Swirling Thoughts #93 – more like swirling thought fragments

I cracked two eggs into a bowl to make coffee cake and then noticed I hadn’t finished setting up the Chanukah menorahs because the baby must have needed me. So I went back to the menorahs and then there was some dinner to clean up and then the baby needed me and then I got back to the kitchen and couldn’t figure out why there were two eggs cracked into a bowl. You get the gist.

Barbara thinks in English
This redeems her in the eyes of her English teacher for whom she has done no homework the entire school year. Today as I stood over her to witness the actual doing of English homework, she and her friend helped each other along. And then her friend asked her what a “j” looks like. Suddenly thinking in English seems more impressive.

If they can bring out Santa Clause before Thanksgiving, surely jelly donuts can appear before Rosh Hodesh Kislev
It’s Kislev – break out the jelly donuts. Or some more jelly donuts, rather. There have been jelly donuts in gan, in school, in the supermarket, the mall – basically everywhere you go. Asher is the donut freak in my family but it’s the powdered jelly-free variety he lives for. We’re in a land flowing with milk, honey and jelly donuts and he’s craving Entenmann’s.

It's been a month
After a month of anxious weigh-ins and one visit to the hospital “just to be sure”, Rachel Merav has officially returned to her birthweight (4 kilos – ooh wah!). In retrospect it’s obvious – I mean the day I went into labor I had 2 15-shekel iced coffees in the same meal – there’s no way this baby is getting as many calories on the outside as she did on the inside.

Between having a new baby who can’t seem to regain her massive birth weight (read: daily weigh-ins) and 4 kids who can’t seem to turn away a sick germ when it comes their way (read: multiple runs to the doctor, the kupat and the pharmacy) I’ve begun to notice something I’d missed before – there is a personal touch.

An hour after I showed up at the kupat cholim on a Friday crying because my 3 day old baby wasn’t nursing well, the lactation nurse showed up at my house. On her day off. When I had to bring the baby to the hospital my doctor hand-wrote the referral and then called his friend – head of the department – who was waiting there for us with what seemed like the express purpose of putting us at ease. A dermatologist who had happened to see my baby’s diaper rash during a visit to the kupat cholim called me a few days ago to ask how it was healing. And the kupat nurse called to see how the baby did at the Dead Sea. I still thank Gd every time my kids get sick on a Tuesday and not on a Wednesday but I like it when I call my doctor and he, himself answers the phone.

There’s that jewish guilt again – how didn’t we pay yet???
As we ran out of the hospital with our new little bundle of joy perhaps we should have stopped at the billing department and dropped off a bundle of shekels. Having not done that and assuming our bill would be mailed to us (assume nothing!) we received a shouting call from the collections department of the hospital.
“YOU HAD A BABY IN OUR HOSPITAL! HOW DIDN’T YOU PAY YET?”
“Who is this?”
“ODELIA! YOU MUST TO PAY WITHIN 14 DAYS!”
“How many days is it now, Odelia?”
“TEN!”