On Brises and Bomb Shelters

On Friday, I thought the worst part of my day would be over by 10am once Lev's Bris was complete. In retrospect, that was a piece of cake (slice of bagel?).

Just after Shabbat started, as I went to go light candles (late, okay, I have a newborn and a toddler, I'm doing my best) I heard a siren.

At first I thought it was the Shabbat siren, but was wondering why it would be going off at Mimi Shabbat starting time rather than candle lighting. And Ami comes out of our room with the baby and says, that's a siren siren, let's go downstairs. We're lucky that our building houses a city run bomb shelter, and down we went. I was freaked out for lots of reasons, mostly because Eitan was a few blocks away with my Dad and Nachama and when things are scary, you want to just hug your kid. And also, what the hell. Rockets in Jerusalem, that was something that we were told just didn't happen. Apparently the last time a siren was heard in Jerusalem was in the 70's. Ironically, an hour before I told my brother in Tel Aviv he should come to Jerusalem for Shabbat.

So we stayed down there the requisite ten minutes and peeked out with our neighbors and a couple random people that were on our street who came inside after hearing the siren to see what was going on. It turns out the rockets did not hit Jerusalem, but close enough to definitely give a real spook to our daily lives. And Ami and I now have a middle of the night plan (I take the little one, he takes the big one). The rest of the time plan, that is pretty much impossible- will Eitan be in school? Will I be home with both boys by myself? What if Eitan is napping and I have to go get him out of his crib and downstairs in a minute time? Or if he's in a mood where he refuses to go down the stairs without being carried? And worse, what if I'm out with both boys, then what? I'm doing my best not to think about these questions and just hoping that it's more than 40 years until there's another siren here.

The rest of Shabbat was quiet thankfully and it seems that life really does just go on - people were out and about enjoying a perfect, crisp fall afternoon on the Rakevet street this afternoon, and the restaurants and cafes on Emek Refaim were all full when I ran out to get a couple things from the store tonight.

We're okay, a little worse for wear (well, me anyways, Ami seems fine), but an experience that I have no desire to re-live and hoping this conflict ends. News is that 70,000 reservists were called up today, which makes me think that the end of this round of violence is not going to happen so quickly.

One day at a time...