More Than Four Sides

Category: Family & Friends

  • First week of school

    This week, S started kindergarten, which meant that J was at preschool WITHOUT his big brother. And, for me, the worst part was that I had to attend a course that had me out of the house each day before the boys had even finished their breakfasts, and I ended up missing this momentous week.…

  • Music & Art

    This morning, while J was eating his Cheerios, he started singing “The Farmer in the Dell”, and when we got to the “child takes a dog”, he insisted “Elephant!”. Huh? So I started singing “the child takes an elephant…” but he ran into the family room, dragging me by the arm, and pointed up at…

  • Learning how to take a vacation

    It’s always been difficult – from not preparing adequately, developing unrealistic expectations, and then discovering that the person/people I’m traveling with has totally different goals/expectations from mine – the end result is usually tension, anxiety and disappointment. And, after years of such experiences with vacations, I was fully prepared for our road trip to Florida…

  • Lego flower

    I took this photo one morning back in May, and meant to add an entry here about them, but keep having no time to.  This photo is of a lego flower – J found it one morning, and came into my bathroom while I was showering, holding it in his mouth!!!  I freaked out, and…

  • Haircuts…

    For the past several months, S has been wanting to grow his hair long, so that he can have bangs!! I’ve tried explaining that his hair really won’t form bangs, but he has been undetered, and even wanted me and his nanny to braid his hair, which she attempted last Friday, but we concluded that…

  • Karate

    I’m sitting in the waiting room at Kang’s Black Belt Academy, watching both S and J in the Lil Dragons class, which J just joined 3 weeks ago, and which S graduated from (now he’s a Kid Tiger, and SO proud of it). S has been taking karate classes from the Malakoffs, who own and…

  • Bringing our kids to the mikveh…

    No matter how much I know…I can still get blind-sided! Approximately 20 years ago, I went to the mikveh, after a year-long course of study with Rabbi Sheldon Lewis, of Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto, CA.  I had no idea what to expect, and I was totally unaware of the tradition of turning a convert “away” before…

  • Sleep

    Every parent deals with sleep, at some time or another. I’ve been going through our photos documenting this past 1 1/2 year experience with our boys, and a pair of photos taken on our first day home brought the whole “sleep” story of the past year back to my mind. Ethiopia is 8 hours ahead…

  • “I’m a baby”…”I’m a Big Boy!”

    We are at a cusp of identity with J – he has been talking for about 6 months, maybe a little longer. Until very recently, if you asked him, “Are you a big boy?”, he would reply “I’m a baby!”. But just yesterday, he has started to deny the title “Baby”, and is claiming “Big…

  • Who is a Jew?

    At the end of this month, we will bring our boys to the mikveh, meet with the Bet Din, and, assuming all goes as planned, each boy will go into the mikveh (with my dear husband, who will be immersing for the first time himself), emerging from their immersion as Jews. This act will complete…