A first

Akiva rolled over today. I put him down for some tummy time in his crib and came back to find him face up and smiling. On Sunday he went into the pool for the first time. I do not know if he liked it but the girls were very excited to have him join us. I had told Sydney on Friday night that Akiva was going to go swimming with us and she told anyone who would listen to her that her baby was going in the pool. My baby is growing up too fast!

Another birthday...

Happy birthday Matt! This years cake was inspired by Matt's infatuation with our swimming pool. It seemed as if he was not dumping it and refilling it on a weekly basis then he was talking about dumping and refilling it. All of his talk and our million dollar water bill has resulted in an almost perfect swimming pool and the theme for this years cake.
This cake marks the first time I used fondant, it was no that hard to use but it does not taste good. The kids loved the cake and once they realized the people on the cake were our family they were over the moon and dying to taste themselves!
They did not eat the cake but they sure did enjoy eating the fondant people. I think the people freaked Jordan out a little bit because she barely touched them and was more interested in eating the pineapple. We all sang Happy Birthday and helped Matt blow out the candles, even Akiva got in on the action!
Now they can not wait for their princess cake and their birthday party on Sunday.

Grrrrr....

I was planning on writing an update tonight. The company has been gone for a little over a week and I never posted any pictures of us in the pool or saying goodbye and that is when I discovered that my charming niece "lost" all of our photos. LOST you say? They were not where I left them and I was surprisingly calm because we back-up our photos, most of the time, and I knew all was not lost. Well Liel is one lucky girl because they are on the computer just not in the photo program anymore. So now instead of blogging I am moving photos.
I guess Eric was right and we may need to find a new program to store our photos or we could just beat Liel.

Day four

Day four and the kids are swimming. If I were more organized and knew what I was doing with the computer you would be looking at video right now. If I were to ask Matt to help me tonight he might not be that nice to me since he has to clean the kitchen and take a shower. I will post videos of the girls jumping into the pool and swimming. Amazing!

Day three

Day three was almost a complete washout because of the rain but we decided to take a chance that it would clear up. I am very glad that we did because the girls did an amazing job today.
Jordan jumped in the pooland swam to the wall.

Lior jumped in the pool and swam with her face in the water to the pool without crying.

Sydney jumped in the pool even though she did not want to do it and then had a great time because the hard part was over.
My little fish was a big screamer today but she got over it once she realized that jumping in the pool was a lot of fun.

Swimming day two

Two days down and three to go. Sydney is a fish. There are no other words to describe her, she sticks her head in the water and dives right in. Today she worked on kicking her feet straighter and getting a larger reach with her arms. She is fast! Tomorrow she is going to learn how to jump in and how to breath while she is swimming. I am going to practice breathing while she is swimming because I tend to hold my breath every time she goes under.
Lior did much better today. There was less panic and more control. She was definitely swimming. She needs to practice kicking her feet and keeping her mouth closed while she is under water.
Jordan is stubborn. She is still refusing to kick. "I don't want to kick", that is what I heard several times today. Because I am a Speech Pathologist I also noticed how clear her /k/ sound was when she said "kick", a first! She has always substituted that sound with the /t/, a common developmental error. Swimming is a cure all, if anyone else finds this out I will be out of a job. The instructor told me that as soon as Jordan starts to kick her feet while she is swimming she will be set. I hope she kicks those feet in the pool tomorrow. I know she knows how because she kicks us when she wants us to move, when we are changing her diaper, and when she does not want to be in her car seat.
My homework tonight is to get those girls kicking and charging the camera battery.

Swaddling

"How do you do it?" I hear that all the time. I have a very easy answer to that question. Swaddling, we swaddled each and everyone of our children for as long as we could because it allows them to get sleep. When the big girls were in the NICU they taught us how to swaddle the babies and we never looked back. We discovered that the girls were able to sleep for longer stretches because they were not waking themselves up with flailing arms and legs. So far all four kids have started to sleep through the night at around six weeks and I attribute that to swaddling. When I explain this to people who ask me how I do it they look at me like I have two heads. Yes, swaddling is the answer to all your problems, trust me. I know you think your kid does not like it because they are always trying to break free but they really do like it. Not to sound cold or harsh but who cares if they like it as long as they are getting some sleep! Eventually the arm and leg flailing will decrease and swaddling will not be as important but just think about all the sleep you will be getting as your child's nervous system is maturing!
Every time we put the baby to sleep these days I hear Liel tell us how mean we are for tying him up to go to bed. I try to explain my swaddling philosophy to her and she just does not get it. I promised her she would understand it better after she had her first baby and was completely sleep deprived. Trust me swaddling is the answer to "How do you do it?" Now if someone would just swaddle me!

Swimming day one

Today was the first day of swimming lessons for all three girls. They are very brave! The big girls decided that Jordan was going first. Nothing like throwing the poor kid to the wolves! Poor Jordan cried for the first fifteen minutes at least but managed to swim under water a little, kick her feet a little, and monkey crawl along the wall to get out. Not bad for the first day. She actually made the instructor laugh several times. She was telling Jordan to kick her feet while she was under water and when she came out from under the water she told her to kick again, Jordan looked at her and said "I don't want to!" Needless to say she wound up doing it but she did not want to.
When Jordan was first in the water the girls were pleading with me, begging me, with big puppy dog eyes "Mommy, I don't want to do it", "Please mommy no" Big tears were falling out of Lior's eyes, she was really scared. I started to feel guilty and then they found Miss Nancy's toys and all of a sudden they wanted nothing to do with me. They spent Jordan's thirty minute lesson playing with the toys and cheering on Jordan. Sydney was putting her face in the water, kicking her feet and having a great time. When Jordan's lesson was over Sydney was eager to start swimming and she was amazing. By the end of her lesson she was swimming across the pool while kicking her feet, monkey crawling along the wall and starting to use her arms to swim all with a huge smile.
Towards the end of Sydney's lesson Lior started to clean up the toys in hope that she would not have to go swimming. She was sadly mistaken. Poor Lior was really scared and panicking. Miss Nancy said that Lior was the only one of the girls who had fear of the water. They are working through it and by the end of the lesson Lior was no longer screaming and was keeping her mouth closed when she went under water. She was also able to put her eyes under while she was swimming to the wall. She monkey crawled along the wall. She continued to cry but she was not as panicked by the end. I hope she has an easier time tomorrow although no one is looking forward to the lessons.
Maybe they will look forward to playing with Liel in the pool after their lesson?

She is really two in disguise

Jordan comes with me every morning to drop off the girls. On very rare occasions she gets out of the stroller and gets to play. Today was one of those days and she had a blast! She glued with Lior.

She sat down nicely and waited for the animals, just like all the other kids. She high tailed it out of there as soon as Farmer Roger brought out the animals but she sat.
She came back to see the bunny but would not touch it and was not really thrilled that I was touching it either.

Jordan discovered the water table and it was all down hill from there.

Then her clothes came off when she discovered the car wash.

Her shoes will never be the same!

When it was time to leave she sat on the tractor and had a blast trying to keep up with all those other two, three and four year olds.

Farmer roger

Farmer Roger had a farm e-i-e-i-o,
and on that farm he had some pigs e-i-e-i-o
with a oink oink here
and an oink oink there,
here an oink,
there an oink,
everywhere an oink oink.
Farmer Roger had a farm e-i-e-i-o
and on that farm he had some chicks e-i-e-i-owith a chick chick here
and a chick chick there,
Here a chick,
there a chick,
everywhere a chick chick.
Farmer Roger had a farm e-i-e-i-o
and on that farm he had a bunny e-i-e-i-o
(chorus)
Farmer Roger had a farm e-i-e-i-o
and on that farm he had a donkey e-i-e-i-o
Farmer Roger had a farm e-i-e-i-o
and on that farm he had some goats e-i-e-i-o

This and that

I went to the doctors office twice today. Can you believe I planned it that way? Akiva went in the morning for a nurse visit. He needed to get some shots, which I hate! They weighed him and he weighs eleven pounds and fourteen ounces. I could have sworn he weighed more than that. He has grown so much, I cannot believe it! He is smiling and laughing all of the time. I can really get caught up staring at him and talking with him. He sleeps like a champ. With all the chaos, he still wants to eat his final meal for the day at nine and sleeps through the night. He typically wakes up between seven and eight in the morning. You can not beat that.

The big girls were my second trip to the doctor today. I kept them home from camp today to spend time with their Uncle Eric and we started the day at Lion Country Safari and ended at the doctors office. They had a blast feeding the giraffes and the goats. The cousins were not as brave as our fearless Sydney who did not want to stop feeding the giraffes. I think Liel will eventually warm up to the purple tongued giraffe but in the mean time we will just laugh at her. Uncle Danny fed the giraffe although he was a little squeamish at first. Eric fed the giraffes and loved every minute of it. We made a stop to feed the Lorries where they landed on several heads, I was very proud of Tanya when the bird landed on her head because she did not pass out. Adina was very brave and fed the birds without screaming or freaking out. Sydney asked me if she could touch the bird and when I told her she could her eyes lit up and she did it. Eitan even held a bird. Lior and Jordan enjoyed getting close up to the birds.


Sydney's bravery continued at the doctors office where she was thrilled to pee in a cup, stand on the scale and have her temperature taken orally. At two years eleven months Sydney weighs twenty seven pounds and is thirty four and a half inches tall and she will be the first to tell you that she did not cry at all. She will also tell you that when they pricked her finger it "hurt terribly."
Lior, at two years eleven months weighs twenty eight pounds and is exactly three feet. She continues to be one pound and at least an inch taller than Sydney. She helped Sydney by going first to show her that it was not scary and when she flat out refused Sydney stepped up to the plate to help her. She was not as happy when they pricked her finger and was mad at the "Doctor nurse" who gave her a boo-boo. They got a clean bill of health and are ready to start school in the fall.
That is right, Debbie the procrastinator brought her children to the doctor before she absolutely had to! Are you impressed? Well you should not be, we are getting ready to change health insurance and I am just being cheap. Maybe I can get Jordan in before we switch...
Jordan was ready to get examined today along with the big girls. She took off her dress and climbed up on to the table to be checked out along with her sisters. I wonder if she will be as eager when it is her turn? She is really ready to be a big kid, on Saturday she peed on the potty for Matt. He was changing her diaper and she kept pointing to her bottom saying "pee potty" so Matt took her and after a long wait she actually peed on the potty! She went again today when Liel was baby sitting her. Maybe she will be fully trained by her second birthday. A girl can dream!
Liel came with me to the big girls appointment today and she earned her money! Jordan was all over the place. That child is wild! If Liel was not with us she would have been strapped into the stroller the entire time screaming her little head off.

Adult supervision needed

This is why Matt needs supervision:

Example one- Sydney


Example two- Jordan
Example three- Lior


Example four- No'am

Need I say more? No wonder Tanya wants to go to Barnes & Noble the next time we take the kids in our swimming pool.