Eitan insisted we count to one hundred together today. I was all in and started counting with him. His participation was variable, but meaningful. When we got to 88 he took a deep breath and said, “you count to one hundred. I out of me breath.” And I did!
We were reading a Chanukah story recently (Hanukkah Hamster) which describes the lovely beaches of Tel Aviv. In an aside I said to Eitan, “You know, it never snows in Tel Aviv.” He answered with a very yiddishkeit accent, “What?!”
The other good part of this story is that Rich argued that it does sometimes snow in Tel Aviv. I looked it up later, and Rich was correct. In 1950, it snowed in Tel Aviv for “several minutes”.
Source: https://www.israel21c.org/snow-in-tel-aviv-1950/
We’ve started to do more things with Eitan now that he can mask well. It’s been a harder transition for him than we anticipated. Recently, we planned a trip into Boston to visit Mrs. Mallard and a chocolate store. He really wasn’t into it. There was a good 30 minutes of screaming before we wrestled him into the car.
Fortunately, eventually, we enjoyed our trip. When we got home, Eitan found the coasters he had thrown during one of his tantrums and quietly put them away. Then he said, “sorry I didn’t want to go to the farm, mama”. It might have been the wrong story, but it was the right sentiment!
Since he was pretty small, Eitan called juice ‘jupe’. It is definitely his favorite drink, and he continues to call it jupe even though he can now pronounce the sound ‘s’. The other day he was helping me peel an orange and his finger punctured it. “Hmmmm, jupey!” was his reaction. It was great.
Eitan is playing with Dada’s wallet.
“What’s this?”
“That’s the bank card. It has our money in it.”
“I don’t see any money…”, as he flips it around to see it from all angles.
Dada: we have to do a Covid test on you
Eitan: don’t wanna!
Mama: we have to make sure you don’t have Covid!
Eitan: I have Covid! fake cough
Eitan: “Dodo came out of my tummy”
Dada: “Is Dodo your baby?”
Eitan: “yuppie”
Just a favorite expression.
We’ve had a “mama” few weeks, and it’s hard to find a time to myself, even to use the bathroom. Earlier today, Eitan came charging in while I was peeing. I got up to wipe myself and he (of course) noticed the tampon string hanging down. “Why string?” he asked, as I tried to shield myself and he walked along with me to get a better view.
“Well…”, I gave him the simplest, briefest, off-the-cuff explanation I could.
“Hurt?” he wondered.
“No,” I responded, “it doesn’t hurt going in or coming out”.
“How does poop come out?” he asked. Another excellent question!
“It comes out a different hole,” I replied.
“Ok mama,” he said, and then jumped up singing David Melech using the wrong tune. Is it strange that this story makes me happy?
For Rosh Hashanah, Papa made an apple challah in the shape of a spiral. When we first saw it, Dada started saying “That looks…”. You could tell he was about to say “amazing” or “delicious”. Instead, Eitan interjected “like a poop!” We all burst out laughing, including Eitan. It kind-of did, but it was also delicious.