Mom's-Eye View

So what was all this like from the parental side? Umm, very stressful, but we made it through in one piece :). Since part of the reason for this blog is to help others considering applying for the program have a better understanding about what it's actually like to participate, I'll throw in my $.02 about the preparations.

It has definitely been....different.....dealing with an Israeli administration rather than, say, an American summer camp. We kept waiting and waiting for the packing list and when it came is said things like, "bring clothes". This was quite a bit different than the American camp lists that specify exactly what type of clothes (Shabbat, everyday, "adventure") to bring, and how much of everything, right down to how many washchloths, which is always a "pause" moment for camp-bound child and myself since we tend to never use washcloths in our family once past the early years. Being a rule-following kind of family, we usually pack one, even though they tend to ask for 3 or 4, so we have at least followed the spirit of the law, if not the letter!

Anyway: the program made kind of a big deal about the send-off party for the kids at JFK, and encouraged families to come en masse to it. If Batsheva goes back next year, we will not be doing this. It would have been so much calmer and nicer to say our good-byes here at home and just have one parent drive down with her (and Chana, if she chose to go). Shlepping a 7 year-old and 4 year-old for 9.5 hours in the car (round-trip) only to deal with the dirty, noisy insanity of JFK was, well, dumb, to say the least. Other families had it harder than us, though--our friends were there with their 9 kids (and they have, I think, 4 kids under age 5), and another family brought their three young children, both parents, a grandma and an aunt. OY! There was a lot of shlepping back-and-forth between terminals, and then several of the speakers at the party were late, so the "official" part of the party was about 10 minutes long.....The organization tried, I'll give them that, but now we know better than to do this again!