J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets

It ahs been thrilling watching the Jets these past weeks. It is even more fun, since for the first time in 8 years, I am able to watch the games with one of my brothers. Last week, a headache suddenly came on at 10:30 PM, so I was able to get home in time to watch the Jets- San Diego game. THis week, there was no way of doing it again, so the headache began before I went to work, and I called in sick.
Beating Cincinnati was exciting, but nothing like beating San Diego. Jonny and I were jumping up and down last week like little kids, when we realized the Jets were going to win. We are really excited for the game tonight, although Jonny will likely be a little late. Hopefully, I will have a follow-up blog on the jets, as I have never witnessed the Jets in the Superbowl. I was going to put a note in the wall, but I thought that might be overdoing it.

A Month on the Job

It has been almost a month on the job, and it has been an interesting experience. One thing that I learned is that I definitely can't work from 3-11 PM as it is too difficult on Caryn and the kids. On February 1st, my hours move to 11PM- 7 AM. We'll See how that works. The job is not really that challenging, so I'm not sure how long I will do it for. Th big questions remain, can I make decent money on the job, and can I adjust to working in the middle of the night. IF the answer is yes to both of those questions, then I will likely stick with it for awhile. I should have a clearer picture of how things stand at the end of February. Debt collection is pretty straight forward. Most people don't pay, and you can "scare" a few people into paying that didn't have plans on paying. For the most part, it is just getting lucky and finding someone in a good mood with money. Not a thrilling job, but I am enjoying working in Jerusalem. I also work for an individual who is good at collecting debt, but knows nothing about managing. I got spoiled in my last job having a boss I could continually learn from, both in doing my job and becoming a better manager. That is quite frustrating, as I can deal with a bad manager, but I see how she is destroying the environment for some people who really have talent, but will likely quit. In any case, I am pretty flexible and starting in February, I will be on my own as the manager works in the afternoon. That's about it, as far as the job goes. I miss my wife and kids terribly, and no job is worth that.

Pizza in the Genes

Tonight, we ordered pizza. We have just outgrown one pie, as Eitan has started eating pizza. I decided to cook a piece of frozen pizza, so that when the pizza was delivered, I could give the store bought pizza to Eitan. HE may be only 10 months old, but as soon as he saw the pizza we ordered he stopped eating the frozen pizza, and threw a temper tantrum until we gave him the good pizza. That's my boy.

Update #5

A quick update before Shabbat starts. I got a job in debt collection working for a company that collects debt from people in the United States. Hopefully I will not be speaking to any of you in that capacity. I have been on the job for 2 1/2 weeks and it has its us and downs. The location is great in the center of Jerusalem, but the hours are bad, from 3-11 PM. After January (assuming I survive that long), the hours should improve, and I should be working from about 10 Pm to 6 AM. Me not being around in the afternoon and evening has been very hard on Caryn and the kids, but it's only for another two more weeks. We'll see how we all do when I work the night shift. I think it will e much better for all of them, but it will be a difficult transition for me. I also need to see how much many can actually be made on this job, as the base salary is small, but there is potential for huge commissions. We'll see how it goes.

Caryn, Ilan and Gali are continuing to learn Hebrew. Ilan and Gali both understand Hebrew for the most part, nad we even get to hear a few spoken words of Hebrew every now and then. We met with Ilan's teachers, and they said he is doing very well in many areas, but he is resistant in learning Hebrew. We are finding the same thing at home, as he does not want to watch TV in Hebrew, where Gali and Tiki are happy to watch TV in Hebrew. However, they have noticed recently that Ilan as a strong desire to learn how to read Hebrew, so he may be able to improve his Hebrew by learning to read. Gali's teachers and Caryn and I were all in agreement that Gali should repeat Kindergarten next year, which Gali is happy to do, since she loves her teachers. Tiki is getting cuter by the day, and has a full complement of words now. A very cute thing that she does is when she wants someone to be quiet, she says be shush, instead of be quiet. Eitan is crawling all over the place, and eating like a horse. He has recently started pulling himself up, so we are probably only a few months away from walking, although he is a Brody so it could be awhile. Eitan is crying now, so I have to go. Shabbat Shalom and Kol Tuv,
Zumi

PS for more info log onto WWW.Zumibrody.blogspot.com

Crazy kids! by Caryn

Eitan crawls everywhere now. Usually after me. If I leave a room he cries and then comes and finds me. He is a little bit attached to me! We have these Thomas the Tank trains that you pull back to wind up and then let them go and they go across the room. Eitan gets so excited everytime he sees the train moving. He leaps forward and crawls really fast to catch this train. I must get this on video it is hilarious. (currently my camera battery charger isn't working too well). Also, I was on the phone tonight with my mother and Eitan grabbed the phone, I positioned it to his ear properly, about 2 seconds later he was listening intently to the phone. I had to pry the phone from him and he threw a temper tantrum!!! I found out my mother was singing a song to him over the phone and he was just simply mezmorized!


Each night when we put the kids to bed, they say "Shema". We then bless everyone in the family. Typically it goes like this.. "May G-D bless Mommy, Abba, Ilan, Gali, Tiki, Eitan....."
Tonight, this is what Tiki said "May G-D bless Mommy, Abba, Tiki, Mezuza" I said "what??" because she mumbled it. She said "mezuza" and then pointed to the door frame, then she continued "Gali, Eitan, Ilan and Cheryl". It was quite cute. By the way, Cheryl is her preschool/Gan teacher whom she loves!!


An hour before the kids went to bed, all the kids were playing nicely; Gali was watching tv quietly, Tiki and Ilan were playing with the train set, and I was holding Eitan in my lap as he listened to my mother singing him a song on the phone. All was relatively peacfull....All of a sudden, Ilan is screaming at Tiki and then they are fighting and hitting each other with the train tracks. Tiki is crying, then Ilan goes over to where Gali is sitting and starts kicking her with his shoes, at the same time Eitan is grabbing my finger and biting me! What in the world happened??? Who really knows.... The next 30 minutes I was screaming at them to get their pjs on and get into bed because they were all in trouble. Each time I tried to put Eitan down to go to sleep, Ilan would be doing something to Tiki and she would be screaming. Gali was under the desk with her blanket and Ilan was slamming doors. AHHH!!! I got Eitan to sleep, Went to the other bedroom and asked Glai why she was under the desk "My bed isn't made so I can't get in it" (she had lined up 10 stuffed animals across the top of her pillow but her blankets were on the floor. I got her into bed and covered her up. She thanked me, said "I love you" and then asked if she was good tonight. Then I went to Ilan (he was in my room in my bed looking at the Harry Potter book I've been reading to him at night) I said for him to get his pjs on and brush teeth and left and I went downstairs. About 10 minutes later he comes down, completely calm and sweet (with out pjs or teeth brushed). So I asked him again, please go get your pjs on and brush teetch. He actually listened and came back down stairs. He said " I am sorry for being crazy" I gave him a big hug and told him how much I loved him and then I asked him why after behaving so wonderfully all day long did he have to go crazy with hitting and screaming tonight. He said "because we have too many kids in our family". We then spent the next 20 minutes looking on the internet at the Duggar Family. I explained that they had 18 kids and they learn at home all day, they pray, play musical instruments and the older kids are buddys to the younger kids in the family and help them bathe, get dressed, and learn to read, and none of them yell or hit each other and that they are all best friends. We looked at some pictures of them in their house (from their website) and Ilan was amazed that they lived in such a big house. He then asked me two questions: 1. When can we go to their house (he wanted to go down their slide that they have inside the house and play in their playroom)? 2. How old do you think the giant is? WHAT??? He was talking about Harry Potter. Here I was thinking we were spending a wonderful moment bonding and talking and he was thinking about the troll in the book.

I have something on the other kids, so I must put in something about Gali. But, there are waaaayyy too many Gali stories, it is hard to pick. I could talk about her interesting outfit choices she wears to school each day, or the fact that no matter what we say to her, she completely ignores us and does what ever she wants to do, the temper tantrums she throws each day because we tell her no or how she sucks her thumb and at the same time twirls her hair tightly around her finger....so tightly that I have to cut her hair so we can get her finger free. No, I will say that for all the headaches and crazyness she puts me through each day, in the end, Gali will come up to me and give me a big hug and say "I love you mommy" and then kiss me on the nose and giggle. Not because she wants something from me, just because she loves me.


And with that I must say good night, and apoligize for any spelling mistakes. Oh and one final word. I put a little slide show up on this blog but for some reason it has some pictures that are not of our family. I don't know who they are or how it is connected to my photo slide show, but it is there anyway and I have no idea why or how to get rid of it! So enjoy all the pics of our family and of someone else's too! :)