Climber vs clapper

It seems that I won't be able to write as frequently as I wished. As a matter of fact, it seems that I can hardly write at all. ( But my time management issue deserves a separate entry and since that is the issue in and of itself, there probably won't be that entry. But I digress...)
My little Eh achieved lots of milestones on the earlier side of the continuum. She was very quick to roll, sit, stand, crawl, creep, cruise, walk, talk, finger feed- you name it. But one thing that I, as on OT would've loved for her to do at least on time, she did a bit late. Eh was a late clapper. She started clapping when she was close to a year... All within the norm, one might say. But somehow, her late clappiness registered in my memory.
Well, right around the time she officially turned 2 (plus a couple of weeks or so?), Eh's become an all-surface-climber! ( there should be an entry for that as well, but I'm not sure if and when it'll come)
Now she climbs on chairs, into the strollers, into toy boxes, on top of all sorts of boxes, etc. Thankfully, for once, I didn't teach her by bad example so she's yet discover that she can also climb on tables, couter tops, and the piano.
Now for the other bit of exciting news. Approximately at the same time as Eh's achieved the almost-all-surface-climber status, little SiM's became a clapper!!!!!!!! And what can possibly be cuter than him applauding Eh's climbing?
In short, I'm madly in love with my little achievers!

The first tooth!

After months of drooling, baby SiM finally delivered his first tooth on Wednesday, January 9 (2 Shvat). It's his buttom left tooth which just just peaked out from the gum and I'm very very proud of it!
On Thursday, the nanny sent me a text " baby has a tooth coming up". I texted "Thanks!" back to her and thanked Gd for letting me be the first one to see the tooth because one of the hardest things in working practically-full-time is having someone else be the first one to see your babies make their tiny steps into peoplehood.

Movies

One of my favorite books of all times is Bridget Jones (both books, most probably). So when they came out with a movie "Bridget Jones, the edge of reason" I felt compelled to watch it. Never mind that I don't like Rene whatever-her-last-name-is who played Bridget. I knew the movie sricpt would butcher the book but I thought it was still worth a shot for a long saturday night entertainment.
Well the movie was as mediocre as promised and boring enough for my hubby to actually fall asleep in the middle. He didn't complain about the movie. But even though he had a nice nap on Shabbat( this was obviously before the joys-of-our-lives), he gently snoozed sometime in the middle of the movie.
Since that time, we try to go to more stimulating movies- if not action, then at least a comedy that promises to be funny.
Last night, thanks to my sis-the babysitter on call, we went to watch a movie. Lately, we go to the most local movie theater. The selection there isn't that great but it relatevely inexpensive and, what's even more important, it's close to home and there is no line to get tickets.
The choices included Alvin and the Chipmunks, First Sunday, and The Bucket List. The Bucket List seemed like the best choice and I billed it as "comedy" to hubs.
Though this movie did have some funny lines, comedy it definitely was not. It was one of those slower feel good movies that one can watch once a year, just because.
To make the long story short, The Bucket List has joined Bridget Jones the Edge of Reason on hubby's list of movies to fall asleep with...Maybe the only difference is, he called this one a ' nonsense' or something like this before he took his much needed nap.

Baby, you can drive my car

A couple of years ago, when my sister and I used to drive to work together we sometimes stopped @ the kosher bagel hole on Coney to pick up a quick breakfast. That's a busy intersection, so typically my sis would get out and buy the bagels while I'll wait for her, double parked in front of or near the store.
One time, as I sat and waited for my sister to come back with the breakfast, I was on the lookout for the cops. However, I got a much more pleasant surprise then the law inforcement peeps. I saw my sister swiftly caming around another double parked car that stood behind me, opening its back door, attempting to sit in the back seat, then emerging ( vigorously shaking her head), looking up, and coming to my car...
At the time, I was driving a shiny black camry (my current car is also black but alas I do not recall the last time I went to the car wash to make it shine) and the car that was double parked behind me was an older model not so shiny accord.
Naturally I found the whole incident immensely amusing and after my sister and I finally stopped laughing I asked her how in the world , even if in a hurry, can she confuse a new clean camry for an older not-as-clean accord!? She said that the car was black, sedan, double parked in front of the store...
Last night, due to the graciousness of my sister who offered to babysit, hubby and I went to the movies. Nowadays, we go to the local theater which usually shows 3 pictures only. We see whichever one is the closest to the genre we like.
We watched The Bucket List ( which deserves its own entry). After the movies, hubs went home and I stood semi-double parked in the driveway waiting to drive my sister home.
I kept the engine running and was in the middle of deciding which picture in my phone should be elevated to wallpaper. Then my front passenger door opened and I heard a woman's voice talking. This voice was not my sisters and it belong to some strange young (comparitively speaking) lady who proceded to sit down in the front passenger seat while still talking.
I quickly realized what the issue was and politely uttered "wrong car". She continued talking ( possibly on a blue tooth?) and closed the door. In her defense, she was wearing a hood over her head and maybe that's why she didn't see the whole picture. Then, she tried to put on the seatbelt, her hood fell off and she simultaneously looked in my direction. I thought it was a good oportunity to say again "wrong car". She looked startled, then embarrassed, mumbled 'sorry' and got out of the car. I mumbled ' no problem' back at her and desperated tried not to laugh while she got into a white jeep double parked on her side of the street.
As the jeep sped off, I noticed it driver violently shaking with laughter. I giggled a bit, too. But when I retold this story to my sister, I was laughing so hard it took me almost 5 minutes to tell it. At the end of the story I apologized to my sister for laughing so hard at her the time when she mixed up the cars- at least in her case they were both black sedans...

Sherry Dimarsky

Today during lunch I decided to check my email. I do it quite infrequently, since my computer activities are supposed to be monitored.
One of personal emails that I got was regarding Sherry. The email said she was very ill, her body was rejecting her transplanted lungs. Suddenly, I felt a knot in my stomach.
A while ago, Sherry wrote that she wasn't feeling so well. But, it was written in her upbeat tone. I haven't gotten any emails from her for some time but I didn't even think there may be something wrong. She's probably busy, I thought.
And then this email today saying she's gravely ill... I said a personal prayer for her, some tehilim. I forwarded her name to my friends and thought she'd bounce back again.
Then tonight, when I called a friend ( which is a rarity for me, because I don't really call anyone), she asked me if I called to relay the sad news. And all of a sudden I realized Sherry is no longer with us. I quickly finished the conversation with my friend. Then I sat for a what felt like forever, trying to process what I've heard.
I've never met Sherry in person. We were phone, email, recipe zaar buddies. Yet, she was a dear friend in good times and in times of need.
Last week, in an attempt to clean up my mailbox, I've deleted among many other things, some of her emails. Now, it feels like an inlult to an injury.
I don't know what to say. I don't have words. Just grief.

Following is a copy of an email written by Sherry's friend:
Baruch Dayan Haemes
I still have her email expressing gratitude on getting a second chance with a lung transplant...
It is with the greatest pain and sorrow that I am writing of the untimely passing of our dear friend Sherry Dimarsky, Sarah Chanah bas Naftoli. With her bright light gone, this world will be a darker and a colder place. No words can describe our loss. The funeral arrangements are not yet made, but it will take place some time tomorrow. May G-d comfort her husband, boys, parents and brother among all of the mourners of Israel. Alla

Vocabulary, revisited

Eh is getting better and better at talking! She can state her demands quite eloguently. She knows to take her ' sosi' out of her mouth if someone pretends not to understand her and not humor her request. She can make some basic requests in more than one language to increase the probability of favorable response.
She knows a few tricks, too. Last week, in the morning, I heard her calling from her room: 'Mama, Ima..." I figured she really wants to see me. But, upon my arrival to her room, I heard a demanding "Abba!" . I guess she called me just to get her out of bed to see Abba...
Her cute expressions include
- "gooduk' which is typically referred to a food. It took me tow months to figure out that it means no good. And though now she can say 'no good', I'm so much in love with gooduk that I use it myself, just to hear Eh say it again;
- "padada feek' which last month became 'padada feet' = pajamas with feet;
- formerly 'hok' now "hot mik" which she likes to drink when she wakes up and before she goes to sleep. A few times I attempted to give her warm milk (aka hot milk which was out for 10-15 minutes and cooled off). Eh won't have it. She used to say ' put hot water" to instruct what had to be done to make milk hot again. Her newest request is " mama, please! put hot water here, make hot milk!" And though putting hot water into a perfectly warm milk is not my idea of fun, I cannot possibly refuse such a beautifully worded request;
-"abba song"- typically something in hebrew, i.e. shalom aleichem. Just a tune to a jewish melody is also acceptable;
-'baby song'- something classical;
-'mama song' - I don't really know what that is but I have a repertoir of two children's songs in Russian, and I just sing them when mama song is requested;
-"thank you much"- I think this one is self explanatory;
-"please" is used when whining doesn't seem to work and gets Eh just about anything from me. Please doesn't work so well with Abba though in which case Eh attempts to use Hebrew. That works wonders with Abba...
TBC

I found it!

Here's a bit of anticlimatic news- On
(this is the part where my baby started crying @ his usual volume in the middle of the night. So, this entry was quickly saved as a 'draft'...)
Anywho, on Jan 1st-Eh'a birthday, I went to get some things out of my trunk. Eh needed a new pair of shoes so I thought I may as well disquise them as a gift. While taking out the new shoes, I decided to take two other bags with mystery objects out of the trunk as well.
One bag contained my ( this is where I had to pause again, and subwife guessed the contents of one of the mystery bags).
Anywho, one bag contained my lost and much missed black wool layering cardigan and the other bag contained two new bibs, a whole bunch of receipts, and the missing gymboree coupon...
I with ( just a little) that I can sell it together with my story on ebay ( ala 'because I said so') but alas I don't think it'll sell...

Insomnia

I think this is the first night my little bedfellow has slept for 4+ hours straight ( if you don't count a little squeek he made when he turned over). Naturally, it's also the night when my 2 year old darling Eh misplaced her pacifier approximately at the same time the squeek happened. Both situations were resuloved pretty quickly however I've been awake for the past 2 hours (probably to celebrate the ease with which the above mentioned situations were resolved).

It's official

Eh is 2.
She knows how to sing happy birthday, knows that on birthday there is a birthday cake. She can show 2 on her fingers ( though she frequently refuses to do it on demand). But, she still doesn't consistently behave well in a restaurant.:)
Eh, I love you!