Superglue - Don't try this at home

Today started out as one of those days where I was actually thankful that at least I didn't walk out of the apartment with my skirt bunched up in the back or something like that. There were many crises - Yaakov's pants were on backwards (which bothered me much more than it did him) and Ariella forgot her water bottle at school, and when I gave her our fancy water bottle, she dropped it on the floor, it cracked, she cried. Then I grabbed a bottle of water for her but then promptly forgot it on the kitchen table. In the end, I told her to fill up her water bottle when she gets to school, and we found a spare rolling around in the back of the car, which I sent as a backup. Luckily, the day improved from there. Yaakov has thank God been going to gan very nicely these days, giving me a hug and kiss goodbye and then happily marching off to get his chocolate sandwich. And Ariella now walks into gan most days by herself - I watch her from the top of the pathway.

I left ulpan early to have a meeting with Ariella's teacher, just to check in. Here are the results of the meeting.
1. Ariella is smart.
2. Ariella is stubborn.
3. Ariella only wants to speak Hebrew in gan, the result being she doesn't talk much, but she did tell the morah something in Hebrew yesterday, so l'at l'at as they say.
4. Morah Maya is "not worried" about Ariella and thinks she is well-prepared for first grade. This was a big relief. If Morah Maya is not worried, then I say, why should I be? I'm glad to see Ariella's "true" personality coming out - it would be a shame if the morahs thought she was a sweet, compliant, docile little girl all year.

After the meeting, I took Ariella out from gan and we headed over to the mall. Until today, "going to the mall" meant "going out to eat with Donny." Sometimes, for a change, it meant "going out to eat with Lisa." But today we actually spent money on clothing - some leggings for Ariella, very exciting.

In the afternoon, we picked up Yaakov and headed over to Tipat Chalav for his very first appointment. I brought the kids' vaccination charts so they could transfer them to a PINKAS. Yaakov weights some amount of kilograms and is some amount of centimeters - I don't remember. 14 was one of the numbers - probably kilos. He also got 2 shots, and he was very brave, especially when I told him we would go out to pizza for dinner. Of course, we are not done yet with TC. The next step is going to "Bank HaDoar" to pay something or other, going back to TC to pick up the PINKASIM and them making another appointment so they could check his development. Phew! Time for a nap! (Or 3 if you're Dadz.)

When we came back from pizza, the chanukiah was falling apart. Again. This is one of those annoying home projects we got from gan. We are supposed to create a menorah at home and send it in before Sunday. In addition to being bad at Fixing Things, I am also bad at anything resembling Art. Someone in my ulpan gave me the idea of using bottle caps. The first part was smooth - I cut a cereal box and a piece of foil ('cuz Ariella wanted it to be "sparkly"). Ariella decorated the foil beautifully and I wrapped it around the cardboard. So far, so good. The problem started with the Israeli glue. I bought it at Supersol, and it was all they had. Me, a fan of one-stop-shopping, bought it anyway, though it looked a little sketchy, like it was made from a very old, wheezy horse. When I squeezed it to glue the bottle caps to the foil, the glue had separated. Hmmmm. Interesting. It also took a VERY LONG time to dry. Then, later at night Donny glued the candles into the bottle caps. (See, this is supposed to be a kid/parent togetherness project. So we did do it together, just not at the same time.) This morning, Ariella was all excited to take her menorah to gan. When I gently moved the project so we would have room to eat cereal, all the candles fell over, and the glue was swimming happily in the bottle caps. Luckily, she agreed to wait one more day to take it in. Surely, I thought, by the time we get home this afternoon, this glue will dry, right? Ha on me! After returning from TC and pizza to a fallen menorah ("Harachaman Hu yakim lonu et Menorat Ariella Hanofalet"), I was not a happy camper. So I broke out the Super Glue. Take that, candles! But I didn't realize that Super Glue is very liquidy and not thick, and as I turned it over to squeeze it, a few drops fell on my hand and quickly bonded it to the tube of glue. Boy, we are having some kind of fun now! The good news is that the Super Glue seems to have worked, and the candles are erect, for now. Bad news - still covered in Super Glue, and it is NOT a pleasant feeling. I tried nail polish remover (saw that on a website), lotion, soap, water, and many combinations thereof. I guess I'll just have to wait until I shed. I miss Elmer's.