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 ...