This and That and Other Stuff

What a wild and crazy day life I am having.
I have thought about this poor neglected blog of mine, and poor neglected friends of mine... (not to mention the poor neglected house of mine!) every day, but I am helpless to do anything about any of them.
Adi's in a stage now ... dunno what switch flipped in her mind, but she is SO tantrummy lately. And she doesn't sleep. She screams if I try to put her to sleep before 11 PM, and she screams awfully. Her voice escalates to the highest decibel imaginable.And if you do anything "wrong," while trying to calm her (such as pick her up) she turns her tantrum timer to the beginning. So that if she was 17% of the way through the panic attack, she'd go back to zero.

Some of the things that set her off are me using the computer, me sitting on the couch or on my bed, me going into the basement for any reason, coming home when she expects to stay out longer,

 

and bedtime. Sometimes I'd leave her to torture Hillel and run away. There is an ice cream store and a pizza store right on our corner. That's bad news for us all (financially and calorie-wise) but it can be a lifesaver at times like this. So I escape, get a milkshake and some popcorn, and go to the park across the street to enjoy.

B"H her bedtime brawls have all but calmed these days, but the other triggers still set this wild child off.

Right now she is sitting on my bed post-bath and enjoying the iPad. The boys are in the bath. A badly needed bath.

Did I mention we have a sandbox in our yard? Sand plus lots of water equals a laundry horror. But the kids love it. And not just my kids. The whole block congregates here, which is lots of fun for Zusha and Gedalya.

The sandbox is a great attraction, and so is Mel!

I'm left with a mess, but I'm glad that the boys have friends.  They go to the other kids' yards, too, and ride around the block with them. I love when a kid rides over and asks, "Are Zusha and Gedalya home?" And when they throw water balloons at each other and blow bubbles.


Recently we hung up swings in our yard. Adi is a swing addict. We can't go to a park without a 45 minute swing session.

(No, she doesn't go on big kid swings yet. The above was just an experiment for the sake of a photo.)
We put up one baby swing and one big kid swing. We will also make a rope ladder!
One thing Adi is particular about is that I shouldn't sit while pushing her on the swing. In a park that's not an option, but in my own yard... well, one time I was sitting and reading a book while pushing Adi. She started to whine. I stood up. She continued to whine, so I told her that I am standing, I am pushing her, and if she's still unhappy, she can come out. So she said, "No book."
Well, miss fancy shmancy sentence girl. If you articulate your request so well, how can I not oblige?

In a similar vein, we discovered a public school yard which is open to the public after school hours. It's just a couple of blocks from our house and is a great alternative to the giant park around the corner from us where I can't keep up with the kids. And best of all- no swings! So Adi can actually play park things.

Well, everyone is out of the bath and screaming for my attention. Time for pajamies and a bedtime snack. 

 

I didn't even have time to mention our film camera experience we had recently... I must remember for next time!

To end off, I'll just dump some cute pictures that I couldn't work into the post. :)

(All photos in this post are from April 2011. Gedalya age 5, Zusha almost 7 and Adi 2.5)