Happy Half

Saturday Yelena hit the six month mark! To celebrate she went to her first Suzuki class, to synagogue for Neshama, had Tony and Eric over for homemade pizza and ate her first peas. It's difficult to believe it's only been half a year since she was born, yet it is even more difficult to imagine our life before her arrival. Well, that's a lie. I have a very vivid imagination and impecable recall of my life before she came, but that seems like the kind of thing a parent ought to claim. Regardless, my life before was great, my life now is great but a whole lot cuter and cuddlier! These past six months have been terrific, as our daughter is a true joy and pleasure.

Yelena is by far the youngest member of the Suzuki class, with all her fellow students at least a year old and toddling or significantly crawling. The age range was allegedly 6-18 months but no other baby babies are there. It's fine, she'll be the among the youngest in her class since, for some ludicrous reason the cut off for Chicago schools is September 1 and they are reportedly unbending about it. (Growing up in Long Beach, grades were based on the calendar year, but there were still holdovers and precocious ones from the following and subsequent years.) So she better get used to associating with older kids. We sang songs and the kids shook rattles, banged triangles and strummed a pentatonic lyre. We had to help Yelena do all these things, but she seemed very interested and smiley, and a good time was had by all.

We are going to the weekend class so Eli can join us, since he misses out on so much during the week. He was the only father there. Where are all the other dads? Napping? Dreaming about golf for when the ground thaws? Surfing the internet for porn while the wife and kids are away?

Yelena is eating 2-6 tablespoons of cereal over 2 daily servings. Oats are yummier than rice apparently. We decided to start her on veggies since some professionals fear that introducing fruits first leads kids to have a sweet tooth and refuse veggies later. She's not so into the peas, but more than she was first into cereal, so she may grow to love them. I'll give it a few more tries, and then break down and offer carrots.