What was it I said right before Marika was born? It’s been 20 years and I’m starting to lose confidence?I know I have to have a baby eventually. But I’ve been timing contractions since LAST THURSDAY when I would have been willing to bet (a little) money that I would have a baby in the next 24 hours.I would, clearly, have lost that bet. Read More »

Thursday night, I wrote a speech. By the time I was done I was timing contractions 8 minutes apart. I sent the speech at 3 am saying, “I think I’m going to go have a baby now” and went to bed fully expecting to wake up a few hours later, head to the hospital, and, you know, have a baby.Instead, I woke up at 9 am to no contractions at all. Read More »

A crystal ball would be nice sometimes.Just got off the phone with the head of education at the yishuv where we’re planning on moving next year. Read More »

The strike is over! Yay! We have buses. We have gan. We have hospitals that are not on Shabbat schedule.This is good.We had a nice Shabbos. The weather was lovely and I took all the boys outside to drive their little red car around in the closed-for-Shabbos parking lot while Mr. Bigfoot and Marika napped. Read More »

I was looking back through some old posts and noticed that in November I was worried about Barak’s Hebrew reading. Last week, he read all of Fantastic Mr. Fox , by himself, unprompted, in Hebrew. And understood it.Also, Barak got his report card today. It was pretty great. Except for the fact that he almost never does his homework. Read More »

Yesterday and today, Iyyar did great. Not just good, or ok, or basically fine. Really great. Like, normal happy kid.I asked him why. He said, joyously, “A kid played with me!”Ah.Michal has been saying that I need to find him playdates. And I agree with her, but the logistics… the logistics. We live at the bottom of a Huge Huge Hill. Read More »

I am not truly deeply concerned about this (yet), but I am very aware that Avtalyon’s speech is not where it should be, either in Hebrew or in English. After a year and a half in a Hebrew gan environment his Hebrew is still really poor; also concerning is that his English is also starting to lag. Read More »

Before Marika was born, and before Avtalyon was born, I bought my kids some presents. New babies don’t care about presents (their mothers enjoy them, but the babies couldn’t care less). But their siblings? They are a different story. Read More »

It has been, as you may be aware, an unusually wet winter in Israel. This is a wonderful thing because we have been very short on rain for years now. January was the wettest month on record, ever, and today, February first, it rained, sometimes really hard, nearly the entire day.All of this is great. Read More »

37 weeks tomorrow. I am, to be honest, barely aware of this, because I am so busy with non-pregnancy-related things.#1 on the list of Things that Are Taking All My Time and Attention is Iyyar. After months of slowly getting better, things with him lately have, well, tanked. It’s not that he’s behaving badly exactly. Read More »

So, I took Iyyar to get his speech therapy evaluation last Thursday. It was about what I expected, although I didn’t realize his Hebrew was quite as bad as it is. The therapist seemed really taken aback when I told her how long we’d been here. Read More »

I don’t read very many blogs anymore. I used to read quite a few but one by one their authors stopped writing, or I lost interest for whatever reason. Most of the links on my sidebar are dead these days (and yes I should probably do something about that. Read More »

Why is it that Israeli phlebotomists–every single one I have encountered–are SO MUCH BETTER than phlebotomists in America? Before we came here, every time I needed to get blood drawn, I heard about how small/deep/scarred/difficult/uncooperative my veins were. Read More »

Yet again, I don’t even know where to start.I’ve been thinking for a while about things to post. There are lots of things to post about. Marika, for example, is being really funny. She is obsessed with the Israeli happy birthday song and wants me to play it (we have an Israeli kids’ music CD) nonstop. Read More »

If you want to be added as a blog reader (enabling you to comment) email me at uberimma at gmail etc. Read More »

So last week, after I got back from my trip, Iyyar had his appointment with the developmental pediatrician–the appointment that was supposed to be in February but magically happened the next day because I fell apart crying in the Hitpatchut haYeled office. Read More »

Here’s another one.(You know the really pathetic thing? After I posted last time, I went to bed and thought of another half dozen things at least I could have vented about but didn’t.)Anyway.The next day, I was sitting on the bed putting on my socks and muttering to myself. “Iyyar’s doing much better. I don’t have any cavities. Read More »

I’m warning you. This one is not going to be pretty. If you’re not in the mood, just skip it, ok? The last few weeks have been really hard.So much has been going on that I don’t really know where to start. I guess I’ll start with the meeting with the CPA, the day before I went to the US for my latest work trip. Read More »

So Deb was just here last week and we had a lovely time, and I need to blog about that, but first, some kid blogging catch-up: 1. Avtalyon is being insanely cute lately. With Barak and Iyyar, three and a half was a Very Difficult Age. With Avtalyon for whatever reason it is an Incredibly Delightful Age. Read More »

So, any readers who have had babies in Israel and want to tell me where they gave birth and what their experience was like?See, here’s the thing. My sister-in-law just had a baby (mazal tov!) last week. I went out to visit her a few times before she was discharged from Shaarei Tzedek. And the postpartum nurses? They were MEAN. Read More »