Painful First Days ~ Working The World

Beginnings are always a little tough.The last three weeks before leaving Israel, Kobi and I had a hysterical mountain of work to do. The night before we left, I fell asleep on the couch while Kobi finished up last minute stuff until 4am. Arriving to your around-the-world family adventure exhausted is highly unrecommended.We arrived to New York, totally exhausted and jet lagged. We took turns falling asleep in mid-sentence, and the kids felt more than a bit lost.
Airports

While boarding the flight, the all-awesome Continental pilots let Dahnya, Orazi, and Solai take a sneak peak in the cockpit. The pilots pushed all sorts of cool buttons that made noise and impressed the kids. Having my mother work for Continental and having her graciously give us allll of her flight benefits this year has been a huge blessing in allowing us to travel much longer than we'd have to otherwise. Go Continental Airlines!!!

Big Disappointments

The day after we left Israel, their school put on a holiday play and celebration. My kids were active in preparing the event, and were so upset in missing that highlight in their social life.

My dear friend Kim who lives in New York bought bought us tickets to a Purim Ball in the JCC in her area. The kids got ready for hours. The girls did and redid their hair; put on their costumes, and even applied make up (a rare thing for us!).

When we arrived, in costumes we carried from Israel and found a handful of kids; all babies in comparison to our kids, and few partially dressed up. They took one peak into the ball room, took off their costumes at the door, and wanted to go back home. The girls ended up participating in the evening's event. They were fine.

Orazi took it very hard. He had a really wonderful social life in school and missing the big event he helped planned was tough. Being at this event with "babies" instead of celebrating at school with his gang was tough too. He took over his Zorro costume, sat in a chair, and cried. My heart and Kobi's just broke. He had had three really hard days and kept saying how much he wanted to go home. This was so hard for us who thought we were doing some amazing thing for our children.

Kim and I stayed with the girls. Kobi took Orazi for ice cream. They wandered around the building until they discovered the playground!! Amazing. An entire roof-top playground, complete with scooters, slides, and huge building blocks. We all sat on the roof of this tall building with a view to to the New York City skyline and the moon that I had never seen. Until almost 11pm; Kim and our family underwent tasted tired-and-confused-travelers-first-days redemption. We laughed, ran around, and breathed.

That night, Kobi and I decided that every day of our trip we will structure in time for them to be kids. To go wild, run, explore, connect to their bodies and the world in the most kid-way possible. No more putting them into situations where they have to be quiet, behave, listen, stop, beware, and not breathe. That's not the point of seeing the world; that's not the point of being a nomadic family; that's not us.

Exploring New York

In our 'old' life, our kids were so used to running free and exploring without limits. Suddenly, in the hotel, in China town, in the subway, on the streets of New York; things drastically changed. "Stay here!" "Don't leave my hand!" "Don't touch that!" "Don't wander!" "Don't breathe!" A very stressful, exhausting beginning. The nomadic family doesn't feel so nomadic....

Kobi Gets Sick

And so, as can be expected, Kobi got sick in our first days in New York. While he stayed in to sleep, my friend Kim took us to Central Park and around town. What a life-saver!

We picked a nice hill in Central Park to have a picnic on. Then, we took the subway forty blocks down to the other end of the park, walked around a bit, and then the kids did ice skating .Sooooo very cool. I thought they would get bored and stop after a few minutes. How wrong was I?

In the town to the north of us named Metula, there is a lovely ice skating rink, the only one of two in the country. It was lovely to see their confidence and ability on the ice. They skated for hours, while I talked to anyone around me (in an attempt to stay away). I had to beg them to get off the ice. I loved today. I took them to a place where they could spread their wings and burn up good energy.

I filled their bodies with everything I usually forbid them to dream of. They ate hotdogs, pizza, popcorn, french fries, and ice cream. Maybe it was the guilt of taking them away from their friends in those first days. Maybe it was the guilt of Kobi and I falling basically sleeping for the first three days straight. Maybe it was because the ice skating rink didn't offer anything nutritious. Either way, they were in heaven.

Solai fell asleep on the subway on the way home. I was physically exhausted and couldn't do it, so my brave Dahnya carried her sister half a city block in her arms. She helped Solai up four flights of stairs, took off her wet clothing, put her fresh clothes on, the moved her (dropped her accidentially) into the bed Solai had asked to sleep in before she feel asleep. Oh.

We leave new york tomorrow for New Orleans. There, we plan to stay for two days to hear jazz and they all want to eat alligator (so gross!). So yuck, but so open-mineded and nomadic...

We are so grateful that Kim was there for us during those first days. We can't say enough how much we appreciate her being there. The joy of having an old friend around to hold you when your first steps are more of a limp, and your first motion forward is more of a fall.