Games to play with your toddler

Two best games with a toddler ever:
1. The game in which Moki uses my back as a playground for her Lego figures which means a free massage for me (the part with the figures jumping up and down was a bit painful but well worth it because them going down the slide was just heavenly!),
2. The game in which I chill on the sofa while Moki peels mandarins and hands them over for me to eat.
Any other suggestions on how to make her do nice things for me disguised as a game?

How to get the baby out early

Loads of people thought I would appreciate it if they gave me suggestions on how to convince the baby to come out already. I was told to have spicy food, to eat a lot of pineapple and to have sex. Also, apparently I should walk a lot, stretch  and/or climb lots of stairs. My neighbour told me to clean the windows. I'm not sure she was talking about it in connection to the baby though. That might have been just general life advice.

Our children are so musical

Our drive to the daycare started of with the neighbour's kid growling quietly like a tiger. Immediately Moki joined in which made him growl louder. Soon he was roaring like a lion and Moki was just shouting. By the time we reached the daycare, Moki was screaming: "Finisheeeed! Finisheeeed!", the neighbour was just plain screaming and I was singing as loudly as I could along to Queen's "I want it all" which was playing on the radio. I'm excited about adding a crying newborn to our trio soon, he'll give it a whole new dimension.

Finger pain stops me from sleeping

I feel so bad for our little daughter who experienced horrible pains right before she needed to go down for her nap today. Her fingers hurt so bad that she just had to come out of her room. Six times. Apparently the only thing that helps with this awful finger pain is another episode of Peppa Pig. Who could have guessed?

The joy of the last pregnancy month

Things which are difficult in the last pregnancy month: putting your boots on, making room for people to squeeze past you, sleeping, sitting on the floor, getting up from the floor, walking, getting dressed, climbing the stairs, hugging, being patient, not complaining, pulling your dog off the other dog when she gets into a fight... and some other stuff.

Parenting 101

Parenting 101 - J's new tactic for keeping Moki busy: "Moki, I hid something somewhere in the apartment. Go find it!"

A typical Thursday evening

Just a typical Thursday evening. Husband at a beer tasting, sends a message: "18 beers down, 15 to go!" Wife in bed, googling "pregnant very itchy legs".

How to know if your cold's really bad?

I took this test (after I wrote it) and the result amazed me!

Is your cold really bad or are you just being whiny? Take our quiz and find out!
Do you:
a) wake up in the middle of the night realising how underrated breathing is and how you've always taken it for granted
b) get five nose bleeds a day on average from blowing your nose over-enthusiastically
c) literally carry a roll of toilet paper in your bag in fear that you might run out of tissues
d) feel like you can't think because the snot has taken up all the space where your brain used to be
e) all of the above

It turns out I have a bad cold!

One Peppa Pig!

M's in her bed, we're ready for her nap, but she's going for the world record in shouting "One Peppa Pig and then night, night!" while negotiating her nap time. If the world record's ten onepeppapigthennightnights, someone needs to call The Guinness Book of Records, because we're at eighteen already.

You did well, boy!

After I finally understood what M wanted and removed a piece of paper from her sticker book, M was so pleased with me that she praised me with a: "Good boy!" Laughing out loud at that earned me a hug and a "Silly mama" comment from M. I think she's feeling better today!

Everything's horrible

M's feeling unwell and everything seems to make her cry. Us not having any yoghurt at home or her having to take some yucky medicine are pretty much understandable reasons, but it's difficult to take her seriously when she cries because the bed's not pushed all the way to the wall or, the best reason ever, because the tears come when she cries.

Love is all around us

I was in a terrible rush this morning because I was running late for my doctor's appointment. That resulted in me waving goodbye to M at the daycare and then blowing a kiss to her caregiver. After I just did that, I felt very self-conscious and embarrassed so I attempted to make things better by waving at the caregiver. Which was immediately followed by me, completely not consciously, blowing her another kiss! She seemed fairly confused so she gave me a little wave and a weirded out smile. M, observing this adult exchange, ran back out to me, also wanting a kiss. This morning started off with kisses and love all around.

One of those days...

I usually love my life, but today's one of those days when you curl up in a ball and cry loudly for fifteen minutes but you don't feel any better after it... 

First night out of the cage

Last night we took three bars off M's crib so that she can go in and out of her bed on her own.
It seemed like a great idea in theory and this is how it went in real life:
Friday
19:30 - M really liked the idea of being able to go to bed on her own so she announced that she was going "Night, night" and happily got in the bed.
19:40 - Very quickly M realised that we expected her to sleep once she gets in the bed so she changed her mind and wanted to watch a cartoon.
19:50 - After an episode of Peppa Pig, the second attempt to get her in her room seemed successful and we were very pleased.
19:55 - M freaked J out when he realised that she was silently standing in the doorway, just staring at him.
19:57 - Back to bed, doors closed, a lot of screaming and crying. We tried to be tough on her and let her cry for a bit, hoping she'll give up soon. Even though she didn't try to open the door again, when J eventually went in, he found her in tears, just standing in the middle of the room. A heart breaking scene.
20:05 - another Peppa Pig and by now it was already quite late. Back to bed, M!
20:15 - After a bit of crying in bed, she eventually gave up the fight and fell asleep.
Saturday
06:30 - M woke up by loudly requesting milk. As I walked through the room to open the blinds, I stepped on something soft and strange. It took me a second to realise that I was standing on M's arm as she was lying on the floor, under the armchair! It took a lot of self-control not to let out a frightened scream but M didn't seem bothered at all. She even cheerfully wished me "Morning!" from her new sleeping post.
I thought that went really well.
Honestly, as long as I get my 8 hours of sleep and she stays in her room, she can sleep on the changing table as far as I'm concerned.

We have a bilingual child!

After waking up from her nap, M had a story she urgently needed to share with me. The only parts of her serious babbling which I could understand were Croatian words "Zeko kaka!" I understood the words, but I wasn't sure what it was she wanted to communicate. After telling her twice that I wasn't sure what she was trying to say, M switched to English: "Rabbit poo!" That explained nothing, but I was pretty proud that our daughter can name animal poo in two languages.

I'm a great housewife

Our apartment's so dirty that I'm tempted to take out my contact lenses so I don't have to think about it.

Pregnant lady's problems

One of the positive things about being pregnant is never worrying about what I'll wear, since I only own two pairs of pregnancy trousers and three shirts and I don't fit into any of my regular clothes. Not having numerous choices is a huge relief. Now I can focus on worrying about real problems. Like, world peace.

Stupid things I did today

Stupid things I did today: I couldn't remember pin numbers for neither my private nor work account while trying to pay in the shop, spent at least 5 minutes parking in the spot which would easily fit two of our cars, tried to take out my contact lenses after I had already taken them out, drove into a tree. Time to go to sleep and probably continue being stupid in my dreams.

Every day is your birthday

We celebrated M's second birthday two weeks ago. Her Granny and Grampa came from England for a week and on Sunday, which was M's actual birthday, we opened all the presents together, sang "Happy birthday" and went for breakfast to our favourite breakfast place in the whole world - McDonald's. After M's nap, a proper party started. There was cake (I baked the whole previous evening and was terrified of poisoning our guests, taking my non-existent baking powers into the account), there was a birthday candle (the one from last year, in the shape of the number 1, because I forgot to buy a candle this year and plus, M can't read or count yet so why bother) and since three of her little friends came over, there were even more presents to open. Little neighbour from downstairs brought M a home-made birthday crown which M wore proudly for the whole two minutes and there was more singing of "Happy birthday" going on.

Today, two weeks later, M was getting ready to go to the daycare when she noticed the crown on the shelf and quickly put it on her head. Then she announced: "M birthday" and started singing Happy birthday to herself. The crown stayed on all the way to the car. More singing. The crown was on in the car, more singing and demanding that Mama also sings along. I tried explaining that it wasn't actually her birthday and that we could sing a different song, but was turned down with the best possible argument: "No". Followed by a loud version of "Happy birthday, dear M", sung by M.

While I was getting M out of the car, I noticed that the crown fell off her head and I quickly hid it under the car seat while distracting M by pointing out an extremely interesting rock on the ground. Not having to explain to the daycare staff that it wasn't actually her birthday again but that she would appreciate it if they sang along made my morning a lot easier.

Honestly, mostly because I would have probably felt upset if I had found out that they refused to sing and treat my birthday girl with all the attention she needed on her special day. Even if it was her second birthday second time this year.

Letter to my daughter in expectation of her little brother

My dear Moki,

Waiting for your brother to arrive and change our lives completely once again, leaves me with all sorts of mixed emotions. The concept of mixed emotions might be a little bit difficult for you to grasp because I'm struggling with explaining it as well.

So far you can only name three emotions: happy, sad and “asleep” (“spawa”), which I know isn’t an emotion, but you don’t. You also feel anger and frustration a lot and I’ve been trying to encourage you to name that as well, but you’re too angry to listen to me at those moments.

I don’t feel sad or happy or “asleep” but I do feel lots of different emotions which I find difficult to pin down and name. For your sake, I’ll keep it basic.

Waiting for your brother makes me a little bit sad.

I’m fully aware of the fact that the time when there were just the three of us (I’m leaving Klara out of this emotional mess, she’s literally asleep, by the way) existed in our special little world, is about to end. I have to admit something: after you were born, I cried a lot. I felt lost and confused. It felt like waking up in a parallel universe, where most of the things looked the same, but functioned in a different way. And no one told me the rules of the new world. All I had were some contradictory guidelines which I wasn’t sure if and how to follow. So I cried, wishing your dad and me had our old life back, in which we were allowed to be as irresponsible as we wanted. I was looking at you and thought you were cute, but I had no idea what to do with you. 

That slowly started changing, though. Your Dad and I started spending our evenings looking at your photos and talking about how adorable you were in every way and how much we missed you after you fall asleep even though we were grateful you weren’t awake any more. Soon we couldn’t remember what our lives were like before and what it was that we actually missed. At the moment the three of us exist and enjoy our little bubble, with our intern jokes, and you are definitely our equal. We went from being a couple, to being a family of three.

So it makes me a bit sad to think that this phase will come to an end. That we will never again be a family of three and you will never again be the only baby we focus on. It makes me sad to think that your brother won’t just be changing your Dad and me, this time your little world will be rocked and turned upside down as well and you’re so tiny and confused as is already.

At the same time, I’m happy. You changed our lives for better, and I know that your brother will do the same. And it will be lovely to experience all of the first smiles, laughs, rolling over, attempts at sitting up, attempts to walk, to speak, to trick us into staying up just a bit longer once again... We learned from you how amazing all of that is and this time you’ll be with us to experience it all and comment on it. The three of us, the “older” ones, can sit together and comment on how silly the baby’s being. I’m excited about your brother learning to say your name more than I’m excited about him calling me “Mama”.

I’m happy that you’ll get to be someone’s big sister because you’re amazing and you have so much to teach him. You thought us so much when we thought we knew everything already! You showed us how not to rush places but instead to stop every now and then and collect some rocks and sticks (maybe smell the flowers while we’re at it), how to put Lego blocks together to make a garage which fits nothing at all but has some animals on the roof and how to resist the urge to build that said garage “properly”, how to demand more of what we enjoy because there’s no reason we should stop kissing just because it’s bath time. And your brother will know nothing to start with. What a great tiny blank canvas for you to paint on with your cute little dirty fingers.

I’m also happy because I can tell that you’re growing into a great little girl which means that your Dad and I are doing a good job, even though we were so confused and scared at the start. It makes me braver when I think about your little baby brother and our future lives together.

In addition to all of this, I'm starting to understand what to feel “asleep” (“spawa”) might mean. We can consider it an emotion because I could now describe it as a feeling of complete calm that resurfaces when you’re lying in bed, thinking about your baby girl who's growing into a proper girl and her baby brother who'll we'll get to meet soon. "Asleep" means enjoying your present life, feeling happy and fulfilled reflecting on the past and excitedly looking forward to the future. That is how your mama feels. A little bit sad, but mostly happy and definitely “spawa”.

Here's a cup of coffee for you!

M served me a cup of pretend coffee and then got upset with me for drinking it while hot. Toddlers are difficult to please.

How can you tell that a child goes to a German daycare?

How can you tell that a child goes to a German daycare? After she announces that she wants to play with Lego, she gets up and tidies up all of her other toys while singing cheerfully to herself. Can't wait for them to train her to make coffee too!

Travelling with a toddler is easy!

We're back on Munich! It was a simple journey, most of it was just the motorway:

18:30 - everything's packed, we're in the car leaving Rijeka, I'm driving. Our navigation tells us we'll be home by midnight, we know that it probably means we'll be home by 2 a.m. but that's OK.
18:50 - we are stuck in a 10km traffic jam, 20km into our journey.
20:45 - finally crossing the border, entering Slovenia, M's happily watching Peppa Pig
21:15 - M's very tired, time to go to sleep. J saying "Night, night!" is a cue for M to throw up all over the car. We have no wet wipes, J's cleaning the car with some of M's clean clothes, M's standing in front of the car shouting "Yucky!" with puke all over her. Including her hair.
21:40 - car and baby are relatively clean, time to drive on.
23:00 - M's asleep, we're in a good mood. We reach a 15km long traffic jam in front of the Slovenian tunnel.
00:00 - J gets into the driver's seat, we high five, we'll be home soon.
00:01 - I'm asleep.
01:15 - I wake up. We moved 4km since I fell asleep. It takes us another hour to cross into Austria.
03:00 - We stop at the public toilet. I notice an interesting business offer. Someone wrote a very explicit message in pen on the toilet wall, suggesting he pays me €100 if he doesn't manage to satisfy me sexually. It would be easy cash but no time for that. Plus, my heart says No.
03:05 - Back in the driver's seat. M's wide awake, J's trying to get some sleep.
03:10 - M's continuously kicking J's chair, shouting "Dada, ne spava!" (Dada, no sleep!)
03:15 - Peppa Pig
03:40 - I finish a box of biscuits which feels basically just like eating a kilo of sugar with additives. M's babbling about Peppa's adventures, keeping J awake.
04:45 - My eyes keep closing so we switch again. I don't even remember falling asleep in the passenger seat.
05:21 - We're back in Munich. M's still awake, very excited about being back home, she's not happy when we tell her she has to go to sleep.
05:30 - We're all asleep in our clothes, M still smells of puke, J and I smell even worse.
10:00 - Waking up in our own bed is lovely.

Whyareyounotsleeping - a poem

If M was asked to write a song about this night, this is what the lyrics would probably be:

One, two, three, four - throw your dummy on the floor,
Five, six, seven, eight - mama, pick it up again!
Nine, eight, seven, six - can I have some nice warm milk?
Five, four, three, two - I was just messing with you.

But this bottle I will keep,
Cause there's no way I'll go to sleep!
Maybe I will cry a bit?
Or throw a proper screaming fit?
We'll find out what the night will bring...
You're my bitch and I'm the king.

Two, three, four, five - just checking if you're still alive.

"Peppa Pig" is not what I want to hear

When your child wakes up at 1 a.m. crying loudly and after you ask her if anything hurts, she starts hysterically screaming "Peppa Pig" on repeat, you know she's been watching too much TV. Or too little. Or she's in pain. Or she had a bad dream. Or she just wants to be cuddled. Our she's a spoiled brat. You don't know anything, actually. "Peppa Pig" is a horrible answer to almost any question asked in the middle of the night.

Go Germany!

M got a German flag from a friendly functioning alcoholic in our local McDonald's which made her pretty happy. And even though she misunderstood me when I told her to wave the flag, she enjoyed waving AT the flag for a couple of minutes nevertheless. 

Choose your battles

Choose your battles wisely. When your child wants to go out in the rain wearing sandals, you should probably say No. But if she insists on taking the spoon with her on a walk, there's no need to argue.

Rainy morning art

We were making art on a rainy morning, using different techniques and materials - markers on paper, playdough on paper, markers on face, playdough on clothes and repeatedly attempted, but nevertheless unsuccessful, playdough on face technique.

Tell my why I don't like Wednesdays

M was not excited about getting up today. I had to wake her up by lifting the blinds and she just groaned, rolled over and ignored me. The first words she whispered to me were: "I need coffee". Ah, M. We all feel like this sometimes. But those toys are not going to play on their own, you have to step up and face your responsibilities!

Reasons for a tantrum

Here's a list of things which M found upsetting between 6.45 and 7.45 this morning: 
1. I wanted to take her pyjamas off 
- crying time: 3 minutes 
- distraction: offer her different clothes to wear
2. She didn't want to wear any of her clothes 
- crying time: 5 minutes 
- distraction: give her a tub of cream to play with
3. After happily and generously applying cream on her legs and my nose while I got her dressed, it was time to take the cream away
- screaming and crying time: 4 minutes
- distraction: show her something really interesting in the bathroom
4. After "washing" her hands and splashing around in the sink while I got ready, it was time for breakfast, which meant no more playing with water
- proper hysterical meltdown time: 8 minutes, which gave me a chance to prepare breakfast without her hanging around in the kitchen yet I knew by her screams exactly where she was (in the bathroom, next to the sink, for all eight minutes)
- distraction: food
5. She really enjoyed her breakfast even though me giving her blueberries instead of a banana caused some non-committed moaning (45 seconds). But two cereal flakes left in the bowl when I took it away caused...
- crying time: 4 minutes, even after she had both of the flakes
- distraction: our neighbours rang the doorbell to take her to the daycare
6. She was put in the car seat
- moaning time: I have no idea, I closed the car door and left in a hurry
- distraction for mama: a long walk and a nice cup of coffee, followed by a long post on Facebook which I'll be able to show her in 15 years time.

Doggy anniversary!

Three years since Klara moved in! I can't even remember life before she arrived and forced her active lifestyle upon us though. We went on at least 2100 walks together so far... And we're looking forward to many more! 
We love you, Klaki Doki. 
And you will hopefully realise soon that M's also just expressing her love by pulling your ears and stabbing you in the eyes.

Party night

11:05 p.m. It's lovely to listen to J and M chat and laugh out loud... Less so at 11 pm though.
11:07 p.m. There's some serious negotiating going on. Judging by J's laughter and M's insistent chatter, I'm afraid M's winning.
11:12 p.m. We're all about to watch Peppa Pig.

Tragic events, according to M

We were finally calmly enjoying the sun and pretzels after a few tragic events, according to M: a) her fruit bar broke in half, b) I wouldn't let her take some tissues out of the garbage bin in the park, c) she wasn't allowed to play with the paracetamol tablets which she found in my bag, d) her shorts didn't cover her legs. 

A very emotional blog post

They say the best feeling in the world is the feeling of love you feel for your child. But there's something even better. There's that moment when you're putting pajamas on your child, getting her ready to sleep and she's all warm and soft and smells incredible and she's babbling away, thinking she's helping by trying to put her socks back on and you're watching her, full of adoration, thinking: "You're amazing. I love you so much". And at that moment she stops what she's doing, goes completely silent, looks straight into your eyes, a long, deep stare, and you just know she's thinking exactly the same. And then she leans forwards and gives you a kiss. Not even winning a Nobel prize compares (and I can say this after winning three Nobel prizes).

Helping with chores

M's very helpful in the kitchen. If you really need someone to take everything out of a basket and put some of it back in.

Sunday afternoon at the Zoo

J managed to convince me to sit in a Biergarten to calm down a bit while he and my mother-in-law walk around with M and try to enjoy life without my negativity. So now I'm eating awful greasy fries, listening to horrible kids screaming at the turtles and imagining different ways in which I could physically hurt every single person around me because they're all incredibly annoying. I'm feeling a lot calmer. A lovely Sunday afternoon at the Zoo! 

Be careful when swimming!

When you're jumping around the public pool, while holding a baby who can't swim, and the top of your bathing suit falls off, it's very useful to have your kid hug you on demand and hold on tight until you get dressed elegantly under water. Good thing M was in a hugging mood just now, I would have shocked all the Turkish men standing around the pool.

Meeting the farm animals

We read about them in lots of books, but today at Lara's birthday party, M finally got to see some of the farm animals in real life. 
She was not very impressed. 
Time spent petting a goat: 30 seconds. 
Time spent opening and closing the gate next to the goat: 6 minutes.
It would have lasted forever but she was chased away by a long haired naked boy who probably just went around naked so people wouldn't mistake him for a girl.

Home alone

That wonderful feeling when J takes M out to breakfast and they stay out playing in the park for three hours while I watch TV and worry about nothing. The only thing that could make this morning even better would be peanut butter... 
...I guess Nutella will have to do.

Train of thought of a tired mind

Train of thought of a tired mind, right after putting M to sleep, while emptying the dishwasher: "It's really great that we have so many plastic dishes so the noise doesn't wake M up... It's weird that they thought about not waking babies up when making plastic dishes... Oh, they didn't... They're actually plastic so they wouldn't break... Why would they break though? Why aren't all dishes plastic then?" I should stop talking to myself.

Re-living the pain

M just showed me how she banged her head against the wall by banging her head against the wall even harder.

Baby meets world

I sometimes wish we lived in a town that was more multicultural - M just pointed at the only black guy on our train and started laughing and clapping her hands.

Poo confusion

I tied Klara to one of the benches near the playground while M and I ran around. After a few minutes I saw an angry woman approaching me, asking if that was my dog. I said “Yes, but I made sure she wasn't directly at the playground", thinking that was what bothered her. She asked: "And you'll just leave it there?" I was surprised, realising that she was actually worried about the dog being left alone. So I said "Oh, we're leaving soon anyway, but she's used to that, she doesn't mind." The woman looked utterly confused but not angry any more. After a few long seconds of looking at each other in silence, she said "Oh, you're talking about your dog! I was talking about the dog poo on the grass!"
That wasn't mine, but I'm sure that dog poo didn't mind being left alone either.

Night train to Croatia

Taking a night train to Rijeka. After we already took off, they told us that we'll have to change onto a bus in Ljubljana at 6 a.m. (and then travel to Rijeka on a bus for two hours!). I was very annoyed but my parents said they were picking us up at six and M fell asleep easily so I'm feeling better already. I'll use this rare opportunity of sharing the bed to get some cuddling time. 

Cream cheese phone

Like every other toddler, M also likes to pick random objects up and use them as a phone. Her latest "phone" was a piece of toast with cream cheese. Cream cheese all over her hair and face, and all she has to say is "Hallo".

3 a.m. wake ups

I have such a thoughtful husband. He worries about me all the time. I was sleeping deeply when J woke me up in the middle of the night to ask me literally: “Are you OK?". I'll try to wake him up tonight at 3 a.m. to check if he might be hungry. That's love and commitment.

Strudel face

A nice game of M pointing at different parts of my face turned into a game where M puts bits of strudel on my face and laughs at me.

Stuck in traffic

Even though we set off 45 minutes before M's music class when the GPS said we needed 6 minutes to get there, we ended up stuck in traffic for 70 minutes. So we missed the class and are at the moment picking flowers in a random neighbourhood which I drove into when M got hysterical. We deserve a cake and that's what we'll have.

First time sleeping through the night

M SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT! For the first time EVER! She's been in bed for 12 hours with absolutely no wake ups! And she's still asleep! And she's alive, I checked! 
If this continues, our quality of life is about to drastically improve - and I'll have to find something else to complain about.

Baby's with the grandparents

After 12 hours of unbroken sleep, I'm having a nice breakfast alone at noon. Plans for today - none yet. Thank you M, for being such a great kid and having absolutely no problem with spending a weekend away at your grandparents'.

Running doesn't count without an app

That shitty feeling when you go out for a jog and you're really excited to check your phone to find out how well you did, only to realise you forgot to start your running app. That weird feeling when you remember you used to run without a smartphone and it still made you feel good. And, finally, the feeling of shame when you realise that today's run doesn't count in your mind because it's not saved in your app and you can't think of it differently. 
Now I have to do it all over again. Shit. Cancel that conference call.

Pizza and beer for breakfast

Driving Mac and M to the daycare today was great. First they were laughing hysterically for at at least five minutes at Mac making silly noises and then Mac started shouting "Beer!" to which M replied with "Pizza!"- "Beer!", "Pizza!", "Beer!", "Pizza!" - I guess that's what they'll having for breakfast then. 

Mama wins at hide and seek. Always.

M's very bad at playing hide and seek. She's not terrible at finding me (especially when I hide behind the door) but when it's her turn to hide, she just stands in front of me while I count and laughs when I open my eyes to start searching. Even if I tried really hard to find shitty places to hide, there's no way she could win this game. Mama - 427, M - 0. 

Grumpy wedding anniversary

It's almost 4 a.m. and, because M's sick and can't sleep, I also only slept for half an hour so far. I'm going to be very grumpy tomorrow, M's going to be very grumpy tomorrow and if she doesn't fall asleep in 4 minutes, I'm waking J up so he'll also be (very) grumpy tomorrow. Knowing all this for a fact, I'd like to use this opportunity to wish my wonderful husband a very happy wedding anniversary. I love you and I wanted to publicly announce that before we all kill each other tomorrow.

First carnival party

Lara and M took Željka and me to a carnival party. 
M was supposed to be a panda but even though she knows nothing about animals, she wanted to apply make up herself. She also refused to wear her hood with a panda face so she pretty much looked like a toddler in pyjamas with a muddy face. Lara was a princess fairy.

Independent baby

M started the day today by going into the lounge on her own, finding and opening her Duplo and playing with it for half an hour ... while we were still lying in bed.

Learning Chinese

I just spent the last seven minutes of my life watching a youtube video on learning Chinese and repeating after the teacher. Those accents are difficult! Then I caught myself doing it and realised I had NO IDEA how or why I started doing it in the first place.

Throw the park into a bin!

M decided to throw all the sticks, rocks and grass from the park in the bin and we're not leaving until the whole park's in there. Except for a big stone that works perfectly as a phone.

Why not sleeping is good

So many positive things about a 16 month old toddler still not sleeping through the night! Here are just a random few: 
You get a great cardiovascular workout by getting out of bed every couple of hours; 
you exercise your patience by trying to calm down a wriggly toddler and stay calm yourself; 
you develop intellectually by reading in the middle of the night while waiting for your child to stop singing; 
you get to spend so much more time with your lovely precious baby who's growing up so fast; 
you have a constant source of inspiration for your Facebook statuses which bring you closer to your friends... 
Thank you, dear M, for not allowing me to waste my time on stupid stupid stupid sleep.

An afternoon at the lake

We managed to catch the last rays of sun at the lake. There was a homeless guy sitting on a bench, drinking a beer. People pretended not to see him and he stared at them, singing loudly and angrily as they walked past. He looked lonely so I smiled at him as we walked by. M probably did too because he gave her an embarrassed look and he didn't sing behind our backs. We also saw lots of ducks, swans and old people. M touched a few piles of dirty snow and then it was time to go home.

Awkward parking

That awkward moment when you smile at a neighbour on the street while you're parking and you accidentally hit the car behind you. That more awkward feeling when that car turns out to be your neighbour's.

I don't need a glass

M's new favourite ways of drinking water (or at least getting water in the proximity of her mouth): 
a) putting her hand in Klara's water bowl then licking the water off the hand and 
b) putting her water bottle in Klara's water bowl and trying to drink from it.

I don't need a spoon

I made a mistake when I served muesli to M this morning. She didn't want me to feed her but she almost immediately gave up on the spoon, so she was eating milk with her fingers. It was highly inefficient but it lasted for a while because she's quite stubborn. We switched to a banana after a while, but not soon enough.