Mikael got his first phone call from a friend. Emma from the day care called him. He was so overwhelmed that he really couldn't say anything to her except 'Emma Emma' but after the phone call he ran around the house saying 'Emma Emma' for quite a while. Emma is a little more verbal than he is. Afterwards, the mom's set up a play date for tomorrow.
Too bad we had no camera. It got left at a friend's house and we are still negotiating its return.
As I was saying, Einav can really be an inspiration. For instance, Mikael always wants to play with everyone's glasses. Everyone always hates it and doesn't let him (including me). In fact, he already knows he's not supposed to. Einav, on the other hand, said right away, "You want my glasses? Here! Try them on." It took him a while to realize that he was really allowed to play, but it made him so happy!
According to Maya, Liya's sister, the rule is supposed to be one friend (of Mikael's) at the party for every year of age. There were bunches of babies at the party, but it's hard for us to be sure that any of them are actually friends of his. On the other hand, some great friends of ours came. That should count for something.
This Thursday I came back from work early and me and Liya walked down to Rothschild to meet Shiri. From there we all went to a nice little coffe shop on a quiet street nearby (can't remember it's name) and celebrated Liya's birthday.
We spent the day in Givat Ada today and spent a lot of time playing in the house and some time on a nice walk. Maayan-Shahar took excellent pictures. Here are some nice ones of Savta Hava and Mikael plus a great video.
After the first picnic the Gotlieb's and us went on a short hike. Eran was laden down with both the girls, but he didn't seem to mind too much. He used the opportunity to complain about what poor physical shape he's in, but I got tired enough with just my one baby.
We also put Mikael in the rear carry for a while. He liked it a lot, and it's very comfortable. It's a little disconcerting not to be able to see him at all. Also, when he started to fall asleep his head kept bouncing against my back and we decided to move him around to the front.
The hike went down from the hill where the picnic site was into a nice valley and then back out again. It's certainly not going to make any book of Asia's 50 most spectacular hikes, but it was great for us. I thought about how I used to wonder what kind of people went on family hikes. I guess it should have been obvious then, too. Liya found another stone to bring back that would be a good size for Mikael to play with. It's sort of white to counterbalance the brown stone door stop he likes so much.
One great thing about having kids and hanging out with people who have kids is that you have no trouble finding stuff to talk about.
We rarely show Mikael crying in this blog. We aren't trying to hide reality from anyone. There are those among us who think his crying is sweet or funny or even cool. However, his tears are just not the thing we're setting out to capture here. However, these pictures with Asaf are so nice, and Asaf seems to be smiling for both of them, so I put them in anyway.
Amazingly, not only did we get a ride to a great Friday night dinner and back, our good friends Asaf and Ziva decided to come and pick us up from Tel Aviv and bring us to Rehovot for a great Saturday lunch with them. We had a really nice time and ate too much chulent and too much ice cream. Mikael had a great time with their kids.
Yoav came with is parents, Itamar and Shula, who are really fun to watch as parents. Itamar's way with children is really inspiring, and Shula has (I feel) a lot of great, level-headed thoughts. 
Yoavi and his parents came to visit today. Mikael was asleep for most of the visit, but got up near the end. Yoavi had a lot of fun with Mikael's toys while he wasn't around, but once they were both awake, they took a very active interest in each other. Mikael even tugged violently at Yoavi's hair causing a little bit of a scene. 
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