Rain Rain Rain: June 2009

It's been raining virtually non-stop in NYC for the past few months. Stuyvesant Town resembles a Brazilian rainforest and I'm half expecting to walk out of my building and catch an anaconda sweep out of the canopy of trees and feast on all the fluffy squirrels scurrying about. Since the days are long there's too much time to be cooped up indoors. So, despite the cool, wet evenings, we get Dante outside to splash in the puddles and get soaking wet!

How about Imma?!

I picked up Dante in the morning on Wednesday yesterday and he was a little upset that Christine had left for work and kept saying Imma. So I said "hey what about me? Abba's here" and he looked at me for a sec. and said "How about Imma?!" as in I think I'll choose door number two Monty. LOL.  anyway I taped our conversation.

New Word roundup February thru June

It's been a while since the last new words roundup. Thought that I might stop updating it for a few reasons.

    *  Dante can repeat pretty much anything you say to him now so it's hard to tell if it's his word or he's just mimicking.
    * It takes a lot of vigilance to keep up to date. Some days they come so fast and furious that if I don't have some way to take notes I've missed it and it feels like I screwed up or something, but I'm getting over that.

It's still amazing when a new word comes but what's developing of course is Dante's grasp of concepts and ability to put words together. So this list is morphing into something more along the lines of how Dante uses language. I'm amazed on a daily basis by his growing abilities and understanding. His grasp of letters and numbers is also growing and tonite in the bath he'd id'd a bunch of letters and I showed him the 'E' and said now what word do we know that starts with this letter, more to myself than to him and before I could come up with one I heard him saying Elephant.
I think it's only in the last week or so that he's started to ask questions, like 'what's going beep beep?' or "What's that?" and of course stringing multiple words together four or five at a time. So here goes ;


2/ 16  9:57p      Bubble bath . Plug (for a stopper)
2/ 20  4:08p      Heeneh (we were looking his ball and when he found it he said here it is in hebrew) - hebrew)
Thu 3/5                   Rag is being enunciated very clearly. Nanny Ashley.
3/6      7:20pm       Abba shev po (Abba sit here in Hebrew). Cheetah out(Hamster was loose). Ball on roof.
3/12     4:39pm       Dante says five apples just glancing at the group. Milk stuck when it wouldn't come out of bottle - the group. Milk stuck when it wouldn't come out of bottle
3/ 23      5:45pm       Erev Tov and Lila Tov (Good night)
March April             Dante’s learned to differentiate  SUV and Minivan,
4/11      6:07pm       "Leash"
4/12      3:41pm       Bless you imma
4/19      6:07pm       Pocket and keece (hebrew). Counted to 20 more or less on his own in the elevator
          9:32pm      "Please". tonite was the first time he said please w/o Any prompting. In his crib he said water please.
4/21      6:15pm     “lobby”  in the elevator pressing the button
4/ 22      5:23pm     “rainboots” and he id’d peepee  , “puddle”
5/30   “Flag”  we got on the bus and he pointed to a decal on the window,sure enough it was the stars and stripes.
6/ 2      10:45am     “  what's that truck?”
6/3                     “What’s going beep beep”
 6/.5    8pm        “Oh wow, cool!!” upon seeing a toy I’d retired for a few months.

Here are pictures from our Day in Tompkins Square Park at the 2009 Dance Parade

Memorial Day in Fire Island

Summer has begun and as usual, we flee to the beach, Fire Island, in particular to enjoy the waves and warm weather. We opted to try a new part of the island, Fair Harbor, a more quiet and family friendly town. CLICK HERE for additional pix from the weekend. But as you can see, Dante delighted in running on the sand and exploring the red wagon our housemate Mitch brought out. We're in a house called KidsRUs that fits the name, toys, games and puzzles and young ones everywhere. It's going to be a lovely Summer!

Mother's Day in Texas

Dante and I spent Mother's Day weekend visiting family in Texas. Dante always gets a day full of animals there from helping out at the barn with all aunt Jocelyn's farm creatures. This time round there were tempting hay barrels that need to be climbed on and meandered through as well as the usual horse riding and egg gathering.
We also made the journey to Fossil Rim and safaried with zebra, giraffe, cheetah, ostrich, bison and a variety of deer. CLICK HERE for PIX

Guatemala Vacation

We spent my birthday week in Guatemala visiting friends, who escaped the NY winter and found paradise in a lakeside village on Lake Atitlan. The first few days we spent in Antigua at this gem of a hotel we found on-line, Quinta de las Flores, and explored the cobblestone streets, visited the white walled churches and feasted on the most delicious papaya and mango known to man. The rest of the trip was spent at Lake Atitlan, visiting the local towns by boat, hiking, cooking and catching up with our dear friends, Debra, Jon and Newton. Click here for the online photo album

Binky Be Gone!

I went to Coachella with a bunch of girlfriends last week followed by a biz trip in Vegas. While I was gone, Rahav took on the mighty task of doing away with Dante's drug of choice, his binky. Now he can only have it for naps and bed. When I got home I was shocked at how much his verbal skills have improved just from this alteration. Kudos to Abba! Rahav said he's also been saying Please, Thank You and Bless You. Everything is happy too - happy Dante, happy train, happy Lulu, Happy Happy Happy. Must be the rose colored sunglasses he has on :-)

Baby in Tummy

We're starting to teach Dante about the concept of baby and big brother. He's starting to get it and has shown a newfound interest in babies and will point them out on the street and go over to them with curiosity. In this photo he put his hands on my tummy and said "Baby in Tummy"

Easter Egg Hunt and Coloring

Easter fell early this year - April 12th - and we planned on a grand day outside bike riding and celebrating Spring. Unfortunately, New York weather didn't agree with us and it was frigid and windy. Rahav's complex had an easter egg hunt for the little ones and we bundled Dante up and took him outside for the hunt - which he normally would totally dig. He lasted two minutes before begging us to take him in. Oh well, we got him interested in coloring eggs for a bit, but unless chocolate or sugar of some sort was involved, he got easily distracted.