helping abba in the kitchen

kl conquers her fears

gimmel in a box

I scary!

Some recent Kinneretisms (KL recently turned 4):

* R&K were complaining about not being able to fall asleep (particularly grievous since they had been trying for a whole five seconds). It started with Rimonit saying that she was thinking (well, she used the word "dreaming" but I had to explain that if she were dreaming she would in fact have been asleep) about robbers and pirates and getting scared. I offered a bunch of going-to-sleep options: they could think about something fun or something that makes them happy, like their birthday parties; they could count (forwards or backwards, in English or Hebrew) or sing a song, like the Alef-Bet (their current fave). I made sure to clarify that if they counted or sang they would have to do it in their heads so as not to keep their sister from sleeping.

Only problem is, it appears that Kinneret hasn't quite figured out what it means to do something "in your head." I tried to explain that it means thinking the words of the song (etc.) without actually singing it out loud, but clearly she did not quite catch on, at least if I can judge by her repeated insistence that she couldn't do it and therefore I should sing in her head.

* Toward the end of the school year, the kids in Kinneret's class made a car-shaped Tefillat Haderekh thingamajig that apparently the ganenet said the parents are supposed to hang in their car. Kinneret took this quite seriously and was devastated to find out that the fact that we don't own a car served as a sufficient deterrent to our hanging it in said non-existent car.

* Someone who wants to eat is hungry, someone who wants to drink is thirsty, and someone who's scared is scary (especially when the dog comes too close). Right?

* For some reason, I thought that Kinneret's confusion between shalosh (3) and arba (4) would resolve itself once she actually turned arba. I guess I thought it was possible she was convinced she was already arba(before her birthday) because she's one of the youngest kids in her class, so most of the other kids were in fact either arba or hamesh (5). But no. No matter how many times I try to tell or show her (I've tried counting objects with her in English and in Hebrew), she insists that since her fourth birthday (in English only) she has finally found what Ponce de Leon was supposedly looking for, since she has gone from being arba to being shalosh.

Somewhat relatedly, Kinneret now insists I count to 4 whenever we do something where I count, regardless of whether this is beneficial to her or detrimental. I do the counting thing in part to help them take turns, and the first time she said it, I was willing to count to five for each of them during their turn on the ride thingy in the mall that I never, ever put money into because I would never hear the end of it - but she insisted I count to four. (I started counting in this way with Rimonit when she wanted to stop at every single blade of grass on the way home from gan - I would let her stop at certain places for three seconds each - and now find it really useful for all of them, individually and together. I guess Kinneret and Moriya were born into the system.)

* [Warning: Repost/elaboration of FB post] During bathtime (I usually put the Big Three into the tub together), Rimonit sometimes likes to spread out a washcloth on the side of the tub and announce that she's screening movies. During one such bath, she asked Kinneret in Hebrew which movie (seret) she wanted to watch, to which Kinneret responded matter-of-factly: 'seret hadibrot.

The explanation that ruins the joke: It's not really Seret Hadibrot, nor is it a seret; it's aseret hadibrot (spelled totally differently), which means the 10 commandments.

Charlton Heston, meet your youngest fan.

finally caught heruti smiling