In the Park... with Friends

Living around the corner from a park has its benefits... especially when the park is also half a block away from your sons' school. Pretty often the kids' friends go there after school, so it's that much more fun.

The first stop is ALWAYS the swing. For half an hour at least.

This little girl was walking since she was 9 months old! She's about 10 months in this photo. Two of her brothers are in my boys' classes. 

This brother is in Zusha's class. He loves to make Adi laugh.

It's a win-win situation. Adi gets entertained and Zusha's friend feels important.

This brother is in Gedalya's class.

And another friend from Gedalya's class.

Another boy from Zusha's class. Adi is pretty popular with these seven-year-olds because she loves to say hi to everyone, which makes the boys laugh. They all clamor to say hi to her so she could say hi back. :)

Between moving closer to cheider and the park, and the social butterfly Gedalya starting cheider this year, everyone is making many more friends and having much more fun!

Several Things

If you look at this photo, you will learn several things:

a> That my kitchen is messy.
b> That Adi loves playing with water.
c> That I suck at cutting hair.
d> That Adi has an awesomely cool band on her wrist.


I'll start with <d>.

 As most kids with low muscle tone, Adi has a problem keeping her saliva in her mouth. Which was cute to photograph when she was a few months old, but at age three it's not that cute anymore.

Wearing a bib is one option. One that I wouldn't consider for a second. It looks to *special needs* when a big kid wears a bib outside of mealtime. And anyway, it won't help with the drool on her chin, only with the drool on her shirt.

So I got a pack of these awesomely cool wristbands and taught Adi to wipe her chin when it's wet. She usually hates to have things on her wrist, but I guess since this is almost like clothing (and since I got her teachers at school to introduce them) she went for it.
Now all I have to do is say, "Adi, chin," and she wipes around her mouth with this wristband. Cool. :)

Now, onto the unfortunate topic of poor Adi's hair.

Adi had beautiful long locks. All I wanted to do was to trim the ends, I promise! But you know how it works. One side comes out longer... so you trim it. Then you trim the other side. Then the first one again. Gah!

Here's the "before." Look at what I was able to do with her hair!

(Adi and Randi, her PT.)

(Adi playing with Zusha's friend.)

I just left her hair uneven because I was afraid to continue chopping. I can't take her to any professional hairdressers because she will not let anyone else touch her if it looks like they might be doing doctor-like things. And of course, she'd NEVER sit in the chair. So I gave it my best run with Elmo as an aide.

Apparently my best run stinks.
This took place about two months ago. The only reason I got the courage to post it now is that it has grown out somewhat and settled into a standard short style. In the beginning her hair stuck out in all different angles and didn't curl in at the edges. Hats were our friends during that trying time.

See? Cute!

And now that is settled down somewhat, Adi's hair looks kinda cute from a distance.

Boy Time!

My boys... they don't get as much blog attention as Adi does, but that's probably because they aren't such big troublemakers anymore. Heh heh. They had their time of flour scattering, shampoo spilling, spice eating and getting up to take showers in their pajamas in middle of the night.

Now it's Adi's turn to take an ENTIRE loaf of gefilte fish out on shabbos day and eat it, to bust open a yogurt and bring me a bag full of yogurt containers marinating in the contents of one of them, and to sit out on our path and scream her little vocal cords out because I refuse to take her on a long walk an hour before shabbos.

So whereas Adi provides more blog material, there are some handsome boys around that can not be overlooked!

Gedalya is 5 1/2 and he's doing great in school. He's making lots of friends and learning a mile a minute.

My favorite redhead is great at spelling. We spell some words that we don't want Adi to understand, so lately Gedalya has taken to spelling EVERYTHING. Right before Adi started school, Gedalya said the following:
I-S space A-D-I-apostrophe-S space S-C-H-O-O-L space I-N space B-O-R-O space P-A-R-K question mark.
He spelled everything right himself. The wise guy looked around for a school bus to see how to spell "school." But I consider it that he spelled it himself because he was resourceful and didn't ask me.

I introduced the concept of "script" to the kids. They watched a short video of script letters being written, and then Gedalya announced, "I want to learn scribbled!" Gedalya dear, even when you write print, you write scribbled. ;)

Another time: We were walking outside, and Gedalya was snacking on alphabet crackers. Each letter he took out, he would find something around him that started with that letter. We were in CVS when Gedalya took out the letter P. What was the word he chose? Pharmacy. That kid surprises me every day. How did he know it starts with P?

Best brothers...

Zusha is 7 1/2  now. Here he is in the park with his class (all the way on the right.

Zusha's English teacher takes the class to the park sometimes, and it's really cute when we are there as well. Zusha gets to play with Gedalya and Adi, as well as with his friends. In fact, Zusha's classmates have made friends with Gedalya and Adi as well!

One morning I had a hangnail. Zusha noticed it (I nicked him with it) and I proceeded to bite it off so not to scratch the kids while getting them dressed. Zusha watched and asked, "Are you scared? Is it scary for you?" When I answered no, he said, "Good." He's my sensitive little soul.

Today Zusha took out a siddur and davened almost everything himself. It took him over half an hour, and he diligently read each and every word even though reading does NOT come easy to him by any means.

Recently I've been spotting Zusha's discarded pants on the floor and thinking in amazement (before calling him to put them in the hamper and scolding him for dropping them to begin with) how BIG they are. It's like having a little bochur living in my house. Like, do I really have a kid who FITS that? Size 8-10. Yep.

I don't have as many pictures of him as of Gedalya because he's too much into fake smiles lately, and it's already almost dark by dismissal time. But that's life, isn't it? Every kid is different, and everything about my children is very specific and personal and doesn't depend on anything but themselves!

A Good Choidesh!

Happy Rosh Chodesh Kislev!
We are getting very, very close to...

Chanuka!

 

{Zusha with the dreidel that he made}

What an exciting time of the year.

We celebrated five Chanukas in our old apartment, so everything was familiar. We set up Hillel's menora in the same spot, at the top of the stairs, and the boys' menoras took their place at the kitchen or dining room window. But this year we will have to make new memories and settle into new familiarity. Chanuka is the only yom tov that we haven't experienced in our new place yet.
So exciting!

Post-date Friday, Creature Edition

This creature likes building webs around our house.

No creatures here, just beautiful remnants of sunlight over the water.

Man made juxtaposed with G-d made. Gorgeous.

Back to creatures... :)

I found this little guy on the sidewalk on my way home one day. I picked him up, and he stayed on my finger all the way to my house! At home, I put him in a bug box to show the kids. Then we all let him out in the park together.

And that's the creaturish edition of Post-date Friday!

Down to Business

I've got a party to throw tomorrow, but here I sit, updating my poor, neglected blog.

Hello, world! Adi turned three!
Contrary to Gedalya's belief that she *can't* turn three because she knows what "ama-ah" means. "Ama-ah" is Adi's word that she uses when she doesn't know what else to say. She might call me, "Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama." And I say, "Yes, Adi?" And of course, Adi didn't have anything planned that she wanted to really say, so she says, "Ahhhma-ah."
What Gedalya really meant, of course, is that Adi still speaks baby language. But Zusha said, "Well, then you can't be five and a half, because you know what kuwana means and what kishkase means." (Triangle and cheesecake.)
Gedalya considered this and allowed Adi to turn three.

We had a mini party on her real birthday on Simchas Torah, and tomorrow (today? Whatever, Monday afternoon) we are having an official thing with party blowers, cake, and a crown.

And I don't think I have mentioned this on my blog yet... Adi will be going to school!
Next week Tuesday is her first day. Wowowow. We will say our goodbyes to the therapists. :( Two years... They have invested themselves emotionally into my baby, and now- this is it? It will be a hard goodbye. Or rather, five hard goodbyes.

I made a photobook for one therapist and photo tote bags for two others. I still have two therapists that I need to think of gift ideas for, and soon! I don't have enough photos of them with Adi to make a whole book.

On Tuesday Adi will join me on a fun trip to the geneticist. We haven't gone in over a year. We had hit a dead end. The doctor has tested her for everything he could think of that she might possibly have. But as she gets older, some traits and features come up or become more prominent. He might be able to think of something else. I mean, she wasn't even walking last time that we went!

So I will post some videos of Adi doing daily things. The geneticist is really someone special. How many specialists are there that would go to a patient's blog to get a look at some things they wouldn't be able to see in a short office visit?

Yom Tov is over, and I am diving head first into reality!

And as promised, the photos of my second day of owning my new camera... playing around with it and learning the ropes.

Silly kitten Mushu.

Looking at the weehees... er, fishies... in the pond.

See them?

Gedalya's bounty. Plant paraphernalia never ceases to make this little boy happy.