Stuff

There are some new photos in a previous post.
There is  also a new backdated post.
A March photo post.
And a Purim post!

I remembered some details about our move and the new place I forgot to mention. Or maybe I forgot that I remembered to mention them. Sorry about any repeats. :)

This place had a plastic Fisher Price slide worth close to $100, so that's great.

 (Like our dog/cat house?)

And they also had a washer and dryer, which have bigger capacity than the ones we had. So we were able to sell our stackable for $350... plus we saved money on the movers by excluding the monstrosity.

Our yard has hundreds of dandelions, which bring countless joy to the boys... and recently Adi's been getting into the action as well! She pulls out dandelions and blows with all her little strength till the seeds fly. And the ones she can't get by blowing, she pulls off with her hand. :)

There are dozens of snails to be found in our yard. And roly polies and worms. The kids are in heaven!

 

We are going to live in this house for only 5 years. Initially the landlord wanted to give us this apartment as is... we'd be responsible for all renovations.And the place was pretty awful.Complete with old, rotten carpets and all that good stuff. We didn't know about the 5 year business, and if we'd be living here for 10 years or more, the renovations would have been worth it. We were about to go for it, when a kind neighbor informed us that the owner is planning to rebuild here. When we confronted the owner about that claim, he admitted that it is true. 

Imagine if we hadn't found out?? It was a real disappointment, but we used that info as a lever to get some renovations out of him. So he gave us new floors in the dining room, bedrooms and basement. We also asked him to install a second sink, and we shared the cost of replacing the existing (non-kasherable) sink. So for all the bad, we have new floors, new sinks, new stove and fridge (I bought myself, but they still add a lot to the feeling of the place).

Our next project is to re-carpet the stairs and to change the floor in the first floor bathroom.

And my next blog project is to show you photos of the house, inside and out!

Adibaby, 2.5 Year Edition

So while you enjoy these photos of dragonfly Adi from two months ago (when she was 2 years 5 months)...

... I will write a little update about all the cool stuff she can do these days (when she is 2 years 7 months.)

Firstly, she is getting better at walking on uneven ground. This apartment has all the rooms on different levels. The dining room is the highest one on the first floor. There is a small step down into the bedrooms, and a little raised threshold (about a foot wide) that you have to step onto and then down from to go to the kitchen. At first she was falling everywhere she went. But now she can step up and down with ease. I've even seen her do it without holding onto the wall, but not usually. Outside we have lots of different terrain. Asphalt, brick border around the garden, brick border around the sandbox, step down from the asphalt into the grassy back yard... and the parking space is lower than the rest of the year by a good 5 inches. She manages most of the time! She does fall, but gets right up and tries again.
Her balance at the top of a staircase can now be trusted, and although she doesn't walk up and down the stairs yet, she can crawl up very well.

And her vocabulary exploded! She has many words that she can say well, some that only I can understand, and a bunch that she made up. :)

One day I was reading "Baby Happy Baby Sad" for Adi, and she was babbling along. Until I started hearing something... "Ha-ppy, ha-ppy." That was three months ago, and now she is also able to say book (the right way) and "Weeeeed." (Read)

Drink is "Beeyup." Yeah, I know. It's totally odd. And adorable. I think it might be a derivative of "me up," which means "me cup."

I thought I had posted about "apple" before but it seems that I did not. Adi says, "Appoo" on all round fruit.

Jump is "Mmmmmum!" She starts to say "mmm" when she gets ready to jump, and the "um" is said during the actual time off the ground. Which she can do, by the way! Jump up with both feet off the ground!

Sit is "Haya." Sorry, no theories here. She uses it to mean sit on a chair to eat, sit in the carriage to go out, and she used to use it for "swing." But recently she upgraded to "Heen" for swing. And "Hon" for phone. And "Heim" for game (which solely refers to iPad games.)

She graduated from calling Gedalya "Yaya" to "Daya." She still has some trouble with any variation of "Zusha" that we try to get her to pronounce.

Adi loves cats. In this apartment we have our own yard, so we are able to put out Mel's leftover cat food, fish skins, and other leftover meat products for the local cats to eat instead of wasting it. That means lots of opportunities for Adi to see her "ai-nyas." When she sees them, she calls out, "Nya!" and then clucks her tongue instead of saying "ksksks" to call the cat. LOL

"Duuuuuute." Any suggestions? I'm lost. "Shoes," "shirt" and "cute" all came up as suggestions, but haven't been confirmed.

How about another weird one? "Me." Not that weird you say? What would you say when you learn that it means "sandwich"? I thought so.

"Dyatop." I don't even know how to spell it to convey the pronunciation. Sometimes she pronounces it "Doptop." It means insect, and the origins are long and winded.
I did a search on my blog, and was surprised to see that there is only one post on my blog about Laptop. Laptop is a beetle that Gedalya found in our house one time, one year ago. We had let him go, but he kept returning.*

*Which is what the boys believe, that it's the same beetle each time. :)

The boys love Laptop and it's always an exciting time for us all when we find him or one of his relatives in our house. Well, one time, about half a year ago, the boys spotted Laptop on their window, and exclaimed "Laptop!" Adi also pointed at the beetle and shouted, "Dyatop!" Since then, she adopted the term to mean any type of bug.

Once when she found a bug and wanted everyone to see, she waved her hand towards herself and said, "Hum!" (Come!) That was just a few weeks ago. We were all so surprised. She did it again when she wanted my mother to come see her play with a tether ball. And last week, Adi was overwhelmed with all the kids playing in our yard (from the block) andwanted to go inside the house. I wanted to stay out with them and the boys, so I helped Adi walk up the steps and went back out. So you know what the munchkin did? She gestured for me to come and said, "Hum in!" That's two words. I was very impressed and surprised!

I might have mentioned before that she says Adi. "Ah-ti."

There are more words, I'm certain. But I can't think of them right now. So I'll save them for next time and say "Pie" for now! Well, I'm not being totally fair, because recently Adi graduated to the proper "Bye."
The evolution of this word goes like this: Just waving > aye > pie > BYE!

Ohai!

We didn't sit in the house on this cold, cold wet day.
In fact, we walked a good three miles in the chilly rain. I took Gedalya and Adi to the dentist for the first time. Gedalya was brave and did everything perfectly! Adi... not so much. Poor Gedalya has to come back to fill seven cavities (*hiding in shame*). Adi probably has cavities as well, but she didn't let anyone find out for sure. I paid $50 for Adi to sit in my lap and scream while I hold her arms still and the dentist attempts to pry her mouth open.

One thing that annoyed me is the way the dentist blamed Adi's problems (four top front teeth chipping away until there is almost nothing left) on nursing.

 If you can see past the food she insists on plastering herself with, you can see how bad her teeth are, especially the two center ones.

There is a phenomenon called "baby bottle mouth" and although it only applies to formula or juice drunk from a bottle, several dentists lump nursing into that category without actually checking out studies done on the matter. Which is annoying. I didn't even bring up that Adi's geneticist thinks it's related to Whatevershehas Syndrome because this dentist was certain upon one glance that it's from nursing.
I will print out that study and several others and present it to him with a big red bow.

And speaking of Dr. Seuss, we went to the library next, where Adi spotted the Cat in the Hat sitting on a shelf and announced, "Hat." Cool baby.

I had recently made a goal bedtime for myself. Midnight. Which passed an hour and 40 minutes ago. Whoops. Seems like Adi is reminding me of it, so I'm going to ...ahem... nurse her back to sleep.

And speaking of reminding, I'm reminding myself to post the myriad new words Adi has! Next time. :)

Weird Day

The day started out with an open window in the laundry room. And an open door of the laundry room.

We didn't have any windows in our laundry room until we hired someone put one in recently. And now whenever we are airing out the room, we have to keep the door closed so Mel doesn't get out. But I guess someone forgot that memo. Because this morning I discovered the laundry room door open, the window open, and Mel nowhere to be found. I didn't worry too much because he already got used to our house and yard... as have a handful of other cats. So if he got hungry, he'd be back. And even if he would decide to join the gang of local outdoor cats, they all come visit our yard anyway.

So we got ready to go out and do some shopping. When we went out, we found Mel tanning himself on the grass in our yard. So we captured him, put him back into the house, and went out again. While we were in the yard, we heard an awfully loud cracking sound and then a boom. It came from the tracks right near our house. Uh oh. We all headed over there to check it out, and saw a huge branch (or was it a small tree) had fallen down the hill and onto the tracks. While we were trying to figure it out... where it fell from and why... two of our neighbors came to our yard to introduce themselves and give the kids a bunch of toys as a welcoming gift! It was very sweet.

So finally, the drama settled down somewhat and we went to do grocery shopping.

When we came back home, we saw...

 ...and it hasn't rained in a few days!

Yep, weird things happen in this house (like two pit bulls who wander the tracks and once came into our yard) and although today's happenings weren't all weird, the sequence sure made for an unusual day!

Gedalya's Big Day

We have lots of little things we do on birthdays to make them special and FUN!

Of course, balloons are mandatory.

 

Flying up with a handful of helium balloons is optional...

 

...but recommended.

Before the big party at home, we went out for pizza.

The ice cream cake looked just great!

And it tasted yumm-o, as evidenced below. :)

 

Hooray for the big FIVE YEAR OLD boy!

 

 PRESENT TIME!!

Books make the best present for these boys. Of course Gedalya got more than just books, but books get the most attention from the boys.

Mazal tov, Gedalya! Continue growing, learning and being the best Gedalya ever!

Happy 5th Birthday, Gedalya! :D

Look at my big boy!

He's even bigger now than in these photos, because in these photos he's only 4 1/2...

These photos from four months ago are the most recent ones I have uploaded. 

I connected the external drive with the photos on it in this five-year-old's honor! It's a bit of a process... the drive I had ran out of space, and I ordered two larger drives. One to keep the photos on and one for backup. So far, I transferred most of the existing photos to the new drive. But I didn't upload photos from my camera since December! Because of that, I haven't taken as many photos as usual, either. One reason was memory card space, and another was the sheer volume of photos that I'd need to plow through when I finally transferred months of photos. In fact, I just charged my camera's batteries for the first time since our move a month and a half ago!

Right before Pesach doesn't seem like an opportune time for messing with files and drives, but how can I have a birthday tribute without featuring the big boy himself?? So enough about my technology mess...

Say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the best five year old boy!

Gedalya is a unique combination of energy, wildness, compassion, softness and intelligence.
If I had to use just one description of him, it would be daring and vivacious. But he doesn't fall into that stereotype at all.
This child loves living things. Animals, insects, plants... and he is very observant when it comes to nature. He will find any little shell, unusual leaf, shiny rock, new bud on a bush...
On our block there are two houses which attract Gedalya like a magnet. One has tulips in the garden and another has a whole troop of dandelions growing in front of it.
Every time we go out, Gedalya counts the dandelions. He is so pleased that there are new ones growing every day! In the beginning there were around thirty, and day by day they multiplied and now, much to my little big boy's delight, there are well over 100. And the tulips, too. He was waiting so eagerly for them to open, and he cheered on any little progress he saw.
Gedalya stops to smell the flowers, and not in a figurative way. Every time we pass a garden with flowers, he stops to smell them, And if it's a new type of flower that he hasn't smelled before, all the better! (I let him smell the new ones even when we are in a rush. :))

But as gentle as Gedalya seems in the paragraphs above, he is one rough and tumble boyish boy! He can be seen hanging upside down from the top bunk, and jumping from Mama's to Tatte's bed and back again.
He doesn't walk. He gets around by running, skipping or jumping. He is the fastest runner in the family! And there is nothing even remotely climbable that Gedalya wouldn't climb.

And his reading... oh, his reading. This child can pull any book off the shelf and read it, providing he is familiar with the words. And even if he doesn't know a word, he is able to read it, as long as he has seen it previously.
Even atypically spelled words, like "special." Once he read "mission," which surprised me because he doesn't know it, and the spelling isn't phonetic. But I guess he has seen it and heard it read before, so it stuck in his (I'm beginning to suspect photographic) memory.

He is our birthday boy, and we all love him!

 HAPPY FIFTH BIRTHDAY, DEAR GEDALYA!

High five!

Purimguin!

Say hi to our little penguin family!

The mother, the father...

And the fluffy, grey baby chick!

 

The penguins visiting some friends on Purim:

 

 

With yummy hamantash shaped shalach manos!

PS: