Accordion Lessons

Elliot and Tani jammin' on their accordions

This past March Tani started taking accordion lessons from Elliot Seif, who we'd met last Simchat Torah when he was playing with the Dorshei Derekh/Mishkan Shalom musicians. When Tani was four years old we were at the first Germantown Jewish Centre (GJC) young family retreat. One of the children had brought a toy accordion - Tani found it almost immediately and carried it around the entire weekend. So when Tani saw a real accordion last October, he went up to take a look and talk to the musician (who was Elliot). We asked him if he'd be willing to give a few lessons to an eager then five-year old and he agreed. In March Melissa, Elliot and Tani went downtown to Liberty Bellows to rent Tani an accordion. Melissa rented it for $100 for three months but was required to leave a check for an additional $300. If she returns the accordion in June she gets the check back. If not, the accordion is ours. Looks like we'll be keeping it as Tani has been enjoying the lessons. He's learned "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Dreams Come True" and is working on a third piece called "Flying". It's fun to watch him play. BTW, we're heading to the third GJC family retreat this weekend!

Tani lost his first tooth!

We were at Mt Airy Day by the Wissahickon Village Cohousing table. Tani runs up to me with a tooth in his hand: "Mom, my tooth came out!". It has been loose for almost a week. The hygienist at our dentist had offered to pull it for him. He had agreed but then changed his mind. To celebrate this milestone, we went to Custard & Cakes Creamery (known as Mommy Neysa's favorite ice cream place). Tani put the tooth under his pillow, and the tooth fairy left a Susan B. Anthony dollar coin.

While at Mt Airy Day, we also sat at the Project Learn (PL) table. Tani got to tell folks how much he enjoyed Jane's K/1 class and Melissa and I talked to a few parents about how much we love the philosophy of PL and how Tani has thrived there. Hopefully we'll get a few more students for PL. Tani's class already has 17 students - if any more sign up they'll get a teacher's assistant to help Jane out next year.

Reading and riding

It's amazing how much progress Tani has made in the last couple of weeks. He recently was able to read his first chapter book without help at school - Magic Tree House Tonight on the Titanic. We went out to Earth, Bread & Brewery to celebrate, Tani had a Joe without sauce and I had a beer with my flatbread pizza. A couple of nights later both Melissa and I were tired and Tani was having a hard time going to sleep. When that happens we sometimes would let him have "quiet reading time" where he could turn the light on and read for a bit. Usually it lasted 5-10 minutes and then he'd call for us. Well this time, he didn't call for us - Melissa was sleeping and I thought Tani had fallen asleep. A little after 10 pm I went to go check - he had not. He was reading a chapter book. Luckily, the loss of an hour of sleep didn't have as much impact compared to when he was three or four years old.

Tani riding his bike with gears and hand brakes

The next Shabbat we went to our friends Mike and Miriam who have three children Ariella (11), Rafi (9), and Tamar (7). Tamar had just learned to ride a two wheel bike the the kids were all riding around in the parking lot of their synagogue which is right next to their house. Tani clearly wanted to be able to ride also - they had an extra bike which fit Tani and did not have training wheels. Within ten minutes, Tani had figured out how to ride it. He still needed to figure out turns and stopping, but that came quickly in the coming days. He now loves to ride his bike everywhere - to synagogue, school, and to the Henry School playground. He still walks his bike up the hills, but can go a lot further now. He recently said, with training wheels it was easier to ride down hills and harder up hills. With two wheels, it's easier to ride up hills but harder down hills. He's actually made good progress on the down hills. He's very happy.

Grandma Susan is visiting us now and will accompany Tani tomorrow for Grandparents day at Project Learn. I hear they might perform something together. Stay tuned. 

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.

Fun concert with friends Saturday night

Melissa, Tani and I went to the Afro-Semitic Experience concert at Temple Sholom in Broomhall yesterday with our friend Georgia and her daughters Emma and Colette. Emma and Colette, who are 12 and 10 respectively, were great with our almost five year old Tani. They had brought drawing pads and the three of them drew pictures and laughed while waiting for the concert to start. Once it began Melissa was moved to get up and dance and Tani went with her. At first they danced in the back, but eventually made their way to the front and danced with a few others who were inspired to rise and dance with joy. They eventually came back to where the rest of us were sitting and got Georgia to come up as well. I have some video of this which I'll post once I figure out how to convert my iphone video. It was a really fun evening with good friends!

A glimpse of a 4-5 year old boys' ballet class

I've published earlier that the Philadelphia Dance Theatre offers a boys ballet class at reduced prices in the hopes that some boys will stick around when they're older to participate in performances with the girls. So they teach them the skills while the boys are having fun doing their thing. A couple of weeks ago I was able to go see Tani in class. I wanted to post a video from my iphone but it won't upload to the blog. I suspect the iPhone HD video is not in a compatible format. I'll try to figure this out later.

Grandpa Morris teaches Tani how to do a push-up

Melissa posted this video to Facebook but I thought I'd share this with my Mom also. It's very cute. Hopefully I'll start doing push-ups myself to build strength. Actually Tani's ballet teacher tried to get the boys to stay in a push-up pose for a period of time - the one who stayed in the pose the longest "won". That motivated Tani but he learned quickly it was much easier to stick his tush in the air rather than maintain the push-up pose which disqualified him sort of. I didn't take video of this however.

Friday after Thanksgiving in Washington DC

This picture is from this morning when Tani selected jazz music for the house. I also posted it to Facebook, but since my Mom doesn't have FB and I like the picture I thought I'd post it here too. Around 2:30 this afternoon after Susan finished practicing her D'var Torah we split into groups: Tani and Morris went to the Botanical Gardens to see the trains, Susan and I went to pick up her glasses prescription and go to Whole Foods near GWU, and Melissa stayed home to rest. When Susan and I got back, Susan began preparing dinner and Melissa and I took a walk around the neighborhood. We walked along the waterfront to the Titanic Memorial statue and then back around to the Arena Stage, where we could see through the big plate glass windows a reception going on and the dinner that was set up in the next room for the attendees. As we rounded the corner to the Kleins apartment building the bus stopped next to the entrance, but we didn't pay any attention. Then a minute later we hear "Mommy"! Tani and Morris had gotten off the bus at the same time we arrived home. "How was your afternoon"? we asked. Tani exclaimed "we took three trains and one bus - that's four rides"! He also liked the trains. :)

From ECP to home

Here are some snippets from our conversation on the way home from preschool today.

• Tani: Someone turned the refrigerator up to high and when I went to have snack my water was frozen!
• Tani: I got no time outs today! Can't remember if I got any yesterday but I for sure didn't get any today.
• Me: "Brrrr. I'm cold! Should have worn my coat". Tani: "Sometimes we make bad choices."

Dance!

Tani and his friend Koby are taking a ballet class for boys at the Philadelphia Dance Theatre. Koby is a natural dancer. Tani is learning the basics and having fun. He's great at stretching, but jumping - he's working on it...

It's been a while...

It's been a year and a half since I've posted anything here and so much has happened. I can take Tani to the High Point Cafe and we can actually sit and talk. He walks much faster now and doesn't seem to mind taking the stairs up to our apartment - he had to for a month because our apartment elevator was out but climbing stairs doesn't seem so herculean to him anymore. He loves running through the Morris Arboretum on a beautiful Fall day, especially if his friend Aidan is with him. Grandma Diane and Grandpa Arthur came to visit a little over a week ago. Mom brought Tani the latest Shel Silverstein book Everything On It, a book of silly poems that Tani loved!! She read to him a lot, which is one of his favorite activities. Dad played the board game Race to the Roof with Tani. While they were playing, I was in the other room and heard Tani let out a terrible scream. When I asked what happened, I found out that Tani had drawn a card that sent him back to the Start of the game. Dad let him roll the dice a few times until he got another card that sent him back close to the Finish line. The other day I was walking with Tani and he asked me what the word "Omniverse" meant - this word is used in the They Might Be Giants song "There's Only One Everything". He's starting to ask me words I can't easily explain - yikes, he's not even five yet. I got a new iPhone and downloaded a meditation timer app called "Equanimity". It lets you set a timer and chimes a bell - when the time is up it chimes three bells. As the time passes, a white circle begins to fill in black until the time is up. Tani really likes this app - he can set the timer for a minute or two and actually watch time pass in a way he understands. What a bonus! I think he likes this app even better than "Angry Birds" (he remembered playing this with his cousin Max and asked me to install it).

a pretend birthday party

Melissa here.

Tonight, as Tani was eating his dinner, he started talking about how he was going to pretend that it's his birthday tomorrow and that he's having a party. He said that only light-skinned people would be coming. I don't recall having spoken with him about light-skinned and dark-skinned people--perhaps he recently learned that terminology from someone. He said that dark-skinned people weren't allowed to come. Having given a talk on the topic of young children and race at High Holidays and having read about the studies of young children's perception of race in the book NurtureShock, I knew that young children do naturally discriminate and that it's our job as parents to teach kids that we don't need to discriminate based on this category. Although the reality is that except for his good friend next door who is black, the kids with whom he socializes are mostly white. We are friendly with black people in the building here and in the neighborhood, but our social life and the parties we attend are generally among the light-skinned. I asked Tani whether he thought that light-skinned people are better than dark-skinned people and he said yes, and I asked why and he said because they're different, but didn't say anymore. He then said that the dark-skinned humans will have a party in the room across the hall at the same time. He also then named a few dark-skinned people who could come to his party. I suggested that perhaps we could have one party for everyone-- he's wasn't sure and we agreed to discuss it again tomorrow. More to unfold here as I am challenged by how to teach my child about race and challenged to examine the ways in which our worlds are indeed separate.

A dead fish

Melissa again. It's Thursday morning, May 6. Tani slept the whole night in his bed (he often comes into our room at some point and crawls into his "nest" on the floor). He announced, "Mommy, I slept the whole night in my room!" This is a very good thing-- we have made real progress since a few months ago when he would find all sorts of ways to wake me in the middle of the night, from crawling into our bed or screaming from his room.

I encouraged Tani to go say good morning to his fish. I then came in to see them and noticed that one of them was dead. He hadn't noticed. For those of you who haven't had goldfish in a while, a dead goldfish looks like a live goldfish, except for the fact that it's not moving--at least, a recently dead goldfaish. I told Tani that one of his fish was dead. He didn't seem terribly upset. He asked, "is it Fred or Tani who died?" (yes, he named one of his fish Tani-- the names evolved from "Fred and Fred" to "Fred and Suzanne" to "Fred and Tani"). He said, "I think it's Tani who died." Not in a sad way, just matter-of-fact. As I was dealing with the bowl, I heard him ask Neysa, "can we get more fish?" We don't need to yet-- we still have one.

How am I feeling? I just flushed a dead fish down the toilet (Tani was not witness to that). I'm a little sad. I also think it's really good for Tani to witness the natural course of life-- living and then dying. I also feel like I want some Hebrew verse or prayer to say when I dispose of a dead fish, but I don't know what that would be-- might send an inquiry to my rabbinic colleagues over our e-mail list. It would be interesting to see how they respond.

Tani has a blank journal with a lock and key. At lunch yesterday at Toto's pizza, which is in walking distance from our place, Tani made up a story which I wrote down. Neysa is reading that story to Tani now, then we'll get dressed and off to school/ work. (I'm headed to school-- taking a fabulous class with Dayle Friedman at RRC on aging. Today we're dealing with legacy and eternity).

Addendum: We just moved the fish (one fish now) back into Tani's room and I asked if he was sad and he said yes. I gave him a hug and he cuddled in my lap for a brief time before getting up to play with his new lego train. He also asked again, "Can we get another fish?" I said we'll wait and see how this one does.