Lizrael Update: babbling about the expat life since 2004
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Not your momma's birthday.
Recently, my birthday passed but for years now I’ve just not been a birthday person at all. Occasionally, growing up (as my ponderous tye-dye free-thinking self), I would consider – along with saving the manatees – the idea that perhaps birthdays should be about mothers, not kids. After all, the mother is the one who…
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Living the painting life.
Sometimes, living in Tzur Hadassah, hanging and taking down laundry in the cool evening breeze, I feel like I exist in a countryside painting. And sometimes, I feel like I live in the opening for Weeds.
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Adapting to new life.
The Koala isn’t the only newbie around here. It’s hit me in the last week that I am a new person. It’s been a short process (36 hour labor) and a long process (it’s about a year since I found out I was pregnant). But here I am, changed. I’m a mother. I’m a food source.…
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Someone to talk to.
I don’t know if it’s the cutest thing or the saddest thing… But when the mobile over Koala’s crib automatically shuts off after 15 minutes, he pleads with it to come back on. And then I sneak by his room in covert-mode and turn it on with the remote control (!?) and listen to him squeal with…
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Being a mom.
At this point in my life I’ve known two too many 12-year-old girls who have fought cancer and lost. The first time I was a kid. This time I’m a mom. Being a mom at a shiva call for a kid makes all the difference. There’s something about kids with cancer where they tend to…
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Life in snippets.
Time is going by cliche fast. You hear it and you hear it and then it happens to you. The Koala is nearly four months old. I’m nearly four months not-pregnant. The Koala smiles, laughs, plays. My maternity leave is over and I’m juggling work and baby. I’ve slowed down with updates here, of course.…
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A bit about us.
We met during the Disengagement, got married during Lebanon II, were pregnant during the Gaza incursion, birthed our baby on Yom Hazicaron eve. Here’s to only good events coinciding between my national life and my personal life in the future.
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Koala update: fourteen weeks.
Nothing but good to report about the Koala. He’s been giving me once-in-a-while nights of eight-hour sleep. He’s been relating really well to his uncle, who’s in town. He went for his first ‘swim’ and took his first splash in the face like a champ. And… he started laughing on Friday. It was a pool-side giggle…
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Leaving maternity leave.
Tomorrow is my first day ‘back to work’ (technically, working from home). Fourteen weeks have flown yet moved really slowly. Just the way I like it. It’s not easy getting back into work mode, of course. I like my job but it can’t compare to being entertained by a Koala all day. To make myself…
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Lizrael Update: Back-to-work edition.
Long time no lizrael update. Let’s see… Currently, I’m mentally preparing for the Tisha B’Av scene. It’s been a fairly long nine days, what with eating meat being forbidden and eating dairy being unwise. Koala has bad reactions when I eat milk products, so I’ve pretty much stayed away for the last 3 months. I…
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When it's not a drill.
It was about 10 o’clock and I finally had the boy calm and rocking in my arms, reading superficial feature stories in the cyber New York Times. I was between starting breakfast and finishing breakfast, because Koala really needed to be held. Then I heard The Siren pierce my world outside. For a split second…
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Koala update: twelve weeks.
The three month mark has passed. I haven’t gone insane (in a while), my hair hasn’t fallen out (too much) and I haven’t gotten sick of staying home all day with the Koala (that’s true). I’m pretty sure somewhere out there people are taking bets. Shame. I’m not aching to go back to work and…
Questions? Comments? Advice?