She’s learning lots of new things all the time (with the help of her big sisters).  She recognises some numbers and letters and she knows lots of colours.  When looking at a book, she’ll point out the colours on the page, “red, green, yellow, orange, turquoise.”  Yep, she doesn’t call things blue, they are nearly always turquoise.  To be blue, it has to be a really dark blue.  Ho hum.

It was her birthday a couple of days ago and now she’s a big 3 year old girl! Unfortunately she has also been unwell for the last week and we decided not to celebrate her birthday just yet.  We’ll do something for her soon.

But today is also her birthday party in kindergarten.  Not sure quite what she’ll do, but we’ll go along and see if she joins in.  Experience has shown us that our kids don’t often join in at their birthday party, but maybe Tehilla will be different.

We’ll see (maybe there will be photos).

Don’t worry. We put shoes on Tehillla before we went out.

Tehilla is the latest example in our family of children getting big and being really clever.

First of all, some examples of being clever:

• She can sing the whole of Do-Re-Mi (from The Sound of Music)
• She can sing some of So Long, Farewell while climbing up the stairs backwards

But now she’s getting big as well. Yesterday while waiting to get in the bath, Ruth sat Tehilla on the potty to see if she would do anything. Tehilla did a poo, but then got quite upset to see the ‘snail’ in the potty. Ruth managed to convince Tehilla that it was very exciting that she had done a poo (and that there was no snail in the potty) and got Shira and Esther to congratulate Tehilla for being such a big girl.

(I’m sure if she reads this post when she’s older, she will be mortified that I wrote it. Maybe I’ll have to promise not to dance at her wedding, since that is the most embarrassing thing that a dad can do.)

http://photos.thekilners.com/Tehilla/2008/index.html

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to Tehilla.

Happy birthday to you.

The text above is a transcription of the last 20 minutes with Tehilla. As you can see, there is really only one person of importance right now. And if you look carefully, you might notice her animal noises (dog, cat, frog and duck).

If you look really carefully, you might notice that Tehilla actually has two parents!

Anyway, it’s all very exciting.  Maybe one day we’ll buy her some shoes as well!

The house is still warmer downstairs than up, but we worked out why – upstairs is exposed on most sides, and downstairs is next to other peoples’ houses on most sides, so that removes the mystery.

I’m still working, and earning less and less as the dollar drops. But I’m on site once a week, and I charge for my travel, so that’s OK.

Ruth’s still being a brill mummy (even if she leaves Tehilla to cry in the morning for a bit sometimes) (but she’s normally busy doing something else)

Esther Pie’s getting bigger and bigger, she’s a big help and will offer Ruth to peel carrots or cut up peppers for supper in the afternoons. We’re slowly teaching her to read, she has a few words that she recognises, and she knows all her letters. She can count up to 100+ and she will, given any opportunity.

Shira Bira occasionally comes to planet Earth to visit, she still lives with the butterflies much of the time. She’ll sing all her gan songs in Hebrew, and when we join in, she’ll say "No, in ENGLISH!" She spends a lot of the afternoon (when awake) tired.

Deela Weela is also growing, and we’re STILL waiting for her to walk alone. She will zoom round the furniture, will favour cruising over crawling, but for a child who was rolling at 3 months, and crawling at 4, she’s being very stubborn about not walking. She was taking one step and then falling over, but since coming back from Glasgow a couple of weeks ago, she has no longer even been standing unaided. Well, she’s only got (approximately) 8 months to learn to walk nicely before Sara’s wedding… 

Anyhow, thats us up to date, better get on with work. Byebye.

One of the exciting ones to experience is your child’s first word.  This is particularly exciting because the word is normally some variation of mummy or daddy.  Very exciting!

Tehilla decided that it was time for her first word.  What was it?  Backpack!

What sort of a first word is backpack? What kind of crazy child says backpack as their first word?

Anyway, she hasn’t said anything since her first word.  Maybe she’ll come out with some regular words in the next few days/weeks.