My Grandma Rose

This is the transcript of what I said this morning at my grandmother's levaya.  When I first got the news that she had passed away, I didn't think it was even possible for Sam and I to get in for the funeral.  Somehow we made it, and I was able to write this before getting on the plane in Israel and fix it up during the short layover in New York this morning.  I also somehow managed to get up and share these thoughts with my family and a room full of people.  I am so glad it happened.

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Fifteen years ago when our Papa Harold passed away and we were asked to share stories about him, it was hard for us to think of a story that involved just Papa Harold and not him together with our Grandma Rose.  Throughout our childhood they were always together, always a unit.  They would come together to pick us up from school, they cared for us when we were sick, and they took us on trips around Boston.

We didn’t imagine how long Grandma Rose could hold on in this world without Papa Harold by her side.  She lived to celebrate the three of us completing high school, college, and graduate school (well almost all of us – Chava and I are still academically smarter than Sam).  She made it to Israel for Sam’s wedding and lived to meet her great granddaughter Hodaya and teach Hodaya her favorite songs.  Celebrating her 100^th birthday last year on Chanukah was nothing short of miraculous.  This year on her 101^st birthday she got to celebrate Chava and Al’s engagement.  She gave her seal of approval when she said that Al was "a handsome young man with a nice smile".  The picture of her giving Al a big kiss on the cheek is priceless.

Having a grandmother who lived to 101 was certainly incredible.  After all, how many life-time Bostonians do you know who were alive to see the past 6 Red Sox World Series championships? But the number of years she lived isn’t what will make her so memorable.  I’ll remember the time Grandma Rose and Papa Harold brought us apples instead of fruit roll-ups to Friday pick-up because they thought a healthy choice was a better choice.  We shot that idea down pretty fast.  I’ll remember how whenever I introduced her to a friend of mine she would say what a nice little boy or girl they were – even when the friends were college graduates like myself but hey, it’s all relative.

My mother told me yesterday that I was such a good granddaughter.  I responded that I will continue to be a good granddaughter.  After all, both my grandmothers will always be looking down at me smiling at my accomplishments, and glaring at me when I put on a wrinkled shirt or don’t brush my hair to their liking.  They somehow managed to do it from 6000 miles away, so I can’t imagine now will be any different.

To conclude I want to thank, on behalf of all of us, the fantastic health aides Grandma Rose has taking care of her.  Barbara, Sharon, Karen, and Hanifah – you became true members of the Zibman household.  You quickly commanded the laws of keeping kosher, Shabbat, and even acquired a sizable Hebrew vocabulary.  You’re all ready to visit me and Sam in Israel.

And lastly, a thank you to our ema for being a wonderful daughter to Grandma Rose while continuing to be a wonderful mother to us.  As you would say, you were a paradigm of virtue, even though I know you will try to argue otherwise. 

יהי זכרה ברוך

The Time Machine

My senior year of college, lots of fabulous things happened.  Among them was the creation of a time machine.  I moved into an unfurnished apartment for my final year of UMD, and while we found some of our furniture in brand new condition on the side of the road and from craigslist (like my bed from the guy from then on known as Hot Bed Guy), I bought a desk chair from Staples.  It came in a big box.  Logically, we decided to cover the box in old Yiddish newspapers and turn it into a time machine.  We put the appropriate WWJD and Go Terps bumper stickers on the sides and used construction paper to make the control panel just inside the time machine.

We made the time machine because we had a big box we could fit inside of (again, it was the obvious thing to do) and because before the start of the year some things happened that would never happen - and I mean NEVER happen.  Except that they did.  And while we spent hours making lists in crayon of possible reasons these things did happen and other lists (also multicolor) about how we could fix the things that did happen (snowstorms, magic potions, decoys), we realized that something bigger had to be done.  We simply had to go back in time and make some changes so that for real these things would NEVER happen.

Unfortunately, we never quite got our time machine to work.  Perhaps it was because we didn't get the wiring right... or because there weren't any wires to begin with.  I am convinced it was because we never got the sound effects right.  We experimented with different variations, and had much fun doing it, but the "situation" stayed the same, our couch got desecrated (long story, but it was OUR couch), and we just had to wait it out.

At gan right now, thanks to Shufersal online (supermarket delivery), we have an oversupply of large boxes.  They aren't as big as our time machine was, but maybe I could connect two or three to make something work.    All I would need is some Yiddish newspapers or maybe some old Jerusalem Posts would do the trick just as well.

I am just as wise as I was my senior year.  Or maybe I'm wiser.  Though sometimes I actually think I was wiser then, but maybe life was just simpler.  Actually life was much simpler.  Cardboard box time machines are a thing of the imagination, though imaginations rock, so cardboard box time machines rock too.

I still think it would be nice to have one again.  Isn't it a nice thought to pretend just for a moment that you can crawl into a box, tap a bunch of colored shapes made out of construction paper, make a series of beeping and whirling noises, and pretend for a moment that it's possible to get a do-over?  To backtrack just a few minutes?  To even just experiment with how something could have gone differently.... or been avoided entirely?

I still have plenty of crayons and markers around and big sheets of paper for list making, but snowstorms are a bit more of a stretch here in Israel than they were in Maryland, and I'm not so sure how relevant a solution it would be for recent dilemmas in my life.  I might just have to stick with the "live and learn" mantra.  Isn't that what grownups always told me though?  And being a grownup is lame.

I think I'll just go ahead and build myself another time machine - for all the things that would never happen (but maybe did anyway), could have happened, should have (or shouldn't have) happened, or would have just been plain cool.

Winter update

I was going to start this post with a comment about how I just watched the first episode of Felicity again (because I am that bored) and make some jokes about my life, but then I remembered that my parents read my blog and... yeah... Hi Ema, Hi Abba, you can go back to today's issue of the Wall Street Journal now.

The last blog post I wrote was probably the hardest ever. Hard to really follow it up with something... anything really. A few days after the funeral I made the trip to Maale Adumim to see Miriam. She of course had no idea what had happened, just that her mother was away in America. It was fantastic seeing her. We had so much fun. It was a big relief (maybe for both of us) after all the sadness the week before. Then on the last day of Chanukah she came back to gan for the day. While she was there, friends of mine came by to sign their kid up for my gan. I made a comment about Miriam being our favorite gan kid ever. Apparently we're not supposed to say things like that. But... she just is. We really miss her! Let me tell you, some of our gan kids set really high standards for gan kids to come.

Speaking of gan kids to come... remember two years ago when Gila and I were begging on the streets looking for kids to join our gan? Well a few weeks after gan started this year some parents started contacting us asking about next year. Then a few more called. Then we told them all to wait because we didn't want to deal with it yet... and then more called. Right now we have 14 out of 16 spots filled. We never advertised. This was all word of mouth. I have yet to hear anything bad about my gan. We have a lot of people to thank for this. Our gan parents have been huge promoters and their kids are kind of poster children for the gan. You know- they're cute, they speak English well, some are bi-lingual, and they know how to say please and thank you. Apparently we did something right. I find that part particularly impressive considering in so many ways we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. I seriously tell people when they asked how we started the gan that we totally winged it. Maybe not totally, but there was and continues to be a lot of learning along the way.

Some other things that happened in the past few months: There was a war. As someone on facebook wrote, this country has rockets falling and life goes on as normal, but there's a threat of snow and the entire country shuts down. Of course life didn't totally go on as normal. Gila's husband was in the army all week waiting for word about whether or not the army was going into Gaza. One morning the father of one of our gan kids showed up after breakfast, gave his son a hug and kiss, and said he was going into the army. We taught the kids the prayer we say to keep soldiers safe and the prayer for the State of Israel. We also went over with them what to do if they heard a siren. The first siren sounded in Jerusalem came on a Friday after shabbat had started. One of our gan kids was home with her mother and said "I need to find a grownup!" to which her mother said "I'm a grownup!" and the kid said "Okay! Where are we going to stay safe?". It gave me an entirely new prospective on what it means to be an educator in this country. The second siren came during gan hours when all the kids (and Gila) were taking a nap. The street outside the gan was being destroyed and rebuilt so there was an incredible amount of noise. I was awake with one kid who heard the siren and said he heard an ambulance. A full thirty seconds later I realized that the siren was not one from an ambulance, and took him to another part of the gan. Residents of Jerusalem have about ninety seconds from the time the siren goes of to get to a safe place. How did people with less time (and far more frequent sirens) cope?

Like with other events like this in Israel, they quickly become the past. A ceasefire was declared. Our soldiers came home. Life returned to normal. There's just no other way to do things around here. Things still come up though where we'll think "Oh why didn't that happen?" or "weren't we supposed to go to...?" and we remember "Oh right, the war" as just another thing that happened in our lives. It's just something that happened to an entire country- a very, very small country.

In other news, hopefully in a couple weeks Gila and I will be going on a babymoon. This is something I insisted on, in anticipation of Gila becoming a mother in a few months. As the gan grows and as our ganenets' families' grow there will be all sorts of changes, and it will be good for us to take a step back and feel confident that the place will be in one piece when we get back. This essentially means that Gila and I will be sitting on comfy chairs by the pool, checking our phones constantly, and talking about how much we miss the kids in gan (you know, like all good parents do when they're on a date). And then we'll probably come back and think how ridiculous it is that we have nothing else to talk about, and that maybe when Gila's baby is born and she only wants to talk about her baby nonstop that it will be a nice change of pace (no Gila, I do not see you as the type to do that).

My niece turned 3 in November. She is fantastic. Just had to stick that in there somewhere. I could elaborate, but for now I'll stick with saying she is fantastic.

Good night from cold, rainy, and windy Jerusalem. So so so cold.

כחלום יעוף

Dear Miriam,

Last week I was thinking that the next funeral of a grandmother I would go to would be that for my own grandmother. Yes, that may sound a bit morbid, but my grandmother is a few months shy of her 101st birthday. She is old, her body is getting weaker, and her time may come soon. I will of course be devastated - there is no questioning that. But how will it even compare to the funeral of your grandparents last night?

We can start with basic arithmetic. The age of your maternal grandparents combined is not even 2 years higher than the age that just my grandmother is now.

I am a sucker for sweet grandparents. Could be because I grew up with four fabulous ones. I've also picked up a few "adopted grandparents" on the way because you can never have enough old people who tell you nice things about yourself (or even constructive criticism, once in awhile).

In my job as a ganenet, I have more than the pleasure of getting to know fantastic kids like yourself (and you are, in fact, one of the most fantastic kids I have had the pleasure of having in my classroom). It's a people job, which has its ups and downs. But among its ups is getting to meet the wonderful people who go along with the fantastic kids I hang out with every day. Moms, dads, brothers, sisters, and of course grandparents. The grandparents are some of the best, for when I see them, or rather when I see them see their grandchildren, it is often the first time in awhile that they've seen each other. Even if it's just been a few days since the last meeting, there's still that excitement. There's just something special in that relationship.

Your grandparents were no different. They would arrive in gan for pick-up just hours after landing in Israel. Your excitement would be contagious (as it is for so many other things, which is why we love you so much). Hurray! Sabu and Savtu (as you called them) are here! When I was your age, my grandparents were 20+ years older than your grandparents were. How fun it was for you to have such able and mobile grandparents in your life, ones who could technically lived in New Jersey but we would still see here in Israel on a regular basis. You were so lucky.

Your Savta bought you the most fabulous clothes. We constantly joked that you were better dressed than we could ever dream of being. I got excited when my mom bought my niece a skirt just like yours because it was one of my favorites. I loved seeing your grandparents, whether it be for a 7:30am drop off or pick-up at the end of the day. Or there was that one time you came late because they took you out for chocolate milk and a muffin at Tal Bagels, and warned us that you probably wouldn't be hungry for awhile. And there were all those days you played hooky to spend time with your Saba and Savta, which was the perfect excuse to miss a day in gan.

I remember the day your Savta brought you to gan and whispered to me that your mommy was in labor with Meira. You thought your mommy was at work. Your Savta was also the one who shared the news with us that you had a baby sister - that they had a new granddaughter. Try hard to remember the times you had with your grandparents so that you can tell Meira all about them when she's older. Your time with them was far too short, but you are already have the makings of an excellent storyteller.

Last night a lot of people gathered to say goodbye to your grandparents, Ari and Sari Horowitz z"l. Some were there as friends of your grandparents, some as friends of your parents, and I was there for you. When I saw your mommy crying, I thought about the only other time I saw her cry. On the second day of Gan Shelanu's inaugural year, and the first where the parents were expected to leave, only one out of our seven kids cried (obviously it was not you). And one parent cried too. Your mommy looked over her shoulder with a tear streaked face as she said goodbye and walked out. When she returned she said that she was in labor with you for multiple days, but that those were the hardest two hours of her life. She turned to you and told you to say goodbye, and you turned back to your mommy, said goodbye to her, and resumed playing with your new friends. When I think about your mommy crying, I hope I can remember that story first, and not the pain of watching her cry at her parents' funeral last night.

Last Friday, the day before the accident, I was texting with your mommy about finding a time for you to visit gan. She asked if you could spend the whole day, and we without a doubt said yes. Now I don't know when that will happen, but you should know that in the meantime we have been praying for your Uncle Amiad to get better quickly. We are learning more about what tefilah is and about Hashem being the creator of everything in this world. I told your friends that we can say a tefilah like Modeh Ani to say thank you for a new day, but when we say a tefilah like Modeh Ani we can also think about someone who isn't doing so well and ask Hashem to give them a good day too. Your friends at gan will continue to daven for Amiad for as long as it takes.

I obviously could not even begin to tell them about what happened to your grandparents. That isn't just because they are just 2 and 3 years old. You were always wise beyond your years, but you can't possibly understand what really happened. But the other reason I couldn't begin to tell them is because I can't even understand. We taught your friends in gan about how Hashem is the creator of everything, and that we are thankful for such a wonderful world to live in. But how could I now tell them that Hashem takes away too? How can I tell them something I even as a grownup will never comprehend?

Rosh Hashannah davenning took on a whole new meaning for many of us this year. The phrase that caught my attention most was in the paragraph about how man comes from dust and returns to dust, comes from nothing and returns to nothing. The final phrase is כחלום יעוף, that man is like a fleeting dream. There was a lot of dust in the air last night as your Saba and Savta were buried side by side. But I think the idea of a fleeting dream is a nicer (if that's even possible) way of talking about a life that is lost. Your grandparents were full of dreams - for themselves, for your mother, father and uncle, and for you and Meira. Their chances at their personal dreams left this world with them, but the rest of you are still going to live out the rest of them, especially living here in Israel.

Your mommy said last night that she always felt her parents gave her big shoes to fill and she was always trying so hard to make them proud. As someone who loved trying on all your friends' shoes while they slept in the other room and you entertained us in the main room, you can help your mommy fill those shoes. And you can also do wonderful things just by being you, and it will be an even bigger tribute to your Saba and Savta.

Keep making us smile and laugh - we need it more now than ever.

Love, Rebecca

Is this what it's like to be a real person?

I've made a few observations about my life since finishing grad school (well "finishing" here is used loosely, but I might get to that later). The first observation is that I don't clean my room and the rest of my apartment nearly as often as I used to. The other observation is that I haven't written in my blog for awhile. Ironically, cleaning is something I would often do when I'd be tired of sitting still and doing work, and blogging is what I'd do when I felt inspired to write but bored by my schoolwork. In other words, they were key forms of procrastination.

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.

A Family Holiday

My mother always jokes how Pesach is a "family holiday". It's a week-long occasion when for better or worse everyone is more or less stuck under one roof making varying efforts to get along with each other. It's beautiful to be together, and everybody breathes a huge sigh of relief when it's all over.

Two weeks ago my family celebrated a family holiday of a different sort. On December 23rd, my Grandma Rose turned 100. When Gila and I started discussing logistics for the gan, on the list was how I would take off for this occasion. Chanukah vacation was planned accordingly. I was not going to miss this. My brother and his family made their plans to come in from Israel and my sister made plans to come in from DC. We were all going to be together. No yom tov and a house with an endless supply of bagels and muffins- this was going to be good.

It was spectacular. After my grandma got over the crazy idea that we all just came because we thought she was dying, we all shared a special weekend together. The birthday cards came pouring in. A "little birdie" (who I call Ema) made sure that cards were received from President Obama and Governor Patrick. One of the most beautiful acknowledgements came from Yad Sarah, an organization my grandmother has supported for years. They posted a birthday message to my grandmother on their digital message board outside the building and had it up for all of Chanukah.

On Grandma Rose's actual birthday we had a photographer come to do family pictures. I had been trying to get at least my siblings to do this for years and they would just whine about it. Suddenly everyone thought it was a great idea. I can't wait to see how they came out.

Visitors came throughout the day and over shabbat. Grandma Rose got a phonecall from her cardiologist and a special visit from her visiting nurse and cardiac nurse. They brought her flowers, as did tens of other people. This visit made my grandmother's day and she was glowing through shabbat dinner after they left. Her day health aide had bought a camera special for the occasion of her birthday and took a picture of them. These people have kept my grandmother alive and healthy, and we are grateful for their love and care.

My niece and her parents arrived just in time for the first night of Chanukah. Having four generations light candles together was really special. On Saturday night everyone was together. Can't remember the last time the three of us siblings were together for Chanukah.

My trip started out with my usual jumping around from place to place. I spent my first morning at my Aunt and Uncle's house in New Jersey and then journeyed to NY for an evening out with friends. It's always fun making a bunch of friends for all different times in my life have dinner together and all become friends with each other. But for most of my trip I stayed still. Well, I spent hours and hours at stores shopping for the gan and once in awhile for myself, but I more or less stayed still. I got to light Chanukah candles every night with my family and see my niece every morning when I woke up ("Becca jammies!") and best of all was the monkey pajama party with my niece (we both have footsie pajamas with a monkey on them).

We are confident that Grandma Rose enjoyed her birthday. We did not know what to expect. I hope she realized that we were there fully to celebrate her long life and not in anticipation of what is to come. As exciting as it is to have a grandmother that old it is incredibly daunting, but every day since I got back I have thought about how beautiful my trip and her birthday celebration was.

It was a family holiday, but one we are still celebrating.

Opening a gan: It's as easy as....

It is Succot, which means I have a week and a half off from gan. I have a whole list of exciting things to get done this week: cleaning my room, starting my final paper for my MA program, getting a blood test. Exciting, right? This year the fun will have to wait a bit and I will enjoy the simple relief of catching up on life.

On August 31st Gila and I opened Gan Shelanu. We did it. We have a beautiful three room apartment with a yard Gila's husband slaved away to make safe. The three of us painted one wall of each room in bright shades of orange, green, and blue. There are really cute animal wall stickers up everywhere. My favorite is the dragonfly sitting on a hippo's nose.


The Friday before gan started we thought we had 12 kids. Two days later it was 10, and somehow on the first day of gan we had 7. We had to let our wonderful hired staff go, which sucked. I felt that we failed them. They just moved to Israel, and the last thing I wanted to do was have others experience disappointment like I experienced with some babysitting jobs when I got here. Aside from that we had no time to dwell on our misfortune. And anyway, misfortune is all relative. We were about to fulfill our dream.

Thursday, September 1st, was the first day the kids had in gan without their parents. We had given the parents strict instructions to come early and leave quickly. No saying "just 5 more minutes". One kid cried. Just one! Out of seven! One mom left with tears in her eyes. When she came for pick-up (just two hours later) she told us that she had been in labor with this kid for five days, and that those were the hardest two hours of her life. Her daughter, of course, did not even want to leave, and seemed indifferent to her mom showing up at all.

The next day, two kids cried, but only a little. Clearly we're doing something right here.

Six weeks have flown by. We pretty much have our routine down. The kids come in, push their parents out the door, and settle in to play. Breakfast is prepared during morning circle time and lunch is prepared while they are outside. For circle time we do stretches (much inspired by our gym classes with Mr. D. at Maimo) and sing "ידיים למעלה" as well as "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes". We sing it slowly, then really fast, and then "so fast if you blink you'll miss it!"

We fully encourage them to eat with their hands if that is what is more comfortable for them (and gets more food in their mouths). They can eat standing up if they stay right next to the table. Kids should be comfortable when they eat. They may only eat from their own plates, and we are trying to get them out of the habit of eating off the floor instead of just asking for more. We also try to discourage spitting out pre-chewed food and feeding it to your neighbor. Anything not finished by the other kids by the end of the meal gets piled onto the plate of this one kid who will eat almost anything and eat until there is no food left. After meals we take them one by one into the bathroom to be hosed down (sometimes literally). One girl even has her own towel for after we've cleaned the sauce off her stomach and from under her armpits. Lets just say many of our stories from gan are gross stories about the kids' eating habits, but gan is all about learning life skills, right?

After breakfast the kids play outside or we go on short walks. We had been singing "Wheels on the Bus" a lot so we went up to the main street by our gan and watched buses go by and talked about what color they are (green). Then we went back to gan and painted a cardboard bus cutout green. Then I had fun drawing pictures of a bus driver beeping the horn and made doors that go open and shut. The kids helped me attach them. Before Succot we walked down the small road behind the gan and collected branches that could be used for schach for a Succah. The day before Succot vacation we walked to the home of one of the kids and visited his Succah.

We finally figured out how to get all the kids napping at the same time, and to be asleep for at least a half hour after the two short day kids leave. Singing "המלאך" 5000 times in a row just wasn't working for all of them. One parent gave us a fan for the napping room so the kids would wake up less sweaty. Fans create white noise. White noise keeps kids asleep. Amazing. On one of the first days the kids all slept, Gila and I skipped the chicken we served for lunch and downed a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream after all the kids were asleep. The joys of being your own boss.

A couple weeks ago we got our first new kid. Things hadn't worked out for her at the gan she started at. Her parents came in to see the gan one last time before making their decision. They went outside to confer for a moment, and came back in and asked if they could just leave her there for the rest of the day. We were sitting at breakfast, and the other kids were marveling at how this child was wearing a shirt and had on not one but two shoes. We told the kids that yes, this was another child JUST like them. They were amazed. The next day when this new girl was picked up her father told us how much of a relief it was to see his child smiling at the end of the day. We can only imagine what her old gan was like, but this was the best compliment we could ever receive.

We now have four prospective kids to start after Succot. Three of them are boys. We currently have seven girls and one boy. This should make things interesting. Throughout September I felt like we were holding our breaths waiting for new kids. Now that we have them, it is a huge relief. Sure enough we built it and they came (two of my favorite things in life- gan and baseball).

I am asked all the time HOW I opened a gan. If I were to write a guidebook (which my final MA paper will hopefully somewhat resemble) I could write a whole chapter about scavenging government websites for rules and regulations, most of which are impossible to follow (and we have chosen not to- as most private ganim do. I could also write about finding a good accountants. Ours is a wonderful and patient man. When he asked how the gan was doing I felt he was asking because it interested him personally, and not just because he needed to know so he could file my taxes. As for finding a bank, well I think opening this gan might have actually been easier than opening my now closed Discount Bank account (opened when I made aliyah), but opening our account for the gan was a pleasant and pain-free experience. Our account is at Bank HaPoalim on Emek Refaim. As an example of the amazing service we get there, the other day I came in and the clerk called out to me that she had a pile of papers to get through before she could meet with me, but that I should please come sit in her cubicle because she wanted to hear ALL about the gan as she worked.

I think I have written before about finding a location for our gan. We looked at yad2 ten times a day, made numerous phonecalls, got rejected constantly, and lost a lot of sleep. We are grateful to the family who is letting us use their apartment for our gan. We are also grateful to our kids who were all sitting around the table eating nicely when the owner (a tiny Israeli woman) made a surprise visit. It didn't hurt that all the kids smiled and said bye when she left. The apartment has been transformed into a beautiful gan that has become like a second home to us and the kids. I think this was the most miraculous part of the project.

To find the kids, we advertised on every relevant listserv. I snuck around putting fliers up around the area (don't be fooled by the thousands of fliers covering lightpoles- it is actually illegal to post things). Our best advertisers, and also our best supporters throughout this whole ordeal, were our friends and family. Yes you need ambition and be ready to work hard to open your own business, but most importantly you need people to back you up and cheer you up when for a moment it looks like the whole plan is falling apart. I have grown to appreciate my friends and family a tremendous amount over the past year, which is possibly the best gift that could come from this gan. It was especially special to realize who great friends I've made in the short four years I have lived in Israel. I was happy to express my appreciation with the seudat shlishit I hosted before Rosh Hashannah and the party in the gan we hosted Erev Succot.

When I tell people what I have done, they are amazed, and my disbelief grows. I never imagined myself with my own business (or rather sharing a business with a friend of twenty years). Despite the disbelief, it also seems so natural. Of course I opened a gan. Of course in my gan, the kids can eat with their hands, be silly, and most importantly be themselves (whether being themselves at any moments means jumping up and down, needing five feet of personal space, or throwing a tantrum because they can't find their shoes upon waking up from their nap). It is still going to take a long time for this all to become routine- if it ever does become routine. Every day in Gan Shelanu amazes me, and I couldn't ask for anything more of my life at this point, just a few weeks before my 27th birthday.

I thought of the name Gan Shelanu because Gila and I kept calling it "our gan" and besides the simple translation, I have always felt that Gan Shelanu has been bigger than us and belongs to everybody who took part in creating it- our friends for hearing out our complaining, our family for their generous support and donation of many of the toys and furniture, Hodaya for being our Toddler Consultant, the parents for trusting us both as educators and as entrepreneurs, and most importantly the kids who continue to shove their parents out the door every morning.

I see some irony in writing about fulfilling a dream after a year of so many sleepless nights (and probably more nightmares than dreams). I don't even know when this went from something hypothetical Gila and I would joke about and turned into a dream. I feel like it became a dream somewhere between being hypothetical and us realizing how not simple it would be. Deciding it was our dream, and not just something we were going to do, is probably what kept us going.

As we get closer to post-chaggim life and really starting a new year, I wish everyone the will-power, ambition, and most importantly the support from amazing friends like mine to do what you want to do, how you want to do it, and when you want to do it. We should all have dreams, big ones and small ones. Just pick one and go for it.