May 8, 2005

Tyler's 4th Birthday

After Tyler went to bed the night before his birthday, Tiffany decorated his door. He remembered that we had done it for his third birthday and asked if his door would be decorated again this year. He loved the decorations and we had to leave them up for a couple of days.

Good morning Birthday boy

Tyler's birthday fell on a Friday, which was convenient because it meant that his pre-school birthday party was actually on his birthday and Scott had the day off. Tyler's class has 27 children in it (and two teachers and a couple of helpers). Tyler doesn't normally go to school on Fridays, but most of the other kids do. We dropped him off in time to eat breakfast at school, but the party didn't start until later. We arrived after they had breakfast and their morning routine.

Tyler's class

On Fridays at pre-school they welcome in the Sabbath day. As the guest of honor, Tyler got to be the "Abba shel Shabbat" or father of the Sabbath. It means they sing a song, light candles and wear the traditional clothing. He got to pick one of the girls to be the mother.

Video of Sabbath singing and Happy Birthday singing

There was lots of singing and dancing at the party. Tyler got to pick who he danced with. All of the girls were begging to be picked. We were pretty impressed. Below he is dancing with Amit. She is called Amit ha-bat (the girl) at school to distinguish her from Amit ha-ben (the boy).

Dancing with Amit the girl

Tyler's teachers played a song about hugging your family, so one by one we each got a hug from Tyler.

Hugging Brooke

Tiffany made a birthday cake for Tyler's party. In Israel, the tradition is to place an extra candle on the cake, so Tyler had five candles. We also had to bring a specific list of treats for the party: marshmallows, chips (several kinds), Bamba, M&Ms, etc. The teachers made plates of food for each child. Tyler didn't want his cake. For some reason, he doesn't like cake, even chocolate cake.

The birthday cake at school

Pre-school parties are a little different from "normal" birthday parties. The children didn't bring presents for Tyler, but we had to bring presents for each child! Tiffany's mother sent us Matchbox cars for the boys and a toy gardening kit for each girl. The children were thrilled. Some of the parents even mentioned to us how nice the presents were. We thought the Matchbox cars were especially appropriate because Tyler takes a Matchbox car to pre-school every day.

From the entire pre-school, Tyler received a toy car and a laminated book with pictures for him drawn by each child and a photo of the whole class. Tyler also gave the class a present, the Hebrew version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Passing out presents

At the end of the party, Tyler experienced another Israeli birthday tradition. Tyler sat in a chair and we lifted him up into the air 5 times: 4 times for his birthday and 1 time for the coming year.

Israeli tradition

After the party, all of the children played. We brought Brooke with us, so she played too. She had a blast. She rode on the ride-on cars, played with the pretend oven and had no problem pushing the older kids around. The teachers were very impressed and told us that we should send her to pre-school too. They said she would fit in very well with the younger class. They don't understand why we would want to keep her home.

After Tyler's nap, he got to open his presents. He got too much stuff: from us, his grandparents and his friends. A lot of the things we bought in the States in February. We are terrible parents; after Tyler opened his presents, we put some of them away and Tyler has been earning them since. If he would just stay in his bed during naptime he would have all of them.

Tyler and the loot

The Killpacks came over later and we ordered pizza and celebrated Tyler's birthday at home with another cake.

Blowing out the candle

Tyler was excited to get a package from Scott's parents. They sent Tyler a Lego Alligator toy. It has Duplos inside and when you push the alligator along the floor, it "eats" Legos from the floor. Tyler loves it and so does Brooke.

Unwrapping the alligator

Tyler-isms:

"Present store" - Where he believes birthday presents come from.

Brooke-isms:

"Ball" - Just how it sounds.

Posted by sjbowden at May 8, 2005 10:05 PM