My Teenage Son and the Hedgehog

My Teenage Son and the Hedgehog

This morning at 7:15 AM, while getting my 2 little boys ready to head out for the school bus, my 7-year-old Yoni came into the house from checking the front porch for magazines and declared, “Eema, there’s a hedgehog in the bucket.”

“Yoni, did you just say there’s a hedgehog in the bucket?”
Yoni nodded and took me outside to see the new occupant of our neon-green sponja bucket. A hedgehog, sound asleep.
And at that exact moment my 15-year old son came galloping down the stairs. Unlike his younger brothers, Yoel is already on summer vacation.
“Yoel, where are you going?”
“I have to go to Tel Aviv, to the Amazon office for that app contest. But there’s a problem. My partner says he can’t come!”
And I remembered how Yoel had mentioned that the Ministry of Education had made a competition for high schoolers, to see who could create the best new app to promote learning. And Yoel had come up with an idea. And he was chosen along with a lot of other kids to present their app that morning.
Problem was you couldn’t go alone. You had to be a team. And Yoel, despite his many gifts and wonderful qualities, is no team.
And then my husband came downstairs. Just in time, while heading out for school, for Yoni to tell him what he’d found in the bucket.
And my husband went outside, took one look, and being a Canadian he understood right away, “This hedgehog is in bad shape!”
And that was how, at 7:40 this morning, I found myself waking up my sound- asleep 17-year-old daughter, Moriah, in search of a team. While waiting on hold for Israel’s Wildlife Rescue hotline for instructions on where to bring a hedgehog in distress.
Around 8:20, I was back in bed. Having sent off Yoel and Moriah to Tel Aviv. And having put my bat mitzvah girl, Tsofia, in charge of the hedgehog until we could bring it to the Zoo (as we were told to do) for some hedgehog TLC.
When people ask me what I do, I tell them this or that. But the truth is that this morning, while the exact details were different, was a very good example of what I do. I, like every mom, am busy being the glue that holds together my family and community and world.

4 comments

  1. Thanks Chana for reminding me I’m glue. Very true and powerful glue.

    • JewishMom

      Especially you noga! For your family and the whole neighborhood!!

  2. Hadassah

    Typical day…. Life is never boring. Keep on holding it together with a smile!

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