Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig (or Jog)

We got to JFK with plenty of time to spare before our flight. While we were sitting and waiting, David noticed a guy in handcuffs with 2 air marshal-type people. This did not make me happy to know that this guy was going on our flight and so when they announced that the flight was overbooked and they need volunteers to get bumped I jumped at the chance! We try this all the time and it has never actually worked out so I wasn't all that surprised when they said that they didn't need us to be bumped after all. But, since the flight was so full, they couldn't change our seats which for some reason were not all together. We had 2 in one row separated by an aisle and then 2 in the row behind but one was a window and one was an aisle with 3 seats in between them!! We had to wait until we were on the plane and then ask the people around us to re-arrange. It all worked out, but we were 2 rows in front of the hand-cuffed guy so I wasn't all that happy. We gave the kids some benadryl and the flight passed uneventfully albeit slowly. Towards the end of the flight, there was some commotion behind us and I turned around to see what it was. A very frum-looking rabbi-type was putting tefillin on the hand-cuffed guy who was suddenly wearing a very large black kippah. Only on a flight to Israel!!
We landed a little before 2pm and were home before 3 with all of our bags, shockingly. Unfortunately, when we started unpacking we discovered that the Sony Playstation that we had been bringing back for someone from David's office had been STOLEN out of the bag. I understand why we aren't allowed to lock our bags for security reasons, but shoudn't there be some safeguards in place so that stuff doesn't get stolen???
Anyway, we went to the Nussbaums' for dinner where I fell asleep on the couch and then barely made it home! We all went to bed early but then we all woke up in the middle of the night and were up for a long time. We woke up at 11am when Alan knocked on our door to tell us that shul was over. We went to the Sachses for lunch where Simon and Eli were thrilled to see Asher and Meirav. Simon ended up staying there all day but David and I eventually brought Eli home because he was getting violent since he was so tired. We didn't have him nap in an attempt to end the jet-lag. The attempt didn't work and Saturday night was not a good one. I don't think any of us slept more than a couple of hours. But we got Simon up and off to gan in the morning. David took him and he was happy to go. I decided to let Eli sleep and just as I was about to go back to sleep as well, I got a call from Smadar, Simon's teacher. She said he had thrown up, but that he was acting fine so she wasn't sure whether I really needed to come. I said he was probably just overtired but I would come. I didn't want to wake Eli and I knew David was in a meeting so I called Abby and she sent Jonny over to stay with Eli while I went to get Simon. Simon refused to come home with me so I came home and did some unpacking and then tried again to go back to sleep. Smadar called again that Simon had major diarrhea and I should come get him!! That time I woke Eli and we went to get Simon. Somehow we all made it through the rest of the day and the whole week in a jet-lagged haze.
We are slowly getting back to routine. The boys were thrilled to see Marcia, as was I!!The kids are happy to be back in gan and with their friends. The time we were away went by so quickly but now that we are back it feels like we were gone forever.
Simon came home from gan yesterday with an invitation to a birthday party for a girl in his class, Sapir. Tonight I asked him what we should get her for a present. He said "well, she is a girl so it has to be a girl present." Then he was quiet for a minute and then he said "oh, a barbie. Barbie rocks. But only for girls."
Also, they started learning the letters in school (finally, evidence that they do something other than play) and Simon is supposed to bring in things from home that start with the letter aleph. David and I both had the same immediate reaction of "apple" or "airplane." Oops...those don't start with aleph!! This is the conversation Simon and I had about this tonight:
Me: We need to think of some aleph things for you to bring to gan
Simon: Yeah, what should I bring?
Me: You could take an "auto" (car, obviously) and an "autobus" (bus)
Simon: Ok, I will bring both.
Quiet for a minute, thinking...
Simon: do we have any men?
Me: men? Like the little army guys that Coby has?
Simon: Yeah, "eesh" means man, right?
I was VERY impressed, not so much that he knew how to say man in Hebrew, but more that he knew that it started with an aleph! Then I told him that we have a little guy from a playmobil thing. He said "I can't take that. It is Eli's and he might need it."