Category: koala update
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Koala update: fourteen years
Someone told me the summer between ages 14 and 15 is the one where things really kick off for a teenage boy. I’ll let you know if it’s true, but here’s what I already know: Body image… is a thing. A big one. In boys. I should have known; I should have remembered (I have […]
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Zooey update: seven years
The highlight of my last year with you is watching you take what you want and leave behind what you don’t. That’s not to be taken for granted with everything that comes with starting school, developing new friends, navigating new skills, and of course… being the youngest of four. The highlight of my highlight was […]
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Bebe update: twelve years
A lot of people don’t know how to make choices. I don’t mean the right choices. I mean, how to go about choosing. Not only do you relish in making choices, you know how. Or it’s innate, at least. It comes easy to you. Whatever is going on in there is an actual thinking process. […]
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To my bat mitzvah.
I could choose to roll my eyes at having to come up with another dvar torah related to one of my kids’ various Vayikra parshas – just a year later – but instead, I’ll leave the korbanot and the cohanim behind. Really, we have one word to focus on – look no further than the […]
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Nettles update: nine years
I spent a lot of this last year thinking about wiring. The way our brains are wired. What does that mean? Yeah, it sounds weird, I know. Not like wires, what’s running around the office desk or what you pick up and randomly turn into some art project. It’s more the way our minds take […]
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On to the next stage of modern teenage development: Looking over your shoulder.
Two days ago was Yom Yerushalayim, or Jerusalem Day – the celebration of the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, where Jews were finally allowed to roam freely in the Old City due to their own sovereignty. It’s a day I really only tend to think about in the context of traffic to my former Jerusalem […]
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To my bar mitzvah.
I’m in awe of Torah reading… getting up close to it… having a physical connection with the parchment… It’s not something I had access to from behind the kind of barrier they called a mechitza where I grew up. (I just realized this week I never even saw tefillin up close until now.) Watching you […]
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Koala update: thirteen years
Onward teenager! It’s a bizarre time… Gone (temporarily, I promise) are the days of babbling and bright eyes and demanding of the world. In: hooded sweatshirts, always up. Sorting through developing dark humor. Navigating new friends at new school, which involves a fair share of fast food, Marvel movies and midweek sleepovers. It feels like […]
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Zooey update: six years
I’ve spent six years looking at your pretty face, and marveling that there is nothing at all physically resembling mine – you’re a carbon copy, visually, of your dad. Well, there’s one thing – your freckles. We share that. But what I’ve spent the last year realizing is you have something else we share. Or […]
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Bebe update: eleven years
Been trying to remember what it was like being 11. It definitely wasn’t like how you do even 10, to be honest. So mature, so ahead of your time, and still so fun-loving and free and not bothered by what other people think. Let’s start with sister – man I wish I had an older […]
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Nettles update: eight years
You were born a bullet train, and eight years later, this is still an express line. If I hem and haw on a decision, you take it into your own hands (and footstool, and cellotape, and whatever you need to get it done when my back’s turned). You’ll get it done, if you want it […]
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Let’s have a wordle
I introduced my 12-year-old son to Wordle. At the same time, I introduced him to וורדעל. I love that both prospects are exciting, and we’re chatting with each other throughout the day about it (I still shudder at the fact he has a smartphone even if whatsapping together is a huge comms improvement). You know […]