Trip to Israel, Dec-Jan 2012-2013:

Second week in Tel-Aviv:

Wednesday and Thursday

On Wednesday morning Amitai helped grandpa squeeze orange juice for breakfast.

He was usually up first, as despite not falling asleep at 7 pm, he still woke up at 7 am sharp...

In the morning Amitai and Alma packed their stuff and

had an adventure in the plane.

Then they checked out Miki, the current “family pet snail”

(visiting from the field).

Enthusiasm and curiosity quickly turned to disgust

when Amitai found out how this slimy creature feels on

your palm...

Despite the heavy rain and strong wind Ilan and Revi took Amitai and headed to Rehovot to see friends, on the train. I wasn’t feeling well (combination of a cold, a bad period and fatigue) so we only walked 5 minutes to

Dizengoff centre with my mum. The wind was so strong, both girls became quite shocked! We bought clothes and shoes. Alma LOVED buying shoes – she tried on three pairs at once!

The girls kept busy in the afternoon with hats (from my cousin Nico’s Bar Mitzvah) and huge yoga balls.

Night routine was long as usual, then we went into the darkness curfew, frantically trying to get the kids to sleep on

Revi’s schedule. Didn’t work of course. Amitai fell asleep around 9:30 pm, Alma joined at 10:30 pm and finally Hahgoot

relaxed to sleep (after a deep pressure massage).

Thursday morning started with indoors activities. The LEGO game ended badly, with

a barrage of blocks and screams on both sides (two Leos in the room is intense...) so I

packed everything up and spent time teaching the new chant “Angry feelings are OK, hitting

and throwing not OK!”

I told them they get a second chance to share the space and the toys and took out the wooden blocks. This time all went well.

Hahgoot joined the game for a while but became very agitated that in Amitai’s game objects were going UP the slides (when she is overloaded her thinking becomes very rigid), so before this game blows up (quite physically) I changed the scenery: took out the corks collection and a set of markers,

so they could draw faces on the “little people”.

Amitai preferred pouring the corks from container to container, which didn’t bother the girls.

While they were busy with the corks for 5 minutes, I set up the next activity: A group drawing!

The kids liked it immediately.In the beginning I insisted that they keep apart far as possible around the page, but gradually they relaxed and were OK with drawings touching.

While they were working on the art project it started to rain really hard with thunder. Hahgoot put her

earphones on and told Alma that she could reduce the noise by wearing a knitted hat...

The kids spent a lot of time working on the art project (I wrote their names in the middle).

While they were working, Barak called on Skype and Ilan put his laptop on the floor so he could be

part of the action...Then Revi and Amitai left for Azrieli Towers,

to meet her mum for lunch.

The girls spent the afternoon drawing, watching TV and

munching on “Googach Gadol” (Alma’s way of saying Tapooach

Gadol = big apple, meaning whole apple).

I had two free minutes to do my tradition chalk drawing about my

current state in life...

When Amitai arrived back the kids asked to continue the art project together, but they also

did a lot of other things...

The kids spent a lot of time packing and unpacking the suitcase with toys and themselves.

Then I covered them with a big blanket and gave them a torch to share – they were so excited!

Amitai and Hahgoot went on “adventures” in the dark with the torch but Alma elected to stay behind as it was “too scary”...

Night routine went well – Amitai invited Alma to have a bath with him!

Afterwards, Alma refused to go to sleep despite being beyond tired...

My dad used the time till the darkness curfew to make boats for the girls for their bath tomorrow.