Private School Woes

Before I even thought about having kids, I knew I was going to send them to a private Jewish day school. Knowing the area in which I live, it was really the only plausible option. There are very few (if any) religious Jewish kids in the public school system because there are a ton of Jewish day schools around, and that's where all of the kids go. I knew it would be expensive, but I felt so strongly about it that I knew I would just have to grin and bear it as best I could. So I did. We got scholarships (as nearly all families do), and it was manageable...somewhat. But as the years went on, the bills grew even as my salary did. Going to school meant I wasn't working for several years, and now we have to make that money up somehow - plus pay back the student loans. We were getting help from family, but circumstances (death, retirement, etc) has now rendered that impossible. And so now I face taking my kids away from their friends and away from an excellent school solely because I can't keep pulling money out of my home equity line of credit to pay for their school. While I am sure Boston Public Schools are a fine place to get an education, I don't know how I'm going to be able to give them a good Jewish education on top of it. Meanwhile, they're going to lose probably all of their Jewish friends because they so rarely go on play dates and don't go to synagogue that often either. I'm seriously distraught over this and don't know what to do. I have cried so many days over this, and I can't bring myself to make a decision one way or the other. Kill myself financially and allow my kids to have the education I want them to have (that they deserve) and to keep the friends they have tried so hard to make or put them in public school so I can pay back my loans and eventually we'll have money to live on and not keep taking money out of my house to pay the bills. I've prayed on it, but the L-rd isn't giving me any ideas. What do I do now?

Happy Stories

Today at work I had the most amazing thing happen. As you know, I do IUIs for my patients, and we always hope that it will work. But sometimes people do need to move onto IVF (as I did many years ago after 5 IUI cycles). One of my patients decided to be proactive and come in for a follow up visit before she was due for her pregnancy test for her latest IUI cycle. She was a day early for her pregnancy test, so we did the blood test, and she saw the doctor while it was running. After seeing the doctor, patients come to me to sign consents. We sat and I was doing my usual shpiel about the consents and how to fill them out yadda yadda yadda.... When the doctor and one of the MAs knocked on the door. All three of us (patient, partner, and I) raised our eyebrows. "Yeeeees? What can we do for you?" The two at the door had the largest grins on their faces. Doctor says that her blood test was back....and she's pregnant. Three jaws dropped to the floor. OMG. Well, there goes my consent shpiel, let's change tactics entirely! It was entirely surreal and probably the most exceptional thing to happen in my entire time at the clinic. It was like something you'd see in a movie. Absolutely incredible!

On another happy note, my first cousin who has been searching for her daughters (who she had been forced to give up for adoption many years ago) FOUND THEM!!!! Her brother (my other first cousin) was really the detective, and she's going to have her daughters back for Christmas this year. I am entirely beside myself with happiness for her. I can't wait to meet them myself!

And thirdly, the price on my plane tickets went down again. This time to $677. My refund is now going to be over $1100. SWEET! More money to spend on Disney and Universal tickets.

Plane Tickets

I've been planning a trip with the family for several months, but the plane tickets are so expensive, and flying 6 people can be extremely costly to begin with. Originally the tickets were $670 each, and I figured I would wait to see if the price would come down. It didn't... I watched it go up and up and up until I finally said "enough!" and bought tickets. It was then that I realized Travelocity has this neat program called "Price Match Guarantee" where you pay a bit extra per ticket and they will guarantee you the lowest fare from the time you buy until your flight. I bought the tickets when they were $868 each (OUCH) in the hopes that even though I spent another $168 for the price match program that it would drop by at least that much in the coming months. Since I bought 6 tickets, the fare would only have to drop by $28 in order to make back the money.

In the weeks since I bought the tickets, I've watch the price soar all the way up to $1000 per ticket. I despaired that it would ever come back down, until the other day when the price dropped to $867 and change per ticket. Less than a dollar difference. But I put in my price match guarantee request and they locked me in for a $5 refund once my trip is over. Not bad, but not great either. Luckily I can keep checking prices and keep requesting refunds, and they'll give me the best price out of all of my requests.

Today I was talking with my co-worker about something and it reminded me to price check, so I did. It was $720. *record screech* I blinked a few times. I gasped audibly. Possibly my heart stopped beating for a few. May have screamed. I got onto Travelocity so quickly it would have made your head spin. I put in my request, and the most beautiful words appeared on my screen: Refund due $887.16. Looks like I've made my price match guarantee work for itself after all. If it comes down again, of course I'll request the lower price, but I am darned happy about this one even if it never comes this low again.

And the funny part is that I must have caught it by a hair. The price was only that low for one day. It's already gone back up to $867. Whew! I would have had a fit if I had seen the price graph later and had missed the drop. I am extremely lucky.

Rhode Island Comic Con

The kids, my friend Ron, and I went to Rhode Island Comic Con today. It's become a yearly tradition, and every year we get our picture taken with various celebrities. This year was no different, and we got to meet actors we hadn't met before.

Billy Boyd played Pippin in the Lord of the Rings series. We brought some of our Lord of the Rings mystery minis with us - specifically the four hobbits: Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin. Billy is holding the little Pippin figure, and he looks ecstatic to be doing so. It was so cute!

Tom Felton played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series. I handed him Lucius Malfoy's wand that I have had for about a year (since we met Lucius's actor at a previous convention). I figured it would make him feel good to get to use his dad's wand. And he didn't disappoint - he told everyone "wands at the ready!" for the photo. So we had to follow suit.

Natalia Tena played Tonks in the Harry Potter series. She was so sweet with the kids and also told everyone "wands at the ready!" for the picture. Gavriella is concentrating very hard on her magic and is being helped by one of the greatest aurors in the business!

Sam Smith plays Mary Winchester in Supernatural. She was extremely nice. She shook my hand, asked my name and introduced herself (as if I had no clue who she was). Sam and Dean obviously have a really great mom.

My friend Ron invited the kids to be in his photo with Tara Strong. Tara is a voice actress who has voiced so many animated characters I can hardly remember a quarter of them. In particular, she voices Twilight Sparkle in My Little Pony. We met her at Boston Comic Con a few months ago, and she was very nice to the kids. We also found out at that point that she knows Hebrew! Dovid greeted her in Hebrew at the photo, and she didn't disappoint. She answered him in Hebrew and asked how he was doing. He responded that he was good (also in Hebrew). It was really cool to watch.

All in all we had a really great time, though most of it was spent in lines for photos. The best part was the fact that we were able to get ADA badges because of Dovid's diabetes, so our lines were mercifully short. We even managed to be first in line for Sam Smith! Definitely going to make sure we get ADA passes for all future conventions.

Weekend

Friday's thoughts:
I never thought I would make it home in time for Shabbos, but I did!!! I was within candle lighting, and I was so happy that I got to light candles with the kids. I love my job, but it's hard when you know you have to call patients back because it's time sensitive, but you also were supposed to leave an hour or more prior. Starting next week we're going to be doing 10 hr day schedules that that we'll have an extra day off per week. We're already working until 5:30pm most of the time, so it's not really working any more than we have been. We'll actually get to work less! On the flip side, our 6 hour days on weekends are now 10 hour days. But at least I'll be able to do a lot of catching up on the weekends when it's quiet.

I'm looking forward to Rhode Island Comic Con, which we're going to on Sunday. I'm going to be super busy that day, because immediately after getting home from the convention I have to go to a capella rehearsal. No rest for the weary... But I will share with you pictures and stories once I have recovered. 😃

Saturday's thoughts:
When you have to get up at 6 am every morning for work, sleep ins on the weekend are so sweet. I won't even tell you what time Shmuel made me get out of bed. It's embarrassing. And I had been having a weird dream that I don't really remember now...only that it was weird. (But what dreams aren't weird?)

Shabbos went as most Shabbosim do. Nothing too exciting to report. When it wasn't Shabbos I was trying to be productive and creative - writing tips about trying to conceive and colorizing a black and white photo (just to see if I could). Apparently I'm not too terrible at using photoshop to colorize, and I'm pretty impressed at my final product. See for yourself!

It's a photo of my grandpa from the 1920's. It's only part of a much larger photo of his whole family. I'm considering coloring the entire thing.

New Big

My three oldest kids have all had either a Big Brother or Big Sister from Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters at some point over the last few years. Unfortunately due to circumstances Dovid has not had a Big Brother since he was diagnosed with diabetes. Chana has had two Big Sisters, but each of them had to leave the program for personal reasons. Tzipora has also had two Big Sisters, and is currently still with that second one. I got a call the other day that a third Big Sister had been found for Chana and asked if we wanted to meet her. Of course I said yes! So tonight we went to meet Chana's new Big Sister, and she seems so sweet. I'm very excited for them to be able to start going out with one another. I think their first outing is going to be doing some kind of art project and ice cream. Sounds like they'll have a lot of fun!

Halloween

I just realized I didn't post anything yesterday. Kind of funny, because it was my day off, and I actually went out into the world and did something. My usual weekly appointments, and I also had a nice visit to the dentist. I say nice, because they complimented me on my teeth! Considering how much of a crappy brusher I was as a kid, this was the highest of compliments for me.

I discovered today that being empathetic is not always a good thing....when I started crying during a patient intake because of what they had experienced. Whew... Sometimes my job can be really, really emotionally difficult. I seriously wanted to sit there and bawl, but I managed to keep myself from going that far. A tissue was necessary, and my eyes were so red that my coworkers thought something bad had happened to me! I was never this emotional as a child...but being a parent really changes you. I cry at EVERYTHING. I sobbed earlier today while in my office because of a Facebook friend who lost his infant son today. Just reading his post had me in tears. I am definitely a crier, there is no doubting that. But I hope that my new patients were not offended or anything by my show of emotion. Sometimes I just can't help but feel their pain. And oh it hurts.

Today I took the kiddos out trick or treating....even though their school sent out an email asking people not to. I grew up trick or treating, and although there are still pagans who celebrate this as a religious holiday, the vast majority of people do not. It's a day to go out, dress up, and ring everyone's doorbells. More than likely my kids will be some of the only kids in their school to "celebrate," and I'm okay with that. At least they are having fun and actually getting out of the house. And free candy doesn't hurt, though with maybe a quarter to a half of it being non-kosher we make sure our friend Ron has a nice haul of his own of non-kosher candy and other treats. Like the bakery that gave out freshly baked chocolate cookies. Or the store that gave out caramel apples. Yeah he is getting the good stuff. 😄

We did make it for about 20 mins of trick or treating on the main street at the businesses. Even though I managed to get out of work on time, they didn't get home from school until after 4pm and then getting them into costumes was a chore. Ahh well....maybe next year I'll get off from work and we'll be able to get started earlier. It would be nice to be able to visit all of the businesses on both sides of the street.

After dinner we went out and rang doorbells. Most of our neighborhood doesn't celebrate. It's so unlike when I was growing up and every house on my street had a light on and was giving candy. Now you're going down half a street just for one house to be lit up. I need to find a new neighborhood for this...

2018 NICU Reunion

Every year I take the kids over to St. Elizabeth's for the annual NICU reunion. Families who had children in the NICU are invited to celebrate, and it's always around Halloween. People dress in costumes, and the kids have activities that they can do - fake tattoos, coloring, making Halloween decorations and masks, creating ghosts out of lollipops, and games. There's also ice cream and cake. And I'm known so well that the lady serving cake handed me the ice cream lid to show me it was kosher without me even asking. 😆

The kids had fun this year, as they always do.

Every year they also have professional photos taken. You can go up as many times as you'd like, but I only did one shot of the whole family. It was a miracle that everyone was looking at the camera and smiling!

I also look forward to seeing all of the doctors and nurses who I used to work with at St. Elizabeth's and those who also took care of me during my pregnancy, delivery and postpartum with the twins. Dr. Silvia Testa (pictured above) is the neonatologist who took care of the twins while they were in the NICU. I know I've posted about her and her husband previously on this blog. It's so special for her to see the twins and how much they've grown. I also ran into a patient of mine and her family (from when I worked at St. Elizabeth's on L&D) who had come to the NICU reunion last year as well. They recognized me within seconds, and it was so good to see them as well.

I took a bunch of pictures - mostly candid shots of the kids doing projects. Click here to see all of the NICU Reunion photos.

Post-Shabbos Post

Friday's thoughts:

We got a few delicata squash the other day, and Shmuel made them for Shabbos dinner. He wasn't sure what to do with them after they were cooked, so I basically covered them with brown sugar and cinnamon, then raisins. THEY WERE SO GOOD! And the kids were fascinated by the fact that they could eat the skin. Tzipora may have been a bit horrified by the idea and made faces. Gavriella, unsurprisingly, refused to touch it. She has no idea what she missed out on. Dovid ate it with gusto. For a child that eats everything with gusto and finishes at least twice as much food as I do at dinner, he doesn't grow so much. If I ate like he did at dinner, I'd look like a balloon! If we could trade metabolisms (excluding the diabetes part), we'd be all set. 😄

I had a great week at work with a lot of happy moments, but also a few sad ones. Luckily the happy moments for my patients usually outweigh the unhappy ones. I adore my patients, and seeing them glowing with joy when they become pregnant is one of the highlights of my life.

I'm looking forward to the weekend, even though I am working this weekend. I'm hoping I'll get a decent amount of work done so that I can be ahead for the week to come. And then on Sunday afternoon we'll be going to the NICU reunion at St Elizabeth's! This is something we've done every year since the twins were very little, and the kids look forward to it every year. I will make sure to share pictures of it afterward.

Saturday's thoughts:
Shock. Awe. Horror. None of these words even come close to what I felt when I read about the tragedy in Pittsburgh. Jews...targeted only because they are Jewish. Shot while praying on the Sabbath. Murdered while celebrating the recent birth of a child. How something like this can happen in the United States in the modern world is beyond me. But shootings continue happening. I don't think armed guards are the answer. I don't think arming citizens is the answer. But unfortunately I do not know what the answer is. Hate is like a disease that spreads and causes people to do unthinkable things. I am angry. I am extremely sad. And I cried....I cried for the people who lost their lives today, for their families and friends, and for the world in general. What have we come to?

Long Day of Not a Whole Lot

These days are the most difficult to write about - the ones where I'm at work for 10 hours, come home to eat dinner, and see the kids for a little while before it's time for them to go to bed. Not a whole lot happens (generally).

I came home today to Gavriella asking if she could take her new purse to school for show and tell tomorrow. She's so excited about it, and I just love that, so of course I said yes - with the caveat that she better not lose it.

I forgot to add that during my Costco trip yesterday I bought a whole bunch of candy for Halloween. They have full size candy bars for REALLY cheap - we're talking 30 full size candy bars for $12. If anyone actually comes to my house for trick or treating, they are going to be in for a happy surprise. Most years we get a handful of kids (or less), so we'll see what happens. If we start handing out good candy I'm wondering if word will spread and people will make a special trip. I guess we will see!

Last night I did my best friend's nails for her work Halloween party (which was today). I should have taken a picture of them. Maybe when she gets home (she lives next door to me) I'll have her do it so I can share it with you. We put on a Halloween-themed Color Street set called "Bloody Gorgeous". Last night I also wrapped all of the presents I got the kids at Costco. It took a while, but at least now the presents are hidden, and even if the kids find the hiding place they won't know what's there.

My task for this evening is actually going through my old records from the days when I was doing fertility cycles and backdating entries into this blog so I can have a more well-rounded idea of what actually happened. I may possibly co-author a book about fertility and want to have an easy way to reference things for myself. Feel free to peruse through the ancient history 2006-2008 once my posts go live.

The Day Our Whole World Changed

We've been having a lot of difficulty with Dovid over the last few months, and after blaming so many things for his issues, we've finally figured out what was really going on...

Since about June, Dovid has been drinking as though he could never get enough water. He would sneak down in the middle of the night, parched, and get himself water, even though we told him a thousand times not to. He would also sneak down for snacks. Then the pee accidents started. During the day, over night, you could never trust him not to pee. He was soaking everything, too - his bed, the couch... We blamed his medication, we blamed him just being lazy, we blamed the water before bed causing accidents (technically true, but there's more to it than just that). He also fell off the growth chart. Not that he's ever really been on it, but his plateaued, and his pediatrician was worried enough that she was going to send us to see a gastrointestinal doctor. In the meanwhile, I was going to take him to the child development clinic to see someone about his pee accidents.

Fast forward to last Sunday evening. We had a delightful party of sorts at our next door neighbor's house as a birthday celebration for our friend, Ron, whose birthday is this week. Dovid went to the bathroom (after having no less than 4 glasses of water) and stepped on their bathroom scale. He came out and proudly announced he weighed 39 lbs. *record screech* 39 lbs...he had been over 40 lbs at some point. He was not only not gaining weight, but now losing? And I know he's eating. As I said, he was sneaking snacks even! And he'd eat plenty at dinner. There was no excuse for him losing weight.

When I got home and sat down at my computer and really started thinking about it, my nursing brain kicked in. What else could make a kid drink, pee, eat, and lose weight? I got on Facebook and asked around for a glucose meter, and luckily a friend of mine down the street had a spare. I immediately went to get it, hoping I was being a hypochondriac nurse mother. She tested it in front of me, so I knew how to work it and that it actually worked properly. I took it home and tested Dovid while he was still asleep. The screen said "high glucose > 600". My hands shook. My heart sank. I ran down the stairs, screaming for Shmuel. I showed him the meter, because I couldn't actually say it out loud. He suggested I retest, even though I knew in my heart it would show no different. I went back up and used a different finger...same result. Crap. I asked my friend if she ever got a result that high. The answer was no. Double crap. We called the pediatrician, though I knew this was an automatic straight to the ER glucose result. Shmuel carried Dovid down to the car, and I took him to a local hospital (Newton-Wellesley).

At the ER, of course Dovid feels totally fine, just thirsty as all heck and asking every living being if he could have a glass of ice water. Don't let looks fool you, of course. They tested his glucose again...same result as at home. Well done, mom. They sent his sample to the lab to get an actual value...851. Triple crap. Luckily, somehow Dovid with all of his energy and water drinking managed to keep himself out of DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) for months with high sugars. He still had high ketones, but his blood pH was decent - just obviously compensated. After a bag of fluids and, yes, a nice glass of ice water, they gave him insulin and we were transferred via ambulance to Children's Hospital.

 One last note about Newton-Wellesley is that they have child life specialists for pediatric patients who help when any procedures are done and give them activities to do (coloring, iPad, etc). She helped to educate him and calm him, and Dovid is a kid who HATED needles. He caused a major scene at CVS getting his flu shot last year. She also gave him a REALLY nice Lego set (for keeps). They really know how to treat children there, and I was very impressed with the way they handled everything.

These two pictures above are of Dovid in the ambulance. He was entirely enthralled, as this was his first time in one. Hopefully he will never need to see the inside of one strapped to a stretcher again.

At Children's, they repeated Dovid's blood sugar and labs, and of course it was all still high. Then he was admitted, but unfortunately they didn't have any "legit" rooms, so we got put into a treatment room. :( By this time I was so exhausted I was almost not coherent. Once we were settled, Dovid, who had at least gotten a few hours sleep, enjoyed time on the iPad while I was passed out in the bed. Once the day started in earnest, all manner of doctors, nurses, educators, and dietitians came to talk to us about diabetes care and treatment. We were lucky enough to be offered a chance to participate in their day program, so we could be discharged that night (Monday) and come back the next day (Tuesday) for education for the latter part of the day.

So far we are all hanging in. Dovid is a real trooper and has given us no problems with the finger sticks and insulin shots. I am incredibly proud of him and his maturity with all of this. He doesn't really seem perturbed, even when I have to keep him from eating long enough to count his carbs and give insulin. And he doesn't mind needles now...at least not the teeny insulin ones. I also felt so loved at the outpouring of support from everyone on Facebook and especially those (like Ron, our nanny (Melissa), my amazing neighbors, and the mom of one of Dovid's friends) who visited in person, brought me food, helped with the kids, and drove us home.

I never thought I would ever need to know about diabetes at all (aside from obvious nursing/midwifery related things), let alone get a crash course in type 1. Life is going to be a whole lot different, but we'll get through as we usually do. Now we just have to get Dovid onto a regimen where his sugars are controlled and hopefully get him a continuous glucose monitor and insulin pump. That at least will take some of the weight off. Until then, I better get to sleep. 2am is finger stick time.

You Miss Me?

How surprised was I today to see that someone was looking for an update and that I hadn't posted anything since last August when I became a CNM. I'm not really sure why I don't update more. I am busy - doing my DNP, working, kids - but not so busy that I can't take a few minutes to say hello to anyone who is still reading. *waves to all of my "fans"*

The nine months have not been particularly eventful. The twins are in 2nd grade and doing fairly well. Dovid is on a medication that has made him much easier to handle at school, though he still struggles with anything related to social interaction. Chana is progressing steadily and hopefully will be able to continue on to 3rd grade with Dovid next year. Tzipora has whizzed her way through kindergarten and can read! She's got a lot of sight words down, and we are all super proud of her. She also is friends with basically her entire class. Gavriella is also having fun in her first year at "school" in the 3-year-old class. She's an adorable gem, and I love it when her teachers send me photos of all of the fun things she is doing in class.

As for me, I /finally/ got a job, but not as a midwife. I was hired to work as a labor and delivery nurse (part-time nights). This is not ideal, but it is work. Meanwhile, I am plugging along with my doctoral studies and will hopefully finish in September. At that point you can all call me doc. :D

In about a week, we're going to be attending a family reunion with my grandfather and people from that side of the family that none of us have met. My mom, Uncle Ron, my sister and brother-in-law will also be there. It's going to be very exciting, and I promise to take lots of pictures and actually post about it. Maybe I'll get back into a groove or something... Feel free to leave a comment if you want me to post about something in particular. I feel as though I don't know what to talk about. I've made some pretty interesting genealogical discoveries over the past few months, but I doubt they would be interesting to anyone outside of my family.

Huge Update (Part 2)

In November 2014, Ron, Gavriella, and I attended Rhode Island Comic Con in Providence, RI. Once again, we had a fabulous time meeting interesting people. I dressed up like Tauriel from The Hobbit.

Here I am with Colin Baker, most noted for being the 6th Doctor in Doctor Who.

We all then got to meet John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli in Lord of the Rings and Sallah in Indiana Jones.

Gavriella got along really well with George Takei, who played Sulu in Star Trek. He was so sweet to her and kept shaking her hand.

From that point, school and work basically took over my life. When I wasn't doing one, I was doing the other, except during my two week breaks between semesters. In the spring of 2015 I started to get back into acting, something I did quite a bit of as a teen and that I miss doing. I auditioned for many student and other films, and I was lucky enough to be cast in a few of them.

The first one I did was called "The Edible Phase." It's an incredibly creepy 2 minute film with no dialogue and a whole lot of symbolism. See if you can get through the whole thing. haha You only get to see my face at the beginning, but if you stay until the end you get to see Gavriella make her film debut.



I was also cast in many roles in a horror film that is hopefully coming out in November called "Once Upon a Deadtime Story." I don't have any clips from that, but when it comes out I will be sure to share with you how you can see it. On the same day that I filmed my first scene for the horror movie, I also filmed a short called "The Catcher," where I play a hypnotist. You can watch that one, and it is much less creepy than the first film though still somewhat creepy.



I haven't been cast in anything since then, though I have sent in quite a few auditions for things. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to participate in more things as time goes on.

In May, I took a two-day trip to New York to meet my grandpa for the first time. I know I wrote about finding my mother's birth family way back in 2013, but this was the first opportunity I've had to meet her birth father. Grandpa Joel is a hoot! We had a great time together, and I wish he lived closer so I could see him more often and introduce him to the kids. We didn't exactly get the greatest picture of the two of us, but it's something.

We attended another comic con within the last few weeks called MASSive Comic Con in Worcester, MA. Our entire purpose was to go see Sean Astin again, and we actually ran into him completely by accident on the way out of the parking lot into the convention. He is a real gentleman and talked to us for over 10 minutes as a line formed at his booth. We took a video, but it's not very good. Either you can see us well and not hear us or hear us well and not see anything. haha But feel free to enjoy it anyway!


That brings us almost entirely up to date. I will do my best to post more regularly, but no promises. School and work have me running like a nutcase, though I am grateful for both! I will be starting clinicals for school in November, but I'll be doing them about an hour and a half from Boston. Sounds like a lovely commute, doesn't it? But it's all I have, and I will take it gladly!

Remembering Grandpa Irv

I lost a dear family member this week. Your first instinct is probably to ask "which side of the family was he on?" Well, he was my sister's husband's grandfather - Grandpa Irv. Many times family is created through marriage, but honestly I feel as though the Simons became family long before my sister (Shira) and brother-in-law (Ben) were married. And now, every night when my husband tucks in the kids, he goes through a laundry list of people that love them. "I love you...and Mommy loves you, and Grandma loves you, and Grandma loves you..." After Grandma and Grandma always came Grandpa Irv...even before Aunt Shira and Uncle Ben! And every single Simon gets mentioned in the nightly shpiel - Ben's parents, brothers, sisters-in-law, niece and nephew. That's how close this family is to us.

Shortly after Shira and Ben's wedding (15 years ago!), Ben's grandparents (on his father's side) moved to Rochester. Since I was still in high school at that point I had the opportunity to spend time with them, and they came to my choir concerts, plays, etc. They also became friendly with my parents and grandparents. After my grandparents died, they became a surrogate set, and I loved them just as much as I loved my own grandparents. They treated me as their own, and I think somewhere down the line Grandpa Irv probably forgot that I wasn't blood related to him. :)

Grandpa Irv and my father became close after my Grandpa Bill died. They used to solve the world's problems over lunch each Tuesday. It's quite possible that after my father became ill he told Grandpa Irv to watch over me, because he certainly did. There's a favorite story of mine that really shows how Grandpa Irv had "adopted" me as one of his grandkids. About a month after I met Shmuel I was home in Rochester for winter vacation. It was about 6 weeks after my father had died, and the whole Simon family had come over for dinner. At one point Sheri (Ben's mom) was talking about how there were so many people getting engaged lately. I sat there with a smirk on my face, and when she noticed she called me out on it. I explained how I had met Shmuel and that we were seriously dating. At some point it was mentioned that he's 14 years older than I am, and Grandpa Irv really let me have it. Here are some quotes as I remember them: "What does he want with someone so much younger?" "Your mother doesn't want you to date someone so much older! Think about how she feels with your dad gone. He was a lot older than she, right?" "You know I'm only saying this because I love you, and your father's not here to say it for himself!" I tried to explain that he wouldn't be saying these things if he had met Shmuel and to wait to pass judgment on him. I knew that once they met that Grandpa Irv would have no problem with it. A few months later Shmuel came to Rochester and met the Simon family, and Grandpa Irv fell in love with him. Honestly, I think it was love at first sight with those two. After that all I ever heard from Grandpa Irv was "how's my Sammy?" It always used to make me grin, since I knew how upset Grandpa Irv was when I first mentioned I was dating someone older, and now here he was welcoming Shmuel with open arms. But that's just how he was...full of love. He loved us, and he loved my kids. I sent him a family picture with Gavriella in it a few weeks ago, so he was able to see her before he passed. I'm just glad the rest of the kids were able to spend some time with him when we went to Rochester this past May.

I did not used to be a very emotional person. When my father died I knew it was coming several weeks in advance. But I never cried at anything back then, and I stoically sat there during his funeral and even at his graveside with not a tear to be found. I wanted to cry, but for some reason my body just couldn't. Same thing at my grandmother's funeral a few months later. Same with basically every other funeral I've ever been to or when someone calls me with news of someone's death. Until this week. I knew Grandpa Irv was sick, and I knew this phone call would be coming, but for the first time ever I couldn't speak while Sheri was telling me that Grandpa Irv had died. I was trying not to cry into the phone or betray my emotion, so all I could give her was one word answers. I loved him as if he were my own grandfather, and in many ways he was. I will miss him terribly, but I hope he's getting to spend some quality time with Grandma Harriette who he's been missing the past 6 years, and I hope he gets to go back to having Tuesday lunches with my father so they can solve the problems of the world. Goodness knows this country could use their help.

This is Grandma Harriette & Grandpa Irv at my wedding - Aug 27, 2006. Not a great quality pic, but you get the idea.

This is a gorgeous picture of the Simon family taken in May. (From L to R: Shira, Grandpa Irv, Ben, Robert, and Sheri)

New Family

How do I even begin this post? No, it doesn't have to do with the baby - she's still baking away. But I'm hoping this post and the ones that come after will explain a little bit about my blogging absence for the last few months. So much has happened, but we were waiting for a good time to talk about it...which meant that I couldn't post about anything fun that was going on!

Let me start all the way at the beginning...over 60 years ago. My mother was born to two college students, and it was decided that she would be given up for adoption. Not many people in her biological family knew what was going on, but fortunately my mother was adopted into an amazing family. The adoption wasn't talked about, though basically everyone in my mother's extended adoptive family new about it, and for most of her life my mother really had no urge or intention to find her biological family - she had loving family and amazing parents, so what was the need, right? Then her adoptive father (Grandpa Bill) died in 2000 and her adoptive mother (Grandma Bess) in 2006, and I brought up the topic a few times to my mom over the years since then. I had even read this book about identical twin girls who had been adopted separately at birth and then found each other and, I believe, their birth family. I was pretty sure my mom wasn't a twin, but I was definitely curious about her birth family. In the fall of 2012 I saw an ad for an agency that helped get adoption records and find birth families, and I was finally able to convince her to see what we could find out.

Fast forward through several months of getting documents signed, notarized, and filed away with the agency...and, of course, waiting. In early March 2013, my mom received her adoption papers which named her birth mother (Grandma Lotta). Luckily for us her birth mother had a very uncommon name, so that coupled with the non-identifying information that we had from the adoption agency made it very easy to track her family down. Some basic genealogical searches led me right to the family within hours. Then I made a leap and contacted someone that was connected to the family on the genealogical website that I use (geni.com). I had no idea how close or far related this person was, but it was all that I had to go on.

I waited a few days and hadn't heard back from the woman, so I figured she probably thought I was totally insane. I mean, I had basically sent her a short note saying I thought this particular person on her family tree was my biological grandmother! Not exactly the type of email you expect to receive... But, in the intervening days this woman contacted one of Grandma Lotta's other children, Aunt Gina, who then used her expertise to track me down. She called my house and got my babysitter, who was completely confused. I was at school at the time, and my babysitter calls me on my cell phone saying she got a call from some random lady saying she was my sister or something. Immediately I knew it had to be my mother's sister, not mine, and I tried to keep from screaming gleefully into the phone. I don't think I was particularly successful at this, though. Luckily Aunt Gina had left her number with my babysitter, so I called her right up. And we talked...shared some basic information, tried to get our stories all straight, etc. It was March 4, Grandma Bess's birthday - coincidences like that just don't happen. In any case, none of the biological family even knew about the pregnancy, adoption, etc...except for one person - Grandma Lotta's brother - who eventually confirmed what we already had figured out. But that confirmation took a few days. I still have the voicemail saved that my Aunt Gina left on my cell phone when she got that final confirmation that she and my mom were sisters. There was no blood test necessary. The stories checked out perfectly, we had the document with Lotta's name and my mom's name, and just look at the family resemblance!

Guess which one is my mom and guess which one is her birth mother... ;) Even just looking at my mom and aunt next to each other now you can see they have the same nose and such. Aunt Gina has even said that sitting and talking to my mom feels like she's looking at their mother. Chana B has a very strong resemblance to one of my other aunts as well.

In any case, once all of this happened it took my mom a few days for the reality to sink in before she and her new found sister talked. And then my aunt went a step further and was able to track down my mother's birth father (Grandpa Joel). Unfortunately Grandma Lotta passed away a few years ago, but Grandpa Joel is still alive and well! Aunt Gina spoke with him and got his side of the story, and then eventually my mom made contact with him. In the mean time, Aunt Gina planned a trip to Boston for July so that she could meet everyone - my mom, sister and brother-in-law would all come up here for a little family reunion.

And that's why I haven't been able to update! I've wanted to post about our July adventures for ages, but I couldn't possibly do it without talking about Aunt Gina! Now that you're all clued in, hopefully in my next post I can get to talking about our fun in July and August...with pictures, of course. :) And there will be more to tell about Grandpa Joel, too.

P.S. I use the terms adoptive and biological/birth only to make things more easy to understand. Grandpa Bill and Grandma Bess will always be my grandparents who I love and miss terribly, I just happen to now have additional family to get to know, including some who live right here in Boston. The heart never gets consumed, it only grows bigger.