History - Part 5

I really didn't mean to leave you hanging... (OK, well, I didn't mean for it to be that long)
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I didn't like Ohad much, in fact, I thought he was kind of aloof. Several months later, I did the documentation part of a project that he was working on. Later I moved into his group - the GUI group (graphical user interface). It was a very long time after that that we even started to communicate about anything but work. When we first started to date, I knew almost nothing about him and each time I learned more about him, I found we were so much more similar that I thought.

I'd had a crazy summer, with a horrible, ugly, scary divorce (even worse than I'd feared) and Ohad had also just gotten divorced. We let our boss know that we were going away together and we flew to Paris, drove to Normandy and then Brittany for the most amazing vacation ever. 8 days. No kids. Fabulous scenery. And, most importantly, we loved being together.

Ohad, in Etretat.


A year-and-a-half later, in March 2004, we got married (this is the only picture I could find, but I'll dig up more later).

And in March 2005, Abigail came along...


And that made four. Kids, that is.


More soon...

Back from BlogHer 08

Wow. What a trip! I have so many things to write and after having been awake from 11pm to 3am last night, I'm going to put off most of it for the next few days.

I met fabulous people at BlogHer (and plan to mention all of them here in coming posts) and had an amazing time.

We started out Saturday night - our plane was delayed about half an hour, but it turned out that it was because the weather conditions were better than expected, so the flight was 'only' 14-1/2 hours. I don't like flying. I'm not scared of flying, but I really don't enjoy it. Even the gourmet meals* they serve don't make me like flying... Yirmi was incredible on the flight - I mean, he made a few sounds when he woke up, but he didn't cry even once. An idiot woman shushed him angrily. Fortunately (for her) I couldn't find her...

We landed in LA a little after 6 and I managed to squeeze in a phone call to my parents who were flying to Seattle to go on an Alaskan cruise (or whatever it's called). They'd left their rental car with 3 days on the rental in the parking lot - within an hour, I'd picked it up and was off to my SIL's parents' house (where we stayed in their guesthouse). I really never thought I'd see the west coast at all and had no idea what to expect.

15 and a half hours and two little boys

Should be fun (I pray). We're leaving tomorrow night for Los Angeles & then I'll be going (with Yirmi) to San Francisco to the BlogHer convention.

Hey, the way home is only 14-1/2 hours...

If you're going to BlogHer, I really want to meet you!

And please, no babies while I'm away.

p.s. we survived the playroom and it's actually pretty nice :-)

Building a playroom

Our house is too small. When we bought it, we had 4 kids and didn't know yet that we were expecting another. Since then, we have been lucky enough to have 2 more kids. Our house is not keeping up and as soon as we move Yirmi into the little girls' room, we'll have 3 kids in the same not-so-big-to-begin-with room. So, since we didn't buy a house with lycra walls (though, personally, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to give walls a little stretchability) we've been trying to think of ways to make things a little less crowded...

Our staircase was high and the wasted space was driving Ohad crazy...


So we decided to build a floor:

It's not so high (5 feet - and I'm 5'4") - this is Matan showing us his lack of fear of heights... (though Ohad and I were both standing there and helped him get down).

It's L-shaped and not terribly large, but big enough so 2 kids could sleep there comfortably.

This is the little girls' room from the inside - from here, we opened the wall...

This is the same wall, after it was opened. We're also painting the room a shade of peach.

Tomorrow they are going to do all the finishing touches, including a banister, a ladder, the painting, etc. We plan to have a ladder to go up and a slide to come down. Right now, the electrician is making a heck of a lot of noise drilling into the wall to pull electricity in - we need a light fixture and a socket. I believe the mess will be worth it :-)

Funniest commercial I've seen in a while

I generally hate commercials, but this one is really cute:

History - Part 4

Hadas was born in 1993. I remember being so surprised at her blue eyes, sitting and just staring at her when they brought her into my hospital room. I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do with her and she seemed so calm that I didn't want to disturb her. When I brought her home, I was equally clueless. Was I supposed to entertain her? Read her stories? How often was I supposed to change her diapers? Her clothes? Breastfeeding went fairly smoothly and I loved being a mommy. Hadas spent almost all day awake. She'd wake up early in the morning and go to sleep late at night, seeming to want to soak up everything there was to learn. I remember the sudden understanding that my freedom was pretty much gone. That from then on, I'd have to plan things, I'd have to take her with me everywhere... that I had a huge responsibility.

In 1995, I found out that I was pregnant with twins. I was happy that they weren't my first. I can't imagine how people cope with twins when everything's so new and confusing... Matan and Lilach (b/g) were born in June 1996. They were very demanding babies and I had to set my goals very low. To shower and get dressed each day, to eat at least one meal while sitting down for more than 2 minutes, etc. I exclusively breastfed both until they were 5 months old & continued until they were 9 months old. I remember realizing suddenly one day that neither of them had nursed for an entire hour... I quickly checked on them to make sure everything was OK. I never asked my ex to get up for the kids and he never did. Not once. One night I decided to write down how many times I was getting up during the night - I quit when I hit 14... I was so incredibly tired that I remember almost nothing from then. When they were 15 months, I decided it was time to go back to school, time to start doing something for myself. So when they napped, I studied. I successfully took (and passed) 3 courses that semester. When they were 18 months old, we moved to Modiin and I signed them up for daycare and started reclaiming my life. I stayed home for another year, taking as many courses as I could, and spending the afternoons alone with Hadas (after school). Matan and Lilach stayed in daycare until 3:30 or 4.

In February 1999, I lucked upon a job that ended up opening a lot of doors for me. I was hired to learn technical writing and do odd writing jobs in the office. Everything in hi-tech was booming and I had incredible opportunities, just because they needed the manpower and I was willing to jump in. Within less than a year, I'd moved into the GUI group (graphical user interface), where I found that the work was much more interesting and challenging. The most amazing thing was that I could depend on the people I worked with. It also made me realize how bad the emotional abuse in my marriage was.

In February 1999, Ohad started working at the same company, exactly a week after I did.

No time for writing so...

My boys (aka my travel partners to Los Angeles. Yirmi will be flying to San Francisco with me as well.)


Abigail (Guli) in the pool yesterday, eating watermelon. (This is what I meant when I said my camera is on the blink.)


Yirmi wondering why I never stop taking pictures of him...



Ohad playing with Yirmi (really short and a little noisy)

We interrupt this history for a few pictures

A few recent pictures of my kids...

Nomi - 2 & 3 months.


Nomi with her driver, Matan (12).

A picture from Matan and Lilach's (12) graduation from elementary school.


Abigail (3 & 3 months) and Yirmi (3-1/2 months). Abigail adores Yirmi (and he adores her too :-))

Matan and Lilach decorating their birthday cake with a little help from their sisters (Hadas -14-1/2 in the background eating sprinkles)


Abigail and Nomi eating fruit at their little picnic table.

More soon :-)