The dinosaur orchestra

HG has launched the world's first dinosaur orchestra in millions of years. She set up half a dozen of her toy dinosaurs (mostly T. Rexes) in an arc, with another one facing them as the conductor. Three of them are playing harps (they do stand on their hind legs, after all), one plays the harpsichord and there's also a pianist. (Apparently she likes strings.)

"Now the conductor is making the orchestra play loud!"

Touring the solar system

Today HG told Abba that she had visited the sun. "What was it like?" Abba asked. "It's very hot there, it's a very hot star." HG explained. "Actually I come from Mecury, it's hot there too." She said with a grin. "And then I moved to Israel." When Abba looked a little incredulous, she smiled mishchievously and said that she was really from Earth, not Mercury.

HG was bitterly disappointed when she visited the Eretz Yisrael Museum in Tel Aviv and was denied access to their planetarium because she was too little - admission is from 5 years and up. "But why am I too little?" she asked in hurt little voice "I want to learn more about the planets and comets and stars and space too". The woman on the door was oblivious.

Life, the Universe and Everything

October 25 - (HG baba's birthday) Lunch conversation - who am I?

Why are you called Ima?
Who am I? Why did you name me HG?
Ima explained who HG is named after. HG claimed that HG baba visited her on Simhat torah, played with her, read her stories and danced and sang with her. Ima explains this is impossible, HG asks why, why is HG baba a special lady, why did Hashem take her to with him etc.

Dinner conversation - life the universe and everything

HG was doing something dangerous and Ima explained how we have to look after our bodies, they are the only ones we get and Hashem gave them to us so that we could live and be well.

HG - why do we live? Why are we alive?
Ima - because that's how Hashem made us
HG - but why are we alive? Why do we need to be alive?Ima - that's the way the world works, that's how Hashem made us, so that
HG - Tell me the story about HashemIma - which story?
HG - About Hashem, Hashem is a special person
Ima - Hashem isn't a person, Hashem made all the people and all the world, He is much more powerful and wonderful than any person.
HG - Why?
Ima - because He is, He made everything.
HG - Tell me the story of how Hashem made the world (Note: this is one of HG's all time favourite stories)
Ima - In the beginning everything was a big mess, this is the first story in the Torah and it starts "Bereshit..."
HG - "...bara Elokim et hashamayim ve-et ha'aretz, veha'aretz hayta tohu vavohu"
Ima - That's right, that's exactly how the Torah starts.
HG - now tell the rest of the story
Ima - First Hashem made light and dark. Hashem can do anything, all He had to say was "Let there be light" and he made light. Next He made the different kinds of water, the salty water for the seas, the water in the sky for the clouds and rain, the freshwater for the rivers...
HG - and lakes and waterfalls!
Ima - That's right. Next Hashem made the plants and the flowers
HG - and the trees, and the trees with fruit on them and the grass!
HG - Ima why did he made the trees and flowers and plants next?
Ima - Because Hashem had made the light and water that they need to grow and be healthy.
HG - Why do plants need light and water? Ima, why did Hashem make plants that need light and water to grow?
Ima - Because that's how Hashem made them. Next Hashem made the sun to shine during the day, and the moon and the stars to give light at night.
HG - Why does the sun shine during the day and the moon at night? Why does the moon shine with the stars but the sun doesn't have other stars?
Ima - Because that's how Hashem made them. The sun is big and bright, but the moon isn't so bright, so the stars are there to help it give light, so it won't be lonely. The stars and moon are around during the day, but usually the sun is so bright that we can't see them.
HG - Why would the moon get lonely? The sun is also a star, why doesn't it shine at night? (Ima's note: need to think of more sophisticated answers on the spur of the moment!)

I'm a brakhiausaurus

Thursday dinner -

HG made a beautiful (and spontaneous) brakha over her pomegranate and peach desert

When Ima complimented her on her beautiful brakha HG responded:

"That's because I'm a brachiousaurus, I'm a brakhiausaurus! That's a brakha making dinosaur." (big grin and impish expression)

Reading Hebrew

Over lunch yesterday:

- Ima, what is a teacher?
- Someone who teaches you things, helps you learn things
- Ima, you are my teacher. My teacher is my Ima.
And I am ima's teacher becaus sometimes I teach Ima things

Her Hebrew reading is gradually developing, though it still lags way behind her English reading, which is now at about 2nd grade level. At the library on Tuesday morning she asked to look at the volcano volume from a Hebrew children's encyclopedia and successfully sounded out the Hebrew words magma, har ga'ash (volcano) and bazelet (basalt). Over lunch that day she read the Hebrew matza box (words like matza, Yisrael, kasher, mayim and hita (wheat))

One and one and one is three!

HG was sitting on floor playing with her animal dominos, while Ima was sitting at the dining room table working out the Rosh Hashanah menu, when Ima noticed that HG was trying her hand at basic arithmetics!

HG often likes to talk to herself or make up conversations between her toys while playing, today she was offering the following commentary:

"If I have one cat & another cat & another cat what do i have? I have
three cats."

"If you take one monkey card & another & another what do you get? You get
three monkeys."

"If I take away my other dominos what do I have left? One domino."

"If I take back all my other dominos,(lines them up) what do you get?
Starts counting into the teens - Ima help I can't count them all!"

"Ima now i want glitter!"

Ima: "So please clear up everything."

Cleared up all her Lego & dominos, withs some help, and got down to the busy task of making glitter decorated Rosh Hashanah cards.

Bengal Bangles

Bengal bangles

Flicking through her book on mammals of the world today HG had an epiphany. Carefully reading the section on felines, she read "Bengal Tiger" - and then she pointed at the picture of the tiger and said "Bengal Tiger, it's stripes look like bangles!"

Another deduction of hers this week was that she has "shoe socks", which are distinct from ordinary socks - "these are socks that are like shoes, with shoes on the bottom, these are shoe socks!" She was describing toddler socks with treads on the bottom, similar to slipper socks.

HG's reading is coming on well. She is constantly building her reading vocabulary and practicing her sight reading by picking out headlines in newspapers and magazines. She is forever pointing out words and asking what they say, or checking how they are read by trying to sound them out.

She is also clearly memorising words, but she is also recognising phonemes, for example, she knows the work "look", and when she tried to read "loop" for the first time she first assumed it was "look", then corrected herself that it was look with a p, before settling on loop.

When she received her birthday cards last week she was able to read most of them (Ima just gave them to her without reading them aloud to her), and she easily read "Yom Huledet Sameah", "Happy Birthday" and simple greetings like, hello, love, best wishes and the like.

Take me out to the ballgame...

HG is fast developing a love of baseball. Now that her Abba umps for the local little league, HG has been to several Friday games in the nearby park to see her Abba in action. She has taken to using kitchen rolls and a soft toy ball to play "baseball" with and gets excited when she sees any baseball related pics.

Now that the inaugural season of the Israeli Baseball League is underway, Abba and Ima have taken HG to several games and her eyes light up everytime a game is mentioned "Go to baseball game, Abba take me to a baseball game, PLEEEEASE!" One day she was so anxious to go that she stood by the door for the best part of an hour waiting for Abba to come and take her to one.

She has even sat through several of the games, and will often give them her rapt attention for at least a few innings in a row, before running off to try and make believe her own baseball game.

Ima has taken many photos at the games because HG loves watching baseball slideshows on the computer and pointing out who is the batsman and who is the pitcher and catcher, trying to explain the basics of baseball.

Going bats!

HG is bats.

Well, more accurately she is into bats. At the moment this is one of her favourite sections in her "guide to the world's mammals" book and we have to read it a couple of times a day. Alternatively she delves into Ima's book on Israeli mammals, an even better source of batty heaven as the Holy Land is home to almost 40 species, and each one is given its own page and picture in the book.

At time of writing HG has decided that she is a bat and is charging around the flat with one of Ima's older denim skirts of her shoulders and trailing behind on the floor - her "wings" - hunting mosquitos to eat...

A few mintues she dashed into the study wearing a glowing smile and announced that she had caught some "fresh mosquitoes" for lunch, she gleefully opened her hand to reveal that it was fortunately empty of bugs, before announcing triumphantly that they were pretend bugs. Ima suggested that perhaps she would rather be a fruit eating bat, and HG seemed to like that idea.

Earlier this morning after HG watched Ima brushing and plaiting her hair, she decided that she would like to "borrow" Ima's green ponytail elastic and have ponytail of her own. HG has just enough hair for a tiny little pigtail, and most mornings it is a mess of curls because HG is opposed to brushing, only allowing her hair to be combed in the bath.

This morning though she wanted Ima to brush her hair exactly the way Ima brushed Ima's hair, because she wanted a ponytail too. And she wanted hair clips. Poodle hairclips (thanks auntie J!). And she wanted her toy rabbit to have a ponytail too. And a bow in her rabbit's hair.
And a dress for her rabbit. And a teikhl for HG just like Ima's. And one for her rabbit. A good hour was spent selecting just the right ribbon and "fur style" for her rabbit, a dress improvised from a bandana and a little necklace (a teething ring!).

HG has always liked girly things and choosing her own clothes, but this morning she was even more interested than usual, Ima doesn't recall her ever going quite this far to ensure that her animals were well dressed too!

Looks like it's time to dig up some of her tiny preemie sized outfits and pass them on to her rabbits and bears...

"Once upon a time"

That's what she said today: "Once upon a time."

Ima: "Once upon a time" what?

HG: Once upon a time is the beginning of the story.

And she proceeded to make up a story, bit by bit:

HG: Once upon a time there was a scary monster. And he lived in a tree.

HG: And one day he fell out of the tree. He fell into a lake.

HG: He was very sad. He was a sad scary monster. In the lake.

Ima: So what did he do?

HG: There was a little girl. And she sat down next to the lake. And the scary monster sat down next to the lake.

HG: And they drank water. And they had a picnic.

HG: And the scary monster climbed back into his tree. And the little girl went back into her tree.

Ima: Did they live in the same tree?

HG: No. The scary monster lived in his tree, and the little girl lived in her tree, with Ima and Abba and Uncle.

Ima: And what happened next?

HG: The End!

"Something big is happening."

Ima was reading the newspaper today as HG looked over her shoulder. She eagerly pointed out some words she recognized from the headlines: "paint", "quit".

Then she saw a series of words she could read (to Ima's surprise): "Something big is happening."

Can't argue with that!

Sitting Pretty

HG loves climbing onto "grown-up" chairs and sitting up high like everyone else. She also loves wearing hats, indoors or outdoors, rain or shine, she loves them. Here she is sitting pretty in her favourite red beret and her favourite stripey tights which have been worn and washed so often that they are starting to come apart...

One of HG's current projects is learning the Mah Nishtanah for Pesah. It started as a joke between Ima and Abba that HG would have to say it this year, but with HG's apptitude for copying anything and everything she hears, Abba and Ima soon realised that HG was actually memorising the Mah Nishtanah. So far she has the first line down pat, and will say it to whomever will listen "Mah nishnatanah halayla haZEH mikol haLEYLOT!"

"Where babies come from?"

That's the question she asked Ima today in a crowded restaurant.
"Where babies come from?"

"From Imas' tummies," was Ima's natural response.

Then came the killer: "How they get there?"

"Hashem put them there" - what else can you say?

She seemed satisfied with that answer: "Babies grow in Ima's tummy!
Hashem puts babies in Ima's tummy!"

Park day

HG continues to adore the park. Today she was just excited to be out in the pleasantly warm sunny weather and spent most of the time running around on the grass and hugging trees :-) She wasn't even too interested in the swings.

Purim

HG chose a First Nations costume for Purim this year. She adores the dress and would wear it every day if she could. Here she is practicing walking down the steps outside her home.

HG was very aware of Purim this year. She helped Ima bake hamentaschen, and seemed to relish this new word, often asking for hamentaschen even when she didn't really want to eat one, just to see them and have a chance to use the funny sounding word.

She really enjoyed telling people that on Purim "go to shul, hear Abba read Megilla", and was a pretty good girl at the Megilla reading, aside from once or twice announcing loudly "that's Abba!", and being a little unsure when exactly she was supposed to make noise with her grugger...

She had a blast playing with all her cousins at the se'udah, enjoying the fancy dress and in between noshing on the huge variety of salads at the meal. She also requested tea from the rather stunned hostess - herbal and fruit teas are on of HG's latest passions and she loves having some with her meal.

After a while when she seemed to have switched only to speaking in English, she has now started speaking in Hebrew again too, and has a good awareness of when to use which language. On Purim afternoon the family went to cousins who only speak Hebrew and upon seeing the baby grand-daughter in her buggy, she straight away said "tinoket b'agala", a Hebrew phrase she hasn't used before, but has often heard. She seemed to know that this was the right place to say her Hebrew phrase, rather than use the English "baby in buggy".

She also loves translating. When one cousin presented her with a big picture book, HG sat there pointing out items of interest, naming them in one language, then translating to the other "cat - hatul", "flower-perah", "adom - red" and the like. Sometimes it really feels like she is drilling herself, Abba and Ima sometimes find her sitting with her books "reading" to herself in the same manner.

Of late it seems that she has been working on her Hebrew, picking up mostly Hebrew books and trying to use more vocabulary. In English she speaks in full, often grammatical, sentences, but in Hebrew she is still more hesitant, using more single words, or at most basic short sentences like "zeh dubi", whereas in English she might say "that's my big brown teddy bear".

Dance, dance, dance

HG enjoys another Thursday night out, this time at her Abba's high school reunion. Here she is dancing with her Ima. 

"Bow in hair see in mirror! Ivor hold Hannah Geitel see hair bow in mirror"

HG remains a big chatterbox and her sentences just keep getting longer and more complex, she amazes Abba and Ima every day coming out with things that no one can remember teaching her...

She was as usual chuffed to have Uncle Ivor visiting, they make quite a pair. She loves raiding Ivor's pocket and "reading" through his appointments diary, pointing out the number and "spelling" out words - she knows the alphabet but can't quite work out how to put it all together.

This particular evening she spied a ribbon left over from the Sheva Brakhot decorations and asked Ima to tie it in her hair. She then demanded "bow in hair see in mirror! Ivor hold Hannah Geitel see hair box in mirror!" There followed a fun filled hour or so of games in the mirror, rifling through Ivor's pocket and preening in the mirror, admiring her hairbow. As you can see, it looked most fetching with her PJs.

Dancing the night away

Thursday night HG attended the wedding of very close family friends. More specifically, the bride is a very close personal friend of HG's - her baby sitter and one of her favourite people, and now that we're on the subject, HG is very fond of the groom as well.

Add to that a number of HG's relatives who were in attendance, along wih some other close friends with whom HG loves spending time, and it was an evening made for HG.

As you can see in the photo, HG spent a good deal of the wedding dancing the night away. As soon as the hupa was over and the music struck up to dance the couple away to the yihud room, HG was up on the hupa podium dancing among the glitter and confetti, and a small group of other little girls.

From then on she spent most of the night either on the podium or the dance floor, happy to pair up with whomever was around, from the bride and the groom's mother, to various energetic young friends of the couple grooving along late into the night.

She was happy with any music, be it the simha niggunim, Mizrahi Israeli pop, Latino dance music, disco or club fare, she went with all genres and either side of the mehitza.  

"How that works?"

HG has a cloth book about farm animals, with a built-in speaker. You press on the animal, it plays the animal sound. Each page has at least one sound button hidden inside the cloth page.

She was playing with it today when she looked up and asked, "How that works?"

Good question, no? Ima said something about circuitry and electronics. HG patiently asked her to explain it again so she could understand. She kept pressing the buttons and asking for explanations, apparently determined to figure it out for herself.

Little monkey

HG was tired but happy after an exciting morning out with Ima and Uncle Ivor at a local monkey sanctuary earlier this week.

She eagerly explored, staring long at hard at the antics of the various primates, identifying the ones she knew and fascinated by new species.

Monkeys weren't the only animals there though, the centre has a little petting zoo too. She much enjoyed the ducks and geese, spending almost as much time with them as the monkeys, and was enthralled as usual by peacocks freely roaming the grounds, one of them even obligingly opening his fine tail for her, much to her delight. Then there was the donkey she brayed to, the cat she mewed to (it seemed to take a shine to her as well) and the goat she baaed at - it responded in startled surprise, circling its pen anxiously and looking for the "other" goat.


But monkeys were certainly the highlight for her, as well they should be. She particularly likes to see "Imas and babies" of all species, but especially primates. She loves pointing out which are the Imas and Abbas and which are the babies, whether any babies are nursing, playing or being carried by their mothers, and whether any of the adults or babies are eating or drinking. She was truly charmed by some of the tender displays of motherly concern and affection amongst the monkey Imas and their babies, and it was these that held her attention the longest, refusing to budge until the happy families had moved on.

She is also a keen mimic and listened to the different primate calls with interest, trying to copy them. When stumped she reverts to her default monkey noise, something like a high-pitched "hi, hi, hi, hoo!" It varies in volume and tempo depending on her mood, sometimes more of a squeak, sometimes more of a squeak and hoot. Now she knows that baboons bark, though mastering such a deep sound seems a little too difficult for one so little.

Monkeys, well, primates in general, are one of her latest big interests and she is busy learning the names of all the different types of monkey. She loves sitting for an hour or more with the big mammal book her uncle gave her for Hannukah, poring over the section on monkeys and asking for the nearest "reader" to go over the names for her.

Then every so often, out of the blue, she triumphantly announces another name she has gotten the hang of and asks Ima or Abba to bring out "mammals book" and show her the picture of the monkey whose name she has just mastered. So far these include marmoset, gibbon, mandrill, lemur, baboon, aye-aye, two types of tamarin and most recently barbary ape, which she was repeating mantra like on the way to the park today.
Uncle Ivor was bowled over at the speed with which she is memorising the book he brought. He has wanted to take her to see the monkeys for some time now. She loved it beyond anyone's expectations - so much so, that as you can see from the prostrate picture below - she lay down by the exit and refused to leave!

That's what you call getting carried away...

Big swing

HG's ambition has for some time been to be the littlest kid on the biggest swing. For the last few months she has been working on her balance on the big kids' swings and is getting quite good at it now, though she still swings very gently, but it's only a matter of time before she wants to try swinging high like the bigger kids...

he is elated at finally being able to pump her legs just enough to push herself on this big swing. 

A spoon in each hand means HG is feeling better!!!

As you can see HG is finally in the mood for food again, recovering from her tummy bug. She was so excited by the prospect of food that after tasting a little chicken soup and then a little jelly (her first ever), she asked for more of each, alternating a spoonful of one followed by a spoonful of the other. We are pleased to report that this unlikely combination seems to have settled her tummy and she is happy and playful, just a little tired and worn out after her ordeal by tummy bug.

Family Hannukah

HG was very excited about Hannukah. She and Ima spent the weeks before learning songs and reading books about the hag and of course playing dreidl - HG loves dreidls!

Ima and Abba light with olive oil, but the old family menorah Uncle Ivor lights only has room for candles, as did the Hannukiot the family guests brought, so there were plenty of coloured candles to play with. HG assigned herself the job of sorting each box by colour, roping in whoever was to hand to help hold all the candles. She really has been into colours lately, and she took the task of colour sorting very seriously.

The first Shabbat Hannukah was a family event, with relatives from Jerusalem, the US and England staying over. HG loved having all the family around her, so many people to play with!

Plus of course, a nice selection of presents, two wonderful toy trains, a book about mammals, chunky baby lego, some Hannukah books and some really cute squirty bath toys.

Unfortunately HG came down with a really nasty tummy bug on the Tuesday and spent the rest of Hannukah too ill to do much more than lie on her play mat, sleep, nurse and look at her toys, rather than play with them.

She is feeling much better now and this Shabbat ate some solid food for the first time since Tuesday. She smelled the potato kugel and wolfed down a nice helping. It also stayed down, and this evening she climbed up into her booster seat and asked for chicken soup, which she fed herself, and followed by some jelly. It is so good to see her feeling like herself again!

A whole world to discover

Now that HG so rarely tears books (only be accident) she has been allowed to flip through more of Abba and Ima's books, here are some of her favourites and current HG interests in general.

Deer - Ever since Ima spent an afternoon photographing deer for a work project on the animals, HG has been fascinated, demanding to see at least a daily slideshow of Ima's photos. She loves grabbing Ima's mammal books and hearing about the different kinds of deer, eagerly looking forward to any pictures that show mother deer and baby deer...

Ima and baby animals - identifying "ima" and "abba" animals is big with HG right now. She loves pictures of baby animals, and is especially thrilled to see pictures of nursing animals, exciteldy shouting out "ima, baby, nurse!" whenever she sees one.

Horses - HG spends ages flicking through Ima's horse encyclopedia which is full of photos of every different breed of horse imaginable. She says "ride" every time she sees a person mounted on a horse and likes "making nice" to close up pictures of horses faces, gently stroking their noses while grinning ear to ear.

Stamps - checking the mail box is one of HG's daily highlights. She likes looking through the envelopes and pointing out the stamps.

Maps - HG knows that she has an uncle in England and sometimes it seems as though she thinks all maps are England. Every so often she barges into Ima's study and grabs an atlas off the shelf proclaiming "mappp, read!!" and shoving it into the hands of her parents for them to "read" to her, pouring over the map intently as Ima or Abba point out any places they know about...

She seems to be getting the point that not all maps are England, because lately she grabs an atlas and says "mappp, read, Inland!!" Today she brought Ima a Hebrew highschool atlas and when Ima asked if she wanted to see a map of Israel HG nodded her head and answered "home".

Space - especially models of the solar system and pictures of nebulas and galaxies. Ima and Abba have no idea whether HG understand what she is seeing, but she loves flipping through the pictures! She has been interested in the moon in all its forms for a while now and her current interest are her favourite planets - Earth and Jupiter, presumably because they are the prettiest?! Ask her what the planets do to the sun and she will answer "ra ra" or more recently, more clearly "round and round".

Balcony peekabo

HG is still a hide and seek fan, here she is playing peekabo on the balcony.

She loves sitting by the screen door and watching the birds that come to feed on the flowers growing there. She is fast learning the names of all the common ones and keenly points them out, alerting Ima whenver she sees one of her favourites - the jay and the bulbul.

She knows where Ima's bird books are and loves pulling them off the shelf and running up to Ima saying - sometimes passionately yelling - the names of her favourite birds, so that Ima or Abba will help her find their pictures in the books.

Elmohhh!!!

HG's passion for Elmo continues, though lately she seems very partical to Ernie and Bert too, or as she says "erniebert". Here she is wearing her beloved Elmo slippers which were a present from her Bubbe. As you can see they colour coordinate perfectly with her favourite letter pajamas.

This began on her visit to the States because instead of the usual animal pictures, the American nappies had Sesame Street characters. She is used to Ima and Abba telling her about the animals, so of course she asked about the funny creatures on her new nappies. While she doesn't watch tv, she has seen a few Sesame Street videos, but didn't seem to really identify specific characters until she saw them on her nappies.

Ironically one of the first toys she was given as a newborn was a baby Elmo, but until recently she was blissfully unaware of who he was... Now she is thrilled to have a cuddly baby Elmo to keep her company when she goes to sleep - along with her bear, rabbit, fish and 2 armadillos.

Little nature explorer

Today Ima and a family friend took HG out to a local nature reserve and archaeological site. She hasn't been there for many months, and she seemed to be exploring it as though for the first time, pointing out interesting looking flowers and plants she didn't recognise, picking up stones and leaves and running along wide-eyed in the open areas, enjoying the feeling of being in the open countryside.

While HG is a pretty fast runner and walker in her own right, she does usually realise that she needs to hold someone's hand while she is out, and if she can hold two adults' hands, then she is even more pleased. It is just as well because when she goes on strike and tries to run too much ahead she sometimes comes a cropper, on this walk she fortunately just avoided running straight into a muddy patch on the path, though overall she was very good, keeping to the trail close to Ima and staying out of mischief.

One of her new words in recent weeks is cactus, and she got excited with each Sabra cactus she saw, savouring the word and seeing the real thing that looked just like the pictures in one of her books.

Another favourite of hers was the jujube tree (biblical sheizaf, sceintific: zizphus spina christi), whose little edible fruits, known locally as dom, look just like miniature apples. The trees were covered with fruit
attracted her attention right away, and she picked up a few from the ground and gave them to Ima saying "apple?", but fortunately remembering that she is not allowed to eat food from the floor or from strange plants... There is a lovely spot with a bunch under one of the larger trees and HG spent quite some time playing on the bench, inspecing the fallen fruit and the texture of the wooden seat and just studying the impressive gold and green canopy of the tree.

Knock, knock...

 

HG can be seen here engaged in one of her new favourite past times - knocking on doors, well, many different surfaces will do! She loves saying "knock, knock" and is working on her very first knock, knock joke. 

Bangles

 

Sorry for not updating much of late - HG is learning so much it is hard to keep track
of all her latest adventures and new skills.

As you can see from the photo, she is still very into dress up and she loves jewellery and shoes in particular. 

More dress up

  

A mind of her own...

  

HG enjoys "dress up" with hats, shawls, bags and other items. Here you see her favourite bear hat which she won't wear outdoors, but which she loves putting on inside the apartment when she is playing.

Actually she loves all hats, even those which aren't hats. She will grab anything vaguely hat shaped and stick it on her head, proclaiming "hat!", and giggling loudly if it is clearly not meant to be a hat, but rather a cup, book, toy or other object that she manages to balance on her head.

Her play continues to become more and more imaginative. She loves making up her own games, continually surprising her parents with new forms of play.

She has taken a set of stacking cup shaped pieces and has turned them into her tea set, "brewing" tea in a plastic bottle, pouring it into the "cups" and serving Ima, Abba and her dolls, sometimes even other visitors too, while announcing "dhe!", HGspeak for tea.

She loves pretending to "drink" for various cup shaped items and small plastic bottles which Ima has washed out for her to play with. She gives her doll a drink, then puts it in her carseat, announcing "a rie" (ride), or says "nadned" (rocking, swinging in Hebrew) and rocks her doll to "sleep". 

Annapolis and other travels

 

HG is becoming a truly well travelled baby. Here she is with family taking a little cruise around Annapolis harbour. She has now been on planes, cars, buses and boats, and seems to take well to them all. Well, she'd like aeroplanes better if she could take her bed with her, but then wouldn't we all?!

The other night she noticed that Ima and Abba were packing suitcases yet again and she wandered off to another bedroom, found some packaged bed linens which sorts of resemble bags with nice neat handles, strung one over each arm and announced "bye bye" while exiting in the room in a business like manner and making for the stairs.

This is just one aspect of her increasingly creative and imaginitive play. Her dolls and stuffed toys now interact, usually affectionately, she holds two together and makes kissing sounds to show they are friends, or she hugs them together with a big smile. HG likes taking bottles and "feeding" dolls, or taking them for rides in her pushchair or "piggyback" on her shoulders (well, more like on one shoulder or on her head) the way she rides on Abba and Ima. 

Penny whistle for your thoughts...

HG loves music of all kinds, singing, instrumental, and all the better if it's live and she can watch the musicians strumming on their guitars, puffing into their clarinets or pounding away at the drums.

She was therefore suitably thrilled when a family get-together turned into a family singalong, accompanied by guitar, mandolin, drums and Irish penny whistle.

Noticing her interest in the instruments her cousin Danny decided to teach her how to "play" his Irish penny whistle. After initial hesitation, HG accepted the whistle and with some guidance eventually worked out how to produce a sound, much to her delight.