The zoo

Today was a really fun day.

For ages (like, really months) I've been trying to find time to eat falafel with Projgen, who's been commenting on my blog since Barak was a baby and who I finally got to meet when we moved here. Today we actually managed it, although we didn't eat falafel in the end (9 days, so Burger's Bar had fish and chips! Who can resist? Not me.) I went with just Barak and Avtalyon, and we also went up to the big ball pit thingy at Burger Ranch (awful food, great ball pit) and bought the cheapest things on the menu just so that they could play. Totally worthwhile: they both had a blast.

After "real" food and the Great Tootsie Roll handover (onetiredema sent me Tootsie Rolls back from the States! And some other stuff, but nothing as important as Tootsie Rolls!) we went down to the bookstore and met up with Mr. Bigfoot and Marika and Iyyar, said goodbye to Projgen, and hopped on the 33 for the six-minute ride from the mall to the zoo.

And the zoo was a blast. The kids were fantastic. I mean, they're kids. They weren't perfect. The boys all wanted to climb on things they weren't allowed to climb on, and Avtalyon got a little too overconfident in wandering off all by himself and had to be reined in, a lot. But mostly? It was just great. They were great. Seeing all three of them from the back, in height order, staring at the penguins, made my heart melt. And Marika was a total smiley delight, despite being trapped in the stroller for hoooooouuurs.

I just love them all so much. There's a reason why I do all of this, you know--the exhaustion, the crazy, the moving to Israel. It's because I really really love my kids. I want them to be good people, to have good lives, to be happy, to love and be loved. I loved seeing Iyyar and Marika's faces when they found us in the bookshop. I love Marika's "yeah!" when I ask her if she wants to nurse. I love how Barak always always wants to sit next to me, wherever we are and whatever we're doing. I love how Iyyar and Avtalyon can now clean up their room really well, all by themselves, and I love even more going in there to ooh and ahh and tell them what a great job they did. I love Iyyar jumping around joyously with a bloody mouth and a newly fallen-out tooth, even though it seems like that tooth only came in last week sometime.

I love walking through the zoo as a family of six.

Progjen mentioned to me that I don't blog about the kids as much as I used to. She's right and it's not good. I need to bring the focus back on them--on the cute stuff, the stuff I want to remember, the stuff that's important.

Hey, this is important. Know what's important? Garbage! Garbage is important. Because each of my kids has had a different and distinct word for "garbage," and for all of them, it was one of their first words. Barak said "gahbitch!" which, when you write it out like that, sounds almost like the word you and I might say, but... believe me, it wasn't.

Iyyar said, "jarba!"

Avtalyon said, "barkip!" or, referring to the receptacle, "barkistan!"

Marika says, "barjinih!"

She also, on a similar note, refers to poop as "bee!" This started out, "Marika, are you poopy?" She'd grab her diaper and agree, "bee!" However, she got wise pretty quickly to the idea that having a bee meant getting out of her crib/highchair/whatever. So now, you'll go in there to get her after a nap and she'll leap up, grab her diaper, and tell you, soulfully and imploringly, "bee!" She is, usually, lying through all five of her teeth.

She also looks like a sheepdog if you don't put her hair in a pigtail. She knows this and is very happy when I tell her I'm going to get her a kuku.

She loves shoes. If I tell her I'm going to get her shoes, she is RIGHT there. And then next to the door, caroling, "dowdide! dowdide!"

She loves water. Drinking it, playing in it, bathing in it. "Wawa!" is heard about fifty times a day. Usually when you give it to her in a cup, she drinks half a sip, then dumps it out on her high chair tray and smacks her hands in it. Gleefully.

She only eats the top off her pizza. Today I gave her half a piece with olives. She ate all the olives and all the cheese and dropped the rest on the floor.

She loves plain yogurt and will eat a whole container of 4.5% herself, with a spoon. And her fist, of course.

She loves loves loves Barak. Sometimes the two of them get on our bed and Barak tickles her until she's shrieking. Then he stops so she can get some air. They she hollers, "MO!"

Avtalyon is all about food lately, even though he's getting skinnier and skinnier, just like his brothers. Standard refraim, "K'I eat someping? What c'I eat?" He loves vegetables, especially cucumbers, which he calls hinkumbers. Now we all do, because it's just such a great word.

Iyyar likes Hungarian noodles better than anything else in the whole world. It's incredible how many he can eat. If I am making them for the whole family, I use four cups of flour, and five eggs, and they all get eaten.

Iyyar has also been getting dressed lately, all by himself, unprompted. And getting stars on his star chart, for another Wallace & Grommit movie. I hope I can find one. We have The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and I actually haven't seen any of the others here.

Barak is in the middle of having Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH read to him. We're up to where Mrs. Frisby meets Brutus. He loves it.

Iyyar is just beginning to put letters together.

All of the boys are playing musical beds. They all want to sleep in our bed, and they never seem to want to sleep in their own. Sometimes Mr. Bigfoot has to relocate all three of them at 1 am for us to go to bed.

They all love French fries. Only Iyyar likes ketchup.

Iyyar likes onion rings better than French fries. He discovered this the other day, when he had French fries and I had onion rings.

I need to go to bed now. But I thought you should know.