Tani's reading!

Melissa and Tani are in the Berkshires this week visiting our friends Tamara and Toby. Right now Tani is reading a story to me via Facetime - Wacky Wednesday by Dr. Seuss. He's showing me the wacky house - stairs go to the side of the house (no door) and a tree growing out of the chimney on one picture, out of a toilet on another. Earlier he read about a mouse chasing a cat. Now's he's just describing the pictures. But he did read a couple of pages to me.

To the left is a picture of Toby and Tani heading to the lake. Melissa and Tani have been away since Aug 5. The first week they were at the Havurah Institute. I'm looking forward to seeing my family again this Sunday.

A Fish Called Tani

Our family has joined the Flourtown Swim Club for the summer. They have a large pool that for 20 min an hour is for adult swim only, a mid-sized "camp pool", and a kiddie pool. We've gone a few times already and have run into many of our friends. There are lots of kids and Tani loves it. He has been taking swimming lessons now for a week at Camp Ramah Day Camp in Elkins Park. His pool skills have improved dramatically. He can now swim about half a pool length. He's looking forward to being able to swim two pool lengths and tread water so he can get his band - a wristband that signals he can go in the deep end including on the water slide. He also enjoys doing flips in the water just like his Mommy Malkah. Watch for yourself!

Snow Cones!

This evening we went to a social event for our Wissahickon Village Cohousing group. There was a potluck followed by games and socializing and then a film. After dinner there was a special treat. Don had brought over supplies for making snow cones! Tani was intrigued and excited not only to have a snow cone, but also to see how the process worked. Don showed Tani how to grind the ice into fine shavings and then gave him the choice of natural homemade syrups: vanilla/brown sugar, mint, mango, and lavendar. Tani chose vanilla/brown sugar. He really enjoyed his snow cone. He then had some additional shaved ice without syrup to top it off. A very fun evening with the cohousing group!

Tani makes challah at GJC

Wrote a Tani post on my personal blog the other day - he's helping us talk about cohousing in Philadelphia. He also helped make challah this evening at GJC with Rabbi Freddie and student Rabbis Alanna and Michelle. They cook every week for community members sitting shiva, in the hospital, or just needing some good Jewish cooking. In this picture Michelle braids the challahs and Tani paints them with egg. His friends Hannah and Ezra were also helping.

Talking to God

As I was tucking Tani into bed tonight, I asked him to try to not come into our bed in the middle of the night. Most nights he tries (and often succeeds) in coming into our bed - he says he's lonely in his room. Tonight I suggested that if he was lonely he could talk to God. But God doesn't answer back he said - I don't hear God answer me. I said to him that we don't listen to God with our ears but with our heart and with our soul. Then Tani said Moses could hear God. To this I responded that we don't know if Moses listened to God with his ears or with his soul - when people talk to us we listen with our ears but not necessarily so with God. I told him I think we hear God with our soul - that we can feel God. Tani seemed to like this answer. We'll see if he shows up in our room tonight...

Family Movie Night

Last Sunday evening at my parents house we watched "My Neighbor Totoro". Melissa, Tani and I occasionally do "Family Movie Night" at home and Tani looks forward to this. On Monday night after we had returned from Atlanta he was asking who was in our family - it turns out so he could decide who to invite to "Family Movie Night". He has a good memory. He recalled the events leading up to the movie on Sunday: "We started movie night late on Sunday because there was company from 4-6 pm and then Grandpa Arthur was late (he hadn't realized we were waiting for him to start the movie). To the left is a picture of Tani at the Dekalb-Peachtree Airport playground.

Bye Everybody

I picked Tani up from school today at 3:45 pm to take him to his yoga class. His classmates were sitting on the steps waiting for their parents who would be arriving shortly for the 4 pm pick-up time. As we walked down the steps, Tani shouted "Bye everybody". No one responded to him and the children kept doing whatever they were doing. So Tani said again "bye everybody". Still no response. Finally he said, "This is your last chance. Bye everybody!". All his classmates in unison said "Bye!". The teachers took note of the phrase "this is your last chance" for future reference.

Willy Wonka week

The theme of this vacation has definitely been "Willy Wonka". While visiting Aunt Shari in NYC, Tani wanted to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp) on Shari's big screen TV. We tried to get him to choose "Alice in Wonderland" but he definitely wanted Charlie. So he watched it - three times! Then Melissa gave him some gold paper from her oragami set to make golden tickets to put in pretend candy bars. Then Shari or I would unwrap the "candy bar" to find a golden ticket and get to take a tour of Willy Wonka's factory (Shari's bedroom). Tani was WW. When we got home, Tani's friends Chaim and Elez (and their mom Holly) who live in Harrisburg came to visit us on their way home from Brooklyn. They both read and write so amongst their many activities together (drawing pictures and playing, visiting the Liberty Bell, Franklin Institute, and Morris Arboretum) they wrote up a list of rules for entering Willy Wonka's factory (e.g. don't drink from the Chocolate river, leave the squirrels alone). The Hyman-Fessler family singers arrived on Friday and under Ariella's direction rehearsed all weekend for an abbreviated performance of Willy Wonka. Tani forgot half his lines during the performance but he loved the process - rehearsals, learning his lines, performing, singing Candy Man. Then everyone watched the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Tani said he liked them both. The Hyman-Fesslers thought the Johnny Depp film would be weird but hadn't seen it so then everyone watched that one. Melissa downloaded the "Willy Wonka" soundtrack from Amazon and Tani's been listening to it. He's got the lyrics to Candy Man pretty much down now. I'll write more about our vacation week but Willy Wonka was definitely the theme.