Ahem. Anyway, now that Yom Kippur is over, our thoughts turn to Wednesday night, when my personal favorite Jewish holiday begins. Sukkot is a harvest festival, a time of one of the long-ago great pilgrimages to Israel, and to celebrate it we live* in a ramshackle hut for 8 days. The hut is called a sukkah, and is usually decorated festively in the harvest theme.

*”Live”, since we’re Jewish, means “eat”.

After our rather ghetto attempt at a build-it-yourself sukkah last year, this year we decided to order an aluminum kit with canvas walls. Jacob was, uh, a little excited when he realized we were FINALLY going to open those EXCITING BOXES.

(That’s him saying “oh ho ho HOOOOO” over and over again, by the way.)

The frame was disgustingly easy to put together, and while the shiny metal ensures our sukkah will have a little bling this year, it’ll be nowhere near last year’s debacle.

Tomorrow, walls and a roof! Wednesday, decorations!

…and, apropos nothing, in the “He’s totally going to kill me for posting this, if he finds it later on in life” category:

(Don’t worry, kiddo. Your folks aren’t morning people, either.)

Damn.

Good.

To be home.

Sorry about the radio silence, folks. The jet-lag has hit all of us a lot harder in this direction, and we’re basically just coming up for air. It was wonderful to see friends and family, but I have to say I vastly prefer the CA surroundings. Crisp but not cold temps, leaves on the trees, sunshine, a distinct lack of anything dreary.

Jacob is pretty glad to be back, too. I snapped all of these pictures at our outing to the beach today. Our music class and some drop-in Gymboree-type classes start for us next week–I am expecting the spring to be a lot busier than the fall!

Last weekend we attended a holiday party and cookie exchange. Jacob had a lot of fun tearing around with the other babies, and he even decorated his first cookie!

He enjoyed eating it even more than decorating it.

Last night we started the holiday off well with some presents. Jonathan and I got one another a video camera (finally!), so expect little movie clips as soon as I learn how to make them. Jacob got a little plastic 3-car garage, complete with cars and keys. Tonight, before hopping on the plane we’re spending dinner time with friends. Mmm. Latkes.

Oh, and administrivia: I’ve put Jacob’s November pictures online, finally.

See you later!

To here:

With no major illnesses, catastrophes, or even seriously hard times. We’ve had a wonderful year, and I’m so grateful we’re all still here.

I’m thankful, too, for curiosity.

And wonderful friends to share a potentially-lonely holiday with.

And love.

It’s trite. It’s overdone. But really, I’d like to know. What are you thankful for?

Of course we had a lot of fun with Jacob’s second Halloween. Trick-or-treating still seemed like too much for him, but on Saturday we had a great party with lots of other families, old friends and new. Adults were supposed to dress up as tv characters. Jon was Jamie from the show Mythbusters, and I wimped out and dressed up as a Charlie’s Angel after my chosen costume didn’t come together nicely.

Jacob dressed up as a bug.

Although he enjoyed the costume, and really enjoyed having so many other babies around, Jacob’s favorite part of the party were the cupcakes.

(Was there ever any doubt, really, given that he’s our child?)

We had fun on Halloween itself, too. During the day Jacob got to play around with Asher and terrorize Stacy and Neil’s back yard.

Despite Pebble Beach being mostly a retirement community, we did get 15 or so trick-or-treaters. Before they made off with all of our candy, though, Jacob grabbed some for himself. He seemed to like it!

Now it’s November and rainy season is apparently upon us. Stay tuned for Jacob’s first rain storm!

This year, our sukkah wound up being a slightly cheesy PVC-and-vinyl affair, but the decorations are nice and we’ve still enjoyed it. Jacob is having a lot of fun playing around with the lulav and etrog.

Today’s game was “toss the etrog”, and is played thusly: First, take the etrog and hold it high in the air above your head.

Then, throw the etrog on the ground. Lean down close and wave bye-bye at it a few times (“buh buh!”). Pick up the etrog. Repeat. It’s quite a large leap from one year ago, during his first Sukkot:

I haven’t written in a few days because there’s been no time in the evenings. We had a wonderful visit with friends this weekend, but for the past few days Jacob has started refusing bedtime again. We had associated this problem with our recent night-weaning (ahhhh blissful sleep), but reading through the archives here I see that perhaps it is associated with teething, instead? I have no idea. Anyway, tonight we’re trying something different so we’ll see.

We went to the pediatrician yesterday for our 12-month wellness visit, and Jacob got a clean bill of health. I was obsessed with his height and weight for the longest time, to make sure he was growing, but this time I actually forgot until Jon asked. (For the record, 31.5 inches tall and 23 pounds.) Generally, I’m a lot more relaxed these days about Jacob and his health. It’s nice. It lets me spend more time simply enjoying our days together.

*****

It’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. This is a joyous and thoughtful holiday, as we prepare for Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. We dip apples in honey and generally eat sweet foods, wishing a sweet year on one another.

I made the challah bread extra sweet with more honey, and figured out an ingenious way to keep Jacob out of my hair while I shaped the dough (if I do say so myself).

He really enjoyed watching what I was doing, and it kept him totally quiet. I have high hopes of making challah every week, so I think we’ll be trying this again.

It’s been a wonderful holiday so far. Today was warm (70 degrees) and sunny, and Jacob had fun playing on the deck while Jon and I had our morning coffee.

Services at the synagogue here start at the very civilized hour of 10:30am (vs. 8:00am back in Boston), so it looks like we’ll be having lots of nice, relaxed Saturday mornings. Ahhh, the way life should be. :)

A good and sweet year to all of you!