For the second time in two years, my babysitter called me at work to tell me Barak wasn't feeling well. For the first time ever, she said she was worried and he didn't seem right. Specifically, she said that his left testicle was bright red and he screamed in pain when she went near it while changing his diaper. "It could be a rash," she said, "but it doesn't look like any rash I've ever seen." Since she has changed many more diapers on many many more children than I have, I value her expertise, and if she is worried, I get worried. I called the doctor, made an appointment, called a cab and asked her to meet me at the office with the kids. All the way there, I was thinking about testicular torsions and tumors and all kinds of awful things that could be wrong with my little boy. (What, I never mentioned how neurotic I am about my kids' health? Really? I didn't? Well, I'm sure it must have come up once or twice...)

The doctor pronounced it a "high class diaper rash" and I was so dizzy with relief I had to ask him to repeat what he'd asked me to do about it (baking soda baths and vaseline). When he left the room, I picked Barak up and hugged him. "You scared me!" I said. "You scared Imma!"

"Scare Imma!" he said. "Roar!"

He's asleep now, and so is Iyyar, and I'm headed in that direction myself. But first, I'd like to ask you to do a small chesed (kindness) for a fellow blogger. David has been feeling rather mopey lately about the plunge in his site traffic since the summer (he had been blogging about the war in a very sensible way and a number of people started reading who, I guess, have since stopped.) He and his family made aliyah at the same time as my SIL did, and he is the only person whose blog I read who keeps bees. And decants honey with a Glock on his belt (not with the Glock itself, you understand, just while wearing the Glock. Actually decanting honey with a Glock would make the Glock sticky. And it probably wouldn't work anyway. Oh, whatever, I'm tired.) And asks people to contribute to the Zionist Skivvies Fund.

It's a good blog and worth a visit. Or you can just click on this to make him feel better and leave it at that.