Life Goes On

There is an all-out war going on some number of kilometers (I have no idea how far a kilometer is, but I know we are a good number of them away) away from us, but we go about our lives as if nothing is going on. It's really weird. We have friends who moved a few months ago from Ra'anana to Yad Binyamin which is a town right near Ashdod. They are within rocket range and have spent a lot of time in their safe room over the past couple of weeks, although luckily no rockets have fallen near them. I know plenty of others who have friends or family who live well within rocket range. My friend Sharon was on the phone with her cousin in Ashkelon and she heard the siren go off in the background. Frieda (of Gan Frieda, Eli's teacher) has 2 sons and a nephew in the army in Gaza right now and her son-in-law is stationed in the North. I'm not scared for our lives. I know we are safe here (and if I thought we weren't, we would be on the first plane out), but the whole situation is just scary. I hate the way Israel is portrayed in the media. I hate that the world doesn't get why the IDF is doing what it's doing. Why do Israeli civilians have to tolerate years of rockets being fired into cities like Sderot? Why do people blame Israel for the deaths of Palestinian civilians when the reason they are being killed is that Hamas uses them as human shields? I am so proud of the Israeli government and the army for not bowing to international pressure and I hope they can finish what they started with minimal casualties.
Ok, the political commentary section is now complete. As I said, our life has been going on as normal. The biggest news around here is that Eli now sleeps in his very own big boy bed! Abby had an extra bed that they weren't using, so we took it for Eli. Last Sunday while Simon was at a birthday party, I took Eli to the mall to pick out sheets for his new bed. He was so cute while he deliberated over which ones he wanted and he picked out ones with soccer balls and soccer players on it. He thinks it is basketball, but whatever. The transition to the bed was smooth. It's very low to the ground (it has legs that can make it taller but for now I thought lower was better) so when he falls out--which has happened a few times--he doesn't have far to go. We put pillows and blankets on the floor to cushion the falls too.
We've had some beautiful weather and have been spending time in the park since we still can't use our porch because of the stupid construction. Supposedly the scaffolding is coming down this week--we'll see!!
For the past few months David has been bugging me to sign up Simon for swimming lessons. When I finally got all the information, I learned that the lessons are fairly inconvenient and very expensive. So David decided that he will try to teach Simon on his own. He is a lifeguard and used to teach little kids to swim so he knows how, it is just a question of will Simon pay attention to him. His plan was to take Simon to the new municipal pool on Wednesday evening. Eli heard us talking about this and said "Eli tumming (that's how he says "coming") too swimming!" so we all ended up going. It was great although Simon seemed to have forgotten everything he learned over the summer and he was scared to go in at first and Eli practically jumped into the pool and loved it!
On Thursday, Shaya came over to play with Simon. I picked them up from gan and Shaya immediately said to me "where is Eli??" Simon hadn't even noticed that Eli wasn't with me. I had been in Tel Aviv and was running late getting back so Tali picked up Eli and took him with her to pick up Boaz and then was going to drop him off at home. Simon, Shaya and I waited outside for Eli and then we went to the park across the street from our apartment. We stayed for a little while until Simon said he was hungry. We were discussing the options of what to eat, which were limited because I really needed to go to the supermarket (Shaya suggested that we go to the supermarket but I didn't think that was such a good plan!) so I suggested that we go to Artico and get pizza and ice cream. That plan was met with much happiness from all 3 boys so we went. They were all very well-behaved and ate their pizza nicely. Well, Simon and Eli ate their pizza nicely. Shaya took one or two bites and then gagged and said "this pizza makes me want to throw up." I was trying to determine whether he really didn't like the pizza or if he was actually sick but when he ate up all his ice cream and then finished Eli's I decided he was probably fine but I didn't want to risk vomit in my house so I took them all back to the park. They had a great time and we only left because Simon had to poop and while he is fine with peeing outside anywhere, he will only poop in the toilet (this makes me happy) so we went home. Shaya's mom called and asked if he could stay until around 6. They were playing so nicely that I said sure and I made them some dinner that they actually all ate. 6 turned into 6:30 so it was the longest playdate ever, but everyone had fun. Shaya asked me why he is always a guest at our house. I wasn't exactly sure how to take that so I asked him if he wanted to live with us and not be a guest and he said yes!
Yesterday was the first Friday that I can remember that we actually took advantage of the kids being in school in the morning and we met David and Debbie and Abby for brunch at Bread and Breakfast. After we picked up the kids we went strawberry picking in Hod Ha-Sharon with Audrey and Jake and their kids, one of whom, Gila, is in Simon's class. It was a lot of fun--the place is just a random strawberry field where you can actually just buy the strawberries or you can do what we did and go into the field and pick your own and then pay extra for that!
We had planned to have a super low-key shabbat dinner of just chicken soup. Sarah and Lygia (Marcia's daughters) were going to join us, but then Audrey and Jake invited us to bring the soup and our guests and go to them for dinner, so we did. It was a lot of fun and all day today Simon kept saying he wanted to go back to Gila's house. Gila's sister Miri is 6. At one point Audrey said something about how Miri was born in France (they are Canadian but lived in France for a couple of years before moving to Israel), so David turned to Miri and said "oh, you are French?" and without missing a beat Miri said "oui!" It was pretty funny.
Today we went to Vered and Lior's for lunch. Vered and I taught Simon how to play the game Set, which I used to be obsessed with and played constantly with Ilana Garber and Stephanie Schneider in college! To my surprise, Simon really got how to play and only needed a little bit of help.
For some reason only this one picture is posting. Strawberry-picking pictures will have to wait, I guess!