Riverdance?

Sidra,

It doesn’t seem like something you’d find a Jewish girl doing. Clogging, I mean. Here’s how it came about.

Your favorite baseball team, the Red Sox, has a player (Jonathon Papelbon) who is apparently Irish because he’s been known to celebrate big wins by dancing a ‘Riverdance’ style number on the field after the big game. In order to capitalize on this someone created this dancing bear that wears a Red Sox jersey with Papelbon’s number and a Red Sox hat. If you squeeze the bear’s hand it will gyrate while playing the clogging music.

Well, you enjoy sharing a dance with the bear and that’s the subject of both videos on this post.

Love, Aba

Dancing video 1

Dancing video 2

MId Summer '08

Hi Sidra,

If I were talking to you right now you would be pretty good at answering back with a sweet ‘Hi.’ Your vocabulary is increasing daily. It is a really fun time to be with you because we can teach you about a new word almost daily. Or at least you are getting so you can say a new word almost every day.

I also want to tell you how much you lift my heart. There have been a couple of mornings recently where I’ve been up much earlier than you and your mom (that’s not uncommon) and while sitting here in front of this silly machine you’ve come in and said ‘hi.’ My heart just jumps. I am just blown away by the fact that your mother and I were able to bring such a wonderful little girl into the world. And then you smile and I just melt.

Now, having just said that you are wonderful, I have to help you maintain your modesty by letting you know that you aren’t perfect. We have been having some issues with your eating habits. You are a little bit picky. Right now I would have to say that your favorite food is hot dogs. So, we get into these battles about eating something else, like vegetables. You are pretty stubborn, and this can be pretty stressful for all of us. We get perplexed because sometimes you won’t eat things we know that you will eat other times, while we are holding the hotdog ‘hostage.’

Aside from the eating issue, you can display willfulness in other ways, too. Occasionally, you protest by acting as if you don’t hear us. I have to say, “I know that you can hear me and I know that you understand me.” Usually that solves the problem. But, once in a while you still resist complying with a request. For instance, the other day I asked you to help me restack some books that you had pulled down and we were finished reading. You were not helping and I took you up and put you in the crib where you howled for several minutes. After a while, I asked if you were ready to help me now and you said ‘yeah.’ Then we went back downstairs and you still balked a little at helping. I thought, ‘man, if she’s this tough now, what will she be like when she’s 13?’ You did help out with no further incident, but it made me uneasy.

Right now I can hear your mom reading the book ‘No, David’ to you. David is a boy that is always testing his limits and getting into trouble. Perhaps you relate to David’s dilemma and that’s why you like that book.

I am only including one picture with this post. It was actually taken about two months ago, but I really like it and I want to explain why. Your mom took it when you were at the beach seeing the ocean for the first time. Then she chose a really good frame for it and gave it to me for Father’s Day. In it, we are exploring the breakers together. You notice that we are in step with one another. I lean down to hold your hand at your level. We look out to the vast ocean that could represent our future. There's a lot out there for us to see together. While it appears that you hold my hand compliantly, I know that my grip is tight to protect you from running headlong into unknown danger. Your exuberance at the new experience brings back to me things I hadn’t noticed in a long time.

Love, aba

Stats

Just a quick post to record your 18 month stats
Height 30½ inches
Weight about 24 lbs.
head circumference 19¼in or 48.9cm
according to a book with a 1997 copyright you are 50th percentile in weight,
over 95th percentile in head circumference, and you will be about 5'7" when you're an adult.

Postscript

Hi Sidra,

Well, I told you things are happening fast with you. I already want to add to what I just posted earlier today. I forgot to put something in the earlier post. It is a pretty big milestone. You are on your first 24 hours without a binky. We are taking you off of it cold turkey. You napped without it yesterday and so we decided that we were halfway there and this might as well be the break from it. Last night you woke in the middle of the night as you do sometimes and I tried rocking you back to sleep. Without the binky, no way. You came in to sleep with us in our bed and that went ok except that you are kind of a thrashy sleeper. So, we’ll take one step at a time. We’ll wean you from the binky, then wean you from wanting to come into bed with us all the time.

Another thing you just learned tonight is how to catch a ball. I made it pretty easy for you but you get the idea. We used a ‘Gymboree’ ball which is really a small beach ball with a corporate logo on it. It was not entirely inflated so you can get a grip on it with one hand. But we had a good time throwing the ball back and forth from point blank range.

You’ve been to your second ‘gymboree’ session. It’s a place where you get to play on some cool play equipment and hang with other kids your age. You like it a lot and spend some of the time just staring at the other kids. You haven’t quite got the hang of being in a group class and sometimes wander off when the instructor is trying to get the attention of all the kids, including you.

The picture is one we took of you yesterday in your ‘hot’ outfit of halter and shorts.

Love, aba

Nudist!

Hi Sidra,

It’s been way too long since the last post. My excuse three weeks ago was that I was really busy with the end of the school year and graduation. Now I can’t use that excuse. I will say that part of the delay is the difficulty I’ve had with my video editing equipment. I got some new software which I believed would result in better quality in the videos, but I haven’t got it to work yet, and now can’t even get the old method to work. So, no videos at the moment.

Enough about my problems. As you can see from the pictures on this post it is summer now. You’ve been having some fun in your wading pool and going to swimming lessons. The lessons are at the sports club where your mom works. You really like the water. You get excited as soon as you see your swimsuit and are always excited to go in the pool. The water is sort of cool though, and you always end up shivering after about 20 minutes. You like to jump in from a sitting position on the side of the pool. Sometimes you will jump in from standing on the side, but if we put you up on the pool deck on your feet, you’re just as likely to run over to the stairs as jump back in. Last night you allowed me to use the paddle board and ‘noodle’ to float you for the first time. When floating on your back, I asked you to do ‘snow angels’ with your legs and you did well with that.

You are pretty good with the signs (language) that you’ve been taught but we need to get you a new video so you can learn some new stuff. You are getting pretty good at talking now, too. When I ask you to tell me what some signs mean, you will say the word instead. You can say, mama, daddy, go, ball, bubble, yeah, no, yellow, orange, hi, hot dog, kitty, keys, cheese, all done, and pooh (as in Winnie the). There may be others that slip my mind at the moment. Some are not recognizable to others but we get it because we hear them a lot. You also say “E,” “I,” “O” and “A” pretty well, getting all the vowels except U. In fact, you like to yell these letters, and we encourage it. One day riding home in the bike trailer from swimming lessons you started yelling the letters and we had a little shouting match going.

Anyway, the speech is really changing fast. You pick up new words pretty well. So, the list might be different by tomorrow.

Some other stuff you’ve been making progress on are the stairs. We’ve sort of relaxed about having the barrier at the top of the stairs, because you’re pretty good at going up and down on them. Now, we’re more likely to put up the barrier just to keep you from going downstairs. Also you have a couple of scooters or trikes that you are figuring out how to ride. I have put on you on the trike, and stood behind you and held your feet on the pedals, pushing them around. You seem to get the idea of pushing the pedals to make it go, but your legs just aren’t long enough to do it yet. The other one is what used to be called a hobby horse before pedal bikes were invented. You sit on it and propel yourself with your feet in a walking motion. You’re pretty good with that one but you don’t stay on it too long. Another thing you do is a bit of a gallop or dance. You hold your hands up and sort of skip along. It’s a happy signal.

Well, I wanted to have some video of you talking and dancing and doing signs by now, but it will have to wait until I get those problems solved. For now we will have to be satisfied with your nudist pictures. I figure this is your summer to be naked. In another year you might be embarrassed to be outside without clothes but now you don’t care and may even relish it.

Love, Aba