Walking on Wednesday

Pentheus was up until after 2:30 am with his Fantasy Football draft. He was wicked tired this morning, but, unfortunately, he couldn't sleep late because I needed his help to get the CK to go to school. The CK complained about not wanting to go, but Pentheus was able to prod him to get dressed, eat breakfast and brush his teeth. Pentheus, the CK, and I walked to school together; the WK had left us at the front door of the dira and gone by himself. As we got closer to the school, I could feel the CK's hand gripping mine more tightly. When I walked into his classroom, a little girl said to me that she spoke English and would try to help the CK. It was very sweet, but the CK wasn't interested in her help. When the bell rang, the kids in the class quieted down and started reading at their desks. The CK was crying hard. I gave him a final hug and kiss and left the building. About 5 minutes later, Pentheus met me outside and said that Cheli, the principal, was with the CK. As we left the school, we saw Cheli on her way back to the office and thanked her for the help.

Pentheus and I were unhappy as we walked back to the dira. Most of the day, I had that last image of his crying face in my mind. While we expected that it would be difficult for the boys, I hope we did the right thing when we switched them from the school that we knew had more English-speaking kids. The Szold School has been great about providing support to the boys and us, but we wish the CK were having an easier time of it.

After doing some cleaning in the dira, I decided to venture out in search of the boys' textbooks. Pentheus had already been to 3-4 stores with no luck. We had been told by Cheli and others to try "Jimmy's" bookstore in a neighborhood about 25-30 minute walk from the dira. Rather than take a bus, I was determined to walk in order to get some exercise and to give me something to do today. In addition, I wanted to challenge myself to find the bookstore, as I hadn't been in that neighborhood before. When I got to Jimmy's, there were lots of other people, all waiting for assistance with school books. I waited in line and got 3 out of the 4 books that Cheli had put on the list she gave me. In Israel, the students have to buy their own textbooks (as opposed to having the school provide them), but the ones I bought weren't expensive - $15/each for paperback workbooks. I bought Math books for both boys, and a Hebrew instruction book for the CK.

I needed to find one more book (Arabic) for the WK. (Yeah, I know, because it's not hard enough to learn Hebrew, the WK might as well be learning Arabic, too. Actually, maybe it's a good thing - Arabic starts in 5th grade, so the WK is technically at the same level as the other kids in the class, although, as the WK pointed out, the Arabic is taught in Hebrew...) Because I was already in my sneakers, I walked to the Jerusalem Mall, another 25+ minutes walk. There is a ton of construction going on in that area of the city, and part of the walk was on the exit lane of the highway. After asking one of the workers, I found a foot path that brought me to the mall. The Jerusalem Mall is huge, but, luckily, the bookstore was one of the first stores in the mall entrance I used. Again, there were many people in line for books, and when it was my turn, the clerk said she hoped the Arabic instruction book was in one of the many, many unopened boxes around. She suggested I come back in an hour to check. I bought the Int'l Herald Tribune in English, went to the Food Court, ordered an awesome hamburger from Burgers Bar, and ate lunch while I read the paper. When I returned to the bookstore, the Arabic book had been in one of the boxes and I bought it for the WK.

To save time, I took a cab home from the Jerusalem Mall, so that Pentheus could do some more work after he picked up the kids from school. (Although we are OK with them coming home by themselves, the CK had made us promise that one of us would be at school at the end of the day.) My cab driver couldn't believe I had walked from the dira. I arrived home just before the boys did, as they had stopped for an "arteek" for the WK and candy for the CK.

It's still unclear how the day went for the CK because he wouldn't tell us, despite our asking and trying to get him to talk about it. The CK showed us some pictures he had drawn at school and seemed a bit excited about getting his school books. Here's hoping tomorrow is easier.

The WK had homework for the first time - he had to read a chapter in an English book and write as summary about it. Although it didn't take him long to complete the assignment, I think the CK was glad he had homework. He has been kind of bored during the day at school, and I know he has been looking forward to getting his textbooks.

We told the WK he couldn't go to the park before homework was done, just as we would have done in Cambridge. So when he finished, the WK and the CK went to Moshava Park. After realizing the boys had been at the park for over 2 1/2 hours, Pentheus and I learned an important lesson: when allowing boys to go to the park alone, be sure to give them a time to be back! Shortly before 7, I went to the park to get the boys to come home to dinner. We had pasta, gnocchi, and green beans for dinner. Then the boys had showers - I don't even want to tell you what they looked/smelled like after that much time at the park when it's 90+ degrees. The boys were in bed shortly before 9. Pentheus fell asleep around 9:30, and I've been semi-watching re-runs of "Cougar Town," "Two Broke Girls," and "Everybody Loves Raymond" while I type this post.

By the way, at the bookstore, there were an unbelievable number of copies of this book. I'll leave it up to you to figure out the title.