Pray For Me

"My Mommy is sick," Raphaela announced to the classroom at Gan this morning.  "She can't talk."
"We will pray for her good health this morning," said the artistic and spiritual Russian nursery teacher Sophia, "Children, today during tefillot [prayers] we will send good thoughts to Raphaela's Mommy, her throat hurts."

Amazing how Raphaela can bring home Virus of the Week from Gan, suffer for a day or two, and then leave me in shambles for close to two weeks.  I could feel a cough creeping in last week, and on Friday night my immunity system collapsed;  Sunday I lost my voice, though in most other ways I seem to be functioning, except for the oppressive dry Summer heat here in Jerusalem.

 I went to sleep before eight last night, and when I woke up this morning I realized how quickly the house deteriorates if I don't keep on top of things.  Every possible floor space was covered with toys and games, the laundry needed folding, phone messages needed answering, and the dishes needed washing, as Raphaela seems to have used every spoon in the drawer;  all this chaos after approximately 24 hours of fatigue.

Raphaela suffers when I cannot speak to her; because I am the only other human in the house, I am de facto her mother and her best play mate, we have a secret language and set of understandings, and as she said to me on Shabbat, "I'm talking to you Mommy, now you talk back."

Thankfully, several of the parents of her classmates have offered to pick her up from Gan this week and take her to their homes for extended play dates, so I can rest and get over this plague as quickly as possible.  And in those moments that it's just me and her in the house, regardless of how I may be feeling I must slog on and take care of my daughter; such is the nature of being a single parent.