Happy Passover

Charlie has been learning about Passover at her after-school Jewish studies class, and she can rattle off the 10 plagues, the 4 questions, the various items from the seder plate and all their symbolic meanings.  She participated in a model seder last week, and had a great time looking for the afikomen, spilling drops of “wine” (aka grape juice) along the edge of her plate, and singing Passover songs. Tonight, the first night of Passover, I think it really sank in that we weren’t doing a seder at our house, but she tried her best to liven things up, asking if she could recite the blessings, and maybe “we could pretend we’re eating hebrew food, and having a real seder?” Basically, tonight I feel like a bad Jew, and next year, I’m committing to a proper Passover meal!

The boys haven’t a clue about Passover, but they’re getting super excited about the “chocolate bunny eggs” they’ll be finding this weekend. My parents are coming down for the weekend to help celebrate Easter, so we should have a good time, especially since the weather forecast is calling for temperatures around 24 degrees! Spring has definitely sprung here in Montreal, and we’re getting back into our groove at the local park on the weekends.

Enough chat, time for pictures. Here are the boys, sorting through 1001 toys on the dining room table:

Eric picked up Charlie from school last Wednesday, brought her to dance class, then the two of them assembled pizzas for dinner:

Elijah and William got to add some finishing touches to the pizzas (that’s not a bruise on William’s cheek, it’s a painted-on ladybug from daycare):

William and Charlie playing with a toy computer (yes, William’s got oven mitts on his hands again):

Elijah’s still somewhat obsessive about his little “guys”, AKA various figures which include robots, pirates, “Sully” from Monsters Inc, and especially “cowboy” and a much-beloved Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story movies. He’s also got a little collection of Smurfs figurines, which he doesn’t like to share.  Here, he’s got them assembled tidily in a toy recycling truck:

The boys’ language continues to develop at a rapid pace, and they’ve recently clued in to the fact that they can talk to each other at bedtime, once Mummy and Daddy have said goodnight and turned out their lights. Every night is now a slumber party in Elijah and William’s room, with long, drawn-out giggling conversations lasting for a good half-hour after they’re put to bed. It’s very sweet, but it makes it harder to wake them up in the morning to get ready for daycare!

Charlie’s making her own language breakthroughs these days, with her reading more and more fluently in both French and English. She’s delighted that she can now pick up a newspaper or a book and pick out whole sentences. Whole new worlds of literature are opening up for her!

March Break

It’s the last official day of my 2-week March Break from school. The kids have stayed at daycare/school for the duration, so it’s been a fairly low-key holiday, although we had some great family visits last week. First, my mum was in Montreal for about 6 days, then my in-laws visited over the weekend. We’ve been extremely lucky with our weather, which has been sunny and spring-like for most of my break.

Everyone is doing well, although we had a short-lived fever sweep through the children last week. It hit Elijah first, so he stayed home with his Daddy when Grandma and I brought the kids over to the Westmount library and Conservatory. As always, Charlotte and Will were enthralled with the fish:

A couple of days later, Will was the next to succumb; here’s Grandma comforting a very miserable William when he was too sick to attend daycare:

By later that day, William was already recovered enough to help Grandma prepare dinner:

Here are Elijah and William decked out in their kitchen gear, ready to help their daddy prepare some food (at least in theory):

My parents-in-law were kind enough to babysit the kids while Eric and I spent a night out in Old Montreal (my very first night ever away from the kids, believe it or not!). Everyone had a wonderful time, and the whole event was a big success.

Here’s Grandmaman playing with all three kids, creating “snakes” out of playdough:

All the children love books, and adore reading with their grandparents. Here’s Grampa looking at a magazine with the boys:

William had a ‘booboo’ on his foot (some kind of blister), so when he was reluctant to bare his feet to get into the bath, Grandmaman let him keep his sock on:

Finally, here’s a video I shot of the boys at breakfast time – I love listening to their wacky comments and conversations!