May-June 2003

Family activities in May

Girlies at home being affectionate--I couldn't resist!

Henry, my uncle, was able to convince Grandma Doll to come up for a couple of days, both for her to see his stepson Noah's graduation production (High School of Performing Arts) and to show her a really great time in NYC.  We were also fortunate to be able to spend a couple of hours with her in the park and having a couple of drinks at the Algonquin.  Henry is so much fun--I'm just sorry that we don't get to see him more often.  We hadn't seen him since just before Dalia's birth!  Sophie especially enjoyed connecting with him again, and he with her.  A nice surprise was reconnecting with my cousin Michael Bossen (not pictured), whom I hadn't seen in over twenty years!

 
We also had a lovely visit to our friends Dirck and Gina's place in CT.  Sophie had tons of fun playing with their gorgeous son Eli.  We had a great time at the Shad Fest in Croton Point Park, too.  Sophie got her face painted with the cartoon character Arthur, of all things.  No girlie flowers or butterflies for our Sophie!  I guess it could have been worse, like one of the Rugrats characters--that show is banned in our house!

In June, they just keep growing and growing!

Actually, speaking of girlie things, I've been unearthing skirts in Sophie's current size, and she actually has been taking to them.  Her favorite outfit is a red butterfly shirt (gift from Noel's parents) and red skirt.  She wants to wear them every day!!!  This is the first time that she's even cared about what she wears.  Dalia, on the other hand, is picky, picky, picky.  Getting her dressed is very interesting!  We have to give limited choices all the time.  "Do you want the pink one or the red one?"  Even then, she might balk, but we're tough now, this is our second kid, and there's only so much balking we stand for.  We dress her in whatever we finally decide upon, she fusses, we take her down from the changing table and she toddles off.  End of story, shalom al Yisrael!  So funny; this never happened with Sophie. 

Sophie has also taken to playing with her earrings such that she ends up losing them all the time.  We tried getting her screw-back earrings, and she managed to pull one out and lose it anyway.  Sigh.  Dalia has been asking to get earrings for her birthday.  See what I mean about different?  I can't help comparing and contrasting, and the differences between them are just amazing.

Dalia's language skills are just blossoming, too, though she's more reticent in front of people she doesn't know.  Her morning routine:  she wakes up around 5-6am, asks to nurse.  I usually agree, since I'm not exactly awake at that point.  After nursing for a while, I'll pop her off and tell her to go back to sleep.  She usually balks, crying.  Occasionally we can distract her by handing her a book, watch, or other fascinating object, but by this point, Noel is usually roused enough to haul his tired self out of bed and agree to make her breakfast. (What a guy!) She turns off the crying immediately and says something adorable like "Yummy, granola!  I'm  feel better now!!! (sic)," while toddling off down the hall to the kitchen.  So cute, you could just eat her up!!  

Dalia also comes out with adorable little expressions like, "You're my best mommy/daddy."  Or "You're my schmooby-dooby."  (We call her "schmooby" sometimes; the dooby she added on her own.)  She still loves to "be a baby" after a bath or being in the lake, and wants to be wrapped up in a towel and carried around.  Actually Sophie still does, too!  Sophie comes out with utterances like, "I love my whole family: I love my daddy, my mommy, my sister Dalia, and even myself!"  She recently has started to throw small tantrums, saying, "I need attention!"  She still says "brefkiss" and "memember", but otherwise, her verbal skills are very advanced  (says her completely objective mother).  It also never fails to amaze me how many songs she can retain, even in French, Hebrew, or Hungarian.  I recently put on a Hungarian singing tape that we haven't listened to for at least six months, and Sophie was singing right along, words, melody, and all.

I'm still signing with both of them, especially because I seem to be straining my voice a great deal lately. (More on this in July.)   For instance, when Sophie asks me how to spell a new word, I often fingerspell it to her while she says the letters aloud.  I have noticed that she has really great peripheral vision, so she sometimes understands what I'm  signing/fingerspelling even without looking at me directly.  Deaf people can do this, but I'm amazed that Sophie can! This could be because I've been using ASL with her for so long.  Though, there are times when we both get really lazy about using it.  Anyway, I wish I had such good receptive fingerspelling skills!  That is by far my own personal challenge with ASL, and I'll hopefully be working on this very skill a lot this summer.  I also will continue working on creating a sample curriculum for teaching children ASL, along with drama exercises and some songs (if my voice survives).  

Of course, Sophie has reached the age or stage where she seems to enjoy ignoring us, doing exactly what we've told her not to do, etc.  Communicating with her through ASL can be tough, especially if she's not looking at me!!!  Hopefully this summer things will calm down a bit, as we plan to spend a lot of one-on-one quality time with her, taking turns with Dalia.

As usual, we had a lot of fun celebrating our friend Wylie's 5th birthday.  We look forward to celebrating Sophie's on July 4!

Wylie and Sophie play in the park in Cold Spring.  (note the favorite red outfit again here!)  Ridvan and her kids came over for a granola-making party; Dalia "helped" Judy clean out her dresser by trying on all her beaded bracelets for the total "Balkan" look.

What is it about bath and sleepy pictures that makes them so irresistible?  Happy Father's Day, Noel!

Dalia in her element, playing outside on Sophie's tricycle, without Sophie bothering her, for once! 

 Sophie and Dalia play dress-up with visiting friend Jesse, Sophie's "best buddy" from school.

Sophie graduated from her three-year old program (red outfit, what a surprise!).  She didn't seem to mind being on stage.  Go figure!

Family activities in June

We gave a lamb-roast party, this time at Breezy Hill Orchard near Rhinebeck.  It was very well attended--about 120 guests, 40 of whom were children!--and a good time was had by all.  Noel worked his butt off getting everything together!  We have a few pics that were sent to us, we expect to get more--please send if you have any!!!  Below are pics of dancers, campers, eaters, and general revelry.

We also attended a very rainy and muddy Clearwater Revival weekend in Croton Point Park.  Fortunately we didn't lose power at home, so we were able to not only come home and get clean and warm, but also to invite guests from Compost Theater to come over, dry off, and camp out in our living room.  These are friends of our dear friend Lani Raider, and after seeing their show, I'm (this is Judy) convinced that I want to begin composting at home, soon! Still another project for this summer!!!

Girlies trying to stay dry at the Revival; Lisa (new friend, creator of Compost Theater) showing Sophie how to get a tune from her flute.