Amazing

So, it's been forever since I posted pictures or notes. We've had a crazy week. Sunday night was Shavuot, when we celebrate the recieving of the 10 commandments. You're supposed to stay up all night learning Torah, but it's not so due-able when you know your crazy babies will be up at 6am no matter what time you went to sleep. Anyway, we had a wonderful dinner with some friends and spent all day Monday where we went for lunch. We left for lunch at 10am so we'd be there before the heat struck (lunch wasn't called for until 1pm) and stayed until it started to cool down again.

Lev and Yehudah are banned from playing together until Bubbie gets their love/hate relationship under control. It's a bummer, but everyone involved is looking forward to hitting free play dates. Lev walks around the house saying 'Udah, no eeeting.'

On the topic of Lev, he speaks three or four word sentences now. It's pretty crazy. He also picked up that my name is Devra and his Daddy is named Shalom, but we explained to him that as far as he's concerned, we're Mommy and Daddy. I tossed a diaper to Shalom this morning and Lev said 'Mommy! No throw Mommy!' He caught me. Can't be sending mixed messages. The most amazing thing is that Lev can say the Shema (the prayer we say when he wakes up and goes to sleep). They say it at school as well and last night I was saying in pretty slowly and he started saying it with me. It blew my mind. I guess it was the first time because I had him do it for Shalom tonight and Shalom was pretty shocked.

Estie is still working on crawling. She manages to do some amazing push-ups and today I caught her with her legs straight up, her tush in the air and her full weight on her head. No matter what mood she's in, if Lev enters the room, she lights up. Oh yes, Lev told me the other day that I will have six baby Essies. I said '6 babies?' and he said 'Yup, 6 babies.' Now, six happens to be his favorite number to say, but I guess time will tell on his ability to predict the number of siblings he'll have.

Two more reasons this was a big week: Thomas the Train and Camp Bubbie. Nama sent Lev Percy and Thomas trains for the track he'll get tomorrow (more on that later) and he LOVES them. He even sleeps with them.

Now that there's summer weather outside Bubbie's House has become Camp Bubbie and Lev gets to play outside all morning in the park around the corner from Bubbie's House. The bigger kids are learning how to potty train, but Lev's not quite there and we're not rushing it. We're pretty happy with the whole 'tutis are for naps' thing we've got going on.

Anyway, Lev is into trains right now so we ordered him a train track and Shalom's friend Kendra is bringing it to us when we see her in Turkey tomorrow. Yup, we're going to Turkey for Pierce and Barcin's wedding and we used the excuse to get some good old American toys (wooden train tracks are crazy expensive here). Lev will get his tracks which come with an engine and caboose and an alphabet toy. Estie's getting Motrin for her teething. I doubt she'll be jealous as long as he lets her teeth on one of his toys.

Anyway, I have to finish packing- we're bringing all of our food for the for the next five days with us. B"H we're staying in a suite and I've cooked and frozen our Shabbat food, so it should all be good.