Hanukkah

With all the excitement of yard mega-projects and Lego League, Hanukkah just about flew by. The coolest thing was that my parents came to visit us. They arrived on the first evening of Hanukkah and stayed for 4 days, just about the record (except for when M was born and when I had surgery).

We had great time too. My Dad is not big on going places and doing things. He loves spending time with M as long as it's in or around the house. Which explains why we have like no pictures of him (oh, and he doesn't like being photographed either). My Mom is just the opposite. She loves going places as long as we don't have to drive after dark (she gets motion sickness) and she doesn't mind being in a picture.

We didn't have an overwhelming "program" for the visit. We had a nice first evening of Hanukkah. The next day Grandpa took M to the store and got him the one toy M's been dreaming about (and asking for) now that he's all about Lego Hero Factory once again. Of course, he asked for Stormer XL (saw the darn thing on the LEGO YouTube channel). At first M was puzzled over what XL stood for. After repeating it several times though he realized that sounded just like "excel". And once he put Stormer together, he also saw that it was quite big, bigger than all the other Heroes, so XL was also extra-large. Which reminds me...

a few days after getting his new Stormer XL, after clearing up the mystery of what XL stands for, M was telling me something about his new Stormer and I said something along the lines "well, in this regard he's a bit like you, isn't he". A little while later, I overheard M's conversation with Papa:

M: "Papa, you know, Mama said that I'm kind of like Stormer XL."
Papa: "Oh, yeah? How so?"
M (totally serious): "Well, maybe it's because I'm kind of large for my age"
(the kid is at the bottom of the weight chart for his age and just around the middle of the height chart).

Grandma got to go to M's Lego League showcase and also to the Life and Science Museum. That plus our regular phys therapy appointments and homeschool took up a large chunk of our time.

Then the evenings were spent cooking (unlike me, my Mom can cook just about anything out of just about anything without cookbooks and it will be delicious), baking (my hubby, who's rightfully famous in my family for his bread-baking was doing a master class for my Mom), and listening to my Mom's lectures on alternative medicine, food additives and healthy lifestyle (sorry, Mom, you're right, you're right, but sometimes it gets to be too much of a good thing).

All in all, it was great. I just wish they stayed for longer than 4 days!

The rest of Hanukkah was hectic and we didn't get to play dreidel until the last day of the holiday. This year M learned to spin it pretty well and, when we added chocolate coins to the game, quickly remembered all the rules. He would get all dramatic about it too, exclaiming "Gimmel for me!" and "Oh, I got Shin again!" But he was pretty lucky. I, on the other hand, kept spinning one "Shin" after another. It was ridiculous, I'm telling you. That dreidel must'd been loaded. Even M eventually exclaimed (again, with great drama): "Why does Mama always get shin?!" Which was, if you think about it, a hilarious question.

So after a while M ended up winning all the chocolate coins. But he did share his wealth with us and then with all his friends who come over to our place. This new generous and very polite (says "please" and "thank you" all the time) M is really a joy!