Happy Purim, Finley!

Sunday morning, we headed over to the temple's preschool Purim carnival.  Finley chose to wear his firefighter costume--complete with fire chief helmet and hose.

He immediately spied the bouncy house and couldn't wait to get in, good thing we'd already bought a bunch of tickets and quickly handed over three!  

Dan had never had the pleasure of seeing Finley bounce in such a thing, so it was pretty fun to watch Finley but to also watch Dan watch Finley :)  Finley was a great sport, just jumping all around and landing wherever on whatever--back, feet, bottom, etc.  It was nice that there were only other small kiddos in there, made me much less nervous!  He didn't want to take off his firefighter jacket so once he finally came out, he was pretty sweaty but completely thrilled with himself.  We walked around the hall playing other carnival games and Finley impressed us with his skills.

But time and time again, he was back in that bouncy house!  Thankfully, we didn't have to keep giving tickets to the kind volunteer who was letting kids in and out.  Once the bigger kids were let into the carnival, there was more waiting and time limits inside but Finley was quite patient and enjoyed himself nonetheless.  It was scary when giant kids were bouncing all around him, but he handled himself like a champ.  We took a snack break to have some popcorn and hamantashen and then we decided it was time to show Finley that there was one more fun activity he had to try--a bouncy house obstacle course!  Being a bit on the small side, Dan had to accompany him through it and I got to watch and take photos.

Finley was laughing and laughing, but nothing made him giggle louder than when Dan would come crashing over the bolsters and land right in front of him.

And as soon as he would come out, he'd beg to go back and do it all over again.

Dan was a wonderful sport and went as many times as his son requested (I lost count after five), what a work out!  Finley clearly exhausted himself as his nap was quite epic that afternoon!!

Wednesday night was actually Purim, so we went back to the temple to hear the Purim story and dress up once more.  Despite being offered a couple other options, Finley wanted to be a firefighter once more.  There was a yummy pasta dinner followed by fruit and hamantashen for dessert, though Finley opted for a brownie.  Then, we moved into the room next door to watch the play.

Finley was quite taken by the people up on stage and enjoyed seeing them walk and dance around.

Whenever Haman's name was said, we had to say "boo! hiss!" and sound our groggers.  It took Finley a while to get the hang of it, but soon he was on board.

When the very abridged version of the story was over, there was a little costume parade before we headed down to the "big people's service."  Finley enjoyed seeing all the costumes and listening to the prayers being sung.  There was another costume parade and Finley and I danced our way around back to our seats after being given necklaces as prizes.  We sat and listened to the first couple of chapters of the story and one song performed by the Jews Brothers, which Finley loved!  However, we stayed one chapter more and paid a price.  Finley was freaked out by the big puppet of Haman that came out and all the noise of people booing and hissing.  Tears were shed and I was latched onto for dear life, so we made a quick exit trying to explain that the "meanie" was just pretend and he was gone.  There was a lot of "meanie" questions in the car and Dan and I both feared that we had scarred the poor guy and he'd have terrible nightmares.  At home, we explained again that he was not real and the people had scared him away back into a box.  He did not seem satisfied, but thankfully slept like a log and only asked about him once this morning...maybe next year we'll leave earlier or do a little more prepping of the plot for the little guy.

I continue to love watching Dan share and relive his Jewish childhood memories and experiences with Finley and I think we are all learning a great deal and having fun :)