Those Puppy Eyes

How can you say no to such cute puppy eyes? And the dog's eyes are cute, too.

One thing my kids are all very good at is having the most convincing sad puppy eyes when they want something. I swear Izhar is taking lessons from them about how to have the best sad puppy eyes, ever.

Now at my kids’ school there are two days each semester when they can be absent without a doctor’s note or other official reason, and as we are just finishing the last week of the semester, they made use of those puppy eyes and requested a mental health day, staying home from school. As tomorrow is Tu B’Shvat and they all have a field day because of that, today being a half hearted day anyway, I didn’t say no.

While I do believe school is important and I hate it when my kids miss school for weird reasons (like after re-scheduling a doctor’s appointment 4 times during the summer it ends up being on the second day of school), there are days when it’s simply more important to be home with your family, even if you don’t do anything extra. Especially when you don’t do anything extra.

With my extended absence–first a trip to Hungary, then being hospitalized for a week–today has become quite a bonding experience for the kids and me. Especially Eli. He was thrilled he didn’t have to go to school and we didn’t have anything special to do either. No doctor appointment, no therapist, no paperwork to be done and taken to places, nothing. Just cooking breakfast together, going grocery shopping together, cooking dinner together, watching Festigal 2008 while doing so, talking about silly things and just being together.

Eli… I’ve been planning on writing an update on him. There are challenges in his life much greater than we originally thought or initially experienced. I just have to mention here that my initial gut feeling of him needing to room with Yonah has proved correct and beneficial.

And now that my kids got what they wanted and needed, they can go and practice their sad puppy looks for another 6 months before they can melt dad’s heart again.