My eldest daughter, Bella, is an early riser. There's rarely a day that she is not awake by 5 a.m. This gives her time to do things: study, journal, or, like now, crochet or knit cute things for her baby due in March. She also likes to get breakfast started: coffee and tea are started, eggs are boiled. It's really nice to wake up to the scent of coffee!
I normally get up only 15, 20 minutes before the kids at 6:45ish, but today I was up before Bella. I was sitting on the couch with a fleece blanket, a cup of coffee, and one of my new books, my MP3 player plugged directly into my CI, waiting for sunrise. About 15 minutes later I was joined by Bella. She brought along her history textbook and Arabic vocab to revise for the day's tests, and her mp3 player. For a short while we sat in silence, when she grabbed my hand, pulling it to her belly. The baby was kicking. Bella was laughing.
"You are very young grandfather," she said, giggling. She is right, I'm only 28. I'm still getting used to the idea of parenting a teenager. A teenager, who likes the same TV shows, same music, same books as I do. A teenager, with whom we don't really share a common language. She is fluent in Russian and Hebrew, and speaks some English. I speak English, Hungarian and some Hebrew. So between her broken English and my broken Hebrew we get along with a lot of use of our hands. It's getting easier every day.
"I'm happy it's almost weekend!" she said, and I couldn't agree more with her. Weekend at last.
"What do you want to do over the weekend?" I asked.
"I want to make pizza," she said, "and finish the blanket for Harel."
"Hm, don't you want to, like, you know, go on a road trip and see the other Harel tonight?" I asked, knowing well, what I bought in addition to the gummi bears.
I saw her face explode in the biggest smile. It will be well worth the 3 hours in the car each way, the horrible crowds and overpriced snacks on the way. It will be well worth getting home at 3 a.m. It will be great bonding time with Bella. And... we'll get to see the other Harel!
