E has gan every other Friday and this week gan was "on" so after I dropped him off there, I made a quick run to IKEA to pick up his birthday present - a wooden train and track set. I LOVE LOVE LOVE wooden toys! I got him the basic set and one extension set. If he loves it and actually plays with it, we can always go back and buy another extension set. I've seen how enthralled he is with the huge train track set they have at the gymboree I took the kids to during Chanukah so hopefully it will keep him equally busy at home. He adores balls and anything with wheels.
Of course you can't just run into IKEA for ONE thing and I walked out with about 15 items and having spent 400+ NIS. One of the things I found in IKEA's marked down section was....I guess you'd call it a large shallow Teflon pot. It's so large that when I put it on my stove top it covers two burners. It was marked down from 255 NIS to 135 NIS. I brought it home and made matbucha in it (a garlic-y tomato-based salad - similar to salsa - that you simmer on the gas for a LONG time). Came out great!
It's been a VERY cold and rainy few days. Shabbat was hard due to not being able to go outdoors with the kids. We basically stayed home, had a pajama day (a.k.a. mental health day) and skipped shulgoing. The afternoon was spent with Y practicing her cartwheels in the living room and E spent the afternoon playing Superman, gleefully jumping off the coffee table over and over and over and over and over and.......I was too tired to care and didn't have anything better to offer him that he would have been interested in doing. T got a fire lit under her and tidied up her room BIG TIME. When she was done, the Queen of England could have visited and I wouldn't have stressed about it. T IS capable of tidiness and order when the spirit moves her.
E's gannenet (daycare teacher) has been commenting on how poor E's language skills are. She claims he hardly says anything at all in gan, that he doesn't know opposites, his colors, etc. DH also took E for a developmental checkup at Tipat Chalav (baby wellness clinic) and they were also concerned that he didn't know the word for "star" when she pointed to one and that he didn't know the word for "milk" even when she pointed to a carton of milk in a picture and spoke to E in English. And yet when E is at home with us, compared to what they were just a few months ago, his language skills are growing in leaps and bounds. True, he mixes - and I mean MIXES - his English and Hebrew which can be very, very funny but if not funny then adorable but he is coming out with complete sentences now and then. I was also reading him a bedtime story the other night. I showed him a picture of a cow and right away he pointed at the cow and said "chalav (Heb: milk)" and then "milk". So I don't know what everyone's getting all worked up about. I keep telling everyone to slow down. WE see his progress at home and yes he's far behind where Y was at his age but a) he's a boy and b) he's dealing with two languages. I'm NOT worried. I do wish though that he would be able to sit for long enough for me to read him a book. He just doesn't have the patience for it. At the most, when I try to read to him, he'll take the book away from me, quickly look at the pictures himself and then throw the book across the room and get up and run off to do something else.
I finally made it to the doctor on Friday and as I suspected, I've got bronchitis. I should know. I've had it often enough before. So. Bronchitis confirmed. Drugs acquired.
T was home for Shabbat this week. At the dinner table Friday night she was almost - almost - outgoing and it was so nice to be able to have a two-way conversation with her instead of the one-word grunts that usually pass as conversation with her. She was just very "laugh-y". (Is that a word? Well, it is now.) She was laughing at the little ones' nonsense and DH's witicisms which normally she wouldn't be caught dead doing. It was just nice to see her so light and "up". At the dinner table, she started telling me what decorating changes she'd like to do to her room. Mostly just re-painting which it does desperately need. And then maybe some pretty stenciling around the two windows. So by the end of today I will have gotten 2 price quotes for repainting her room. Both girls' rooms are due for a facelift. I used to be the family painter but I think those days are over. No time, no energy.
As I always say to Yitzhak, at home we can see PROGRESS, which is something very difficult to see in a Tipat Chalav setting. A child behaves in a different way at home than he would behave in TC or in gan. People start bugging me because Tehilla doesn't walk yet at 16 months; THEY can't see the tiny steps she makes towards pulling herself up, teeter-tottering and falling on her bottom, but I, as her mother, see progress every day and I don't worry!
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