Happy Purim!

According to the Book of Esther, in the Hebrew Bible, Haman, royal vizier to King Ahasuerus (presumed to be Xerxes I of Persia), planned to kill all the Jews in the empire, but his plans were foiled by Mordecai and his adopted daughter Queen Esther. The day of deliverance became a day of feasting and rejoicing; Purim, celebrated the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Adar.

In our house Purim is the holiday marked by surprise cookies that arrive in the mail from aunt Kay and the subsequent exclamation, "Dang, is it purim already?" Ilana has some context and feels bad that she forgot. I have no context and honestly believe that if Kay sent us hamantaschen  three times a year, I would think it was Purim every time.

The new narrative for Purim that I have developed is that it is a holiday where cookies get sent to the kids to remind them of their heritage. The arrival of the cookies is a complete surprise and prompts the telling of the story of Esther. Then the cookies magically disappear as everyone in the house sneaks cookies at any opportunity for the next couple of days.

Thanks aunt Kay!

Elliott in the Box

Elliott is getting stronger and jollier every day. Here we are playing with a cloth box.

Blizzard 2013

 We hunkered down all day and let the blizzard pass. The only blizzard fighting we did was to shovel a path to the wood shed so we could get logs for the fire. Otherwise it was an indoor day.

Alden and I went out at dusk to get a batch of logs and he played in a drift for a few minutes. In some places the snow drifts were over his head... but I think the average snow fall was about two feet.

Elliott Tells it Like it Is.

Baby babble with some great faces.

Milestoning Elliott

Elliott started doing real babbling this week, He is transitioning out of his baby roar and starting to make try babbling sounds. We also let him try solid food about a week ago... but then the entire family got a stomach virus and were knocked sideways for a couple days. We are better now and will try cereal again soon. Elliott isn't crawling yet, but he is able to be on his stomach for long periods lift himself with his arms. He has a great disposition and loves making faces. He weighs about 16 pounds now!

Fissues

  

The aquarium Alden got for his birthday is having some water issues. I am having a bit of a learning curve since I had it set up decades ago. I have forgotten all I knew, and to be fair I was a pretty bad fish owner before. I really want to do it right this time around. 

The core of the problem is that we put too many fish in the tank too quickly and the bio-buffer in the water couldn't handle the load. The ammonia level in the water keeps getting dangerously high so we are doing daily half-tank water changes so the fish don't die. 

 Hopefully the situation will level out within another week and in the meantime we keep our fingers crossed that when we wake up the fish are still swimming.