The World from Above

This is Maria Sharapova, one of my favourite tennis players.
I really wish I knew how it feels to be so tall and have such beautiful long legs. Really. Does the world seem different or it's the same as for us, 165 cm not-slim-long-legged mamas? I guess I will never know.

Listening to Mindy while writing about Masha's legs.

Eternal War

I've been having hate-hate-hate thing about blogging and internet in general lately. I know it is all about me, but I feel like I don't want to open up and write, while there are so many unsaid issues that really bother and eat me from the inside.

Summer of 2014 has been quite tough. First, we had terrible weather, no sun almost all summer long, temperature never went above 25°C, and I felt like I was sitting in a sort of a bell jar. Not literally, but in a way.

Second, people continue disappointing me and I, once again, take it very close to my heart, which I should not, because I am almost 30, mum of two and all that, that qualify (should?) me as a responsible and intelligent adult. I know this is the longest sentence that is advised not for a blog, but do I seem to care about such details? Exactly.

Third, Israel has been in war. Imagine, or just check Israel on a map and then think of the media blast that was going on through whole summer. It was like some BIG country was terrorising another big one, ok, smaller one. Gaza, people, Gaza, is like a little tumour in Israel's brain and still, it took so many lives and so much weapon to demilitarise that small region, wipe out some terrorists (not sure about that) and lose soldiers, who left young widows and small children, who need their dads so badly.

So, that is why I hated internet last Summer, and probably hated people too. It is us, people, doing wrong, killing, abusing, hurting each other, because we have lost our morality, we have lost our humane spirit and the so-called image of G-d is something that is doubtable, really.
All right, not really of course, how could I deny anything that Torah says, but in reality, at least last Summer proved otherwise.

I wish I could write here that I hope everything will get better and there will be peace, we shall all live in a friendly and warm environment, but sorry, I cannot say that because it is impossible. We probably never will.
If you look through world history, there have been nothing but wars and wars, blood shedding, pogroms, revolutions, more blood shedding, more wars, more tears, more pogroms...

Life is so temporary, like us humans, only war is eternal - be it either internal or external :-(

Shalom Aleichem - Peace Be With You

I've had couple of "Answer Me This" posts in my drafts, which I never got to publish because of different reasons, but today is the day that I should.

I've been homesick of a kind, and now I realise I have quoted Ezra Pound for that who is the least favourite poet of mine because of his political attitude. What can you do if he has the best name though.

I had baby Aaron 6 months ago and only now I feel to have little postpartum depression thing. Not that big depression kind that Western world loves so much, I come from the East after all. I mean little depression that would suit a stay at home Hausfrau mum of two little children.

Blogging should heal me, I pray.

I like Kendra Tierney very much. I like the way she writes. I respect her for being a lady, good example of a modern religious woman, who is intelligent, modest and funny at the same time.
I feel very grateful to know plenty of nice people with whom I don't share my religious belief at all, but still learn a lot because kindness, morality and G-d are universal.
This mother of 7 lovely children is one of my online miracles.
In Judaism we say that it is "Kiddush Hashem", when one does an act of kindness, that praises G-d's name and recognises His almightiness. So I think Kendra's the one doing it with her honesty in faith, which absolutely inspires others to be like her.

Here are the answers to this week's questions:

1. What is your favorite picture book?

I never liked picture books before I had children. I am a "Franny and Zooey" post-feminist Jewish-Irish girl, you know ;-) Now my firstborn Ezra loves picture books, so I have to like them too. He used to love the "Was fährt da in der Stadt?" book, which must be an equivalent of English "Things that move", I suppose.

He especially loves this picture of a man repairing the street lamp, probably because we unscrew the lamp in the kitchen before every Shabbat, so Ezra wouldn't turn it on, and this picture, funnily, must be reminding him of that. He's still too young to understand some/most of the Shabbat laws, but as my dearest Rebetzin Roberg says, it is all about what one learns from its family. When a child sees how parents love and respect their faith, traditions, how happy they are living in this particular way, he will love and enjoy it too.

But his/mine all time favourite is this one, the children version of old Georgian book "Wisdom of Fancy" by extraordinary Sulkhan Saba Orbeliani. Ezra's got to like this preach book for it is based on Talmud, some say.

2. Are you a boycotter?

I think I am.
(Sophie, of course you are!)
I have always been.
I used to boycott all the big capitalist companies like Coca Cola, Pepsi, McDonalds, Apple and many more for my University years.
Now I mostly boycott those companies/factories that support Nationalist Party of Germany, who are Nazis deep inside.

3. How do you feel about cheese?

Funny to answer this, because my uncle is a great cheese maker :-D he was a school principal (we call it the school director over here; principal - I must've heard in American movies), who quit his intellectual job because he's that funny kind of guy and went farming.
Back to cheese though.
My husband and I used to make kosher cheese actually, but then got bored, because it was too expensive and not worth of our time and effort. It's easier to buy, plus we don't want to boycott Kosher stores, that are so few in Germany :-D
What's that Kosher Cheese? To make a kosher cheese you need vegetable rennet, enzyme that is not of the animal origin. We don't eat "normal" cheese, because of the law from Torah: it is forbidden to mix milk with meat.
Usually, cheese is made from the rennet, which would be from the animal stomach skin (pardon my English and just Google, if you are not a boycotter like some people).

4. How many pairs of sunglasses do you own?

One or two, but don't even know where I keep them. I hardly ever use sunglasses because it's never too sunny in Germany.

5. How long has it been since you went to the dentist?

I had an appointment last year and ironically, I decided to take a pregnancy test on that very morning, which came out positive. I canceled it obviously.
So thanks for reminding now. I shall schedule an appointment soon.

6. If you could visit any religious site in the world, where would you go?

It should definitely be Eretz Israel or Holy Land, as everyone calls it. There is no land that can be holier and it must be only statement everyone agrees with.
I also hope and pray my children will be able not only visit Yerushalayim/Jerusalem, but live there in peace with other people (despite of their faith), who REALLY love and care about the land. It sounds so not realistic right now, I know, but we do believe, don't we?

I also wish I could visit Rachel's tomb in Ramah near Bethlehem. She is one of my favourite Biblical foremothers, if not the most, because of her kindness, patience and love towards her sister Leah.


Thanks Kendra for hosting.

(And thank you, my readers, who keep e-mailing and supporting me even though you can't really call this a blog anymore.)

Shalom Aleichem to you all!!!
Peace be with you! - remember this?
It is a Hebrew way of greeting, but let it be my goodbye this time.

Shalom means peace in Hebrew and it also has other meaning, wholeness. Nothing can be complete and none of us can be happy if there is no peace with our fellow people.

So may there be Peace in this old crazy world!
!!!אָמֵן

Homesick After Mine Own Kind

I am homesick after mine own kind

Oh I know that there are folk about me, friendly faces,

But I am homesick after mine own kind

Ezra Pound "In Durance"

Coming back

I try to come back. I really do.

Have a nice August! :-)

Baruch Dayan HaEmet

Baruch Dayan HaEmet, we say when hear the news of somebody passing away. These words mean that the Judge is True, so to explain, but in most cases how can one agree this judge/death can be true?
How do you tell that to the mums of three kidnapped Israeli teenagers? How do you tell them who bore those babies, fed them and raised them, had nachat from them and expected only joy from them? How can you tell death is true?
How can you tell that to their dads, sisters, brothers, friends?..
May Hashem comfort them as much as it can be possible.

Hashem is a true judge, I know, but today my heart goes out to the families of three murdered boys in Israel. Today I feel like something has died inside me.

Today my heart is also dead after hearing the terrible news about those boys.
It was just last Shabbat when I (with hundreds of other Jewish mothers) separated challah from the dough asking G-d to save those boys and bring them home safely...

I know I cannot understand His plans.
I do not want to either, because I cannot bear right now.

May my Nation never experience such pain of the loss of our children again. They were my children too. Our children! Children of Avraham, Yitschak and Yakov, just like all of us.

May there be peace in Israel, if it is ever possible and no shedding of innocent blood, neither ours nor others'. 

Encouraging women or my second birth story

I haven't posted literally for ages here, but I had my reasons definitely.

Now I think it's time to share my second pregnancy and little birth story with my readers, if there are left any at all :-D

We sort of kept this (second) pregnancy a secret, only our immediate family and couple of close friends knew about it.

First 20 weeks were as easy as they could be (not counting wanting to sleep all the time and hating sweets, which was great in a way) while the next ones were full of stress, emotions, hormonal swings and prayers.

At 20 weeks check up I was diagnosed to have Borderline Placental Insufficiency, which meant my placenta couldn't provide the fetus with 100% oxygen and there was something wrong with the blood circulation. So this caused the baby to be small, two weeks behind than usual babies of that gestational age.
We were shocked and sad. Why G-d, why? I kept asking, why can't my body nourish the baby as it should? Isn't it natural to be so?
There came weeks of self blame, desperations and loads of tears.
And of course Googling and searching for information about this Placental Insufficiency, which was even more stressful and that's when I decided if everything went well, I should and would write about it to encourage women, and parents in general; because all I found was scary, which made me pray all days and nights to make it till 37th week and have full-term healthy baby, no matter its size.
Because it's G-d who really runs this world and everything in it, not science or anything. Sure, there are great modern technologies, but they can't do much.

Then my kind doctor advised to read as little as possible all that internet stuff, be positive and think about good things. She thought it wasn't as bad as it seemed, she was concerned just because I might had had the same issue with Ezra, who was born on 37th week weighing 2,400 tiny kilos.
At the clinic where I usually was checked, one nice midwife assured me that nature could do anything and she had heard cases where the placenta suddenly started to work better, sometimes worse and mostly it remained stable, that was what I hoped for at least.
We can't control everything as modern society believes, she said, that German atheist woman, who actually understood and believed in "nature" more than she thought.

My next placental check up was at 30 weeks and I was already grateful to G-d, I had made till that.
But there was even better news.
Miraculously - insufficiency had gone somehow and placenta was provided with enough oxygen and all. The fetus had gained enough weight, even though still little smaller, but doctor told me it could absolutely make up next last weeks of pregnancy when baby grows faster.

Now I had that terrible fear of 37th week when I had my firstborn Ezra before his time swimming in green waters, because the insufficient placenta had caused him stress and his first bowel movements; if he stayed there longer, he could had been poisoned, but baruch Hashem, Who made our zealous Ezra to come out quicker - healthy and lovely.
I just decided to cling on G-d and trust in His goodness completely, because we can't do much, can we?

37th week came and went, no baby yet. I was so happy it had time to gain weight. 38th week also went fine; and at 39th week after Shabbat I started to feel weird pains in my stomach, more like gas. I could see first contractions had started, but wasn't too sure, because I had never experienced them before, such crazy delivery I had with the first baby - no contractions right before Ezra came out.

I tried to keep calm, put Ezra to sleep, wash dishes that were left after Shabbat and then watched "Pus in Boots" (stupid movie) with my husband. After that we went to sleep, but I couldn't get comfortable. I would wake up every hour with annoying pain. At about 4am I got up and found some blood, so that was time to wake up my husband and drive to the hospital, meanwhile leaving Ezra with his grandmum.

Such nice "coincidence" - this painting hanging at the hospital lobby

We were at the Uniklinikum of Leipzig in an hour and my passive labour had started too.
It was very long labour and I never thought it would be so hard with the second baby since everyone says otherwise: it took lots of walking up and down the stairs of hospital, pain, exhaustion...
Plus, the waters had to be broken by the midwife, which actually helped contractions to become oftener and stronger. After couple of contractions I pushed like crazy, seriously. I've always been zealous (my favourite English word) in my life, but when it comes to childbirth, I'm sort of in ecstasy and have babies as fast as possible. Nobody expected I would do so fast, you could tell by their face expressions and trust me, Germans don't show that too often.
It was definitely a fight. I felt like warrior, really.
I screamed for Hashem to help me and He did, baby was out - safe and sound (3,400 kilos).
New little life.
Beautiful baby boy of ours - little Aaron.
Baruch Hashem!
I was happy and proud.

What I wanted to tell with this post is that you should never lose hope, trust to G-d and positivity. Nothing is ever lost as my dear Rebetzin says and I believe her. No matter what statistics, ultrasounds and sometimes even doctors say, you have your right to listen to your motherly instincts - everything will be fine!
And pregnant women need to hear that often - everything will be fine, you are fine and wonderful, keep being great and growing little wonders inside you!

May G-d bless everyone longing children and make them as happy as I felt when holding my new baby tight on my chest.
AMEN!!!