My First Single Mom Day

Today, (whoo hoo - I am now caught up!) Donny started work in Haifa. For those of you who have been following our saga, this is called IRONY. He took the train around 7:45. The kids and I, of course, were out of the door even earlier. I dropped the kids off at gan and then had a random 45 minutes until ulpan. I tried to find some things in Modi'in but instead got lost. "Getting lost" is a running theme in my life, like "being hungry" or "getting a migraine." I then made my way to ulpan. Afterwards, I - all by myself! - went back to Terem to pay them for their services, then went to the pharmacy (in the same building) to fill the prescription for Ariella. I had also gone to the doctor on Friday, and he filled out my tofes yarok as well as giving me a prescription for Imitrex. The best part is that Imitrex in Israel is in tablet form! All of the pain-killing beauty without that awful spray running down your throat for hours. So I got both prescriptions, for Ariella and for me, and they put it on our "hora'at keva" - basically deducting it from our bank account. It feels like it's free!
A funny thing about pharmacies and the kupat cholim: They are very into "taking a number." They have these fancy machines that you press a button and a slip of paper comes out with a number - take that, Goldman's Bakery! Then there's a monitor attached to the ceiling and they announce which number is next. The Israelis LOVE taking numbers. When we were in the pharmacy the week before, it was EMPTY! We were the only ones there! No one around for miles! We walked up to the counter, and we were shooed away and told to "take a number!" There's definitely a Monty Python sketch in there somewhere... But, the pharmacies are very efficient. There's none of this waiting around for hours. I showed her the prescriptions, she went to the correct drawers, pulled out the medicines, put them in a cute bag for me, took some amount of money (20 shekel? 200 shekel? Who cares?) from my bank account, then sent me on my way so she could laugh with her colleagues about my atrocious Hebrew. (This is a constant fear of mine.)
In the afternoon Ariella had a play date with Aiden, a fellow oleh who was on our flight. They have become very tight. I think it's amusing because I'm sure had they been in SAR together they would never have looked at each other, much less become BFFs. But I think Ariella likes having Aiden around and feels comfortable around him. There are a few English-speakers in the class, but I have yet to meet their parents.
A word about Ariella's gan: I am very impressed with the gan, in general. There are, as we mentioned, 30 hijillion kids in each class, yet the ganenet knows each kid by name, knows each kid's parent, and is always smiling and enthusiastic. I think they are really trying to make Ariella comfortable. Everyone says, "Oh, by Chanukah she'll be speaking Hebrew." That may be true, but right now it's only Rosh Hashanah. Chanukah is a long time away! It's like having a baby - everyone says, "Oh, the first 6 months are so hard, but then it gets easier!" Well, when you are in those first 6 months and the kid is up all night, spitting up on you, and screaming his head off 6 months seems like an interminably long time. Am I right? So now Ariella is in the screaming and spitting up stage, if you follow. I know it will get better and easier for her, but it's kind of hard now and we are really proud of how well she is doing. She is really putting forth a lot of effort to get through the day. I asked her today if the morahs explain in English to her when there's a project. "No," she said, "I just wait until the other kids do it, and then I copy them!" Pretty smart! There are some things we're already noticing about Ariella and Yaakov. Yaakov first Hebrew word is "neshikah" - kiss. The morahs ask him for kisses and he understands! He also started counting to 4 in Hebrew, and he knew what he was saying. Yesterday, Ariella asked me what a word meant in Hebrew, and she said it with the Israeli pronunciation. It was really cute! So we can see a little bit starting to happen now, but it'll be a long process.
Donny came home tonight around 7:15 - not too bad. We still have our fourth bedroom/office to clean out, but it has been much more fun blogging. Alright, signing off for now.