How I Spent My Day

Full disclosure: These events did not all happen in one day. Some, of course, are regular occurrences. Others, thank God, are rarer events. Think of this like the blog form of a photo montage. 

6:40 Wake up kids
6:45 Wake up kids, with cajoling
6:50 Wake up kids, with threats ("There will be no time for breakfast. NO TIME!!")
6:52 Wake up kids by blanket-and-ankle yanking
6:55 Breakfast. Nadav picks his cereal. I confirm his choice (Cheerios) before pouring. He requests craisins. I confirm his request before adding. I pour milk
6:56 OH MY GOD! Disaster of hitherto unheard of proportions!! There are CRAISINS in Nadav's Cheerios! Do you hear me! CRAISINS! How did they get there???? "LO ROTZEH!" he demands. They must be REMOVED. Immediately! Nadav refuses to touch them, so the task falls to me to remove each one, wet craisin by wet craisin. "Better now?"
6:56.5 No, it's not. Cheerios in the bowl! Red alert! "LO ET ZEH!!!" Nadav cries, pushing away his bowl of the detested Cheerios. He wants his favorite thing to eat, "mashehu acher (something else)." I refuse to waste expensive Cheerios by tossing them down the sink so we have a few rounds of Breakfast Is Over Do You Hear Me?? before he deigns to eat it.
6:57 - 7:35 Bark commands: Get dressed! Brush your teeth! Put your lunch in your tik! I watch Nadav as he slooooowly put his shoes on himself ("AMARTI RAK ANI!") and I must sit on my hands to stop them from shooting out and grabbing the #$#@$#$# little Velcro strap myself and pulling it through the slot. Oh dear God he's almost there, just pinch it and yank it through, pinch and yank dammit, we're so close I can taste it, although, I do NOT want to taste it, since Nadav has insisted on wearing closed sneakers and socks and it's freakin' SUMMER in ISRAEL.
7:35 We bundle out the door. Ariella, as usual, is not ready ("I needed a few minutes to stretch!") so she says she will meet us at the car. We strap ourselves in and wait, while I mumble, "Next time, she's WALKING," and Yaakov is cheering me on, because his dearest ambition in life is to get a ride while Ariella has to walk, and then just to be contrary I yell at him, "Is that nice? To hope she has to walk? How would YOU feel? blah blah blah, be nice, do unto others, blah blah blah." Ohmigod I am so tired of saying those words.
7:50 I return from drop off. I open the door and notice a disgusting dead bug, upside down, its little gross buggy legs sticking up in the air. I feel willies up and down my back. I climb out the passenger side of the car.
8:00 I drink coffee/work/drink coffee/work, going to my virtual break room every so often to see what's going on.
10:00 I am hungry. I go to the fridge. It contains a mushy peach and a container of olives. I drink more coffee.
10:30 I have to go to the bank. The bank is like The Machine in "The Princess Bride." Every trip = one year off your life.
10:50 Still waiting at the bank. I admire Teller Window #2. So pretty! What? No one is ever working at that second window, so I assume it's for decorative purposes.
Eons later: It is my turn. I fight to convince them that the thing they think I can't do at the window I actually can do.
12:00 Home again. That trip to the bank deserves some more coffee. I look around. No one seems to object, so I make more.
1:30 I pick up big kids and we go to the pool. We get artikim. I wash off the artik in the bathroom sink after it falls onto the grass.
4:15 I pick up Nadav. He quietly contemplates what his afternoon tantrum will be about. Perhaps he will decide, once we are already home, that he MUST have his hat from gan and wail about it for 45 minutes. "AVAL ANI ROTZEH!!!" (In Nadav's world, this is a perfectly logical reason. "But I WANT it!" Oh! You WANT it! Now I understand! I shall rush to bring you the very item you covet, forthwith and without delay! Also, while we're talking about one-sided logic, I will note that while it is perfectly acceptable for Nadav to use "kachah zeh (just cuz)" as a reason, if he is deluging me with an endless barrage of  "AVAL LAMAH"s, I best be coming up with a satisfactory response. As Nadav tells me: "You lo say 'kachah zeh.'"
5:00 The tantrum has subsided. Nadav and Ariella are playing on the mirpeset. I overhear the following language lesson (for Nadav, who is hopeless about his male/female in Hebrew): "Nadav," says Ariella helpfully, "if you have a penis, you say 'Ani yodeah.' If you don't, you say, 'Ani yodaat.'" Which? Pretty much sums it up.
5:30 Doctor's appointment. I take Nadav because he had a weird cough in the morning. Yaakov happily plays on my phone during appointment. Lungs are fine. We leave.
6:00 Dinner. Nadav eats "mashehu acher." Yaakov complains that his head hurts. We were just. At. The doctor. Couldn't you have told me this an hour ago????
7:00 Getting Nadav ready for bed, wondering why Yaakov is running the water in the living room.
7:01 Come out to the living room, see the contents of Yaakov's lunch + dinner on the floor. Make another doctor's appointment for tomorrow.
7:02 Nadav fascinated by puke. "Ani rotzeh see. Yaakov oseh mashehu (I want to see. Yaakov did something)," he explains. So - and I can't believe I am actually typing this sentence - I take Nadav to look at Yaakov's vomit. "Rachok mee-die (too far)" Nadav comments, and I think he's commenting on Yaakov's impressive trajectory. But no. WE are too far. So - and I can't believe-oh who am I kidding, I can totally believe it - I bring Nadav closer to the puddle of puke. He is fascinated. "Yaakov oseh mashehu. Lamah?" I explain about feeling sick and vomiting. "Achshav Yaakov go mechonit rofay. Hu lo margish tov. (Now Yaakov has to go in the car to the doctor. He doesn't feel well.)"
7:15 I read Nadav his 3 books, the same 3 books (2 Curious Georges and a strange Hebrew ones about shoes who go to a party, except the army boots don't go because they have to protect the country, so the high heels bring them cake and a balloon.) We must read these three books EVERY NIGHT in the RIGHT ORDER, or ELSE.
7:30 Nadav falls asleep. I commence floor-cleaning and grownup-dinner-making.

Hoping for a quiet dinner free of puke, craisins and mashehu acher.

So how's by you?