enough to text me from Heathrow with. "can you top us up a little? So we'll have money to call. Just put a fifty there" (I will leave to your imagination my answer to that). "And do you think we have enough money on the Oyster to get to you?" Yes, because you have auto top-up on your Oysters. You can go to the moon and back with them. "And will Hidai come get us from the tube station?" no. because he hates you. It's like every time is the first time.
But I do have to hand it to them, they stopped asking if I can read Hebrew on my British iPhone, because, you know, you didn't buy it in Israel.
And then we add the last topic - the food. "What are you making for us this time?" "You never bake for us" "You still owe me bread pudding / cheese cake / lemon meringue pie". Cheese cake will be bad for your stomach, you don't even like lemon meringue pie and I know I promised bread pudding, but I don't bake when you are here because I spend my time with you... But a few days before they land I give in and bake around four different types of sweets, and then it's "but we are on a diet" "you know we can't eat this kind of food" "why didn't you make me....."

First day at school

The visit.
The visit itself has a rhythm we perfected throughout the years. And it goes like this...
My parents can't start the visit until they unpack. The two suitcases full of food and other necessities they brought from Israel. Kitchen usually looks like a bomb went off in it when they take out more and more things. They are like some sort of supermarket/pharmacy Mary Poppins, and I keep waiting for the time they will have a coat rack in their suitcase. When you think there can't possibly be anything more there, they move to their room and start unpacking the bottomless suitcases, and move to the "we've bought a few bottles of pills with us". So if any one is in need of any kind of medicine known to man, contact me. I'll give you a good price.

Unpacking

No need to buy food for the next year or so. Or at least until the next visit.

From there we move to the electronics hub formerly known as our hall. It was once a nicely organised place for keys and post. Now we can land a spaceship from it, and whatever you do - don't press the red button.
I have to admit, I like my house organised. Very organised. I have married a guy with some OCD tendencies of his own, and raised two very order-minded kids. Seeing my house in this state is killing me, so we gave them our room and we keep the door closed at all times. Out of sight - Out of mind kind of thing.
Having your parents in your house for more than a few hours has an interesting affect - it makes you lose some twenty odd years, and you go back to being 16 again, with your parents "giving advice", "asking inquisitive questions and showing interest in your life", "dispensing helpful hints" and "not at all criticise your life choices, your clothes and the way you raise your kids and run your home".
As entertainment goes my parents are really easy going. As long as you spend every waking minute doing exactly what they want and stop for about ten snack-times. Every visit has to include - three visits to Primark, one to SportsDirect, a purchase of one electronic device, four visits to the 99p shop, a visit to Sainsbury's, and two fights.
We try to spice things up, and sometimes have two fights and one argument.
I'm kidding.
We might have two arguments and one fight.

First visit to Primark - done.

But seriously, my parents are very easy going people, they will be happy to criticise the movies I've prepared, the TV shows I like, and the way I spend my evenings before opening their iPads and going on a Candy-Crush marathon while comparing how much we pay for every thing (how am I supposed to know exactly how much my toothpaste costs?).
And last but not least, how can we forget the "end of visit countdown", where everything is measured in "how many times we'll do it again before we leave". Only 12 more walks to school. Only 2 more visits to Primark. This time next week I'll be at work...
Sure you can understand that, but it starts the moment they land at Heathrow.

Post-visit.
The house is suddenly so quiet when they go. It's too empty. Too quiet. We never say goodbye without the next visit already decided, and it never gets easier to see them go. Not to us and not to them.
Having said that, five minutes after they are gone the room is scrubbed clean, everything is back to being tidy, and we have one month before it all starts again...

That was taken before this post...

*This post was sponsored by my parents, who I love to bits and paid me with half a supermarket. Any reader in Israel who encountered a shortage in food supply - I am sorry!

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Less Alone

Loneliness. It is a feeling we all have I guess, at one moment or another, and one of the hardest things to deal with, even today in the modern world, where everything looks so open and close and connected. Loneliness can still hit you anywhere, anytime and without warning. You can stand in a room full of people and feel totally alone. You can finish a visit to the doctors and feel all alone in the world. You can sit at the dinner table on a Friday evening, and feel lonely. Life is filled with lonely moments. Moments where you feel there is no one out there who cares, who understands, who've been through what you are going through. Life is full of moments where the dark hole of loneliness is all you can see, closing in on you.
Loneliness can be connected to so many areas of life. When you have financial problems, when you have health problems, when you have a Special child, when you move a town or a country. There are others, of course, but these are my lonely areas, things we've been through these last few years that made us stare loneliness in the face.

When we just left Israel and moved to Gibraltar I had so many of those moments, I remember the first time it hit me, that feeling of being utterly alone and lost. I was in Morrisons for my first big shop, the one that is intended to fill a new house, and I needed to choose toilet paper of all things. I just didn't know what to do. It seems so idiotic, like such a small thing, but I remember standing there for a good few minutes thinking - I've made a terrible mistake. I should never have left Israel. The moment passed, and I found a very good toilet paper to buy, but that feeling of being alone in the world never really completely went away. I used to have it every Friday evening, which, when we lived in Israel, was when we used to go to my parents for dinner (Friday dinner is a big thing for Jewish people). I used to have it every holiday we spent just us. I used to have it every year in September, when Autumn hits, Jewish New Year comes, and the kids go to school. Every year that came and went made those lonely moments fade a little more. You build your new - new friends, new traditions for Fridays, for holidays, for September. You toughen up and close your heart, just a little more, to not let the loneliness in.
And still there are the moments that sneak up on you, like when I read about the amount of time grandparents spend with their grandchildren, or not knowing a children song that everyone knows, or having a birthday with no family around, or when there is a bad doctors appointment, or when your baby can't breathe in the middle of the night and needs to be rushed to the A&E (to my parents, who are reading this and becoming anxious, it happened 3 years ago. It's an example. The kids are fine). Life is full of those tiny moments, and being an expat you feel them mixed together with a dash of guilt, because it was your choice. You could have stayed, but no. You decided to move, and now you can't really complain about it, because this feeling you have right now? That black hole of loneliness that is filling you? It's your fault. You are to blame for sitting alone at the holiday table, you are to blame for having no friends, you are to blame for the fact that nobody is talking to you at the school gate, you are to blame that you are standing in the toilet paper aisle crying over rolls of toilet paper.

The Morrisons. I don't have a photo of the toilet paper aisle.

Guilt, is also a very big thing with Jewish people. Even more than Friday dinners.
These moments of loneliness, for some, grow more and more. The need to be connected, to be a part of some group, the desire to have a "we" to belong to. That, together with the gap that is inevitable between the children's culture and the parents' one, is what drive most people to go "back home", or to form closed ethnic groups in the real and virtual worlds. Because sometimes the loneliness is just too much to bear.
For me it's a different story. I welcomed the loneliness, I still do most of the time. People, obligations and groups make me feel like I am suffocating, and being an expat makes all of that go away, and for me it makes me feel I can breathe. I love the long hours alone in the house, and the freedom that comes with the loneliness. I never wanted to be part of any "we" in particular, I don't enjoy groups (or most people), and I hate obligations of any kind. So we were never a part of any Israeli group, or Jewish group, or expat group. We were, are, mostly just us. And the eclectic "we" we build for ourselves. People that became our family. We had that when we lived in Gibraltar, and now when we moved  to London we have to build it all again. Building is a slow process. I mean, first of all you have to meet new people. Where do you meet new people when you are a thirty something stay-at-home mum? Then you have to like those people. And they have to like you. And then you have to start the long process of "befriending", which is a bit like dating - did they like us? why haven't they called? do you think we should have them over at ours? how many chances do we give them? We are married. We shouldn't have to date anyone. Or go to the gym. But that's for a different post.
After four years of living like this, the truth is we are used to it. Most of the time I don't really think about it. I have my blog, we have a tiny "we" here, and everyday life is usually so hectic around here that it trumps everything. But then I read an article about this Facebook group for Israeli mothers living in London (which, believe it or not, I am a part of. Not a participating part, but I am registered) and they talked about that loneliness, some of our "we" declared they are on their way out of London, the summer holiday is here and we found ourselves completely alone while everyone else were talking about grandparents and friends and shared holidays and the likes, I was feeling alone in the world because my blog wasn't going anywhere and Twitter hated me (read all about it in the last million posts), I felt lost with how to help Yon get ready for Reception, and how to help Ron use his giftedness, and a branch of Hidai's family were about to come over for a week in London.
We don't have a big family, both Hidai and I, but where my brother lives in London and my parents visit about 4 times a year, we don't get to see Hidai's side at all (unless we are in Israel, which does not happen often). We haven't seen this branch in about four years, when we made plans to meet them for breakfast on Saturday. This long period of time that has passed, combined with my trepidation of obligations, and our anxiety about how the kids will behave (they were too young to remember the last time we met Hidai's family, and they are too used to consider just us and my parents as their immediate family) and how Hidai's family will react to Yon (who, beside his glasses and hat, usually saves his worse behaviour for just these instances), all made us a bit nervous when Saturday morning came and we went to meet them at Borough Market.

As it happened, it was perfectly lovely. It's funny how you don't really think about time passing in connection to other people, and especially other people's children - you have a certain image you carry around, even if it's been four years. Even if you see current photos on Facebook. You still half except them to be 12. And they are not. They grew up to be very admirable young adults. We've had breakfast in a Spanish place that so reminded me of being in Gib - the waiters spoke little broken English, I ate a toast & tomato, that was less good than I am used to but still made me smile. And miss Gibraltar. The conversation was easy, they had a great connection with Ron (they were willing to talk football. He doesn't need more than that), and weren't judgmental about Yon (who played on the iPhone for most of the time).

Spanish toast

Then we toured the market, a place we've never been to and turned out to be a very nice food market for grownups but very not Yon suitable. He doesn't like places he doesn't know, crowded places, and dimly lit places. This market was all of those things. Hidai had to carry him part of the way and he was fine then, but he is becoming too heavy to carry long distances.

I got Baklava. it only cost me 3 pound each.

Next to the market there is a pirate ship apparently. A very big one.

Ship & boys

And then we went to see their hotel, let the kids run around a bit, and eat some chocolate.
All in all it was a lovely morning. A morning that made us feel, for one tiny moment, less alone.

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I love my baby, but...

"Stop whining. I can't understand you when you're whining". Is what I tell my children, almost every single day. And it's what I say to the computer screen almost every single day. No. Not because I'm crazy (okay maybe a little, I do talk to my computer after all. But the way I see it, the real question is - does he answer? and as long as the answer is no, I'm in the clear), but because I am reading yet another post in yet another of what seems like hundreds of thousands of blogs that grind my nerves. I have the same problem with books, even if it's a lousy one, I can't chuck it in the middle. If I start it, I have to see it through. So I keep on reading, getting irritated more and more, until finally I can put it aside and go on with my life. Only lately it seems that all those blogs aren't letting me go on with my life. They stay with me, and continue annoying me even after I close the computer lid. And I've had a lousy week. So I decided that I rather take it out on the blogosphere and not my kids, or my usual choice - chocolate. Well, I did decide that AFTER eating the Ben & Jerry's so maybe that one isn't entirely true.
I have an axe to grind with my generation. All those late 20s, 30something, early 40s people who, let's face it, behave worse than their kids. We, as a whole, belong to the Shortcuts & Excuses Generation. Busy running from any and all responsibilities like a scared rabbit, busy looking for someone else to blame for our mistakes, for the way our lives turned out, for everything we can, busy imagining how it could've, should've, would've been better in a different city / job / relationship, busy trying to find the shortcuts for how to be rich / thin / famous in 90 days and without working hard, busy telling ourselves that it's fine, life will wait, time will stop, and how 40 is the new 20 or something like that. Well, it is not. And I've had enough.
I know not everyone in my generation is like that, but the very sad truth is a lot of people are, and plenty of them have blogs in which they think it's okay to let loose. Which is absolutely true. Right up to the point where they start blaming their kids. It drives me mad, because, seriously - how dare you pick on someone half your size? What you are doing has a name, you know, and not a really nice one at that. I've come to recognise them at first sight, those posts. They are usually written in blogs that have a huge photo of a baby at the top, and right below they have an about me that says how they are "struggling", "used to be this or that", "scruffy" or "bored to tears". The posts will have sentences like "I love my baby, but", "I sometimes wish I never had my baby", "I don't like my kids", and of course "I sacrificed so much of my life for my baby", they have catchy names like "20 things to do before getting pregnant" or "what you'll miss after having kids","what to do with a toddler while hang-over" or "why your life is ruined". They all advise you to buy very large yoga-pants, never shower, and get used to having no life, no brain and no friends. After all you've had a baby. And they sign it with an all knowing "I've been a mum for 14 weeks. I cracked the whole thing". Which is like saying, yes I went to nursery, I don't need to go to university. I know everything there is to know.
This things annoy the hell out of me. I read it and all I hear is a child having a tantrum. I sometimes wish I could send all those posts to a time-out.
I read these posts and I want to pull my hair out. Because of the mother who got shit-faced drunk with a toddler in the house and thought it's really funny and not irresponsible, because of the father who hates spending time with his 4 kids and keeps having more of them, because of the mother who announced to the world that she hide in the bathroom while alone in the house with her toddler and he doesn't know where she is, because of the mother who said life is over when you have a baby, because of the mother who stayed 8 years as a stay-at-home-mum and hated every moment and her kids for it, and announced that every stay-at-home-mum lives on prozac and wine, because of every mother who announce nonchalantly "I love my baby. But...". There shouldn't really be a but like that. You shouldn't really live your life resenting your children. First of all because they don't deserve it, and second of all because they don't stay tiny forever. They will grow up and know. And the price you will pay then is overwhelmingly high.
I read all these posts and I wonder, when did we stop growing up? When did we stop taking responsibility for our actions? for our choices? Because that is what having a baby is - a responsibility and a choice. Nobody stood with a gun to any of those women's head and said - have a baby now! No, what happened, more than once, is that it fit their schedule. What happened to - you should want a baby with all your heart before you make one? How have babies become one more item on the todo list?
These posts often get a lot of publicity, and a lot of LOLs and LMAOs and other ho-ho-ho and ha-ha-ha comments, and they can give the impression that they are right. That that is the way people should live, or behave or think after having a baby. That life really is this. Are life really over after having a baby? Should you really expect to be filled with your baby's body fluids all day long? Does having a baby really mean you should never wear jeans or make-up? Will you never again have a good night sleep? Does it really matter so much if you breastfeed or bottle-feed? Do you really have to sacrifice to be a good parent?
The answer is no. I don't presume to know a lot. But I do know this - yes, babies are a lot of work. But they grow up. Make sure you do too.

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No more babies here

It's exactly five days to Yon's 4th birthday. My baby will be four in five days. I find it incomprehensible. In five days I will officially become an all-kids-mummy. No more babies. No more toddlers. Just kids. It comes as quite a shock, especially as I tend to think of Yon as my baby (mainly because he goes around the house proclaiming himself as baby Yon), and also because somehow, even though I do remember my children's birthdays logically in all the months prior, when the actual birthday month arrives my mind stops working and I always find myself in the same state of shock that it is in fact their birthday. It wasn't better this year, and although I had all the gifts in my Amazon basket, I still waited until the first of July to actually press "buy". And no, it wasn't all about waiting for payday.

Baby yon - then

And now

So why is that? It's not that I don't like their birthday, or that I wish them to stay young.
I am one of those people who don't like babies. I prefer the older version, you know the one that doesn't pee on you, can say what's wrong, and sleeps through the night.
I guess it has something to do with the fact that they were not easy babies, but honestly I am not sure there is such a thing as an easy baby. I mean in reality, not in the stories we tell other parents so they will feel bad about themselves.
I guess that it has something to do with the benefits of having older kids. It is true that the questions become tougher, the guilt is more pronounced and the feeling that every wrong turn will ruin you child's future is a constant companion. I think I told you about our saying that small children equals small problems, big children equal big problems (promise you it sounds better, and grammatically correct, in Hebrew), but while all that is true, now I can -
Well, my kids have been sleeping through the night since they were about two months old (see how bad I made you feel now? That's because I'm not telling you about the fact that Ron wouldn't sleep in the day until he was 3 years old), but lately they started sleeping in on weekends, and have been known to sleep until 9am.
After they wake up (on weekends obviously. On weekdays I feel like a drill Sargent) they watch a movie by themselves, and yes it means we can have a lie-in until about 10:30 am.
I can go out of the house with the tiniest of bags (though I usually don't. I was one of those prepared for a nuclear bomb bag people even before the kids).
I can go on the upper deck in a double decker, can go into any tube station, can squeeze them in on a busy train.
I can drink a cup of coffee in the afternoon while they are playing in their room. Without me. (Unfortunately they are in the "muuuuuuuumy he ....." stage. Lovely).
I can tell them that today is mummy day, and they do what I choose :).
In about three month Yon will go to Reception for a full day of studying. After he will finish his three weeks of gradual whatever. It means that for the first time in six years I will have a full 7 hours just for... ME.
They dress themselves, put on their own shoes (rarely on the wrong foot), coats and hat.

They can prepare their own breakfast (cereals. And it doesn't matter, as I do it anyway. Just like choosing their own clothes. It's the theoretical that counts here).
No more diapers, potties, bed-wetting. EVER.
Bath time is their time together alone.
I can take them shopping (if I bring two electronic devices they will be quiet for hours).
I can give them electronic devices and they will be quiet for hours.
We can do more stuff everyone enjoyes, like going to the cinema, a musical, a museum (ok, the Natural History or Science, but still).
They understand what I am telling them (but think they know everything better than me anyway), and answer direct questions (they also answer back, and eavesdrop things they shouldn't).
They eat (me out of house and home). I can take them to restaurants and not just McDonalds and they will still eat - try new foods, behave better, and let us eat in peace (electronic devices. Did I mention them already?).
They can tell you what they want for Christmas, or their birthday (though, usually the problem is that their gifts are becoming smaller in size and bigger in costs.)
I can wear what I want without worrying about getting it dirty with kids stuff (just, as usual, that I will spill something).

Big kids

So no, I don't miss the baby years. I don't miss any of those long days and nights where I had none of these things, when I couldn't dream of going out to a cafe with the kids, where I had to teach them to do everything. I really don't miss those days where I thought all hope is gone and it will never end.
I think after you have a baby or two you learn to appreciate much more all those little things in life. My days (and nights, and weekends) are still (and I guess for a long time more) dedicated and dictated by the whims of those two little tyrants, and I guess that is why every ounce of independence and freedom I gained back over the years is appreciated and marvelled at.
It is also the reason I do not want anymore children. I am at an age where most have one young child, or maybe are just pregnant, or maybe not even that. It is supposed to be the perfect time for me to start thinking about a third child. And yet, I don't.
I find I don't have the patience, the financial ability, the agility, and the ability to be awake at night, but most of all I don't have the enormous will and need that drove me to have those two. The willingness to sacrifice everything, the ability to bear the unending stream of doctors, tests, shots, pills, and unsuccessful months, that feeling in the pit of your stomach that drives you.
And you know, just to finish it off, we have the 50% chance that our next child will also have Ocular Albinism. Or full Albinism. Not really something we want to chance.
So why do I forget my kids' birthdays?

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Football and life (or - a lesson in frustration)

Football has been a part of our life for 8 years now. It is not showing any signs of going anywhere, and I had to resign myself to the fact that football is here to stay. It came into my life hand in hand with Ron, who chose it as his favourite thing even before he knew it existed. His first word was ball (Yon's first word was "no", but that's a different story), his favourite toys were footballs, and the moment he learned to walk was the moment he learned to kick a ball. He hasn't stopped ever since.

Ron at one year, with his beloved first red football

People said he will grow out of it, they said every one goes through fazes in life, they said children don't choose what they will be when they are two years old. We said he's not people and he's not everyone, he's Ron. And Ron doesn't change his mind.
We didn't really do much to encourage that love of football at the beginning, because in Israel football was less big and less mainstream than here, because Hidai preferred basketball, and because I preferred he be a no-sports child. Didn't do us much good, because Ron doesn't change his mind, and his mind was set. Maths and football, that's what he wanted, so that's what he got. As he was very young and football "training" in any afternoon club in Israel don't start before kids are six years old, all we did at that stage was let him play outside and wear football shirts.
Gibralterians, on the other hand, take their football very seriously, even kids football, and for the first time we needed to think about the road ahead - a team, a league, a commitment. I won't lie to you, for me it was a very tough decision. I didn't want Ron in any "professional" sport setting, didn't want him in a team, didn't want to push him. As I see it once your son enters a team you automatically become one of those parents. You know the type - the pushy, competitive, you'll-be-bigger-than-Messi parent. You can hide it, you can pretend it's not there, but deep inside you're it. I didn't and still don't think that amount of pressure is good for kids. I am against the trend of entering kids into talent shows, against tweeting about who will be the next star out of the Under 15s, etc. I am against training three times a week, against the amount of competitiveness it brings out in people (okay, me). I am against it all.
But I had no desire to stand in my child's way, so when Ron wanted to try out for a team, he did. And when he got into a team, we went to every training session, we stood on the lines in every match, and while doing that I learned some things about football. I guess you might be able to apply them to every sport, but I can't because I don't know sports. I am sticking with football.

I learned that there are worst things he could do.
A team sports forces you to learn how to work in a team, it forces you to be happy even if someone else scored the goal, it forces you to pass the ball to someone else to score, it forces you to understand what is the meaning of "a chain is as strong as its weakest link".
A sport forces you to lose and teaches you about dealing with losing, about going on the pitch to face a stronger team, about fighting to the end, about continuing even though you are down 1:0, it teaches you about disappointments, and about those days where you did everything right and still lost.
Football teaches you about discipline, about commitment, about doing your best every time you step on the pitch.
Professional athletes, including football players, work hard to get there. They train every day, do every move a thousand time, they put in each and every one of those 10,000 hours, they learn to deal with all the pressure of having so many people looking at you, criticising you, admiring you.
I could think of worst things he could want to be.
When we moved to London we searched for a team for Ron, but apparently Londoners aren't as serious about Under 9s as Gibralterians, and we couldn't find him a team we liked. We decided to stop looking and not commit him to anything, and enrolled him in an Arsenal after-school club, which we were very unhappy with, because they did not work on any of these things with the kids, and I am not in the market for babysitters.
Ron ended up with being invited to train with the school team (officially open to years 4-6), and with the Arsenal Double Club at school (also open only for years 4-6). So he gets his twice a week football fix. But for this year, he hasn't been in a league. Or a team.
Last week I got him invited to a Saturday training in Vale Farm Sports Center, as part of the Love Cravendale Loyalty Scheme. I don't really get why this lesson will be in a loyalty scheme, but there you have it. For us it meant an hour on the tube, and though we weren't sure will make it, we've made it on time (9 am on a Saturday. What I won't do for this blog). I have to admit, the pitch is gorgeous, and the coach (a very likeable Italian guy who supports Spain. Go figure) was attentive and nice, and all the kids seemed to love him. Ron had a good time, like he always has when on a football pitch, and Yon played with an imaginary animal or two. Like he always does when he is on a football pitch.
But that's not the point. The point is that while standing there, watching the kids running around in a straight line again and again, watching Ron become frustrated because what they are doing isn't what he is good at, it once again made us examine football in a different light.

Standing there in the wind watching kids doing drills it hits you - this is our test as parents. Ron is getting older and we are at a crossroad. We have to decide which parents we want to be. Are we going to be the parents who let their children quit just because they don't want to work hard, or because they don't succeed in something? Are we going to be the parents who make their child practice for hours on end? Are we the parents that will drive and force their children to more and more? How can we find a middle ground? Why would we even try?
Because it's not about the football. It's about life. It's the question of what you believe in, and so that was the moment in which I broke one of my own pre-parenting fantasies, of never being that parent, and understood that my child needs me to be that parent. He needs to understand that even though he loves football there are bits and pieces he won't like and he still has to do them; he needs to understand that you don't quit because you didn't succeed or didn't want to work hard. You work hard and succeed and then you decide if you want to quit.
He needs to learn all that football has to teach him - hard work, accepting failure, falling down and standing back up, repeating again and again, dedication, not giving up.
He needs to learn self-control and dealing with frustration. Because he usually doesn't have to deal with any of those. You see, Ron is very good at everything. It's not bragging, it's a fact. He doesn't give up, he just becomes the best, very quickly. but on those rare occasions he faces not being able to be the best after a few tries, he needs to learn how to not get too frustrated that he can't keep going.
Are we bad parents? Are we making a mistake? Is it too much to ask of a child of 8?
Are we giving in to our need for him to be excellent in everything?
Are we putting too much pressure on him?
Or if we won't, will he wake up some twenty years from now saying we weren't strong enough for him?
I don't know the answer. Life is funny like that. The answer will come one day, but not today. Today is all about what we can teach him. Today is ours to lead the way for him.
So when he finished the training session, we talked to him about it and told him that from now on he has to train for 20 minutes a day at home, regardless of what he does outside the house.
In response he said he is fine with it, ignored us for four hours, and built himself a detailed training program composed of ten drills, two minutes each.

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A Perfect parent? don't make me laugh

"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from."
Imperfect parenting. the subject made me think of this quote from The Matrix, mainly because I am a geek at heart so my references are always so... Geeky. 
But also, because Imperfect implies the existence of Perfect. When you stop and think about it, talking about Imperfect Parenting is actually like saying "yes, there is Perfect Parenting out there, and I am not it". 
Is there really a set of criteria, of rules, that defines what and who is a perfect mother? I googled it, but couldn't find one. I did find so many articles, photos and sayings that tried to convince me that it's okay to not be Perfect. 
Parenting is the only area in life in which we try, constantly, to be perfect. We accept that there is no "perfect" for anything else in our life, there is, after all no such thing as the perfect wife, or the perfect worker, or the perfect daughter, or the perfect boss, or the perfect friend, or the perfect customer, is your husband perfect? are your children perfect? are your parents perfect? You get my drift. Because non of us is perfect, because there is no Perfect. There is no universal set of criteria that makes for a Perfect Human Being.
What makes parenting different than all the other areas of life, is it the way parenting is portrayed in the media? or maybe the fact that people feel they "give up so much" to have kids so they have to make it perfect? or maybe it the silent competition all parents have - who is better, whose child is smarter, who has it tougher, who sacrificed more, you name it - it's in the competition? maybe it's because of the feeling that after we have kids our entire self-definition becomes dependant on them, we are "only" parents? or maybe it the fear, the fear that everything we do could be the wrong thing, and could hamper our child's future?
I think all of it tantamount to pressure, to the enormous parenting-pressure people are under even before they become parents. I think it's especially true today because the average age for having the first child is around 30, and the decision when to start a family is a more conscious one, it is more than just "oh, let's have a baby because we feel like it". There are advantages to being more cautious, more organised, more conscious about the prices you pay and the changes in your lives that having a child brings with it. There are also disadvantages, and one of them is a higher dose of what I fondly call The Fantasy of the Perfect. You know, that image you get in your minds-eye, that mystified look, the How It Should Be picture you painted for yourself. It sets the bar too high. There is no way but to fail and fall.
It makes parenting, and life, harder than it should be.
That is why, for my post about imperfect parenting I chose to tell you about all the ways in which I am the perfect poster girl for an imperfect parent.
I know some of the people reading this will leave this post with a "what a bad mother" chuckle, or a "poor kids" look, and it's perfectly fine by me. You know why? Because I am out of the parents-competition, because I will probably say the same about you, and because as I am weird this way and it will probably only make me satisfied to hear. let's start then, shall we?

The poor kids

If you want to start from the really early stages - my two boys weren't breastfed, they slept in their own bed in their own room from the beginning, they ate store bought baby-food and not homemade, they watched TV from when they were tiny.
Fast forward to today, I don't do "positive parenting", I don't do "democratic parenting" and I don't do "I am your best friend parenting".
I don't like sports. Especially football. I do make an effort, otherwise I have almost nothing in common with Ron, but really-honestly-privately I honest to God hate sports.
I don't like playing sports. All that running around? Not gonna happen. Either play with daddy or play on the iPhone.
I don't like parks, I don't like Zoos, I absolutely hate picnics, BBQs, petting-zoos, ant-farms, etc. Basically everything to do with nature is a big (BIG) no-no.
I don't do bedtimes. If Hidai isn't here the kids are usually on a "no need for a shower kids, just brush your teeth and go to bed. Let's make it an early bedtime" routine. If I have to, they will get a quick wash, and not the elaborate splash-in-the-tub they get with daddy.
I don't read them stories before bed. I don't read them stories every day. I don't read with Ron at all anymore. Yon gets stories if he asks for them. And if I can't get Ron to read them to him.
I don't bake / cook with them. I take my baking very seriously, but not as serious as Ron who won't let me put 203 grams of sugar if it says 200 grams in the recipe. Even if I swear to him that it's okay. Even if I beg.
I don't do arts & crafts. Ron thinks creative activities is punishment, and Yon just wants to take everything and use it in some weird imaginary and elaborate game, that has something to do with animals.
I have a competitive streak.
I shout. and yell. and scream. and slam doors.
My house is not always clean (though it is always tidy).
I use swear-words (sometimes, when I don't pay attention)
I let my children eat junk food. 
I don't play with them every afternoon.
I let them play on the WII, iPad and iPhone so I could get some more time to write.
I hide the chocolate and eat it after they are in bed.
I never volunteer for anything in school.
I'm sure I could find some more examples if these ones aren't enough, and now whenever you think you aren't perfect you could always revisit my list and feel good that about yourself, because hey! there is someone less perfect!
Perfect is not only an illusion, it's also pretty damn boring. Who even wants perfect?

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Smart kids and lost innocence

My aim was to write a funny post this time. I know you don't believe me, but I was going to write a funny post. I was even going to open with a joke. I had it all planned out, I really did. Right until the moment were Ron came home from school in distress.
You have to understand, Ron doesn't have bad days at school. Ron doesn't do distress. It is so rare for him, that it can only mean one thing - a difficult question for me to answer.
He doesn't have small questions this child of mine. When he gets distressed it's because of things that I can't explain away easily. How can you explain away heartbreak? Or why Grandparents need to go back home? Or why there is teasing in the world? Or wars? And let's not forget that special moment where I had to explain about different religions, God, and synagogues. Yes, the day Ron came back from school with the notion we don't believe in God because we are Jewish will stay with me.
It's because he usually reaches his own conclusions, based on all the things he hears, sees, and imagines.
Sometimes, though, they're things he can't figure out for himself, and that is when I get the really tough ones. Yesterday it was about school. But as usual it was about more than that, it was about life, and it touched a chord with me that has been there for quite some time.
I am sitting here debating how to write what is in my head without sounding like I am exaggerating  or bragging, or too pushy. Ron's intelligence is, let's say - above average. He was always like that, and we have been worried about him since we figured out that he is like that. He is our eldest so it took us a while to figure that out. I know how it sounds, it's fine, I don't blame you. After all, we live in a society full of parents pushing their kids over their limits to achieve things that they (the parents) wanted, or to make everyone else feel inferior. We live in a society were kids are for show, and most of all they are a reflection of us as parents - if my child is smart it means I am a great parent. If my child is super-smart...
So you see shows like Child Genius on Channel 4, and you have shows like BGT, and everywhere you look you have little stressed out kids with pushy parents.
I do get them, the pushy parents. You really can't help it but feel that immense pride when your child does something that no other can. It is indescribable that pride, it's like nothing else, like no other pride you've ever felt before. Yes, I get them.
I also know that there is a very fine line between encouraging and pushing. That line is so very thin and frail, and you have to check yourself almost daily to make sure you don't cross it. It is so easy to cross it because these kids are pleasers and because you never know where you will reach the mental limit. It is so easy to push just a little too hard.
That is why we have a checks & balances system in place, and unless it's both of us agreeing that we need to push, we don't.
Having a smart child has its challenges, you need to encourage without pushing, you need to be able to answer all the questions, you need to still seem smarter than him, you need to make sure that he is not bored at school, that he has friends, that his emotional development is catching up with his abilities, that he has challenges, and that he gets plenty of positive feedback at school.
You need to give your child the ability to be his age and ten years older at the same time and give love, attention and encouragement to each of those sides.
We found a system that works for us, and at home he gets all the "extras" when school is off - he can read what he wants, do whatever level of maths he wants, etc. He gets a taste of the "more to come". During school terms he doesn't do extra work. Might read when he is bored but that's it. He has football as a stress-relief, his big love in life, and a challenge. Kids like Ron, I think, needs a place that forces them to work hard and not give up, because everything else in life comes so easy to them. Otherwise they will hit that wall someday without being prepared for it at all. Football, where you have to repeat every move thousands of times to make it perfect and where you have to learn how to lose and keep going, gives him just that challenge.
We do expect him to excel. You don't have to do all those extras - football, reading, maths. But if you do something you do it to the best of your ability.
And right here lies that fine line I told you about before. I don't think we are over-doing it. He doesn't read Shakespeare, just Lord of the Rings; he doesn't do secondary school maths, even though he could. But I do expect him to get all his answers right, and I do test him on what he read so I know he understands.
He does get a lot of extras at school (as much as they can), and he loves his school, but still I found myself worried about secondary schools, about maybe it's better to have him take a proper IQ test and have that letter that will make people stop looking at us funny. I want him to have every opportunity there is out there. Do I sound pushy? I hope not.
Anyway, I am rambling. Yesterday he came home distressed because he felt forgotten at school. He felt his teacher doesn't think he is smart anymore, that he doesn't think he is doing his best.
And it was up to me to explain to him that, yes, life isn't fair. I hate it when I can see a tiny bubble of innocence bursting when I talk to him. I make it a point to explain the truth to him, but why does the truth has to be so damn hard to explain?
I hated it when I had to explain to him that the educational system is aiming for the middle. For the normal, and therefore sometimes the kids that are not in that middle (in both directions) gets forgotten, and that it doesn't say anything about him, or about how his teacher sees him, just about the system. I don't like mediocracy, I don't like "systems" of any sort, and I hate it when I have to defend one. I found it even harder to explain to him why he can't and shouldn't showoff his smarts, why he should be okay with getting the same oral quiz as everyone else even though it's easy for him, but that way he doesn't stand out, and everyone else feels smarter. I explained about self-worth, and knowing who you are, I explained about the greater good. And I hated every word that came out of my mouth. I was angry. I was angry at the teacher, the school, the system, the society, I was angry at them all for making me hurt my little boy with an explanation about how being good doesn't mean you will get the recognition you are promised, about how being extraordinary sometimes means you are taken for granted. About how negative behaviour gets you more attention than good one.
Because it's Ron I can explain it, and he understands it. But because he is still 8 years old, he is still hurting.

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How I ruined Father's Day

We usually don't "do" Father's day, because up until now I only had one view of it, and to put it as plainly and crudely as I can, up until this year, I always saw Father's day as a made up day that is solely intended to lessen the importance of mothers. Father's day is how men are trying to steal our one day a year that recognizes the fact that motherhood is a tough job, and that women are the only ones who do it properly.
Okay, I was always aware that there are single dads raising their kids alone somewhere in the world, and I salute them. Truly I do. But they are the exception and I am talking about the rule. Motherhood is damn hard, and we deserve our day. What we don't deserve is all this men coming in and trying to belittle it. Because that is what Father's day does. It belittle Mother's day.
Why? because mothers are the ones who do all the heavy-lifting. They are the ones that deal with all the mundane, less-fun aspects of parenting; they are the ones who makes sure the house, the kids, the husband, they all run smoothly, while fathers gets a thank you for, well, just showing up.
Also, Hidai doesn't care about it so passionately so he lets it be.
What changed this year? Why did I decide this year to abandon my views and organize a Father's day for Hidai?
It was a combination of a few things actually, with the whole discussion about the "men deserts" & the million kids with no dads in the UK and some reminders about what bad fathers can cause, I sat Hidai down and asked him about his take on the whole fatherhood subject, as someone who is both a father, and a son, and as someone who wanted to do things differently than was done before.
Hidai said, fatherhood is mainly about choices. Although it is true that mothers can also choose not to be there, with fathers it is more socially acceptable to be at work until after bedtime, to be busy over the weekends, to be less involved in your child's life, to not know what's going on in school, to not know who your child's friends are, and also to not be there at all. To be honest, he was talking more about life in Israel than in Gib and the UK, mainly because that is where we grew up, and because that is where we became parents. And also because we found it to be more prominent there than in Gib or London.
For men, he said, it's more complicated today than in the past. We expect more from them - to be good husbands, fathers & workers - but most men grew up in houses where these expectation did not exist. They are in uncharted territory.
It dawned on me. It dawned on me that I am part of the problem. That this view is what allows fathers to be content with just showing up. It is what allows men to not have to work harder at home, or with their kids, or with their wives.
I have two boys, who someday (hopefully) will become fathers and make me a grandma, and I want for my boys what every parent wants for his kids - better. To have a better life, to have better option, to be better people. And it's up to me, up to us, to make sure they will get there. It's hard work, making sure they will get to that "better", and it's up to Hidai & me. We are the role models here. I look at them, and as young as they are now, I know the years fly by, I know that teenagers (and twenty-something boys) don't listen to their parents, and I also know how important it is to plant the seeds now.
How could I demand responsibility and accountability from them later, when they will be fathers themselves, if I don't raise them that fathers are important? That fatherhood is about more than just showing up? If I am not setting the right example?
So I figured that maybe we should make more of an effort with Father's day to remind us to stop once in a while and look at the choices we make, the role models we set for our kids.
For me, it was also a chance to say thank you to Hidai, who has managed to do just that, and ignore everything else in his personal history and the society he lived in to become the best dad I know from the moment Ron was born. He won't like it if I gushed about him here, and anyway it's his story and not mine to tell, but he does deserve a thank you.
BUT
As we Jewish people like to say - man plans and God laughs. As luck would have it, after a few very good and illness-free months, I was sick from Wednesday onwards, and all my plans went right down the drain. That is why, in the end, even though after being kind of a single-dad for almost a week, and taking care of an annoying me to boot (I get really grumpy and unhelpful when I am sick. REALLY unhelpful. I don't do the I'm gonna die thing, just the it's the end of the world, my life sucks, nobody loves me anymore routine) he deserved a Father's day more than ever, what he got was a card from each of us (Yon's nursery made them cards for Father's day. I didn't get nursery cards for Mother's day. Not fair.), a brownie (each got one), and one gift.

Father's Day celebration

He didn't get the cake I wanted to bake him, he didn't get a fancy lunch (though he did get pizza. But that was because, like I said, he was in charge of everything and so 3 nights in a row we had Pizza Night), and he didn't get the gift he wanted (because I needed to get out of the house for that).

Pizza for the ill

He did take the kids on a playdate in the afternoon and had to listen to me cry all evening about how the kids hate me and my life is worthless.

Playdate kids

Best Father's Day Ever!

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Weight-less or Weight-loss

This is a story I have wanted to tell for quite some time but always chose not to. I am not sure why I want to tell it, and not really sure why I didn't. It's not like you can call me shy, I tell you most of everything, but for some reason I felt I couldn't write about this.
I usually try that every post will have a purpose, at least in my mind, and this one's purpose always seems to elude me - is it a victory story? is it a moral story? is it a bragging story? or is it a shameful story and a cautionary tale? I think that it's partially all of them, but most of all, for me, it's a shameful story, because it's more about my shortcomings than my success in overcoming them. And unlike my other shortcoming, which I find endearing (and thankfully so does Hidai), this one I am ashamed of. Why? because being fat is, in our society, something to be ashamed of.
I wasn't obese, I was just fat.
I have been in a battle with my weight for a long time, in fact for as long as I can remember. I was one of those really tall-really skinny girls while growing up, until one day I wasn't anymore. I don't remember when that happened, I guess like everyone, somewhere around the teen years, when you start getting all the body issues and such. I dabbled with an eating disorder when I was about 20 (the army was not the best years of my life), and then went from being very skinny to being fat, and kind of stayed there, except for short periods of times (like just before our wedding). My weight didn't increase so much (except for pregnancies) but neither did it decrease so much. I stayed within the same 5 kilos radius for about 10 years.
But the real thing is, it didn't really bother me. I mean obviously it did, but not in a severe nerve-wracking, can't-think-of-anything-else way. Just the normal way. I had a closet full of nice designer clothes I bought over the years, I had a husband who loved me no matter what I weighed, and I was, for the most part, content with it.
Most people who are fat talk about food as obsession, and they are right. No matter what your vice is, you eat to celebrate and to mourn, when you've had a good day or a bad day, everything is a good excuse to eat. For me it's not the food. I mean I like food, but I don't love it. I am a vegetarian, I hate cooking, and I have a family of boys who doesn't care about food. I am a dessert person. I adore baking, I am addicted to chocolate, and I can and in fact do, live almost solely on sweets. Chocolate is my comfort food, my celebratory food, my I-am-working-and-can't-think-about-what-to-write food, my I-fought-with-the-kids-and-feel-horrible food, and my I-just-need-something-right-now food.
And I always just need something now.
I have, by far, the worst eating/exercise habits of everyone I know. I eat something just about every hour, I live on snacks (in fact while writing this post I had to stop four times for a banana, 3 kiwis, 3 rice cakes and coffee), I hate exercising and anyway have so many joints/back/knees problems that there are so few things I can do.
I wish I could tell you something happened and it all changed one day. I wish I could tell you I had an epiphany, or even a rude weakening. I didn't. I think it crept over me over time, my dislike of myself, my shame. It was a time in our life with so much uncertainty, so much disorder, and I needed something that was in my control. Something I could focus on and change. Something that was mine. So one morning, August 1st, 2011 to be exact, I woke up and told Hidai that that's it. And it was.
This photo is not what drove me, but it's what I use as a bench mark, it's my "before".

I signed up with Weight Watchers online, we bought a treadmill, and that was indeed it. It took me 4 months of hard work, obeying without fault the Weight Watchers regime and exercising 5 times a week (running and Pilates), until I made it to 2 kilos below my target weight.

This is the success part of my story. I lost about 13 kilos (about 2 stones), and went from being size 14-16 to size 8-10. I am almost two years after, and I am still keeping my target weight.
Oh, how I wish I could leave it here, with the success, with what you can usually see from the outside - me, thin, baking all the time and eating all that chocolate without gaining weight.
But the truth is, I can't do that, because I've already started the story so I will finish it where it really belongs - in the embarrassing facts.
They say losing the weight is the easy half of the battle, keeping it off, that's the hard part. It not true, it's just that you expect the tough part to be over one day, that all effort you put in to it, the bad days, and the cravings, they are the worst and when you finally reach that golden-coveted target weight it will be easier. It doesn't. When I just lost the weight and became skinny I had lots of compliments (some genuine and some not so much), I was able to talk about it all the time, enjoy it and the envy looks I got, explain about it. I was the one who made it. Now I am in London, where everyone who knows me, knows the "after" me, and where everyone is fit and skinny (or so it seems). Now I am just this "new me" that isn't new at all. I already said it in a different post, and I will say it again here - people don't change. I wish I could be one of those success stories that then went on and changed their way of life completely, or one of those "yes, and the minute I started exercising I got addicted to it", or at least one of those people who has self control. But I am not. I am still just the same old me. I still battle everyday with my addiction, with my bad eating habits, my need for more sugar and my lack of exercise-motivation. I am still me, and every time I have a bad day I eat chocolate, every time I relax my control I gain 2 kilos.
I live in fear that one morning I will wake up and discovered my weight increased by 13 kilos. I go on the scale 5 times a day.
It's a journey that has no end, and you want to know the saddest truth of all? I still look at the mirror and see the same woman who weighed 13 kilos more. For me, I haven't changed at all.

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Letting go

How good are you in letting things go? I am ever so terrible in it. I missed a TV show by Sarah Millican, who I find really funny, even though I did know about the show a week in advance and all it required of me was to set the Sky box (or whatever it's called) to record it on time. Yet I didn't, and as we were entertaining that night, completely forgot about it. It came back to me the next day. It's been almost ten days, and I still can't let it go. It's killing me that they hadn't put it on 4oD. Killing me. And you want to know the most idiotic thing of all? It's supposed to be bits from the DVD Sarah Millican - Thoroughly Modern Millican Live, which I've already seen!
I can't let go. I still get upset thinking about the university professor who gave me an unjust grade and wouldn't let me appeal (it's been about 7 years now), or the teacher that said I am cutting classes (even though I wasn't, but I decided that if she already thinks that, I might as well go ahead. It's only been 18 years since) or the email I got when I applied to a freelance work where I was told that I am simply not good. I still remember (with shame) the things I said and shouldn't have, the things I should have and didn't say. I am not good in letting go. After all I had this opening for a week now, and though I wrote two other posts, I still had to use it. Not good in letting go, in putting the past's misgiving behind me. Hidai says that is why I am not good with forgiveness. He is right of course (he also should heed his own advice and stop arguing with me, but he doesn't), I don't forgive easily, and I forget even less.
This is why when I do put things behind me, I expect them to stay there. It's only decent. But it's not always the case is it? We got a very unpleasant email about a week ago, that wasn't addressed to me, but still hurt, still made me sit down and look back at things that should be left forgotten. I hate this kind of emails, first of all because they feel like an intrusion into my home, and second because I let it go, I put the past where it belongs, so in order to deal with it I have to drag it back up, I have to remember. I prefer not to. In order to remember I have to look back, really look back, and let in so much ugliness and hate that it takes a few days to air-out the house. Thank God at least the weather is nice and we can open the windows and let the sunshine in.
We archived the email, opened the windows, and moved on. But it did got me thinking about this whole "letting go" issue.
I mean, it was fine if it stopped at grievances right? that would be normal (though a bit vindictive), but what about the things that shouldn't bother me? the things that you are supposed to just brush off and move on from? the things you read on the internet and has no relation to you at all? why can't I let go of those? like our Facebook "friend" who a few months ago posted his support for employers who don't like to hire women because "they might get pregnant at any given moment", and caused me to still not be able to look at his posts, or the childless woman in one of the groups I'm in who "just wanted to know, with no judgement why do women choose not to breastfeed even though they know it's the best thing for their baby?" and made my head explode. Why can't I let go of these? There is more, because at least these were in my Facebook feed, but why can't I let go of the idiotic "don't tell your daughters they are beautiful" instruction made by the woman's minister? I don't even have daughters to tell anything to.
Or the guy who went on the Telegraph to tell us all how he doesn't really like his kids and that all men wish they can spend less time with their kids. Why can't I just put him aside?
I guess it's the one common thing they all have together - the meanness of people. I know it's kind of naive but I never really got how or why people think it's okay to just be mean, and now I find I have to deal with explaining it to Ron.
I know some people will say (I know that because they said it. Not really a guess here) that I shelter my kids too much. I have never really allowed reality to enter life when the kids are around, I don't like them watching news, or knowing about wars and death and hate, or even watching those "nature movies" where an animal gets eaten. I don't appreciate the Israeli model in which kids get fed the harsh reality of life there from the cradle.
Judge me all you want. kids should stay kids. Kids are meant for fun, for a life free of worries, for magic and fairy-tales and for Santas. They are not meant for death and hate.
But reality is what it is, and as Ron is growing up, bit by bit I have to relinquish my control, and let reality in. In the last year I had to find answers to questions like why there is a war in Israel, why there is teasing in the classroom, why did one child insulted him, why does the girl he like doesn't like him back, how do we overcome fear, and more. I had to talk about stranger-danger, about private parts, about getting lost, about poor people and about fair-trade. I had to make sure the YouTube isn't showing what it shouldn't. I had to deal with growing up.
Truth is, every time one of those things comes up I immediately send the kids to Hidai to deal with. Or to the school. I never know what to say, how to explain reality and still keep the innocence. If it makes any sense, I want them to keep on coming to me for answers, but I don't want to be the one to burst their bubble. I don't want to give them the answers they are seeking, but I do it anyway. I tell them some about the world we live in, about the world we left behind, about what we believe in and what we don't believe in, because otherwise Ron comes back from school with all these weird ideas he concocted for himself, or he thinks less of us (he finds it really hard to believe that we did things, that we went to university, or that we know English or whatever).
It's funny how life works sometimes isn't it? There are so many moments in life that you want your kids to be older, to not need your help with dressing, or eating, or walking to school. But then when you get to these points, and your child grows up and doesn't need you anymore, all you want is for a little more time, just a teeny tiny bit of time for them to stay young, for you to not have to send them off into the world.
Yes, Ron has a field trip this week. No, it has nothing to do with my post... Ahmmm, nothing at all.

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