mornings

there are two kinds of mornings in our house: morning when everyone's busy and i have a minute to myself (lately at night everyone goes to bed at the same time-late)... and hard mornings. on the days when the morning is hard the rest of the day becomes a trying journey. there are many possibilities of rethinking my motherhood... which is always alluminating, but (un)bearibly hard.
today the day started off well. i am always encouraged when it happens.

photos

i have to figure out how to turn the pictures around (I take photos on my phone and then upload them to the blog)... if anyone knows, please let me know!

breakfast

after a prolonged cry (took me literally an hour to calm him) ilay joins his friends on a picknick in our yard. how great that we can all relax and enjoy our time together! i so often take it for granted that i can live the way i see right, but this ofcourse is far from obvious... thank you all those who make it possible and who are not as fprtunate to see each of our kids grow. (thank you sasha and mom and dad).

morning in the garden

Ramat ha nadiv

Volunteering in Ramat haNadiv. Yesterday was our first day volunteering there next to the stream... They are getting ready to plant a garden of native to this land vegetables and other plants...he (machfuz) call it ancient agriculture.... I have to understand why he wants to calls it ancient and not say organic - because he always stresses the fact that they are not going to use any chemicals... Anyway we were supposed to help. Well, it was verynhard for me - first, people were very late (we said we will start at 11 (I actually came at 10 to have some time to swim beforehand) but most of the people arrived around half past 12... Machfuz was not worried, but he gave us an impossible task - to clean one of the terraces from rocks... He also acted very much like a teacher this time (asking kids questions and lecturing a little on how to garden "the right way") what upset me the most was that he didn't even tell them his name (you see, this is unimportant, what is important is a bunch of facts you are going to forget or not understand... His name, where he is from, why he does this... He didn't really want a relationship with them...) I remember how we started in the Haifa zoo... It was the same, a huge group of "volunteers" (moms who are happy to send their children to do something and hopefully without their direct involvement and kids who don't really want to be working. We were given very hard and boring jobs - cleaning the mice cage, cutting salads etc. I had to work hard, Eran would disappear every time we would show up. In the end though, after getting rid of the group and baking cookies and drawing pictures for a year we had a real friendship that involved really helping and learning. For me the best part was seeing and being friends with real people doing real work that they loved, that they wouldn't trade for anything else... So here too, I have to get ready for a year of making connection, of showing them who we are and finding out who they are... It will be good - I just know it!

thinking love outloud

Love. I want to give love to my family unconditionally - this is my dream, but i also have another, no less important one. I want to learn to recieve love. This recieving/giving is it really that different? When you recieve, don't you also give and when you give, don't you recieve as well? Perhaps here it would be appropriate to think of a gift (as Derrida writes it). So recieving...how do you understand and recieve the love of the other? The bursts of love that resist the regular economy of giving is what i am looking for in my life...love that doesn't seek payment, in any way, nor appreciation, nor any other condition, but is given freely (perhaps even without being really "given")...maybe here it would be interesting to think about being in love, and not loving, as something passive...in love (whose love?)...

garden produce

this is from the graden today. need more raised beds and much more planning! ahhh... this is hard for me... but then - kids love the garden as it is and certainly love eating produce right away so i shoukd be happy for what i already have! (now i remind myself of eshel, who a lot of times wishes things he doesn't have and forgets the things he has... like now he dreams of a scateboard and forgets that we just bought a scooter that he dreamed of for a looong time. .yes, that is exactly why it pushes my button-i have this problem too!) my gardening started as a project with kids to acyually learn together the hardships and the hard work it takes to grow food and now i already want a garden that produces enough vegies to actually eat ... hey, i forget!

unhatched eggs

Came out (I am supposed to write my thesis - which I am doing but very slowly) to see how the little one is and whether super-mama manages the multitasking of taking care of the little one and sitting on eggs (what did i think i will do if she is not managing?) and found one egg out of the basket... I had to put it back in...but to tell the truth I am scared of the chicken...she pecks. took the egg and wondered how i am going to put it back...and, oh, wonder! I felt the heart-beat....wow!
I did manage to put the egg back in the basket without being pecked...

my wood-of-a-garden

our super-mama

Our garden

Oh the garden! It makes me both happy and very frustrated... One chick hatched!! It is so great to see the devoted mother teaching her how to eat, walking after her, fluffing her feathSers to protect her ...but she has more eggs, and she is not on them all the time like she was earlier.... So it is very possible that the other two eggs will not hatch... This is hard to bear. But hope still remains so we are here to see what will happen.
Garden wise: the soil here is just horrible - everything is tiny. My carrots are tiny, my beats, my potatoes. But we made a raised bed - now here, everything grows just great, except that we didn't plan it the way we had to... It all grew into a little forest. Every time I go there I regret planting this way - I can't reach a lot of plants and some plants are falling over... I tell myself that gardening is a matter of trial and error and that I will get it right the next time... Then I think, it will probably take me another ten years or so to have the garden I really dream of... And what kind of a garden am I dreaming of? Well, the one that brings most of the produce that we eat... This is my dream..I am not sure it is at all attainable ( even though www said it is) because most people tell me it is not... I guess I just have to go one step at a time...or better one error at a time....
Ilay is standing telling me to stop this nonsense with the iPad so I'll go... Hope to be back soon.

I haven't written for a long time now...not here anyway... I look back and realize that the time passes so quick and I forget. Forget how Eshel was when he was a baby, forget how I felt when Ilay wasn't born...I forget. It is important to remember, to be able to look back and smile... Today was a wonderful day (to tell the truth any day when I remain calm and happy is a wonderful day for me). Ilay screamed and I managed to see that he was just talking to me - making sure that I was listening...A lot of times I am afraid that he is too demanding, that he is too loud...How silly I am to think that a baby can be too loud - he is just making sure I won't forget him (I would if I could) Eshel only poked the chikens about five times (he stands next to them waiting for them to get off the eggs so that he can grab them but he is not very patient...) Went to Haifa to our friends today and I looked at the kids from the side and was amazed at how peaceful and beautiful each one is - each one so different and wonderful! Good day (on our way back I sang them a song about having such a great opportunity to be so happy together...they loved it and Ilay didn't even cry)