The Drill

Today, at 5:30am, I got a knock on my door. It was Leah. "What's wrong?" I asked. "I'm scared of - you know," she said, and then she whispered, "the b-o-m." And that's how my day began.

The kids are still home from school. It definitely adds stress to all our lives. I'm not even talking about that feeling stay-at-home moms often have during school vacations, when they can't wait for their kids to go back to school. This is much baser than that. "Continue with your daily routine" say all the websites that deal with parenting in times like this. How can we do that if everyone is home? Petachya still went to gan, but he is leaving the house before everyone else and comes home with other children in the house, which he is not used to. Leah did homework with me this morning which her teacher posted on the school's website. Her art teacher also told the girls to draw pictures that they will discuss when school resumes. She drew pictures of herself brushing her hair, brushing her teeth, reading, and going to the park (Park Raanana). No pictures of rockets or safe rooms or sirens, as those parenting websites tell me to expect and encourage. She doesn't want to think about and focus on that. That's my girl! My amazing friend Ronya came and picked her up today for an afternoon in Ramat Beit Shemesh. She was glad to get out of range. Bezalel spent the day with Ruby at work, since he had an afternoon hearing test scheduled near there. That was a special treat for him, and he behaved exceptionally well. Poor Simcha just climbed the walls. He tried a few friends, but they were at grandparents or didn't call him back. In addition to all this craziness, he's waiting to hear if he got into the high school he wants to go to. Is this normal for an 11 year old? Normal is relative, I'm learning. Tomorrow the kids are going on another school trip - this time to a kibbutz near Petach Tikva. It's a full day, and I know they'll come back exhausted. From what I read on the news sites, school will probably (hopefully) resume on Sunday.

The last (potential) stress of the day was the scheduled siren test/get-in-your-saferoom-within-60-seconds drill at 7pm. We all knew it was happening. Petachya insisted he would not cry, saying it over and over again like a mantra. Kinneret (our amazing neighbor) told him he is one of the bravest boys she knows. You should have seen his chest puff out. I didn't really eat dinner, but the kids and Ruby didn't seem to have a hard time. Leah asked to go upstairs early so she would already be in the saferoom when the siren sounded. No problems. Then the siren went off. We heard it quite well, thank God. I remember a yoga class I once attended in which the instructor had us sing during certain postures, since singing encourages proper deep breathing. Therefore, to calm us all down, as soon as we got to the mamad (saferoom), I said we should sing. Bezalel chose the song - a beautiful rendition of Psalm 121 by Yosef Karduner.

Tears welled up in my eyes as the boys sang on top of their lungs with their arms around each other: "Behold, the Keeper of Israel does not sleep nor slumber". Leah, sitting on her father's lap, enveloped in his embrace, joined in: "May God guard you from all evil, may He guard your soul; May God guard your comings and goings now and forever."
I wish us all a peaceful and quiet night.