Augie and Dante

Now that we're back and over jetlag, I had time to snap photos of the boys playing on Augie's play mat. Dante enjoyed getting under the toys and helping Augie grab and flick the plush toys. Augie kept looking over at Dante, smiling and completely amused. Augie's going to get more entertainment out of Dante than anyone else on the planet.

Bali

PHOTO ALBUM HERE
After KL, we flew off to Bali with my sister's family six children for week of luxury in Ubud and Denpasar. Ubud was everything you'd expect from Bali guide books, beautiful beyond belief and HOT and sticky. (keep those last three words in mind because I will use them over and over again) Our Ubud resort Alam Jiwa was perfect! Our suite was on the 2nd floor and overlooked the rice fields, coconut trees and a soothing running river. Our open terrace was a playground for butterflies and birds that enjoyed zig zagging in and out of our suite. We had an open shower and the spout pour out of a statue of a voluptuous Balinese Goddess. The staff was courteous and friendly and the food amazing!

We spent the next few days riding bikes through the town, window shopping and admiring the local crafts (ornately carved furniture and pottery), feasting with a local Balinese family at their multi-generational home, feeding the monkeys in the monkey-forest, swimming at the hotel, dining at local markets, visiting and helping harvest rice with the locals and even cruising the countryside on a motorbike. we really packed it in.

We kept hearing the buzz that Julia Roberts was in town filming "EAT LOVE PRAY". We never saw her but the locals were quite excited about the American actress in town. They don't have much but boy they love their American movies.

In Denpasar, we rented a private five bedroom villa and spend a few days relaxing in the pool and at the beach. While Denpasar is cooler than Ubud, it's not as traditional and more touristy. The kids liked Denpasar because there's a cool waterpark, which we took advantage of. But personally, I could've spent the whole week in Ubud. There's a certain humility and mysticism I felt there, a connection to nature and to tradition. The Balinese way of life and beliefs are something to be respected and admired. It's in their blood and lives and there's a certain special peace I felt there

Southeast Asia Vacation: Kuala Lumpur

PHOTOS from KL
Kuala Lumpur - wow.. we love it here and wish we had come earlier. The food, WOW.. amazing, the flavors, spices, varieties and tastes. not to forget how incredibly cheap it is.. $3 a meal, $2 taxi rides, etc etc. We have a gorgeous view of the Petronus Towers & KL Towers from our hotel window and have watched nightly thunder and lightening storms.

Luckily, we've not had rain during the day and while it's humid, not too hot. So we've been exploring on foot, which is challenging. Where HK is similar to NYC, KL is more like L.A., not a walking city with it's insane six lane streets, disregard of traffic signals, crazy number of motor bikes and almost no pedestrian crossing.

Back to the food, whether it's fish, beef, chicken or some questionable meat that's probably best left unknown, you can't have a bad meal here. We've been eating mostly at local street stalls and left licking our fingers with a huge grin.

We strolled Central Market sampling the guava, coconut and orange drinks in sight. Hit the butterfly garden and the National Mosque.Priceless moment. At the National Mosque, purple robes with hoods are provided for women to wear when entering. Dante took one look at me putting on the robe and pleaded, Ï don't want to wear a sweater!" LOL tonight we'll explore the night market and indulge in another mouth-watering meal.

We took a side trip outside of KL to see the famous fire flies. Not sure the four hour round trip journey was worth it, but we slept in the van to and from and thoroughly enjoyed the light spectacle. We arrive in this primitive village in the middle of nowhere, stars and night sounds (crickets, owls, frogs) everywhere. We boarded a private canoe and peacefully got the witness the sychronized flashing lights of millions of fireflies that illuminate the river side trees. It was humbling to be so in tuned with nature and in such a remote part of the world (for us at least). In hindsight, I'm very happy we went even if we were thoroughly exhausted upon our return at 1am.

We spent our last day in KL at Science Center learning all about how to drill for oil. I wish we had more time here

Our Trip to Asia - Hong Kong edition with upgraded links

We have been in Kuala Lampur for two days and I had a chance to put together pix from the first few days when we were in Hong Kong. It was nice to visit the city but I felt like we could have spent less time there as soon as we arrived in KL because I like it so much. Nonetheless it was an interesting city and I'm really glad we got to see it. Traveling with the two children has been great. A bit more of a challenge than Dante alone but still quite manageable. For all the pix from Hong Kong click here . More to come!

Dante's Third Birthday

Click HERE for Photo Gallery
Click HERE for Happy Birthday Video

WOW! Dante is THREE.. We celebrated with a pizza making party at Rahav's house. We had a few of his friends over and a few of our friends with kids over too. Dante and the kids played with trains, cars, balloons and got along quite nicely. He especially bonded with Elena's two year old daughter Anna. He picked out a black and white oreo cookie cake. We all sang Happy Birthday to Dante, opened gifts and called it a day. On his official birthday, October 6th, we went to the Central Park Zoo and to a tucked away playground that has a long marble slide. Rahav put Augie in the swing for the first time. It was a lovely fall day as well, the leaves are starting to change. Dante makes all these adorable comments about winter coming and the leaves are changing colors. He also knows that he was born in NYC America :-)

Augustus is ONE MONTH OLD

Click HERE for photo album.
Click HERE for video

This month has been a whirlwind of emotions, remembering what it's like to have a newborn around. Having two boys is both awesome and difficult but quite rewarding. Dante is in love with his little brother and shows him off whenever he can. At storytime class he proudly marched in and announced "This is baby Augie" to a class of twenty toddlers. Mom and Dad as well, can't get enough of having a tiny newborn around to hold and love. I forgot how mushy cuddly newbies are.

Augustus is born August 28, 2009 at 2:54pm

Dante welcomed his little brother into the world last week. Since then we've had the Bris and been getting aquainted with the little guy. Who so far, has been an unbelievably easy baby. Almost no crying, sleeping through the night and adorable. A little bit of jaundice, but otherwise everything has been great. Click the picture for the full gallery ;

                                                                

I wanna go

Dante let us know that he needed to use the john four times, and then proceeded to do so somewhere besides his diaper. This was a couple of weeks ago when we were in Fire Island and hasn't really happened consistently since. This has been happened much more frequently of late and he has gotten pretty reliable about going or not when appropriate, especially if a peepee cookie is dangled as bait. It's pretty cool to see Dante making progress in potty training. These pix are us on the beach and the first time Dante ever flew a kite during this weekend. Click a picture for more pix.
 

July in Fire Island

We spent another glorious sun-filled weekend in Fair Harbor, Fire Island, sadly, the last of the Summer for us. We were afraid it would be spent in-doors, as stormy weather was planned. The thunder and rain pounded all night but gave way to warmth and sun each morning. It was great because the beach sand was moist and perfect for digging sandcastles. As usual, we biked, BBQ'd, beached, walked and enjoyed the company of our house mates, friends and each other.

4th of July Fireworks

We celebrated th 4th of July with an unobstructed view of the Macy's Firework display over the Hudson River. Normally, it's in the east river but to commemorate the birthday of Henry Hudson, they moved it. Which was perfect for us since Rahav has a huge balcony on the 21st floor that overlooked all of the fireworks. We had 30+ people over, including my good friend's Patti, Jeff and their adorable 3 month old daughter Kaia.

Dante got a bit freaked out when the show started and kept clinging to us but never letting his gaze leave the spectacular display. He insisted on watching from behind the window and then would creep out every so often to test his nerves. Weeks later, he's still waking up saying "Fireworks, scary, cool fireworks." This is the first memory he's held onto. Rahav and I wonder if it will be his firs imprinted memory to recall years to come.

Mermaid Day Parade & Coney Island: June 2008

We took Dante to the annual Coney Island Mermaid Day parade - in the rain, of course. Beforehand, we prepped him about what a mermaid was so he could point them out, which he did "There's a mermaid, Oh, There's another mermaid" over and over again, delighting everyone in ear shot. Due to the drizzly weather, the parade wasn't as spectacular as previous years. We took Dante to the kiddie park and put him on his first solo ride - a helicoper, in the pouring rain. Nervous Abba and I thought for sure Dante wouldn't be content riding all by himself. Boy did he prove us wrong, he happily went in the helicopter and waved each time he went by us :-)

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.

A Variety of PhotosT

Time sure does pass swiftly between posts yet Dante's life (and ours) is rich with events and excitement. Here's the latest photos I've taken of Dante in various stages of play. At soccer with his friend Rowan in the background, eagerly sitting on a ball waiting for his turn to run,
waving at mom while nestled in the bathtub. The next photo I caught in a local cafe on Avenue B while he enjoyed climbing on a velvet couch while the sun poured in. The last is his latest enjoyment, playing with his Megan doll and having her jump over his cars.

Dante slides down the twirly slide on his own

It's been a gorgeous day today and we were in the playground for a few hours. I put Dante on the twirly slide and helped him down a few times and within no time he was doing it completely on his own. This is the first time he's done this.

Got Milk?

Ashley, Dante's nanny, gives us a daily digest of Dante's day. This post is best summed up in her words :-)
"When I first got to the apartment, I went into Dante's room to straighten up and he came in and wanted to play with his music eggnshakers. I took out the recorder and he enjoyed playing that too. I showed him that he could make different sounds by covering differentnholes. Then we played with his animals for a while, going over the
words, "under" "next to" "on top." He went down for his nap at 1:15 and Rahav woke up him at 3:30. He had chicken, rice, edamame and cole slaw for lunch. I went to the store to buy some milk and Dante wanted to carry it the whole way home. I thought that he would get tired at some point, but he insisted on carrying it. It was adorable so I took a picture with my phone."

Dante talks on the phone for the first time

Christine called today and Dante immediately starting saying Imma before I picked up which he's done before but today he actually took the phone from me and really talked into it and had a whole conversation which he's never done

Dante at Gym Class

Dante started up soccer again this year and we added toddler gym to his sports schedule. Each Tuesday we bus over the Chelsea Piers for a fun day of athletics. He's much more focused at soccer and is a wonderful little kicker and runner. In gym, he's learning trampoline, relay races, bars, and rock climbing (just like mom!)

On a personal development he's started singing "The Wheels on the bus" song and loves to act out the beep beep beep, move on back and whaa whaa whaa.

Dante's also started kissing and saying goodbye to everything around before leaving a place. Bye bye water, bye bye bath, bye bye socks, and waving and blowing kisses at everything.

His new favorite bedtime book is "The Bear Snores On" that grammy Allen gave him for Christmas. He's chosen that book religiously since he got it. Thanks Mom :-)

New word round-up for January

Dante with Cheetah our Hamster
As I write this at the beginning of February it's getting to the point it's quite difficult to keep track of the words that Dante has in his vocabulary. I guess for me this exercise was about my mom telling me she did the same thing when I was a baby and kept a list of all my new words until it got to a point where it just wasn't feasible to update her list anymore. For me that may have happened this last Saturday Feb. 7th when Dante repeated the names of over 10 dogs pictured on his place mat. He can repeat back just about anything now so it's hard really differentiate between the words he actually knows and can say on his own to identify things and the words that he can repeat without necessarily knowing what they mean. Either way it's been deeply satisfying to me to keep this list and maybe one day he'll enjoy knowing exactly what day it was that he first said Cheerios or Apple or Abba. To me it will always be enjoyable.

Tue Jan 6 9:25am Walk. Eat. Kaylen .mary. Kika (kitty kat) .ride , Two big airplanes eat cheerios eat chicken eggs yellow bus two fire cars names of Christine's cousins: Mary, Kaelyn, Jos broken door missing wheel
Wed Jan 7 1:51pm Pickle
2:06pm Rain ,bear in his crib
6:21pm Hummer
Sat Jan 10 nine , five, six counting blocks
Mon Jan 19
not a word necessarily but he's figured out how to turn his cars on and off using the switches
Sat Jan 24 11:44 pineapple (very clear) tickle. Stop
Sun Jan 25 11pm tzahov (yellow in hebrew)
Wed Jan 28 6:18pm tunnel in the toddler room. He put a train under an arch and said tunnel
Thu Jan 8
Hungry with Ashley and Gray
Tue Jan 13 gray and light brown, sticker, light gray, dark brown.
5pm - Google

Fri Jan 23 4pm heli copter (garbled but he's saying it) Tug boat. Please
Thu Jan 29 thank you, stroller / thank you beabea
Fri Jan 30 Juliane
Wed Feb 4
honey and Dvash (honey in hebrew)
Sat. Feb 7 Bagel, Jelly. Chihuahua, Beagle, Bull dog, Boxer, Sheppard, Grt Dane, Collie, Labrador, Pekingese, Pug, Poodle, Yorky, Weimerana (!!),

Bottle goes 'bye bye'

This was the week we finally got rid of the bottle. Despite serious trepidation on both our parts so far things have gone surprising smoothly. Last night Dante only woke up once, complained for a brief bit about the bottle and finally settled for the sippy cup. He's mentioned it a couple of times over the last few days but as soon as we've said bottle bye bye he's calmed down and taken the sippy cup. He's eating much more solid food and the few episodes of crying for the bottle have been nothing compared to the hysterics that were happening when he knew he was going to get that bottle in bed or during the day.

Dante Talks about Finding his Kitten, Kika

Over the holidays, Dante befriended an adorable black & white domestic short-haired kitten at my sister-in-laws ranch. Every morning we would pick chicken eggs, herd the ducks, feed the animals, play with the goats and ride the horses. One day, as Dante was riding Valentine, a sweet kitten poked out of a neighboring barn and softly meowed until Dante noticed and begged to get off the horse to check her out.

Next thing we know, she's in his arms purring and all of us smitten. We asked around and she was no ones kitten and lucky to be alive. Most of her other 8-week old litter was mauled by coyotes. So, we took her with us back to New York City!

I asked Dante what to call her and he said "Kika". She's become a wonderful addition to our family.

New Year's Eve 2008 With Family in Texas

Mom and Dante spent New Years in Texas celebrating with friends and family. Dante stayed alert and playful until 1:00am playing rock band, guesstures, ping pong and cars. We ate yummy chili with fritos, homemade chocolate chip cookies, queso & chips and cheesecake. At midnight, we watched the countdown and clapped and hugged and kissed everyone in the room. Here's a video of midnight.