My little prodigies

Feivel, Gilad, and Adele are playing dreidel, having eaten their fill of latkes (served with chickpeas and green beans and rice and salad, this being our house after all). Oh, and of course brownies. On Feivel's first spin he got a "hay" ה which means he's supposed to get half of what's in the center. Gilad glanced at the pile of pennies and announced to Feivel that he should get six pennies. Sure enough, there were 12 total.
Then Adele spun, and proudly announced that she too had gotten a "hay" and sure enough she had.

A Thanksgiving Tale: Feivel Goes South

Here's the whole story. Feivel wanted to go out late on Thanksgiving morning. His Oma told him he could walk to the Brookville Market, 1/2 mile right down the road (no turns, no major roads to cross, etc) to buy her some paper napkins she needed, and that he could buy himself a candy bar with the change. He headed out and came back 5 minutes later saying he couldn't find the store. We told him he hadn't gone far enough; he knows right where the store is; we've walked there with him in the past and he's been there plenty of times. So he headed back out.

An hour and a half later, he hadn't returned. I walked up to the shops, checking the side streets and so on. The clerk had seen him come and buy the napkins and 3 candies by about 11:30, just when he should have arrived. No one at any of the other shops had seen him. No one coming from the other direction had seen him.

We drove the rest of the way down the road to Chevy Chase Circle. We went around the circle, down 1/2 mile of CT Ave in DC, and back up CT Ave in MD. No Feivel. At that point we called the police.

They had 10 units, and a regular K9 unit out searching and picked up his pillowcases for the K9 bloodhound unit search when he finally called 5 hours after setting out. He had indeed gotten lost, had gone the wrong way when he came out of the store, gone all the way to the other end of the road by the Circle, turned away from CT Ave (where he would have found shops and shoppers galore, and which was visible from where he came out at the end of the road) and instead headed down Western Ave into the residential area of Chevy Chase, DC. He just kept walking until finally he gave up and asked a nice lady out for a walk for help because he was lost. She told him no problem, people got lost all the time in their neighborhood, but she had no idea he was the object of such a big police search and was as lost as he was! He asked her to help him find his grandparents' phone number and knew their full names, so she was able to call 411 and get the number quickly; he was so good he even told her he wasn't allowed to enter a stranger's house so he stayed outside and she brought the cordless phone out. He called us, the police went right there to stay with him until we arrived, and we flew right out to get him.

So that was that. He was home just in time for Thanksgiving dinner (he needed to rest and relax for a while before he was ready to eat; he was scared, tired, and cold), and we had a Feivel to be extra thankful for.

And just for a more typical update, here's Addie in her Thanksgiving dress:

A hat I just finished knitting to mail off for a "Hats for Homeless Teens" drive:

And some yarn I finally spun this month after buying and dyeing the fleece last winter when I was in North Carolina at the John C. Campbell Folk School:

Wake up and smell the pumpkin seeds

You can hide.

You can try to pretend you have other things to do.

You can be inordinately cute

But your pumpkin guts belong to us!

Addie and Gilad's preschool went to the farm this last week (and Addie's 2 year old class used it as an excuse to teach the children all the standard nursery rhymes and songs, so all week we heard her singing "Old MacDonald" and "Baa, baa, Black Sheep" and so on). They came home with popcorn and pumpkins. So we've hacked the tops of their heads off and scooped out the brains and guts and are soon to eat fresh roasted seeds.

Feivel's Bar Mitzvah

Photos are online in an album here; and below is the text of his speech which he wrote entirely on his own; I only typed it.

A Bar Mitzva poem: A Bright New Day by Feivel

I wake up and it's a bright new day. I get out of bed. I wash my face. I take a shower. I get dressed. I pray to G-d. I eat my breakfast. I get my back pack and make my lunch and put it in my back pack and head toward the bus stop. I see my friend and I tell him to wait for me and we walk with each other. And we wait for the bus on a chilly day. When the bus comes we go in and it feels really good. It's so warm I feel toasty and I get in myself and I feel bored with nothing to do but when we get there we get ready for class. When it's time for lunch my friend comes with me to get my lunch from my locker and we go to the cafeteria and we go to our lunch table and we eat and talk and talk and talk. When the bell rings, we go to our next class. My next class is gym. For some reason I always forget my P.E. clothes and start doing gymnastics. I like the rings but when the class is over I'm sad but I know I'll have it again. When school is over I go to my bus again. When I get home I do my homework then I stay in front of the TV till dinner. When it's time for dinner I come up to the dining room to stuff my stomach until my stomach hurts a tiny bit. When dinner's over I melt my brain again, but for now on I will learn Torah after I do my homework. I'll do what my parents tell me to do and I'll do a lot of mitzvot and do a good turn daily.

fiber here, fiber there, fiber, fiber everywhere

2 ply spindle spun camel down, 111 yards

2 ply CVM lamb and adult mohair, 275 yards

75 yards of 2 ply CVM lamb

and Feivel's hiking socks!

As we begin the Special Olympics Track and Field competition season

We opened the season today with a long hot meet in Annapolis at the Naval Academy. It all started off with the Academy's marching band and rifle guard

followed by the parade of athletes, starting with the hosts

and including our Montgomery County athletes

Feivel won a gold in the 200 meters and the softball throw, plus silver and bronze in the 400 m and shotput

and he's a happy Special Olympian!

A typical convo with Feivel

For several weeks now we've been preparing Feivel for the Special Olympics track and field event coming up this weekend in Annapolis, at the Naval Academy, known as the Navy Games (aka the Anne Arundel County SO Track and Field Games). We've discussed it with him, he's had his time trials and lots of prep, his coaches have told him all about it.

This morning he comes to breakfast and announces he has middle school play try-outs on Sunday. I remind him that he has the Navy Games on Sunday in Annapolis. He stares at me wide-eyed and confused and asks, "I'm going to Annapolis on Sunday? Is that far away?" Like he's never heard a word about any of this.

Oh and Monday I had to take him for new sneakers. Men's size 10 now, and he's only 12 and just starting to grow--he probably has another 10 inches or so in height to gain to what we expect his final height to be. I can't imagine what size shoes he'll be wearing then.

But wait, there's more

I forgot that today we received our first mishloach manos of the season, from Chai Lifeline and delivered through the girls' Yeshiva:

Feivel made trifle:

And FYI, Addie fits into a pizza box (in a rare photo in that Tirtze is actually pictured):

Some force is strong in this one

Apparently it's a force of chaos, but still.  In case you're wondering, he was watching Star Wars (or whatever they call the original now) and The Empire Strikes Back.

The Great Pumpkin

The Great Pumpkin
Originally uploaded by LeesyLou

Feivel has started needle felting! This is his pumpkin he made all by himself over the last few weeks. He had so much fun, he decided to make a mouse too, and designed it himself, took scraps from my stash of wool bits, and made it, pictured here with his pumpkin again.

One of them thar catchup posts

Feivel is starting to feel a little better as the antibiotics really kick in.  Yesterday he still had some shoulder pain (referred pain from the diaphragm irritated by the lower lung lobe which had the fluid and infection), but today he really seems more energetic and more himself.  Take that as you will.

Gilad was up a lot last night coughing, so he stayed home today because we were worried he was really coming down with something serious.  Well, we were wrong and he spent the day driving Jeffrey nuts so he goes back to school tomorrow.

This Shabbos Sachy has a class Shabbaton--the whole 5th grade will be with us (the synagogue congregation, I mean, not our family personally) for the whole time.  Kayla is escaping to sleep over at her friend Shira's house instead of being here.  An added bonus is that Shira also has a 5th grade brother, so he'll be here rather than with the girls.

And I've been knitting up slippers for Feivel in bulky Lopi yarn, to be fulled (felted knitting); and spinning up some mini skeins from leftover singles and fiber bits:

Thanksgiving and the sickies!

Well we got to see all the Kaplan cousins (actually Gill and Shifrin cousins):

Olympia, the littlest;

Olympia and Margo, who can still lift her baby;

Kayla, Gilad, Sachy, Bryce, and Feivel;

Josiekins;

Feivel, Bryce, and Jeremy;

Kayla, Adele, Jeffrey, Bryce, Feivel, and Gilad;

Bryce and Margo.  Don't take his cup.

I thought I had a picture of Ezra, but now I can't find it.  We didn't forget him.

However, the real reason we haven't been available to post any updates is that viral nastiness has taken a turn for the bacterial; Tirtze has a sinus infection (though she's been on antibiotics since just before Thanksgiving); and as of this afternoon, Feivel was diagnosed with real, honest-to-goodness bacterial pneumonia, and started on some antibiotics.  Apparently missing two weeks of school wasn't enough for him; he's shooting for 3.

Happy Birthday to Feivel

He's a big 12 year old now!

Here he is with his cake (and with Gilad).

I had hoped to offer a photo some time in the last few weeks of Sachy eating birthday cake for the first time, but since he's been sick he's been back to formula only for the last 2+ weeks (orally now, at least; for a couple of days he was back to pretty much g-tube and pump only, but that resolved pretty quickly).  So it looks like Sachy getting to eat his own birthday cake for the first time will have to wait for next year.

Meanwhile, I knit one more quick hat, this one meant to be donated and made with yarn sent to me by AKknitter over on the Knittyboard, 

but then Trillian42 told me the donations were meant to be baby hats for Hats for Alex, not adult sized!  So I'll donate that one myself and am in the  middle of whipping up a quick baby hat from stash yarn, with huge apologies to AKknitter for messing up her plans, though at least in the end 2 donated hats will come from it.

And if you're wondering why I'm writing blog posts at 2:30 am, yeah, still not feeling so hot.

He rode it! Sorry I took so long to tell you all

Feivel, age 11, completed his bicycle ride of the entire C&O Canal last Thursday, along with other members of his Boy Scout Troop.  Mind you, Feivel was over a year younger than the next youngest of the scouts on the ride, and if you are a family member, friend, or regular reader here you remember that Feivel is developmentally disabled as well, making it that much more impressive and special that he completed this momentous feat--a 184.5 mile ride, camping out the whole way, with a stop to go white water rafting (they put Feivel in the raft with the three adults on the trip, which to my mind was the smartest thing they could have done).  He may be among the youngest ever to have accomplished this ride.

He is very proud of himself, and we are phenomenally proud of him.  Our thanks to Bob Kreitman, Dave Herschander, Yonasan Gorin, and all the scouts and parents who were involved, as well as to BSA which gave him this opportunity.

I hope to have at least a couple of photos soon to add to this post, but I'm not sure what became of them--Jeffrey, who helped with support for the trip, took them and either hasn't downloaded them or hasn't let me know where they are among the electronic files.  At the very least, I'll take a new photo of him in his gear.

We did sponsor the kiddush at shul this week in honor of his accomplishment, and contributed chocolates, Pepperidge Farm cookies, cocoa covered almonds, and Jelly Belly jellybeans, much to Feivel's delight and that of the other children.

They're outa here!

Feivel is at boy scout camp; Sachy and Jeffrey are at cub scout camp; and I drove Kayla up to girl scout camp. The men all left yesterday morning at 6:30; I drove Kayla up to Leesburg in the early afternoon. So now it's just me at home with Tirtze, Gilad and Addie.

Gilad took scraps of paper last night and told me he was writing postcards. He scribbled on each of them, then "read" them to me. They say:

Dear Tatty/Feivel/Sachy/Kayla,
I miss you.
Please come home tomorrow.
Love, Gilad

Unfortunately, yesterday I also engaged in acts of plumbing. With Grandpa's help, I replaced the insides of our toilet, which had some pipe leak that make the whole house knock when you flushed. When we re-connected everything, though, it turned out that now the connecting pipe between the water valve and the toilet had sprung a leak. Oma took the original so she could run to the hardware store for me today to get an identical one, but I figured I would go to the store myself and find the right thing and get it done last night. Needless to say, the one I got was the wrong size at one connector end, so the toilet is still not usable. Sigh.

However our big new is:
Gilad is now wearing big boy underpants.

Hives--we has 'em. Weird kids too

Feivel has developed some kind of allergy to one of his soaps--every time he bathes in the last week, his whole abdomen is covered in hives! I took a photo of his cute tummy to show you, but then he panicked, becoming convinced that I was planning on sending the picture to a doctor who was going to put him in the hospital. I told him I'd get him some Cetaphil and some Ivory, gave him some Benadryl, and got him calmed down.

Meanwhile, last night while Jeffrey changed Gilad's diaper, Gilad lay on the sofa whacking his own head with his own hand, and yelling at himself, "Stop punching myself! Stop punching myself!" He thought it was just too funny. We don't live in a sit-com, we live in a cartoon.

Slow Bee Shawl in progress and gratuitous kid pics

The Slow Bee Mystery Shawl after clue 5 (of who knows how many):
I'm still on my first spool of yarn, haven't had to join yet, but I suppose all good things must come to an end soon enough. The last couple of pattern rows were a relief--about 35 plain stockinette stitches in the middle of each pattern repeat. That sped things up a bit and allowed my brain a little rest (so long as I could count to 35 correctly).
And as mentioned, pics of Kayla and Feivel just because they were hanging around the room as I photographed the shawl:

Please note no cast or other appliance on her foot!

Feivel being Feivel.

Notes from a Soggy Weekend

It is wet. Wet as a frog's bathtub. A ducky paradise. Boy is it wet.

For Mother's Day, Tirtze and Gilad gave me cards they picked out with Oma; Kayla made me a card and gave me a little crystal rose she had saved from a friend's bas mitzvah. We went over to Mom and Dad's for a little brunch. Our gift to Mom was the first scarf I made on my ever-wonderful new 3' triangle loom, done in a fuzzy black, grey and white wool/acrylic blend. It is quite lovely and she seems to like it.

My other weaving on the loom includes 2 grey wool triangles which I hope to seam and then embroider in whites, greys, and blues; and the piece I'm working on now which is difficult but wonderful: a jewel-toned ladder yarn. Kayla has suggested I give this to Aunt Hedy, since Kayla insists it's beautiful but that I don't usually wear such bright jewel tones. Ladder yarns when woven look like strung beads, so I can't wait to take it off the loom; I'll try to be sure to take photos.

In other fibery news, Interweave's Piecework magazine published a pattern for filet crochet based on historical research of Laura Ingalls Wilder's life and works; it's a large doily or dresser scarf with birds on a branch (note to anyone considering working the piece: there are pattern corrections to the symbol listing). I don't do filet crochet (well, I could, I suppose, but I haven't crocheted in years and I just don't have time to start something else new), so I just cut the article and pattern out and mailed it to Julie; maybe she has a friend who can replicate it for her.

Everyone at home has a bit of a cold or virus; runny noses and sore throats. Addie seems to have had it first and is feeling better already; I'm still feeling a bit miserable and run-down but it's not too nasty. Feivel had bug bites from Friday and was convinced he had chicken pox again; not only that, but he was checking his brothers out and insisting that every little spot or bump on their bodies must be chicken pox too.

The only other real news is that before the rain came pouring down, Jeffrey was able to go pick up a desk from a freecycler, so now we have the small desk we needed. Thanks, freecycle.

Feivel Runs, Feivel Wins!

Do you know this super athlete? Yes, it's Feivel medal-man Cohen, at his first Special Olympics track and field event!

Here he is speeding through his lap of the 4x400 relay. He ran the adult (16+) relay because the team was short runners. Here are photos of him and his team receiving their medals for the relay race (that's Feivel on the right-most position on the podium; standing next to him more towards your left viewing the photo is his friend Sam who also ran on the team despite also being underage):


And here he is at the end of the day with all his medals for individual and relay track events, plus javelin-throw:

Life with Feivel, story #?

Feivel just headed off to bed, saying to me, "Good night." I replied, "Good night." To which he then replied, in all earnestness, "You forgot the 'E.'"
If you understand that, you are a big step ahead of me. Or else you also have ACC.