November 2001

Dalia is still just the sweetest baby, so cute, so cheerful, so tolerant of Sophie's antics, so easy to love.  She's fascinated by Sophie, even lets big sis climb all over her, grab all her toys away, you name it.  Dalia loves to laugh at us, and she especially loves to hear us sing.  She's getting BIG really fast.  At her 4-month "well-baby" doctor visit on 15 November, she weighed 14 lbs, 8 ozs. (75th %ile) measured 27" (75th %ile), and head circumference is 42 cm, (90th %ile).  She's graduating from the 3-6-month togs into the 6-9's and 9-12's, which makes dressing her a challenge, because you never know if the same outfit will fit from one week to the next.  Dalia also sleeps great, generally.  She takes one or two good naps during the day, and she is usually happy to go to sleep by 9pm.  She can also be put down awake for both naps and bedtime, and will fall asleep on her own after listening to a couple of rounds of the musical mobile.   

Dalia is starting to reach out to grab food, and is watching us carefully at the dinner table.  We're not planning on starting to feed her food until at least six months, but we're watching for signs of her being ready (she's not).  One of the signs is her being able to sit on her own, and she's really making headway there--she can sit pretty well with support.  No teeth yet (another sign), but she loves to chew on our fingers and suck her own thumb.  Dalia's still an efficient nurser--gets the job done and pops off to burp--unlike Sophie at her age, who would hang out at the breast all day long.  This is good, because bopping around with Sophie to all her activities (not to mention ours!), we'd never be able to go anywhere if Dalia nursed like Sophie did as an infant.  

A propos, Sophie is on the way to being weaned.  She and I (Judy) negotiated our way to twice a day (naptime and bedtime) during the pregnancy, then recently just to bedtime.  I told her that I wanted to stop completely, and she said, "But if we stop, I will be very sad." (She's really in touch with her feelings :-)) So I said, "Okay, but we'll only nurse at night then, after you're in pajamas and your teeth are brushed."  So far, so good.  Potty training has also begun, in the sense that we occasionally suggest that she sit on her little potty and see what happens.  No pressure, though!  She's had some degree of success with this low-key method, so we'll keep it up for now.  Update--late November, after visiting with her almost-potty-trained cousin Aleeza over Thanksgiving, Sophie really has begun initiating sitting on the potty, wearing pull-ups, etc.  She likes sitting on the potty and reading books to herself. 

Sophie is really into milking the "drama queen" act for all it's worth.  Occasionally, when one of us is reprimanding her, or even asking her to do something, she [fake] whimpers, with a face on the verge of [fake] tears, "I want my mommy/daddy," whichever one of us isn't there at the time.  Just found out that she does the same thing at nursery school.  When the teachers say it's time to clean up, she wants mommy all of a sudden.  This from a child who never shed the first separation anxiety tear.  Guess she just associates mommy with cleaning up.  Or something.  Sigh.

We are often telling her what things are called, and she has picked up on the phrase "or something".  Recently she has begun combining the two, as in the sentence "It's a jacket or something, it's called."  She often says "Oh my god" or "oh my goodness."  Often, if we are singing together, she'll say, "No, stop singing, Mommy/Daddy.  I have to do it by myself, for my friends."  (We have no idea who these friends are who would object to our singing, but whatever, we let her have her little fantasy.)  We also are told, if we're talking about something that doesn't directly concern her, "Be quiet/stop talking, it hurts my ears."  (She gets this from our lectures to her about indoor vs. outdoor decibels.)  She also describes, in order, different things that she is about to do, and then says, "What do you think about that?" She still loves to make up little songs, sometimes combining snatches of different songs that she hasn't heard for a long time.

Re school, Sophie seems to be settling in fine.  She seems to love her teachers, and they her.  And she gets to do there all the messy art projects (glue, glitter, paint) that mommy doesn't do with her at home!  She has been having some temper fits over toys--"MINE!!!"--which is very unlike the Sophie of a couple of months ago, but very normal for her age.  Other moms of friends her age tell me that their kids do the same thing, and they don't always have a new sibling to blame for the new behavior.  So we're sure she'll grow out of it, hopefully soon.  Besides school, we also had Sophie enrolled in Music Together and Gymtime, but we're going to let these sessions finish and then not sign her up for any more extracurricular classes, at least not right away.  I'd like to sign her up for some sort of gymnastics class, but we'll see.  It's been challenging getting her up and out every morning, and she and I could both use some relaxed time where we're not fighting over her getting in her car seat.  (She and Dalia both detest being strapped in, but, sorry, that's a non-negotiable.)  We also are still attending our monthly ASL playgroup in Suffern, and Sophie still signs really well.  She can actually sign the letters of her name properly now, as well as many other signs.  We met a deaf boy in a dentist's office waiting room, and Sophie and I both had fun signing with him.  He was a very good sport about it! 

Leonid Meteors, 18 Nov

We set our alarm for 5AM but Noel woke up at 4:30.  He looked out the window and saw four bright trails in under a minute.  We all went outside with coats over our pajamas.  It was 28 degrees out and fabulously clear with no moon.  Light pollution near the horizon didn't spoil the view of thousands of stars.  After a while we decided to sit in our lawn chairs with blankets.  We watched a magnificent show for around 15 more minutes.  It was so great being outside with the girls at that hour.  

We had a great time over Thanksgiving weekend, which was spent in Amherst.  We stayed with Aaron, Jana, Aleeza, and Pax (their dog), and enjoyed relaxing and connecting with them and watching Sophie and Aleeza interact and communicate and fight over toys. (Oh, well!)  We also loved spending time with Noel's parents, who left for their six-month winter-spring stay in Israel shortly after this picture was taken.  

Construction on the house is moving right along.

The first picture is the poured concrete floor of our crawl space. Framing of the new room began the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and the "floor" was finished by Wednesday.  We returned from Thanksgiving in Amherst to see the framing well under way (3rd picture), with the windows, closets, and partition walls clearly visible.  By month's end, the ceiling joists were up and the roof was framed.  This is so exciting!  It's really happening!