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.

Merav, we miss you ...

Last Saturday we lost Merav, Boaz's sister, after a fierce and courageous battle against leukemia. Merav loved Itamar very much, and we are grateful that he at least got a chance to play a little bit with such a wonderful person.

Photos of Merav
הספד

On the phone to Dad

1 year 2.5 months

At 14 months Itamar moved to a new day care, in which all the kids are around his age. No more sleeping babies to sit on. During the first 2 weeks Itamar was sick (eye infection, virus, grumpy, whingy, not sleeping, etc.) but we are on our way to a full recovery and back to normal.

Despite his lack of speech, Itamar is showing signs of a deep understanding about life. At 14.5 months, he is making huge leaps towards grown-up-hood. He is very excited about following instructions: putting a nappy in the bin, closing the lid and clapping his hands in satisfaction. This is usually followed by putting his dirty clothes in the bin as well, and then transferring them to the laundry hamper after several frustrated requests from us. This action is very handy too: instead of the cheerios hitting the floor during meal-time, we give him a bowl and he patiently places them one by one inside the bowl. Itamar now does lots of things in order to get praise, such as stack rings on a stick, put shoes away in their place, put things away in a drawer or closet - always followed by clapping his hands happily. He also now likes to add blocks to a tower, rather than knocking the whole thing down. Quite an achievement.

His linguistic awareness is expanding to more complex babbling, but still only 1-2 words in his vocabulary. Meh meh means either water ('Mayim') or dummy. Et ze means 'this'. But he now says 'Aba' in the correct context - i.e. whenever he hears the front door open, or when he wants Bo'az to come to him. Mum's arrival is probably taken for granted, so he doesn't call her yet at all.

Other physical advancements include seating himself down on chairs, running very fast, passing objects to people when asked, feeding himself and others with a spoon, among other things.

Another thing Itamar does lately is throw himself on the floor in frustration. Classic symptom of not being able to say what he wants. When he started walking he enjoyed his newly-found independence very much and constantly ran all over the place. However, now he is at a stage where he refuses to walk and wants to be held all the time [Note: Apparently this only happens with Mum, according to Dad...]. If we refuse he bends his knees and folds over backwards on the sidewalk. This form of communication is quite annoying, and we are waiting patiently for the day when he will simply say "hey, pick me up, i can't be bothered walking!" This also explains why we so often see empty strollers in the streets, with the strollers' natural inhabitant being held in the parent's aching arms...

Itamar also got his first haircut!

Click here for photos and some videos

Run run run

In December we went to support the new "Green Movement" party as it prepares to take the Israeli Knesset by storm in the next elections. Itamar couldn't vote in the primary election, but he did enjoy the drumming circle there. Some more info here.


Itamar started walking (well, more like waddling) around Christmas time, and has thus earned a nice pair of size 22 shoes. He has also moved on to the copying phase, which includes clapping his hands, sitting down/standing up, and pointing to various objects (head, duck, ball, etc) "on demand". His family came for a long visit from Down Under, so Itamar spent a lot of quality time with his auntie Shani and his grandparents. He also ate lots of "sufganiyot" for Hanuka, and he learned to communicate with Morse code and became the family's youngest HAM radio amateur.

Here are the latest photos and videos.

Happy Birthday!

This month Itamar finally got to taste dairy products and it seems that his bad reaction to milk is officially a thing of the past. He is eating and enjoying cheese and even had some yummy chocolate cake! Itamar has also mastered the art of mastication and can chew every food without choking. yay!

In terms of movement, Itamar is still walking very well while holding on to things, but he can now let go and stand by himself without support. He can go up and down stairs very carefully, and also up and down slides in the playground. Aparently he has taken a few steps by himself but we need to see it to believe it :-)

Itamar is very playful too. He can play peek-a-boo with us, and throws/catches a ball. Throwing other objects (food, dummy, mobile phones) is also very fashionable right now. He loves to play with anything that has buttons, and also with things that open and close, like the kitchen doors and the drawers in the dresser. Fingers do get smashed every so often, but that's how it is - no pain, no gain.

Vocally, Itamar's output has become a lot more specific. He can say "Aba" (Dad in Hebrew) which mostly comes out as 'ba ba' and also uses 'ma ma' to refer to either "Ima" (Mum in Hebrew) or maybe "Mum". His newest word is "et ze" which means "this" in Hebrew. Itamar also has several grunting noises used specifically for things like "i want more cheerios NOW!", "i do NOT want to put on any clothes!", or "I want to play with that thing". He has a favourite object, which is quite odd: anything that looks like a lid. Most of his day goes by while he is holding on to a green plastic bottle lid or a lid of a gerber jar.

And of course, we celebrated Itamar's 1st birthday at Day Care with all his friends. He seemed to enjoy the attention and the cake very much!

For all the photos and more videos click here.

Itamar's 11th month

Itamar is starting to act more like a boy than like a little baby. He graduated to the big bath - since he was climbing out of the smaller one. He loves to do things that are clearly not allowed and then laugh hysterically when we say 'no'. Some worrying examples include playing with the water faucet and turning on the hot water in the bath, opening interesting cupboards in the kitchen, and reaching for electrical outlets in the walls. So this is the stage when we have to start the whole discipline business. And possibly influence our kid's behaviour for ever and ever. Hmmm.... not a problem at all....

Itamar's motor skills now include climbing up and down stairs, getting down correctly from the sofa and our bed, climbing up slides in the playground and cruising along the furniture. He goes very fast around the house while holding onto things, and also likes to push objects around and use them as a 'walker'. He is very careful when bending down to reach for things and pick them up. Especially if it is a tiny stone, leaf or cigarette butt that he feels like putting in his mouth.

In the food department we haven't made much progress this month. Itamar had a stomach virus so he was eating a lot of blender foods, rather than advancing with finger foods. He is still learning to chew, rather than swallow things whole, so there were many incidents in which we saw his food twice - both before and after he ate it...

This month we also went to visit Ayelet's Kibbutz family in Ashdot Ya'akov Meuchad. The Kibbutz is situated just South of the Sea of Galilee, on the border with Jordan. We were lucky to witness the birth of a new calf, and she was named Itamara! Hopefully she will still be around and producing milk when Itamar is old enough to come over and chat with her. We had a lot of fun with Itamar's new friends Shiri and Ron.


The dominant sound this month in Itamar's vocabulary is "meh meh meh", which sounds extremely cute but the meaning of which is not exactly clear yet. Hungry? Mummy? Dummy (pacifier)?

For a tour of Itamar's 11th month click here.

And here are the photos from the Kibbutz.

A visitor from Down Under

Undoubtedly, the highlight of this month was Savta Sariti's visit from Melbourne. Itamar had not seen his grandma since he was 2 months old, so they had quite a bit of cathing up to do.

Since Itamar is a lot more active now that he is crawling around, we went a few times to a 'gymboree'. This is an activity centre with lots of soft objects to climb and play with.

And again, this month Itamar spent quite a few days being sick with a stomach virus. Here is what the miserable version of Itamar looks like:

Also, Itamar can now easily hold a bottle and drink all by himself. He is also able to insert a dummy (pacifier) correctly into his mouth, rather than be lazy and hold his mouth open ready for it to be popped in for him. This trick comes in very handy in the middle of the night :-)

Language: Lots of indistinguishable babbling. Hear for yourself in the videos. He seems to understand what he's saying, even if we don't...

Photos from Itamar's 10th month

Catch me if you can

In the beginning of August Itamar started crawling around and standing up a lot while holding on to things. It's nice to see the progression of his abilities. First he stands up and falls when he wants to get down. Then he learned to bend sideways to reach for objects, and play with them while holding on to the furniture with one hand. Then he learned to get down nicely without falling over. Towads the end of the month he was already comfortable standing up and holding on with only one hand, with lots more control over his movements.
Also, this month Itamar was sick quite a few times. One of the lovely 'benefits' of Day Care, and unavoidable if Ayelet is going to keep her new job.
Some highlights from this month are going to the pool with our friends Ariel, Lena and Tomer, and also going to the beach for the first time. Itamar seemed to enjoy the sandy beach more than the salty waters of the Mediterranean. We have to work on that...

Finally, Itamar's 3/4 birthday was celebrated at the end of his 9th month with a very geometrically appropriate (and tasty) cake.
Language: Lots of babbling, with the most dominant sounds being the bisyllabic "da-dn" and "ba-bm". Very cute.

Photos from Itamar's 9th month.

Astronomical leaps and bounds

Itamar's 8th month was our first month in Israel. During these past 4 weeks he has changed so much, that it feels like we have a completely different baby! Itamar met most of his family already (from both mum and dad's side) and has settled in to his neighbourhood in Ramat Aviv - near the Tel-Aviv Uni campus. Apparently, there has been a wave of births on our street, so the local park is always full of mums with babies. Itamar has yet to explore the wonders of the holy land... we will leave that to the next month and beyond. Here are some videos of where we live.


Developmentally, Itamar is a very different man now - as can be seen from the photos and videos. Until the 21st of the month, he still did not readily roll over from his back to his tummy. But by the 25th, he started sitting up by himself, and loving it! By the end of the month he was already standing up in his bed - and smiling very proudly every time.

As soon as we arrived here we were told that you should never sit a baby up until he can do so alone. They are supposed to crawl first and only then sit up by themselves. This was quite a surprise, since in the US nobody told us anything about such things. We were letting Itamar sit since he was 5 months old, rather than letting him spend time on his tummy. Apparently it can lead to bad posture and delayed walking. So in Israel we discovered that everyone has something to teach you, and they are always willing to do so (even if you don't want to listen :-) But this has many advantages too.

Itamar finally met Ziv and Tamar - their mums went to high school with Ayelet in Melbourne.

Itamar started going to a new day care here, and also had a virus with a fever. He was very lively and happy - even with a slight fever of 38.3C. However, the illness made him regress to being quite spoiled. He wants to be held a lot lately and is a lot harder to put to sleep. We are hoping that this is just a phase and that he will go back to being his regular calm self. And finally, at the end of this month, he sprouted another tooth. That may explain the mood swings - who knows.

Itamar is now officially a toddler.

Weight at 7.5 months: 9.1kg
Language acquisition (in this order): ba/be, nga, da/de, ma/me, fe/ve.

All the photos are here.

Tel-Aviv here we come - תל-אביב באתי להזיע

The eagle has landed.

Welcome to Israel!

No smiling visitor will be turned away: 054-5384923.

More photos here.

Goodbye Princeton

The time has come to say farewell to our dear friends in Princeton.

We said goodbye to Johanna,

Goodbye to Alessandro,

and even goodbye to the nice UPS man, who always brings us prezzies from 'the Amazon'.

Itamar is officially ready to hit the sunny beaches of Tel-Aviv.

"I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know if i'll be back again..."

Click here for photos from our last days in Princeton.

Babies everywhere

Nice day for a stroll into town. Princeton was full of people with strollers and there were babies everywhere! We met some friends at Palmer square and had yummy ice cream from the Bent Spoon (that shall be sorely missed when we leave...)
The burning question at the time was: Who won the soccer??

For more photos click here.

Itamar and the city

We finally managed to take a drive up to New York, which was really fun. Now that Itamar has been to the big city, he is much better prepared for the night life of Tel-Aviv.

To view the album, click here.

June - Itamar's 7th month

This month Itamar was especially cute, so there is a ridiculous amount of photos. Mind you, there is a very good chance that next month he will be cute as well, so you may as well make time for some serious procrastinating (i.e. photo browsing).


Itamar started using a high chair.





Here are some photos from day care. Itamar has been going there for 4 hours a day since he was 4.5 months old. He loves it there!




The weather was really hot for a few days, so we jumped in the pool with Johanna.
Itamar also started having big kids' baths, now that he can sit up straight.















We visited Mum's lab and Dad's office.







Itamar started drinking beer and singing pub songs at the top of his lungs before bedtime.

And we finally got two very sharp teeth!

There rest of the photos are here.

May - Itamar's 6th month

This month was busy busy busy. We had 2 Aviads come to visit us in Princeton (one from Ayelet's side and one from Boaz's side).

On Mother's Day we had a BBQ by the canal, with our friends Itamar hagadol and Eshel Special (and their mum and dad and Yanir too).

All of the photos from the first half of May can be seen here.

There were also Itamar's first and second visits to Rutgers. The first visit was to see mum's lab. He didn't get to do any experiments, but Itamar played with a test tube, so that was very exciting and tasty for him. Itamar also heard Chinese for the first time and seemed to love it! You can see more photos and videos with Chiann-Chyi and Yacov in the album.

The second visit to Rutgers was for mum's graduation (or 'commencement') ceremony. 'Twas very medieval and Ayelet even got to dress like a wizard for the occasion. The rest of the photos are here.

On Memorial Day weekend we had a BBQ with millions of other babies at Alessandro's place. For the photos click here.

This month Itamar started sitting all by himself and can stand with support. He responds to his name, he can roll over to his backfrom his tummy (if he's not too lazy) and he has started vocalising and babbling a lot!

The next month will be our last in Princeton... getting ready for the big move to Tel-Aviv City.