Productive Sunday

As usual, we headed up to CBT for Sunday School and Family Service. The morning was a little crazier than normal as we had to remember Jacob's Jewish Hero Report and model and Hannah's nectarines for her class fruit feast. We also woke up a little later than normal, which didn't help matters any. But, we made it to the synagogue on time and went into Family Services.

As the Family Service was concluding, Rabbi Vered suddenly appears behind me (that woman is FAST!) to point out a neurologist that she had been telling me about last time. Ironically, we'd been eating our bagels at the same table that morning (they have a bagel breakfast set up each week). I thanked her and told her that once we got the kids off to their classes, I'd try to catch up with him.

Mike sees Jacob to his classroom while I walk Hannah to her class. Daniel had disappeared, so I could only assume he went to his class. I drop Hannah off and as I turn to make sure Daniel made it into his classroom, Rabbi Vered is behind me, once again, smiling and doing a little happy dance. "We made it again!" she tells me. (One of her daughters is in Hannah's class). "Yes we did." I tell her with a smile as I head to Daniel's classroom. I'm definitely thinking that this woman has way more on her plate than I do (running the Family Service, getting two daughters into their classrooms, taking care of a 6 month old...).

Once I see that Daniel is, indeed, where he is supposed to be, I head to the ulam (foyer/commons area of the synagogue) for coffee and conversation with some of the other parents. I run into Mike, who was also checking on the kids. He turns and walks with me, when, who do I run into again? Yep. Rabbi Vered. This time, she's standing with Dr. Z, the neuro she had been telling me about. She introduces us and walks away.

After talking with Dr. Z, we exchange info and begin to go about our morning. I see Rabbi Vered walk by with another family and I mouth, "thank you!" and she mouths, "you're welcome," and gives me a wink. I love that woman.

I sit with Rachel and Beth, two ladies I've befriended. Beth has two boys (2nd and 4th grade) and is a music teacher. Rachel has a ton of kids, most of which are older (out of college), but the youngest is in 3rd grade. Both are crazy crafty. Rachel usually makes jewelry while Beth knits. They inform me that, starting next week, they're having a knitting/crochet circle during Sunday School. Bring a skein of yarn and they'll provide the hooks and needles. "But I'm not good at this!" I tell them. "No problem," Rachel tells me. "I'll teach you." Sweet.

At 11, we head to Jacob's classroom to watch Jacob give his report. He was nervous but he did well. At noon, we go to pick up the other two.

I leave to take the kids home while Mike stays behind to attend the lottery drawing to set up the date for Jacob's Bar Mitzvah (July 21, 2012 if anyone's planning). Yeah, it seems like a good deal out but there are a lot of kids and they like to have everything planned about 30 months out for their own planning since they can't have any other activities on a Bar/Bat Mitzvah weekend.

We then headed out to Daniel's basketball game. Most of the kids on Daniel's team are first year players but are getting better. They're also having a blast, which is a good thing. They are not, however, winning. Most games, they have to reset the score because the other team goes up by 20. That's okay, though. All of the kids are actually getting play time and I haven't heard Daniel complain about going to a game or a practice once this season. The team we played today was, by far, the best team we've played this season. Daniel made a couple of good plays (and almost got fouled) and the kids were in good spirits at the end.

Unfortunately, it's started snowing again. The weatherman that I trust is off on the weekends and the weekend guy is new. I also don't like him since he's way too general and still doesn't know the area so he says things like, "north of the city," or "east of downtown," a lot. "North of the city" could be anywhere from Leavenworth to St. Joe and the weather could be completely different in each of the cities. He also said that it hadn't started snowing south of Kansas City and, I assure you, it was snowing at my house at the time, and had been snowing for a while. I also don't understand how it can snow (heavily at times) all night tonight and day tomorrow, yet he only called for 1 inch. So, I have no idea how bad it'll be. I hate that. I'll have to go check out the weather blog.

Random Post

The people who used to live here receive an insane amount of catalogs. Most of them are dumb and they go right into the trash. But, every now and then, a good one comes and I take the time to look through it. This was the case yesterday.

It was some sort of organic gardening catalog. It had a lot of cool things in it...even though most of it was stuff I would never have (not saying I wouldn't love to have it)...containers to grow tomatoes upside down, raised beds (would love to have these) and that sort of thing. But, they had a 4-5 page spread on composting. I had a friend or two in VA that had these and I always wanted one. I think the boys would love to watch stuff turn into soil. Does anyone out there compost? If so, how do you start?

Poor Hannah has a mild cold. At first, I thought that it might be her asthma acting up but after talking to her, she has a tickle in her throat and her nose is running. She was hacking away around midnight last night and I went in to check on her. I hadn't been there for too long when she began throwing up. Everywhere. After settling her down, I ran the bath. At midnight. I have to say that I think this is the first time I've ever had to give a child a bath like this in the middle of the night, but I just couldn't let her go back to sleep with it in her hair. I changed her bedding and put her back to bed. She must have just been exhausted because she didn't get out of bed this morning until after 10. She's in good spirits, so I'm hoping that this blows over soon.

I've enrolled the kids in various activities through the park district. The boys wanted to take a break from baseball and will be starting Tae Kwon Do at the beginning of April. Two days a week. The nice thing is that they are in the same class, so I don't have to ferry them to several different classes a week. That's nice. I hope that they learn something from it. Daniel's excited to learn "ninja." LOL! Mike thinks they will get bored and will hate it...I think they'll like it. We'll see.

Hannah starts gymnastics and ice skating (yes, I said ice skating) at the end of the month. Both are once a week. She's really excited about ice skating and told the boys that she'd teach them too. We'll see how she feels after the first few classes. Ordinarily, I only let them do one activity per season, but since the boys were doing theirs twice a week, I figured it would be okay for Hannah to do two.

Southern Illinois plays KU (Kansas) tonight in their Sweet 16 game. I really want SIU to kick KU's ass, mostly because I'm tired of hearing our NBC affiliate sports guy talk about how KU is going to be really up against a wall with UCLA (neither has won their game yet). And, this guy is an SIU alum!!! He keeps going on about how SIU is a mid-major and don't have a chance against Kansas (umm...hello...remember Bradley in the FIRST round last year?!? We knocked KU off easily!) I'm actually looking forward to watching the game since they are televising it locally. 6:10, baby. I really hope Southern kicks some Jayhawk ass!!!! GO SALUKIES!!!!!! (that's for you, honey!!!)

After going back and forth for the past week, ABC decided to run a new episode of Grey's tonight. My Favorite Mistake is on at 8pm Central. I'm curious to see what happens in the aftermath of George/Izzy.