Where (not) to put your beads...

Okay, we've got the computer back, and we're now working on making sure we have a back up of EVERYTHING, then we'll start putting it in full use. But for now I want to get this story out, since it happened two weeks ago already.

So it's Shabbos afternoon, and I got up from a nice 1 hour nap. I went down to see how Laya and the girls were doing. Tikvah (4) ran over to give me a hug, and commented, "Daddy, I have a bead stuck in my nose." I answered, "That's nice sweetie... ... ... Ummmmmm, did you just say you have a bead in your nose???" Yes, that's what she said.

"Okay, so how did that happen?" She just put it in, and now it won't come out. Huh... Okay, sit up here, and let me take a look. I don't see any bead. Are you sure it didn't fall out. No? Let's look again... I press against the side of her nostril, the back of her nose, have her breathe out of her nose hard, etc. I don't feel any beads in there. So we figured it probably fell out and she didn't notice.

Fast forward...

Havdalah is done... get the kids in their pajamas, brush their teeth, read them a story, sing a song and now into bed. I see Tikvah put her finger in her nose. Just before I can tell her to take her finger out of her nose, she says "Daddy!! I feel the bead!" Oh, I forgot all about the bead. I went and grabbed a flashlight and shined it right up her nose. And what do you know... there's some plastic in there. Oh boy. Where are the tweezers? I'm searching all over the house, then I finally find them. When I approach Tikvah, she gets wide eyed. "No, no, don't worry sweetie, this isn't gong to hurt, I'm just going to try to get the bead out." But every time I get the tweezers in her nostrils, she starts moving around and I'm afraid I'm just going to push it further in. I took a break to talk with Laya about a new strategy, and wondering how long do we try this before we give up and take her to the emergency room. (yeah, like we'd be a high priority to see a doctor???) In the meanwhile, I reminded Tikvah to breathe hard out of her nose. Suddenly she shouts out "It came out!!!" And so it did. Whew. Below is a picture of the bead and my pointer finger. I don't have a ruler handy, but I'd guess my fingernail is about a half inch long.

After this, of course the main question was "Why did you put a bead up your nose???" And in an answer that Bill Cosby made immortal, she replied "I don't know!" Every now and then, after the events, I've asked her if she has thoughts of putting anything in her nose. So far she insists that nothing else will go up there except for her finger. Oy, we still need to work on this.....

Still down...

The home computer is still down. We are working off a laptop, but definitely not as much processing power there. Hopefully I'll hear back soon about the computer. Long story short, the main hard drive was doing a slow nose dive. Hopefully the repair tech I brought it to had enough time to back up all the data (pictures, stories, etc.) that was on the drive. I have some of it backed up, but not all. :-(

Remember to back up your files!!

Just a public service reminder... remember to back up all those important files you have on your hard drive. Pictures, stories, webinfo, etc. Our computer konked out, it's now in the hands of someone more knowledgeable than I. I hope it is something simple, like the power supply, rather than something more damaging, like a hard drive crash. I had a post and picture that I was going to put up here about our adventures over the weekend, but things have been slightly postponed. I should still have the picture in my camera and will try to download it to my laptop so I can post from there. Let's just say it has to do with interesting places that kids decide to put different objects. :-)

Let's Dance!

Simchat Torah at my shul (a Chabad center) is always a rocking good time! When we dance with the Torah, we dance! This year in the days leading up to Simchat Torah, Tikvah was learning about it at school, and also Laya and I mentioned it several times (especially in the context of "If you want to have fun dancing at night, you are going to have to take a nap, otherwise you'll sleep right through it).

And she and Ahava did dance, mostly from on my shoulders, but they also joined in with some of the other young girls dancing around as well. But the "Kodak" moment for me (ummm, actually, can you have a Kodak moment on a Yom Tov/Shabbos when you can't actually use a camera?) was a little later on. They laid a Torah down on a table in the women's section, and the women formed a circle around it and were dancing around. Laya was sitting down with Ahava (one of both of them were probably worn out). Tikvah butted into the circle, took two of the women's hands apart and joined right in. It was all grown women, and Tikvah, and while she wasn't quite getting all the steps right, she was really getting into it with them.

Unfortunately soon after that, Ahava saw what was going on and ran up to join in. (She's a "Me-too" child, wants to do everything her big sister does). The problem is that Ahava ran up just as the women were shifting from one foot to the other which sort of resulted in a butt shift, and one woman accidentally sent her butt right into Ahava's face just as she was running up, causing her to bounce off and crash into the floor. I started a mental countdown, "5-4-3-2-1" "WWWWAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" One of the other ladies scooped her up and I waved her over to me. A little TLC from daddy (and mom came up soon afterwards as well) and she was raring to go again.

The other fun thing this year was the mix of singing and dancing. Usually at our Chabad center there are a good mix of Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Lubavitch Jews. This year there were also several Yemenite Jews as well. When some of the bids for certain verses got into nice high numbers, they let out a good "Yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi." Plus it was interesting to hear how they sang some of the verses. That's one fun thing about Chabad, you never know what type of person will come in next and what you'll learn from them. And in the end, it all blends in and we all have a meaningful and fun experience together.