I’m staying awake tonight. We won’t be able to do this every night. But tomorrow is Shabbat and we won’t go to our congregation (imagine 200 people at one place
that has 1.5 minute to evacuate when the sirens go off).
You probably hear a lot about “15 seconds” in the media. But that’s in areas close to Gaza. Here in Jerusalem we have 90 seconds.
Anyway, as I was saying. First our 5 year old daughter said she was scared. We offered her to sleep in the couch, so we’ll be close to her when she falls asleep. Then our 7-year old daughter didn’t want to be alone in her room. So we took out her matress and let her sleep on the living room floor.
The boys went to sleep in their room. But after a while the 8 year old got up and asked for a bucket because it feels as if he’ll have to throw up. We fixed that, and moved out our sleeping 2-year old son to sleep in the other couch.
My wife sat in the living room with the three kids while I sat with the 8-year old in his room. Just being in the same room while he fell asleep.
Once he was asleep I moved out to the living room. My wife went to bed and fell asleep. I’m sitting here alone now with 3 sleeping kids at 01:40 at night. The 7-year old is still awake and can’t fall asleep. The 2-year old boy woke up and didn’t understand why we moved him. Now he can’t fall asleep either.
I’ll stay awake until morning. I don’t want to risk that we miss an alarm because we’re all asleep. Again, this solution won’t work in the longterm, but it’s good now. The kids feel calmer and safer knowing that someone is up. I’ll catch up on sleep tomorrow during the day. And if the drowsiness become unbearable, I can always do the dishes.
If it’s this hard and unbearable for me, after just one alarm, then what is it like in Sderot and Beer Sheva? Or even worse – Gaza. We Israelis at least have a sophisticated alarm system and the most awesome army in the world. The poor Gazans are used as hostages/human shields by their oppressive Hamas rulers. I can’t imagine what that must be like.
Free Gaza – from Hamas!