It is now March. I recently settled a dispute with Hebrew U over a 4000 shekel charge they felt I owed them. It was lowered to 30 shekels. I emailed my department secretary to ask if I had anything else to sort out, but I did not receive a response, so instead I'll just hold my breath until I am handed a diploma and then rejoice at having gotten away with not passing Hebrew. However since after digging I found what might be my graduation date but not being certain, I am holding my breath for an undetermined amount of time.
March also means that my gan has been open and running for six months. Six months is a long time. Six months ago Gila and I held our breaths and opened a business we had no guarantee was going to succeed. We had seven kids. Beginning after Pesach, we will have fourteen. Doubling in size in seven months. Not bad. We had to go out and buy new bigger tables. Even better- we could afford to go out and buy new bigger tables. We can also afford to support our crazy sticker habit. For example when we went into the store to purchase the tables, we said "hey lets look at stickers first" and proceeded to make a pile of like ten packages of stickers that we HAD to have. And then yesterday, about a week later, we realized we didn't have good Spring themed stickers so I HAD to go back to the store and buy even more stickers! Life is rough, I tell you.
Needless to say, Gila and I are having a fantastic time running our gan. We also happen to have fantastic kids (and parents). Our kids are so fantastic that last week we took them to the zoo on the bus because we knew they could do it, and they did. They walked up to the top of the zoo and back down. There was no crying, no meltdowns. They just skipped on up. One took big steps while saying over and over "I'm taking BIIIIG steps and BIIIIG steps and BIIIG steps". Smiles all around. And they all thought taking the bus was so cool, especially when other buses pulled up next to us and they could see more people riding on a different bus, because when you're 2, things like that are totally amazing.
Today I was thinking about the post I wrote for Tisha B'Av/ finishing my job in Gan Pashosh. What I wrote then holds even more true in my life now. Now that I play an even more significant role in the lives of a bunch of naive little toddlers, it is that much more incredible watching them learn the basic lessons of life. Like if you lean forward on your chair, you probably will fall off of it, and it probably will hurt when you hit the floor. If you eat with your hands instead of a fork, you might bite your hand and it will also hurt. If you grab a toy from a friend, your friend will be sad. Your friend might also smack you on the head, and that can hurt too. Also if you lay down, you're practically asking everyone else to come sit on you. Don't believe me? Try it out in my gan. Actions and consequences are a big part of life. I don't think we ever stop being reminded of that though.
So I used to pretend that once I was a real person so much wouldn't be complicated anymore because I would be set on what I'll be doing for the next few years. Not surprisingly, I was wrong. Or I guess I was right that I was pretending. I am as confused as ever, if not more so, but I'm having fun (most of the time), and I play with toys all day and get to buy lots of stickers.
Could be worse :-)
And oh yeah, thank goodness for good friends. Now that I'm a real person, I think it's about time I make some more of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment