So we’ve been here for a month, as of Tuesday, and it’s been hot and sunny every day.  I hear that in New York it’s been cool and, I have to say, I could really use some cool days. Even some rain!  SOMETHING to mix it up a bit…

Neither of the kids cried today.  Talia was psyched to have her swim chug after school and Ben was just happy to be in school today.  Yay!

Ulpan was great.  I really love being in school.  I spoke to the person in front of me today about a chug for Ben after school one day.  It turns out she runs all kind of chugim after school for his age group and I think I might enroll him in the baking/cooking chug since he LOVES to bake.  Maybe then he won’t make me bake so much!

So I only had about 45 minutes in between class and getting Ben and I don’t think I accomplished anything in that time.  I called the contractor who worked on our house since I still have so many things here that are not finished and he promised me that he would be here on Sunday morning to meet with Eric.  I also got a call from Talia’s school.  At first I thought the woman who called me said I should come in and speak with her.  So I said Okay and I hung up.  She called me right back to say that I misunderstood and that she wanted to know if I could speak to Talia.  I don’t know how I missed that one!  So Talia said that she wanted me to come visit her in school!  I think she thought that since I was in school right down the block from her that I could mosey on over and visit.  I explained that I was already home and that I was about to get Ben and she would only have an hour left of school before her chug.  She seemed happy enough with that repsonse.

Ben and I did some cleaning up around the outside of the house when he came home and had some pizza and put Keren in for a small nap.  Then we hung out until Talia came home at 4.  She showed up in a great mood and with a friend, surprise!!  The kids played nicely and included Ben for the most part.   They went to Talia’s room after a while and they didn’t want him to join them and he took it pretty hard.  They eventually came down and they all played nicely until dinner.  Then I fed them dinner and the girl’s mother came to pick her up.  Talia told me that she learned how to dive today.  We’ll probably go to the pool tomorrow after school and I’ll see if she really can.  That will be so exciting!

One of the things I found while unpacking today was the Bumbo seat that a friend bought for Keren.  It’s for kids 3 months and up.  I put her in it and she looked so cute sitting up like that.  Ben and Talia got a huge kick out of her.  To see a picture of her in the seat click on the link below.  Take note of her fuzzy hair that sticks straight up.  This kid is going to spend a fortune on hair products one day, mark my words!

http://www.yorkphoto.com/share/p=999111221159786005/l=419047566/g=70636009/cobrandOid=1002/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB
Anyway, not much else to report.  We are looking forward to Eric coming home tomorrow.  He is going to get a ride with a friend who is on the same flight.  The friend is a frequent flyer and goes to the business class/first class lounge and he said that he can bring a friend in and he’ll bring Eric.  So exciting!

Meanwhile, as I sit here, Keren is on my lap and she is eating my arm.  I guess she is teething.  Either that or she has mistaken my arm for a piece of corn on the cob, because she is eating it the way one would eat a piece of corn!

Off to unpack some boxes.

Rushed to ulpan today after I dropped the kids off at school.  They were so excited that I was also going to school that noone cried today!  hooray!! 

Ulpan was totally fun.  I loved it.  Hard to concentrate for so long in another language and talking is like breaking my teeth but I learned a lot and I think it’s going to be really great for me.  It was also fun to be in a school environment again.  I sit next to a girl who just got married and moved here from France.  She only speaks mostly French and some English.  I look at her notebook and she is writing in French!  Guess I won’t be able to cheat off of her work.  Ha!  Keren was pretty good.  When she got kvetchy I just nursed her.  Another woman in the class was very excited to hold her and she held her for a bit too and that helped.  Next week I’ll have Eric home so he can watch her while I’m there and just bring her to me to nurse.  Luckily ulpan is right around the corner.  I guess everything is kind of close when you are on a yishuv.

I thought that Talia had school until 3:15 but i guess I was wrong b/c she walked in the door at 2:40.  I assume that she didn’t just leave early and that everyone came home at that time.  I’ll have to find out.

Did a little more unpacking and organizing today but obviously not as much as I’ve been able to do the past couple days when I’ve had my mornings free.  I had to do it with the kids home and they like to unpack and play with the things that I am unpacking and then I wind up with a mess and it doesn’t work.  So I gave up after a couple of boxes and now the place is looking kind of messy again.  Oh well.

The kids were really tired tonight and I got them into bed nice and early.  Ben, at one point, was crying because I set up the mobile on Keren’s crib and he said that he wanted a mobile also so he could fall asleep to music too and he started to cry!!  I told him I would find something that played music too.  Talia was just grouchy all afternoon and she needed to go to sleep early too.

Not much else to report on…  kind of a slow day.  Talia has her swim chug tomorrow.  That should be nice for her.

Keren didn’t do much sleeping last night.  I don’t know what that was all about.  I am zonked.   I hope tonight is better.

After a very long night last night with Keren waking up at 12, 3 and 4 with bad gas (sorry, Keren, to share that with the world) we quickly got dressed and ate and ran to school.  Talia cried today and Ben did too!  So I was in a really lousy mood.

Instead of coming home to unpack I had to go to sign up for my ulpan class.  I thought it was going to be a 10 minute thing but it turned into more of an hour and a half thing.  Our teacher introduced herself to us and we told her about ourselves in Hebrew so that she could assess our knowledge of the language and see what levels we were on.  Turns out we are all level bet plus or minus, so we are going to have class 5 days a week from 8:30 to 12:45!!!  So there goes all my unpacking time when the kids are in school!!  I am actually excited that I am going to finally learn how to speak the language properly instead of my elementary school Hebrew that I’ve been getting by with.

I wound up rambling on and on to the teacher when she asked about me.  I went on in Hebrew about how my kids are bringing home notices and I don’t know what in the world they are about and I’m totally missing out.  I kept going and going.  I think she thought I was nuts.  She basically smiled at me, turned to the next person and asked her about herself.

Anyway, Savta and Aunt Suzie came over today to help (again) with the unpacking.  I think I finished my last kitchen box this morning before they came and when I ran out to do some food shopping (now I have to fill up my big fridge) they set up the living room nicely and started on some other boxes too.  So the furniture in my living room, namely the couches, are all facing each other and it looks like more of a room.  They were really funny.  At one point they were cleaning the big sliding glass door that we have in the living room.  One was on the inside and one the outside scraping the paint off the door and washing it. 

I have to talk about the shopping wagons that they have in this country!!  They go forward and backward but they also go sideways!!!!  It is sooooo annoying!!!  Noone knows how to push them.  You kind of have to stand on the side of them and push them that way.  At one point I tried pulling it.  Didn’t work.  For those of you who don’t know, they connect the wagons together and to disconnect them you have to either have a 5 shekel coin to put into the slot (and then you get it back when you hook it on to another one when you are finished) or most people have a special keychain that has a 5 shekel coin on it attached to a yad or something like that.  So today I had to find a wagon that wasn’t attached to anything b/c I didn’t have either.  Luckily I found one and when I got home Savta gave me my very own one for my keychain.  I feel so Israeli now.

Talia had her arts and crafts chug this evening at 4:30.  She loved it.  She is making a cactus with tape and glue and water, I think.  Her teacher speaks only Hebrew which I think is going to be great for her.  This way she’ll pick some Hebrew up (I hope) in more of a relaxed environment.

It got a little hectic here when I got back from dropping her off.  My friend Mindy came over to help translate some of the stuff that the school sent home.  Now I know why school was only until 2:30 today and not 3:15.  Also, a friend from camp came over b/c her daughter takes a swim chug on Tuesdays in Chashmonaim.  So she came to visit us too.  Then the kids were all playing with the toys that I had unpacked this afternoon.  On the one hand I am happy that I opened some of those boxes.  On the other hand, now I have toys all over my house again!!

Another friend saw me standing outside and invited us for shabbat dinner.  So we are now covered for both meals this shabbat.  yay.  no cooking.  maybe I’ll get a chance to take the kids to the pool again on Friday if it’s still open for the summer.  She also asked if I needed anything and I did.  I needed a notebook for ulpan tomorrow since I haven’t come accross any boxes with old notebooks in them yet.  So she got one for me and dropped it off.   So nice! 

Got the kids bathed and into bed pretty much on time tonight.  I will go do some cleaning up in the rooms that have lightbulbs that work in them and then some laundry now that I did a load this morning and nothing terrible happened and then off to bed.  Have to be awake and well rested for my first day of ulpan tomorrow!!

Today Ben was able to ride his bike to school!  He was so excited to see his bike yesterday that I promised him that he could ride to school today.  So he rode while Talia and I walked.  It was good because it meant that our walk was much shorter because he rides pretty quickly and after we drop Talia off, we speed to gan.  Talia didn’t cry today and said her day was okay.  I think she just doesn’t want to talk about it when she gets home and so she says it’s okay.  Ben came out of school with a big smile, as usual.

After i dropped them off at school today I took Keren to the tipat chalav which, thankfully, was open today!  I got it right!  So I gave them her records and Ben’s records and I am made an appointment to go back so they could examine Keren.   We then went to Cheerfully Changed, the change store in Modiin where I had to give the guy dollars and he transferred it into our bank here into Shekels and also did some other transactions.  It took me a while to find it even though Eric had shown me where it was more than once.  Luckily I have friends in Modiin who I called and then got me there.

When we came home it was time for a nap (for Keren, not me) and time to do some more unpacking.  I got about 2 kitchen boxes done before Savta came to help me some more.  Thank G-d for Savtas!  While we were unpacking the gas guy came to hook up my gas line.  So now I can cook!  It’s a little primative b/c there is a plug for the starter but no outlet under the counter.  So in order to put the gas on I have to light a match and hold it to the gas.  I am hoping I can show it to the contractor when he comes this week and he can do something about it.  Otherwise, I am glad that we have a good lighter from Cosco.

I was still having problems fitting all of my stuff into all the cabinets.  I called Robin, a friend on the yishuv because she told me she had extra cabinets that she bought from her old house and went over there after I picked up Ben, since she lives accross the street from gan.  She had something that I could use so I left Ben there for a playdate and came home to unpack some more and then her husband Freddie came over with the yishuv’s handyman and they brought in the shelves and the handyman even added some nails to it b/c it was sort of falling apart a little.  So once I had more room I was able to almost fully finish unpacking the kitchen.  I hope the rest of the house doesn’t take me this long to unpack!

I didn’t do the packing, the movers did, and I am finding the funniest things that were packed.  I found a small piece of granite that was under my sink in America from when we did the counters in granite.  I found pieces that belong to my dishwasher that I guess Eric will have to bring back and give to the renters.  I found other things that I can’t think of right now but those were the two that were the silliest!

Talia came home and she went up to her room to “unpack.”  She doesn’t want any help with it.  Her room is a mess now with stuff all over it!!

Later in the day we went to friends for dinner who live in Modiin.  It was nice!  The kids were kind of bouncing off the walls so it was hard to talk to my friend but it was nice getting together and nice not to have to make dinner.  Tomorrow night Robin (mentioned above) is making us dinner.  Yay!

I desperately have to do laundry but I am so scared to use the new washer.  I am afraid that I am going to have a flood here and Eric isn’t here to help me.  They guy who installed it tested it out but I am still nervous.  You hear all these horror stories from the women here that all kinds of things go wrong when the husbands are in America and I am waiting for something to go wrong and I am convinced this will be the thing.  I think maybe I’ll try it tomorrow if Savta comes back in the day.  I don’t want to do it at night.

Oh, crazy story…  While we were outside this afternoon at some point there was smoke coming from the valley below.  So Freddie was here delivering the shelves and he said it was one of the many demonstrations b/c of the wall that’s being built there.  Then we saw that there was tear gas being shot at the demonstrators from the Israeli base that is to the left of us above the hills!!  You could actually see it being shot at them. It was really crazy.  The wind was blowing and the tear gas was reaching us and we had to go inside.  Talia was complaining that her eyes were burning (she was outside planting another peach pit in the ground, convinces it’s going to grow into a peach tree) and Savta was yelling at her to get inside.  I quickly ran upstairs and got the video camera and ran outside and took videos b/c I knew Eric wouldn’t want to have missed it.

So that was the BIG excitement for the day.

For some reason my kitchen table is MIA.  It is making my grandmother CRAZY that we can’t find it.  She wants to get the big folding table and chairs out and back to my neighbor and get my table in but it’s nowhere to be seen.  I think it’s just not labled on the box and it’s hiding in a box of coats or something but she’s convinced it’s not here at all.  Where could it have gone?  It’s really quite amusing to see her running around looking for it.  No matter how many times I tell her we’ll get to it and it doens’t matter, she keeps looking for it.  It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.  There are SO many boxes!

I know there was more and there was some funny stuff too but I can’t remember the rest.

Most beautiful sunset tonight.  The sky was pink and it was clear so I could see Tel Aviv from my mirpeset…

I am sooooo tired!!!  What a day.  I do not recommend doing this to anyone!!  I guess it’s no different than moving anywhere but for some reason today was NUTS!!

So it started at 8am.  That’s when 2 friends came to help me.  The truck showed up around 9 and they unloaded until 12.  From 12-1 they opened up the beds and set them up and opened the packing on the couches.  My grandmother was here to help also.  She was good.  She held he baby and put her to sleep and helped with stuff like that.  Then, when they all left, she helped with the unpacking.  We did some of the kitchen boxes and I set up the kids’ beds so they had somewhere to sleep for the night. 

I was all excited that I was getting my fridge and my washer and dryer b/c I’ve had no washer and dryer and the fridge that I have is tiny.  Well, my friends who came over informed me that I was not allowed to so much as plug the fridge in b/c it would void the warranty.  I was going to have to wait WEEKS until someone would come out and do it for me.  So I e-mailed Eric and he called them right away and the woman said they were very busy and would try to squeeze us in this week.  Two minutes later, before Eric could even e-mail me with the news of this, she called me and told me someone would be here within half an hour.  He came and he was amazing!  Our fridge, although it fits in the kitchen and is now plugged in, didn’t fit in the designated area.  So it’s kind of just floating there.  There is a pipe coming out of the floor that has to be cut so we can get the fridge in.  I’m not sure it’s going to happen.  We’ll see.  It might have to stay put. 

When the guys moved the washer and dryer in, the dryer didn’t fit in the small door to the laundry room.  When this guy came, he took the door off, it was no problem, and the dryer fit!  it’s also an awkward fit but it’s in there!!  YAY!!  He hooked that up for me also and we’re in business to do laundry.  No more schlepping it to the neighbors.

So the one error that I made when the movers were unloading the truck at lightning speed was that we have a wall unit that has our tv in it in the living room and we have an armoire that goes in our room that’s meant to have our clothes in it.  These both look VERY similar when they are all wrapped up in their packing stuff.  So, needless to say, I confused them and I had the guys carry the wrong one up 3 flights of stairs.  They then had to carry it back down and carry the right one up.  They were NOT happy with me AT ALL!  The foreman on the job was a doll.  He said these things happen.  The very nice Russian gentelman that had to do the carrying said to me, “ma, at choshevet she ze kilo echad?!”  Yeah, he wasn’t too happy. 

That was the only disaster of the day.  Otherwise, I think everything that went onto the truck came off the truck.  It’s hard to tell even with the lists.  The stickers were falling off and all over the place and it was hard to keep track.  I counted the tvs and computers and stuff like that.  So the expensive stuff we have.

So the house is a MESS.  The vaccuum cleaner came wit the wrong kind of plug.  I think it was the right kind of we lived in England.  I was dying to vaccuum a little.  The very nice man who hooked up the appliances changed it for me.  Savta asked him to and he did.  Go Savta!

So at around 5 Keren woke up from her nap (in her crib!) and Savta went home and I took the kids out for pizza.  I couldn’t have sat them down at the kitchen table even if I had anything to eat here b/c of the mess.  We came home and I got them clean and into bed pretty quickly.  They are glad to have their things.

School went okay today.  We tried dropping Ben off before Talia and that didn’t go too well.  Ben wound up crying today!!  I am sure it didn’t last long.  He was VERY happy when I picked him up as usual and excited about the necklace he made at school.  Talia didn’t cry and she said she had a good day.  She said she isn’t going to cry anymore!  We’ll see about that.  She also said that Ulpan started today and that she didn’t like it b/c her teacher doesn’t speak English.  Eric said what kind of an ulpan teacher doens’t speak English?  So we are sure that she does and that she hasn’t told the kids so they won’t talk to her in English.  Makes sense to me.

Tomorrow I am going to go to a friend (actually Robin Zemel who is a relative through marriage) and see what she has to give us in the way of storage.  She told me that she has plenty that we can take for the year or something like that.  I can’t remember.

As I am writing this Keren has been trying to roll from her back to her stomach and SHE JUST DID!!  I can’t believe it!!

That’s all for now.  Off to bed.  Very busy day tomorrow unpacking and trying to make some order of my house here.  OY!  Only 5 days until Eric comes home…

I am really tired.  It’s after 10 on Sat. night and I have to get to sleep soon because tomorrow is the big day, the day the lift comes!!  I’ll make this quick.

Shabbat was very nice.  Friday night the kids stayed up to eat with us.  It was just me and the kids, Aunt Suzie and Savta and Saba.  At one point during the meal Ben went to lie down in my bed and fell asleep.  During dessert Talia layed down on the couch and fell asleep.  Keren fell asleep in Aunt Suzie’s arms.  So it was a good night!  Before I went to sleep Aunt Suzie and I played a couple games of Bananagrams.  So much fun!!

On Shabbat the kids played pretty nicely by themselves while Keren and I slept.  Then we got dressed and mete Savta in shul.  Aunt Suzie didn’t sleep the night before so she didn’t go to shul so she walked with us to meet Savta.  Then we walked to the park nearby.  Savta and Aunt Suzie wanted to go home and make kiddush but the kids were having fun so I stayed with them and they took Keren back to the apt.  It was really hot out so before we went back we stopped by Avivit’s house for some cold drinks.  We wound up staying there until 12:15.  Then we went back and ate lunch.

We hung out and played with the kids the rest of the day until 5.  At 5 we went to Avi and Miriam’s house for seudat shlishit.  It was nice.

We walked home and I quickly bathed the kids and packed up and ran home.  The kids fell asleep in the car and I had to carry them all in one by one, not easy!!  I gave Keren a bath, fed her and put her to sleep.

So that’s Shabbat in a nutshell!

I hope I survive the day tomorrow!!!

I finally was able to download the video of Keren rolling over.  It’s adorable.  Here it is:

http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/mm87/slickric01/?action=view&current=MVI_2461.flv

We all slept well last night and woke up ready to go to school.  Even Talia’s spirits were somewhat high.  I think it helped that I told her that her day was short, even shorter than Ben’s was going to be.  For some reason the mamad gets out at 11:45 and gan at 12:45.  So even though Talia was sad by the time we got to her school, she held in those tears and didn’t cry!!  YAY!

Last night Eric posted a request on the Chashmonaim list for help with the lift on Sunday.  We got 3 responses by e-mail and I got 2 phone calls.  I am really touched by the people in this community.  It is one thing to offer meals and come over and say hello.  It’s another thing to offer to stand outside in the hot sun and help with inventory lists while someone’s lift is being unloaded!

Okay, I have no time now to write the rest… In a nutshell, it is almost Shabbat. I will finish the rest tomorrow night. We basically had a nice day at the pool. I took the kids to the pool after school and now we are at my grandmother’s house for shabbat.

Here are some videos that I was able to upload at my grandparent’s house. Enjoy!

http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/mm87/slickric01/?action=view&current=MVI_2469.flv

http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/mm87/slickric01/?action=view&current=MVI_2468.flv

Business as usual today.  We woke up and got ready for school.  Talia cried again when I left her at school and Ben happily went.  Hopefully one of these days they’ll both be happy to go.  At least tomorrow is a short day so hopefully she won’t cry!

After I dropped off the kids Keren and I came home to pick up the car and head out to the tipat chalav.  When we got home the guy from Bezeq pulled up and was ready to install our phones.  I was psyched and let him in.  After about 10-15 minutes he told me he couldn’t do it b/c we needed a “bikoret”  I ran to write that word down b/c I figured that Eric was going to ask why the guy couldn’t put the line in and I wanted to have some kind of answer for him other than saying that I had no clue what the guy was saying in Hebrew.  well, i still don’t know what a bikoret is but I know that we don’t have one and we need one and until we get one, we won’t have any phone service in the house.  Very annoying.

Next Keren and I hopped in the car and went to the tipat chalav.  I found it with no problem but it was closed.  I guess my phone conversation that I had yesterday with the woman on the phone didn’t go as well as I thought I had.  I must have misunderstood her.  Turns out they are closed every Thursday.  I now have to wait until Monday to take Keren because Sunday OUR LIFT IS COMING!!! 

Yes, you heard right, our lift is coming, they tell you to have 2 people in the house to accept it, and my husband has flown the coop and is partying it up in NY.  Okay, so he’s there for work but I am all alone here and the lift is coming, the lift is coming!!

Anyway, to get back on track, after a morning of cleaning the house again to get it ready for all the stuff that will soon take over the place, I picked Ben up from school.  He had a great day and made a picture of a doobie – a bear.  He also told me that he learned the hebrew word for “quiet”.  He is rocking this language, if I do say so myself!  We hung out the rest of the day together b/c Talia went straight from school to a friend’s house.  I let Ben spill a bucket of water on the floor of the room that will be mine and we squeegeed it into the drain in the bathroom!!  FUN. FUN.

When we picked Talia up she was in good spirits.  I asked her how her day in school was and she replied “good.”  So that made me happy.  She said they had the math teacher almost the entire day.  She later told me that she is forgetting how to count in English b/c they counted in Hebrew all day long today.  HA! She wishes, maybe.  I asked her if she’s going to cry tomorrow when I drop her off and she said she probably will!  I asked her why she will cry if she had a good day today.  I can’t remember her response, though.  We’ll see.  I think by the end of next week she’ll be okay.

We were invited to the Spiegelmans for dinner tonight.  They ordered in pizza.  It was nice to be in a house full of people and furniture again!  Soon we’ll feel really at home here when we have our furniture.  When we get cable service and we have TV my kids won’t want to run out on so many playdates all the time   I think they want to leave so much b/c we have nothing to do here.  I did bring a lot of toys as a friend of mine suggested, but they are tired of those toys and keep asking about their other stuff.  It’s been a long wait.  Unfortunately, because our stuff was sitting at the docks for so long, we have to pay storage fees for it.   It could be worse, our stuff could be in Cypress.  I just found out that a couple who was on our flight had their stuff sent from Israel back to Cypress b/c of the slow down at the docks.  It’s a real mess.  I feel so bad for them.

Well, I seem to have gone off on a tangent so I am going to end this here. I took the cutest video of Keren rolling over!  I can’t seem to upload it though with this connection.  If I can, I am going to take the camera to my grandparents’ house this shabbos and do it before shabbos starts. I’ll add it to the next blog.  They have a better connection there than the wireless that we are “borrowing” here.

Tonight I am sitting at our table and chairs that we borrowed from a neighbor and writing my blog!  No more floor for me.  My tush appreciates it!

So I collapsed into bed last night and didn’t have a chance to blog.  After school yesterday Ben went out for a playdate and Talia came straight home.  My Savta came a little later on, as did my great Aunt Suzie.  They brought some plastic shelving for me that I put into one of the bathrooms to hold stuff.  Big help.  They also brought me some other useful items that I’ve needed since our lift isn’t here yet.  The best was Savta’s yummy noddle and cheese pudding!  They stayed for a while.  It was nice.  Talia and Ben were kind of looking for something to do while they were here and my grandmother suggested that they go play with friends!  So I guess they had had enough and she had had enough and wanted to just sit and talk so I sent them out again for another playdate.  That’s the great thing about living here!

When they left I walked accross the street (literally) to meet with the pediatrician here.  Unfortunately he doesn’t do well visits for kids under the age of 5.  So although Talia will go to him for both well and sick visits, Ben and Keren have to go to a tipat chalav, which is basically a clinic run by nurses from what I understand.  I am going tomorrow so I’ll see what it’s like.

After that the kids played and then I gave them a bath and we went out to dinner at a friend of mine from camp who lives down the block.  We had a BBQ, it was delicious.  Unfortunately, they have a big dog and Ben was really scared.  It was a very friendly dog that jumped on me when we walked in.  That’s all he had to see!  So they put it upstairs but it came down twice before they locked it up behind a closed door.  so the rest of the night Ben announced that he wanted to go home every 5 minutes!  Eventually he let us eat in peace and the kids fell asleep there on their couch watching tv and Eric carried them home.

So today we woke up and Talia decided that she wanted to walk to school by herself.  I was against the idea so I figured that I would walk her part of the way and then she could go the rest herself.  When it came time to leave me she chickened out.  She got really sad b/c she really didn’t want to go to school.  I wound up walking her the whole way with Ben also and then into the building and then she stood there crying that she didn’t want to go to school.  I felt SOOOOO terrible.  I left her at school, what else could I do? 

I took Ben who was very happy.  On the way there he told me that he wanted a playdate with “a little girl who wears glasses.”  I said okay, I would find her mom.  As we got close to school Ben saw her mother and told me!  So I introduced myself to her and asked if she had a little girl who wears glasses and she said yes!  I asked if she would like to come to our house after school and Ben piped in and said, “No, i want to go to her house!”  Her mom got a kick out of him and invited him over.  He played very nicely there until 4:00.

After I dropped him off I went back to Talia’s school to talk with someone there about the fact that Talia is miserable.  She was VERY simpathetic and said she would talk to her teacher for me.   I told her I could talk to her teacher but over the phone would be difficult in Hebrew.  I also signed her up for something called chancha or something like that.  It’s where a sherut leumi girl comes to the house and helps with Hebrew.  She also told me that Ulpan is starting next week for Talia. 

When I picked Talia up her spirits were high.  She told me that she understood some of what went on today.  She also said that she figured out when her teacher was telling another girl something and she explained it to the other girl and he teacher said “yofi talia!!”  so that made her feel good.   Then her teacher called me and we spoke a little and she said she had a good afternoon.  Talia told me that the morning was not so great but that the afternoon was better.  I hope gettting her off to school will be a little easier tomorrow and a happier experience.

After school Talia came home with a friend.  When her friend left she went next door to play with the little girl there.  She is very busy after school and is certainly enjoying her social life.  She has another playdate lined up for tomorrow. 

When I picked Ben up from his playdate the mom told me that she suggested they take out the cars to play with but that Ben said he would rather play with the dolls that she had.  She said she figured that he has other sisters.  Also, she is a full year younger than him and she said that he was helping her with everything and being very “big brotherly.”  Eric said he probably likes being the older one for a change.

Anyway, they came in for dinner eventually and we made grilled cheese in the sandwich maker and those instant pastas that you add water to, like the Traditions Soups that they have in America, and then wait 5 minutes and it cooks somehow.  They have yummy flavors here.  The kids had Thai noodles.  They loved it.

Since we have no trees or plants by our house, Talia decided that she would plant a peach pit and grow a peach tree.  We’ll see how that one turns out.  She left a stick by the area that she planted the tree so that she would know where it’s going to come up.

After baths Eric said goodbye to the kids and told them he was going to America.  They were really sad.  They got used to having him around constantly.  They made a big deal about it and Ben was screaming “I want to go to America”.  He just told me yesterday that we were lucky that we didn’t have to get onto a plane and go!  Talia was upset but was calmed down when Eric assured her he would get her the undershirt she wants with the “skinny straps” and bring them back for her.  Eric was really sad but I told him that they are usually sad when he travels but that then they forget about him (in a good way!) and they are happy.   I am going to be lonely at first also but I know that we always manage and we’ll adjust.  The first time is the hardest.

On that note, I am going to say goodbye to him b/c the taxi should be here momentarily.  Keren finally cried herself to sleep.  We just started to Ferberize her.  Then I am off to sleep.

The link below is the picture I took this evening of the sunset.  It looked better in person than in the picture.

http://www.yorkphoto.com/share/p=4631220468645030/l=418945919/g=70636009/cobrandOid=1002/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

So today was a big day.  The kids started school AND we moved into our new place!! 

The day started out really early.  Got the kids up and out to school by 8!  While Eric went to meet the cleaning girl at our house, I took Talia and Ben to school.  First we walked Talia her her school.  She was very very nervous!  I brought her up to her classroom like all the other parents and sat her down at her desk.  The classroom is set up with long desks in U shapes, I guess and the kids each had to find their name by their place.  SO I got her set up and the teacher started to speak in Hebrew and she turned to me and said “I don’t want to stay here!”  So I scooped her up and we ran out of the school and she’s never going back.  Okay, so that’s not what I did, even though every instinct in my body told me to.  Instead, I promised her that she was going to be okay.  I reminded her that she hated her first day of kindergarten.  She reminded me that in kindergarten she could at least undertand what the teacher was saying.  Anyway, I reassured her and a little girl next to her said not to worry, that she would explain it all to her!  So cute!!  Then I reminded the teacher who she was and that she didn’t speak of word of Hebrew and she told me not to worry. 

She happends to have a wonderful teacher and I think she is going to do very well in school.  I think she might be a little bit ahead of the class in math and from what she brought home today, I think she’s going to be okay in Hebrew too!  Go Westchester Day School!

Next I dropped off Ben.  He threw a minor fit on the way to school.  Something about wanted chocolate milk and Eric to take him and not wanting to go, etc.  I managed to drag him there (part of the way I mean that literally) and got him settled.  He too told me that he didn’t want me to leave so I stayed for a few minutes and talked to his teacher.  She told me that we missed a meeting the night before.  We never got a notice about it.  Whatever.  She said that the kids all made little crowns and they made one for Ben.  They kept calling him Binyamin b/c we filled that out as his name.  I thought between the Hebrew and the wrong name he wouldn’t know what was flying.  I quickly corrected that and told his teachers he didn’t know Hebrew and left! 

I was pretty happy with what I saw there.  It seemed like a nice big classroom with many different activities set up in an organized way on tables.  I think it’s going to be good.

I went back to the Spiegelman’s house and packed up the stuff we had there with Eric.  Oh, on a side note, the cleaning girl couldn’t find the house and we couldn’t find her.  It wasn’t looking good.

As I was heading to the house to help Eric clean at 10, I decided to call someone in Ben’s school to double check what time he was getting out of school.  Turns out he was getting out at 10!  I did an about face and went to pick him up.  He seemed to be very happy.  Go figure!  On the way out of school he asked me if he could go to a friend’s house and I asked the mother and he went home with them, where he proceeded to eat them out of house and home.  Unfortunately, the boy was an English speaker, so he won’t be learning any Hebrew there.

I got back to the house and got a call that our cleaning girl was on her way, that she went to another house and the woman there was expecting a cleaning girl of her own that she didn’t know and she thought she was it and she started cleaning for her before they realized what had happened!!  Right out of an episode of Three’s Company.  So she cleaned while the air conditioning people fixed the air on the third floor.

At 11:45 I went to get Talia from school!  I was so excited that I got there 15 minutes early.  I stood outside the school with the other parents and waited.  She came around the corner (they were apparently having some sort of celebration for rosh chodesh.  we’re not sure, though since Talia didn’t know for sure) and she looked okay.  not thrilled, just okay.  She started to come over to me but her teacher said that all the kids should go in and get their bags.  Her teacher was saying it and miming it to Talia.  I thought that was good. 

So we walked home and she told me the funniest thing!  She said that her friend told her it was time to put their stuff away and while it was taking her time to do that the teacher said something and when she turned around everyone had left the classroom!!  She had no clue what was going on.  She went out and figured out that they were all washing for aruchat eser (they eat lunch at 10 am here, crazy!)  So she went and washed with them.  I was hysterical when I heard this.  The poor kid has no clue what’s happening.  I told her that maybe tomorrow when the teacher announces it’s time to wash, she’ll remember the words and know what to do.  I’m not holding my breath.

So next we went back to the house and paid the cleaning girl (who ripped us off) and went to lunch while Eric went to look at some used cars.  We went to the mall b/c I couldn’t find Domino Pizza in Modiin.  We got pizza and slushies as a first day of school treat.  Eric later showed me how to find it so I can find it another time by myself.   Then we picked Eric up and we went food shopping and to the Home Center store here for some odds and ends.  We couldn’t buy too much b/c the fridge that my grandmother gave us to borrow is small.  It seems we’ll be frequenting the makolete until our fridge comes on our lift.  Still no word on the lift.

Anyway, tonight we made some sandwiches for dinner and the kids ate on a blanket on the floor since we dind’t have time to pick up the table and chairs that a friend said they could loan us.  Then we tucked the kids in and I unpacked and unpacked and unpacked some more.  I am exhausted and the lift isn’t even here yet!!  The problem is that we have no furniture to unpack into and houses here don’t come with any closets.  So we have neat little piles of clothing in all the bedrooms.  I just decided that we couldn’t live out of suitcases a minute longer!

While I was unpacking, Eric was looking to see if we have internet here from out neighbors.  Turns out that we do!!  Yay!!  So I am writing this blog from my blowup air mattress, courtesy of Camp Moshava, in our new house!  Tomorrow he’s going to see if he can hook up a phone over the internet for us.  The only problem is I think the connection is going to be stinky since it’s wireless.  We’ll see.  But having internet it great.

It is great to be in our own place (even with no furniture).  There was a beautiful sunset that I saw from my window.  I’ll get a picture of it tomorrow if it’s a clear day and post it if  I can.  The breeze on the mirpeset it beautiful.  Our house is in a really nice location. 

One funny story about Ben before I end this.  As we were walking to his gan this morning and I was tyring to prepare him for the language difference, I was telling him that soon he and Talia would start talking Hebrew to each other and Eric and i wouldn’t be able to understand them.  So we were going on and on and He said yeah, I am going to talk to you in Hebrew and to Talia in Hebrew.  And then he said, but what am I going o say?  I think that it sounded much funnier when he said it.  I might have forgotten the exact words.  Oh well.

Today’s pictures are of Talia and Ben with their backpacks on the first day of school and of the kids eating their sandwiches on the floor in the kitchen in the new house.  I’ll try to take pics tomorrow of the house too.

Click on the link below to see:

http://www.yorkphoto.com/share/p=32811220303452059/l=418915212/g=70636009/cobrandOid=1002/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB