Anyone who knows Amira will know that this is very, very big news. When we were at my parents for Rosh Hashana, Amira surprised us all by asking to try Savta's Tofu spread, surprised us further by loving it, and asking for it on Succos, too! And she really has become much a more adventurous eater in the past year. I always ask her if she wants to try whatever we are eating, she generally says no thank you, and continues to happily eat the regular, beige, bland food that she gravitates towards (besides her love of raw, never cooked, vegetables) but recently, she has started trying new things, and liking them! So on Shabbos when she asked to try some eggplant caponata (another Savta recipe) I was shocked and thrilled and said of course, and she loved it! Eggplant! And she knew it was eggplant! Super awesome.
Yaakov was very excited to (in his words) "have a special guest from school over for Shabbos." This guest was Curious George. Yaakov's wonderful Pre-K Morah sends home Curious George each night with a different child from the class, and in Curious George's bag is a notebook for the parents to write about what their child did with Curious George. Yaakov just loved it! Curious George set the Shabbos table with Yaakov, answered Parsha Questions with Yaakov, sang with us, ate chicken soup and matza balls with us (did not try the eggplant, though. Maybe next time) and slept right next to Yaakov's bed in Amira's American Doll bed (neurotic mom that I am, the thought of Curious George sleeping in Yaakov's bed didn't thrill me, and luckily Amira was generous and Yaakov satisfied with this solution!) and it was just so cute to see how excited Yaakov was to have this special guest. He was very sad to bring him back to school this morning, but happy that Curious George would get to go home with another friend tonight!
Yehuda's exam (9!) is G-d willing this Thursday, so this week is crunch time. Please G-d this will be his last exam ever, and he will pass with flying colors!
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Bored Games
While Amira has always readily given me every detail of her day at school (which I love, since I still feel weird about the fact that my kids spend so much of their day not with me, and I like to know what they are learning and who they are playing with and all that), Yaakov is generally less forthcoming. He will answer questions, as long as they are specific, about what happened that day, but he is generally not one to volunteer the information. I always love the end of week newsletters that his teachers send home (and the teacher this year sends home a super detailed newsletter every Friday, which is fantastic) because I can sit and read through it with him and he will tell me all about what he learned.
Anyhow, today I asked him who he played with on the playground during recess (this has become the big question of the year so far because he and his best friend in the whole world since they were born are, for the first time, not together and they are always thrilled to at least be able to play together during recess) and he very happily told me that his best friend was there and I asked him if they played together and he answered:
"well, yessss, but he wanted to play a board game and I didn't."
I must have had a questioning look on my face (wondering what kind of board games a four year old would bring to the playground) because he then said (looking at me as if he couldn't understand how clueless I could possibly be) "well, he played a game that made me bored." Hence, a bored game. And he had no idea whatsoever why Amira and I laughed so hard!
Anyhow, today I asked him who he played with on the playground during recess (this has become the big question of the year so far because he and his best friend in the whole world since they were born are, for the first time, not together and they are always thrilled to at least be able to play together during recess) and he very happily told me that his best friend was there and I asked him if they played together and he answered:
"well, yessss, but he wanted to play a board game and I didn't."
I must have had a questioning look on my face (wondering what kind of board games a four year old would bring to the playground) because he then said (looking at me as if he couldn't understand how clueless I could possibly be) "well, he played a game that made me bored." Hence, a bored game. And he had no idea whatsoever why Amira and I laughed so hard!
Monday, October 12, 2009
Hello Again!
As my father in law reminded me, it's been a while since I updated! We've been busy with a whirlwind of Yontif/Holidays for the past month and especially since this year we decided to spend Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and the first days of Succos with my parents in MA, which meant a lot of driving back and forth, we have not really been around here very much. Happily, the holidays were all lovely, everyone enjoyed and thank G-d stayed healthy and the kids go back to school tomorrow!
I can't believe it's been a full year since my adorable little (now 3 year old) nephew was burned by scalding tea last Succos. What a year it has been for him and my sister and brother in law. We all held our breath a little bit all through Succos, that's for sure.
At the end of Neilah on Yom Kippur, one of the women sitting behind us in Shul commented that she loved the little mischievous spark in Yaakov's eyes (as well as the lovely dancing show he put on for the Shul on the Bimah during Marei Kohen, after which my awesome uncle aptly nicknamed Yaakov "the Kavana Buster," which my mother wants to make into some sort of bumper sticker!) and my mother replied that yes, Yaakov definitely has that sparkle in his eyes, but his cousin's whole body is that kind of sparkle! And that is definitely true, and I think one of the reasons he made it through such a horrible ordeal so beautifully, thank G-d. He really is cute as can be, and since he and Yaakov are only 10 months apart, it is really nice to see how close they are and what great friends they have become.
My two favorite little nephew moments of Succos:
When he and Yaakov were working it out after arguing and Yaakov said to him "Right, you are always mean to me" and he replied cheerfully "Yup!" and Yaakov then said "Right, you are also sometimes nice to me" and he replied, equally as cheerfully, "Yup!" An honest man. I like it.
And my personal favorite was when I sat down to eat a grapefruit (my one and only craving this pregnancy!) and he and Yaakov wanted to "share" (read: eat all of) with me and I told them that they could sit next to me, but couldn't sit on my lap, and I knew Yaakov would understand why, so I asked my nephew if he knew why I didn't have any room on my lap for both of them, and he looked at me blankly, so I prompted him "Do you remember what in my tummy?" and he looked at me like I had completely lost it and said "A grapefruit?" HA! Loll! More like a super sized watermelon at this point!
We had a mostly fun Chol HaMoed. We went to a Succos Carnival, which the kids loved, and as we did last year, we went to the Big Apple Circus! (Circus on Succos, get it?) This year we went to a one ring show, and we loved it even more than the 3 ring show last year! It was mostly awesome acrobatics, with some hilarious clown stuff and only 2 animal acts (a horse act and some dogs, and they announced that the dogs were all rescues, so yay for that!) and best of all we had seats 3 rows from the ring! I decided to let Amira read Harry Potter, even though I had previously told her that I thought it was too scary, but I thought I would let her read the first book and decide for herself. After a slow start (I think she was nervous to read it since I had told her "no" so many times!) she loved it so much that she plowed through the first, second, third, and forth books in the past week and is midway through the fifth! She read over 700 pages in a day and a half! Not surprisingly, today we had a follow up eye doctor visit for her (at her last exam, her eyesight had gone from 20-20 to 2-40 in a year, so the doctor recommended seeing her again in 6 months to see if it got any worse) and her eyesight in her right eye went from 20-40 at last visit, to 20-70. Since the other eye is still 20-40, and using both together she is still holding at 20-40, and she isn't thank G-d complaining of headaches or having any trouble in school, we are waiting on the glasses and going back in January to check again. The doctor wanted us to make that appointment today and asked if we had anything going on in January that we would need to work around and I replied no, and then realized that in January I will G-d willing have a newborn (!!!!!) so I would want to schedule the appointment for a time when I wouldn't have to bring the baby (!!!!!) out, so I told them I would call them tomorrow to set that up since the thought of planning that now just overwhelmed me totally.
Yehuda is studying away for exam 9, which will be October 29th, G-d willing, and if he does pass, again, G-d willing, that will be it! So in the meantime, I am pondering without his input (and trying not to freak out about) about what do do about our house (do we do a small addition and buy ourselves a couple more years in this house? Do we move somewhere in the neighborhood? Is there a way to sell our house and buy a new house without completely losing my mind? Why are houses around here so insanely unaffordable?) and trying to stay well rested despite getting up a million times to go to the bathroom at night...
So, any thoughts on moving or staying or, well, anything, please let me know!
Hopefully it won't be such a long time until my next update!
I can't believe it's been a full year since my adorable little (now 3 year old) nephew was burned by scalding tea last Succos. What a year it has been for him and my sister and brother in law. We all held our breath a little bit all through Succos, that's for sure.
At the end of Neilah on Yom Kippur, one of the women sitting behind us in Shul commented that she loved the little mischievous spark in Yaakov's eyes (as well as the lovely dancing show he put on for the Shul on the Bimah during Marei Kohen, after which my awesome uncle aptly nicknamed Yaakov "the Kavana Buster," which my mother wants to make into some sort of bumper sticker!) and my mother replied that yes, Yaakov definitely has that sparkle in his eyes, but his cousin's whole body is that kind of sparkle! And that is definitely true, and I think one of the reasons he made it through such a horrible ordeal so beautifully, thank G-d. He really is cute as can be, and since he and Yaakov are only 10 months apart, it is really nice to see how close they are and what great friends they have become.
My two favorite little nephew moments of Succos:
When he and Yaakov were working it out after arguing and Yaakov said to him "Right, you are always mean to me" and he replied cheerfully "Yup!" and Yaakov then said "Right, you are also sometimes nice to me" and he replied, equally as cheerfully, "Yup!" An honest man. I like it.
And my personal favorite was when I sat down to eat a grapefruit (my one and only craving this pregnancy!) and he and Yaakov wanted to "share" (read: eat all of) with me and I told them that they could sit next to me, but couldn't sit on my lap, and I knew Yaakov would understand why, so I asked my nephew if he knew why I didn't have any room on my lap for both of them, and he looked at me blankly, so I prompted him "Do you remember what in my tummy?" and he looked at me like I had completely lost it and said "A grapefruit?" HA! Loll! More like a super sized watermelon at this point!
We had a mostly fun Chol HaMoed. We went to a Succos Carnival, which the kids loved, and as we did last year, we went to the Big Apple Circus! (Circus on Succos, get it?) This year we went to a one ring show, and we loved it even more than the 3 ring show last year! It was mostly awesome acrobatics, with some hilarious clown stuff and only 2 animal acts (a horse act and some dogs, and they announced that the dogs were all rescues, so yay for that!) and best of all we had seats 3 rows from the ring! I decided to let Amira read Harry Potter, even though I had previously told her that I thought it was too scary, but I thought I would let her read the first book and decide for herself. After a slow start (I think she was nervous to read it since I had told her "no" so many times!) she loved it so much that she plowed through the first, second, third, and forth books in the past week and is midway through the fifth! She read over 700 pages in a day and a half! Not surprisingly, today we had a follow up eye doctor visit for her (at her last exam, her eyesight had gone from 20-20 to 2-40 in a year, so the doctor recommended seeing her again in 6 months to see if it got any worse) and her eyesight in her right eye went from 20-40 at last visit, to 20-70. Since the other eye is still 20-40, and using both together she is still holding at 20-40, and she isn't thank G-d complaining of headaches or having any trouble in school, we are waiting on the glasses and going back in January to check again. The doctor wanted us to make that appointment today and asked if we had anything going on in January that we would need to work around and I replied no, and then realized that in January I will G-d willing have a newborn (!!!!!) so I would want to schedule the appointment for a time when I wouldn't have to bring the baby (!!!!!) out, so I told them I would call them tomorrow to set that up since the thought of planning that now just overwhelmed me totally.
Yehuda is studying away for exam 9, which will be October 29th, G-d willing, and if he does pass, again, G-d willing, that will be it! So in the meantime, I am pondering without his input (and trying not to freak out about) about what do do about our house (do we do a small addition and buy ourselves a couple more years in this house? Do we move somewhere in the neighborhood? Is there a way to sell our house and buy a new house without completely losing my mind? Why are houses around here so insanely unaffordable?) and trying to stay well rested despite getting up a million times to go to the bathroom at night...
So, any thoughts on moving or staying or, well, anything, please let me know!
Hopefully it won't be such a long time until my next update!
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