Sit back and relax, its a long one....

Starting with Friday, December 21st...Given that was the day that I started vacation, this one is going to be a long one, so get comfy...

Maayan was again the Shabbat Ima at her school's weekly Shabbat Party. This time, I (Ari) was able to go, since I'd just finished finals the day before. Her regular teacher Mor was there for this one, so Maayan knew most of the songs and sang along for many of them. Bare with me, as the videos I took are longer than usual, but they're really cute (at least we think so!). For the most part, the pictures and videos speak for themselves.






Look at her eyes right before she pulls the old 'Peek-a-boo' trick


In the middle she tells "Thais-ie" (her teacher) that 'Abba is here' since Maayan didn't realize that Thais had seen me already

Funny little story. One day Lanie was taking Maayan to school and while in the car, Lanie said to Maayan, "Mommy loves you", and without missing a beat, Maayan responded, "I love Abba." (Not to worry, since then Maayan's Abba crush has worn off).

That brings us to very long weekend #1. Friday night we had a very nice dinner out, but before we knew it, it was 10 o'clock. By the time we got home and got Maayan to sleep it was 10:30, 3 hours past her normal bedtime! She also woke up in the middle of the night. Consequently, on Shabbat, Maayan was a total lump. She kept taking 10-20 minute naps on Lanie and I, but wouldn't go to sleep for a real nap. We decided that a walk over to her friend Dani's house might make her happy, so we started getting Maayan dressed to go out. She was sitting on my bed, and I put her pants on. Before I could put her shirt on, she promptly keeled over and went to sleep on my bed. She was somewhat close to the edge, so we put a stuffed animal next to her to keep her from rolling off, and comforter on the floor next to the bed in case she did. Lanie laid down on the other side of her to take a quick nap. A little while later, Lanie heard Maayan moving, then looked over at her and didn't see her. All she heard was, "uh-oh Mommy". Lanie went over to see what happened and Maayan was sitting on the quilt on the floor. Maayan said, "Mommy, I fell on my tushie." Thankfully she was fine, so we finished getting her dressed and headed to Dani's house where she proceeded to be a lump.

Maayan has been potty training for a while, and is really close to getting "underwears". She has a 'potty book' which among other things says that you should sing the alphabet when you wash your hands (to make sure kids wash for long enough). So, when we read this book, Maayan sings the ABCDEFGs (as she calls them). Video below.

On Sunday, Lanie and I had a wedding to go to, so Suzanne came over for a fun afternoon with Maayan. Given what happened over shabbat we were a little nervous, but they really like each other, so it worked out great. The wedding was really nice, but on the way home our car had a flat tire. We called Geico but b/c the Grand Central Parkway is a 'restricted road' they couldn't help us. We had to drive off of the Parkway to local streets and call them back. So we pulled into a really sketchy part of Corona to a block which ironically was mostly car repair shops, and waited for them to come. The guy was very nice and changed our tire to the donut, and we headed home. Monday, we went to Costco to get a new tire, but on the way out of the parking lot, our car sounded like the wheel was going to fall off. We brought it back and they took a look and said it wasn't the tire, but the suspension that was now a problem. We brought it to a mechanic later that day, who took a ride in the car with me, decided it was definitely the suspension, but there was no way he could look at it until after xmas, and it was safe for us, albeit a little bumpy, to drive it until then. Ari and Leah Feldman invited us for dinner, so we went down to the West Side, and Maayan had fun playing with Talia and Ilan.



On Tuesday, Lanie wasn't feeling well, so Maayan and I hung out, nothing too special. Though we decided that 4 days home together without a defined plan was WAY too much.

On Wednesday, I brought our car back to the mechanic, and went to the West Side to steal my parents car. Their vacation couldn't have come at a better time, thanks!

That Shabbat we were invited out for both meals which is always nice :-) On our way to lunch, we ran into Maayan's teacher Mor on the street also walking home from Shul. She lives on our block, but goes to the other shul. I think our hosts thought it was weird that some random woman on the street was kissing Maayan.

Sunday we decided to make a trip to the 5 towns to visit all of our relocated friends. We started out at Dov and Arielle Feldman's, went from there to Jon and Jenny Katz's around the corner, and finished off at Miriam and Gabe Taubenfeld's. Good time was had by all, and the really cheap kosher meat and chicken that we picked up on the way home was an added bonus!

On Monday the 31st, we learned from our mistake from the previous week and sent Maayan to school for the optional day. Lanie and I took the opportunity to do some serious shopping at the Jersey Gardens outlet mall. We all did pretty well.

Random exchange with Maayan (who remembers when anymore)
Ari: Maayan, why do you ask so many questions?
Maayan: B/c I have so many questions!

On New Year's Day my parents came over to see Maayan since they'd just gotten back from vacation and hadn't seen us (read:her) in a little while. They also brought us gifts, thanks parents! Apparently Cows grow on trees in Argentina...who knew?

After they left, we thought it would be nice to visit our friends Mark and Alyssa Tenenbaum who live in Queens and have a 3 month old baby daughter named Hila who we hadn't met yet.

When we were in Israel this past summer, we really liked a siddur that Jordy had that has a little Israeli boy singing all the tefillot, so we bought Maayan one. We didn't think she was ready for it yet, so its been sitting in my closet waiting. Last week we gave it to Maayan, and she loves it! One day Lanie put on a new shirt, and told Maayan that she was going to make a bracha (Shechiyanu), so Maayan quickly responded that she had to go get her siddur.

On Thursday night, Lanie and I went to my cousin Maury Kelman's wedding. Certainly different than most we'd been to, as her mother's family is Persian. It was a very nice wedding, and it was fun seeing and in Lanie's case, meeting, a lot of my very large family.

On Shabbat we had a quiet dinner at home, and had company for lunch. Afterwards I took Maayan for a walk, and actually got her to nap!! We all went to sleep and didn't wake up until a half hour after shabbat ended. At one point, Maayan was making noise, and asking for us, but by the time Lanie went to check on her, she had fallen back asleep already.

Late Saturday night, my cell phone rang right before we were about to go to sleep. I wondered who would be calling at 1:30 in the morning, and then remembered that I was on backup duty to babysit Noam and Shai if Idana went into Labor overnight. Apparently, I wasn't needed, Idana's sister Rina was at their house for shabbat, so Michael was calling to tell us that we had a new niece (to be named later)! Woo hoo! Mazal Tov Michael, Idana, Noam and Shai.
On Sunday we went to the hospital to visit Idana, Michael and baby girl Goldberg-Kellman. She's little and cute and to my recollection looks like the other kids did. We'll be spending this shabbat in White Plains for the various festivities, should be a good time.

That brings us to this week (phew!). Congrats if you're still reading! Some other random Maayan accomplishments:
She apparently knows that Yadaim are hands in hebrew She can count backwards from 5 She does Yoga and ballet in school, and its really cute!

Ok, I'm spent, and this post has taken me bits of pieces of several days if not weeks to compile, so I think its time to post. Many Pictures and Videos to follow shortly (I promise).