Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in The Roth Family's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
10:52 pm	Daniel: Counts to 10 [2 years 1 month] It was bedtime, and I was reading Daniel some books. He was looking at the illustrations, and identifying them. One of the illustrations was a train with 10 cars. I asked him what it was, and he said "A train." Then, he pointed to the cars, and counted 1, 2, 3...10. This was the first time that he had counted to 10. (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 1st, 2008
11:48 pm	Hannah's Fantastic Memory [4 years 5 months] We've known for quite some time that Hannah has a fantastic memory. Here are two recent anecdotes: Nanny Martha was driving Hannah and Daniel to the train station to pickup Karen. Hannah said, "I love the train." Martha asked her if she had ever been on one. Hannah said, "Yes. At the zoo. I saw two elephants." Martha told me the story, and I was blown away. Hannah has only been to a zoo once in her life - the Bronx Zoo, which we visited as a family in September 2007. That was nine months ago, which represents a considerable portion of Hannah's life. The "train" was actually the tram that runs through the entire zoo. And, yes, we did see two elephants closeup, although there were several more in the distance. The second anecdote also related to last summer. Karen told Hannah that she was going to start summer camp at the end of the month. Hannah said, "I wonder what Patricia is doing." Patricia was Hannah's camp counselor last year. Hannah hasn't seen her, or spoken about her, since last August, which was ten months ago. (Comment on this)
Monday, May 26th, 2008
10:43 pm	Daniel: 15-word Utterance [2 years 1 month] We were at the Eichner's house for Grandma Barbara's birthday. I was sitting with Hannah and Daniel. We had just finished eating, and Karen got up to organize things for the trip home. Hannah told me that she wanted to go outside to play soccer. I explained to her that she couldn't, because it was late, and that we had to go home. Karen then sat down with us. Daniel turned to, and summarized my exchange with Hannah: "Hannah wants to play soccer outside. But, Daddy said, "No," we have to go home." After this unexpected outburst, Karen and I made eye contact, but said nothing. It had been a months since Daniel had rocked us with one of his precocious outbursts, and we needed a little time to savor the moment, to let it sink in. (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 2nd, 2007
6:39 am	Daniel: The Angels' Share Daniel's speech progression has been well documented here. He said his first word at 6 months (see LiveJournal entry from 10/25/2006), his first 2-word phrase at 6 1/2 months (see entry from 11/6/2006), his first 3-word sentence at 12 months (see entry from 4/15/2007), his first 4-word sentence at 13 1/2 months (see entry from 6/2/2007), and his first 6-word sentence at 15 months (see entry from 7/14/2007). His speech patterns are well established. Daniel is a "burster." Mostly, he just grunts or babbles. Sometimes, he'll say a word or two that we can understand. And, on occasion, he'll say something completely inappropriate for a toddler to be able to say. This is in contrast to Hannah, who relentlessly accumulated an enormous vocabulary, adding a word or two each day, which I tracked on a Word file. At the same age as Daniel is now, Hannah had a larger vocabulary, spoke more clearly, and babbled less. But she also said fewer sentences, and those sentences she did say were less nuanced than what Daniel was capable of saying. Karen and I estimate that we understand about 10% of what Daniel says on any given day. The other 90% is what I call "The Angels' Share." While I am not sold on the idea of angels or an afterlife, I have no doubt that if such things do exist, they are watching over Daniel, and are highly entertained by his observations, which only they are privileged to understand in their entirety. (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 1st, 2007
6:08 am	Daniel: "I've been thinking about the game" [19 1/2 months] Daniel had woken up from his morning nap, so I changed him, brought him downstairs to feed him, and put him in his high chair. He seemed pensive. His eyes were following me as I walked around the kitchen, but he didn't move or make a sound. I diced some string cheese into Daniel-sized pieces, and walked over to give them to him. He said, "Daddy." So, I moved in closer, whereupon he repeated, "Daddy." Sensing that something was about to happen, I pulled out a chair, and sat down directly in front of him. "Yes, Daniel." Daniel looked me right in the eyes, and said, "I've been thinking about the game." "What?" was my reply. So, he repeated the sentence slowly, measuring each word carefully, so he could be sure that I would understand him. "I've...been...thinking...about...the...game." This was Daniel's fourth six-word sentence. "Oh, you have?" "Yeah." And then Daniel proceeded to babble excitedly for 30-45 seconds. Of which I understood - not a single word. I also had no idea what game he was talking about. But, I nodded my head appreciatively, and tried to savor the moment. I was tempted to genuflect, but restrained myself. I told the story to Karen, who thought she knew what "the game" was. We keep around 20 puzzles in the TV stand in the playroom. Over the last several days, Daniel has spent hours tearing through the puzzles, and creating quite a mess for Karen and I to cleanup after he's gone to bed. So, Daniel was probably talking about puzzles. (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 11th, 2007
1:13 am	Hannah: Counts Backwards - in Spanish! [3 years 10 months] Hannah likes to watch "Dora the Explorer" and "Go Diego Go!", two popular animated shows on the Noggin network. Both shows feature a few words in Spanish in each episode. Every once in a while, Karen and I will notice Hannah slipping in a Spanish word or two - usually numbers or colors. In fact, Hannah has learned how to count from 1-10 in Spanish from those two shows. And there is no doubt that Hannah understands that "one, two, three" means the same thing as "uno, dos, tres," because if we ask her to count something, she'll usually do it in English, but will sometimes count in Spanish. Recently, Hannah has taken to counting backwards from 10-1. We're pretty sure she picked this up from the Wiggles' song "I Climb 10 Steps," which features counting from 1-10, then backwards from 10-1. Today, Hannah did something that blew us away. We heard her counting in Spanish, saying, "Uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, dias." As I've said, this is impressive, but we've heard her do this before. But then, she said it BACKWARDS: "Dias, nueve, ocho, siete, sies, cinco, quatro, tres, dos, uno." Karen and I tried to figure out how she learned how to do this. She clearly didn't learn it from us. If pressed, Karen and I could both count backwards in Spanish, but only after some mental gymnastics (such as counting forwards, and then reversing the order of the words by memory). Nanny Laura, who has also heard Hannah count backwards in Spanish, said that she didn't teach her this skill either. And there is no way that she picked it up in Nursery School, because Hebrew, not Spanish, is the second language of choice there. British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once famously wrote "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." So, in the absence of any other possible explanation, I have to conclude that Hannah taught herself how to count backwards in Spanish. Wow. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
12:40 am	Hannah: "What Comes Next?" [3 years 8 months] Karen and Hannah were in the playroom. They counted to 20 together, then stopped. Hannah has been able to count to twenty for many months, so this wasn't unusual in and of itself. But, what happened next was. Hannah asked Karen, "What comes next?" So, Karen continued counting up to 30. Again, Hannah asked, "What comes next?" So, Karen continued to 40. And so on. I relayed the story to Grandpa Bob, who confirmed that a question like "What comes next?" was quite remarkable coming from a 3.66 year old. This was yet another intellectual landmark for Hannah. Her verbal precociousness has been well documented in this LiveJournal. All of the interested parties who have been following Hannah have always suspected that Hannah had tremendous mathematical aptitude to go along with her verbal skills. And now, we have proof. (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 14th, 2007
11:57 am	Daniel: First Six-Word Sentence [15 months] The four of us had just left the Danbury Mall, and were driving home. I placed Daniel in his car seat, and he started babbling very excitedly. As I drove away from the mall, Karen asked Daniel, "Did you have a good time in the mall, Daniel?" Whereupon he pointed to the mall, and said, "I want to go over here." This was Daniel's first 6-word sentence. To my knowledge, he has not said a 5-word sentence, so it would seem that he progressed from saying 4-word sentences (see LiveJournal entry from 6/2/07) to saying 6-word sentences. But, because I only spend a limited amount of time with the children during the work week, I can't really know for sure. (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007
2:51 pm	Daniel: Recites the Alphabet [13 1/2 months] Daniel was on the changing table in the Playroom, when he started verbalizing in a way that I hadn't heard before. While the sounds he was making were definitely not random, they weren't words either, and I couldn't discern any pattern to them. Also, I noticed that Daniel wasn't looking at me while he was verbalizing. I thought this might be significant, because whenever Daniel has something "important" to say to someone, he always establishes eye contact with them first, so he can be sure that he has their complete, undivided attention. This went on for awhile, when I heard and understood him saying, "W, X, Y, Z." I immediately yelled to Karen, who was elsewhere doing errands, "Omigod - Daniel is saying the alphabet!" We then reconvened in the Family Room. Karen prompted Daniel, saying, "A, B, C." Daniel responded with "D, E, F, G...hah!" He exclaimed triumphantly, and crawled off to play with his toys. I immediately called Grandpa Bob, to tell him the astonishing news. "Dad, are you sitting down? Is mom there? She better sit down too..." I have no words to adequately convey how I felt at the time, nor how I feel now as I write this. Words fail. After I got off the phone, Daniel said, "A, B, C, D." Karen said, "There, he's saying it again! A, B, C!" Daniel continued, saying "D, E, F, G, H..." I immediately called Grandpa Bob again, but the line was busy. Apparently, he was calling Aunt Jackie to tell her the news. I hope she was sitting down... (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 2nd, 2007
1:42 pm	Daniel: First Two Four-Word Sentences and Fourth Three-Word Sentence [13 1/2 months] Wow, what a remarkable day! In the morning, when Daniel woke up, Karen went to his room to tend to him. When he saw Karen walking over to him with outstretched arms, he laughed, and started doing evasive maneuvers in his crib. He has played with me like this several times, and it's always with a big smile on his face. Karen watched him crawl around in circles, then asked him, "Daniel, where are you going?" Daniel then pointed to a corner of the crib, and said, "I'm going over here." Then he crawled over to that corner, and stood up, so Karen could pick him up. This was Daniel's first 4-word sentence ever. But it wasn't the last one of the day, or even of the next hour or so. After Karen had changed him, dressed him, and given him a bottle, I picked him up, and brought him into the Master Bedroom. When we walked into the room, he pointed to the ceiling fan, and asked, "What do I see?" I replied, "That's a fan, Daniel." This was Daniel's second 4-word sentence. In retrospect, Daniel has said two things which are similar to "What do I see.": - "What's this?", and - "What's that?" I'm not sure if "What do I see?" is a more sophisticated way for Daniel to say the above shorter phrases, or if it means something slightly different to him. Aunt Phyllis suggested that Daniel may have been adapting a phrase he heard from the "Brown Bear" book ("Brown bear, what do you see?" "I see a purple cat looking at me."). However, neither Karen, Nanny Laura, nor myself have ever read that book to him, so this can't be the case. Anyway, before the day was over, Daniel had one more phrase for us to mull over. After I gave him dinner, I put him on my lap. I picked up a miniature basketball and a miniature baseball, and handed the basketball to Daniel. He chomped on it, then dropped it on my lap. I then gave him the baseball. He chomped on it as well, and then dropped it too on my lap. And so it went, with him alternating between biting and dropping the basketball and the baseball. After a few minutes of this, he bit the basketball and then tossed it clear across the room. I didn't bother getting up to chase after it. Instead, I gave him the baseball, and he chomped it, as usual. When he was finished, he dropped it on my lap. I then gave the same ball right back to him, which he noticed. Puzzled, he started looking all around for the basketball, but didn't see it. So, he asked me, "Where is it?" This was Daniel's fourth 3-word sentence. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
1:33 pm	Daniel: "A baby!" [13 months] After dropping Hannah off at Nursery School, Nanny Laura took Daniel to the local Starbucks. There, she met her friend Au Pair Rachel, who was there with the 18 month old boy that she takes care of. When Rachel and her charge strolled over to Laura and Daniel, Daniel flapped his arms excitedly, then pointed to the little boy, and exclaimed, "A baby! A baby! A baby!" Laura said everyone in the place laughed. (Comment on this)
Monday, May 28th, 2007
1:13 pm	Daniel: First Three Syllable Word "Delicious" [13 months] Daniel was in the high chair, eating a Graham cracker with gusto. Karen asked him if he liked it, to which Daniel replied, "Ummm. Delicious [pronounced duh-lish-uh]." This was Daniel's first three syllable word. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007
1:22 pm	Hannah: Types Her Name [3 years 4 months] I was surfing the net, and Hannah was on my lap. When I went to the Google homepage, Hannah sat up, and moved my hand away from the keyboard. She then typed "h-a-n-n-a-h" into Google's Search Box, then looked at me, and said triumphantly, "Hannah!" (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 13th, 2007
2:27 pm	Daniel: "I like this" [12 1/2 months] We went to Long Island to visit the Eichners and the Milrods. The weather was nice, so we spent most of the afternoon outside. Around mid-afternoon, Hannah, cousin Wendi, and Wendi's cousin Samantha started playing jump-rope. At the time, I was sitting in a chair on the deck in the backyard, while Daniel was sitting on my lap, sucking his thumb. He became very interested in what the girls were doing, and watched them as they romped around. He started to fuss, and tried to wriggle his way off of my lap, presumably so he could crawl over to the girls. For his own protection, I maintained my grip on him, because letting him go would have meant him falling down the deck stairs. When he realized that I was not going to let him go, he took his thumb out of his mouth, pointed to the girls, and said, "I like this [Aah like dis]." At the age of 12 1/2 months, this was Daniel's third 3-word sentence: 1. "Let me see." 2. "I love you." 3. "I like this." (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 12th, 2007
4:34 pm	Daniel: "I Love You" and "What's This?" [12 1/2 Months] Karen, Hannah, Daniel and I drove down to Philadelphia to attend Karen's reunion from the Univ. of Penn. There, we met Lauren Epstein, who Karen has been friends with since high school. Lauren lives in Manhattan, so we agreed to drop her off at her apartment on our way back to Westchester. After the festivities, we all got into the minivan. When Karen sat down in the passenger seat, she looked at Daniel, who started talking to her. He said "Aah luff ooh" over and over. At first, I couldn't make out what he was saying, but after 5 or 6 times, I figured it out. I said, "Omigod, he's saying "I love you." Karen then looked at him and said, "Oh Daniel. I love you, too." I was driving, so I didn't see his reaction. Karen said he broke out in a big smile. She described his facial expression as one of contentment and recognition that Karen had understood what he had said to her. This caused a bit of pandemonium in the minivan, as we all reacted viscerally to what Daniel had said. I immediately asked Lauren (who is not a relative), "Did you hear that?" She said, "Yes. That was amazing." When I analyzed Daniel's phrase, I initially attributed it to something he repeated from memory, as "I love you" was a phrase that's been said to him thousands of time by many people. But then I realized that this idea was totally wrong. To be sure, Daniel has heard similar phrases thousands of times, but the identical phrase only a very small number of times. Adults almost always speak to infants and very young children in the third person. So, while I have said "Daddy loves you" or "Dada loves you" countless times to Daniel, I have only very rarely said "I love you" to him. The same thing applies to Karen, who says "Mommy loves you," as well as his Grandparents, Aunts, and Uncles. As far as whether or not he understood what he was saying, I initially dismissed that as well. However, because of what he said the following day (see LiveJournal entry from May 13, 2007), this also had to be reconsidered. But, Daniel wasn't done for the day. Later on the drive home from Philadelphia, we stopped for dinner at a restaurant near the entrance to the N.J. Turnpike. At the end of the meal, Karen took Hannah to use the facilities. Lauren and I took turns holding Daniel. When he was on my lap, he played with my left hand, and chewed on some of my fingers. Then, he took my fingers out of his mouth, grabbed my ring, looked at me, and asked, "What's this [pronounced "Wut dis"]?" Lauren and I both giggled. I said, "That's a ring, Daniel." Then, he resumed chewing on my fingers. Lauren asked me, "You know, he's really young to be talking like that. How many words does Daniel know?" I just shook my head in bewilderment, and replied, "I have no idea." (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 29th, 2007
4:04 pm	Daniel: "Ear hurts" [12 months] Daniel was up most of Friday night crying, which was very unusual for him. His 12-month checkup was scheduled for Saturday morning, so he was able to get evaluated by a doctor right away. The doctor confirmed that he had an ear infection, and put him on antibiotics. This set the stage for the remarkable scene that happened on Sunday night. Karen was upstairs bathing Hannah, and I was sitting in my chair in the Family Room, with Daniel on my lap. He was incredibly fussy because of his ear infection. I did my best to calm him, but the little guy was having a tough, tough time. Then he did something that was completely off the charts. When Daniel is on me, he loves to rough-house. He climbs, grabs, pulls, etc., which is standard behavior for an active little boy. I enjoy this, of course. Anyway, Daniel is doing his thing, when all of a sudden, his expression changed. Instead of his normal grin, his expression was serious, almost soulful. Then, he reached over, and - gently - held my ear with his right hand. The key word here is "gently." Nothing Daniel does is ever gentle. He is gentle like a bull. A smiling, happy little bull, but a bull nevertheless. Even changing his diaper requires advanced wrestling skills and good cardio. Anyway, Daniel reached over and - gently - held my ear. I asked him, "Is your ear bothering you, little fella?" To my amazement, Daniel looked me in the eye, and said, "Ear hurts [pronounced "EE-ah huts"]." After my heart started beating again, I asked, "Does your ear hurt?" He then nodded his little bald head up and down, and said, "Yes [pronounced "Yah"]." Omigod - what other words does Daniel know? And what the heck kind of phrase is "Ear hurts" for a 12-month old to say? Readers of this blog know all about Hannah's remarkable precociousness with language. Hannah's vocabulary was easy to track. I kept a spreadsheet of the words that I knew that Hannah knew from her first word at 8 months, until her 87th word at 18 months old. Her progress was smooth and steady. To a degree, you could predict what words she would learn in advance. For example, after learning "eyes" and "nose," she spent weeks pointing at various body parts, and asking, "What's that?" We thought she would learn the names of the other body parts next. Which, of course, she did. When she was 19 months old, her vocabulary doubled or tripled from the previous month, so it was no longer practical for me to continue tracking her vocabulary. But the growth of Daniel's vocabulary is not trackable. Daniel is using words, in phrases, that we were previously unaware that he even knew! In other words, he said "Let me see" and "Ear hurts" before we knew that any of those five words were even in his vocabulary: - let - me - see - ear - hurts Whereas Hannah's vocabulary increased arithmetically, Daniel seems to be a "burster," who adds words in bunches. And I can't wait to hear what that magnificent brain of his is going to come up with next. (Comment on this)
Saturday, April 28th, 2007
4:01 pm	Daniel: 1-year Checkup Daniel had his 1-year checkup today: Height: 31" (90%) Weight: 23lbs. 12oz.(75%) (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 15th, 2007
2:58 pm	Daniel: First 3-Word Sentence "Let me see." (12 Months) I was sitting on my chair in the family room, with Hannah on my right lap, Daniel on my left lap, and my laptop computer on a snack table next to the right arm of my chair. This is a good position for me, because I can physically control both kids, and still be able to type things into the computer. About 4-5 times a week, I go onto the website of the childrens entertainment group "The Wiggles" to play games with Hannah. We were playing a game, and Hannah was sitting directly in front of the screen, thereby blocking Daniel's view. He leaned over, first to the left, and then to the right, but still couldn't get a clear view of the computer screen. Then, Daniel said to Hannah, "Let me see (pronounced "Lit...mih...sih")." It was garbled, but it was clear enough to be understood. I was stunned, so I told Karen about it, and tried to get Daniel to say it again. By this time, Hannah had shifted positions, so Daniel could now see the screen. So, I held Daniel with my left hand, while putting my right hand a few inches in front of his face, to obscure his view. It worked. He leaned over and tried to swat my hand away, and then looked at me and said, "Let me see." This was impressive on several levels. For one thing, in Arnold Gesell's seminal book "Developmental Diagnosis: Normal and Abnormal Child Development," he said that children usually say their first 3-word sentence at age three. Daniel isn't even 1 yet, so he is, to say the least, very advanced. Also, I had never heard him say any of the three words (let, me, or see) individually, let alone use them consecutively in a sentence. My conclusion was that Daniel was probably saying many words, utterances, and perhaps even other sentences. However, because he doesn't have enough control of his voice, cheek muscles, mouth, tongue, etc., he isn't able to articulate the words clearly enough for us to understand them. (Comment on this)
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
2:46 pm	Daniel: Third Two-Word Utterance "No more" Karen was feeding Daniel, who was sitting in the high chair in the kitchen. After finishing 1 1/2 jars of baby food, he started shaking his head "No." Karen asked him if he wanted more food, and Daniel said, "No more." This was his third two-word utterance, and the second new utterance in three days. (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 5th, 2007
4:07 pm	Daniel: Second Two-Word Utterance "More Baba" I was spoon feeding Daniel, who was sitting in the high chair in the kitchen. He pushed the spoon away, so I asked him if he was done, not really expecting a response. He then pointed to the bottle of formula on the kitchen table, and said, "More baba." The was his second two-word utterance. His first was "Hi Dada" (see LiveJournal entry from 11/6/2006). (Comment on this)