November 2015

I cannot believe that Victoria will be a year old in a couple of days.

Now let me try to remember November. November is one of my favorite months. I have two favorite times of year. The first is late May and early June, just before school ends. I really like anticipating things, so that time of year, when I can see summer vacation, but it hasn’t started yet, when my students and I are all in a great mood because the weather is nice, not too hot, not too cold, all the testing is finished, just waiting for final exams (that most of them don’t really care about anyway), it a great time. My other favorite time is November and December. November is a funny month because it has two holidays – Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving. In 2009, due to budget cuts and furloughs, my district decided to take the entire week of Thanksgiving off. And not only are there lots of days off in the month, but my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. November should be a sad month for me as two of my three miscarriages occurred at the end of November, but it’s not. After Thanksgiving are Chanukah and Christmas and I’ve always loved this time of year – everyone is nicer to each other, decorations are everywhere, lots of good sales (even though I don’t shop, I like to look at the ads and imagine what I would do if I had unlimited income, a gigantic closet, and my pre-children body), it’s a little colder so maybe I get to wear my wool coat and scarves.

This past November went by in a whirlwind. It began with Family Learning Day at Torah School. Fiona decorated a cookie and I made a pillow case for her. We sang songs and read books together. John stayed home with Victoria. It was a nice bonding experience.

Fiona was excited for Family Learning Day because it meant that she got to wear her pajamas:

John was excited because it meant he got Victoria all to himself.

Fiona went to Torah School almost every Sunday in November. We are members of the local Reform temple. For those not in the know, Reform Judaism is about as liberal a religious order as you can get. My parents joined shortly after moving here, but I did not join until Fiona was born. It’s not that we suddenly found religion; John isn’t Jewish and has no plans to be, and I never went to Temple on the kibbutz or in the US. After Fiona was born, I was talking to my friend Nicole (who sometimes reads my blog, so if you are reading this, Hi Nicole!) and she was telling me how the members of her church organize a meal delivery plan for families with new babies. She frequently mentions people she knows from church or things she does with her church or through it, and it got me to thinking and wishing for a community of my own. I really wanted my kids to grow up knowing other people who celebrate the holidays that they celebrate and to know what it feels like to grow up Jewish in the US. To my knowledge, I was the only kid in my high school who celebrated Chanukah and Passover and all the other holidays (there are many). It was very isolating. Sending Fiona to Torah School means that she will grow up with friends that are Jewish and with a place where she can feel safe and free to speak openly about things and to refer to this time of year as “The Holidays” but as Chanukah or Purim, or whatever is going on at the time. As a bonus, I’ve met some nice people and made friends. In a couple of weeks, we are going to a Chanukah party.

One day, as we were leaving music class, we saw a rainbow over the fields:

 

It was actually cold for a day or two, so we put this hat on Victoria for the walk to Fiona’s school:

We all walk her to school every morning and sometimes it’s less than warm when we leave the house.

Fiona finished Tae Kwon Do and started Tap and Jazz Dance and Ballet:

 

   

  

Victoria’s nanny made that tutu for Fiona. Before it, Fiona was wearing a skirt that kept falling down.

We went to the zoo:

The birds are very bold and relentless.

 

The girls practicing driving (me crazy):

We went to a Sesame Street themed birthday party for a friend of Victoria’s:

During October and November, we went to five, yes five, birthday parties. Four for friends of Victoria and one for a classmate of Fiona’s. No wonder I feel like every weekend is jam-packed. Victoria slept for part of the Sesame Street party:

Many clear, island-view days:

More Victoria sleeping in the stroller:

 

The funny thing is that she doesn’t really spend that much time in the stroller, but for some reason, winds up sleeping there a lot. This was probably during one of Fiona’s dance classes.

Elsa paid a visit to my parents’ house and read a book to my mom:

We went to a park in Ojai and it was awesome! Fiona and her friend climbed the trees:

 

A Mickey Mouse pancake:

 

Victoria wishing to go outside with her sister:

We take Victoria outside a lot but probably not as much as she’d like. The issue is that she tries to put all sorts of things in her mouth, things that shouldn’t go in her mouth such as pieces of splintery bark and leaves of plants we are not sure are not poisonous, and after a while, it becomes me (or someone else) chasing her around and pulling things out of her hands. So we don’t let her out unless someone can watch her exclusively. It’s sad because she loves being outside. If she is crying and won’t sooth easily, just take her in the backyard and she calms instantly. I let her play at the park the other day and she had a blast climbing the steps, going down the slide, playing in the dirt. Then she tried to eat the rocks. A little dirt I don’t mind. Lots of rocks and suspicious plants I do mind.

Victoria enjoying a book, much like her sister:

Victoria making a typical mess while enjoying eating her pasta by herself:

Victoria is not a picky eater at all. She eats pretty much everything I give her. For example, tonight she ate pasta and vegetables with smoked salmon and tomatoes in a curry cream sauce. She couldn’t get enough. I often flavor her foods with curry, pumpkin pie spice, garam masala, or cumin and coriander. Sometimes I don’t flavor it at all. I serve it cold, warm, or hot. She doesn’t seem to care. She even ate a little banana the other day. I hope this continues. Fiona was like that too, and still is to a large extent. It would be nice to have another child who is not picky and eats anything I make for dinner.

Hip Hop show at school:

I have some video too, but have not yet uploaded it. In order to post a video here, I have to upload it to Youtube, then go into the HTML code, find the right place and paste the link, then return to “preview mode” to type my explanation or comments. It’s kind of a chore, ever since Youtube decided to change it’s format so that it is incompatible with Windows LiveWriter. That is why the last few videos I did post looked different and had different dimensions than older videos.

We had two Thanksgiving dinners in November. The first was a “Friends-giving” potluck. Friends we met at the Temple, whose son was in Fiona’s class in preschool last year and in her Torah School class this year, organized a big Thanksgiving themed potluck at their house. They had all sorts of games and activities for the kids, a bounce house (because it was so warm), and turkey. People brought different traditional Thanksgiving side dishes. I brought mini pumpkin pies that I made using the pumpkins I bought with Victoria at the pumpkin patch. There were easily 20 adults and twice that many kids. Fiona made a friend and other than during dinner time, I hardly saw her the entire evening. The second Thanksgiving was the actual holiday at my parents’ house. My mother outdid herself and the food was excellent. We saw family members and my friend Fatima and her husband, mother (who is visiting from Kazakhstan for the first time), and two sons, one of whom is a friend of Fiona’s, also joined us. It was a wonderful evening and I overate as usual. I made a pumpkin pie with fresh pumpkin for this one.

 

I am sensing a theme here:

 

Fiona likes to play with Victoria:

Fiona really wants long hair. Here she is playing Rapunzel and using my scarf as hair:

It’s supposed to be up in a bun.

We celebrated my mother’s birthday:

I made her a dinner of steak, mashed potatoes, salad, and asparagus. Then we surprised her with ice cream cake in her favorite flavor. Luckily, it’s my favorite flavor too! The cake was supposed to sit out for a few minutes to thaw slightly, but we didn’t do that so it was hard as a rock, hence my stabbing it.

Victoria’s reaction to our singing:

More Rapunzel:

Victoria and Fiona in their Thanksgiving outfits:

Fiona wanted to get dressed up. I think she looks so cute in these photos. She has lip gloss from a birthday party and wanted to wear it so she would look beautiful. I told her she always looks beautiful to me. I never wear lip gloss. Maybe Chapstick, but that is not shiny. It’s funny to me. If I have some event and wear eye liner, or even just do something with my hair, she asks me “Why do you look beautiful?” What she really means is “Why are you dressing up/enhancing your appearance from its usual schlubby self?”

We played Hair Salon and Dentist. Here is Fiona blow-drying John’s hair:

It looks like she is going to hit him with the plastic ring stand. When I went to the Fiona dentist, she not only looked at my teeth, she combed my hair and put cute little clips in it. It was the best dentist appointment I ever had. I love it when we play these sorts of games, and as I’ve said before, I love how she makes do or improvises to play the games. Who needs specific toys? Fiona can turn anything into something else for the purpose of playing and I love that about her and I hope she always has that imagination.

Fiona at her actual dentist:

They didn’t style her hair after.

All my sillies:

Lots of mild weather and clear days:

I can’t help but love the view from the parking lot at Kindermusik, so I take photos of it on my phone. The photos do not so justice to the view. Often it is so clear, you can see the hole made by the arch on Anacapa Island. But my phone camera is not so good so it’s not visible in the photo. I don’t carry the other camera with me, and even if I did, the zoom function is broken so if you try to zoon, the camera shuts itself off.

My uncle recently went to Viet Nam and Cambodia and brought back this outfit for Fiona:

So that was November in a nutshell. We had three birthday parties, a house warming party, Friends-giving, Thanksgiving, lots of stuff at the Temple, breakfast at Nicole’s, and we saw Mary Poppins that musical. Fiona was a real trooper and sat through all three hours of it (with 15 minute intermission). We have two birthday parties this weekend (one of them for Victoria). The fun never ends, but I am exhausted! I need a weekend with nothing on the agenda so I can finally clean my house properly. I feel like everything is a mess and I can’t seem to make my floors stop producing bits of dirt.

My girls are growing up. They play together sometimes and Victoria follows Fiona all over the place. Hopefully I’ll post something after Victoria’s birthday. My next project is to finish a photo album for her. Fiona has five so the least I can do it make one for Victoria.

I hope everyone’s December is a good one and hopefully I’ll start posting once a month.