Yoni has lots of visitors

We had a number of visitors a couple of weeks ago. It was great seeing everyone, and introducing Yoni to them. Prior to the onslaught, we took Yoni to his first Purim festival; he "dressed up" as a dinosaur, which consisted of a dinosaur hat and shirt, both gifts from Savta Sandy. Although it wasn't the most creative of costumes, we think Yoni pulled off the transformation very well. See for yourself. . .

Jenni, a very good friend of Yael's from middle school and high school, whose mom and brother live in and around Chicago, came in to visit a couple weekends ago with her kids. Yoni doesn't like her. No, that's not true, but he sure isn't happy in this picture.

Jenni's kids, Maya and Jayson, were great with Yoni. Below Maya has lapped Yoni with skill, a talent she likely learned taking care of her younger brother.


Below Jayson is showing Yoni the magic trick that Matt, Jenni's brother, just taught him. Yoni was fascinated!

And now for a cuteness interlude . . .


Carolyn, Rob and their cuties Tarek and Isabelle came to visit over the weekend. Isabelle was a big flirt as is evidenced by these pics below.

And here she appears to be asking (well taking and eating, really) Yoni's hand. Yoni sure is popular with the ladies.


Tarek was a real sweetie, and gave us a preview of the sort of energy that Yoni is likely to exhibit in the years to come. All I can say is: Thank god for pharmacoparenting. A little bourbon in the sippy cup, an appropriately timed Benadryl, and all may return to a pace more compatible with sanity.
Here Yoni is with his first cousin thrice removed, Dorothy (Yael's maternal grandmother's first cousin). Dorothy, like Yoni's super Savta Bess, was much impressed with his ability to grasp her index finger. I can't wait to see how excited she gets when he can talk.


Yoni's Aunt Kate came all the way from the Netherlands to visit. OK, so maybe she had a little other business to take care of, but she made lots of time to spend with us. We and Yoni had a great time with Kate and finally had a chance to tour the Robie House, one of the Frank Lloyd Wright houses in Hyde Park. The house is a bit more impressive from the outside. To be fair, the house is still under a major renovation, but I get the impression that it isn't one of Mr. Wright's greatest creations.

My good friend Jason also had business and came to visit over the same stretch that Kate was in. Here is Jay in the obligatory Yoni shot. I'm afraid that someday Yoni might complain about being treated like the traveling gnome, except instead of showing up all over the world, those around the world show up with him. I would make another analogy, but I don't want to be deemed heretical, plus no one has brought any myrrh.


You probably thought this was the end, but nope! Below Yoni is hanging with his new friends Cristin, Billy, and whatever the combination of their very talented and beautiful genes will bring. Yoni is communing with the sub-belly bugger, perhaps feeling a little nostalgic.

Last but not least is the rambunctious Bev, coming all the way from the Holy Land, with her new best bud Shlomi (not pictured). It was a lot of fun having them with us, and being vegan for 2 days.
And finally, a big sigh of relief as our world turned back to normal as it ever is, which isn't very. Here are a couple pictures of our return to domesticity.


And finally, one picture which shows two important facts. One, Yoni is a big Tigers fan, and two, Andrew should be supervised when dressing him.

Talking and Laughing

Below is movie of Yoni and me having a conversation. In it, he also demonstrates his ability to produce copious amounts of beautifully clear and stringy drool. I'm happy to say that having become quite accomplished at this skill he finds he has less need to practice it. I'm sure that once his first teeth start coming in he'll be well prepared and will become a champion drooler.



The short movie below is a nice example of Yoni's crazy little laugh. Unfortunately you may not be able to fully appreciate it, since it is often interrupted with contagious laughter it induces in those that hear it, which includes myself, his Eema, and Doda Dalia.

Savta Sandy visits Yoni in Chicago

While this is primarily a post about Savta Sandy's visit, I thought I'd let FoY (friends of Yoni) know that yesterday was Yoni's first day of sleep training. Yoni started his sleep training because he's become increasingly social, which is interfering with his ability to sleep through the night and nap. At his age he should be sleeping through the night, or at most getting up once, while in fact he is waking up around midnight and then every subsequent hour and half or two. It's also become increasingly challenging to get him to nap, which results in a cranky Yoni until he gets his first good nap. Although Yael generally feeds him to get him back down, he's not actually hungry and we think just wants a little social interlude. Thus Yoni has forced us to either cosleep with him or sleep train him. While we would both love to cosleep, we decided that it probably would not be the best solution for us or Yoni. First, I snore on a somewhat regular basis and when Yoni is in his light sleep state, he awakens quite easily (so does Yael, but she won't sleep train). Second, it appears that we would probably need to change our sleep habits to be a bit more in sync with his, and unfortunately we're not early morning sort of folks. And third, we already bought a crib.

We started his training yesterday with his morning nap. Yoni showed all the signs of being ready: yawning, rubbing his eyes, and starting to get cranky (which means that he was actually past due). We put him in his crib in one of his sleeping dresses (which will probably make an appearance in a picture in a future post), kissed him, wished him good night, left the room, and shut the door. To make a long story short, he cried intermittently for 50 minutes before he fell asleep. According to the esteemed Dr. Weissbluth (who I think is a self-gratifying snobby, poop head), if he cries for an hour you can go and fetch them. Of course, this one hour limit is completely arbitrary, but we abided by it anyway, and it worked (maybe it's not arbitrary?). Yoni woke up three times and fell back to sleep relatively quickly. We set 6am as the time after which a cry will result in one of us fetching him and bring him to our bed. Yael was a little sad when 6am rolled around and there was not a peep. She only had to wait another 10 minutes for him to start making a ruckus. It was really nice having him in bed with us again. I think this sleep training is hard on all of us, but will also improve all of our sleeps tremendously. Thank you Dr Poophead Weissbluth.

O.k. on with the fun stuff. Below is Yoni expressing his disappointment that Savta Sandy was yet to arrive, and won't be arriving until after his bedtime.


On Saturday we took a promenade around the Promontory Point. I should also note that most of the pictures below are probably taken by Savta Sandy. I think I counted that she took approximately 250 pictures while in Chicago for 3 days.

(she didn't take this one)

(I think she took this one)

Who would have guessed that Gary, Indiana could look so pretty. Maybe because it's actually South Shore, though Gary is right behind it causing the haze.


Here's Abba looking all Jewy with Yoni and SS. SS is reading "Are You My Mother?", which I remember from my childhood (as does Yael, Yoni's Eema). I didn't realize I remembered it until the pictures of the construction shovel (called a Snort! by the baby bird) made their appearance.

This is picture number 66/250; I think it was of Superman.

Here are Yoni and I getting in the spirit of Chicago's St. Patrick's day parade.

(look at that spirit! Look at that nose!)
Picture 78/250. The Bean at Millenium Park.


You may have heard that they dye the Chicago River green for Saint Patty's day, and it's true; see below. This is looking from the Michigan Avenue bridge west.


And the water is really this green. It'd be sort of fun if they could make it into Jello, but I'm not sure for which holiday that would be appropriate. There must be a Jello day, right? Actually, after a 2 minute google search I found that it's July 12th, which not coincidentally is Bill Cosby's birthday. Mmmm Jello.



Leisure suit Yoni hanging with his pimpette.


SS gives Yoni the ever popular head kiss, a.k.a. the brain suck. We're very fond of laying this one on him too.

I love this picture. Don't know why since Yoni looks a bit asymmetric and I have a ring around my eye.

Look at those cute lips and big eyes, and expression that says: "one more picture and I'm going to pee on your knee."

Yoni does some tummy time to work on his abs and neck.

Savta Sandy and Yoni play in the gym and have a chat with Harry, Sally, and Penelope.

Savta Sandy had a chance to come to Music Together with us. Directly below must be the wiggle wiggle song based on the location of Yael's finger, while the latter two are from "Play the drum" where Yoni and his friend Anna became one with the drums while we played them. That means they lay on top of them, not that we used them as the floppy baby drum sticks.



I think this set of pictures are the first I've seen where Yoni looks like a little boy, not just a baby. I'm hoping that this was just the angle or the lighting or something I ate and that there are many baby months left until boyhood kicks in.


(this is the first picture of me with two chins)

(and this is the first picture where my nose looks big)

Does Yoni not look like a little jazz musician here. Probably a drummer.

That's all folks. Stay tuned for more to suck on.