Can't Focus On The Politics

I was going to write about some thoughts on the Presidential election currently going on in the States, but I find that I can't complete what I want to write. I just can't write about anything political right now. Oh, don't get me wrong. I have opinions about what's happening and the candidates, but I just don't feel like putting thought to digital paper at the moment.

So, let's talk about something else in the meantime. I want to talk to all the mothers out there. I want to talk to both those that have been courageous enough to work and take care of their children, and those that have been brave enough to make taking care of your home your full time job.

I want to know your experiences. I want to know if you share the same dilemmas as I do. For those of you who also work outside the home, do you feel any guilt for being away from your child? Do you have any regrets? Do you feel the tear within yourself that you have to be everywhere at once, 100% dedicated at work and 100% dedicated at home? Do you feel the struggle within, wondering if it's all worth it?

For those of you at home, do you regret giving up a career or the prospects of a career? Do you feel at all unfulfilled? Do you sometimes feel unappreciated, as if the job you're doing isn't as important simply because you don't get paid to do it? Do you feel trapped sometimes?

The reason I ask is because I realize that as I settle more into motherhood, those types of questions travel across my brain at one point or another during the day or during the week. It's a roller coaster of inner fighting and conflict that a man can never understand. It's the constant struggle for balance between nurturing and caring for one's young and achieving some form of inner happiness and self fulfillment that is outside of simply being a mom. Of course, I use the word "simple", and I left. There is nothing simple about being a mom. You are raising the future. What can be simple about that? There's a reason in Judaism that it while it is on the father to ensure a child's education, the burden of education and teaching a child the way's of G-d fall to the mother. She chooses what kind of education a child receives in the home, for that is her domain. She has the instincts for what her child needs.

I'll give you an example. Last night, my baby woke up screaming bloody murder a couple of hours after we put him to sleep. He normally does not wake up like this so soon after we put him down. My husband and I immediately knew something was wrong. We tried changing his diaper. That wasn't the problem. We figured maybe he got bit by a mosquito or something, and it got a nerve. However, after about half a minute, I realized instinctively that he was hungry. Now, he had just eaten a couple of hours before, and it's rare for him to be hungry again until morning. But, somehow, through his crying and just instinctively I knew that was the problem. My husband wasn't so sure, so I gave in and agree to try other things to try and calm him down. I allowed this for about 5 minutes and then just said that I was going to try feeding him. Sure enough. That was the problem. After feeding him, he fell right back asleep and slept soundly until morning.

Before you become a mom, your mom, grandmother, aunt, etc. tells you that you have the instincts to be a good mom. You just have to trust them. While you're pregnant, you don't really believe them. I know I didn't "feel" like a mom yet, and I was scared to death that I didn't inherit that mom gene. When I gave birth and for the first 4 weeks, I also didn't feel it. I was scared out of my mind. I didn't know what to do when he cried. I didn't know how I should calm him down. I started doubting myself. That was the key to unlocking my success. Once I started say to myself not to be afraid of his crying, that was he trying to communicate with me, and that I know how to deal with what he's trying to say, things started settling down.

All of a sudden, I saw that I could calm him down when he was sad. I just had to listen to him. I could take care of him by myself when family wasn't around, and my husband was at work. It was a liberating feeling to be able to allow myself the confidence to listen to what my son had to say and be able to provide him with what he actually wanted. It feels like such a gift, but then again, what about me? What about my wants and needs? How do I fulfill myself and still be 100% invested as a mom? Do I have to constantly be sacrificing something? Or is there some sort of balance out there somewhere?

From all you moms out there, I would really like to know what you have to say on the matter.

Technorati Tags: Mom, Baby, Politics, Work, Stay-at-home, Motherhood, Birth

What User Agreement?

I just heard a very interesting story on NPR. No, I don't listen to it on a regular basis or anything like that. I use it for my job. They were discussing how storing our information, pictures, emails, vital documents, etc. in the "cloud", the term to describe storage in cyber space, is more and more becoming the norm and will be the common wave of the future. However, as this is happening, the majority of us out their using these online services really don't know what we've signed up, what our rights are, etc. b/c none of us have really read the user agreements that we agree in order to become members.

Take email, for example. If someone out there is a vindictive prick who's out to wreak petty yet powerful vengeance on you, they can write to your email provider and claim, without any proof necessary, that you have illegal content in your email box, or that you're using your email account for illegal practices. Again, no proof is required to verify this accusation. Unless you're some hot shot client, it takes more time, money, and resources than is worth it in order to investigate the charges. Instead, the email provider will more than likely just shut down your email account without warning. Yes, they can do that. Goodbye to all your emails. Adios to all your information you've been saving. Shalom and L'hitraot to all those important documents. What? You didn't know they can do that? But, it says so right there in the User Agreement.

An example of this happened to me last year. As most of my readers will know, during the war in 2006, I produced a number of short picture films set to music. I posted them on YouTube and then embedded them here. About a year or so after I posted them, I was emailed by some readers that the videos were no longer working. I went into YouTube to get into my account, but my password didn't work. I wrote to YouTube to find out what was going on. They wrote back to me saying that my account had been terminated due to violations of the terms of service. They didn't give any further explanation as to what violations I had supposedly violated. What I suspect happened was that some pro-Palestinian or pro-Hezbollah jerks complained about the content of my videos. So, without warning or explanation, my account was simply terminated without my knowledge.

As I'm even sitting here writing this, I'm completely aware that one day, some same Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, liberal jerk off can come to this site, not like what I'm writing, declare that free speech is only for those that agree with his opinion, write to Google, complain about me, and my blog could be gone. No explanation needed. All that stuff I wrote vanished. And Google could do it too. It's in that User Agreement I clicked the "I Agree" box for.

But, will I back all my writings up? Eh, probably not. It's human nature. That's why we're using the cloud more and more to store our information. It's easier. It's quicker, and it's always there when we need it. Of course, until it not...

Technorati Tags: Computer, Information, Cloud, Google, YouTube, War, Pro-Palestinian, Anti-Israel, Liberal, User, Agreement

Fuzzy Wuzzy Was A Bear

You know, one of the things that everyone, who's a parent, talks about when you're pregnant for the first time and about to become a first-time parent is get ready to basically never sleep again. They try to explain the fatigue, but it always comes out in a joking matter that you don't know how seriously you should take them. And on top of that, you think to yourself, well, they don't look that tired. On top of that, you basically delude yourself. If you comprehended the enormity of what was really in store for you as a parent, I think the human species would probably go extinct pretty darn quickly. We're all, especially women, sado-masochists in that way. Normally, people who choose to put themselves through pain and agony are diagnosed with a psychosis and sometimes even put in a mental institution and on heavy anti-psychotic medications. But, no. Purposely going through the pain of morning sickness, back aches, stretch marks, swollen feet, etc., and then the pain of child birth is considered perfectly normal. More than that, doing it more than once, after figuring out what you're in for, is considered even more normal!!

In any case, what nobody can or does prepare you for is just the utter physical and mental dizzying exhaustion that comes with being a parent, and especially being a mother. My brain has felt like it's been stuffed with cotton balls since the second my son came out of me. My brain is just mush. I am just completely drained of any mental energy. I doubt if I could tell you what 2 + 2 is right now. 5? It's not that I am not enjoying motherhood. I love it. I love watching my son grow, I take such pleasure in seeing every new thing he does and discovers. My biggest joy is seeing that he smiles the biggest and laughs the hardest for me, his mom.

I just wish I could hold a coherent thought in my head for more than a few seconds, and I wish that I didn't feel like I needed to collapse at 8:00 at night after he's put to bed. I used to be such a night owl. If I went to bed before midnight, then I must have been sick or something. But now, I'm lucky if I can make to 11:00. What's happened to me? It's not like I'm not sleeping. Thank god, bli eyin hara, my son sleeps well at night. I'm getting sleep, but I still just feel so exhausted!

Man, taking care of a kid is such exhausting work! I don't even drink coffee! How am I going to survive???

Technorati Tags: Birth, Pregnancy, Pregnant, Sleep, Baby

Jaded

I don't have any clue if there's anyone out there who still reads my blog, but for those 1 or 3 of you out there that may still reading, you should know that I'm back in town, electronically speaking. I've been gone for quite a while now. There are many reasons for it, personally and politically.

Let's start with the personal first. I had my first child a little over 4 months ago. For all of you who have children out there, I don't have to tell you that trying to blog while taking care of a newborn is a bit difficult. By the time the little one gets to sleep, I'm just utterly spent and exhausted that writing anything coherent would be an immense challenge. Even writing now, I'm making so many spelling mistakes out of sheer fatigue that I'm wondering if it's even worth it. But, I have a need and desire to write again. While I was pregnant, I just didn't have that. I just really needed a break.

Secondly, the political factor. Anyone who's ever read my blog knows that I love to discuss politics, especially Israeli politics. However, for the past like 8 months or so, I've just been completely jaded about everything that's been going on here. It's just disgusted me to the point that I just couldn't write about that disgust. It's also gotten to the point where I just stopped watching the news or really even caring about what was going on in the country I live in. I mean, what was the point? We have a disgustingly corrupt government, led by a man who would sell his own mother to stay in power for one more hour, a man that is literally selling his country down the river.

My father-in-law likes to say, "One day, the Jews will have a country of their own." Israel is a country in peril that is sacrificing itself for a meager scrap of favorable public opinion in the world, a world that secretly, and mostly not so secretly, wishes they hadn't stopped Hitler from completing his work. Israel is a country that has no belief or fortitude in the concept of its own sovereignty. It is a country that still believes and acts like we are a people still living in exile under foreign rule that have to behave and do what we're told lest we suffer the wrath of another's dominance. We are living in dhimmitude even though we now have the guns, we now have the missiles, we now have power.

In any case, hopefully things will be different now. I may stay away from writing about politics while my feelings are like this. I feel that I want to shift to talking about other things, as well as about Middle East politics. It's a new blog, and it's a new day. I just hope there's somebody out there that wants to listen, or read actually, what I have to say.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Birth, Baby, Newborn

So, What Else Is New?

Palestinian police behind last week's terror attack
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 2, 2007

Palestinian policemen were behind the shooting attack last week which killed Ido Zoldan, a 29-year-old father of two from the settlement of Shavei Shomron, the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed Sunday night.

Zoldan was killed last Monday night - the day before the Annapolis summit began - when shots were fired at his car as he drove past the Palestinian village of al-Punduk.

The three members of the cell were Palestinian policemen and members of the Palestinian National Security Force, in which Israel and the United States have been investing as part of the international effort to strengthen Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah government.

Defense officials said the weapon used in the attack had not been supplied to the Palestinians by Israel since it did not belong to the official Palestinian security forces. The officials said, however, that the IDF expected the political echelon to rethink its policy of strengthening Abbas in light of the fact that his policemen were involved in terrorism.

The day after the attack, acting on intelligence, IDF soldiers and Shin Bet operatives raided the village of Kfar Kadum, near al-Pundak and arrested Daper Barham and Abdullah Barahm, both 22-year-old Palestinian policemen and Fatah members. The third suspect, Fadi Jama, also a policeman, was in Palestinian Police custody.

During their interrogation, the two confessed their involvement in the attack and handed over the weapon used in the shooting to the Shin Bet. They said they had parked their car on the side of the road and waited for an Israeli car to pass by. Once Zoldan's car appeared, they merged onto the road, passed him, and opened fire. They told their interrogators that they decided to carry out the attack to "scare settlers."

Technorati Tags: Israel, Annapolis, Abbas, Abu+Mazen, Zoldan, Fatah, Palestinian, Terror, Terrorist

3 Minutes= 2,000 Years of Waiting & Anguish

Olmert Gives The Finger To World Jewry

Now, there are many times when I feel that non-Israeli Jews have no right to talk about Israeli policy. This is not one of those times. In response to American Jewish leaders concerns and objections over Olmert's plans to put the discussion of dividing Jerusalem on the table of any peace talks, he had this to say:

(Source: Arutz 7)
Olmert to U.S. Jews: Jerusalem None of Your Business

(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday that the issue of Jerusalem is an Israeli issue and not a "Jewish issue." He made the statement as delegates from the Orthodox Union (OU) and pro-Israel Christians met with American National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley to express opposition to plans by the Olmert administration to divide the Jewish capital with the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The OU replied that it was not trying to dictate policy to Israel but added that Jews throughout the world have a share in "the holy city of Jerusalem."

OK, Olmert must be on a crusade to burn every bridge and destroy any semblance of remaining support he has with the Jewish world. Maybe he's lobbying for a job with the Arabs. Who knows! But, is he kidding us with this stuff?!? I've given up questioning his moves or being surprised by anything that comes out of his mouth. They're all stupid, but this must take the cake!!

Why is Jerusalem such an important and volatile issue to every Jew on the face of the planet? Should I give those of you that have been living under a rock for the past 5,000+ years a short history lesson?!? Apparently, Olmert needs it. Without insulting any of your intelligence, let's leave it with one simple declaration:
Jerusalem is the single most important site in Judaism. We pray in its direction 3 times a day. On holidays, we declare, "Next Year in Jerusalem!" We actually don't say, Next year in Israel. We believe that G-d's essence resides over the city. What more do I need to add? Want me to stray away a bit from religion? Fine, Zionistically speaking, the movement for Jews to have the same self-determination as any other people is even named after one of Jerusalem's alternative names: ZION!! The whole goal is to return to Jerusalem. Hey, Olmert, heard our national anthem lately?

Olmert has officially reached rock bottom in order to justify his actions to stay in office one day longer. All I can say is pray...

Technorati Tags: Israel, Jew, Jewish, Olmert, Annapolis, Jerusalem, Judaism, Zion