Trip to the Kinneret

We spent the last few days of August at the Kinneret! It was our very first trip away with both Itamar and Maayan, who are 2 years 9 months, and 6 months old, respectively. Boaz's parents also joined us which was very helpful and fun too.

One little monkey jumping on the bed

Maayan with Savta

For all the photos click here.

Maayan is 4 months old!

Time flies when you're having fun! Maayan is truly an angel baby. Here are some things to note for her first 4 months:

She now takes dummy for sleeping, especially during the day. She still sleeps only on her tummy, and she loves being on her tummy for long periods of time while awake too. She started going to classes at First Step with Ayelet, just like Itamar did when he was a baby. Maayani doesn't cry after bath anymore, and she is much better in the car - she sometimes falls asleep, although she is a very light sleeper. This month Ayelet went back to work (part-time only) and Maayan stays with a nanny for 2 mornings a week, and Grandma for 2 other mornings a week.

As with Itamar, at age 4 months we discovered Maayan has a milk allergy. When she started regular formula she got red spots all over her body, and also had mucous stools (like Itamar). She is now drinking Nutramigen, and nurses around once a day.

At age 4.5 months - Maayan turns over onto her back, plays, reaches for objects, turns around in a circle on her tummy, moves forwards with her legs, plays with feet while on her back
lifts body on straight arms.

At age 5 months - Maayan turns over from back to tummy and from tummy to back. You put her in one place and find her somewhere else in a few seconds!

For all the photos click here

Itamar's first guitar solo

Here is a cute video of Itamar jamming to a children's tune called "Our car is big and green".

His version goes like this:

האוטו שלנו גדול וירוק
האוטו שלנו נוסע ברחוב
בבוקר נוסע, בערב הוא שב
מביא הוא לי טונה, ביצים וחלב

At the end of his performance, Itamar requests that we show him a video on You Tube. It is a song called "Garbage Truck" by the Biluim, and the chorus goes "Garbage truck, garbage truck, take me along with you - אוטו זבל, אוטו זבל, בוא וקח אותי איתך".

You can imagine how excited Itamar gets when he sees rubbish trucks in the neighbourhood, or any large construction vehicle for that matter. Cement mixers are a big hit. Some of Itamar's You Tube favourites can be viewed here, here and here.

Maayan is 3 months old!

Sleeping through the night! It's possible! Maayan now sleeps from around 9pm straight though to the morning, and wakes up at around 8:30 to eat. Amazing! Never thought this could be, especially after reading this book which we totally empathized with and made us crack up laughing. Maayani has started smiling and stunning us with her million dollar smile. She has started to smile back at us when we smile at her, which is very rewarding and can make your heart melt!

It is quite difficult driving with Mayaani in the car, as she gets very stressed, and we hope that this won't last too long so that we can go on longer trips together. On Shavuot we went to visit our cousins, the beautiful Klinstern family in the North, and the long trip went quite well. Ninety-percent of the time was spent with 2 sleeping kids in the car. Itamar got to see many tractors on the farm, and played nicely with his second cousins, Shir and Or.

The past month has been quite hard on Itamar. He probably began to realise that he now has to share his Mum, and it's difficult for him. His behaviour became quite worrying at kindergarten, as he expressed his emotions using negative actions - like throwing and biting. We decided that he needed a different kind of environment at this stage, and found a new kindergarten for him.

Now Itamar goes to a Montessori kindergarten which is a 15 minute drive in the morning (rather than a bike ride, which is a shame). But it's worth it! He loves the new place, and they have many stimulating exercises for him to solve all day long. There is also sand there, which means that they get dirty and muddy, and they paint whenever they feel like it. So this "messy" place is great for Itamar, and we feel a positive change for the whole family.

Now that Maayan is 3 months old, and sleeping well, Itamar has invited her to share his room with him so that he can look after her at night time. This is what their room looks like. The time has gone quickly, and next week Mum goes back to work (part-time for now).

To see all the photos and videos click here.

Time for a change

Here lives Itamar with his two servants - Bo'az and Ayelet

Think it might be time to change the sign on the door?
Suggestions for a new sign are welcome...

Itamar language age 2.5

- anachnu osim pazel klei tachburot im beyachad savta - אנחנו עושים פאזל כלי תחבורות עם ביחד סבתא

- ma ze bishvil? (what's this for?) - מה זה בשביל

- im ani (with me) - עם אני

- ani tochal (3rd person) - אני תאכל

- ani mesim (put) - אני משים

- ima, ma hazman? (what's the time?) - אמא, מה הזמן

- im bli (without) - עם בלי

- oy yored li gadol tipot (it's dripping a lot) - אוי, יורד לי גדול טיפות

- ima, ani rotse she'akof tishan al yad ani - אמא, אני רוצה שהקוף תישן על-יד אני

- ima, ma at osat? (what are you doing) - אמא, מה את עושת

- aba, ata rotse she ima sheli tiftach lecha - אבא, אתה רוצה שאמא שלי תפתח לך

- aba, gam shelcha ha-artikmel nigmar? - אבא, גם שלך האטיקמל נגמר

- ani rotse she'apkak tiye (i want the lid to be on) - אני רוצה שהפקק תהיה

Birthday on the farm

Itamar's class at Kindergarten went to visit a farm for his friend's birthday party. It was so nice! Ayelet went with him on the bus, which was very exciting (for her no less than for him!). Some highlights include riding on the tractor and collecting eggs. Itamar also got a fright when he tried to feed a horse and the horse bit his hand! Now Itamar wants to become a farmer. Let's see how long that one will last.

Photos and Videos

Maayan's first 2 months

Maayan's second month has been both enjoyable and challenging for us. She has a very good schedule, nursing every 3-4 hours and sleeping in between. It seems that she is enjoying herself very much so far. She doesn't fall asleep on Mum anymore, and has learned to put herself to sleep quite well. She still has periods of crying in the evenings, where she lets us appreciate her miniature lung capacity... this girl is a screamer! She also performs her loud screams after the bath, in the car, and conveniently at the supermarket check-out. She wants to let us know that she is tired and needs to "check out" for a while. She likes to fall asleep in the ergo, which is quite handy for us when we need to take her out during the day.
Maayan's nights are very good for her age. Since around 8 weeks, she has started sleeping for 6-8 hour stretches and waking up at around 5am, then going back to sleep until 8:30am!
Maayan has started to get some really good tummy time action, not complaining too much and even lifting her head up a bit.

Photos and videos here

Maayan's first 6 weeks

Maayan at 1 week


Maayan at 2 weeks


Maayan at 3 weeks


Maayan at 4 weeks


Maayan is 1 month old. Here is Itamar at 1 month


Maayan is 6 weeks old.

We officially have another baby! Maayan's first 6 weeks have been a time to get to know her personality, and we can so far conclude that she is, as Tracy Hogg puts it, an "Angel Baby". As a baby, Maayan doesn't like dummies and is not such a fan of sucking (Itamar will probably be weaned from dummies on his Bar Mitzvah, and on to cigarettes :-) She nurses very well and is providing Ayelet with a great "second chance" at breastfeeding. Maayan loves to sleep!! For the first couple of weeks, Maayan was very good at sleeping during the day in the pram, an then always falling asleep on Mum at night after nursing. So Mum was her bed for the first 6 weeks or so. Hoping to change this habit soon, and to get a proper routine started. At first, Itamar didn't show much interest in his new sister - more in the fact that he has to share his Mum with her. Using the dummy a lot more, doing pipi in inconvenient places, etc. To get around this issue, we bought Itamar a skateboard that attaches to Maayan's stroller and he loved it! This is his pride and joy, and allows him to get attention and at the same time it allows walking from day care with two kids under coltrol :-) Very cool invention (see photo). He is very tender with Maayan, touching her carefully and saying "Maayani!".

Maayan has a tendency to wail at the top of her miniature lungs when she gets tired or has gas, and this really stresses Itamar out. When we told him she is crying because she has bubbles in her tummy, he translated to Hebrew: יש לה סבון בבטן (she has soap in her tummy). Also when Maayan cries, he says to her in Hebrew: לא לבכות מעייני, אני פה (don't cry Maayani, i'm here). Very cute! Regarding language, Itamar is bilingual, but only speaks in Hebrew, even with Ayelet. If she insists then he speaks to her in English, but his Hebrew is way way more advanced than his English right now. He is aware that Mum's books are in English and Dad's books are in Hebrew, and he can translate things - mainly nouns. His syntax is much more advanced in Hebrew.

Our first 6 weeks have been (surprisingly!) lots of fun, and not so difficult (with a lot of help). We celebrated Passover with family, went on a few trips together with Maayan in the Ergo (see photo), and started getting used to life as a real family. It looks like Maayan is a very good girl, and if she keeps going at this pace, we think we can expect neat and tidy textbooks at school, and many followers. She already has been asked for her phone number from our neighbour's baby so...

For all the photos and videos click here.

Maayan has arrived!

On March 2nd, Maayan came into the world! She was born at 12:10pm and weighed 2.36kg. The birth was a very good experience and it went very well, even without epidural(!) She is a good kid, causing no problems for Mum, right from Day 1.

Maayan's first moments right after popping out:

From the beginning, Maayan looks very much like Itamar did as a baby.

In preparation for his new "toy", Itamar had a Big Brother celebration at day care, and he brought photos of Maayan to show his friends. He also brought his friends yummy chocolate balls (which were prepared the night before the scheduled induction by his excited mother). Maayan started nursing well from the beginning (after a few pointers from lactation consultants), and enjoys sleeping most of the day, waking up to eat every 3-4 hours. These are two things we learned after Itamar's birth: (1) prepare for breastfeeding before the baby comes, and (2) Don't try to wake a sleeping baby to eat every 3 hours like they tell you at the hospital. Let them sleep, and they will wake up when they are hungry.

Here are all the photos from Maayan's first week with us.

Appropriately, the name of the blog has now changed, so we include here the original name, just for the record:

Itamar's Adventures - הילד העברי הראשון שלנו

Two years old

Photos and videos

Here are the photos from September to December 2009.
They include lots of friends, Itamar's 2nd birthday party, and the Hannuka party at gan.

Click here to see photos and videos.

A description will probably be updated soon.... one day :-)

p.s. little sister due to pop out March 2010. Stay tuned for details....

Some notes from around October, age 1 year 10 months

- went to the kibbutz, saw ziv, Leeat and Yinon.
- started going on buses for fun.
- loves trucks, tractors, anything with wheels.
- says sentences with 3-4 words.
- saba pes dadu (סבא מחפש כדור)
- aba vi tama dummy (אבא תביא לאיתמר מוצץ)
- calls us "ima yet" and "aba boz"
- started calling me mummy
- repeats everything we say, gives out commands (mummy kum! = get up!)
- wakes up saying cute things: ima fog, ima sok
- talks in his sleep
- loves to read stories
- likes to identify letters of the alphabet that he knows (Hebrew: shin, mem, ayin, nun, he, gimmel) (English: S, A, B, C, W, O)
- learning colours at day care, started distinguishing (i.e. not everything is adom anymore)
- prefers certain DVDs (Justine Clark)

18 to 21 months

Photos are here.

At age 1.5 to 1 year 9 months, Itamar has acquired a long list of hobbies. These involve playing guitar, drum, piano, recorder, basketball, soccer, ping pong, scooter riding, building tall wobbly towers, splashing in the water, sitting in the driver's seat, testing out anything with buttons, and making freshly squeezed orange juice.

The past three months were full of Summer activities. We went a lot to the pool and to the beach. Itamar played with his best friend Arthur (2.5) and learned from him to pee in the toilet. Great stuff. We also visited our friend Ziv and his dog, Boss. Itamar doesn't get to see pets very much so it was fun for him to feed Boss and play with him.

We spent a lot of time in the neighbourhood playground, running after older boys and their various balls (basket-, foot-, ping pong, etc). We also went for a trip to the Dead Sea and Masada with a conference including most of the world's population of convex geometry mathematicians. Itamar liked the hotel very much, especially wasting water at the water coolers (it's so much fun pressing the button and seeing the water come out).

At this age Itamar insists on driving the car himself and refuses to go anywhere before having 5 minutes alone with the CD player, taking the CD out and putting it back in, many many many times. We had an end-of year party at day care before the Summer break, Savta Sarit came to visit again, and we started going to swimming classes with Arthur.

Itamar also upgraded to a toddler bed, because he grew wings and managed to fly out of his baby bed - actually, he climbed and splashed all over the floor. So we urgently bought a new bed, and Itamar (with the help of Uncle Yair) took apart the old bed and built the new one. Itamar definitely has a promising career ahead of him in carpentry. So the new bed brought with it new sleeping patterns, which included many rounds of getting out of bed. But this settled after around 3 weeks and by 1 year 9 months Itamar is sleeping well again.

Language-wise, Itamar has definitely had his lexical burst around the Summer break at 1 year 8.5 months. He is very communicative now and has entered the 2-word stage at around 1 year 9 months. Here is a list of words, most of which were acquired during the 2 week Summer break at 1 year 8.5 months.

Ma, Tama = Itamar
H Sha = savta (grandma)
H Aba = saba (grandpa)
H bon = sabon (soap bubbles)
E tu tu = choo choo
E pim, pip = pip (of fruit)
ayi = yair
E abo = elbow
Ama na = mum, take this thing... ??
H po = po (here)
H Oto = oto (car)
H Oto po = says shen he hears a car
H toa = liftoach (open, verb)
E tin = Justine Clarke (means: "I want to watch a DVD")
E koo = Play School (a DVD show)
H da = toda (thank you)
Shai = Shai (a girl at gan)
Ta Tan = Yonatan (a boy at gan)
H apa = Hoppa!
wow = wow
E pata = potty
H dom/adom = adom (red)
E apo = apple
E pen = plane
H shama = shama (there)
H ashu = asur (forbidden)
H boim = boi (come here)
E min, mik = milk
E pum = plum
H kum = kum (get up)
H tom = ufitom (all of a sudden..)
H adu = kadur (ball)
E abo = ball
E up = up
E be = bear
H pi = pil (elephant)
E pi = please
E up = up
E dan = down
H yim, vim = anavim (grapes)
H non = balon (balloon)
H nin = balonim (balloons)
H shin = the Hebrew letter Shin
H nun = the Hebrew letter Nun
H tun = xatul (cat) - the letter x stands for the Hebrew sound, like "h". H obada = oy vavoy (means 'oh dear') H sim = sim (put) H sheme = shemesh (sun) E sun = sun H top = tof (drum) E pop = pop H shon = lishon (to sleep, asleep) E fok = fork E poon = spoon H kak = pkak (lid, cover) H ofanan = ofanayim (bike, used also for motorbike) E bak = bike E bak = back H emen = Amen (points to wine bottle) H pa = Kippah H ta = pita E men = man E eg = egg

Photos are here.

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18 months

All the photos and videos are here.

There's no stopping Itamar these days. During the past month he has undergone a huge developmental leap. He understands everything he is told, and is a lot more communicative. Saba Avi came over to visit, and introduced Itamar to the wonderful taste of cappuccino froth. Every time Itamar sees him on skype now, he runs over to his mini basketball game and starts playing, because that's what they played when Saba Avi was in Israel.

Itamar is in love with Justine Clarke and he loves putting in the DVD and pressing Play on his mini-DVD player (which he still calls "et ze, et ze", meaning "this"). That's the only DVD he likes to watch, despite having an incomprehensible amount of DVDs to choose from. So although we don't have a TV (yet...) we do use the little DVD player to keep Itamar occupied while doing the housework. Very handy little investment. Highly recommended!

The hot season has arrived so we went to the beach a couple of times. Itamar loves playing in the sand. On our first visit he preferred to stick to the sand, but on later visits he loved running into the water - but of course only if it involved running after a ball. This guy has a thing for balls. But we already mentioned that, didn't we.

We are pretty sure that Itamar is left-handed. If given a ball in his right hand, he transfers it to his left hand in order to throw it. He eats and draws mostly with his left hand too. But if he is holding something important in his left hand, he will use his right hand instead. Itamar is learning how to be polite - he says "da" (toda = thank you) when told to, and he gives kisses and hugs on demand, if he is in the mood. We are enjoying this (probably brief) period of obedience, and hoping that it will continue on at least to the teen years. Yeah right.

We have had some issues with separation anxiety this month - Itamar cries when mum or dad leave, but relaxes pretty soon afterwards. His first babysitting experience went well following a rough start. He is also very stubborn. At day care they tell us that if Itamar doesn't feel like doing something, or if he has other plans, it is quite a task to 'convince' him to stay with the rest of the group. Once he finishes eating, he puts his things down and trots over to the door expecting to be let out to the playground. But he has to wait until all the other kids have eaten too... try telling him that. Thankfully, he doesn't express any aggression towards other people (i.e. hitting, biting and the like), even if he doesn't want to do what he is told. Just distract him with something else and the scene ends pretty soon.

Sleep-wise, we were having a lot of trouble sleeping through the night until now, especially since coming back from NY. Itamar slept with mum when he was sick there, so he needed mum a lot in the middle of the night. This got better after 2 weeks, and by 1 year 6 months Itamar started sleeping through the night completely. Of course, there are still some nights when something bothers him, but at least now we know it's possible to sleep from 8pm to 6:30am! It is definitely associated with some sort of growing up that he is doing right now.

Better sleep is definitely related to the huge developmental changes as well. Itamar now points to body parts when asked (nose, mouth, belly button, knee, etc.) and says the name. He does the twinkle twinkle little star action, does "all gone" action and says "go" when something is finished. He points to people in photos, including himself and sometimes points out objects in books (moon, apple, animals, etc. ). He also gets the colours right sometimes, like "point to the green balloon", etc. Itamar can now climb ladders in the playground, drink from a straw and from a cup. He likes at puzzles with colour-matching, and just starting to get excited about regular puzzles.

At age 1 year 5.5 months, a whinge was still worth a thousand words. When he wanted something he would yell "ma ma ma ma" until we responded. Within 2 weeks he changed tactics and started calling us when he wanted stuff: "Aba" and "Ama" loud and clear. Another new and useful thing is shaking his head and saying "no no no" in a very cute fashion, when offered something he doesn't want. Finally some expressiveness! We have also now entered the wonderful age of books! Previously Itamar wasn't interested at all, but at age 1.6 he has finally begun to share his parents' favourite past-time.

Itamar has a lot of new words. He is now at the stage where he repeats what we say and copies what we do a lot. His consonants are mostly bilabial or dental, with fricatives being f (as in flower) and v (as in woof woof). He has started saying closed syllables now. Not surprisingly, so far they all end with a sonorant consonant (m or n). A cool thing about Itamar's language aquisition is that for each word he chooses the language (Hebrew or English) according to the sound. So he will say the sound "da" for duck in English, but also for "dag" which is fish in Hebrew. This could be an example of phonological code-switching. Not sure exactly.

Here are some more words that he has picked up (E = English, H = Hebrew):

E - baba = cucumber

E - che = cheese
E - che = cheerios
H - da = toda (thank you)
E - da = duck
H - da = dag (fish)
E - faa = flower (with an australian accent ;-)
EH- bom/boom (closed syllable)
H - ata = savta
EH - ayo = Allo (hello on the phone)
EH - yay, aya = ayin (eye)
H - pe = peh (mouth)
EH - ping = penguin (closed syllable)
H - a-yeh = Yair
H - ami = Amit

EH - ama = mum/ima

H - vovo = sevivon (dreidle)
H - mayin = mayim (water, closed syllable)

All the photos and videos are here.

New York, New York

We went up to New York for a short visit to NYU. The location was fantastic, the weather was cold, and the baby's fever was 39.2 degrees Celsius. Boo hoo. Itamar was pretty miserable for the first half of the trip, with a painful ear infection. But as soon he felt better and the sun came out, we had a great time. Itamar felt right at home on the basketball courts of Greenwhich Village. Imagine four huge guys playing basketball, when a little cheeky boy rushes into their game with his arms outstretched, yelling "bo, bo". It was rather hilarious. We also got to spend time with our new friend, baby Romy in New York at the Children's museum which was fun. The definite highlight of the trip was our visit to Princeton. Itamar was reunited with his baby-hood friends - Johanna, Alessandro and Laura. They played really well together and made us feel like we should be coming over there more often. Laura is so far the first kid that Itamar lets keep the ball. If anyone else dares to take a ball from him he goes nuts. But with Laura he is quite the gentleman. Hmmm.... Alessandro might have some competition here. Compare: THEN and NOW.

So the trip was short but sweet. Here are the photos.

And here are some photos from before we left - hanging out with Ziv at a gymboree called Yalduta in Zichron Ya'akov.

1 year 4 months

On Purim Itamar dressed up as a bee and was very busy, running around a lot. When the weather began getting nicer we went to Nachal Alexander for a picnic with the Green Movement. Itamar didn't seem to notice the beautiful place as much as the balls that were being kicked around. Boys will be boys... Other than that, Itamar has started building up a little vocabulary, mostly made up of single syllables. He has officially been crowned the "cheekiest but cutest" kid at Day Care. We are also very excited about our visit to NY to meet Itamar's 'childhood friends' in Princeton.

More photos are here.

Words:
1 year 4 months:
a-vu = it fell (or 'nafal' in Hebrew)
vu vu = woof woof
neh = knee

Words

1 year 3 months:

aba = aba (Dad)

ma ma = ima/mum

et ze - et ze (this)
eh meh = dummy

mao = meaow

bu = bakbuk (bottle)

bo = ball/baloon

be = pea

bi = dubi/bear

aya = shalva (a type of snack)

am am = i'm hungry
mu = moon
yay = light
may = mayim / water
mo = more
go = liftoach (liftoach means 'to open', but go comes from lisgor which means 'to close')
baaaaaa! = Wow! (this is usually said when Itamar makes a huge mess)

We hear mostly 'bi-labial' sounds, single syllables and lots of duplications, i.e. go-go, ba-ba, meh-meh, ma-ma.