Restless   

The afternoons when my wife was in graduate school were the hardest part of the day.

I was alone with baby Rephael for a few hours, and before long, he’d be frantic with hunger. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t coax him to take his bottle. He nursed perfectly, yet each afternoon when she went to school, he chose to starve rather than accept the rubber tip I tried to slip past his clenched lips. I was frustrated and confused, my arms aching from rocking my miserable infant son

Other than that, Rephael was an adorable baby who grew quickly and hit all his milestones on schedule. He had some minor speech issues, like saying “school” without the “s,” which we considered cute (although we did start speech therapy), but otherwise he developed well. As a toddler, he was energetic and endlessly curious, his boundless energy only escalating as he got older. He was a lightning streak, a mercurial, impulsive child utterly determined to test the limits of gravity at every turn.

By yeshivah ketanah, Rephael was the kid teachers worried about when they saw his name on the roster. He couldn’t sit still, couldn’t focus, and was constantly disrupting the class. He wasn’t defiant or malicious — he simply seemed physically incapable of controlling his energy or attention.