My Kids’ Family

One of the main reasons I have not written much in the past few weeks is that things with Avi have been getting worse.  mkm has an almost impossible task when she tries to get him to school in the am.  And when he gets to school he is not really doing anything.  His Hebrew teacher has basically given up and just lets him color in class.  While he does ok in english, he refuses to do any of his homework and when asked about it he goes into one of his fits.

In the past week Avi has also gotten violent a few times, and he also has moments where he cries to me saying that he does not want to live with us, he just wants to be alone, he wishes he was never born, etc.  Just writing that past sentence was so hard, so you can imagine why I have not written much.  Avi’s therapist suggested that we go back to the neurologist who has been prescribing his meds.  She strongly suggests that we seek psychiatric help for Avi.  She has also taken him off all meds as there is a chance that his current behavior is due to the meds.  We are now in the process of finding a good psychiatrist and we are hopeful that we are now walking down the right path for Avi in terms of medical help.

We had basically decided a few weeks back that we were not going to send him to the Jewish day school next year as the public school will be able to offer him and us services that the private school just cannot afford. On Monday is was so difficult to get him going in the morning that we have decided that we are taking Avi out of Schechter now, and start him in Public School.  We have a very good school system in Highland Park.  Many people connected to Rutgers live in Highland Park and as such demand a high level from the public school, and the schools deliver.  So we know that Avi will be able to get the help that he needs there.

mkm took him to the public school to enroll him.  He had a episode there and luckily (we believe) the principal of the school witnessed it all.  She called the social worker to come over (who we dealt with when Avi was in preschool a few years ago).  They decided that before Avi comes to the school we should have a meeting with the child study team to determine the best way to go when Avi starts.  We hope to have him starting there on Monday.  Even though there are only 6 weeks left of school this year, we feel that this will give the school time to evaluate Avi so that next year we may have a good IEP in place for when he starts 2nd grade.

That is where we are with Avi currently.  He is getting this week off from school as we work this all out.  God willing we are on the right road even though we know it is a very long one.

OK, I admit it. I have a thing for girl groups. Actually I love girl groups. And not just single female singers (although there are plenty I like) either. Give me a good girl group and I will always listen. Yesterday I picked a song from The Bangles, one of my favorites. Today I am choosing another of the 80’s girls groups, the Go-Go’s. The Go-Go’s were essentially a new wave group but they got some major play with their mega hits “Our Lips are Sealed” and “We Got the Beat.” They were a major force in new wave music and they were the first all women band to write their own music and play their own instruments while being on the top of the charts.

Enjoy!

Its time once again for favorite lyric Friday! Today I have another song that is high up on my list of lyrics. Harry Chapin is probably my favorite song writer. I have spoken about Harry here before. He was a masterful story teller and was one of the first people in the music business to get involved with social activism beyond the folk music community.

Harry was passionate about solving hunger in the world and created “World Hunger Year” to promote education in America on this problem. He routinely did about half of his concerts for charities that he believed in. It was Harry’s dedication that paved the way for “We are the World”, “Hands Across America”, and “Live Aid”.

My song pick is called I Wonder What Would Happen To This World, and unfortunately there are no youtubes for this song. I placed it on my own website, but I cannot stream, so you will have to download to listen.

Enjoy!

I Wonder What Would Happen To This World

It’s not secret among my friends that Passover is my favorite Jewish holiday.  It is perhaps the quintessential Jewish holiday as it celebrates the birth of the Jewish people.  I spend a lot of time preparing for the Seders and as written in this blog I have been working on a Haggadah for many years.

What I love most about Passover though, are the wonderful youtube videos about Passover.  Well, maybe not what I love most, but many of them are quite funny!  Through the weeks leading up to Passover, I will be sharing some of the best.

I’ll start with perhaps one of the best.

Enjoy!

I have the next five pages from my Haggadah uploaded on my Passover Haggadah blog. Please take a look and leave me comments!

mkm and I are big fans of the Theater. BK (before kids) we used to go fairly often. Now it is a very rare thing to get to the theater (except that we have a subscription to a local regional theater). There are many musicals that I am fond of. I never really rank one over another because they all are great in different ways, but if I had to pick a sort of granddaddy of my favorite shows, it will be Les Miserables.

I have seen this show about 5 times in different productions. The first time I saw it I was just blown away by the story (I then read the book), the music and the production. I highly recommend this show to everyone, and if you have not seen it, then do so some day.

When the show hit its tenth year the producers did a few special things. There was a major concert performance in London, but they also produced a 3 CD set called “Les Miserables: The Complete Symphonic Recording.” Different from any of the previous recordings, these CDs were a recording of the entire production, rather than just the big songs. It was created in an interesting way as well. The producers chose different actors from different productions around the world who they felt were the best voices for the parts. They then had the London Symphony Orchestra record all the music and then had the different actors record their voices (sometimes by themselves). The most interesting actor to appear is the Eponine who was in the Japanese production and she spoke no English!

The Valjean they chose was Gary Morris who played the part on Broadway briefly. Here is his recording of “Bring Him Home.”