Learning to put things back?

 

HG caught her first bug this weekend, but thank God it passed quickly and she was soon back to exploring and taking the apartment apart... Truth be told, even the couple of days she was sick, it was only really at night, by day she was frisky and playful, she was really only ill at night when she had a fever and was feeling pretty rotten, nursing all through the night.

By Friday night dinner she was clearly feeling much better and keen to join Abba and Ima at the table for some chicken and cucumber salad, before announcing "I done!" and going off to play.

As Abba went to the fridge to get desert she followed him, spying the box of lychees on the botton shelf and reaching for them. Abba helped her take them to the table and she very proudly presented them to Ima with a smile and a loud "num!". This is one of HG's latest favourite foods and she ate them with gusto, followed by her very first blueberry which she spat out in disgust - they were not the most flavourful. 





Motzei Shabbat HG decided that she hadn't really explored the tv room adequately. Ima and Abba don't usually allow HG to watch more than about an hour or so of TV a week, but during the two evenings she was sick and feeling lousy they let her watch some Seasame Street videos to help take her mind off things.

She had a great time, especially as the star of the ABC video was Baby Bear, and as an avid reader of HG's blog knows, bears are one of her most absolute favourite animals. She started pointing to the tv with a questioning "beah?" wanting to see another Seasame Street video.



With no tv to watch she decided to explore around the television instead. As you can see from the photos, HG took all the videos off the video stand, just as she likes to do with her bookshelves. She seemed a little perplexed by the concept of "video" - she seemed to expect them to be like books and couldn't work out what the point of them was.

After studying them for a while she decided that if they aren't good to read then she might as well return them to the shelf. Her stacking skills still leave something to be desired but it was nice to see that she is starting to get the concept of putting things back on the shelf instead of only taking them down...

Still, it doesn't seem to help much with the bookshelves, she likes having books scattered around the floor so that whenever she feels like "reading" there is a book available in every corner of the room.



HG has always like music, but she is getting more interested in songs and dance by the day. She now sometimes requests songs at the Shabbat table, clearly associating the bentschers with zmirot or bentshing. Today as Abba started singing Shir Hama'alot she reached up to the table and handed him a birkon.

She also tried to be helpful with Havdala. She has known for a long time that Havdala includes smelling things, as soon as she sees Abba start to set up the Havdala things she starts to smile and twitch her nose, sniffing in excitement. She loves the bsamim. This evening she stood next to Abba during Havdala, clearly anticipating the bsamim. When he reached down and passed her the sachet to smell, she held it to her nose, and instead of then running away with it, as she sometimes does, she walked over to Ima and passed it to her, then took it back to sniff some more.

HG has a new puzzle which she adores. It is a simple wooden puzzle with lift out pieces showing the Jewish festivals. She loves taking the pieces out but isn't that great at putting them back in their slots. Her first instinct was to pick up the pieces for Ima to put back. Instead for each piece that HG handed Ima, say a seder plate or dreidl, Ima first sings a song about the relevant holiday, tell HG what the item is and then guides HG's hand to roughly the right slot in the puzzle, on which the name of the holiday is written.

HG has now come to associate this puzzle with a sort of "juke box". She picks out a piece, say a hand holding a sapling, and gives it to Ima, sometimes saying "naynaynay" (HG's word for song or nigun) and sits expectantly, waiting to hear the song. If Ima then says, put the sapling in the Tu B'shvat slot, HG puts the piece on the slot, still having trouble getting it to fit, but she seems to be learning which piece goes with which holiday, and she certainly likes the songs. One of her new words is "dreidl" - not very seasonal, but at least she knows what the picture shows!

HG seems to be picking up a few new words or phrases each day. She has started sometiems trying to say "I love you" - "Ay la ya", which is very cute. Ima and Abba aren't sure if she knows what it means, but she seems to know to say it to them.

Working on the railway

 

HG had an exciting morning. First she accompanied Abba and Ima to the bank where she counted all the safe deposit boxes - she is currently very into numbers.

Next the family stopped for brunch at a neighbouring falafel place - HG is currently very into falafel balls, especially with hummous and a little cucumber.

Finally she got to "drive" the train on one of the rides outside the falafel store - HG is very into sitting and driving things at the moment, she loves steering wheels and pressing buttons. 

The Land of Make-Believe

 

Here she is, stirring an empty bowl with a big spoon, from time to time putting the spoon to her mouth and saying "Num!" or "num num" - HG's word for food which she has been using for several months now.

She also likes to pick up telephones - real or toy - and hold them to her ear saying "hello" or "shalom" - which sound pretty much the same according to HG. Sometimes she also says "Abba" and "baa baa" (bye-bye) during her make believe 'phone conversations.

New words in recent days include house, chair, nose, arba (the digit 4 in Hebrew - she doesn't know any others), upside-down (sounds like "up-da"). And she's started saying I in various contexts. Abba tried to help her when she was brushing her teeth; she refused, saying, "I!" Asked whether she wants to do something, she said, "I do!" (Or something like that. Her words are still usually hard to decipher for anyone but her parents.)

HG has become quite a climber - sofas, beds, chairs - everything is for climbing on.



This week Ima took her to a jimboree type place where they have a big playroom with all kinds of toys and props and a very well padded floor. HG enjoyed running around, climbing on the well padded stairs and giant blocks, rocking on the u-shaped rocker and most of all, climbing atop a giant ball (at least twice her height) and having Ima pull her up on top and then roll her back down to the ground again. She also had fun trying to push the huge ball along on her own - very funny to watch, first you saw the ball, apparently rolling along on its own, and then a laughing, gleeful HG pushing it from behind. 

Another new game for HG is trying to get dressed. She loves trying to put on her shoes and socks (without much success so far), trousers, sometimes skirts and as you can see from this photo - Abba's socks too! Essentially anything she can pull over her feet and legs. She has been helping Ima and Abba dress her for many months now, but lately she is starting to become very independent in trying to do it herself.

She is also starting to show an interest in what she wears. This Friday Abba gave her a choice of three Shabbat dresses and she picked the one that she wanted and started trying to put it on by herself.

Having a ball

 

HG went to a local jimboree type event with a friend on Sunday and had great fun wading in the ball pool, pushing giant balls along and splashing around in the paddling pools. If she looks a little stunned in this photo its because she was fascinated by her friend's mother's camera and was working out how to make a grab for it... 

Word by word

 

HG is working hard on building up her vocabulary, mostly consisting to date of words starting with b, d and m - though the uninitiated might have a hard time distinguishing between them. She also says a variety of animal sounds.

While she mostly communicates one word at a time, she has started to try short two word phrases in her own argot.

Ima being a bird buff, she has learnt the names of some of the most common birds which visit the balcony. Most names are too hard for her, but lately when she sees Spectacled Bulbuls perching on the railings and flower pots she often says - bubu bir - bulbul bird.

She has also started identifying some of her books by name, or rather by the words she associates with them. For example "Goodnight Moon" is "MMMMHHH Ba", while "Mr Brown Can Moo" is simply "Moooo" or "MMMOOO Ba".

Today she was sitting in the middle of the living room and she looked across the room vaguely asking for "da", usually "that", the word she uses when she wants something. It also means "todah" (thank you) which she often says in advance to mean "I want". Abba thought she might be looking towards her music ball, but HG pushed it away when he brought it. She didn't want the other ball either. Nor another toy, and just kept saying "da, da" insistantly and vaguely gesticulating towards one part of the room.

The bookshelves with her books upon them were not in her field of vision, blocked by the armchair, but Abba guessed that might be what she was indicating, but how to know which book?

Then HG, becoming exasperated gave an anxious "DA, DA!!!", before suddenly calming down, and making her throaty purr/growl, her noise/word for cat. Then she smiled and tried again "Da ghhhhrrr ba" - she wanted her book with the kittens in it! Triumphantly Abba handed her the kitten book, HG beamed, eyes shining and handed it to him with a huge grin, indicating that he should read it to her. She is starting to really get the hang of this communication thing. 

HG and friends and telephones

 

HG enjoys other kids coming round to play. She especially enjoys watching older babies and children, fascinated by how they play and talk.

Telephones have been a long time passion but now instead of randomly playing with them and grabs them, puts them to her ear (sometimes two phones held to both ears) and say "leyala" or something similar - her version of hello and shalom. 

Walking and running

 

As you can see HG is getting taller, coming close to reaching the kitchen counter top.

HG is not content to walk, she is walking on running - well, at the moment it is often more like a very fast toddle. She gets everywhere and anywhere, and takes advantage of any large, open flat space to race around as fast as she can, often clapping as she goes. 

Bsamim

 

Here you see HG intently studying the sachet of Havdalah spices. For about the last 6 months she has been interested in the bsamim (she hated our earlier orange scented one) and since we've been using this sachet of cloves she has been becoming increasingly interested in them. It used to be that she'd get excited about Havdalah because she knew that it meant more wine, but now its the thought of bsamim that makes her eyes light up. As she sees Abba getting the Havdalah things ready she twitches her nose in anticipation, reaching for the bsamim.

It has reached the point that when its her turn to smell the spices she holds on tight to the sachet and refused to relinquish it, sniffing it and sometimes (of course) also giving it the odd chew. This week she went so far as to abscond with the spices, holding them tight and toddling off to the bedroom with them - Ima only got the bsamim back once HG was starting to doze off during her bedtime nurse! 

July 4 Festivities

 

HG had a ball at the annual AACI (Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel) July 4 bash this evening. There was a country and folk band, hot dogs and craft stalls, families picnicking on the lawn and ball games - HG lapped it all up.

She loves the music, clapping at the start of each song, and at the end when everyone else was applauding... She tried dancing, something she's just been getting interested in of late, and a little singing, which for her means a chant along the lines of "ny, nah, ny, nah, ny" whenever a song she likes was played.

She was curious about everything, going up to several kids her age, and having a great time with one little boy in particular, slightly older, but eager to play and dance.

The event was held in a stadium complete with astro turf grass and HG spent a lot of time practicing her running - something she doesn't really get much of a chance to do on the hard stone floors at home or the dog doo filled park across the road. Maybe Abba needs to install astro turf in the living room? 

Birthday girl nap time

 

After a busy birthday morning opening her presents, playing with birthday cards, dining on a lunch of some of her favourite foods (chicken with veggies spring roll, olives, hummous and a banana and plum for desert) and meeting a long-time family friend visiting from abroad, HG conked out on her mattress.