My phone buzzes again, another red alert. Hodayot. Kfar Zeitim. Lavi. Nabi Shu’ayb

MY phone is buzzing.

I’m standing beneath a blue sky at the bus stop. There are a multitude of firsts in front of me. One of the neighbors is driving to school, shaky and uncertain, pausing for too long at the stop sign at our corner and waiting for each car at the cross street to pass. Another neighbor has brand-new shoes on, and she beams at me and toddles forward two steps.

“Look! Look, Mommy!” my son calls. He’s shaky, the bike tilting back and forth, but he’s gotten the pedal to the right position. “Watch, I almost have it!”

He doesn’t almost have it, but I look up. My phone buzzes again, and I glance down, track the names as they pop up. Tur’an. Mitzpeh Netofa. Tefahot.

“You missed it,” my son says with extreme disapproval.

“I’m sorry. I saw the beginning! It was great! Can you do it again?” I try to sound encouraging. I’ve never quite figured out how to get my kids to ride a bike, but this is the ideal season, when the weather is cool enough to ward off mosquitoes but not so cold that it’s unpleasant to be outside. The sun is shining, bright and clear, and the new driver finally makes it off the block.

It’s quiet and calm. My phone buzzes again, another red alert. Hodayot. Kfar Zeitim. Lavi. Nabi Shu’ayb.

I figure that if my son spends enough time playing with the bike, he’ll master it, like his older siblings. He just needs a lot of positive reinforcement. He just needs my attention. But the buzzing doesn’t stop.

I could turn it off. But I don’t.

The baby with her new shoes races down the block, falls flat on her face. Her sister scoops her up and coos, then sets her down to race forward and fall again. The bike wobbles and tilts, and my son kicks at the pedals and climbs back on. My phone buzzes again. Maghar.

My youngest has run down the block to finish her yogurt. Now, she comes back on her tricycle. A big red minivan cruises around the corner onto the block, my husband on his way back from Shacharis, and she jumps up and down at the corner, shrieking to him, “Hi, Daddy! Hi, Daddy!” My older daughter reads a magazine on a neighbor’s lawn. The baby is walking, falling, walking again. Buses come and go, collecting children. The streets are quiet and calm, alive with Monday optimism.

My phone keeps buzzing. Deir Hanna. Bu’eine Nujeidat.

The baby’s mother chats with me about bar mitzvah dresses and school orientations. I wave at a friend on a carpool run. My husband drives down our little block at a snail’s pace so my youngest can race him home and win.

The sky is so clear today, so bright that I can glance down the block and see right across Jamaica Bay, can take in the entire New York City skyline from the Freedom Tower down to the Empire State Building. It’s a gorgeous morning, except for the buzzing of my phone and the red notifications that pop up each time I look down.

My son has given up on the bike for now. He grabs the tricycle instead, and he rides it down the block and then back to me. “I’m racing Hashem!” he announces.

“He’s right next to you!” I call. He pedals harder. “Still right next to you!” He speeds up, back at the corner just as his bus arrives.

Another buzz. This one is a message from my sister-in-law, a photo of her backyard. In her yard, right in front of the hammock, there’s an identical tricycle to the one parked at my feet. Her girls didn’t go to school today. There was no early morning rush, no crowd of children hurrying to buses and carpools.

My sister-in-law’s sky is blue today, too, the cerulean of the Galil instead of New York’s powder blue. And it is also nearly clear. Nearly clear, except for the dozen bursts of white that she has captured in her photo, interceptions so close that they hover over her house like a new constellation.

The baby next to me stumbles forward, takes another few steps, falls, gets up.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 914)