Stage Fright

Yesterday was Eli's Chanuka party at Gan Frieda. Because the party was in the afternoon, they got out of gan at 11am. Tali was teaching so she asked me if I could take Uri until 1:00. I was a little nervous that he'd have a fit like last time I picked him up, but he was very happy to come with me and Eli loved that he had a friend coming home with him. They are both very different when they play together without their big brothers around and without anyone telling them that they can't play with certain toys. I brought them home to play for a bit and to eat something, although neither of them really ate anything. They played very nicely even taking turns with toys that they both wanted to use.
Around noon we went to the park. I told Uri to take his bag because he was going home from the park so of course Eli needed to take his bag too. We were the only people in the park since most kids were in school so they had a lot of fun. While they were on the big swing, I tested their Hebrew knowledge a bit. Uri knows all of his body parts in Hebrew and Eli knows a lot of them. They both know all of them in English. We were singing a song that is like "head shoulders knees and toes" in Hebrew so when we got up to "al ha-ctafyaim" I pointed to my shoulders and Eli sang "al ha-shoulders" because he didn't know the word! He also impressed me because he was playing with a 10 agurot coin and he pointed to it and said "look, chanukiah" because there was a picture of a menorah on it.
Tali met us at the park and then we went our separate ways. Eli cried all the way to pick up Simon saying "Uri go in Eli's car NOW!" I told Eli that he had to come home and have a nap so that he'd be ready for his party. He obliged and luckily the workmen were quiet so he could actually sleep.
I woke him in time to get ready for the party and he was not in the best mood. Asher came over to be with Simon and Natan who came to babysit while the rest of us went to the party. Eli did not participate AT ALL!! I was so disappointed. He wouldn't even sit on his chair, but only on David's lap and then on my lap and then David's again. He agreed to let David hold him to do one of the dances but even that was under protest. At the very end when Frieda was coming around with boxes of treats he went right to sit in his chair to get his treats. And then he sat nicely at a table with his friends to eat. Frieda told us that we should play the CD of the songs from the party at home and see what he does because when they practiced, he sang everything.
Simon's party is on Thursday and hopefully he will be more participatory than his brother!