Jupiter

If you go outside after dark, face south, and look up 45 degrees, you will see a very bright star. Except that it's not really a star; it is Jupiter.
About a year and a half ago, Jupiter and Earth were the closest they have been in twelve years. Of course, my astronomy loving children rejoiced. We went out to look at it that first night. It was magical.

Then we bought a telescope so we could see it better.
What we saw was unbelievable:
Jupiter and three of its largest moons.

It has a total of sixty moons, four of which are large and were first seen by Galileo. Mind you, I forgot most of these facts and had to ask Zusha :).

Although we aren't in the closest spot to Jupiter anymore, it is still very visible from about October - April. It's the brightest object in the sky right now. Just look up at where the sun would be at about midday.

Play Date

Adi had many Mondays off from school in January. Every legal holiday seems to be on a Monday, and they come in packs.
So on one of those vacation days we decided to do more that stay at home or walk the same streets and visit the same stores. We went to visit friends!



I wasn't sure how Adi would behave, but I decided to take a chance anyway. Besides, I needed a mommy play date, too!

Surprisingly, the trip there and the time we spent visiting was tantrum-free.
We all had a wonderful time!

It seems Adi saved her "best" behavior for the trip back home. Oh, the shrieking. The poor passengers of the 3 and N trains. This is a public apology. Not that they will ever see this, but I just must apologize for possible hearing loss.
Even though I arrived back home all wrung out and twitching, on the edge of a nervous breakdown, I'm glad we went. :)

January 2012 Photos

This is the cat-less edition. Half of January's photos have kitties in them, but that'll be a different post!

I finally found a hat that goes on easily, stays on, looks cute, covers the ears and is easy to stash in a pocket.  For all my searching and buying brands like Children's Place and Gap, this brandless hat was $3 at Amazing Savings! Got one for Gedalya in black and grey, too.

Hugging? Playing jail. Gedalya is the policeman, coming to lock Zusha up. Awww.

Zusha fights back. He demands a trial.

One morning I learned the following lesson: If your three year old comes out of bed and says, "Cake," and you say, "We don't eat cake for breakfast, baby. How about you go get cheese, or yogurt, or a tangerine?" and your three year old walks off without another word, you should not smile at how compliant your child is. Because a minute later, she may be walking out of the kitchen with an entire creamy $7 cake you bought for the family for shabbos, eating it like a squirrel would eat an acorn.

It "snowed." In quotation marks, because it was pathetic and lasted less than 24 hours.

Adi catching the drips of melting snow. It was so warm the day after it snowed that I didn't mind her getting wet.

A boy in Gedalya's class made him a present. It's a watch. It came in a home made envelope with Gedalya's first and last name written all over it in Hebrew and English. Aw. :)

Watch It

I always seem to be looking for a new watch. They either conk out on me or they end up being too uncomfortable, or the watch holds up, but the strap disintegrates...

Last summer I bought myself a waterproof watch. I needed it for all the water activities I did with my kids. I spent many hours elbow-deep in water. See- isn't it cute?

I thought it was cute as well. But the white strap soon got discolored, and it was kind of stiff, which made the end of the strap pop out of the buckle constantly. I kept losing this watch every other day.

So the search for a new watch began. I originally wanted this one:

It has a moon phase and tide calendar. How cool is that? The boys love going to the bay when the tide is high so the water can splash them over the fence, so they'd enjoy checking the tide on my watch before we go.

But during my searches, I stumbled upon this gem:

 It was only $6! The geekiness in me could not resist buying it. I will not explain how to tell time on it- I wanna see who's gonna figure it out!

 When it's on standby, it isn't lit up.

When you want to check the time, you press one of the buttons and the appropriate lights go on. I thought it would be too hard to tell time on it, but I got used to it, just like people get used to analog clocks. You don't have to calculate each time. Just by seeing which numbers are lit up, I can tell the time.

 But since that cool watch of mine can't be used on Shabbos, (remember- you won't see the time until you press a button) I needed something else. Something more elegant, that I can also wear to a simcha or something. Something like this:

Nice, right? One of the pitfalls of online shopping is that you can't see the product in real life.

And in real life, the watch looks like this:

It looks like I am wearing a barometer or something. :O I think it should be illegal for anything but a sports watch to be that size.

So I gave up on the internet and went out and bought a lovely little watch for Shabbos. Small and elegant.

The problem is that none of the three watches that I own are water proof. I guess when the weather warms up I will buy the moon phase/tide map watch. :)