Trip to Israel, Dec-Jan : Third week in Tel-Aviv: Sunday

By now Amitai was strongly attached to Alma, and basically did everything she did, from brushing teeth in the morning (something he never does at home) to being very silly or talking in “Alma’s dialect” (parts of words and made up versions). Despite him being older and taller, she was clearly the leader of the pack! They had a hilarious incident on Sunday morning: they were both in my parents’ bed watching TV while my mum prepared breakfast. Suddenly she heard Amitai calling out distressed “She got me, she got me!” so she walked in and found Alma grabbing his two big toes with a smirk on her face... He was “paralysed” and didn’t know what to do... When she stopped laughing she showed him that he can pinch her toes back despite her PJs suit...

Amitai spent some time with grandpa Ido while he made worksheets for the pair, about their beloved pet snail, Miki. They worked seriously on colouring in... Too cute!

While Amitai and Alma enjoyed the sun at the park (about time, after all this rain!) Ilan asked many questions about Hahgoot. After a week with us it was hard not to notice the meltdowns, odd behaviours and great difficulties with morning and night routines. So he got a crash course on Aspergers’ syndrome and from now on was fully on board, as he understood better.

My friend Yulia (née Taranov) arrived with her adorable six months old son Yuval. We did some serious catching up, as I didn’t manage to meet her last trip and she was very busy since getting married, travelling and having a beautiful baby.

Amitai showed off his new noisy remote control car, to Yuval’s great interest. Hahgoot didn’t manage to avoid some interaction, despite her efforts...

Amitai didn’t want to share his car, so I suggested that Hahgoot would build towers and he will work on crashing into them in an attempt to break them. Hahgoot enjoyed the challenge of building non-breakable towers while Amitai got to drive his car and crash it.

Around lunch time we packed the two younger kids in their prams for a nap and walked to Dizingoff centre to meet up with Yulia’s mother, whom I haven’t seen since I was in high school. We walked together to the promenade and had a delightful lunch at Cafe Masada on the beach. The littlies were fantastic and slept through – I only returned home at 4 pm!

At 5:30 arrived a friend of Ilan’s and also the Shemesh family. Shira and Alma were delighted to be reunited – Alma was amazing to quickly find a game that engaged Shira and made her use eye contact. They brought great gifts, especially a fantastic board game called Lotti Karotti, which the kids got addicted to in no time at all! Shachar entertained the kids with juggling

The very exciting feature of this simple looking board game is that you can turn the carrot in the middle and a random hole travelling around the board can cause a rabbit to disappear in it! We went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant 5 minutes walk from my parents’ home. The handmade pasta was surprisingly good and we all had a fabulous time. We came back at 9 pm – Amitai was nearly asleep.