I took the two little ones to see Yuval Hamebulbal today for the second time (here’s a shot of them enjoying the February’s performance). His theme song says, he does nothing on purpose and everything ’stuiot’ (silly) and his stage name means “Yuval the confused”. But he usually has some good things to say and the little ones love him. Miriam’s friend Maya came along with us. All three girls had a great time and I enjoyed practicing my Hebrew.
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I always thought that birthday parties were a bit overdone in Canada. Well, in Israel, it is over the top. Miriam had her actual birthday in August 2007. We had a small ‘tea party’ at the end of December, once she had made a few friends to invite (see Miri’s Birthday - Again!?). Today, she had her party at the Gan (kindergarten). As with Naomi’s party at the gan we were given a long list of items to bring — bamba, wafflim, bislee, candles, giant sparklers!, a cake, etc. The party started at 9:30 and went for a full hour with Miriam the center of attention the entire time. She danced in the center of the group, was hoisted up on a parachute, and of course blew out the inferno of candles and sparklers. After all of the excitement, the entire gan sat down to snack on all of the junk food we brought - and birthday cake, of course. There are 31 children in Miri’s gan, so it works out that they are having a party like this almost every week! Even though it is way overdone, I see the point since there are so many children in each class, it must be difficult to feel special and on this day Miriam was the star attraction!
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Most of you know that Miriam turned 4 in August. Of course we celebrated her birthday then, as best we could, but she still wanted to have a birthday party with her friends. The problem was that she didn’t have any friends in Israel yet, since we had only been here 1 month. At the time, we promised to have a little party once she had some friends to invite. She has had a few playdates - 2 friends - over the past month, so we decided to go ahead and invite them to a party. Today was the big day. In the meantime, she made another friend in the last week or so and we also invited her. School is out at 12:45 on Fridays and there are no afternoon programs, so we called the party for 2:00. Corrinne, Gilly and Leeor all speak only Hebrew. Miriam’s Hebrew is coming along nicely. The party was pretty low key - really more like a group playdate than a party - but still lots of fun. They made smoothies, coloured, painted their nails, ran around outside to dry them, decorated cupcakes, lit candles/sang Happy BD, ate the cupcakes, opened the gifts and then played at the playground for a little bit.
Today I spent an hour at Miriam’s Gan (literally “garden”, but means kindergarten) helping plant some flowers and vegetables. Miriam was so excited and so cute about the whole thing. She drew some great pictures to put on the sign labeling her flowers. We also got to open the new library where she gets to take one book home every week. She is really enjoying her experience and I even caught her saying a few words in Hebrew.
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Today was Miriam’s birthday. Since we don’t have a lot of friends here yet - school hasn’t started - we decided to make today Miriday instead of throwing her a party. It was all about her - from start to finish. We started off by heading out to buy all of the girls a flower pillow that they had spotted on another shopping trip. After that, David, Abby and Zoe went to the toy store to pick out a gift for Miri from the girls. Miri, Nomi and I braved some very authentic carnival rides while we waited. Next, Miri and I headed out for lunch and the rest of the girls and David had lunch at home. After lunch, the two of us hit the party store and the grocery store to pickup party hats, candy, noisemakers, etc. Then we headed home to pickup Abby and Zoe for a trip to the KidZone at the Rehovot mall. Of course, we needed to eat some frozen yogurt while we were there. By this time, Naomi was up from her nap so we headed home for cake and candles. We had time left for one more activity and Miri chose a particularly nice playground - instead of the pool. Well, there was too much traffic so we turned back while trying to get to the playground. So, off to option #2 - the pool. Well, wouldn’t you know it, it was student night - no kids allowed. We turned around and headed for home. The girls got to do a little colouring and that was it.
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This photo is of Miriam - about 15 minutes after we put her in bed!
Abby and Zoe have both met their teachers. Miriam will meet her teacher tomorrow morning - she has school for just a few hours. Sunday is everyone else’s first day, but they will all ease into school. Naomi is starting out with just 2 hours and then going longer each day. Abby and Zoe don’t have any of their afternoon activities until after Sukkot! As far as we know, Miriam may not even be signed up for afternoon activities. We missed a meeting for Naomi’s school yesterday and we still aren’t done buying/organizing the big girls’ school supplies. We’re pretty close, though. Did I mention that they go to school from Sunday - Friday! That will certainly take some getting used to. Time to go fold some laundry…
