The Udkow Family

Maya Video: Jumping with Daddy

Jumping with Daddy (October 25, 2008)

Maya Videos: A Million New Movies
(Not quite a million, but an awful lot.)

Reading Before Bed (October 12, 2008)

Cuddling with Mommy (October 12, 2008)

Singing Songs, Cuddling and Drinking Water (October 12, 2008)

Ooga Ooga Ooga (October 12, 2008)

Alphabet and Maya in the Camera (October 12, 2008)

Purple Hat (October 12, 2008)

Alphabet (October 12, 2008)

New Pajamas (September 21, 2008)

Having Fun in the Bath (September 16, 2008)

Throwing and Chasing the Ball (September 10, 2008)

Playing the Piano (August 15, 2008)

Playing with Kira Outside (August 14, 2008)

Playing with Savta (August 5, 2008)

Maya's 18-month update
It's been a while since we've written an update about what Maya is up to these days. She continues to amaze us with her cuteness, smartness, and sweetness.

She is becoming very independent and is very social. She used to be a bit picky about going to Daddy if Mommy was around, but now she realizes that Daddy can cuddle too. :-) She asks for "help" when she needs help, but also says "self" when she wants to do things on her own. She is able to communicate her needs very well, and starts every morning with "hungry, egg, hungry, egg" when Mommy is trying to get a few more seconds of sleep. She loves when Daddy tickles her, but when she's had enough she lets him know by saying, "All done tickle." She also gets lots of compliments from other moms for being so social and friendly. In music class, she walks up to other moms and kids to high five them and bang on their instruments, and loves seeing other babies, and teachers Tracy and Felicia at playgroup.

Maya has always been very verbal, but over the last couple of months, her vocabulary has exploded. She is now able to identify all the colors (she's currently working on periwinkle and mauve) and uses them as adjectives to describe what she wants. Every morning, she chooses what color plate and what color fork to use for her egg by for example saying "pink plate" and "green fork" and then changing her mind a million times until she has the perfect combination. She also loves pointing things out when she's in the car, like saying "big truck," "yellow car," etc. She can repeat just about anything we say and most of the time it sounds almost perfect. She can repeat all the letters in the alphabet as well as the numbers 1-10, and can actually identify the letters "A, B, C, D, M, O, and Y" (working on the rest, just started this last week). She is also very good at saying "NO!" ;-) Maya also understands a lot of Hebrew and is beginning to say more and more words other than "Saba" and "Savta" (which she's been saying for a while). She says "mayim" for water and "rosh" for head and will continue to learn more very quickly. Ben also taught her to say "no mas" in Spanish, so she is now trilingual... ;-)

Maya is becoming less and less picky about the food she's eating, but that does not mean she's not picky. We have failed miserably at getting her to drink milk, and if she ever accidentally lets her guard down and gets some milk in her mouth, she gives a look that says, "what are you trying to do to me??" This includes chocolate milk!!!!! She also will refuse to eat a certain food for months and then out of the blue ask for it (yogurt comes to mind). Around the time Maya started walking, it was the end of both the high chair and bibs. After a few months of refusing to eat unless she was on some one's lap, she is now very good at eating breakfast and lunch at her orange big girl table and is eating dinner at the table with Mommy and Daddy in her big girl chair. She also finally agrees to go in the cart when grocery shopping without a big fight (woohoo!!!).

Today Maya finally showed an interest in her stuffed animals. She was very interested in her teddy bear all morning and carried him around the house (before today, the teddy bear had been in her crib since the day she was born without ever getting a second glance). Then at nap time, she wouldn't go to sleep before we found the teddy bear and put him back in her crib. Tonight before bed, Maya and the teddy bear (seems his name is actually "Teddy Bear" according to Maya) both sat on Mommy's lap to read books and Maya kept giving him kisses before taking him into her crib with her.

I could go on and on about how wonderful Maya is, but I think you all know that already. :-) Somehow she continues to get even sweeter and more fun with each passing day.

Maya Video: In the bath: Alphabet, Counting and Hello!
Maya in the Bath: Alphabet, Counting and Hello! (Sept 27, 2008)

Seven Years Later
2,973 deaths. 343 Firefighters. 60 Police officers.

Maya Movies: Geffen, Silliness, and Singing
Maya Spinning and Singing (August 18, 2008)

"Hi Baby" "I Love You" (August 18, 2008)

Maya Talking to the Baby in the Window (August 18, 2008)

Maya and Cousin Geffen 2 (August 30, 2008)

Maya and Cousin Geffen 1 (August 30, 2008)

Maya Movies: Music, Dancing, and Lauging
Maya Up Close (August 26, 2008)

Maya Singing Me Me Me (August 18, 2008)

Maya Talking to Maya (August 26, 2008)

Maya Laughing at Herself (August 28, 2008)

Walking and Singing (August 18, 2008)

As usual, you can view all of Maya's videos at videos.udkow.com.

Udkow Family Trip to Mar Vista
View photos from our trip to Mar Vista

Mike, Gail, Jonathan, Flavia, Ben, Tammy, Maya and Troy all took a trip up the coast to stay at a place called Mar Vista. The town is actually called Anchor Bay, and is just north of Gualala. If that all means nothing to you, it's 2.5 hours north of Oakland and sits on Highway 1.

The place is a group of widely spaced yellow cottages that sit on a mini farm (complete with goats, chickens, rabbits and a great pick-able garden. Basically we spent the whole weekend lounging at the Gualala river (very cold water), sitting at the beach on the Pacific, or just relaxing on the grounds at Mar Vista.

Everyone had a great time playing with Maya, who in turn had a fantastic time walking all over the place (usually pushing her little stroller and Baby), and playing with the chickens. So Maya always maintains a 1-foot distance from all animals, but for some reason she was not really afraid of the chickens. She eats an egg almost every morning, so maybe she understood that chickens were the source of the eggs and was thanking them in her own way. :-)

In typical Udkow fashion, the weather was amazing. There was no fog during the day (very rare) and the weather was in the mid-70's (amazing). All in all, a great trip and a fun way for everyone to spend a long weekend with Maya (who, of course, was the center of attention the whole time).

Tammy and Ben: Six Years of Bad Jokes and Good Kugel
Today is our six year anniversary. Six long years. Six years ago we lived in San Mateo in a townhouse that Tammy hated (I moved us there to get rid of my 50-mile/2-hour each way commute). I was working at Extreme Networks in Santa Clara and Tammy was working at Renovis (a promising BioTech company that just went belly-up).

A lot has changed since then. I've lost hair and gained weight. Tammy has a great job as a pharmacist (after four long years of pharmacy school), I really like my job at Verizon, and of course we have Maya. Getting married was the start of our lives together, and Maya just makes it that much better.

If you want to look back on some of the photos, here are the amateur photos, and here are the professional photos.

And to Tammy, thanks for six great years of marriage (I'm averaging them out) and almost 10 years of being together. Everyone knows how lucky I am to have you, and I want you to know that I know it too. Here's to many, many more years together. Love you.

Maya Video: Playing Outside with Kira
Maya and Kira Playing Outside (August 14, 2008)