The Garden

Our apartment is the next to last building on a dead end street. We have a private entrance, through a silver gate. The courtyard outside our front door is divided into two areas - the area closest to the gate is a dirt patch (perhaps once a lawn, as there is a lawnmower stored there) with a really tall palm tree and a flowering bush.  Hadara loves to dig for bugs and direct adventures in this part of the yard. The other part of the yard is paved with ceramic tiles where we have a small kids' art table, weatherproof chairs, and some potted plants. We keep some of the kids' toys and the strollers out there and sit out there most every day - it's really an extra room for the house.  Our yard shares a very low dividing wall with the building next door. There's a small clearing which allows us to step over the wall and into our (favorite) neighbor's yard. We both keep our doors open every day and the kids (their 3 and 6 year old and our 4 and 6 year old) meander back and forth between the two houses multiple times each day.

I write all of this as a preamble to tell you about their garden, which has now become our garden as well. There is a palm, an olive, a pomegranate, and an almond tree growing close to the dividing wall and providing shade for our courtyard. There are beautiful jade plants hanging from their trees in baskets. Geraniums keep the jade company. And then there are the herbs which I have always dreamed of growing near my kitchen. There is rosemary, luisa (lemon verbena), sage, and tarragon.  Many nights, we go pick herbs to make a cup of tea. On Fridays, I pick fresh herbs for Shabbat cooking. When we need a pick me up, I get a handful and carry them around with us for a little while.

I wish you guys could come and share a cup of lemon verbena tea with me now.  Breathe in deeply and pretend you can smell the herbs from there - maybe they'll bring a little bit of Jerusalem sweetness to your Shabbat.

11 weeks and counting

I remember our first week here. We were sleepy and a little groggy. We ordered a lot of take-out simply because we could. We played at the park every day and our kids were deer in headlights at the local JCC camp. Those were the days. We were all healthy. And then the revolving door of sickness hit the house. The Israel versions of childhood ailments. They are mean ... and my kids' immune systems are wimps.

Thanks to all who have asked how everyone's feeling/wished everyone well - please keep it coming. The most recent excitement is all Noam's.  He ran 104-105 fever for days on end and refused to eat or drink for a rather extended period of time. He got a double ear infection and then broke out into a rash - roseola.  Phew, a diagnosis. Great. Then his stomach turned upside down, which was not a pretty sight.  He finally started coming back to himself on Sunday and Monday and returned to "school" on Tuesday after 2 weeks at home. At 10:30 in the morning on Tuesday I got a call from his caretaker saying that he was stung by a bee. Oof. Not good.  But he was dealing with it and seemed okay to them, so I rolled with it as well.  He woke up this morning completely broken out in a head to toe rash. Not like a rash I have ever seen. We're talking measles proportion here. Turns out - he's allergic to the amoxicillin he's taking for his ear infection. Oof. Really, really, really not good. This poor kid just can't get a break. 

From ears to toes

Okay, let me tell you about something else. I finally turned to my own work this week. I spent the first month here in orientation sessions at the Mandel Institute and reading books of interest. I spent the second month in classes on philosophy and learning different lenses which with to see the world with the Jerusalem Fellows - interesting, but not focused on my work at all except for some nice reading.  And this week, I managed to start my work on moral education.  I sit in classes and round table discussions two days a week - the other four days (remember, Sunday is a workday here) I do my own thing. It was actually really nice to start writing and pulling together some of the different ideas from my reading.  Even nicer is the feeling that my seemingly disparate educational journey to get here - undergraduate work in International Politics, learning torah, graduate work in education, fieldwork in the Jewish community, and parenthood - all have their place in my work this year.  One of the key goals of the program is to help mid-career Jewish educators bridge the gap between philosophy and practice. I was worried about the strong focus on philosophy, but it turns out that I actually know a lot of this stuff already. It's pretty hard to get out of Washington DC as an International Politics major without analyzing a LOT of philosophical treatises.  And I spent the first year there focused on Politics and Values ... which comes in quite handy when working on a project in the area of moral education.

And so, I have great hope that everyone in my family will (at least pretend to) be healthy in the very near future and I can start going full steam ahead with my work.

Warm regards to all ...

And then Racheli lost her first tooth!

Well, there you have it. Racheli lost her first tooth. She's been planning this moment for almost a year now and it has finally arrived. She is beaming and completely adorable. The fun part for me is that Racheli got to stay home from school today, so I was there to witness the joy!   Racheli skyped with her friends this week and found out from one Atlanta buddy with whom she skyped today that her friend received $20 when she lost her tooth. Is this seriously the going rate - or did this anonymous friend check to see that I was listening and add a little something extra for some unknown reason?!?    Hmmm, we'll never know the truth.  Alas, Racheli did not get twenty bucks. No sirrr-eee.  A hoola hoop will be waiting for her in the morning (not the easiest present to stick under a pillow, I might add!)

This exciting event comes on the coat tails of another momentous occasion (in my opinion, at least).  Racheli's first seriously all Hebrew playdate.  She invited a completely yummy friend home from school with her and they played for 2 1/2 hours in Hebrew.  It was awesome. Here's a quick video clip of the playdate that I recorded on my phone when I realized what was going on.  You are witnessing the magic of Silly Bandz, the international friend-maker. 

And, of course, no blog in the month of October would be complete without a couple of shots of Mr. Noam and his first birthday. We miss you all and hope that this helps bridge the distance a little bit. And no comments on the rather dry looking cake please. It's soy-free and dairy-free. That is to say, it doesn't just look dry. Happy First Bday anyway, Noam. We love you.

And for the clean up act - Noam gets a bath seat for his birthday!

Noam is One Year Old

Well, we made it. Break out the bubbly, install the baby gates, Noam is 1 year old. To celebrate this momentous occasion, Don and I went to buy Noam a bath seat. (For the record, we went to buy a push toy that he can hold onto and walk behind, but ever the practical parents, we got him a bath seat).  Up until now, Noam has been bathed in our bathroom sink.  Let's note that he has slightly outgrown that option. 

Our bathroom is not the most, shall we say, architecturally brilliant. The door opens into the toilet and the tub is squeezed into a corner behind the toilet making it impossible to reach the faucets from outside the tub [fun exercise for your imagination: how does a fully-dressed parent give a child a bath/shower when s/he can not reach the faucets from outside the tub?]  And with those obstacles in mind, we have decided to promote Mr. Wiggles to the bathtub because the sink just doesn't seem like the smartest option at this moment in his life.

And so, I wish Noam Eliezer a very happy first birthday. You're moving into the big league now. 

Life in Jerusalem

Some of you have requested this post - and so I will try to oblige. Here's the question - What in the world do we do with our time over here?  Here's my attempt at an answer:

You'll notice that it's taken me 9 weeks to try to come up with a coherent response to this question.  As it turns out, we had no predictable schedule for the first 8 weeks here. Actually, the only thing that I could predict with remarkable accuracy, was that we would be at the Wolfson Medical Clinic every Sunday morning between 8 and 9 for the walk-in hour.  Let me take pause for a moment to give a shout out to the Wolfson Medical Clinic for being completely BRILLIANT.  They have a walk-in hour every single morning. You just show up and see a doctor - no wait, no nurse, no messy bureaucracy.  It's clearly the best invention since sliced bread as far as I'm concerned.

With that said, our schedule did start in earnest one week ago. And so, with an entire week of predictable life behind us, I will now tell you all about our weekly schedule.  Our day begins at O'Dark:30 as  Mr. Noam wakes each morning just before 6am.  Once he stirs, Racheli is quick to get dressed and get her day started as well.  Hadara grumps out of bed and is dressed by around 7 and breakfast is served.  Racheli leaves for school with our next door neighbor, Lia, each morning by around 7:30. They walk to school (together with a parent) together each day, chatting all the way.  Some mornings, Hadara joins them and is dropped off at her friend Ruth's house in exchange for Ruth's big sister, Chava, who joins Lia and Racheli on their walk.  Hadara then goes to school with Ruth.  Other mornings, Debra takes Hadara and Noam both to their respective schools.  Hadara skips to the gate each morning.  Noam is received as if he's Norm from Cheers.  Every morning when he shows up, all the teachers call out, "NOAM!!!"  and he scuttles in with a smile. It's really very sweet.

Once the children are at their three separate programs which are no where near each other, Don and I get to work.  So far, I only have to be on-site at Mandel Jerusalem Fellows one and a half days/week and the other days are spent doing site visits, reading, writing, and researching [the savvy reader will understand that to mean doing laundry, shopping for groceries, dealing with repairs, cleaning the house, and attempting to get my work done after nightfall]. So far, Don only has to be on site one day a week. His other days are spent doing site visits, reading, writing, and researching [the savvy reader will understand that to mean doing site visits, reading, writing, and researching].

Two days a week, the kids come home at 4pm. Three days a week, they come home at 1:30/1:45. And on Fridays, Hadara and Racheli finish by noon, though Noam has no school.  When we remember which day which child is supposed to be picked up at which time, one of us usually makes it there and we have a fun walk home.  Racheli's favorite days so far are Sundays (when she has Self  Defense class) and Tuesdays (when she takes a dance class).  She describes school and first grade as "boring."  Hadara says that she loves school (where she is the oldest in her class and is the king of the castle) and Noam still goes with a smile on his face.

The weather has just started to shift and I bought umbrellas for the girls today in anticipation of the puddle jumping which will soon be upon us.

The best part of living in Jerusalem so far has been breathing fresh air again.  Our windows are open all day and all night. The kids play outside every day before and after school. We spend time at the park on a regular basis. And I love to sit outside in the evenings with a cup of tea and a husband with a smile on his face.

Noam meets the stairwell

On 10-10-10*(see below), Noam Eliezer Seeman got moving. He planted two hands firmly on the second step, pushed himself up, hoisted a chubby little leg in the air, wiggled it up onto the bottom step and POOF he was up one stair. He was so shocked that he looked around to see where he ended up. I don't think that he really believed that he'd managed to start climbing the staircase. So he started all over again. Super grip with hands glued to the stair, knee flung up above shoulder level (really, did he just get his knee that high?!?) until it lands on the right step, and then I-think-I-can-I-think-I-can-I-think-I-can POOF, he's on the second stair!  This is how it continued for the next 3 minutes, until Mr. Noam managed to climb all the way to the top of our winding, cold, Jerusalem stone, if-you-fall-backwards-you're-going-to-split-your-head-open staircase.  And once he got to the top, his face lit up and he started to clap for himself.

I'm thinking that perhaps now would be a good time to install a safety gate. 







*(October 10th, 2010),

Scarlet Fever

Seriously? Scarlet Fever?  You have got to be kidding me. Hadara woke up on Thursday morning with Scarlet Fever. Does that even still exist?  She had swollen hands and ankles with a crazy rash and a flaming sore throat.  We took her to the doctor, got her on penicillin, and *voila* no more scarlet fever.  I am, yet again, blown away by the magic of modern medicine.

And with that said, someone in our family has been sick/injured for the past 8 weeks straight. We've done double ear infection, random virus, oral herpes, smashed lip after flying off of seesaw, smashed forehead with pretty shiner after some unexplained sandbox accident, bronchitis, sinus infection, croup, a few colds, and our crowning glory - scarlet fever.

I officially declare that the Seeman Family has fulfilled our quota for the year. We're done.  Or else I quit.