Category Archives: koala update

parenthood, maternity, baby, koalas, updates about that stuff.

When the kids had a sleepover

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Before kids’ bedtime last night, just for the hell of it, I offered Bebe to sleep on the pull-out bed from under Koala’s bottom bunk. Usually she sleeps in her crib, adjacent to the massive bunk bed, which has served mainly as a hulking piece of furniture potential.

She took us up on the offer.

As young parents trying something new and exciting often do, huz and I scrambled to get the bed made and sorted with her favorite items. The kids squealed with delight, and settled down into their places, facing each other.

Soon we found ourselves huddled outside the room, listening to their pillow talk.

“Shalosh… Arba… Osim shalosh…”

“Pesach already happened…”

“Shabbat shalom u’mevurach…”

“If we have shabbat, then we say to everybody shabbat shalom, and then we get a mamtak to eat…”

“If we go aroooound…”

“Ok, Bebe, it’s mesukan to talk when we going to bed.”

“But… but… but…”

There’s something to listening to your son using a firstborn voice to tell his younger sister:

“Ok, no more talking. I need to sleep.”

Finally, as he always does, Koala called out towards the hall – “Ima, I love you.”

This time, Bebe followed: “Ima, I love you.”

“I love you too, guys.”

And then, for the first bedtime ever, Koala added -

“I love you Bebe.”

“I love you Koala.”

 

 

Israeli “Who’s on First”

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“יש לי חנות.”
“מה יש בחנות?”
“פיצה וקוסקוס. מה את רוצה?”
“פיצה.”
“אין לי.”
“אבל אמרת שיש פיצה?? אוקי אז קוסקוס.”
“אין לי.”
“אז מה יש??”
“כלום.”
“אז אני רוצה כלום.”
“אין לי!”
“אבל אמרת שיש כלום!”

Little does he realize this is EXACTLY how it happens here. #sabrakids

Loose translation:

“I have a store.”

“What do you sell?”

“Pizza and couscous. What do you want?”

“Pizza.”

“I don’t have.”

“But you said you have pizza? Ok, couscous.”

“I don’t have.”

“So what do you have?”

“Nothing.”

“So I want nothing.”

“I don’t have!”

“You said you have nothing!”

The one where we lose our pet snail

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It was a dark and rainy day… oddly, since it was May 3rd in the Middle East.

We had piled into the car, giddy about the surprise rain, and drove to the nearby nursery to pick up new flowers and herbs for our modest mirpeset garden. The kids were delighted by the plants, the rain, the 10 seconds of hail. And then, clinging to the bag of soil we picked up – the snail.

We packed our trunk with the plants, the soil,carefully placed to preserve the snail. Who wants a pet chilazon?! 

When we parked and unloaded – first the kids, then the box of plants, then the bag of soil – the snail was gone. I searched the trunk while huz searched the plants and packet of soil.

The kids were anxious to find the snail. Bebe was nagging, calling over and over, “Abba! Abba! Abba”

“One second, B.”

“Abba! Abba! Look! Look Abba!”

“Just a second, Bebe, we have to find the snail.”

“Look Abba! Look Abba! Look Abba!”

At the same time, we looked towards where she was pointing… right at the snail, clinging to the bottom of the plant box.

And like that, no laugh track necessary, the four of us stood cracking up in the driveway under the grey May sky.

Koala named him Gluben (the third time he named him). He’s still kickin’ it on the porch.

P.S. I really like photographing snails.

 

Ka-pow: the Super-simple outdoor Superhero birthday party

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Last week we celebrated Koala’s 4th birthday with an outdoor ‘everything Koala loves’ party. Ok, not everything Koala loves; I couldn’t get a real policeman to breakdance on a firetruck, for instance.

It came out looking more like a superhero birthday party. Superhero outdoorsy explorer theme with chocolate cake.

First, the binoculars. Because I’m crafty and not an entertainer in any way, I went for the super simple art project (so simple that his two-year-old sister and her group of two-year-old sisters of his  friends could do it too). I wanted to do something with toilet paper rolls – do you ever realize just how many you go through in a week?!

Here’s what I did to prep:

  1. Measure colorful wrapping paper against the roll, cut a bunch of sheets. 
  2. With a glue stick, stick the paper onto the roll.
  3. Hole-punch one side of each roll.
  4. Staple two rolls together, with the holes on the outside.

Here’s what the kids did:

  1. Pick the color binoculars they wanted.
  2. Stuck various kinds of stickers all over their rolls.  
  3. Picked the color necklace string they wanted for me to tie on.

As four year olds, they totally could have done more, and if we had been indoors, I would have left the gluing for them. I also appreciate that not all 3-4 year olds are patient enough to sit with an art project. It worked out better that way.

Now on to the next piece: the CAPES! Yes, I bought a giant roll of cheap thin kindergarten fabric and cut pieces into cape shapes.

The outcome:

I had a plan for the kids to use silvery crayons to decorate them, but at the party I realized they were too ready to get flying so I let them go…

But not before handing each kid a nature hunt list; I printed pictures of outdoor items – rocks, leaves, sticks – and sent the kids to explore.

Worked out really nicely! Though if you ask any of them, I’m betting the cake, being cake, was the biggest hit (even if my son thought the drawing was a pizza…)

I could have totally gone all out and done the perfect Pinterest birthday… in the States. But I think there’s a simple modesty to appreciate in what gives a four year old a good time.

 

Koala update: Four years

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Koala,

I love you so freaking much. Sometimes I look at your face while you’re babbling about throwing lions at people or how all your friends’ dads are policemen (somehow?).

I look at your face, the same exact face I watched when you were laying on me, four years ago, staring off into space, with your then-dark grey eyes. What were you thinking about Koala?

I look at your face sometimes, watching your intense blue eyes stare off somewhere… what are you thinking about, Koala?

Here’s a not-so-secret: We took the full eight days after your birth to decide on your name. I was in such adrenaline-addled awe that everything had worked out pretty ok that we named you based on an idea of calmness.

Not a day longer than after your brit, you showed us that was naive first-time parent  thinking.

When you’re staring off into space, cool eyes somewhere (where?), I know I was partly right, in some way, about your tranquility. You consider the how, the why. You make a concerted effort to sort it out in your head. You’re a thinker.

With you, navigating life is always an adventure. A loud, expressive, emotional, opportunistic adventure. It’s exciting to ride your energy and see where we end up.

Learning what it means to lose something you really liked. Testing what it’s like to finally pet a neighbor’s dog. Discovering what that hole in your underwear is for.

Sometimes we end up at anger. Fear. Frustration.

Sometimes we end up at shock. Discovery. Elation.

It’s been a year of adventure – the better, the worse, the joyful, the painful. And I’m just speaking for myself. I’m learning about you. You’re learning about me (I think we might finally have ‘boobs’ down).

I can’t possibly count how many tears that’s taking – from either of us – but I think with time we’re working it out.

And nothing makes it all seem so simple as when you climb out of bed, walk up to me, put your little arms around my neck, put your lips to my cheek, and breathe into my face: Ima, I love you.

Happy 4th birthday, Koala.

 

Religion and kids and Israel and me.

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I can’t really blame the ganenot (my kids’ teachers). It’s not their fault it all looks so terribly confusing. Or actually that it looks so black and white: my kids go to a Chabad gan system, and therefore, it  must have made my son very ‘religious’ minded.

You see, on most days, he wears a black velvet kippah. The days he doesn’t, it’s blue sruga (knitted). Every day, he wears tzitzit. He must have a very heimeshe soul, and we must be doing something ‘right’… right?

Then again, look at his mom. She takes him to gan in leggings and running tops, and picks him up in skinny jeans and red toenail polish. Oh. She must be secular. Good thing she’s sending the kids to Chabad!

Sometimes I get patronizing comments. “You know why he wears tzitzit, right? Because we say the bracha every day.”

You know who gave him the tzitzit before you and he started saying the bracha every day. Right?

You  know why we chose Chabad over the government-religious gan, right?

You know I grew up learning and practicing the halachot, many halachot you may not have dreamed of, halachot only men need to know, sukkah-building rules emblazoned in my brain. You know I’ve gone down the shomer negiah road, I’ve cried at the kotel, I’ve yearned for Mashiach. One day or another.

Maybe I ought to try a black velvet kippah and tzitzit next, eh?

What you don’t know, though, is that he likes to dress up in a pink butterfly costume. And sometimes asks for a coo-coo like his sister. And that I give it to him. In public.

Anyway. The black and white of the black and white here is fascinating to me. I miss Diaspora like that. My charedi brothers-in-law have gone to pick my kids up from gan and my IAF soldier brother has, too. We’re a bundle of odd identity.

If they only knew what I know. Or not. Who cares.

I just don’t care for the patronizing.

But I can’t blame them, I guess. It looks funny on the outside. Consider the shock  of the actual secular parents we pass on the street.

Here are three facts: I’m a very spiritual person. My son loves the color black. And he cherishes the kippah my brother-in-law gave him.

The innocent on Memorial Day.

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I told Koala he could come with me to the Yom HaZicaron ceremony if he likes. I told him it’s a time where we remember all the soldiers and all the good things they do for us.

“And if you want, during the siren, you can think about your uncle who is a chayal, or zayde who was a long time ago.”

“I want to think about them and all the chayalim.”

After the siren, I asked him if he had thought about the chayalim. He told me he  forgot, he was “thinking about other things.”

That’s ok. He’s four.

Here’s to innocence.

Yom HaZicaron in Tzur Hadassah

Bebe update: Two years

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Bebe,

A couple nights ago you couldn’t sleep. You came to bed with me, and we spooned for a bit. After years and years of considering I may just be more of a fork, I realized a truth: You, me, right now, in this moment, are the perfect spoon.

Two years ago, as the sun was setting and Shabbat was beginning, I looked at you on my chest and had no clue how I could possibly love another little human as much as I loved your brother. Thinking to the rhythm of your tiny, newborn breaths, I worried about it. For a few days. For a few weeks. Back then, I had no idea how much I didn’t actually know.

One of the biggest lessons you’ve taught me so far is just how much I don’t know much about anything.

And, on that point, I wonder if you could ever know how amazing you are; I could certainly write pages trying to tell you. I get the feeling that will be the case, forever.

Meanwhile, how about this: I’m looking forward to so much.

To doing what you love with you.

SHOES!

To pretending with you.

To laughing with you.

To loving life with you.

To dreaming with you.

To figuring it all out with you.

Two years later, I know a lot more but I still don’t know so much.

Keep teaching me, Bebe.