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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

All Time Has Ceased To Exist

Trying to find time to blog these days is like trying to go rock climbing with no hands, no legs, and NO TIME.

(I don't really need legs to blog, but they do come in handy when the need to walk all over the house to FIND your laptop arises.)

Today, I will just share some random updates and "Thrilling" events.

The passports that I had expedited, showed up a week after I applied for them. This is a good thing, because we now officially have tickets...



....TO ISRAEL!!!

Quite honestly, as happy as we are to be going, it was not in our original plans for summer 2009. The last time we were there was 2007. We have also been fortunate to have been in Israel many times prior and we do not take that for granted. Hun has one brother, 4 nieces and nephews, and most of his family on his Father's side living in Israel (Hun, himself was born in Israel). I have four siblings, 30 nieces and nephews and many other relatives in Israel, myself.

We recently missed two weddings, of one nephew and one niece, and in general, do not make it to all family celebrations. However, we will now attend another Bar Mitzvah (a religious celebration of a 13 year old boy marking the age at which he is responsible for his religious actions and plays a more essential role within his community of men).

At the same time, my parent's will celebrate Wedding Anniversary 52 and my father, with G-d's help will celebrate 80 years of good life and great health.

It is not often that all 7 of us, with spouses and children can celebrate together, but it seems this summer was a great time to make that rare event into a reality.

I will update periodically on the preparations for this upcoming trip, but before then, I still hope to share a blog about the birth of Bam ('cuz I know Y'ALL love birth stories {mostly you Julie}).

But, even though we all tend to focus on the new addition to the family, I do still have three other kids that I planned to blog about.

So did very well in school this year. She missed the last three days of school due to some "fine swine", but received a perfect report card and wonderful commentary from her teachers. She especially received amazing remarks from her enrichment teacher. Her reading skills had been ahead all year, but her comprehension (which was 60th percentile for third grade level in January) jumped to 98th-99th percentile for third grade level in just 4 months time.

This should make me proud, but I am actually concerned for her potential boredom in second grade. I don't want to skip her (I like the kids in her class and I do not think she is emotionally ahead, although she is ahead in terms of maturity). At the end of first grade, she received a packet of math and reading work to do over the summer. She finished this work in two days. In any case, she has done well, and how school works out next year is yet to be determined.

In terms of her "Tamiflu Event" as soon as I took her off, she had no further episodes. (Carry - the nurse I spoke to did not seem overly concerned. These events are probably so rare, or typically not so many people are even taking Tamiflu, that I am not sure she was ever familiar with these odd occurrences. Because, the risk of spreading flu no longer outweighed the benefit of Tamiflu, we agreed that I should just remove everyone from the treatment.) Thankfully, no one else has shown signs of the flu and I hope desperately that it remains that way.

Ro has gone through such transformation this year. She has become much more talkative and assertive and comfortable with her environment, than ever before. She has matured emotionally, and she can not wait to go to So's school next year for Kindergarten.

Ate recently turned three and adamantly refuses to toilet train. We made him a family birthday party this past Sunday, but that will be it's own post some other day. He can not wait to go to camp, but in the meantime, he wakes up every morning and asks,

"Where are the grills?"
(That is not a typo, I love how he refers to So and Ro as a multitude of cooking devices. Of course, he just means girls.)

He loves his baby brother, Bam. He is very gentle with him and always asks permission to give him kisses. I am sure this will change once Bam gets more mobile and infringes on his territory, but for now, he loves his "budder"....and the "grills".

And of course I realize I have to change my header and my "about me" to account for the little one, but remember.... time... rock climbing... legs...

Oh camp, how I wish you had already begun. But, I must wait until Monday.... if I have survived until then.

In the meantime, I have been sucked into the "black hole" that exists between school and camp, where all time ceases to exist.








5 have shown Orah a little love:

wife.mom.nurse said...

it was good to hear a voice from the abyss :)


Glad the flu scare has seemingly passed.

Yes, I am looking forward to your birth story... had a cramp, sneezed and delivered? right? ok, i want details :)

What a wonderful thing to be together with so many family members in Israel. I am excited for your. It will be so interesting to hear all about it.

Glad the big budder loves his baby and the grills. Adorable. My little boy dug his heels in about potty training...boys!

Take care of yourself my stretched oh so thin, friend. I love hearing your latest

Heidi @ Tayterjaq's Rebels said...

I too want to hear the birth story. Those are always so interesting. When are you heading to Israel? What we all do without your terrific posts to keep us going?
How long are the kids in camp? You are lucky to have camps there for kids as young as Ate. Most of the camps in our area the kids have to be at least getting ready to start Kindergarten.
We vacation too much during the summer to try to deal with camps. 2 weeks in Wisconsin...2 Weeks in California...7-10 days in Massachusetts. All of this is to visit family of course. We are spread out all over the place.
I am having enough trouble trying to work in swim lessons for Rebecca. There are barely 2 weeks in a row that we are home that coincide with lessons.

Glad to hear everyone is well and So has no lasting ickiness from the Tamiflu. Good luck with the whole "potty" thing. My two oldest were horrid and they took months to finally be finished with the whole thing. I found the running around bottomless in the summer worked well for the younger two. They took a week each. It was a miracle.

Rayli said...

I also hardly ever have time to blog...it's so hard to do it with the kids around 24/7!

Anonymous said...

It's amazing that your whole family will be together in Israel, there are so freakin many of you!
I am waiting for a simcha in my family so I can C my sibs. Hopefully one of my cousins will get married. I have 6 of them all between the ages of 23 to 19, so seeing my whole family seems quite imminent!
SO reads 3rd grade level?? That's awesome, I wonder who she gets that from? Maybe the same parent that she inherits her wonderful teeth from.
"Grills" & "Budder" are precious. Love when kids try and pronounce stuff and thats what comes out.
C'mon JCC, lets go!!!!

- Miss. S.

adinab said...

i am counting down the seconds to camp.....and it is taking forever!!!!! i'm waiting for monday like kids wait for christmas!!! what group is so in?
anyway, we attempted to begin potty training benny last week. he is SOOO not interested. he actually pleaded to not sit on the toilet. who can argue with that? so we wait.....