YB HYD

 YB was the most injured soldier from October 7th. 420 days later, he finally succumbed to his wounds. 

While I had conversations and Whatsapp chats with him, I wouldn't say we were close. But I have a lot of interactions with his siblings, best family. 

His sister N was a bus counselor for our camp

His brother M was my Bnei Akiva Madrich

His other sister Y was on my baseball team

His other sister L was in my Bnei Akiva shevet

His brother in law N is my friend, in the same class for 6 years

His other brother A is/was one of my brother's best friends

And Y was my best friend's brother's best friend. 

Very sad day.

She's Getting Big!

 So our beautiful and tiny Meitali climbed out of her crib today. We were lying in bed with Eitan and Hadar, when Hadari asked if she could go to Meital. We said of course. And then a couple minutes later, we hear the laughter of two girls getting closer and closer to our room. Shiff and I looked at each other like "How did Hadar help Meital out?" only to find out that Hadar cheered her on, but Meital climbed out with no help. Big uh oh. And she continues her trend of doing things way too early for herself, like when she used to pick herself up on the wall and fall backwards on her head. 

M with the Big Kids

 Day 1 of Meital sleeping with the big kids:

Meitali woke up at 4:30. Hadar told her to go back to sleep and she did. 

Then she woke up at 5:15 Hadar said go back to sleep, Meitali told her no, poo poo. And that's when I went in. And she did make.

Day 2:

B"h they all slept amazingly. Woke up at 6. Eitan took her out of her cot. It was great. They were all very happy. 

During the night Meital woke up for a second and one of them put her back to sleep. I heard it all, it was very sweet.

Day 3:

Everyone woke up around 630, the big kids first came into our bed

Meital woke up for a second in the middle of the night and went back to sleep. 

The whole reason we did this was so Meital feels like part of the big kids, and that they have good influence on her to go back to sleep - she had been waking up at 5 am and screaming, maybe she has FOMO. 

They're So Lucky

 Sometimes I think about how lucky my kids are. No, not the fact that some of them had 8 great grandparents alive. Not the fact that they live in the same neighborhood as 4 grandparents, an aunt, an almost uncle, and 2 great grandparents. No, not the fact that they get to live in Israel as something for granted. (All of these are amazing but not the point of this post). The fact the since they were born, or at least since the big ones understood what was going on, the Detroit Lions are a good team

Eitan was the night of 2019 Opening Kickoff, Hadar was born the week that Matthew Stafford was traded, and Meital was born right before the season the Lions had their first 2 playoff wins of my life (2nd and 3rd of my dads). Yes, the Lions have as many playoff wins in Meital's life as mine. 

Anyway, they love singing Forward down the field, cheering Ja-Red Goff, and watching highlights. A couple times they woke up at the end of a night game and they enjoyed watching with me. Sunday mornings at breakfast we have a dance party where we play NFL on Fox, CBS, Forward Down the Field. And they expect to win, because every Monday they ask me if the Lions won, and every week basically I say yes (they are 10-1). Its come to a point that they even expect to win on days that they don't play - Eitan came into my room at 6 am on Sunday Morning to ask me if the Lions won the night before (they didn't play).

Learning with my oldest

 Very special learning Torah with Eitan every Saturday night. A highlight might have been this week, where we got to learn about Avraham giving a Brit for Yitzchak. I told Eitan that his Brit was literally 4 feet away from where we were learning. Was very cool. 

With the boys

 I got to play football this Friday with some 17-22 year olds and boy was it fun. It was very credibility building for me personally to make sure I wasn't at a point where I was just too fast for the old guys. I caught a ton of passes (some very long), played solid defense, and scored 3 tds, including the walk off pick six to win 6-4. There were some plays I couldn't cover but that was due to never seeing them before, and they were short, nothing went over my head, even vs. a former national team player. But - I did sit with him after and go through his routes, and I think I am going to pay MB to walk me through the routes so I can continue to get better. Overall, very fun. 

Her Poor Little Foot

So our little Meital got into more trouble this evening. After I finished off work and showing Hadar how to use Microsoft Paint, I went to grab Meital and put her to sleep. But as I was getting to her (in the same spot she swallowed the balloon sticker), I heard a thud. My baby had pushed down my bike battery and it landed straight on her foot. She screamed at levels that were higher than normal. Shifra ran out to Terem with her for x-rays. Turns out it is a thank G-d not broken but a bad bruise and some discoloration. 

90 days in

 I am now 90 days into my role at Justt, and safe to say, it has exceeded all expectations for me. Officially 90 days is the time you are done offboarding, but I felt like I went and did things very early on here that were quick wins (even in the first two weeks), and began the projects and bigger things around the 45 day marker once I understood the systems enough. 

I am:

-Grateful that the position is central and important, exactly what I was hoping for

-Thankful that my boss and myself get along great, and he is really happy with my output already

-Nervous that past relationships might be hurt by my new prioritization

-Grateful for my relationships already early on with so many of the team members, in Israel and abroad

-Excited to be flying to London and New York in January

-Hopeful that I can continue to succeed where I am and get positive feedback

-Hopeful I can maintain the things that are important but sometimes fall away, like 

-Happy that I have good relationships and everyone is so nice, but I don't yet have that best friend at work

-Energized by the change

-Hopeful that as time goes on I can bring some team members on to help carry the load one day

-Finding mistakes that I made because I worked too early on and didn't understand processes (not major, and still worth doing it how I did it.