Last Indian summer days

The last few weeks were unusually sunny. I mostly remember autumns in Estonia being cold and rainy. What a nice change, right? 

Just a cute picture from our morning walk.

Going grilling for the first time.

No interest in the fire, his motorbike and the water nearby were far more interesting

Autumn in our neighbourhood

We took a lot of motorbike trips

We tried to do most out of the weather...today, there were puddles outside. HE WAS SO HAPPY! I mean seriously happy, I felt moved watching him go...and thought every parent should get a rubber clothes for their tot and let them enjoy the water. No pictures, though, I am not very good at bringing my camera or phone with. I guess he likes the rainy weather far more than the sun.

Somebody doesn't like his hands getting dirty :)

What we're thinking for Christmas

Christmas is a whole topic for me because we (parents) come from a different cultural and social backgrounds, so it is kind of a challenge for us to make new Christmas traditions for Teodor as I would like it to be a magic time for him (dad doesn't care that much about it, so it's more or less up to me). But this might be a topic of another post when it will become more actual...now it's on the bottom of my to-do-list.

The presents, on the other hand, make my brain quite busy. We dumped the idea of getting him a play kitchen, contrary to the fact he would probably enjoy it we decided not to buy it because we simply don't have space for it. I guess we would be able to squeeze it somewhere but we recently realized baby no. 2 will need some space, too. We might get him a portable wooden cooker or maybe he can just use a chair as a stove. 

We do not want to over-do it with presents, last year he got 2 and it was just perfectly enough, this year we're thinking of max. 4. A limited amount of presents is quite a pressure because you have to choose carefully. So this is what we're thinking now, the list is not definite yet and probably won't be till the last days before Christmas Eve.

Rocking board

Available at vippa.ee. Seems like a genial toy, you can rock on it, you can sit on it, you can make a slide out of it, you can have it as a bridge for your cars, or a house for your dwarfs...The only con is "do we have enough of space for it?"

Lego Duplo

We have already bought both of these two sets...the question is which one to give him. The other one he'll get for his 2nd birthday. I am pretty sure he would love the figures from the first box and cars from the second one. We'll see where his building skills are heading, if more to concrete stuff, he'll get the first box, if it'll be more arbitrary, then the second one. 

Grimm's

Not sure which one, more probably the sorting bowls...or maybe both? 

Cat Mini Machines Set

This is what his dad wants to get him and that's totally ok, I am pretty sure he's going to love it the most out of all presents, yay for rrrrrrrr :)

Mess

I have been wondering lately when and how it happened that our living room is always a mess. 

Don't get me wrong, I am not a neat person, I do not take any pleasure in cleaning (I do enjoy clean, organized, neat spaces, but things get dirty/messy again, so there is no need to over-do it :)), but it used to be like he would be playing with one thing, then put it back (either me or him) and generally his play-space was always neat and organized even if the rest of the apartment wasn't. 

I see a few reasons for it: He plays much more without me sitting around keeping him a company, so there is nobody to remind him to put it back. He sometimes seems to want to have more things out, not sure why. Probably he thinks he might want to play with it later. Third reason, not very probable - he likes chaos. :) 

He definitely knows where the things go, occasionally he puts his stuff back, sometimes if I ask him, he would do it, sometimes (more often lately) he would say "no". So I do it instead of him, I believe in setting examples rather than pushing him. I also think I should improve my own cleaning after myself to be a good example. 

You know you are a busy mother when you find out that the shows you were watching last autumn (I kept watching only 2 in spring) are already in-season and many of them are airing already 4th episode. I became a tv show watcher only in Estonia and it seems like those times are over...toddlers are a great addiction cure :)

Birds

I couldn't believe it. He knows all the birds by their name. I mean he knows those, he always points at and I sometimes name them, sometimes we just say "a bird" - he has always been saying "bird", so I never suspected him knowing the names...until today. I casually asked him where a "puffin" was. And he knew. Mouth open. So I asked him about a baby ostrich. Again, he pointed at it. Then I got a camera and made this video. I'm seriously impressed and thinking that I have to learn all the beetles' names because I know like half of them which are in this book. 

18 months old

Last Tuesday he turned 18 months. I haven't done any overview of what he can do in a while but this feels like a milestone, so here it goes:

He has 4 teeth so far.
The biggest surprise of the week: He can throw all the shapes in the shape sorter - it came totally out of the blue because he didn't play with it for a while and suddenly he was doing it.
He can go up and down the stairs without holding, especially when he has full hands or is chasing pigeons (in the city centre)
He can do those one piece wooden puzzles and also two-piece puzzles.
He loves reading books, signing and making sounds.
He loves to play with his cars and train.
He loves loves loves the dog, he is his most favourite toy, he would like to fall asleep cuddled with him but Charlie is a jerk who doesn't like it.
He loves to stamp and draw.
He loves to ride his motorbike and run outside and jump from curbs.
He loves to rock on his rocking horse.
He loves to play with his bead mazes.
He loves to build towers.
He likes to throw coins to the pig (coin box).
He enjoys learning different parts of bodies (he now knows that a duck has a beak, dogs/cat have muzzle, etc.), he also is interested in part of cars.
He also likes throwing balls, especially to Charlie.
He can wash his head.
He can open his zips and take of his jacket with a little bit of a help. He can't do much of self-care because I don't pay much attention to it.
He still doesn't sleep through the night, he still nurses at night and during the day. He can't fall asleep on his own.