After schnorring as many books as possible from my friends, I went out and paid NIS 636 for the remainder of new and used books ( a few titles are not available yet). Not bad for four children in school. The curriculum for high school math has changed, making all previous books for grades 10-12 obsolete. It’s the government’s way of demonstrating that they have some idea why the math scores have gone down so much (oops, my cynicism is showing). I had to buy two new math books at NIS 100 each, way more than anything else, and will have to purge my current supply. Hopefully I will be able to pass the new ones down!
My five-year-old had a meeting with the parents and the ganenet (kindergarten teacher) yesterday afternoon. He has never been in anything more formal than a cooperative playgroup, and it was a little noisy and overwhelming. I explained to the ganenet that he was very quiet and would be likely to stay on the outside of the group and observe for the first few days (he does know one boy quite well so I may be wrong). I don’t know exactly how many children are in his class, but there are close to 35 (the maximum) with a ganenet and assistant. Gan is from 8-1:20 Sunday to Thursday and till 12:45 on Fridays, and each staff member has a substitute one or two days a week. I have one good friend among the parents, but not very much in common with the other half dozen mothers that I happen to know.
I am looking forward to the parents’ meeting, which usually takeas place early in the year, as much as I would look forward to my execution. The ganenet will explain the daily routine and what she expects from the parents (usually a long list of supplies). We will get all kinds of lovely poems about gan from our children’s perspective (in fact we got the first one yesterday). The parents will whine about why everyone doesn’t get together and buy this or that wonderful service, activity or birthday prize for all the children. Those of us who don’t want to pay extra will be seen as depriving the other children a proper education. It will all hinge on the ganenet‘s attitude: Will she support or discourage this attitude? I will end up having to compromise on small expenses in order to protest the big ones. After all I have to live with these people afterwards.
It’s been four years since I had a child in gan. I hated it then and my views are even more extreme now. I hope that blogging will give me a chance to vent a bit. Stay tuned — that meeting is likely to be as volatile as a Knesset debate.
At Orthonomics today Sephardi Lady quotes a rabbi/doctor on the halacha of disciplining other people’s children. They come to the conclusion that it’s okay to reprimand other people’s children when the action is assur deoraita (biblically prohibited).. I looked up the Mishna Berurah that is quoted and the examples given involve Shabbat and Kashrut; in other words if we see a neighbor’s child above age 6 or so about to eat a ham sandwich, it would be proper to say something to the child to prevent him from doing so (assuming we follow the Mishnah Brurah in this case). I have no problem with this, but extrapolating from one line in the Mishnah Berurah to justify reprimanding children for all kinds of unpleasant behavior doesn’t sit well with me.
I was with a friend and her children in the park. Her son is somewhat aggressive, and she keeps a very close eye on him. Before she knew it, he hit a toddler. She can’t prevent this every time, because then he would never have a chance to improve, but she does prevent most incidents. She apologized to the mother of the toddler (who happened to be a distance away, not that she’s to blame). My friend held her son close and talked to him about what happened. The ire of the other women in the park, mostly nannies, was palpable. They clearly expected my friend to yell at her son and punish him. I can only imagine what would have happened if the child’s mother hadn’t been around. It’s this kind of atmosphere that troubles me. Yes, there are times when reprimanding another’s child is appropriate. Yet we should be looking for opportunities to praise the good job that a mother is doing, give her a hand with the baby when her toddler is needy, sympathize when there is a temper tantrum, and give suggestions when and if the mother is ready to hear them. Bystanders are often too quick to jump on a mother when her child misbehaves.
As I posted in the comments section on the blog, I was happy when a friend called to tell me that my teenager was seen doing something he shouldn’t. But in most cases, I want to be able to walk down the street or go to the park without feeling that I am being judged by my younger children’s sometimes erratic, irrational and rude behavior (they are children after all). One of the most valuable lessons motherhood has taught me is that I can be most effective with my children when I am not concerned about what other people think. Fortunately my children are usually adorable!
Via my friend Shulamit:
PLEASE PRAY FOR WOUNDED & MISSING SOLDIERS
Pray for the safe return of all of our soldiers and pilots, who are
still in southern Lebanon and Gaza.
Please pray for all the wounded soldiers. Obviously many of them
are not on this list. 22 soldiers are in very serious condition.
Two soldiers are critical and their lives are in danger.
HaShem Yerachem (May G-d have mercy)
First of all we want to thank G-d:
We received this from Yehudit the mother of Yoav: Yoav ben Yehudit
is my son who was seriously wounded in his tank and was the sole
survivor of the incident (the other soldiers in the tank died.) This
was on August 3rd, Tish’a B’av. I am thankful to say that Yoav has
fully recuperated, and thank G-d for listening to all of the
tefilot. Thank you all for praying for him. Yoav’s name can be
removed from this list. I will continue to pray for the other
soldiers.
For the miraculous healing of Eldad ben Esther Elhami, who was very
seriously wounded with head injuries and has woken up after 9 days
of coma.
For the miraculous recovery of Shabitai Maoz, who was critically
wounded (enosh) in Lebanon, and is now recovered.
For the miraculous recovery of Tomer Bochadana, who was very
seriously injured.
Wounded soldiers:
Gilad Haim ben Miriam & Shimon Lehiani. Seriously wounded two days
before the “ceasefire” set in. Severe head injury with unknown brain
damage/off the critical life list for 2-3 days already and is
hopefully regaining full consciousness independently. He was injured
fighting on the eastern front north of Kiryat Shmona and Metulla
near a Hizbullah arms stockpile
Yitzhak ben Rivka seriously wounded Tyre.
One of the navy commandos seriously wounded in the incursion into
Tzur (Tyre), Lebanon, is still in serious condition.
Yehonaton ben Nili, a Golani officer seriouly wounded
Assaf ben Lillian –only one who survived an anti-tank missile attack
and is in very serious condition
Idan ben Yonah – very seriously injured
Amit ben Nava- very critically wounded
Netanel Mordechai ben Hinda Fayga- paratrooper with 3 kids & another
on the way
Roi Avrahan ben Sara hurt badly in tank, 2 other people in same tank
killed. Broken collarbone and damage to lungs.
Nadav ben Esther Malka
Yiftach Bezalel ben Leah
Yonatan ben Rachel
Dror ben Esther
Or Bar On – lost both legs- He’s a young musician who plays guitar
all day in the hospital from his bed. He amazed everyone, when he
said from his hospital bed, that if he was able to have helped his
country in some way, then he didn’t regret having lost both of his
legs.
Eran Perry – has lost a leg and needs months of rehabilitation
Arik Dayan has lost leg & needs months of rehabilitation
Eviatar Cohen- severe injuries left hand
Ron Naveh
Dimitri Kalman
Jacques bar Lev
Nimrud Salbin
Shai Shem Tov
Tsafrir Goldberg
Aviv Saroussi
Yonatan Shlomo ben Rochel
Carmel ben Sarah Harrari
Shai ben Bat Sheva
Naftali Boaz Mordechai ben Menucha Chana
Ariel ben Zenat
Sha’ul ben Shulamit
Gal ben Shoshana
Yuval ben Yehudit
Guy Yosef ben Ela
Amichai ben Orah- injured Lebanon with severe leg & back injuries
Gideon ben Yehudit- soldier hit in Bint Jbail, Lebanon
Elro’i Rafael ben Galia Glynis- soldier seriously injured and
paralyzed crossfire when Israel was withdrawing from Gaza
Yogev Menashe ben Bruriah- soldier seriously injured Hevron. Half
his body is paralyzed and he has long recovery ahead of him
Please keep up your prayers for our missing soldiers especially in
light of fact that our government accepted UN agreement that didn’t
call for their unconditional release:
Gilad ben Aviva (Shalit), Wounded and kidnapped by terrorists who
had made a tunnel from Gaza into an army base in Israel and then
dragged him into Gaza on 25.6.06.
Ehud ben Malka (Goldwasser) and Eldad ben Tova (Regev), kidnapped by
Hizbollah terrorists on the Israeli-Lebanese border 12.7.06.
Israel has 5 other missing soldiers:
Guy ben Rina (Hever), disappeared near the Syrian-Israeli border in
the Golan Heights in August 1997;
Ron ben Batya (Arad), captured when his plane was downed over
Lebanon in Oct. 1986;
and Tzvi ben Pninah (Feldman), Yekutiel Yehuda Nachman ben Sarah
(Katz), and Zecharia Shlomo ben Miriam (Baumel), all captured at the
Sultan Yaaqub battle in Lebanon on June 11, 1982.
No, this is not a political rant.
Here is the homeowner’s guide to insects you are likely to encounter in Israel.
Jukim. Known by exterminators as tikanim (tikanot?). These are huge, winged, roach-like creatures that fly in without warning through upper-story windows. Watch out for them when you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Pick them up with a newspaper and fling them back out the window, to head for your neighbor’s apartment. We get five to ten of these each summer.
Headlice. I know they have them in America as parents’ magazines contain full-time ads for anti-lice shampoos. Your average child will get infested with lice about ten times before puberty. Here’s where covering your hair, and big kippot, come in handy. Lice are transferred from head to head (in other words, in school and play) and not by hats, pillowcases or carpet. They don’t live long without a fresh supply of blood, so vacuuming, changing sheets, etc. is a waste of time. Eggs can survive away from the head, but if they don’t have food when they hatch they will still die.
There are a lot of ways to kill live lice, but man has not yet invented a way to completely get rid of nits (eggs). The shampoos claim to, and so do the combs, and the home remedies like vinegar, but none of them removes 100% of the eggs from the hair. You only have to miss one for the cycle to start all over again. The mature lice lay about 4 eggs a day. The eggs take a week to hatch, and another week to grow to maturity.
The trick is to remove all the baby lice before they are big enough to lay eggs. The best way is to comb thoroughly with any lice comb every other day. The hair should be wet and have a little conditioner in it. Comb long hair with a wide-toothed comb first to get out knots. When first hatched lice are very tiny and might not be caught by the comb, but if you are consistent you can get rid of them in about two weeks. If you are consistent. Very consistent. Shampooing twice is generally ineffective because the lice are resistant to the chemicals, and you still have to comb.
Maggots. Maggots are fly larvae. We have only had them twice, and I hope you never will. How to grow them: Place one rotten tomato in the garbage can, and have one child neglect to take out the garbage. Result: Little worms, that look like large grains of rice, scooting out of the garbage cabinet throughout the main area of the house. Solution: Wet the floor (I added vinegar and it didn’t seem to repel them–get it?) and squeegee the water and larvae from the floor to a dustpan to a bucket to the toilet.
Bugs in food. Sugar, cocoa, coffee, oil, and true spices like cinnamon (as opposed to herbs) don’t attract bugs. Everything else does. At various times I have found them in just about every fruit and vegetable, all grains, noodles, etc. I once opened a clementine and found worms. There is also a type of insect that lives on the outside of citrus fruits; you know it by picking it off with your fingernail. Watch out when you peel fruit or use the peel for zest. I rarely encounter bugs–I buy grains in air-conditioned stores with lots of turnover. Buying from closed packages is not necessarily better than buying from open sacks as the packages came from the sacks too. When you get home put grains and legumes straight in the freezer. I buy freshly ground flour (we stock up in Jerusalem as it can’t be gotten in the Tel Aviv area cheaply even in Bnei Brak) and keep it in the freezer. I hate sifting.
Mosquitoes. Most homes in Israel don’t have screens. Enough said.
Flies. Every so often our town gets infested with flies. Since we moved to a higher floor we are less bothered, but before we moved we had days with hundred of flies over everything. The cause seemed to be recent garbage strikes. A lot of rotten tomatoes in those garbage cans. Did I say we don’t have screens? I have a lot of windows.
Fleas. My kids (and those of the neighbors) once brought fleas home from gan. We weren’t the only ones. My poor son (not the preschooler) must have had about 50 bites on one leg alone, and the bites itch terribly for days. As opposed to lice, get rid of fleas by vacuuming mattresses and sofas and change sheets frequently for about two weeks, to get rid of the eggs. And don’t forget to empty out the vacuum cleaner bag. If that doesn’t work an exterminator will be necessary.
Pigeon lice. And you thought only people had lice. Once two pigeons built a nest outside my children’s window. We thought it was cute, until I found tiny bugs on the inside wall around the window. My husband says he remembers them marching in a line. Naturally, it was the Tuesday before the only three-day yom-tov in five years (Rosh Hashanah on a Wednesday night), and we had a wedding that evening. I called an exterminator anyway and sent my kids to a very dear friend along with a babysitter.
Grasshoppers. Some are kosher, including the ones from a year or so ago who swarmed over Eilat. Just like in the Torah. And in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book. Fortunately they didn’t make it to the Tel Aviv area.
Pinworms. These are true worms, not insects. They are harmless, common, annoying, and disgusting. Two rounds of Vermox gets rid of them. We always have the stuff around. Some say garlic and pumpkin seeds work just as well.
Ants. We had ants when we moved to our apartment, but they did not come back after we exterminated.
Lizards. We have small lizards on our roof, and even inside occasionally, but supposedly they are good for the plants and cause no harm.
We have bees and butterflies too! Come visit soon.
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