luckily photos don't smell

of course they wanted to bring it home. of course it smells really bad whenever you pass it in the garden. but at some point the smell will disappear i assume. until then it stays in the garden. far away from the house.

grandparents

the kids have enjoyed these weeks with my parents. my mother left this week, my dad came a bit after my mother and is staying a few more days.

it's been a while. can i be a drag here for second and return to the big topic for the last few months? in my life, and here. not that i've been around here much, but hey - it kind of feels like i haven't been much around in my life either. we've been too sick for me to really be "around" anything. yes. we continued our days with fever. one child after the other, taking turns. and once in a while i'd join them. yes, i know, another post of self pity. sorry.

then a couple of weeks back i went down really bad with a cold and fever. and just couldn't get over it. the last week my mom was here i slept most of the time. like really tired. got up to take kids to kindergarten, got back to sleep. up to work a bit, show my parents i was alive, then sleep again. pick kids, and have them running around, being entertained by my parents and pretend i was there, but i don't think i'd kid anyone as i would drape myself on the coach. when the children went to bed around 8pm i'd go straight to bed too.

D is not in the picture here, cause he's pretty much been out of the picture. especially the last couple of weeks. this is march and there's some sort of financial year ending on march 31. so he's been coming in at 3am for a few hours of sleep and then back to work. as you can imagine he loves his job this time of the year. almost as much as i do.

so finally i went to the doctor. and it turned out i had pneumonia. and then i'd go on my second round of antibiotics this winter.

but. it's getting warmer and the sun is shining. in fact all the way into my living room through clean windows (thanks mom).

not sure how i would have survived this last month if my parents hadn't been around.

good times

last weekend also had some hammock time and gardening. i'll hang on to that as we embrace a weekend of rain. my dad came this week, so now we have the luxury of two grandparents in da building.

weekend goodness listed

:: recovering from fever in the garden. i mean, if there has to be fever, what better way to recover?

:: fresh mojito greens in the garden. now, where's the havannah club?

:: little flower gifts. the boys know how to treat this girl.

:: monsters. as costumes, toys, stories. and on paper.

:: green salad, fresh from the garden. this wet winter made it possible for us to grow lettuce for the first time ever.

:: being outside. playing, eating, relaxing. how i missed you, warm days.

kids and costumes

we had purim last week. the kids dressed up, but this mom never got any photos of the tiger, ben10 or harry potter. blame it on the rain.

ok, it wasn't raining that day. it was beautiful and not too hot. we've had some purims with temperatures making the face paint disappear in sweat and costumes impossible to keep on. but this time it was perfect, besides the littlest one getting cold feet the morning of the purim dress-up party in the kindergarten and not feeling harry potter-ish at all. oh well, i didn't sit up half the night making it only to have him shake his pretty little face. like i did that one year where N wanted to be a pirate, so i made him a costume. it was awesome, despite being finished only in the early morning hours the night before. and then he didn't want to dress up.

i must admit i wasn't very adult about that.

anyway, harry p was a store bought robe. ben 10 we already had, but that was what the child wanted. and the tiger was an old costume too. i even tried to get him to change his mind on this, but he insisted to wear the 3 year old tiger costume that is way too small for him.

he looked weird, but he was happy.

the return

after a break i am back. and after a long wet and - for middle eastern standards - cold winter, spring is back.

my mom arrived almost a week ago, and she seem to have brought the good weather. this weekend we've spent most of our time outside. breakfast, lunch and just plain hanging in the garden.

believe it or not, we're still not completely over the sickness. this week the littlest has been sick. again. he's been so sick with fever on and off for the last two months, so this time we took him for a blood test. and everything was fine. so guess he's just been picking every little infection up he could this winter.

J is down today. he woke in the night with ear pain and seems to be a little hot too. but with the sun shining, and the option to rest with blankets outside, it's just much better.

hope you've been enjoying the weekend too. with or without spring in the air.

lessons learned

here, still around. so, inspired by our health for the past month few i'll share a few things i learned the hard way this winter:

::  israeli houses are even worse than i'd ever thought. they just cannot warm up to cozy.

:: i must have sinusitis at least once every winter.

:: i get depressed in that existentialist teenage weltschmerts way when i'm sleepdeprived.

:: a house with dustballs flying in the air whenever someone moves doesn't help on that weltschmerts thing.

:: that marathon i thought would happen seem to fade into the horizon. and i'm not sure life lets me run that far anytime soon.

:: how important it is to remember why i really got into running in the first place last summer.

:: i will never ever again entertain anyone with how great it is that my kids are now so old that it's not so bad with sickness and colds in the winter. saying that will have fate haunt me down and turn our house in to a pest nest for (what feels like) years of ungoing sickness.

:: and should we have a break of one week or so in this ongoing sickness, i will not say to anyone that i am so relieved we finally made it to the other side. because then i'll have to wake up in the morning with a fever just like those you have when you're a kid, where you can't move, eat or sleep. not even feeling too bad, because your almost numb.

after one day i was kind of ok, and now after a few days i'm better. but i won't say it's over. i think i've learned a lesson or two by now. but i will apologize for being so sour in this post.