Our Family of three has completed our first cycle of Jewish Festivals

Since her birth in November, Ayelet has now celebrated all of the Jewish holidays of the year.  Her first was חנכה, and she was not so impressed by it. 

While we were in ישראל we celebrated ט’’ו בשבט with Carrie’s family near אילת, and she was sick at the time and so she did not seem to enjoy that so much either.

Then we returned home and she found that she loved to celebrate one of our favorite holiday’s פורים…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that great holiday what more could she want?  She got to celebrate פסח with her Bubby and Zayde, and she got to enjoy bedikat chametz with us as well.

I think she enjoyed פסח:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So then came שבועות… She enjoyed it.  We had a delicious dinner at the shul and she had just recently begun her swimming lessons.  Also, she had just recently seen her Safta and her Papa, and she had traveled to LA and met all of our family and friends there.

Then came ראש השנה… And there are some great pictures of her at school and playing with the שופר.  And here are three of them:

I enjoyed sounding the שופר each morning leading up to the holiday and having her get excited for it.  During my sermon on the first day she managed to bump her head and began to cry and so Carrie rushed her out of the room so I could keep my focus.

יום כיפור was uneventful aside from her making a new friend, Shaynabella, at break fast.

And then came סוכות and I think she liked this one a lot.  She loved eating Lirit Maslan’s cooking from Purple Beet Catering, in our synagogue’s סוכה, and she enjoyed shaking her lulav and etrog in our סוכה.  Here is the album.

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Okay so I included some pictures of her “behind bars” at the top of our stairs being kept safe by her gate.

So a year has gone by with her experiencing our traditions and I have two words of wisdom:

The first is that she has made our traditions more meaningful and better.  Seeing our religion and our world through her curious eyes is simply incredible.  Bring able to bless her at the the beginning of each holiday seems to give the holiday more meaning.  I look forward to a lifetime of these celebrations. 

The second is that I hope that Ayelet finds her home in the Jewish people that we have found.  I hope that the traditions and observances are not empty and that she grows in them as we have.  We are trying to lay the foundation, and hope to do a good job.

Oh and now for some updates:

She has more teeth coming in. 

Carrie and I are exhausted.

She is pulling herself to a standing position.

Carrie and I are wiped out.

She has boundless amounts of energy.

We do not.

 

That’s it for now…

Testing out Youtube for Ayelet Videos

Just a random blog for all of you today.  I do not think that we are trying to blog on a schedule, but we are aiming to do it with some regularity.  Nothing is really new here right now, just that Ayelet is teething like a madwoman and she is taking it in stride. She is having some tough moments in bed at night… But she really is being as good as she can be about it.  Speaking of her bed… The other morning we went in to get her when she woke up and there she was sitting up looking at us… And I had been wondering how much longer it would be until I had to lower the bed to its lowest setting.  Then she put her arms up and pulled herself up with the rail… The bed was lowered that afternoon.

I do not have a long time right now to go on and on.  Being a parent is an incredible journey and I hope everybody in this world who wishes to be one is able to have the wish realized.  The video that is below is sort of random.  It was in the morning and it was my day off (I do not take days off during HHDays period).  Ayelet and I had just finished davening together and she was still in her pajamas.  I grabbed the flip video and recorded her playing around on the floor.

I believe that this video was taken on the morning of the crawling video from the previous post…

I was thinking about pajamas.  Don’t pajamas with feet represent our childhood?  When we see these types of pajamas aren’t we brought back to that happy time?  There is something reassuring and serene about having our whole body covered and snuggled.  There are adult sizes of these types of pajamas but I have never owned a pair… I guess I am part of the old people in the world now, and I cannot build that time machine to be a child again… But I guess it would be nice to be that child wearing those pajamas just for a moment again.  Well that’s life, there is only one alternative to age, and I see no pleasure in that.  Age is part of life… It is the progression down which we all travel.  And it is one that more of us should embrace with a smile.  I only wonder what it would be kike to be in pajamas with feet for one more moment in time…