Poor Little Gedalya

Poor Gedalya got his little thumb slammed in a door on Friday.
He knows to keep his hands out of the hinge part. This time he was leaning on the doorpost with his right hand and pulling the door shut with his left. I saw that his thumb was a centimeter into the dangerous area and screamed out to him.

He only barely touched his finger it seemed, but it got really bad. The whole thumb was swollen and purple, he was bleeding a bit, but only from the superficial broken skin.

We washed it in cold water immediately and then I tried to nurse him as he cried and cried. About 1/2 hour later he fell asleep.

But he's definitely a righty- LOL! He kept using his right hand for everything the next day and kept hurting his thumb over and over. I tried to redirect him to use his left, but he'd give it one awkward attempt and switch back to his right.
I thought it was so funny, because Zusha is ambidextrous like me and hasn't yet shown a preference to either side.

I'm going to have to take him to the doctor. People who have had this type of thing happen have told me that the doctor drilled a hole in the nail to let the blood out- to minimize the pressure. I hope it won't come to that...

What Zusha Remembers

Zusha remembers many little details and events that I have all but forgotten. Many things he is reminded of because of all the pictures I take. He loves to look at them!
But other times he really has surprised me.

Recently I took the kids to a park that is a little far from us. It's nothing special, but they love it because we go there rarely. On our way, Zusha started telling me, "Last time we went to that park, I played with another baby with water balloons and the baby laughed."

I was speechless! OK, so it wasn't "last time" but last summer, but he remembered it- and I don't have any pictures of that event!

Another time we were sitting in the kitchen. He looked up at the light and told me, "A long time ago, when Zusha was a small baby, this lamp broke. Mama turned it on for a very long time and didn't turn it off, and it finished. So Mama went to buy a new lamp and then Tatte put it in."
Whoa. That happened last December- 1 1/2 ago. Zusha was only 2 1/2 at the time!

And last week, out of nowhere, Zusha reminded me about how a man came to our house to fix it a long time ago. How how made the floors and the doors and all. That was right when we moved into this apartment, almost 2 years ago. Zusha was the age that Gedalya is now.

Zusha loves operating ATM machines. I tell him what to press, and he does everything. We switched banks about a year and a half ago. In the old one, you put the card to the slot and the machine sucked it in. It came out at the end of the transaction. In the new one, you stick the card in and pull it out. Recently Zusha said, "When we went to another bank a long time ago, we put in the card and didn't take it out. At the end the card came out by itself." I couldn't believe it, I barely remember that myself!

It's amazing how much he really remembers...

A Fun, Fun Flood

The sprinklers in the park being new and all, the system hasn't been totally perfected yet. There are two levels to this park. One half is uphill and one downhill. The sprinklers are on the higher part. I guess the drain system malfunctioned yesterday, because a huge area of the lower part of the park flooded!

The kids loved their "ocean!" Look at the huge area that is flooded.

Another Photo Shoot :)

Still experimenting with my camera and how the functions work. I've discovered that zooming all the way in blurs the background, so I'm having fun with that now! :) While Zusha was in cheider, I went with Gedalya to a nice, quiet dead end street with lots of greenery. I stationed him at the middle of the short block and stood at the beginning of it myself. Then at full zoom, I got some of these great shots.

The Very First Official Day of the Sprinklers!

This was double exciting- because not only was this Friday the first day the sprinklers were on in any of the parks, but this was also the first day of sprinklers in the fancy new park! The kids have never seen anything like this.

There is a wall of rock that has 3 holes for the water to shoot out from:




Then there is this basin-like part. It's so much fun!


A stream of water pours into the basin to fill it up, and it drains out very slowly.

Then there are also 3 fountains sprouting from holes in the ground, and another rock wall which sprays misty water. All the features are controlled by buttons! The kids push any button to activate any of the fountains.

Mazal Tov to Zusha'le!!

Today was Zusha's first Siyum! His class finished learning the Alef Beis and had a whole party. They wore white shirts and got gold crowns. It was such a proud day for me! :)

After the Siyum we went to the park and got some photos of the big boy. :D

New Camera

I decided it was time to upgrade my camera. :) I feel like I learned all I could from my first digital camera and was ready for something more professional. I asked around and did some research. I didn't want a huge thing to lug around, but rather a compromise between size and quality.

So I settled on the Canon Powershot SX100 IS. It has image stabilization and a long zoom. It even has several manual modes, where you can manually change settings on all options!

I got it yesterday and tried it out today. Here are the results! :D