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.