July: Dirt, Water, Seattle Family, and More Water

After Israel, we spent the usual week recovering from the 5 hour time difference and 20 hours of travel.  My sweet kids were traveling angels again with lots of sleeping and very little crying.  The time transition was rather smooth for everyone but Nahum as I think he got a little sick.  We spent the 3 weeks after Israel and before Seattle spending lots of time outdoors in the gardens and kiddie pools.

July 4: Boosting the immune system by

eating dirt smothered pork rinds and

            

generally cover themselves in soft vegetable garden dirt.

At their insistence, Nahum began their driving lessons.  It is now a ritual, if we're outside when he gets home, to sit in his lap and drive up and down the driveway a couple times before parking the car in the garage.  

July 8: We built our own water park.  I decided to experiment with putting this plastic slide in their pool after the new pool with blowup slide that ties with rope to the bottom was such a "flop".  Much to our pleasurable surprise, the bottom sunk creating a stable water slide both kids could enjoy.  If you want to see water park fun in action here is a video I put together.

On Friday, July 13, we headed to Seattle for 10 days with some of my extended family.  My father's oldest brother David, youngest sister Candace and their families all live in the area plus Michael and Melinda were and would be, respectively, visiting too.  Shayna had a ball will all the toys David's granddaughters' have at his house (where we stayed) with the mermaids being her favorite.  We spent as much time splashing in water there as we did in Israel as the lakes are all public with several parks for unsupervised boating, fishing, and swimming access around each.  David and Vicki also had a 2'-deep, extremely cold, new, above-ground pool in the back yard.  We all bought City Passes which allowed us to visit the Seattle Aquarium, Pacific Science Center, Space Needle, Harbor Tour, and Woodland Park Zoo.  The kids loved seeing all the cool new places and things we visited.  One of my favorite days was our visit to the  PSC because we got a babysitter for Elijah so were able to just have fun with Shayna.  It's kid oriented but still adult compatible so we all were able to do/see things that we found marvelous plus I got to just bathe in Shayna's enthusiasm.  I love hanging out with just her as I can be silly and fun in a totally different way than when I've got both kids to worry about.  When it's just the two of us (or three as in this case), we spend most of the time acting goofy, doing silly games, laughing, and teasing each other plus investigating the world around us at a much higher level than Mr. E allows.  The aquarium and the zoo were perfect for both kids.  They were fascinated by the water, fish, animals and all the new places to climb at both sites.  The Sunday before we headed home, Candace and Tom took us out on their speed boat on Lake Sammamish.  Tom let Shayna and Elijah drive from his lap a few times and Shayna still talks about how she, "made Tom go faster and FASTER!"  I also got an evening out with my family while Nahum took the kids home and put them to bed by himself.  I saw my first velodrome track bike races at an outdoor track.  If you've never seen one, check out this video of the racers.  Today we looked through the pictures from our trip and she said, "Can we go back to Seattle soon?  That was a lot of fun."

June 15: Checking out the freezing cold pool: kids, mom, and grandpa.  You just can't keep this family out of the water.

Family dinner at David and Vickie's (Michael, Melinda, Vickie, David, Nahum, and Shayna).

July 16: The kids and I usually take early morning walks with time zone changes so others can sleep.  As usual, dirt was found to play in.

Shayna at the touch pool at the Aquarium with starfish, anemone, and something squishy whose name I can't remember.

Watching the water in the tide pool with Grandpa Michael.

Under the dome aquarium.

July 18: Our 2nd Lake Sammamish swim.

Throwing rocks and warming up.

July 20:  The kids played and chased the ball around as I was finally tired of the cold water.  Shayna could right herself if she slipped but I was prepared to leap in should Elijah.  No one needed rescuing except from the cold.

I poured some hot water in this little pool afterward so they had more water fun while warming up.

July 21: Boating on Lake Sammamish.

 

Jumping from the boat to swim in the middle of the lake.

A tired family ready to head home. (yes, that's a ski lift swing Tom built)

Here are some more pictures of our awesome July.

Still In Love With Adi

It's still all Shayna talks about.  "When the flowers come up in the spring then we'll go to Israel to see Adi."  When we Skype with Adi's family, Shayna goes all spastic like little kids with crushes will do when they see their crush.  Shayna begs and begs to Skype with Adi then hides her face and giggles the whole time.  It's adorable really.  I hope we can spend some extra time their too next year as I've found I love family vacations.  There's all this amazing time with 2 kids AND 2 parents, plus all the family we get to hang out with.  Finally, here are some family pictures to prove it.

June 8: Nahum draws riddles for Adi (with Niki) and Ran on Shayna's magna-sketch.

June 9: Sarit and Elijah watch youtube videos.  He loves to sit on your lap while you do any kind of computer work, but it does make typing emails difficult.

Shayna and Ran make us pancakes for breakfast.  He did a great job letting her "help".

June 14: Ben is a great pianist so Elijah decided to take some lessons from him.

June 15: Saba Dov and Savta Lea with all their grandchildren: L-R: Elijah, Ran, Dan, Ben, Yelka, Adi, and Shayna.  It was ridiculously hard to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time.  If I tried to get Elijah or Shayna to look everyone else had to look at the kid to see what they were doing so...

...this one is my favorite.  They may not be looking at me but they all look happy.

June 16: A rare picture of Saba and Savta for our wall of family.  (I have to get it printed up and framed for that.)

Though, I think I might like this one better. (It was harder to get Lea to look at the camera than the kids so I gave up on that. ;-)

June 19: Elijah cuddles with Saba Dov while Savta Lea plays games with Shayna on the couch making  Nahum, Shayna and Savta laugh.

Israel and the Water

Israel was phenomenal this year.  The family time was great, both the time the four of us spent together as well as all the time we spent with Nahum's immediate family.  Both Fridays there, we had big Shabbat dinners with Nahum's parents and both brother's families at our apartment in Ra'anana.  We did 8 total trips to the beach with 5 of those being family trips.  Both kids loved the sea and the sand.  We also swam at Saba and Savta's complex's pool a few times, saw some of Nahum's good friends with their families, and spend much time playing outside at the little parks near our apartment.  Nahum spent four days visiting three universities. I finally bit the bullet and drove in Israel and I actually prefer it to driving here now.

This year, while Shayna still loves cousin Ben (almost 12yo), she fell in love with cousin Adi (19yo and in the military).  Shayna acted like a little baby and played with, talked to, and cuddled with Adi whenever she came down from Carmiel with her family.  Now all she talks about is Adi coming here to visit or Shayna going "on a big airplane to Israel and see Adi."  Elijah was his usual hammy self and basked in the attention any and everyone gave him.  His love new love is elevators with their buttons that magically open and close doors.

Adi, Shayna, and Yelka.

Nahum and his kids in the Mediterranean.

I think the water is the main area of personal growth for Shayna while we were there.  She has much less fear now and is oh-so-close to being comfortable with her face in the water.  We brought here inner-tube suit so she could float and paddle around on her own, both at the beach and pool.  At the beach we'd take her out past the little breaking waves to where they just bobbed gently up and down.  She'd float next to which ever parent was with her excitedly paddling around and up and down.  I brought my goggles so would dive under her or pop down to the bottom to bring her sea shells.  She didn't collect these but rather threw them to make me dive to retrieve them again.  She seems to long to be able to swim under water.  To encourage this, I'm going to "lose" or "forget" her float suit but bring her goggles to the pool as the suit gets in the way of her being able to get fully into the water which she's totally comfortable doing.

Playing catch with another boy and Aba.

Elijah is an amazing little water baby.  I can feel him pulling the water around with his hands and legs/feet as he directs where he wants to go while I'm holding him.  I didn't think a baby could have such a powerful stroke.  He also learned to blow bubbles in the water (at the pools where it's still water).  At the beach, the sand and the people where his favorite.  He was go up to all the older ladies that were relaxing in chairs and just start talking and then run off to dig in the sand some more.  He enjoyed the water too but needed a lot of help staying up right in the currents so mainly just ran and splashed in the shallows.

Elijah making friends with one of the workers at Saba and Savta's complex.

Elijah's language skills are the current development that I'm basking in.  He had his first two-word sentence while were were there, "blow bubble," in response to the bubble jars I bought Shayna.  "Cracker", "bubble", and "Mama" are still the most distinct words he says but he also says, "doggie (but sounds like daddy) arf, arf", "see" and "see ya", "cheese" for taking pictures, "Baba" for Aba, "Ayna" for Shayna, "birdie", and "ah-hu" for yes and "uh-hu" for no.

Shayna blows bubbles for Elijah on our balcony.

I've got to get ready to go to Shayna's first dance "performance" as she been in a 2hr dance camp/class all week.  I'll do family and friend stories next time.

Our last day at the beach. Sunset. Playing in a salty, sandy puddle.

No Labs Till After Israel

Shayna did labs on Thursday.  Friday I was told we won't need to repeat them until we get back from Israel a full 7 weeks from today.  We have never gone more than 4 weeks between labs and this is such a world of difference from last year I can still hardly believe it.  Last year we did labs the morning we were leaving and were in the car on the way to the airport when we got the "ok" from Pittsburgh to take her to Israel.  (Our back up was Nahum and Shayna would go to Pittsburgh for a biopsy while Elijah and I went on the Israel with N & S just meeting us there when they could.)  I'll just have her roll in the dirt a lot next year as well:

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Summer?

It's been such a crazy warm end of winter/early spring my brain couldn't figure out what season came next.  I kept having to remind myself that summer was on the way not winter.  Now that it's almost May, which seems like it should be warm, it's so much colder than March.  I got used to be outside all day (we even had the kiddie pool out for a while) so now my brain doesn't know what's going on.

Elijah spontaneously started to do sign language back to me last Tuesday after I had been so sporadic with my usage that I didn't think he'd get anything.  Well, I asked him if he wanted to eat and he gave me the "eat" sign then walked to his chair.  Later on I asked if he wanted more or was all done and he gave me the "more". His favorite by far is "eat" as he uses it all the time and repeats it back to me whether I ask him in Hebrew or English.  "All done" needs a lot of work.  All he has to do is wave both hands in the air (and occasionally will) but instead "waves" his hands all over his tray which then sends all his food flying.  "Potty" is the one sign he's seen the most and will come over to me when I ask him if he needs to go by using the sign but he prefers to yell at me while crawling up my leg if he has to go and needs to initiate the communication.  (If he's in his chair, he'll puff out his belly, slouch, and yell.)

He also said his first recognizable word on Tuesday while he was putting rocks in a cup at the plant nursery I love to frequent, "rocks, rocks".  He said it again Wednesday at the mail box while scooping up the rocks there.  That was what confirmed what I heard the day before was for real.  Unfortunately, I haven't recognized him saying it again.  (He's said "Ima" and "Aba" for months now but either as a game (Him: "Ima" Me: "Elijah" Him: "Ima" repeated a few more times then he'll laugh and come hug me or run off gleefully.) or in distress.)

Shayna is a wonderful big sister.  She loves to play chase with him and even slows her running so he can keep up or she can chase him for a while.  It amazes me how sensitive a 3-year-old can be to a little one's needs.  She still loves to wrestle/push him over on the beds but now she makes sure he has turns push/climbing on her as well. She's been super sweet offering him to "nurse" if he accidentally gets hurt in their rough housing (nursing is his main antidote to pain).

She drew her first recognizable picture at school: the earth (I'll scan it and add it later).  She's also starting to color pictures in coloring books.  The whole penguin and 1/2" around it will be orange but watching the progress has been wonderful.  She still loves to paint and will produce 4-6 new paintings a week.  I'd love to keep them all but have, thankfully, been able to toss at least 3/4 of them in the recycling.  The others decorate many of the walls in our house (her own personal art exhibit).

I joined the local triathlon coaching group again (TriAdventure).  I enjoy swimming with them twice a week and running with them every other week.  It's all evening activities so I can only do about 1/2 other wise it cuts too deeply into family time.  It won't be until August 5th that I do my first triathlon (a local one in Christiansburg) so I'm taking my time and just enjoying myself.  When I hit 13-months post-partum, I felt a big change in my body, like it was finally returning to it's normal chemical and muscular state.  It's fun and not painful to jog, I have more energy in general, and only need a nap 2-3 times a week (usually after a rough couple nights).  My Hebrew II class is finishing up this week with a final next Sunday.  I doubt I'll pass, but I feel well grounded in the language so am comfortable continuing my studies on my own (the book is also the best language book I've ever had).

Enjoy the pictures:

Sedar 2012

Easter Saturday

Easter Monday: She really got the gist of hunting for eggs this year and she's got a good eye.

Easter Monday with Lynn and 3 of her 7 grandkids.

Our new yard/grass and my 2-hour clay hole for...

...our new 20' Sugar Maple.

Happy Birthday Shayna!!! and Much, Much More!

Shayna had a wonderful, double (shared with her friend Maryn) birthday party complete with indoor jumpy house, blowup twin slides, balls all over, and a bubble machine.  It was quite a magical time for all the little ones there in fact.

Jumping with Addison and a ball-boat of girls.

Breaking bubbles and blowing out candles.

Super fast sliding and special guests our Pittsburgh Grandparents Gerry and Judy.

Shayna continues to be her spunky self even though we continue to be sick and get ear infections (Shayna had her fifth (1st with tubes) and Elijah his first last week).  We've had 5-6 colds running though the family and one stomach bug so it's been a rough winter.  However, her labs were AWESOME last month; the best they've been since the beginning of last August.  They were so good, we were given our first 4 week reprieve since last April!  She got ear tubes put in the Monday Grandpa Michael was here (one of the many reasons I flew him out) and they have made a world of difference.  The spunky, fun, mischievous Shayna replaced the winey, clingy Shayna once all the pressure was relieved.  She did get the one ear infection last week but it had been almost 5 weeks since the last one when we'd been going 1.5-2 weeks between infections since December 11th.  We'll do labs next on Monday and will see her pediatrician Thursday to get all her three-year-old statistics and for him to tell us how wonderful she is (something we have yet to tire of hearing).

Shayna loves to show her independence by doing many tasks on her own.  She's learning how to put on her own socks and shoes, she loves it when we ask her to take her dishes to the sink after eating or help put things on the table for dinner, she will even redo things that we absentmindedly do for her like hanging her coat up.

Elijah WORSHIPS his sister.  Nahum and I get big smiles but he's just beside himself with joy whenever Shayna shows up.  It's amazing the abuse he takes and keeps on laughing.  Shayna's favorite game is "knock the baby down" which he willingly follows her into my room to play.  As long as both kids are laughing and there are no odd thunks, I let them be.  His current favorite game is "empty all unlocked cabinets" which means pots, pans, and tupperware all over the kitchen, and sometimes the house.  It would be "throw anything I can in the toilet or just try to climb in myself" if Nahum and I weren't so well trained at keeping those shut after the first couple mishaps.

He's at an age now where little things he does remind me of little things that Shayna used to do, stacking bowls, playing in the shower, putting things in containers then taking them out.  It's fun to see the similarities and differences and the little reminders of Baby Shayna.  He's starting to mimic some of my sign language too.  He says "all done" or "more".  He's also enjoying learning to use a spoon and fork.  I hand him the spoon or fork with food on it, he puts it neatly (most of the time) in his mouth, once the food is removed he holds it out for me to take and fill up again.

Nahum is at a conference in Charlottesville, VA starting today and he'll be home late Tuesday only to go again the following Sunday to Berkeley then Chicago to give talks.  He's just finished several hectic weeks of work by submitting 5 proposals last Friday and finalizing the hiring committee's decision (he's the head of the committee).  It looks like we'll see another astrophysicist at Virginia Tech next year!

I'm plugging along.  Waiting to be finished being sick and taking care of sick kids so I can get back to real workouts and fitness goals.  My mom Melinda gets into town next Saturday.  I'm hoping I'll be well enough then to kick start my spring training while she's here to help with the kids.  I'm loving all the hard work I did last November in the garden watching all the beautiful crocuses bloom and anticipating all the snow drops, daffodils, tulips, and irises plus all the trees I've planted over the last three years.  It could be a glorious spring.

 Feb 20: our first real snow of the season.  Shayna thought it was great! Elijah wanted to go back inside.

Feb 21: I have two kitchen helper now as Elijah loves to see what's going on (and "help") these days too.

Happy Birthday Elijah!

Elijah was born at 10:55pm today.  It has been a beautiful year with some only a few minor medical challenges.  Elijah has been such a mellow, happy, and inquisitive little fellow that keeps us on our toes.

Year In Review

Feb 6, 2011 born at 9lb 9oz, 22", spends first 1.5 days in NICU due to SVT at birth

2wo:  goes into SVT at pediaticians office, we spend the next week in the PICU,

          Wolf-Parkinson-White (WPW) diagnosis 

2.5wo: first smile of recognition to his Ima

2.5mo: first laugh

3.3mo: first international trip (to Israel)

4mo:    rolled from belly to back (more than once)

6mo:    sits on his own

6.5mo: gets 2 bottom, front teeth

7mo:    crawling and pulling to standing

7.5mo: gets 4 top front/side teeth in one week

10mo:  first steps

11mo:  walking well, likes to say, "uh-oh" when dropping things or soiling himself and "I-Ma" or 

           "ma-ma" when distressed or wanting me

1yo:     runs after sister (she's still much faster)

We'll go to his cardiologist tomorrow to see if we can get a decent EKG reading (it's kind of hard to get a baby to lay still) to see how his extra circuit is doing.  On Thursday we'll get his growth statistics and our first "well" doctor's visit in the last dozen.

Grandpa Michael came out to help me get my sanity last week so I could try to write a post on Elijah's first birthday (and enjoy life in general).  He tidied toys, folded clothes, washed dished and wrangled kids all week plus took care of Elijah while I went with Shayna for ear tubes last Monday.  It was such a wonderful week, we all wish he were here for another.  Here are the kids helping Michael workout.