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.
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. 
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. 
Goodbye to Alessandro, 
