July-August 2002

July activities and travels
In July we spent almost every weekend traveling, and the girls and Judy spent weekdays relaxing at the lake and at home.  The first "event" was Sophie's 3rd birthday party, which we held on July 4, just after returning from a week away at Hungarian Symposium.  Noel's parents and aunt attended, along with several of Sophie's friends and their parents.  As small as we try to make the parties, they always seem to be larger than we intended!  But we think a good time was had by all.  This 3rd birthday marked a big shift for Sophie, who is really growing up so quickly.  She ended up toilet training herself during the next week or so, by simply refusing to get dressed.  So we hung around the house a lot, and she basically trained herself with very few accidents.  By the weekend of the 14th, she was wearing underwear full-time, even at night. Even when we're away, she asks for the potty everywhere we go. She's good at peeing outdoors, too. We're thrilled and proud - and it took little effort on our part!

The next weekend, we drove up to Amherst to celebrate Noel's and Dalia's birthday (July 14) with our family there.  Instead of a big "to-do", we met out at a park, had picnic food, and played on the equipment and in the pools there.  Talk about a low-stress party.  Something to think about for next year!  We fortunately were able to spend a lot of quality time with Noel's brother Aaron and his family, and his father-in-law even treated Sophie to a professional haircut.  She was very brave, and we loved the results!

The next weekend found us at GrassRoots festival in Trumansburg, NY.  We had a lot of fun hanging out together, with friends, dancing and listening to different kinds of music. Sophie got her face painted and cried when we washed it off.  She made sidewalk art and acquired a "Donna the Buffalo" (the host band) t-shirt.
 

The next weekend (last in July) we attended the last third of an 8-day Balkan Music and Dance Camp at Ramblewood in Darlington, MD.  We had a super time--after all, this music and dance is how we met, so it is always special to experience it together, to bask in the music and bliss out dancing with a lot of old friends who enabled us to meet and and who danced and played at our wedding. Sophie had a blast hanging with all the other, older children (who took great care of her and seemed to enjoy doing so! :-)). She even attended a couple of "Children's Band" practice sessions and ended up playing a drum and singing like a pro with the other children (in Croatian!) in the final show!! Dalia was unfortunately miserable and feverish with cutting her first two molars simultaneously, but she was happy enough just being held and nursing and napping during singing classes, dance parties, even kafana.  We were too busy and distracted to actually take the camera out of the bag, but we're looking forward to seeing other people's pics--hopefully we will be able to upload them to this site.

August activities, Dalia's progress

By this writing, at the end of August, Dalia has ten teeth in and is now cutting her two upper molars.  (She'll have 12 teeth, including 4 molars, by the time she turns 14 months old.  What a toothy girl!) This time she hasn't had any fever, but she's still upset with the pain and needs a lot of TLC.  She is imitating and using words much more now, and has been since July.  It is a real joy to see her communicating. Her spoken vocabulary clearly includes ball, book, up, mama, dada, "buck" for cup, "uh oh" when she drops something, "ka-ke" for cracker, "ahhh" for roaring like a lion, baby, "ka-ka-ka" for clap, clap clap, or quack-quack, and "ba-ba-ba" for "ah-ah-ba-by" (rocking a baby).  She clearly nods her head for "yes"; shakes it for "no."  She is also getting very good and consistent with ASL signs, which include cracker, milk/nursing, more, eat, flower, building, and duck. She also consistently signs gorilla, (patting her chest with both hands) which she learned after reading the book Good night, Gorilla.  She also has made up a sign for when she wants us to sing Eensy Weensy Spider, which was also coincidentally Sophie's favorite song as a baby.  Dalia loves to read and to be read to, and she will hand you book after book, saying, "book," very clearly, when she wants you to read another one.  She loves listening to music and playing with musical toys.  She also loves phones, pretend or real, holding them to her ear, pretending to talk, saying, "aahh," for "hello." She is trying to stand briefly and take a step now and then without support, but she mostly prefers to crawl or "cruise" while holding on to furniture.  Sophie generally treats her very well and entertains her.  Dalia loves to play with all the toys in Sophie's room, and Sophie so far has been letting her. 

Dalia understands a lot!  Once she crawled over to Judy during supper. She got up on her knees, reached up and said, "mama" as if asking to be lifted. Judy said, "No, I want to eat my salad. But you can go over there and play with Sophie and those shoes and clap them together." (She likes to hold shoes on her hands and clap them together, or crawl with them on her hands, like in the picture above.) She crawled right over and did what Judy had suggested. Then Sophie did it. It was really funny, and Judy got to finish eating in peace.

Another sweet signing incident occurred recently while nursing Dalia.  Judy looked down and saw Dalia just staring up at her.  So she wiggled an "I Love You" sign at her (ILY shown together on one hand), saying "Love you," and Dalia popped off the breast and wiggled an "L" right back at Judy, saying "Av-oo."

Sophie is enjoying the lake a lot and is always "showing off" her "swimming" skills to all and sundry. She can blow bubbles, and she's not afraid to "dunk" herself.  She can almost float on her back (with help), and Judy is much less nervous about her being near water.  She's been following the rules at the lake, not going on the dock or beyond where the limits are in the water.  She is very comfortable with all of our Lake Celeste neighbors, and it is hilarious to see her address them (adults mostly in their 70s and 80s) by their first names, even modifying them a bit. Murray has become "Murr", Al has become "Ally". Everyone seems to be getting a kick out of it--so far, no one has objected!

Although 3 years old seems to be easier to deal with than 2 years old, Sophie is coming up with some really interesting ways to get attention.  She'll ask in a certain tone, "Should I eat salt/butter/honey/peanut butter/sugar/etc.?" while her finger is dipping into the container, or she'll say, "Mommy, I ate all the butter/dropped Dalia/spilled something all over the floor/whatever, but I'm really, really sorry."  It's then that I (Judy) know that I have to drop whatever I'm doing and give her some real positive, focused attention.  

In August, we hired a woman from St. Lucia to babysit while we went out to a Zydeco dance in Croton. It was a great evening out - the first time we've left the girls alone for an evening ever, and the first time we've gone to a Zydeco evening sans children since Sophie was 6 weeks old. Dalia cried for a while but then the evening went great. Helen, the babysitter, reported that she babbled all evening long. We got home at 10:30 and they were all still up!

We also hosted a Hungarian Dance Party, including a potluck supper, for our community at Lake Celeste and the extended folk dance (especially Hungarian-dance-philes) "village."  It was pretty well attended, with about 80 guests, but people came and went during the day, swimming in the lake, dancing at the social hall, and hanging around in the house, so it never felt overwhelming.  The music and dancing were fantastic, too, led by our friends in Eletfa and others.

We have a new little niece, Benna Kropf, born August 10.  We had a great time visiting her and the rest of her family in Amherst when she turned two weeks old.  Both Dalia and Sophie were very taken with her, as is her older sister, Aleeza.  Sophie and Aleeza got along really great--finally they seem to be growing out of the "mine, mine" stage and really enjoy playing with each other peacefully. 

Now, at the end of August, we're planning for the start of school (September 11, just like last year!), and thinking of extracurricular activities to do.  Sophie will attend nursery school 3 days/week, and Judy will be teaching folk dance and language arts classes at the school twice a month.  We're looking forward to Sophie taking ballet or gymnastics (or both), and hopefully Dalia will continue to take "Music Together" classes.  One of the lessons learned this summer was "Less is More," in that by not signing Sophie up for tons of classes, camp, etc., to fill her time, we played and read and swam at home, and had a really good time doing so.  So we'll keep that in mind for the school year, too.  Shlepping about all the time is stressful for all involved, especially with two children!!!