Purim

HG may not fully have appreciated her first Purim as Purim, but she certainly enjoyed all the crowds, noise and much of the shtick.

She seemed a little stunned to see her Abba dressed up in garish mirrored waistcoast and red bow tie, plus cowboy hat, staring at him intently as though not believing that Abba would really dress like that... She had no problem with Ima's Flamenco get up though, and enjoyed playing peekabo with Ima's black lace headcovering and fingering the fabric roses in Ima's hair.

For Purim night HG had a warm, furry pink cat costume, complete with cute tail and little ears which her uncle Ivor had brought her. She obliged and put it on without a fuss. She seemed to like the plush, soft texture and kept fingering the fabric. Very cute she was too.

She was very good through the megilla reading, unphased by the noise making at Haman's name, even enjoying it. She was a little put off by Abba's reading of the megillah with voices though, actually becoming unsettled enough to give a little cry when Abba put on a falsetto for Queen Esther's voice. Her expression was one of shock and dismay - how can my one Abba be talking in so many little voices? What is wrong with him?! Perhaps it is the same as her alarm at meeting people who look like Abba but which aren't Abba - this voice emanated from Abba but clearly was not Abba, and so it scared her.

Purim day she wasn't in the mood to put on her costume. It was warmer, but Bubbe had brought her a lighter weight costume, this one of a charming, colourful peacock. Maybe HG was just a little drowsy from her previous late night, but she wasn't in the mood to wear it, so in the end Ima improvised and slipped HG's red hooded poncho over her head, so that she became Little Red Riding Hood. Very sweet.

On Purim afternoon the family went as usual to have the se'udah with cousins in Rehovot and after an initial few minutes in which she was stunned by the sheer number of people and volume of noise crowded into one room, she rapidly adjusted to the situation, allowing herself to be carried around by a host of relatives she had never met before, of all ages, several of the younger ones in fancy dress that one might have thought she might have even found a little frightening.

She had a fantastic time, playing with many of her young cousins, some just a few months older than her and also learning to walk, others of elementary school age. Her favourite game was grabbing a plastic chair and walking it backwards and forwards across the room, much as she had done at the bank the other week.


Everyone was most amused at the way in which she kept wanting to go back and forth between Ima and Abba who were seated at opposite ends of the table. She would sit calmly with Ima, who would be feeding her from her plate, and then she would catch a glimpse of Abba seated all the way at the men's end of the table, and smile, and wave her arms and give a little kvetch, and then be passed all the way down the table to Abba, to whom she would give a massive smile as soon as she reached his arms. Then about 20 minutes later, the whole thing would repeat, with her wanting to go back to Ima, quite possibly via the arms of some of her teenage or tweenie cousins.

As for partaking of the se'udah itself - she adored the roast pepper salad and ate huge amounts of roast beef, as well as aubergine salad and some grilled onion.