Winter things

It's been a month of winter things:

Thanksgiving here with friends...



"Winter Fair" at the kids' school, with marionette show as a highlight...


Chanukah party at friends' synagogue

A Chanukah day (latkes, dreidels, candles) in Oren's class:

And living room building projects continue as usual (courtesy of Eytan)

Oren continues with his strong independent streak, and has gotten really really big and grownup recently (especially since there's a relatively littler one to see him next to).  He is also talking a lot.  Each time one of our kids starts really talking it seems as though s/he is talking much more and much earlier than the previous one -- either they just have more and more verbal input around them (poor mama, in my quietness I'm an island!), or I forget from one to the next what it's like when they start making full complex sentences.  Anyway, lots of "I have to pee really badly" and "no mama get up help please open."  He's also just just recently started being interested in having books read, with preference for books that are primarily about identifying different things in the pictures (Good Night Moon is a favorite in that genre).


And sings songs.  While eating a banana.

Other than that not much news.  We've all been adjusting to having Noa here, and having a new pile of laundry when we fold.  Li'el in particular has been a big fan of baby time...

But others ask for turns too...


And they continue to enjoy the goats too.

This time around maternity leave has meant being part-time, so in this case mostly just grading from home... It's been fine, a little bit of a juggling act, but okay.  I think my favorite maternity leave was probably with Oren because I was working a little but Mike was subbing then and he was able to be home a bunch too, so it was easier to both grade and do baby time (full maternity leave with Eytan was a little too slow for me, and no maternity leave with Li'el was too busy).  That said, Noa is still a really good sleeper, so there's been more flexibility, even just by myself, than there probably was with the others. Anyway, I keep thinking that by now we've seen enough iterations of varying bits of this baby stuff (maternity leaves, hospital protocols, baby habits and patterns) to know how we want to arrange things that we're probably finally ready to start having kids (just kidding).