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.

Christmas 2008

My pix from the Hanukah and Christmas 2008 season and at The Allen's in Texas

New word round-up

This may be a little premature as I'm posting on 12/30 and there's still a full day of new words to come. Dante's been making awesome progress with his language skills, following is this months list of new words and phrases. The end of the month has brought the use of adjectives like big and little and combinations of words and numbers like two yellow cups and big tiger. It's exciting and exhilarating to hear Dante progressing so well and to be able to communicate with his so much better.
12/10 9am "Kelev" (dog in Hebrew)
6pm Bird
6:15 Heart
all at my house on my Wednesday
12/13 "Up" in the elevator at Citibank to go to the train show.
12/17 Butter (in his hi chair after lesson with jessica). Nut for pistachio also after lesson. Truck (during lesson)
12/20 'Tut' Strawberry in Hebrew looking at his picture book
12/21 - Down (to get down from his hichair at Christine's) - Yay! We were working on this one for a while
"I love you" Unbelievable but true before his nap that afternoon. Christine was saying it to him a bunch of times and suddenly out it came. It wasn't very clear but it was definitely the same pronunciation and and sylables.

12/25 "Open" (to get a cookies box open).

12/27 "Eat" (this morning when we got up to go have breakfast)

12/28 "Cereal"

12/29 "two yellow cups"
12/30 "big tiger, little tiger, animals (for a group of critters), nite nite dada"

Dante Sings Old MacDonald

Here's a glimpse into Dante's personality. He and I were singing Old MacDonald together and he put his own little song & dance and threw in a variety of unlikely farm animals (tiger, cheetah, zebra and others) into the mix.

Dante graduates Soccer Tikes!

12 sessions of soccer and its fun to see what progress Dante's made in how he well he understands the coach and the different games that we do in class compared with the way he related to everything at the beginning of the class. Here he is getting his certificate and medal from coach Eddie!

About a month ago I started reading "Goodnight Moon"to Dante before bed each night. It was a new book for me as well but one that seems to be on every child's shelf. It's fun to experience Dante's favorites: favorite stuffed animal (his white tiger), favorite color (yellow), favorite foods (Edamame, apple, banana, cheese and ice cream), favorite shape (circle), favorite songs (itsy bitsy spider and Old MacDonald) and the list goes on. Well, now it's his favorite book. He's learning tons of words, colors and showing interest in numbers from reading that book just before bed and letting the vibrant pictures soak into his tender mind.