Without Aba

Nahum is in Colorado this weekend for our good friend Paul Mags' wedding to Adriana and having lots of fun visiting with old friends.  Surprisingly, I'm doing quite well without him, but I just got lucky.    I've got to spend lots of time with my good friend Lynn (the kids surrogate Grandmother).   I had a just-grownups tea date with Lynn Friday morning (experienced the miracle of complete conversations).  After getting the kids from school for our Friday-cheese-burger-in-the-park weekly picnic, we met our friends Anne, Addison (Shayna's bff), and little Izzy at the park.  It's so fun to watch the kids run, play, be goofy, and misbehave together, especially now that all four kids are walking.  I've been interviewing new sitters (for date nights) and the young lady who came by Friday after nap was a great success.  I got some time to myself Friday afternoon and she's back again this morning so I can be at a coffee shop typing this.

Lynn and I took the kids to the Farmers' Market early Saturday morning for some treats (grapes and a cookie) and play (wall walking and running in the grass plus they just seem to enjoy people watching and looking around).  Who should happen to be there but Addison and Izzy with dad Luke.  Shayna and Addison always seem soooooo happy to see each other and always great and part with big hugs.  After that, Shayna's favorite 12-year-old down the street Ashley came over for a couple hours to play with the kids while I did some uninterrupted house work.  After nap, we explored a little wood in our neighborhood that has a play set and a tree swing in the middle of it.  Shayna made us hike down to the creek from there.  I even dared to experiment at bedtime and put both kids in the same room.  There was minimal protest (screams on Elijah's part at being put in a different bed that usual) but within 15 minutes both kids were asleep.  On the other hand, I had a lot more trouble getting to sleep.  Despite going to be early in the hopes that the nights interruptions (there were two) wouldn't cause too much sleep loss, I just couldn't get to sleep.  I'm so used to hearing Elijah breath or bump around his crib that the silence was too much.  I'm thinking of trying again tonight as it would be night to have my room back again and the kids do go to be at pretty much the same time since Shayna gave up her afternoon nap.

Pictures of the weekend:

Playing fetch with Anne, little Izzy, and Elijah.  Yes, that's a stick in my daughter's mouth, but I'm going to blame it on Anne whose daughter Addison instigated the game.

Playing on a poison ivy hill.  Luckily for me, Anne noticed the poison ivy so we were able to wash our kids afterward instead of me being surprised by itchy kids later that day.

Addison and Shayna show off their balancing prowess.

Elijah surprised all of us by charging after the big girls who wall-walk reliably.

He is not so reliable.

Lynn expressing her great relief that Elijah fell in and not out.

Patiently waiting for Elijah to climb up.

Sitting with my daughter at the playground in the woods while she enjoys dinner.

She's finally learned how to belly swing.

Climbing and stickering in the woods. (Elijah has a sticker)

Enjoying dinner.

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.