Snowman

Last Saturday we got our first snow of the season. The snow didn't really stick to the streets but it did stick to the cars. So Melissa, Tani, and I went out behind our building and built a snowman on the wall by the parking garage from the snow on parked cars. Initially we had made snow balls and gave them to Tani. He threw a couple but mainly wanted to put them on the ground and stomp on them. Then I gathered enough snow to make the base of a small snowman and then put a head on. Unfortunately, there were no twigs or other foliage to use for arms, eyes or nose. Melissa picked a couple of leaves off a bush and used them for a nose and mouth and put her knit cap on the snowman's head. Then it got too cold for Melissa and I although Tani wanted to stay outside - so we went in. When Melissa and I went out for the evening, we noticed the hat was missing. The next morning as we were all heading out we saw the snowman's "head" on the ground. We shrugged it off. When we returned that afternoon though the head was back on the snowman (although still no hat). Melissa remarked on the interesting "conversation" going on amongst members of the building. Then she had an excellent idea. A dinner guest had given us the pieces to a "Mr. Potatohead" including eyes, arms, hat and shoes but no potato body (I guess that had been lost). I had wondered what we could do with these pieces, but our snowman became the perfect "potato". Here is our snowman last Monday, who had melted a bit since Saturday but I think made it until Tuesday.

Treehouse, Art Museum, and Pizza

We had quite a fun day. Sarit, mom of Lillian in Tani's Gesher class organized a morning outing at The Little Treehouse in Chestnut Hill. It has an area where kids can play while parents drink coffee and visit. This was a chance for me to see how Tani interacts with his classmates. There was a train area that drew Tani's attention immediately. He could have played there for hours but of course some of his classmates wanted to play with the trains too and the anti-sharing instincts of young preschoolers kicked in: grabbing, shouting "mine", crying --- anything to get a few more coveted trains even if Tani had 4-6 trains already. Melissa was good at encouraging him to share and helped diffuse a couple of incidents. We want Tani to be able to learn to share without adult intervention - to ask for what he wants of his peers but also to share and be generous. I think there was at least 20 minutes where Tani and two of his classmates played together in harmony. Afterwards we went to the Little Shop at Germantown Jewish Centre to look for a menorah and dreidel for Tani. Tani has been reading "My First Hanukkah Board Book" and wanted the blue menorah and dreidel with a face and hat that he had seen in the pages. While we were looking Tani found a wooden toy school bus with magnetic passengers, i.e. they didn't slide around on the bus. That way Tani could move the passengers on & off the bus and they don't slide around the bus when it was moving. He played and played and did not want to part with it. So we asked him if that was what he wanted for Hanukkah and he said "yes". We left GJC and made a quick stop at the co-op for bagels. Then Melissa decided it would be good to head downtown to Chinatown to pick up Tani's backpack full of trains that we accidently left at a Chinese restaurant when we stopped for dinner last Monday on the way home from DC. After retrieving them we headed for the art museum - Melissa had heard about a "Tours for Toddlers" program where kids would get a tour of the Art Museum. We parked and were walking to the museum, but Tani was having too much fun running around the fountains, up the museum steps, around the stone pylons on the landings. Once we got in the museum, no one had heard of the "Tours for Toddlers" and Tani didn't seem in the mood for looking at art but rather for playing with his school bus which he insisted on taking to the museum. So we went back down the stairs with lots of running on the landings on the way down and then running on the sidewalks and around the fountains. We had hoped he'd take a nap on the way home but he didn't. Once home, Melissa was able to convince him to take a shower - we have a hard time getting him to take his once-a-week bath/shower. His curls are gorgeous after he washes his hair.

Then after looking at some short home movies of Tani as a baby it was time to head out to dinner with Manel & Jordi and Debrah & Levana. We went to a pizza restaurant in Mt. Airy. Tani almost fell asleep on the drive over - we encouraged Tani not to fall asleep and he shouted "I'm not sleeping". We laughed and he got mad at us. It was very funny since he was dropping off to sleep as he shouted he wasn't sleeping but we understand that it's still not nice to laugh. At the restaurant Tani ate whole wheat cheese pizza - I was surprised he liked it so much. It was nice to catch up with Jordi and Manel after Manel's senior recital the night before. Jordi made sure that Tani didn't escape out of the restaurant after he was finished eating - he'd pick him up and tickle him. Finally I told Tani he could go out, but then he just wanted to come right back inside. The temperature has been around freezing since yesterday's snowstorm, while on Friday it was ~60 deg. After we got home Melissa did the bedtime rituals - PJs, brush teeth, a book or two, talk about his day, and then lights out. He asked Melissa to sing him a long Hebrew song and he was out before the song was over. A very nice Sunday.

A day with Tani

This is Melissa writing. I generally have Tani home with me on Mondays and Wednesdays. He's at preschool the other 3 days. It's nice to have a leisurely morning with him and to go on various adventures. Today, even though it was cool (was below freezing overnight) and overcast, we decided to venture out to the Morris Arboretum, where we have a membership and to go see the garden railway. Tani loves the trains. He also really enjoys their exhibit called "Out on a limb" where you can pretend you're a squirrel climbing high in the trees. Tani likes to call himself "baby squirrel" and thus, I'm mommy squirrel. He has a few phobias (vacuums, air blowers in bathrooms), but he doesn't appear to be afraid of heights. The climbing area is a grid of knotted ropes from which you can look down to the ground below, which is some 30 feet (if I'm estimating correctly).

Tani fell asleep in the car after a stop at the supermarket, where he walked around amusing himself by playing a game on my iPhone (instead of insisting on buying various treats). We are considering buying a house, so I parked near that house to get a feel for the street and drove around a bit while Tani was sleeping. [Note from Neysa, Melissa hadn't finished this yet but I'm posting it now anyway]