January is slowly over

The last week in January was very slow for us, it's been raining since Monday, meaning we had no wish to go out for the first two days - it would be too slippery for both of us, on Wednesday we took a walk in the rain, not much fun, though, on Thursday I thought he would walk to the shop because we needed to get some food, but no, he was pointing at the stroller, so he went in it.

Today is Friday, the roads are totally snow-free and it's not raining (yet), so we're going to take a walk in the afternoon, if I feel like it, we might take a trip to the city centre to buy ring sling rings - hopefully they'll have size M, not L, which they have on their website. 

I've started to have my laptop off during his awake time because I got so tired of him requiring to watch youtube videos, but not being able to specify what he wants to watch...everything was "no, no", but if I turned it off, he started screaming. No need for such a pointless drama. I didn't become any more effective, no surprise there :), I just sit on the sofa or on the floor and watch him play or comment on what he wants me to comment on. He spent his days building from Lego Duplo (now I'd say it's a must to have it, thinking about getting him some other building kits like Magformers), playing with his train (doing crashes) and jumping around...that's pretty much it...not very productive either. 

On Wednesday evening I put him to sleep in his own bed. He slept there from 8pm till 3:30am with one feeding at 10:30 pm (when I went to sleep) and then he was up for another two hours. So much fun. So yesterday's day rhythm was ruined, he fell asleep at 10pm, refused to be put to his own bed and generally didn't sleep well with me either. So today I put him in his own bed for a daynap. I seriously have to read something on the topic because I do want him to sleep in his own bed. Not to mention it doesn't make much difference in the distance between us.

Potty-training instead of peeing into the sink is going well - he pees in the potty during the day without any protests, soon I want to try to persuade him to poop in there, too. That's going to be a challenge.

Except for just chilling on the sofa or on the floor, I am very determined to learn how to knit, I have managed to learn the basics technically, but the stitches are not simply the same and it starts to frustrate me. I want to make a perfect blanket for our daughter. 

Totally the first try

Aaand he's up because he's in his own bed...a 30-minute nap...I'm wondering how long will the accustoming take and if I will keep sane in the process...He's back on my back trying to make him sleep a bit more.

How to punish a toddler

Take him downhill sledding :)

Waiting for public transport to take us closer to some hills as we have none near our home.

It was snowing, the wind was blowing, the temperature was a bit below zero, it was Sunday so the dad was home- meaning a perfect opportunity to give a try to downhill sledding :)

At the beginning of the trip, Teodor fell twice from the sled, both times with his face in the snow. I was surprised he was still ok to sit on the sled afterwards.

It was a really nice family trip, a little bit too much walking in the deep snow for me (it was more of a walking than sledding down because SOMEBODY didn't seem to be thrilled to go down), but it's great to know we have hills only 10 mins by bus from our place. 

Even though he was only sitting on the sled, he looked pretty worn-out afterwards

Making most out of it

Teodor's sleeping schedule totally doesn't support my projects because he falls asleep too late for me to feel like doing something afterwards or he just decides to move his daynap to late afternoon, which disrupts his night-sleep (like I slept about 6 hours this night because he was constantly waking up, ok, it might be also because one of his molar might erupt)...Anyway, yesterday I started to feel very unproductive and decided to do something about it, mostly because I wanted to feel good about myself.

At first I wanted to write an extensive post in Czech about Teodor's favourite books...but Blogger started to turn the photos as it wanted and I just couldn't deal with re-rotating them as I haven't found "rotate" function directly in Blogger platform. So I dumped the idea and was really annoyed because taking pictures took me most of his late afternoon nap.

So in the evening, in the effort of being productive, I attached the hat to the doll. Now I have to decide about her body, if to stuff it or not...
I'm kinda proud of myself I figured out how to attach it, so the stitches are not visible.

And today I learned how to knit, well, how to start. It took me half an hour, several re-playing the youtube tutorial video, but I made it...Exactly at the moment I figured it out, Teodor woke up from his nap. Great timing.

There is a very little chance I will finish the doll and the blanket before our daughter is born, if I do, I'll be thrilled. 

Talking about what I want to achieve before our baby girl is born, there are three areas I want to work on with Teodor:

• potty-training - he is sink-trained, today, after many months, he was willing to sit on the potty and he peed in it twice. Hope this is going to work out. 
• self-feeding - if he likes the food, he's willing to eat with his hands....The most important thing I'd love to teach him is how to bite off a piece of something.
• sleeping in his own bed - that's the biggest challenge of all, I'm too lazy to sleep in between our and his bed, I hate him waking up more than once at night (once per night is becoming quite usual)..

Oh, and he's in a total daddy phase, I love it. The dad can do anything without him protesting, he even agreed on going to sleep with him today, meaning I got my free evening. Wish the dad was home more often, so I could get more time off. 

The boy with a pink buggy

Teodor is well-known in our neighbourhood as the boy with the motorbike. When we got the snow, all those old ladies we always meet asked him where his motorbike was. As he couldn't ride his motorbike, it was quite difficult to think of a way how to make him walk on the new surface, so Charlie would get a descent afternoon walk. Finally yesterday he came up with a solution, he asked to take his buggy out, which he loaded with cars and it was a really good idea. 

At the beginning he was moving with the speed of light, as we were getting further, he was slowing down but still, he was moving forward, more or less :) I think he likes the fact he can use the stroller as a support even though it doesn't provide much, in my opinion. I also realized yesterday how much challenging it is for him to walk on the snow. 

He is also very interested in snowdrifts but he hates the snow on his shoes. Charlie also loves snowdrifts but he doesn't care if there's any snow on him :) I'm quite curious how the relationship with the snow is going to progress within winter...

Bead stringing

Today he's finally learned how to string beads...I would have never believed how many steps are involved in the process :)

Play-doh

A few days ago I finally got him play-doh. I didn't expect it but the consistence is very nice and it's very pleasant to work it with, definitely much more than the modelling clay I remember from my childhood (and definitely more than the Stockmar modelling beeswax - well, no surprise there, he's simply too young for it).
The day he got it, he only made a tower out of the storage cups. The next day, I decided we should give it a try and we did. It entertained him for more than an hour! He was a bit wild afterwards, but I guess that's what happens if you focus for too long and need to use up your energy.

First we tried printing with shapes for baking Christmas sweets, I tried to teach him how to make a ball out of the clay - more challenging than one would ever thought, and then I brought his Schleich animals and we tried to make prints of their feet. He loved to play with the cat. he was putting it on and down and on and down...

Challenge accepted - make a ball :)

Rolling is also quite a work

Printing

Playing with the cat...

Mother-friendly pouring activity