Jam's not on the table

On Sunday mornings I get up with the Kid and make pancakes. Usually too many to be eaten right away, so leftovers are available on the kitchen table.
Today, while Kid was sleeping, parents were playing video games. At one point we hear little feet coming down the stairs and stopping in the kitchen to pick up a pancake on their way to us.
After eating the first, fetching and finishing second, he's going for the third and I just tell him to brig the whole stack. Which he does. And then remembers about jam. "Jam's on the table!" He announces and is off to the kitchen. In a sec we hear in a low and quite disappointed voice "Jam's not on the table."

Gravity assisted pooping

2 weeks ago got a joyful message from Mom, that the Kid pooped in the potty for the first time. Ok, cool. Try doing it at home. Succeeded a week later. After torturing him for an hour and then a promise of ice cream. For the whole next day he walked around boasting to every body about it. Even woke up at night and announced it out loud, before falling back asleep.
But that was pretty much last of it. Except one time afterwards, where she convinced him to try doing it and he almost succeeded. Even ice cream doesn't help. Catching in process and putting down just stops the whole procedure. I guess he's not entirely ready yet.

Woo, another entry about pooping!

German children are kind[l]er

I read quite a bit. Lately not so much, because the Kid and other hobbies leave little time for reading, but I do still read. A few years ago got myself Amazon Kindle, got sick and tired of carrying books around on my trips; seemed like a comfortable alternative. And it is comfy - easy to buy books, when you finish one, battery life is good, et cetera. But this time it's less about books, more about kids, right?
So, today I found my Kindle on the desk, instead of usual place by the bed. I've noticed, that the Kid every now and then pushes some buttons, but never actually managed to turn it on before (power button is quite small on the side). Until today. I turn my Kindle on and I see successful purchase page. Some sort of bestseller, I guess from the front page of the store. Category: Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Fiction > Romance > Gay. Not that I mind, ratings are good, but it might not be quite my cup of tea. Well, 10 bucks spent, lesson learned. At least it wasn't some 400$ highly-specific and from highly-unrelated field. And I'll start getting Gay book recommendations. And, probably, my ad-network statistics are quite effed up now as well.

Morale of the story: keep your connected devices password-protected. Especially, if they allow one-click purchases.

Floor beats diaper any day.

Kid has been asking and actually peeing in potty for maybe half a year now. Taught him to take his pants and underwear off before doing his thing. He even has learned to control his urges for a while (meaning, that he could ask for potty and actually hold it in for some time, up to maybe a couple of minutes).
This week he has started to pee in his pants. I blame myself and local swimming pool. The thing is, that they have a playroom, which we visit after the swimming session, so he can dry down a bit. Playroom is located outside their "paid zone" (pools, slides, dressing rooms and bathrooms), which are gated off and accessible only by using key+token provided. So it seems, that once you're out, you're out. Since kid swallows a lot of water during our swimming practices, he pees often and a lot afterwards. So, to avoid him peeing himself and then going home in winter (it can hit down to -30' C around here) with wet clothes, I put a diaper on him. And every time he asked for potty in the playroom, I explained, that there's no potty available and you have a diaper so you can pee in your pants. Apparently, it stuck. Now he just pees in his pants even at home when he does not have a diaper. Damn, that's one huge step back.

Morale of the story: once you have thought your kid to go potty, don't revert back to diapers. Let him pee just on the floor, or teach to hold it in for a while longer (you'll be surprised for how long they can actually do it), but don't tell your kid "just pee in your pants". This shit sticks.

Keep on rolling, baby

Went to visit in-laws. They have a huge bed for us, where all three of us sleep. Last night kid was put to bed the usual time. Since there are no side walls on that bed (unlike kid's bed) and parents weren't limiting him, he eventually rolled out of it. Drop could be heard pretty well on the whole floor. Luckily, carpet was quite soft and cushioned the fall.

Hold the door!

Last night was one long and tiring evening. Well, not for me, but mostly for the old lady. She spent 2 hours dealing with the kid who's now actively is testing and pushing borders. Chatting, humming, walking around, playing and generally entering himself, while mummy can't wait to have her free couple of hours. At one point she came downstairs and told that she can't do it anymore. I went upstairs and kid started crying and chanting "mommy no want, mommy no want.." Not sure whether it was "no want daddy, want mummy" or "mummy no want me". Jeez i hope it was former.
Today I'm putting him to bed and he's chanting: "dear child please shut your mouth and go to sleep. Dear child, please shut your mouth and go to sleep..." Creepy as hell. Sometimes his evening chants remind me of Hodor from "Game of thrones" and make me hope we haven't fucked him up too much already.

Round and round it goes

We have this local family-friendly shopping mall which used to just give out free fruit to each visiting child. But now the have added also a free mini carousel. I've been sitting here (next to it) for 20 minutes already and don't see an end to it yet.  He just keeps on jumping from animal to animal. Wouldn't be such a bad way of spending my day, if not for the music

I, myself and me

Now is the "I will do that MYSELF" period. Just started. Whatever you do, there's this magic word "myself". But only those things he knows he can do, like wash hands, put something somewhere or eat. Nothing like that with getting dressed. And if he does not succeed, he rages.

Another fancy word is "own". As in "my own". Although this one is not that popular. When drying hands, he needs his own towel, for example.

One, two, three, six

They went away for a couple of days to visit in-laws again. Kid is much more expressive now. Not only he has picked up quite a few words, he also now uses exclamation phrases, such as "wow", "ehh" and some other, more language specific. Plus, noticed that he counts steps while walking down the stairs. I guess mental growth is full on.

Age is relative

Wherever you go and whoever you talk to, when the kid is around, somebody will always ask: "How old is he/she?" And this is a tricky question to answer. People, who don't have kids and haven't dealt with them much, don't realize, how much a week, even a day or two might make a difference.
There are two ends of the spectrum, as much as I have seen - people who obsess with telling everybody exactly how old their kid is, and people who round it to some closest year of half-a-year.

Non-parents don't get the first type of people, as in "Why does it matter, if the kid is a one-year-old or 13 months old?" And most of them ask just out of politeness, they don't actually want to know, that you've just stopped breastfeeding, or that kid started to use a spoon. Even if they would want to know, the development cycles and speeds of children differ so much, that they are virtually incomparable. So, why bother? It just annoys people.

On the other hand, if you tell, that kid is a one-year-old, they might expect something, that is not there yet. Or has long passed.

As a recent parent, I do understand both camps and try to take a golden mid-route - tell approximate age and go into details only if a person shows interest. As in

Them(T): "ohh, blablabla, how old is he?"
Me (M):"he's one" (been saying that for last half a year)
T: "Oh, then he should knows this and can do that"?
M: "Sure, he started doing it almost a year ago (rounding 8 months up a bit)
T: "How come? A 4 months old can't do that just yet"

And then the explanations can begin, that he's been doing it since age of 8 months and actually right now he's 16 months old.

But most of the people don't care. It's just a little kid. For us a week brings yet another weekend, while for the kid a week means a difference in whether he can pee in the pot or count or neither.

Stove be hot!

Last couple of weeks have been filled with rage and desperation. Trying to protect the kid from hurting himself with all the dangerous but fun stuff in the kitchen.
The Lady is a bit more towards theory, while I have more practical approach. Instead of "don't! don't! don't!" I say "do it faggot!" while hanging around to save in case of heavy emergency. Hot stove surface thought him pretty quickly, that it's not a place for playing. 10 minutes of crying and 2 hours of red hand later he dares not touch it anymore. Also learned the word for it, if only in his own language: "uuuuuuuuuuuu!". Now everything's "uuuuu!" - food, drinks, bath water, you name it.

Climbing to the top of the world

Quite a while ago (actually, I think it was soon after he learned to walk), he figured out, that he can push a chair around the master bedroom and then climb that to access all the higher interesting places, such as desk and drawer tops.
Funnily enough, it took him almost half a year to realize, that he can apply the same in the kitchen. Now the hell began with playing in the sink, knife wielding and stove-top touching.
We have managed to teach him, that playing with knives might lead to pain ("ow ow!"), but, I guess, he hasn't connected the notion of "pain" with actual pain. So every time he has a knife within his reach, he definitely will grab it and run around with it shouting "ow ow!". Good, that he knows.

Walk walk walk

For the first two weeks they both were in a hospital. At first maternity ward for a week (standard procedure) and then in an actual children's hospital. Some blood toxin levels high or something. Turned out to be nothing, just a leftover from stressful birth.

Now that they are both home, new life and new routines may begin. At first I woke up every time he cried for food, but over time got used to it and now I mostly sleep through the night without remembering those wake-ups.
It is said, that fresh air is good for babies, so I'm having long walks every day. Throw the kid into the carriage aaaand off we go for a couple of hours. Luckily the weather is fine and a supply of podcasts is quite sufficient. At a normal pace can cover 12-15 kilometers in a go, turns out to be a quite nice exercise.

Otherwise we are quite lucky. Some say that parenting is mostly talking about crap (literally), but at first it's more about farting. Wouldn't have even suspected, that such a natural thing as flatulence is actually an acquired skill. Our little dude learned it early on and is farting like a machine gun. Some acquaintances are complaining that their babies are crying due to stomach pains, which arise from inability to release inner pressure buildup.

Since we are trying to be more or less eco-friendly, we decided to go with reusable cloth diapers. Basically, a swath of cotton cloth (kinda like cheesecloth) folded into groin-width strip held together with teethed rubber bands and wrapped around in water(wee)tight "pants". He goes through some 10-12 a day (sometimes more), that would make ~350 a month or over 4000 a year. Multiply that by 2-2.5 years kids can't hold their stuff in, you get roughly 10 000 diapers. At 300g each, that would be 3 metric tons of that absorbent gel + plastic which might outlive the person themselves. Think about it. Instead we have a bit under 30 of them and wash them every or every other day. The inconvenience of washing and folding them is pretty minor.