Esther & Adiel's Blog » Shaina Nechama

Newest Family Photo – June 2009

Adiel — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:36:06 +0000

Purim 2009

Esther — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:28:31 +0000

Not such an awesome pic but the only one with the three of us. Can you guess our theme?

Shaina’s Birthday Party

Adiel — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:44:48 +0000

Here is a video clip (with Shaina digging into the cake) of the end of the party:

Happy Birthday Shaina Nechama!

Esther — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:23:43 +0000

Can you believe it’s been an entire (secular) year that Shaina Nechama entererd this world and brought our family so much joy. What an amazing year it’s been, sleepless nights and all. Thank You Hashem for this incredible Bracha you’ve given us, please continue to watch over our family and shine your good on us. And to you, our little Shaina’la, may you have many, many more happy years to come.Â We love you!! Enjoy your birthday cupcake!

Happy Chanukah!!

Esther — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 03:45:51 +0000

Chanukah started off with a big BANG!

The Shabbos before was snowy but inside was warm with friendshipÂ and fun at the Langsners, just a few minutes away in Bayswater. Besides for a nice midnight wake-up on Shabbos morning (Shaina thought it was so fun to wake up in the middle of the night), we had a great time shmoozing and eating. Motzai Shabbos I went out with Rochie to Target (so crowded you couldn’t get a cart) and bought some gifts and other essentials. Then we went to Coffee Bar and ate some yummy French Onion soup, fettuchini alfredo and chef salad. What fun it was to have girls night out, haven’t done that in forever!

Sunday was erev Chanukah. The day started with pouring rain, great reason to stay inside and do something differnet and chanukah-dik. What could I make to bring to the two parties that was somewhat differnet and original? Hmmm…a daring part of me said why not try to make sufganiyot! So, I googled an easy pareve recipe, and found this one which was actually for miniatures. Despite the fact that it wasÂ somewhat of a patchke, I did it and it came out fantastic!! It was a hit at the parties and none were left. Lemme tell you, if I can do it ANYONE can and I actually got more than 50 mini-donuts.

In between waiting for the dough to rise, I polished and set up the menorah. We had to make the area baby-proof so we did a little rearranging with the rocking chair and cabinet. I also gave Shaina a bath and a nap so she’d be awake for all the parties. Adiel came home, lit chanukah licht and we all sang and sat and enjoyed watching the candles burn together. We also gave out presents, Adiel got me gorgeous earrings from Macys, I got him a wallet and we gave Shaina a little peoples car (actually something we got as a baby gift from cousin Devorah a few months back). She really played with it! She was also especially enamored by the dancing light. Thank you Hashem for giving me a wonderful family to enjoy this time with; the memories of wishful thinking chanukahs are very clear in my mind!

We finished getting dressedÂ up and off we went to Flatbush, where not one but TWO chanukah parties were taking place! First we stopped at the Langsners who never fail to invite us into their homes and lives as if we were family.Â The first thing that hit me was their warm living room — they had a fire place going! How cozy and warm! They also had a gorgeous and delicious milchig spread, from baked ziti to three different types of latkes to coins, fruit and sufganiyot for desert. Shaina enjoyed the latkes a lot and looked all yummy and cute!Â We stayed and atefor half hour and Mrs. Langsner (Bubby) even gave Shaina gift. How wonderful!

Then, it was off to the next party, the Price one at Aunt Suri and Uncle Meir. Even though it was 7:30, we got there before a bunch of cousins and sibs. At about 8 almost everyone was there. And was a party it was! Gorgeous display — everyone got their own cookie with their name on it as a name card, and the kids table had a coloring chanukah tablecloth! There were about 8 chafing dishes with different delicious fleishig dishes; different kinds of chicken, latkes, wontons, meat knishes, etc. Plus salads and homemade garlic bread! Wow, you could tell how hard she worked on it. It was one of the nicest family parties I can remember! In all, 6 of marrieds were there with spouse and kids, plus Moish, Yitzy and ‘the adults’, plus a cousin from the otherÂ side. When did we all get so big, WE used to be the kids and now most of us are toting our own!? How cute that all the babies that we were pregnant with last year were crawling around in the corner together and the older ones were reuniting. Good food, music, lots of space (she did it upstairs in her ’simcha hall), loved ones together, shmoozing and laughing, lots of pictures taken (at one point we took Basy’s by mistake), what more could you want at a family Chanukah party? A fantastic game that Zevi and Chevi made up. I never saw such a cute thing – itÂ was Othello in teams done on a checkerboard with SANDWICH COOKIES as the pieces! How cute! The teams were divided up and everyone really got into it, from the little ones who had to answer what letters were on the dreidel, to the lumdish ones of how tall a Menorah could be, there was a question for allÂ levels and types. The game got somewhat derailed when the Koster kids started turning over whichever cookies they wanted to,Â but everyone had a blast anyway and a chance to answer a question. Homemade sorbet for desert along with my yummy sufganiyot and there was even a minyanÂ for maariv! ShainaÂ ate more latkes, and thoroughly enjoyed her first night of Chanukah. THanks so much for all the hard work that all the party makers put into the wonderful enjoyable parties! Pics to come on Facebook soon. They’re just a pain to upload here, but maybe I’ll do a couple too.

Today and tomorrow are chilled out,Â just nice dinners with the three of us.Â Wed night we head to the LES for the UJC Chanukah Chagigah and more time with Bubby and the Kosters. We’ll be there till Motzai Shabbos IYH and look forward to doing some cool Chanukah stuff in the city on Thursday.

Happy Chanukah all!

Depressing post (you may want to skip)

Esther — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 03:08:54 +0000

I blog on another site (somewhat more private). One of those friends is this fantastic person and mother, full of energy, always writing little tidbits and posting pictures of her adorable family. I feel like I know her and her children, more so than some of my good friends because of her constant updates.

Sunday morning, I go on and see she posted two things since Shabbos. I read the more recent one first. It says something about ‘thank you for your kind words’….’it’s quiet here now – older child is sleeping at neighbor…’ which starts to get me nervous — and than, my heart drops when I see something about ‘….glad I don’t have to think about the semantics of burying my baby’. Oh My God. My heart is pounding, there has to be a mistake or a metaphor or something. I scroll to the previous one where her first words are Baruch Dayan Emes. Baby girl passed away tonight.

Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!! . This hasn’t stopped haunting me since I found out. Out of the blue, there was an accident and her precious baby is gone forever. She is in love with this child, always writing about how adorable she is and calling her the cutest nicknames, dressing her with bows and ribbons and eating her up. I’m telling you I wish I was half the mother she is. And her baby is dead. She writes about how she held her in the hospital and decribed how she felt and looked like, before she was taken to the mougue, never to be held again. Why? WHY? WHY? What is this world coming to Hashem?

You know it’s my biggest fear that I’m going to walk into Shaina’s room one morning and find her blue and dead. I think about it every now and than and it makes me crazy, just the thought of it. And now, this wonderful young mother has to live through this nightmare. How do you move on? How do you get through life? What do you do with her stuff and her pictures and car seat. How do you face the world?Â Every night when I kiss Shaina Good-night, I ask Hashem ‘please watch over my baby and protect her’. And every morning when I hear her morning babbles, it’s like the sweetest noise ever created being heard over and over again.

You know, our lives are BORUCH HASHEM, BLI AYIN HARA, so perfect now. Our Shaina’la is getting sweeter and yummier, old enough to be a barrel of fun but too young to be really challenging or chutzpadik. Marriage has gotten more and more wonderful and better with each passing month. We are iy’h going to continue to grow as a family. Money issues are not real yet because of our limited expenses. Friends and family are plentiful, we like our jobs, there’s good food to be had at whatever time of day we want. Sure, there are worries about where we are going to live and how we are going to afford tuition and stuff. But those are distant worries, the ‘cross that bridge when we come to it, and we’re barely even in the water’ kind Things are really going so well, I don’t remember I time in my life I felt so happy and content. And this scares the HECK out of me. I worry what might be waiting right around the corner to crush us and swing our pendulum of happiness smack the other way. I hope that it is nothing. That we will just continue to face our daily challenges and as our family grows, we will have to deal with the regular chinuch and financial and family challenges that face most families. But I worry sometimes that life is so good that it just can’t last.

Anyway, that’s me at my painfully honest self. Something about the death of a tiny baby that just makes you see life for what it is and share the fears and hopes that are buried deep inside my heart.

Tonight, I am iy’h planning on going menachem avel. Even though I never met this woman, I feel like she is my friend. Another blog friend will go with me so hopefully it won’t be too awkward. This shiva call will be one of the harder ones I’ve made and will make this tragedy that much more real. But I think it’s the right thing and that I will regret it if I don’t go.

Hashem should be menachem this family with all of the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. And he should really bring Moshiach already — we can’t wait much longer!!

Shaina munching on Banana

Adiel — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:17:40 +0000