Lunch Order

This year, both BSM and FF take food from home to school. BSM gets 2.5 sandwiches and fruit or veggie. FF gets 1 sandwich, a fruit, and a vegetable. They both get a water bottle.

Some nights, I remember to ask BSM and FF what they each want for lunch the next day. This way, I can make lunches at night after the kids are asleep, which makes the mornings less hectic. Being me, I write down the boys' lunch orders, so by the time I get around to making the food, I still know what to make. Recently, I came across a lunch order from last week. FF had requested, "Peanut butter & jelly, apple, and PLANKTON!" 

We Have a First Word!

BY has a large repertoire of expressive noises, but as tempting as it has been to assign value to his noises (c'mon, that was totally an intentional "d-all done," "night night," "b-abba," "mama," etc.), I had yet to be convinced that he actually spoke. 

However, as of this week, I am happy to confirm an official first spoken word for BY: "tuh-da" [תודה/thank you].

Not only does he nail the inflection, which he has done with all of his previous candidate-first-words, BY says "tuh-da" consistently and exclusively upon handing an object to someone or taking an object from someone. 

So cute! What an accomplishment! Ta-dah!

***

For all of you who will read this and wonder about his language development, yes, BY seems to have good hearing (mimics sounds, swivels around excitedly when he hears a brother approaching), and he understands particular words (I can ask a yentchy BY, "Change you? Want drink? Eat food?" and when I name the desired activity, he smiles hugely and pants and bounces up and down). BY is also pretty good at signing "food," "drink," "all done," and, less frequently, "change you."

Preferred Use Case

I bought magnetic building tiles (a.k.a., knockoff Magna-Tiles®) for the first time as a birthday present for BSM when he turned three. 

When I bought magnetic building tiles a few months later, as a Chanukah present for BSM, Husbinator shrewdly asked if I bought them for BSM or for myself. Fair enough: BSM was still doing fine with his starter set, but I simply could not cope with only 10 isosceles triangles, when an additional 2 isosceles triangles would finally let me build a dodecagon.

I mean, what were they thinking???

Anyway, various ones of my offspring have been enjoying building with the "magnetim," as they are called in Hebrew, for over four years now. As have I.

However, during the latest lockdown, BSM finally used the magnetim for their preferred purpose: geometry.

As part of a lesson on solids, BSM's teacher showed the kids a diagram of unfolding a hexagonal pyramid. Rather than expend time and energy searching for the dinky cardboard pyramids that came with BSM's geometry book, we got to build pyramids from the magnetim. At last!

The Goofball Strikes Again

 After he finished lunch yesterday, FF put on Husbinator's shoes and happily marched around and around the table. 

"Be careful, FF," said Husbniator.

"I am!" FF replied blithely.

"Don't fall, FF," warned Husbinator.

"I am keeping my balance!" declared FF, just as he hit a chair and stumbled. "By banging into things, of course," he clarified, not missing a beat.

Language Bombshell

 I'll start at the end: the Russian word kasha means porridge. That's right, kasha does not mean either buckwheat or groats. Kasha is not a type of grain: it is a type of food.

You probably want proof, and you will say the story below is insufficient. So here you go:

And because machine translation can do odd things, here's a sanity check:

But this is important enough to pull out the big guns, so here's what I've learned to do when I really want to verify a translation: 

Yep. That's porridge all right!

Are you convinced that kasha is porridge? I am. Well, I was until I ran just one more search. It turns out that in English kasha does mean buckwheat/groats:

But still. I'm reeling.

One more tidbit, and then we'll have completed our long way to go for our short drink of water.

In Hebrew, buckwheat is kusemet, which is fine and dandy, except that spelt is kusmin. And spelt is used much more commonly in Israel than is buckwheat, so I'm always getting confused between the words kusemet and kusmin.

There. So, the story.

I took Baby Yoda to his (Russian) pediatrician for his monthly weighing , so she can continue to be very worried about how tiny he is, and since she is sharing the worry, I can worry less.

As usual, the pediatrician asked if BY is a good eater. As usual, I said yes. To prove my point, I told her that I had been eating "kasha," and BY ate it with me enthusiastically: and no kids like kasha! 

Since as usual, I wasn't sure how to say buckwheat in Hebrew, and the pediatrician is Russian, I figured using the word kasha would be fine. But the doctor gave me an odd look, and told me that, yes, porridge is a very good thing to give babies. At the time, I assumed that the doctor, like my previous (Russian) manager, was from a part of Russia wherein people eat kasha with butter and sugar, as opposed to with onions, and the kids there like kasha, because it's nice and sweet. 

With that on my mind, I asked one of my Israeli coworkers, who is a son of Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, how his parents eat kasha. His response boiled down (hehe) to, "Yuck, my father eats his porridge savory." I started explaining how yeah, it's delicious with onions, but my husband and kids don't appreciate it, and then did a double-take. End of story, my coworker convinced me that kasha means porridge, not buckwheat. 

Now, I'm wondering if my manager and I both used the word kasha when comparing recipes, but she was talking about cream of wheat or oatmeal, while I was talking about buckwheat. I am completely floored.

Allergies

Speaking of the seasons changing, a few days ago FF was telling me and Husbinator about which book he was going to pick for bedtime. As FF was finally going upstairs to get said book (Are You My Mother), I blew my nose, upon which Husbinator remarked, "Hey! You are his mother and a snort!"

Season Change

Winter finally started: we got the first rain of the season last night! Hopefully we'll be able to stop running the air conditioners soon.

That being said, although it has been hot, humid, and rainless until now (and it's still hot and humid), summer ended a while ago. I knew summer had ended when we were finally able to take out the garbage every two or three days. This past summer, if we left kitchen garbage in the house overnight, we had an unacceptable number of fruit flies the next day.

Of Course

 I took Baby Yoda for his 9-12 month blood count today. Because he is such a very little human (nice amount of pudge, but he still fits comfortably into 6-month clothing) I was going to have the bloodwork done when BY was 9 months old exactly. His 9-month birthday wasn't convenient, so I decided to push off the blood work for a few days. 

Being a seasoned resident of Israel, before pushing off BY's blood work, I checked to see if there was a nurse's strike planned. There was not, so the blood work got pushed off. And then there was a lab worker strike. Of course.

That strike was resolved a while ago, and between this and that, I finally took him in for his blood work today. When I arrived, I learned that I had actually scheduled our appointment for tomorrow. Oops.

During our 45-minute wait for a walk-in appointment, I had reason to be amazed once again at how much BY (like most babies) is absolutely delighted by peek-a-boo.

Seasonal Prayers

Due to COVID-19 (or "Corona," as it's called in this neck of the woods), schools closed just before Rosh HaShana and will remain closed until after Sukkot.

On the first day of this round of school closure, FF's teacher sent a video of what she davens with the kids in school. As we learned during last closure, FF likes davening with a video of his teacher: she sent a video a few days into the Pesach school closures that FF has used ever since, so having an updated version is nice.

However, after he davened with his teacher's video yesterday, he said, "And now we say the special one." I have both some experience understanding preschoolers and a good Jewish day-school education, so I guessed that he wanted to sing, "Avinu Malkeinu." I know this was a good guess, because BSM sang along with me. Or at least, he sang the first few words until FF stopped us because that wasn't the right tefillah. I was stumped, but BSM guessed twice more, and he hit gold on his second guess. 

It turns out that FF wanted to sing the Sefardi piyut, "Adon HaSlichot," and BSM led him through 6 lines before getting stuck. I found the audio in the attached link so they could do the whole thing, and I gotta say that BSM really rocks that Sefardi ḥet.

Achievement Unlocked!

The cleaner at work just complimented me on keeping my office nice and neat. Yes, me. Yes, my office. Yes, neat.

And he's right, too!

Another Milestone?

It's been... what? Seven years since we made aliya? Seven-and-a-half?

A few weeks ago, I finished the contact lens solution I brought with us when we came. Well, finished except for an unopened travel bottle. So I bought contact lens solution in Israel for the first time. Hardly a milestone, really, but it felt odd enough that I decided to write about it here.

A Run for Our Money

Baby Yoda mastered the army crawl a while ago, and he's also been rocking back and forth on hands and knees in preparation to crawl.

Yesterday, Husbinator and I finally saw him take two shaky "steps" on hands and knees. Yay! Within the next 30 minutes, we also witnessed Baby Yoda demonstrate how to crawl up a step, pull himself to standing, and walk while holding onto furniture. 

As long as Baby Yoda doesn't use the Force, we're fine, right?  

Lesson Learned

Last week, I lost work multiple times due to power failures. A few days later, while taking copious notes on a hard copy of a patent, I was stopped by a feeling of momentary panic. I glanced to my side and saw my left hand outstretched, pinky and ring finger desperately extended in a failed attempt to press control-S, while the tiny piece of my brain that wasn't analyzing the patent frantically screamed for backup. 

I laughed at myself. But I only laughed after I used the entirety of my attention to check and double-check that my work was indeed safe. 

Personal, Concrete Results

I have already seen personal, concrete results from the establishment of official diplomatic ties between Israel and the UAE.

In fact, had I opened my Spam folder, I would have seen these results three days ago:

Ah, opportunity! Nice to see that people don't waste time.

Calling it Like it is

 We went to Ashdod today, and we had a lovely, low-key time at the little zoo there and then the beach.

The subject of this blog, however, is a headline in a local paper:

"There is nothing new under the Sun!" The Teachers, According to Their Well-Established Tradition, are Threatening to Strike at the Opening of the School Year

 Will there be a strike? The answer is as always, there will apparently be a strike on the first day of the new school year, starting at 7 am."

The article is very short expansion of the headline, and ends with the reminder that we know the drill: the teachers union generally threatens to strike on the first day back, but they almost never actually do. But seriously, what a great headline.

Inflation

BSM and FF have been really been enjoying (and learning a lot from) ABC Mouse, which is a full curriculum of online lessons dressed up as a computer game.

After each lesson or activity, the kid gets a few tickets, which can be redeemed for accessories in the game, such as pets or room decorations. BSM swings between hoarding and spending his tickets, and lately he's been saving up to get to 2,000 tickets. I commented today that he had over 2,000 tickets, and he said, "Yeah, I wanted to see if things would cost more tickets since I got so many." 

A Profitable Endeavor

In February, we finally hired an accountant to prepare and file U.S. 2018 and 2019 taxes for us, and a few weeks ago we finally, finally gave them all of the paperwork they needed to file our taxes. I kept procrastinating because, ugh taxes, right? (For the record, this firm was absolute pleasure to work with.)

Well, the accountant sent us our completed forms last night. I took a look at our refund and am almost fully resolved to file promptly in the future. 

IRS employees, please stop reading now. 

Because we are getting a refund even though we didn't pay any taxes. On a selfish note, hooray, but methinks the U.S. ought to close some loopholes in its tax code...

 

At Last! (warning: pure nerdiness)

Fourier series come up all the time in physics and engineering. All, all, all the time. And yet, I somehow managed to get this far by seeing "Fourier series" and thinking "Oh, shoot, I hate this part. Now we get lots and lots and lots of functions, and something about sine waves, and converting between stuff, and if wait quietly, it will go away."

Turns out, the idea of a Fourier series is incredibly straightforward. Hopefully I knew it once and just forgot...

In a nutshell-- (What, you thought I wasn't going to go all-out nerd on you? Dream on!)

Well, in a nutshell, look at Fig. 1 from Kovesi's "Symmetry and Asymmetry from the Local Phase," which "shows the Fourier series representation of both a square wave and a triangular wave."

Notice that if you add the values of all of the dashed curves at any given point, you get the value of solid line at that point. Thus in each graph, the collection of dashed curves is the Fourier series which approximates that solid curve. Because that's all you're doing if you're using a Fourier series: adding together many (usually well-understood and well-behaved) functions--a "series"of functions, if you would--in order to approximate a single (often hairy and annoying) function.

And that is an almost perfectly backwards way of understanding a Fourier series (starting from a very specific case, and working back to the general principle, instead of vice-versa), but now I get it. So there. At last!

Reading Law

I've been preparing for the U.S. Patent Agent exam in a desultory sort of a way. However, since the exam is only offered in the U.S., and I don't want to travel by plane any time soon, I put that on hold for the nonce and switched my focus to the Israeli Patent Agent exam.

One of the first interesting things I learned is that I understand the language of Hebrew patent law more readily that the language of English patent law. The English legal jargon just feels foreign to me, while the Hebrew legal jargon just sounds like halacha.

For example, the official manual of American patent examination says things like:

As an initial matter, Office personnel should note that the introductory phrase “[a] person shall be entitled to a patent unless” remains unchanged from the pre-AIA version of 35 U.S.C. 102. Thus, 35 U.S.C. 102 continues to provide that the Office bears the initial burden of explaining why the applicable statutory or regulatory requirements have not been met if a claim in an application is to be rejected. 

Section 4 of the preamble to the Israeli law begins:

אמצאה חדשה - מהי 

אמצאה, נחשבת לחדשה, אם לא נתפרסמה בפומבי, בין בישראל ובין מחוצה לה, לפני תאריך הבקשה...

A new invention: what is it?

An invention is considered new if it has not been become known in public, whether in Israel our whether outside of it, before the application date...

Until I wrote this post, I was at a loss. Do I just need to slow down a little in English? Should I try mentally translating into Hebrew? 

As I'm writing this post, I realize that if I slow down my typical English reading speed considerably and resist the urge to follow references, the American manual does indeed make much more sense. I've also realized that for the Israeli exam, I've been studying the text of the Hebrew law, while for the American exam, I've been trying to read the manual discussing the law. 

Phrases, Ancient Phrases

Remember how happy I was that in Heberew, a Mexican standoff is a תיקו מקסיקני?

Well, in modern Hebrew (or at least, in modern legal Hebrew), a typgraphical error is a טעות סופר.

Counting

The other day, I needed FF to stop bothering me in the car, so I asked him to please count to 17 for me. FF was definitely interested, "But," he said, "I will need help: I can't say all of the numbers." With a smile, I told FF that I would say 13 for him and make myself available for additional help as needed. He then counted to 17 masterfully, pausing after 12 so I could say 13. (I really need to just teach him to say 13. He has no compunction about counting "firty-eight, firty-nine, forty, forty-one.") 

Wanting to keep FF distracted, I asked if he'd like to count in Hebrew. "Sure!" he answered cheerfully. He got as far as shtayim before stipulating, "Actually, I count b'ivrrrrrrit," and got to 10 with no problem. Turns out no one has yet taught him to count beyond 10 in Hebrew, but he enjoyed repeating 11 - 17 after me. 

When we finished, FF requested, "the other Hebrew, from ABC mouse," which we figured out meant Spanish.

Counting is fun. 

Timing

Tonight, while we were waiting for FF to finish up and come to bed, I asked BSM if he wanted to cuddle. He did, so I sat in his bed, and he laid his head in my lap. Almost immediately, though, he said, "Do you want to hold me like a baby and sing I'm in Love with You Honey, like you used to do after my bath? We didn't do that in a loooong time." So we did, and it was very sweet for me to start Grandpa's yahrtzeit by singing his song to one of his great-grandsons that is named for him.

https://youtu.be/3uhHfccLMqk?t=16

Mini-Nerds

I mentioned in the last post that I am a nerd, and that I like xkcd, from which comes that great and necessary term, "Nerd Sniping":



FF absolutely nerd-sniped BSM today (unintentionally), but tragically, I don't remember what the snipe actually entailed.

What I do remember is a different conversation that we three nerds had.

FF [a propos of nothing]: Right, plus ten is zero?
ME: Um... a one and a zero next to each other is ten? That's right! Good for you!
FF: No! BSM, right, plus ten is zero?
ME: What?????
BSM [clearly frustrated, but remaining calm]: FF, we don't understand you.
FF [also clearly frustrated, but going for loud rather than angry]: RIGHT PLUS TEN IS ZERO?!??!
BSM [still frustrated, and getting closer to losing it]: FF, that doesn't make any sense. We. Can't. Answer. That. Question!
FF [with a flash of insight of how to clarify everything for us slow folk]: OK. What if you have ten tiny yo-yos. And also zero tiny yo-yos. Right. Plus. Ten. Is. ZERO??!!
ME [giggling to myself because I am loving this whole situation]: Yes, babes, 10 + 0 = 10.
BSM [getting interested]: Actually FF, if you do 10 x 0--
ME [sudden panic]: STOP! We really don't want to have to get into multiplication with him now!

Highlights?

I started this blog based on a conversation with Aunt Lady (or was the conversation with Uncle Man himself?), who said that Uncle Man found journals kept by someone in his family who had moved to America from Europe, and that was pretty durned nifty. So with no arm-twisting at all, I decided to do something similar and Document my Immigration for Posterity. Granted, this blog is written in my native language, not the language of my descendants, but whatever. I like being able to declaim into the void and feel all cool because my family reads my stuff.

That being said, I feel like I really should write more about COVID-19. Here's an important point for the future grandkids who need to interview a relative for a Oral History project for school: very few people call it COVID-19, and certainly not SARS-COV-2-WHATEVER. We call it coronavirus, or more usually, corona. I've seen (on "social media" which is what we did before you were born, yes saw not heard, it's called "posting") one or two people refer to it as "the machala" which is way too cancerous. The other important note for future kiddos is I am Total Nerd (do you still have those when you live?), so I love xkcd.



The obligatory stuff for your Oral History project? (Yes, I'm writing stuff down for Oral History. Whatever.) The human element of a historic event! Over the course of Israel's lockdown, here are the main lockdown-related feelings I've had so far: worry, panic, anxiety, faith, calm, despair-masquerading-as-faith, trust, irritation, anger, impatience. Oh, also intermittent cabin fever. Had I written this blog in real-time, you would have gotten more details, but y'know what, future descendants who will not read a foreign-language document for an Oral History project? Dealing with work and your parent/uncles is kinda time-consuming. Even if Husbinator did/does most of the work with the kiddos. Speaking of, homeschooling kids in a foreign language is a little extra challenging, but we managed just fine until now. However, I do see a noticeable weakening in both FF's Hebrew and my Hebrew. His has mostly rebounded since going back to preschool this past week-and-a-half, and hopefully mine will bounce back eventually.

Oh, and for posterity: our family did not run out of toilet paper. Though we did end up buying an extra pack or two. Yes, there really was a global panic over the residential toilet paper supply. Future people, this is a great explanation of what actually caused The Great Toilet Paper Panic. Current People, I don't recommend reading that article: it's scary. Oh, and speaking of shortages and posterity, there was a straight-up egg shortage in Israel before Pesach. Thank G-d, we got all of the eggs we needed (ninety for a single week, plus a couple so as to not get down to the last egg: go figure) without having to stand in line, but holy smokes. There were absolutely people standing in line for hours and scouring the city in search of eggs.

Also, I see the following notes I jotted down shortly after Pesach:

Husbinator taught FF the Ma Nishtana, complete with awesome hand motions, and he also took BSM to buy a hagaddah (as I promised BSM we would when I convinced him before Purim to buy a cheap megillah that had exactly what he wanted instead of a megillah that was three times the price with little added benefit) a day or two before book stored were shut down.

Oh, and there was a total country-wide lockdown for the seder: everyone was supposed to stay in their own home from 3 pm Erev Pesach until the next morning. As a sort of consolation thingy, Rechovot (the whole country?) declared 8 pm to be "Porch Ma Nishtana Time" whereat everyone took a seder break to go to their porches and sing Ma Nishtana. That was actually fun.

And here are the real brass tacks for me personally: I had some real let-down when nothing crazy happened around Pesach time. I honestly believed that some obvious end-of-times goodness was going to happen. And it wasn't just me: I had more than one conversation with random strangers before Pesach who were also expecting Something Big. Weeks later, I realized that it's a bit silly to expect Awesomeness without Personal Responsibility and Change.

What else, O Posterity? Ah, my Lockdown Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSAZnYdvVak. I just found that version tonight, the one I had been listening to is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVKoNZloRvQ, and for the record, the last verse is missing from that version. So.

And now onto my next post, which is the one I really wanted to write when I sat down tonight!

News

Husbinator walked into the room I was sitting in and asked, "Did you see the news? Did you see the news?"
Deciding that snark was the way to go, I answered, "No. What, is there a government?"
"Yes."
Goodbye snark! I gasped and asked, "Really?"
Really.
Who would've thunk???
I'm going to look up details now.

Pesach Cleaning

I made babka for the first time over the summer, and it came out really well. I cobbled together three recipes when I made it, so imagine my frustration when I wanted to make it again and could only find page 2 of the recipe magneted to the fridge:

Refusing to despair, I searched and searched for page 1, but I never found it.

Pesach cleaning is wrapping up; it's time to face reality. While taking everything off of the fridge so I could wipe the door, I said "Forget it," and took down page 2 to throw it away. Here's the other side:

Humor in the Dark

When Netanyahu spoke on Motzei Shabbos to announce shutting down a good portion of the country (more has been shut down since), he said, "We are developing a new routine. Not forever; certainly for the next few weeks and maybe, I don't know, it may even take months, but I ask you to implement two important steps. The first you know: maintain hygiene. This means wash your hands with soap..."

It turns out that the second step was serious social distancing that closed down all schools, malls, cafes, restaurants, and recreational facilities, but I had already had a good healthy laugh at the life-changing requirement to wash hands with soap (but don't worry, it's not forever!).

Motive

Generally speaking, when we dip below a dozen eggs, I buy more. After breakfast yesterday, we were down to 6 eggs, so I could buy eggs with a clear conscience. Was I panic-buying? Maybe. Aw heck, yes: usually I'd hold out 'till Husbinator went to the grocery store. But I could justify this purchase based on my stocking rules, so when I took FF out for a bike-ride yesterday, we stopped at the egg store.

(Yes, egg store. Rehovot has egg stores that sell eggs for negligibly cheaper than the grocery store does, and you don't have to worry about breaking them due to the rest of your groceries. You do have to buy in multiples of 30, but 2.5 dozen really isn't that many.)

I passed a panel van full of eggs on my way to the store, which mightily strengthened my resolve to only buy 30 eggs. The only time I ever purchase more than that is right before Pesach. (Aside: my Pesach spreadsheet instructs me to buy 120 eggs, with the comment "Really: I'm not kidding.")

ANYWAY, so I walk into the egg store, and am taken slightly aback to see fewer than 10 pallets on the bare shelves. People are really panic-buying, I think. But I know there are more. So I ask very calmly for medium eggs, and with a little chagrin, add "if there are any."

"Of course!" he answers, calming me yet further. He gestures to the bags on the counter, 2 pallets in each bag. "They're all packed up and ready to go: how many do you want?"

"Just 30," I answer, full of nonchalance and pride.

At that, the eggman raises his eyebrows. "Soon there won't be any: only 30?" For the record, he continued to explain that there would be plenty of large and extra-large, just not mediums. Still, the damage had been done.

With a sigh, I allow the man to foment panic, and I buy 60 eggs.

A Change

BSM's school, as are all government schools in Israel, is closed until after Pesach. The administration and staff are working on organizing recorded/online classes starting next week.

Although national preschools have not been ordered to close, Rehovot has closed their preschools today. They will update about longer-term plans eventually. I have my doubts that they'll reopen as long as the schools are closed.

I've been avoiding panicky behavior thus far, but last night the municipality suggested readying water and lights due to a thunderstorm, and I grabbed the opportunity to stock up on water. Though in fairness we had already caved and bought rubbing alcohol yesterday, and we're down to our last pack and a half of diapers, so I guess we'd better go get some of those to hoard too...

I started working from home two weeks ago, and I had really started to get into a a routine with that. We will figure it out: one day at a time and something that works will emerge.

Kol hakavod!

Guess who rolled over (front to back) multiple times today! Did you guess Baby Yoda? Good for you! And for him :D

Prizes, Language Barriers, and Unreliable Narrators

There's not much to say, really. Israel has something called "Family Day", and BSM's school celebrated by having a fair during school hours. There were mulitiple booths at the fair, all manned by family members of the students. Husbinator and Abba II went, and it seems that there were a few food- or craft-related booths, but most of the tables were some sort of work-related demonstration.

An EMT had a first-aid related booth (with a great hand-washing demonstration wherein one boy dipped his hands in paint, and then all of the boys shook hands, presumably until everyone was covered in paint); a policeman brought a police car (and his M-16, but that wasn't part of the demo; it was just hanging around on the table because it can't be left alone); and a father in the air force brought model planes, model rockets, and some rocket parts (the boys who listened well were given a little prize.)

Here is the little prize that BSM brought home from the air force booth:

Based on the presentation and BSM's description, Husbinator and I could only assume that his "Good Job Listening" prize was locking mechanism for a rocket, similar to a grenade pin.

However, a quick Google search has taught me that "remove before flight" ribbons are a typical part of most flying systems. These tags are attached to components put in place to protect equipment or personnel while flying objects are grounded, so BSM's little souvenir is more likely a plug for an intake valve or something similar.

"Third Time Ice-Cream"

There's an expression in Hebrew for when two people meet unexpectedly twice: פעם שלישית גלידה. It implies that the next time they bump into each other, they'll go get ice cream. No one's quite sure where it came from (Wikipedia guesses it's a mangled German or English expression), but it's pretty common. I heard the expression for the first time soon after we moved to Towna, from a woman I saw twice on my way to/from BSM's daycare.

I was totally confused when this stranger started randomly mentioned ice cream. My confusion confused the woman in turn, but not as much as my laughter when she kindly explained the expression to me. C'mon, it's silly! When I ran into her again a few days later, I tried to claim the ice cream date, but she informed me in no uncertain terms that the three meetings must be on a single day in order to cash in. Humph.

Well. Someone forgot to inform the Yerushalayim and Tel Aviv municipalities of that little caveat: both cities ran ice cream promotions to encourage retail activity during our third round of elections yesterday. Very cute.

Language

Hereinbelow follow sundry anecdotes centering around language (and a little bit of weather).

***

When BSM was home sick a while ago, I taught him what his class had learned in chumash that day. We read the psukim, and I explained them as needed. When we got to the part where Yaakov sets up a matzeva after his dream, I started to explain that a matzeva is like a mizbeach [alter] made from only one stone, but BSM interrupted me, "Yeah, like when someone dies! And they put a big rock on his kever [grave]." Right. I never realized that it was exactly the same word. Once he pointed it out, it's obvious that a matzeva is easily translated as monument, and once I have the word monument, a matzeva is more literally a standing stone. (And now that I've found that link, it turns out that Wikipedia already knew that a matzeva is a standing stone. Well, don't I feel less clever now.)

***

When we came back from America (mazel tov, Piano Toes and your missus!), we were a wee bit tired upon our arrival. So as soon as we got home, we dumped our many pieces of luggage in our house's entrance and dining room, each ate a sandwich, and all took naps. When we awoke blessed hours later and came back downstairs, FF took one look at the room (or what little he could see of it under the piles of luggage everywhere) and said, "It's תוהו ובוהו!" Yes, that mess was bad enough to warrant a name a bit stronger than "mess" or "balegan", but c'mon man, the primal chaos from the beginning of creation?! It wasn't that bad... Right?

***

The other night, BSM was playing with the timer on my phone and discovered that he can access alternate alarm sounds from the app. "Summer Rain," he read proudly, and then promptly cracked up. "Summer rain?! What???" So I explained that in some places it rains in the summer, and yes, it sounds just like regular winter rain.

Sharing

FF came home from gan a few days ago with a special Tu B'Shvat cupcake. (He insists on calling the holdiay Too Bee B'Shabbat, which drives me nuts, but that's besides the point.) It was a white cupcake topped with chocolate syrup, green sprinkles, and three toothpicks, each holding three pink mini-marshmallows. All in all, a very cute and age-appropriate little flower arrangement.

Giving me all the nachas, FF entered the house and declared: "This is my cupcake from gan to share with BSM!" Impressively, he didn't eat the cupcake before BSM came home.

Once BSM arrived, FF took off the paper and asked me to cut the cupcake. Having learned a thing or two about assumptions and preschoolers, I rested the knife on the top of the cupcake and without cutting, asked, "Do you want me to cut the cupcake like this?"

Naturally, FF said no. So I rotated the cupcake by about 45 degrees, again rested the knife on top, and again asked. Again, the answer was no. FF, being a clever child, didn't let me get all the way around the cupcake before setting me straight: pointing to a spot about halfway down the cupcake, he said, "Like this."

So I verified that FF wanted me to cut the cupcake around its equator, explained that I would give BSM chocolate syrup and sprinkles on his half, too, and cut the cupcake so FF got the entire top half.

BSM, bless him, thought it was funny instead of heartbreaking, and still thought it was funny when he pointed to the marshmallow sticks and asked for one, and FF very generously gave him one marshmallow.

I'm so proud of my kids.

Truth

FF was out of sorts recently after his nap, so I got him excited by talking about the soup we'd have for dinner.

"We'll have some soup for dinner!" I opened. "Doesn't that sound yummy?" 

Face brightening, FF said, "Yeah!"
"Do you know what's in soup? Do you want to guess?" I continued.
Now palpably excited, FF held his thumb and forefinger slightly apart, "Little things...."
Laughing, I asked, "Soup nuts? Little yellow crunchy things?"
"Yes!!! Soup nuts in soup!!!"
My next question, "What else is in soup?" brought only a blank look, so I told him about the actual soup ingredients and thought of the ad Husbinator told me about earlier this soup season:

Osem is right: sometimes the soup is just an excuse. 

Upsherin (a.k.a. Channuka Chalakah)

FF turned three recently, but rather than give him his first haircut as close as possible to his birthday, we decided to wait until the kids were off (FF) or getting out early (BSM) from  school, anyway. So on the last day of Channukah, we went to Yerushalayim for BSM's first haircut (yid. upsherin, heb. chalakah). First we went to Husbinator's Yeshiva and his rebbeim took various snips, and then we went to the barber for the actual haircut.

***
As an aside, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that BY is one of the select few babies that hates the car. He rarely sleeps in the car. He rarely sits calmly in the car. He cries in the car, whether the car is moving or stopped. With a good bit of work, he can be convinced to sleep in his car seat when it's attached to its stroller base, and if he doesn't have a reason to cry, he'll sit calmly in the car seat when it's on its stroller base. (Though he usually has a reason to cry if we've stuck him in his stroller.) But fall asleep in his car seat when in a vehicle he will not.

So that's another reason to be grateful for the weird tickets that my sister-in-law (you know who you are: do you want to pick your own BlogName?) found for us. The first reason for gratitude is that the tickets in question were So. Cheap. The reason the tickets were so cheap is that they involve a stopover in the US, whereat we change to our second flight, which in our case is run by Amtrak. So I can wear or otherwise hold BY rather than listen to him scream in the car for two hours after having been stuck on a plane with him for approximately forever.
***

Anyway, back to the chalakah, as long as BY was not in the car, he was happily in the carrier, and only reluctantly came out to nurse before going back to sleep in said carrier. FF, like BSM at his own upsherin, seemed rather dazed by the whole affair. However, he snapped out of his quiet compliance when we passed a supermarket that had cleverly placed a rack of chips outside its door. From that point on, we had to continuously tell him that we were making one more short stop before buying his chips, and since we would buy him said chips after said stop, therefore we had to make said stop, or else how could he possibly get his chips? He was as confused by that as you probably are, but crucially, he was convinced and went back to his wide-eyed compliance until after the aforementioned stop, when FF changed his mind and got an ice-cream cone, instead.

Ladies and gentlemen, along with getting his first haircut and first tzitzit and first payot, on the eight day of Channukah, FF learned how to eat an ice-cream cone. He used a combination of a spoon and his tongue very nicely, until looking at me with the stumped declaration, "I don't reach the ice cream." I explained the magic of biting the cone, yes like that, now keep biting all the way around, and now bite all the way around again until you reach the ice cream, and hey look you can eat the ice cream again, and can you guess what you should do when you can't eat the ice cream next time? He was entranced.

Naturally, FF looks adorable in his new haircut, though he is also totally recognizable as his old self. His recognizability is due the fact that his hair was barely shoulder-length before his haircut, along with the critical fact that FF has been consistently wearing a huge knit kippa for months.

BSM was also a champion, and tagged along happily and without complaint. His most memorable statement of the day, made while FF was in the barber's chair, was, "Hey! He looks like me!" Yes, child, he does. I've been getting confused over your pictures since FF was 6 months old. Later, when the kids were jumping on their beds (no, stop jumping, it's bedtime, calm down, small motions), BSM reiterated, "He doesn't look like FF anymore. He looks like me!"

Going Native

Update on the passport front: within 15 minutes of posting about BY's documentation story, I got a phone call from a (courier? mailaman?) saying he was at my address with registered mail, but he didn't see my house, could I please come out? Sure enough, it was BY's Israeli passport!

At his American passport meeting, the security guards kept directing us to the visa line, and I had to explain to guards at both points that we were actually there for a US passport. Then, when we were called to the counter, the consular assistant asked which one of us was passing on the US citizenship. She seemed pleasantly surprised when Husbinator and I exchanged a puzzled look before answering, "Um, both of us!"

For those who are curious, the consulate employees thought that mailing BY's passport should be okay time-wise, but suggested we come pick it up ourselves to be safe. So now we're just waiting for a phone call/email telling us to come and get it, and then our documentation will be all in order! (I expect to get that notification early next week.)