September-October 2002

September activities
In September, Sophie started her second year of school, a nursery school program for 3-year olds.  She seems to love it.  Her class meets three times a week for 3 hours at a time, and it includes quite a few of the same children from last year.  She also attends ballet once a week, and coincidentally, 4 of her school classmates also attend during the same class, so it's a fun social interaction, besides being good for her physically.  The class involves some tumbling and gymnastics, jumping on the trampoline, dancing with props to music, stretching, etc.  Sophie loves to be the "leader" whenever the teacher needs one.  This class is a good compromise between pure ballet or pure gymnastics, and she seems to enjoy it.  Dalia seems eager to start ballet classes of her own.  She watches Sophie through the window and tries to get into the dance room whenever she can.

Judy is teaching at the nursery school again, several times a month, in the Jewish Cultural Enrichment program.  She teaches dance, language, games and songs, and is having fun putting together her curriculum for this year and making modifications.  She is fortunately working with another teacher, so that helps a bit, since the classes are large. Dalia gets to stay with her, and Sophie is actually taking the class with her friends.

In September we visited Washington for Tisza Ensemble's 20th anniversary celebration, hanging out with some of Judy's old buddies from the dance troupe and meeting old and new members.  We also were lucky enough to spend part of Yom Kippur with Joel and Shirley, even though the girls are still not able to sit through a service.  One day...
 
Dalia reading to herself, Sophie flirting at the top of the slide, Dalia and our friend Marta playing in front of Hungarian band Eletfa at the Tisza party, taking a nursing break on a rainy hike, Sophie "swinging higher for zippity zoo!"

"I'm swinging higher for zippity zoo!"  We don't know where Sophie got that funny expression.  She really pumps well now when swinging, though she still likes for us to start her off.  We can finally let her go into the front yard by herself and swing and use the slide, while we watch her through the window.  Dalia is also getting good at playing independently, doing puzzles, "reading," coloring, and finding things that interest her.

Sophie still says "brefkiss" for breakfast, but pronounces most everything else pretty accurately.  Sophie now says, "No, mommy, I'm not a baby, I'm a big girl!" (She used to say "gull.")  She really is a big girl, weighing in at 39 lbs, and measuring 39½".

Dalia's language skills are just exploding, both English and signing.  She now asks for milk both in ASL and verbally.  Once when she was recently nursing, Judy asked her in ASL if she wanted a cracker.  She nodded. Then Sophie called for them to come find her.  Judy asked Dalia in ASL, "Where's Sophie?" She signed back, "Sophie, where?"  Judy signed, "Do you want to go find her?" Dalia nodded and popped off the breast.  They went into Sophie's room, where Sophie was hiding in the closet.  When Dalia managed to open the closet door and find her sister, she burst out laughing and signed, "Sophie!"  Dalia adores playing with her sister, in addition to coloring, pretending to take pictures, reading, trying on sunglasses and hats, peek-a-boo, dancing, playing music, rolling a ball with her dad or going boingy-boingy on his stomach, and pretending to talk on the phone. 
 
Sophie surprising Dalia from the closet, hugging on the couch, hanging with community members at a Lake Celeste event, hiding in a bookshelf.

Both girls enjoy having other children over to play.  We recently reconnected with Kara, an old friend of Judy's from a prenatal yoga class, whose children are almost exactly the same age as ours.  We had a great playdate and got some wonderful shots of all of our kids.

Dalia and Sophie enjoying a playdate with Sage and Jason.

October activities

Early in October we visited Amherst to celebrate Rita and Allen's birthdays. Sophie and Dalia of course enjoyed reconnecting with cousin Aleeza and new baby cousin Benna.  Other highlights this month were attending our friends Gina and Dirck's fall harvest party in CT, Sophie's friend Annabel's birthday party, Judy's (first) 39th birthday, the Beacon Pumpkin festival, the Bisserov Sisters' performance at Hungarian House, and seeing the Tamburitzans perform at FIT.   Now, in late October, we are constantly amazed by the beauty of the leaves, rainbow of yellow to golden to orange to red to auburn, and there are even still a few trees with green leaves. The sun is shining this morning though snow was predicted for today.  On Halloween eve (which we don't celebrate) we had dinner at Risi Saunders' farm down the road.  Four generations live on the property, from great-grandma Risi to her daughter Betsy Calhoun, to her daughter, our friend and architect Libby Parks, to her daughter (Sophie and Dalia's playmate) Emma. We didn't dress up (laziness) or trick-or-treat (we don't eat candy--Sophie's weak teeth are good reason not to). Sophie is quite accepting; she even explains to friends who offer her lollipops that she will be able to eat it when she's older.
Visiting with family in Amherst, Sophie and Aleeza playing "doctor," Dalia signing "froggy," jamming with our friend Dirck at his harvest party, Sophie with the pumpkin that she picked out at the Beacon Pumpkin festival, Dalia trying on Judy's glasses at the festival.

Noel and Dalia in Beacon, Sophie and her ballet class, Dalia coloring by herself, Sophie and friend Jordan at Annabel's party, Noel and Dalia at the same party, Sophie and Dalia playing in our kitchen.

  Playing in the front yard, watching the colors....

Dalia is toddling all the time now -- with the cautious straight-legged waddle of a beginner that we call the "monster" walk. Lately she has been doing something that Sophie used to do - holding a lunch box or a bag in one hand and toddling around saying "bye, bye" and waving the other hand. Current words she uses well are book (her first word), mangie (magnet), ball, dolly, rocky (rocking), walky (walking), cookie, [roar] for lion, up, yummy, brock or broccoli, "dat" (that), ducky, quack, duck (stuck), "dacky" for jacket, dipie (diaper), tickle tickle, guy (sky).  She has many more words that she uses with the ASL sign: "hungy" (hungry), hat, monkey, more, "peas" (please), apple, mulk (milk), "dofie" (Sophie), "Da" (Dalia), where?, love you, cracker, mommy, daddy, work, home, froggy, camera, happy, sad, moon, baby.  Dalia knows how to sign "gorilla" and act surprised when we say "surprise;" she can also kiss, hug, pat, or rock her doll if we suggest it.  She can identify all the parts of her face (and some body parts) upon request, and loves sticking her finger in our noses and eyes, saying, "no" and "eye."  She loves to eat out of our plates and to feed us bits of food, and she LOVES to dance to music--standing, bouncing, moving her little tush, waving her arms--which she has been doing since before she could walk.  She understands and obeys "lie down," "lay keppy," "pop off," "close your eyes," and many other phrases, and she loves to find our belly buttons.  Besides nodding or shaking her head vigorously in response to questions (this is quite hilarious, sometimes!), Dalia is also getting really great at imitating words.  And, like Sophie, she loves playing with musical instruments and with the computer.

Sophie continues to amaze us and our friends with her vocabulary and her mature usage of language.  She seems to effortlessly memorize new words and expressions, songs, words from other languages, ASL signs.  Most recently she has begun to pick up "no, way!" "oh, yeah?" and other disrespectful expressions.  Sigh.  We're working on it. Also, after three months of going to the toilet properly, Sophie has begun to have "accidents" once or twice a day and during the night.  We're trying to be as supportive as we can, but it's tough to know what to do.  Should we put her back in pull-ups? Remind her constantly, making us all crazy?  We've put her back in diapers at night, and we'll see what happens as time goes on.

Sophie and Dalia both had their first bout with pinkeye this month, just as we were all getting over colds.  Fortunately, the eye drops worked fast and well, though administering them was torture for everyone involved. 

Judy is continuing to take ASL classes at NYSD in White Plains, and is still trying to keep an ASL playgroup going at home on first Fridays, but participation has been pretty pathetic, or apathetic!  It's a good thing that she still practices with the girls.  Sophie still remembers and uses lots of signs, and she likes to "teach" them to Dalia.  Dalia loves to practice, too.  She will suddenly go into review mode, signing and saying what she is signing, e.g., Daddy, Mommy, cracker, work.  It's very funny!

We are in the middle of reconstructing the wall in our living room around our fireplace due to water damage over many years of leaks around the chimney.  That is currently our most pressing house project. Noel has caulked and put up plastic and insulation, and we're already a lot warmer.  In November we'll be having the chimney repointed and new copper flashing put up so that the damage won't recur.  Hopefully we'll also get wall boards hung and painted before winter really begins.

Datacap is doing pretty well, for which we are very grateful. We are even hoping to get an offer from another company to buy us, something that has been our goal since we started.

Our first "Family Folk Dance" session began in October and seems to be going well, even surpassing our expectations.  We're glad to be doing our bit to preserve international folk dancing in NYC.  Noel is planning to participate in another Balkan + modern fusion dance performance in December.