Eema Returns (Article #33) 12/21/2006

With Goldie still away, I took requests for Motzei Shabbat Melava Malka from the kids (OK – so it was mostly Chaya who came forward with a request) to have pancakes. Since Shabbat ends so early (5:15 or so) and they have school on Sunday’s, Motzei Shabbat can be a big deal for them, so I decided to agree (plus, with Goldie not around, it was a good chance to get some more “Abba points” and spoil them even more).

Unfortunately, this meant a trip to the supermarket. Why unfortunately? Well, I still seem to have difficulty finding things, since they are organized quite differently here.

Take pancakes for example. Chaya and I walked through the whole store and couldn’t figure out where they could be. Close to the cereals? Nope. Near the flour? No. We ended up having to ask one of the women stocking the shelves (after getting the appropriate Hebrew phrase for pancake mix from my sister).

Of course, this woman had never heard of pancakes and had no idea where we would find the mix. I even had her speak to my sister on the phone, but it didn’t help.

My sister finally advised me to check out the “baking section” where all the cake mixes are found (of course, the flour is NOT in the baking section; flour and sugar are found in the section of “items that come in a paper sack and are powdered or grained” like rice, sugar, flour – the obvious place for flour, right?). Viola’, there it was, an Israeli brand of pancake mix.

The syrup was much easier to find – it was also in the same row as the cake mixes. I don’t know why.

The pancakes were a big hit and gave us a chance to call Goldie and leave her a voicemail of all of us singing, “we had pancakes - with lots and lots of syrup” over and over. Abba was a big hero.

Sunday was a very special day, in many ways. Mordechai had a special Mesibat Channuka in his Gan. Chaya had parent teacher conferences in her school. Perhaps most importantly, Sunday was Goldie’s last day in America (and her last chance to take requests from the kids on what to bring them).

Mordechai’s party was something that Goldie only found out about the week before she left for America. She was devastated when she realized she wouldn’t be there to enjoy it. Since Mordechai has had one of the more difficult adjustments of all the kids, this party was something special to us.

When the invitation came saying “mothers only”, I too was upset. It meant that neither of his parents would attend, although Chaya came through big time in making him feel special and coming to the show.

With the party/show in the evening, the Gan let out early at noon. Since I try to work for a living occasionally and noon was too early for me to get home, Chaya was designated to play hookey for the day and stay home. This had the added benefit of allowing me to work normal hours for a day, instead of having to run home early.

By the time I got home, Chaya had Mordechai all ready for the party and they set off (on the 1 block walk) to the Gan. She called from the Gan to tell us that sisters were allowed and Batya ran to be there too (Aliza was at rehearsal for her major play production – We’ve Got Annie – running for 6 days in a theatre in Yerushalayim at the end of Jan./beginning of Feb.).

What a great time they had! For a child who claims he is having a hard time, Chaya reported that he participated in every part of the play and had a blast. He sang all the songs, did all the dances and the only part he was lost for was when the teachers took an unrehearsed minute to talk about each boy individually. He knew he had heard his name, but the applause he got was a total surprise to him and really made his day.

After Mordechai’s party/show, Batya and I finished off her homework. At the very end she mentioned to me that she was supposed to do a project with Rina Wolicki, a girl in her class who lives down the block from us. Since it was already 7:30 PM, I called the Wolicki house to confirm before sending Batya over.

Apparently, Batya got the message wrong. She didn’t have to do a special project that evening, she was assigned (along with all the other girls in grades one to three) to being in a flashlight and shoebox the very next day.

I had been to parent teacher conferences for the other girls the prior week, so I was a little more mentally prepared for how things would be going in Chaya’s conference. I walked in expecting things to run late and to hear that language is an issue. I am not sure how Goldie managed to get the parent/teacher conferences scheduled while she was in America, leaving the whole thing in my hands.

One extremely positive note I took from the Parent/Teacher conferences for all three girls was that they have really done much better than expected socially. We were prepared for a long drawn out period of zero social interaction for the kids and to have major issues with their making friends, especially considering the language issue. However, the kids have really done well socially, which is an important part of getting there educationally as well.

In my meeting with Chaya’s Menahelet (Head of School), she reinforced that feeling by telling me that they normally have zero academic expectation of new Olim until Channuka at the earliest, sometimes even later. They do this purposefully so that the kids have a chance to become part of the fabric of the school emotionally first and then to have them return to academic seriousness.

Now that we have reached Channuka and can thankfully say that our kids have had a fairly successful “social” integration, we can move forward on the academic side a little more aggressively. We have scheduled a post Channuka meeting to work out which subject areas (beyond those she is already working with in English) that she will start taking in Hebrew.

On Monday morning I got an early phone call from Goldie who had just gotten into her seat on the plane home. The plane left on time and the whole house was keyed up waiting for her. I initially told her that with her two huge suitcases full of treats for the kids that I wouldn’t be able to bring kids with me to greet her at the airport.

I had a conference in Beit Shemesh that morning and the Yeshiva went on a tiyul, so I decided to work out of the house for the day instead of trekking to Yerushalayim to the office for a couple of hours. It also gave me a chance to clean up a little (very little if you ask Goldie).

When the kids came home I told them we were going to surprise Goldie at the airport and I had them prepare signs for her. “Welcome Home Eema”. “We missed you Eema”. “We love you, don’t ever go away again”. The best sign of all was Aliza’s, “Welcome home to all my presents and food!”

I told Goldie to call me when she was ready to pass through customs so that I would look out for her and the three kids that came with me (Aliza, Batya and Mordechai) totally surprised her. She could not stop hugging and kissing them. It was nice to surprise her that way.

With Goldie home I finally had the chance to work my normal hours and try to catch up on things. She was very busy setting up appointments and interviews to get into middle/high school for Aliza. She also spent several hours finalizing plans for our family Channuka tiyul to Yam Hamelach (the Dead Sea).

She will tell you that she spent more time cleaning up the house and reorganizing things than anything else. Quite frankly I think I did a fine job of keeping things organized; I did laundry, cooked food, drove carpools, made (some) lunches and didn’t make the beds.

We know people who were in the same situation as us, with the husband home alone with the kids. He didn’t even know how to do laundry. His solution? Once the clothing ran out, he went out and bought totally new clothing for everyone. So I did better than that (although Chaya would probably have preferred for me to take her shopping).

Since all the schools are off for the entire Channuka week, they held their Channuka parties the week before. With the exception of Chaim (and I think he had an informal party in his school), each kid had some sort of class/school get together by the end of the week. Aliza and Batya went to their teacher’s houses on Wednesday night and Chaya had a school party on Thursday at a local community center.

The one kid event that Goldie did get to go to was Moshe’s Channuka party in his gan. With all the various events and activities of the prior week, she was so excited to be here for at least one of them (and feeling guilty about missing the others as well).

As the group was mostly two year old kids, the kids were a lot less active in their presentation than Mordechai’s gan. Yet this teacher (who we absolutely love) outdid herself in preparation. The room was decorated beautifully and a special musician was brought in who did Channuka themed preschool interactive music and dance with the kids.

He really enjoyed the party, especially his “treat bag” and the special sufganiyot that were distributed (the Govt. here forecasts that 18 million sufganiyot will be eaten in the weeks leading up to and including Channuka). He even makes sure that he wears his Keter (crown) on his head each day to gan even though the party was last week.

On Erev Shabbat, Goldie and I were running errands when we came across one of our neighbors who was doing something we thought incredible. Directly across the street from our home is a major construction project – 2 buildings of townhouses that will hold more than twenty families when complete. Since the construction is at the end of the block, there is a corrugated metal wall as a fence on the street.

Our Charedi neighbors had glued several signs onto the fences a few weeks back that say “WARNING: modest dress is required in our neighborhood”. While we have nothing particular against modest dress, the in your face nature of the sign offended us and many people on our block. We were especially upset because the signs were put up on the walls of our neighborhood (the Charedi side has had these signs up for months).

This neighbor, Peretz Silverman had also taken offense that the Charedim had crossed over to our neighborhood to post their signs. Instead of talking about it like the rest of us, he decided to do something about it.

He went out and had a whole bunch of large signs printed up. He then went out on his own and used his signs to cover up the Charedi signs. His message? “Welcome to our neighborhood” – which he posted on the two fences of the construction site (the fences form the corner of a major intersection).

Needless to say, by the time he had finished posting the signs at the end of the second side of the street our lovely neighbors had already ripped down several of the signs on the first side of the street. *sigh*