A Little Background

We have six kids, aged 4 months to 12 years.  Wonderful children, beautiful and healthy and intelligent.  When they're all in the same room, however, or even all at home at the same time, chaos ensues.  Two parents simultaneously engaged can reasonably keep things under control and get them all fed, bathed, clothed etc. without getting completely exhausted and/or driven insane by their antics.  One parent, however, will be hard pressed to get the whole crew into gear with blowing his top or just overheating his engine.  

Lucky for me, when my wife left, she took the baby with her.  So now the odds are 1 vs 5.  Their combined ages are just two years more than my own age.  I think I can handle this!

A few months ago, celebrating Amiel's (4th child, third from the right) 5th birthday

So how did we come to this situation?  We live in Israel, in Ramat Gan, a near suburb of Tel Aviv.  We came overseas from the United States some 14 years back, driven by various socioreligious motives to move to our people's ancestral homeland.  Our parents stayed behind.  Mine in the Chicago are, hers near Philadelphia.

All is flux, quoth Heraclitus.  The passage of time causes small physiological anomalies to become pressing medical issues.  My mother-in-law was diagnosed long ago with a leaky heart valve, and at long last it was recently decided by her physician that postponing the operation is no longer wise.  The date was set for the 9th of June, one week from today.  About a month before said date, in their routine weekly talk on the phone, my mother-in-law asked my wife to come and be by her side during her operation and for a short while after.  She was hesitant ("What, you want me to fly again with the baby, this time all by myself?" (Two months ago  we took the two youngest with us to my brother's wedding in Melbourne)).  I immediately encouraged her, since I believe that a child should do just about everything in their power to fulfill an aging parent's earnest wishes (especially when they're not unreasonable wishes).  So tickets were purchased, and last night mother and baby boarded a plane and flew over the Atlantic.

This blog I intend to be a chronicle of my adventures being a single father (with the occasional advice and guidance over Skype from my estranged partner) over these 28 days.  Sort of like a public diary of these trying moments in my life.

So here's a brief cast of the main characters in the story:

I , Yaakov

My wife, Michal, aka Lyudmila, Mila

The first-born, Binyamin, age 12

The older girl, Avigail, age 10

Boy, Chanania, age 7

Boy, Amiel, age 5

Boy, Noam Yisrael, age 2

The baby (girl), Elisheva aka Vooch-Vooch, Voocha, or The Vooch, age 4 months

Michal's parents, Anna and Leonid

My parents, Maralee and Leo

P.S. As this is the first piece of organized writing in English I've whipped up in many a year, there may be the occasional nonconventional grammar, or odd turn of  a phrase (what's called in my parents' house a Cameronism,  named lovingly after Cameron Brown who had trouble remembering proper English idioms even before he moved to Israel). I hope you'll be a forgiving audience (and I really hope I won't make any spelling errors ;-)).