Tzitzis already?

Yes, I know boys are only supposed to wear tzitzis once they are toilet trained, but Azriel Shraga must hold otherwise. Any time he finds a pair of Yisrael's tzitzis lying around, he tries to put them over his head. Usually, he just ends up draping them over his shoulders, but today he actually got his head inside the hole on top! He was SO proud of himself. Of course he had dirty diaper just then, so I quickly took a picture and then pulled them off so I could change him. He was quite upset with me when I took them off- I ruined his mitzvah!

May we be zoche, בעזרת השם יתברך, to see him fulfill many mitzvos, in the proper time!

Azriel Shraga loves junk food

Any time I give out a snack to the other kids (or sneak one for myself!) Azriel Shraga's little junk food radar lets him know, and he quickly comes to me to beg for some! Its pretty funny how kids can detect these things!

One day last week we had popsicles- I gave Yisrael and Bruria their own- and Azriel Shraga was VERY upset. So I shared mine with him (or should I say that he shared his with me?) - he ended up eating most of it- and boy was he pleased!

Bruria has the "tickling gene"

Well Bruria definitely has the "tickling gene" (for those of you who don't know what that is, its a Berlinger gene which makes the carrier have a strong liking for back tickling).

Bruria has fallen in love with having her back tickled. She will wake up in the middle of the night, and instead of asking for a drink like she used to, she cries out "tickle my back!". During the day, she comes up to me, picks up her shirt and say "tickle me"! (Its a great way to distract her when she gets upset or wants to beat up her baby brother!)

Opa, you should be proud of the mesorah you've passed on to your great grandchildren!

Mat vs. Matt: Yisrael gets confused

Yisrael has become VERY curious lately. He has a question about everything he sees- either:

• What's its name?
• Where does it grow? (he usually asks this so he can figure out which bracha to say, but it gets confusing when I try to explain where a cookie comes from)
• What does it eat? (he only asks this in regard to living things, of course)

Its very cute, but sometimes it can get to be a bit much (like when I'm cooking and he wants to know where every single ingredient comes from).

This afternoon, during bath time, he pointed to the bathtub mat and asked me, "What's its name?" to which I answered "its called a mat".

"Its name is mat?" he asked, and after thinking about it for a moment, he turned to me, with a puzzled look on his face, and said "Mordechai's name is also Matt. He's Sabrina's choson!"

(Don't worry Matt, we all like you much more than our bathtub mat!)

Azriel Shraga's new toothbrush

A few weeks ago I decided its time to start brushing Azriel Shraga's teeth (he's got quite a mouthful!) As soon as I showed him his new toothbrush, he right away grabbed it from me and put in straight in his mouth, and (was I imagining?) was brushing the bristles against his teeth!

Of course that night when Bentzi came home I bragged to him about how smart our son is. Bentzi was not impressed- big deal, he said- he's a baby, he sticks everything in his mouth- he didn't actually mean to brush his teeth!

Well I didn't agree, and since then, I've been watching him- and it seems that my little guy knows exactly what to do with everything he finds- if he finds a hairbrush, he rubs in against his head, if he finds clothing, he tries pulling it over his head, if he finds a toy car he pushes it....

So what do you say? Did he mean to brush his teeth or not???

Finger Painting Fun

Today's afternoon activity was finger painting! We had so much fun painting picture frames! We were very careful to put on smocks and made sure not to get any paint on our clothes!

Here's the finished product!

Yummy Watermelon!

You've probably read about how much my kids love watermelon, which we have as a special Shabbos treat. Usually by the time Shabbos is over, there's not that much left. But this week I exaggerated and bought an especially large one (we were having special guests- the Renzer crew- both present and future!) and on Sunday we still had some left.

So here's a pic of the kids enjoying one of their favorite treats!