Monkey See Monkey Do

On Sunday morning, the first thing Eli did when he woke up was point to the playroom where Farrah and Barry had been sleeping and say "shhh...Bayah..." clearly indicating that he thought they were sleeping in there still. Poor kid is still waiting for them to wake up!
I had big plans to take the kids to the park or maybe even the grocery store on Sunday morning, but by 10:00 Eli was SO cranky that I had to put him back to bed. Apparently he needed the sleep because I had to wake him at 12:45 when we were leaving to go meet Arica, Danya and Jordy at the Monkey Park.
For some reason, we weren't able to go into the park alone and we had to wait for a tour guide. The tour was all in Hebrew and none of us were paying much attention, but the kids had fun seeing the monkeys. There seemed to be fewer of them than last time we were there. I think the kids had the most fun at the end of the park when we got to the big play area. There was a huge water slide with a pool full of soapy foam at the end. Only Danya was brave enough to try it and she loved it even though she had to have been freezing! Simon and Jordy went into the big cage-like play area and didn't come out until we bribed them with the possibility of ice cream. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the ice cream stand it was already closed. I have a feeling Arica actually had to stop to get ice cream on her way home, but my kids seemed to have forgotten about it by the time we got back to Ra'anana so I let it go (even though I actually really wanted ice cream).
Monday was back to school for the boys--yay for me! Simon was really excited to go and he gave Frieda a huge hug when he saw her. David dropped off Eli and apparently he was not very happy to be back at Bettina's. Eventually he only stopped crying when Kenny came downstairs and picked him up. He put on the same show this morning when I dropped him off-I heard him turn off the tears the second I closed the door behind me.
After picking up the kids today, we came home so Eli could take a quick nap and then we left to take Simon to Audrey's for his Hebrew class. When I picked him up, Audrey told me that he's doing so well and that this was actually the first time that he spoke entirely in Hebrew. She said he told her that he's only going to speak Hebrew at her house because she is Hebrew.
From there, we went to meet Tali, Boaz and Uri at the spaceship rocket park. I drove there and David picked up the car from there to go to Tel Aviv, so I had to walk home with the kids and no stroller. I carried Eli for a couple of blocks but then he wanted to go down and he and Simon ran the whole way home. Simon made sure to tell Eli to stop and look before crossing any driveways on our street. Eli wasn't so good at listening and had a fit everytime I tried to hold his hand. He didn't ever catch on that I was only holding his hand for a second as we crossed a driveway and then I'd let go again. He does the same thing if I try to hold his hand or otherwise keep him from falling when he is going up or down the stairs in our building. He counts the stairs as he goes up "two...four...two...two...ten."
After the kids' bath, Simon was crying hysterically because he got shampoo in his eye (tearless shampoo, I should note). He was lying on the floor crying and Eli went over to him and stroked his head and said "shhh" very nicely. It was so cute!! Simon thought it was cute too and it actually distracted him and made him stop crying.