Cake! And Other Words

We had cake on Zusha's birthday. Birthday ice cream cake! And obviously Adi remembers, because when I took it out the leftovers, she ran towards the box and yelled, "Keek! Keek!"
And just in case there weren't enough Adi vocabulary posts recently, here's one more. What should I do? This girl has a new word almost every day!

"I don't know"
 Adi started this a couple of months ago, and she thought she was all that for figuring out a valid response to any question.
"Adi, how old are you?"
"I-woe."
"Where does this puzzle piece belong?"
"I-woe."
And if you insist that she really does know, and should tell you, she spreads out her hands, palms up, for emphasis and says, "I! Woe!"

"Why"
 It started as "I" (not "why") said in response to any time I said "no."
"Adi, don't throw your food."
"I?"
"Because then it gets dirty."
"I?"
"Because the floor is dirty."
"I?"
"Because you are a messy baby and I never am able to keep it clean."
"I?"
"Because!"
And then she graduated to the proper "why."
"Adi, it's time to go to sleep."
"Why?"
"Because you need enough sleep to function normally."
"Why?"
"Because I need you to sleep so I can function normally."
"Why?"
"Because it's 11 PM!"

"Sorry"
One time Adi stepped on Mel's tail by mistake. I told her to say sorry to the cat. She said, "Wha-wee, ai-nya!" Since then, I've caught her using "wha-wee" appropriately a couple of times.

"Excuse me"
When Gedalya was little, he said, "Es-mee-mee-mee" for excuse me. The boys and I were reminiscing about it, and Adi was listening. Apparently she already knew what excuse me meant, because she adopted Gedalya's baby word, since it's easier to say. Once I was going down our steps with the carriage, and Adi was standing at the bottom. She saw me coming towards her, said, "Meemeemee" and moved away!

"Bunny"
 Adi started to call all her stuffed animals "bunny."


"Penguin"
Adi has a favorite stuffed animal. It's a penguin pillow pet whom she calls Bunny as well. I didn't want to correct her, because it was so cute. Anyway, I figured "penguin" was too complicated for her. But I did throw that info out there, that it's a penguin. 
Once we were in a store that sold these same penguins. Adi took one to play, and when it was time to leave, she put it back and said, "Bye, weengween!" 


"Sit"
 Adi tells me to sit when I lie down next to her to put her to sleep. Sit, Mama! Because if you lie down, it means bedtime for Adi. She says it "Theet!" This means that "Haya" is no longer used for "sit." Although sometimes she still uses it to mean sit on a ride.

"Toy"
Pretty self explanatory. It surprised us when we heard Adi say it a last week. Toddled over to a zippered bag of toys and demanded that I open it for her. "Toy!"

"Bug"
 We saw a bug and I showed it to Adi. "Dyatap," I said, using her adorable word. "Boog!" Adi replied. She says it between buge and boog. Too cute!

"iPad"
 She calls it "neem," but once she saw Zusha holding it and ran to him, yelling, "iPad!" Zusha and I exchanged a look to make sure we heard her right. We did!

"Camera"
There is a story as to how Adi came to say camera, but she did, today. Took the kids' camera off the table and said, "Ca-ma." I'll started writing up the background that led her to say this word, but then it morphed into its own post. :)


"Open"
Perhaps the cutest and funniest one of them all, it's not even a real word. When Adi hands me a snack that she wants, she does this.

Just the O of "open" and no sound coming out. She's a funny one, that child!

abc123

Inspired by Zusha's birthday, I went back and updated some birthday posts over the past year. I put up a "Mazal Tov" post on the kid's actual birthday and often I neglect to follow up with party photos. So...

Zusha turns 6
Gedalya turns 4
Adi turns 2

*****

Today is the first day of summer vacation for Zusha! Yay! Too bad we couldn't really celebrate it properly because he was sick for... it'll be a week tomorrow. He missed Friday, Sunday and Monday at school. Tuesday was his last day, ending at 12:00 so I sent him an hour late. We went to the doctor and Zusha was prescribed antibiotics. Not the best way to start the summer or to end kita beis/first grade, but it is what it is. Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in today. The poor child just drops off to sleep mid-day in his clothes, goes to bed at 8 without having energy to get into pajamas, has no appetite and is cranky.

*****

In the mini "canyon" near our house, where the train tracks are, there is a mini forest. Just lots of natural vegetation. Which is cool. But what was even cooler was discovering a neat little patch of naturally growing daffodils on the slope!

And tulips as well!

This isn't a tulip, but he was hanging out near them, so I guess he was pretending to be one. :)

*****

We also had a checkup for Adi the day we took Zusha to the doctor, and she is 29 lbs and 36 inches! That's in the 50th percentile for weight and 48th for height! She isn't underweight anymore. :D This is the first time I ever had to worry about a kid being on the lower end of the chart. Both my boys never

left the top quarter for either weight or height.

*****

Gedalya observing dandelions on our block. We counted them every day, and there were about 10 new ones every day. At its' height, there were about 150 dandelions in front of this one house.

And soon enough, it was white fluff heaven!

*****

Yesterday there were, not one, but TWO car crashes on our block. First one was on our corner (we're on a dead end, so only have one corner.) An elderly lady plowed into a pedestrian walk/don't walk light. I gather no one but her was hurt.
There were three ambulances and two fire trucks (for preventive purposes, I gather.) It was scary to see how the entire front of the car was bashed in. Imagine if someone was waiting to cross the street! There are always people around, kids, babies in carriages. It's a miracle no one but the driver was hurt.
I reinforced to the kids how important street safety is and how alert you have to be, because tragedy can happen even if you are doing everything right.

Then, at night, I was putting Adi to sleep when I heard a screeeeeech and BOOM. I sucked in my breath and held it while listening to people come out of their houses. My upstairs neighbor said, "Somebody call Hatzola!" By then there was a crowd, and I went out to see what happened. Seems like a car drove into our dead end block at full speed. There was a car parked by the fence at the end of the road, so the speeding car crashed into that.
It seems that the man didn't realize it was a dead end. I have no other explanation, because why else would someone speed like that on a dead end?

Hatzola came within 2 minutes. It never fails to amaze me. The cars were both dented- badly. But the driver didn't seem hurt.
And then the car caught fire. People called the fire department and kept saying that the trees can catch fire. They were debating whether it is safer to wait or put the fire out with someone's hose.
Until the fire trucks arrived and put out the car fire, I was kinda nervous. What if there was an explosion right in front of our house? *Shudder*

A good reminder not to be too relaxed around streets!

*****

A friendly cat we encountered a couple of months ago...

Adi was in cat love.

*****

Don't you hate it when you discover a product you love and it gets discontinued?
Almost a year ago I began cloth diapering, and had to sample the whole buffet: AIOs, pockets, fitteds with covers, prefolds with covers. I bought popular brands, less famous brands, handmade stuff, custom orders.
I kept up with cloth diapering 99% exclusively till our move.
Now the washing machine is so out of the way of the rest of the house, I can't do laundry on the fly. I have to schedule myself a 20 minute stretch so I can empty the washer of the previous stuff, load the dryer, load the washer with new stuff, etc.
I don't have as much time to fold, so I often pull out a diaper from a pile in a basket to use. The multi-part dipeys are harder to grab on the fly... you have to find the parts that match. And I found myself reaching for a disposable way too often. So I decided to cull my collection.
I weeded out the fitteds and the covers and left only AIOs and some pockets (only the pockets that open on both sides so I don't have to pull out the soaked inner.) The pockets that open on one side have been designated as swim diapers.

Given my reduced volume of diapers, I needed to buy more of the type I liked. Only to search for them and discover they are out of production. :(


bumGenius All-in-One Cloth Diaper

Which is unfortunate, because although there are  still some available online, they are all size Extra Small. I was able to find some size Large and ordered two. But I hate how companies discontinue popular products!

Whimsical

People often comment on my photos... how do I, living in the city, find some really nice photography settings? You just have to keep your eyes open... And then you will find some real whimsical photo opportunities! Hard to believe this was taken just a few blocks from my home, on a busy avenue, but it was. Of course, the adorable little boy is pretty whimsical himself, regardless of the whimsical setting. :)

Seven!

Guess who is turning 7 today?

It's my big boy, Zusha!

Yesterday we went on a mini trip to a park we rarely go to because it's far from us. I asked Zusha where he wants to go for his birthday trip, and that's what he chose! We played in the sprinklers, ate ice cream, climbed and did silly stunts on the jungle gym.
It was a tiring, long, and AWESOME day! Zusha couldn't stop thanking me for the trip. Sometimes it's so easy to please him (emphasis on the sometimes. LOL.)
Today he took potato chips, ices and little ball maze prizes to cheider to give out. He took his camera along (my first digital camera which I passed down to the kids) to take photos. FUN!
After I pick him up, we will go for pizza and ice cream. Maybe we will eat it in the park. That'll be fun! Then we will go buy the cake, matching tablecloth and cups/napkins for the party tomorrow. After we get home to our festively decorated house, Zusha will open his presents.
It's gonna be a great day! Of course it will be... it's Zusha's birthday!

My firstborn, from six to seven!

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

January

February

March

April

May

And back to June!

Wet Puppy

This week's I Heart Faces theme is "boys." And boy, oh, boy, do I have boys! I was stymied as to which of my thousands of boy photos I should enter. There are so many facets to my boys. They are sassy, kind, loving, rambunctious, sweet, loud and wacky. Which trait to portray? 

I remembered last summer, when I caught the above photo... I instantly thought, "If I had to choose a photo to depict Gedalya's personality, this would be it!"

He is a stereotypical boy; always running, jumping, splashing, flying, defying gravity, and providing me with photos that seem to contradict the laws of physics.

While Adi Slept

Yesterday Adi wanted to go on the swing in our yard. It happens to be situated under a blackberry tree, and there were berries on the  swing. Some of them were smashed, so I went inside to get wipes. By the time I came back, Adi had cleared the swing herself. Meaning removed the berries from the seat and transferred them to her hands, face, neck and shirt. She also sat down into the berries on the ground. She looked lovely, I must say. After the swing, she went into the sandbox, where all the sand stuck to the berry juice on her body.

It was Shabbos, so I couldn't even bathe her. I figured I'd let her stay up till after Shabbos and do it then. That's when she lied down on the dirty kitchen floor, face down, and went to sleep. Aaaarg!

I was surprised that she did that. She hasn't fallen asleep on the floor in a while. She used to do it semi-regularly last year. Here is a photo sequence from almost a year ago, which I title, "While Adi Slept."
It's comical... pay attention to the background happenings, including the cat's tail on the right edge of the second to last photo:

But she outgrew this whole "falling asleep on the floor" business, which is why I was surprised that she did it yesterday, and at the most inopportune moment!

My nerves couldn't handle her sleeping covered in filth. I filled her baby tub with some cold water, hoping it would warm to room temperature. I started to undress her in her sleep and discovered that her diaper was full as well. I wiped her, gently woke her, and brought her to the bath. I guess the water didn't warm enough, because my bath-loving child had a panic attack. So I quickly washed her off, put her in PJs... but alas, she lost all the desire to sleep. Oh, well.
That's our crazy life!

Lunar Eclipse!

A couple of nights ago there was a lunar eclipse that was seen all over the world, except North America. We had one half a year ago, on December 21, 2010. It began right before 2 AM, but that didn't stop us.

The boys went to sleep in warm pajamas and socks, and had their slippers ready by their beds.
I waited till the 1/4 of the moon was eclipsed to wake the kids. They stayed up until the moon was orange, but none of us got to see it in totality, or emerge from the eclipse.

As you can see, I prepared some treats for the boys to enjoy while we watched. It was very cold, so we stayed inside and went out every five minutes or so to see the progress.

In the beginning I was trying to determine which position would be best for photographing the moon. That's when I got this cool shot. :)

Here is a diagram of the moon's progression that night:

(I found the diagram online; all the following photos are my own.)

 Right before the eclipse- rightmost moon in the diagram above.

1:40:46AM

Starting to get a shadow on the left side:

2:26:00AM

The following photos look similar, but the Earth's shadow is covering more and more of the moon in each one. Numbers 1-2 in the diagram.

3:02:47AM

3:05:43AM

3:06:40AM

3:09:25AM

3:14:51AM

Now we reached #2 in the diagram

3:32:31AM

This is as late as we stayed:

3:39:37AM

It was almost 4 AM when the kids went to sleep.
I thought I was a little crazy for waking them up for an eclipse. They are so little... they may not even remember it! But they were watching me write up the post and started reminiscing about the eclipse (including how cold it was!)

The boys are really into science, specifically space. I'm glad I made the decision to wake them. They really understood that it's the Earth's shadow that is covering the moon, and they were amazed (as was I)!