Raphaela knows Murphy's Law, as it specifically applies to the rain IE if you take your umbrella outside the house, it will not rain upon you.  I learned that the hard way, when it poured on top of me for five minutes as I walked out of the supermarket this week, cart fully loaded, no umbrella in my hand.

This morning we left the house for school, holding recyclables and lunch box and back pack and pocket book and her art portfolio, and we forgot the umbrella.  About half way through, I realized our fatal error and Raphaela insisted that we go back home.

Instead, I suggested that we trick the looming rain clouds and tell them that the portfolio was actually hiding our umbrella.  What ensued was a little play in which we bluffed the grey skies, Raphaela felt very proud of herself when we got to school safe, and dry.

Why and How

Lately, Raphaela is in this beautiful place intellectually where her curiosity factor seems to have expanded exponentially.  She wants to know how and why everything works, she wants to understand where everything fits into the larger picture. And she has started asking questions about my life in a detailed and interested way.

We spent an hour yesterday exploring every icon on the desktop, pressing every button to see what it did to the screen. It was as much an adventure for me as it was for her, as I am technologically challenged.

She asked me a series of questions about my medical degree and education.  How much homework did I do? How many years did it take to become a doctor?  Where are all my notebooks and school books, "are there more than one hundred"? After perusing my library, she chose a book about how to make natural herbal medicine from food in the house, and decided that we should mix up a batch of something.

Raphaela also wanted a play-by-play of every moment from my first labour pains and until I held her in my arms for the first time.

In the bath last night, in between splashing and playing, we did linguistic comparisons between English, Hebrew, French and Spanish;  Raphaela counted to ten in all four languages and noted that many of the words sound the same, because they share the same root.

This morning while I was packing her lunch box, she followed the electrical cords of all the appliances in the kitchen to their source, to understand where they plugged in.  Then she showed me how to use the microwave, a skill she picked up in school where they warm up their meals if need be.  "You just set the time and press this button, Mommy, easy peasy.  Why don't we use the microwave oven at home more often?"

When Raphaela was a baby, I could chart her progress through visible and substantial achievements, like walking or adding words to her vocabulary, or telling me that she wanted to walk into her nursery classroom by herself, because she was a "big girl now."

Her accomplishments these days are more subtle but no less exciting and impressive.

Right now, Raphaela has decided that when she grows up she wants to be an artist, a Zoo Keeper/Veterinarian, a dancer and a Mommy.  Nothing wrong with a little ambition, and I will surely be proud of her as long as she finds a path that brings her joy and satisfaction, and changes the world just a little.

Alarm radio in the background, it is not yet six am, and Raphaela wakes me up this morning:

"Mommy, the radio said that there are bad guys and Israeli soldiers, and that the Israeli soldiers will not get killed when they shoot the bad guys.  Maybe when all the bad guys are gone, my father can come home to us. I miss him and I want to show him how much I have grown."

For the past few days, Raphaela and I have been trying to save a new black and white kitten in our garden, obviously abandoned by the mother.  We have been largely unsuccessful in teaching this kitten to do anything that would insure survival, like eating or drinking or bathing itself.

But we keep going, hoping the situation will change, and I know that this exercise is teaching Raphaela compassion.

Until this morning that is, when I went outside and found the kitten dead.  I don't know what I am going to tell Raphaela when she gets home from school today.  I am seriously waffling between sugar coating the whole story - "He went home to his Mommy." - or telling her the truth.

At some point in the relatively near future, we will have to deal with the death of a pet head on, as our cat Harry "The Highlander" is 13 and a half years old.

If I decide to tell her the truth, it will be a good lesson I suppose, though a harsh one.

Ear Piercing Adventures

In our family, it is a tradition to wait until the age of 12, until Bat Mitzvah, to get pierced ears.  That is what I tell Raphaela when she asks to get them pierced sooner, that it must be when you are aware enough and responsible enough to take care of the post-piercing procedures, by yourself.

My grandmother took me to get my ears pierced right before my Bat Mitzvah, at a jewelry store in Providence, Rhode Island.  My ten year old brother came with us and he was going through his "gun stage." He stood next to me and set the scene which left me crying, "They're using this cool gun and they are going to shoot your ear off and there is going to be blood  and body parts EVERYWHERE!"

Actually, this brother never outgrew his gun stage:  after years as a successful investment banker he became a beat cop, so he could legally carry guns and threaten people as an office of the law.  Not counting the 12 or so hunting rifles he keeps in his house.  He remembers that day because not long after we left the jewelry store, it got robbed.  My brother thinks that is really cool.

After I made aliyah, I decided that I needed to do a "Tikun" [a Hebrew Kabbalah term for spiritual repair] of that original experience.  So I went and got a third hole, which eventually closed up.  I remember when my mother saw the third earring, she started to hyperventilate and point, barely speaking, "Why you...you...have a third ear....ring!"

"Don't freak out Mom," I told her. "This has nothing to do with my sexuality, I still like boys. It's just a fashion statement in Israel, nothing more.  And I promise there are no earrings hiding on my belly button or my tongue or anywhere else. I am too afraid of pain to do something stupid like that."

Flash forward to this past September, when inexplicably, one of my earring holes closed up, in my right ear.  Confident it was just a minor glitch, I tried to push an earring through to reopen it, and there was lots of blood (but thankfully not body parts) everywhere.  So today I am going to get my ear re-pierced, as well as reopening the third piercing.

I am going to try to be brave.  Wish me luck.

Next Step for my Favorite Foodie

This morning I was running late, and I pushed both myself and Raphaela out of the house;  I don't like being late anywhere, and certainly I want Raphaela to arrive in a timely way to school.

About half way through our walk, I remembered that I had set aside part of Raphaela's lunch on the counter, and that I had not put it in her lunch box.  Turns out, my daughter took care of it all by herself.

I told Raphaela how proud I felt that she was taking responsibility, how amazed I was at how much she had grown and how aware she had become of her surroundings.  "At this rate", I exclaimed, "you will be making your own lunches every morning."

Raphaela smiled broadly and straightened her back, so pleased to be offered a 'Mommy job' and truly feeling her grown-up First Grade-ness.  "Amazing," she mused. "I will get to decide what kind of lunch I eat, if it's dairy or meat, if it needs to be heated up or not."

I could already hear her menu planning in her head.

Caught in the Middle of a War and my Profession

I have several Arab/Palestinian patients, though they don't come in for treatment on a regular basis.

During this time in Israel where any Arab could potentially pull a knife on any Jew, anywhere in Israel,  I had not thought about the implications on my work, until this morning.  A Palestinian patient of mine who works for the United Nations called and said that he needed an emergency appointment.

I know him.  I have treated him over the years, and in the sense that I am mostly a good judge of character, he has in the past not seemed like the kind of person who would stab his Jewish doctor.

(NOTE:  Most of the Palestinians who have been actively involved in terror attacks have come from East Jerusalem, they are Israeli-Arabs with a fair amount of wealth and are gainfully employed, fully enjoying the benefits the Israeli life has to offer.)

On the other hand, when I am taking all sorts of precautions in my life, and in the life of my daughter, a part of me went into a panic when he asked to schedule.  I have sworn an oath as a doctor to help all humans, regardless of race, religion or color.  But what good am I to anyone, especially my own child, if I let this person into the office and he ends up hurting me, or killing me?