Back to School

The first day of school began yesterday. Let's start from the youngest. He went off quickly in order to get a good seat for his 6th grade class. What is this a theatre? Or a Stones concert where you wait on-line for 6 hours (or overnight) in order to get a good seat? What goes on? I was proud of him though for thinking that way and being gung-ho about school. My 2nd youngest - the Criminal - left happily when the van came to pick her up. 2 hours later there were 6 calls that I missed. I called the number up. It was the van driver. "Your daughter caused me alot of trouble on the way back from school (they had school for 2 hours that day). She didn't want to get into the van and demanded I let her off in town and that you let." You did the right thing, I assured the poor, miserable van driver. I called home. "I don't want them to TOUCH me! They grabbed me and threw me in the van." my daughter complained. "Well, that is because you didn't want to go in the van in the first place. - what else could they have done?" I explained. But that was that. She wants out. She's bored of our neighborhood. She wants to go to school where her boyfriend goes to school and blah blah blah. By the time I got home from work she was gone and never showed up at school today. I assured the school that she was hanging out at her boyfriend's school nearby. It was a very strong mother's instinct. Somehow she's not getting any notion of what responsbility is. How different can kids be. The third daughter now is waiting for a special program for her to get into - we're meeting this woman tomorrow. And the eldest are back in their National Service. The 18 year old began today and people scared her with "they're horrible at that place, you have to touch used needles and urine bottles, you have to work on Fridays." I assured her not to listen to anyone and to see for herself. Sure enough, none of the horrors she heard were true. At least now everyone (almost everyone) is back into a routine, and summer is over. The downtown area of Jerusalem is back to just being a shopping area, with the festive decorations from the street festivals taken down as well as the stage area. So that was sad. And sad as well is knowing that daylight will get shorter in one week because that's how it is here. There's never a set time when to turn the clocks back, (they change the dates every year) and I wish we could have longer daylight hours just one month more! Why does it have to be dark and depressing the beginning of September?