Sighhh......yes it would seem that even at the tender age of 2&3/4 my kid is requiring a parent/teacher conference. Ugggghhhhh. The biggest problem is that I don't speak hebrew so the Gannenet cannot convey her concerns directly to me. In fact when the Gannenet explained about the meeting, I thought it was a field trip, because I was handed a permission slip at the same time and was told to have him there by 8:30am. Turns out it was two different things. I had my neighbor, whose son is in gan next door sort the whole thing out for me. My neighbor assures me that I should not worry and that most of her kids have had this kind of meeting. The biggest concerns for the gannenent apparantly are that, he doesn't sit still, he plays more on his own then with the rest of the kids and that his verbal skills, hebrew or english don't measure up. So at the meeting will the head of the early education dept. who be able to discuss the issues and see if anything needs to be done. Possibilities could include, guiding the gannenent on how to work with him, having me work with him or sending him for outside help. I can't believe the gannenet has never had a child with any of these issues, so I will be curious to see what happens. Although neighbor says that the advice is usually very helpful and if there is something why not stop it now, I worry that this going to be the start of a long line of, "Mrs. Jensen, your child does not fit in the box." Well I knew that on the day he was born and he was trying to hold his head up and see what was going on. Not to mention we had him at home too. But I am going to go with an open mind and hope for the best. I guess it will be an insight to the Israeli mentality of the school system here and what is expected. And if it really will help him in the future, then I am happy to do it.
On to other news. Since it has been a month since my last up date I will give a quick re-cap of what we have been doing. Rosh Hashanna began on Sept. 23 and was really nice. We ate most of our meals out and had a great time. Yom Kippur was long as usual and I must say that although some things grabbed at me this year, I did not have a strong spiritual connection during Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kippur. I think it is hard to focus on the deeper meaning of things when chasing 3 kids. My biggest concerns were making sure that everyone was taken care of. Although they do have a day care during the services I could not just leave the twins as they were nursing and I had to be near by and I was not sure how S would do. In the end he did OK mostly. Sukkot was great. We splurged and bought a new Sukkah. Here in Israel they have really nice pre-fab Sukkahs and we bought one. The Jensens go wild and decide be conformists like everyone else. And can I tell you, it was nice. It was a lot like one of the American outdoor screen tents. And what was even better, I did not have to help put it up! One of the neighbor kids helped us and all I had to do was make dinner. Yeah! For the first days we had friends from Raanana that we knew in Portland come. The C family. They came last year so it is becoming a nice tradition. They have 3 boys, 5, 3.5 and 5.5mo. S had a great time playing with the two older ones and it was fun having all the babies in the house. Sukkot is 7 days long and at the end is Simchat Torah/Shmeni Aretz. So for the middle week between sukkot chag and sim chat torah is vacation time for almost the whole country. Think labor day, memorial day, etc. for a whole week. So Tues. we met the C family and another family and went to the Mediteranean. I must say that there is nothing quite like living 45min. from the Med. It warm, gorgeous and truly exotic. I really need to make a point of taking the kids more. I do love the beach. I really miss the Oregon Coast somedays, so being near the Med. really makes up for it! The rest of the week was spent hanging out at home. But we got to spend it in the Sukkah which was great. This allowed me somewhere to hang out so that S could run up and down the lane in front of our house and I could keep an eye on him. Otherwise there is usually no where comfortable to sit and I either have to take him to the park or he his confined in doors. The last night of Sukkot we slept in the sukkah. Traditionaly the guys sleep there all week long, but D was not up to it so we all camped out the last night. S thought it was the best thing since sliced bread! Put one twin in a laundry basket and the other in a bassinet and everyone slept great. Unless you count that Y was up every hour on the half hour! Reminds us that we need to figure out how to take the kids camping next spring even though we don't have a car. It really made me miss camping. So I guess in the end Sukkot really reminded me that I miss the outdoors and that I need to make more of a point of taking my kids to do those types of things.
So now the holidays are over and D goes back to Kollel next week, but we have a really nice break. However, we now have friends in for their daughters wedding and we are looking forward to that. We are friends with the extended family also, who live in Portland and most of the kids from both families so we are quite excited to have everyone here visiting.
For shabbat we are out Beit Shemesh as we just had friends from Portland move back to Israel after being gone 6 years. We knew them in Portland. They have been here 2 mo. and this will be our first chance to see them. Really looking foward to catching up. They were really instrumental in us becoming religiously observant.
On the 29th my in-laws arrive and I am looking forward to the extra hands. I have been spoiled having D around for three weeks to help out. So it is nice to know help is right around the corner again!
So that will keep us busy until about mid-november. Will be nice to see so many familiar faces.
The biggest twin up date is that I started them on bottles last week. Not all day, but part of the day. It really helps. I just am not eating and drinking enough to keep up. They are happy and I am happy and less ttressed and they still get plenty of nursing time too. M is the big bottle drinker and she gets 1-2 a day and Y does maybe half a bottle. We did go to Jerusalem the other day and both got mostly bottle. It was a big help. I will start trying them out on food soon. We tried sorbet on them, but they did not quite seem ready for food yet. Maybe in another week.
OK gotta get S from Gan!
Look forward to hearing from everyone,
Alina
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