Letters to My First Born | My Earliest Memories

I got the idea to start this diary blog from my good friends on G+.
The point of me writing this diary is so that in the future I could reminisce this precious time of my life I'm currently going through, and also share these experiences with my children.
And if other people find this diary enjoyable, then that's even better :)

Yesterday, the 2nd of July 2016, at 18:00 Israel time, my first born son came into the world.
My wife bravely suffered through almost 40 hours of labor, 14 of those we spent at the hospital.
Due to Thrombocytopenia (insufficient amount of Thrombocytes in the blood), my wife could not use the Epidural anesthesia. The most she got was a Pethidine dose which allowed her to sleep for a few hours before starting the active birth process. She terribly needed that sleep, since she was awake for about 30 hours at that time, due to the contractions.
7 hours later she went into active birth, with ZERO anesthesia.
Throughout our time at the hospital, we heard something like 8 other births going on in adjacent rooms. Women crying and screaming and roaring and all those things you imagine from the worst pregnancy-related horror stories.
But my wife, who I remind you was without any anesthesia, showed them how a real woman gives birth! My respect for her was already high even before this pregnancy (I would not have married her otherwise obviously). But this experience made my respect for her to increase tenfold.

My son was born with the weight of 2895gr (which later reduced to 2860gr, I was told that's a normal thing with newborns), and received the highest possible APGAR test scores (9 at first test, 10 at second test).

During the pregnancy, my wife and I thought of a few names to give our first son.
Today, one day after the birth at the time of this writing, we didn't decide 100% on the name yet.
But both of us have a hunch that we will go with our first choice.
We still have time to decide, though.

As I begin writing this diary at the comfort of my home while my wife and son are still recovering at the hospital, I realize that very soon my life is going to be entirely engulfed by this strange new creature. I realize that very soon my personal memories are going to be slowly replaced by new memories of a shared new life.
So I'm going to take this opportunity and also use this diary to write my own childhood memories, alongside the memories of my firstborn (and hopefully other children to come).

My Earliest Memories

The earliest memories I have are from Ukraine where I was born. Lots of people tell me that's impressive since we moved to Israel when I was only 5 years old. But I don't know why that's so surprising, given that children's long-term memories develop properly at around the age of 3 (or at least, that's the common knowledge).

So, what do I remember from Ukraine?

I remember visiting my uncle's family (from my mother's side). At least, I think that's what it was.
I remember they had a black cat who I found intriguing. I remember how one time that cat jumped me from behind and clawed my back. I remember my dad being so mad that he literally threw that cat out the window. I'm pretty sure that there was a secondary roof below that window so the cat wasn't hurt.

I remember that later they got a small black dog instead. I think it was a Pincher. I think he was nicer to me than the cat but I don't really remember interacting with it. Maybe my family got more protective of me after the experience with the cat so they didn't let me near the dog.

I remember my mother coming home one day after a few days' absence, and introduced me to my younger sister for the first time. I don't remember that I understood the meaning of any of it.

I remember one winter's day when there was lots of snow outside. I remember that all of us - me, my sister and our mom and dad - went outside to have some fun in the snow. I remember that we had a small sledge that my sister and I could ride on. I remember sitting on the sledge with my sister sitting behind me, and then we rode on the snow downhill along the street where we lived. I remember there was a large tree at the end of that hill and I remember that we rode down and it looked to me like we were going to slam into that tree, but the sledge stopped long before that.

I remember something that looked like a long fire escape stairway on a large brownstone house. I think it was where my grandparents lived.

I remember how one day my mom and dad were talking about something, and then my mom turned to me and asked me "do you want to go to Israel?"

I remember that I had no idea what "Israel" was, but I answered "Yes" anyway because sure, why not.

I remember that we took an airplane and I was so air sick that I threw up like half a dozen times before we finally arrived.

I remember that after that we took a train and I was feeling nauseous again so I threw up a few more times. But I managed to sleep through most of it.

When we first arrived to Israel, we stayed for about a month with the family of my grandfather's cousin (from my dad's side). Of course, I had no idea who they were at the time, but they had a cozy big wooden house and lots of cool toys that I could play with.

We later moved into our own apartment in one of Israel's central suburbs.

I remember befriending our neighbors' kid who was a bit younger than me. His name was Yariv.

He was probably my first best friend as far as I remember.

I remember how we used to pick from the loquat tree near the synagogue not far from our building.

Oh how I loved loquats :)

I remember how we used to play a lot in the back yard of our building.

I remember how we enjoyed climbing the couple of trees that were there.

We always tried finding higher and higher branches to climb on that got thinner and thinner the higher we got. I remember the exhilarating feeling of looking down from an exceptionally high branch. It was like being on top of the world.

I remember that we also used to climb inside the tall hedgerow of our building which looked onto the street outside, and how we used to act like we're spies on the lookout, spying on passers-by from inside the hedgerow without them knowing. I think we even startled a few of them just for fun.
We lived in that apartment for 5 years before moving out to the other part of the city. I did not see Yariv ever since. The two trees in the back yard of the building were also cut down since then.

I remember that me and my sister used to fight a lot.

I remember how my mom always tried to make us play together. But I never liked it because I had action figures and she had barbies. I wanted to make my toys fight and do daring rescues, but she always wanted to play house. We managed to make the combination for a bit (i.e. my action figures saving her barbies from some dangerous predicament) but it didn't last long.

I remember the kindergarten and I remember how I didn't know Hebrew when I first got there.

I think I remember how during play time I tried to ask one of them for their name, but since it was in Russian they didn't understand me so I was ignored. I think it was during that year that I befriended a kid named Khan. But after that year I didn't see Khan ever again.

You see, I stayed one extra year in kindergarten due to the language problems. I got the hang of it eventually, but it meant that for the rest of my childhood I would be one year older than the rest of the kids in my class. I was a relatively small child, though, so it has mostly gone unnoticed.

In my next posts I'll write about my later years, in elementary school and such.