one, two, three

Bath time is Hugo's favorite moment of the day, he feels in the bath like a little diver, loves splashing water and pouring from one bowl into another.
Last Sunday, he shocked us so much that we were looking at him with eyes wide open.
As usual, he took his plastic bowl and starting pouring one from the small one into a bigger one, but this time he also started counting from one to five. I'd heard him doing this before but in no order at all, it'd seemed that those were just words for him carrying not much sense, until last Sunday. He started with ONE and got to FIVE without any trouble, we looked at each other surprised but that was not the end. He carried on counting precisely pouring water and saying SIX, SEVEN (our eyes were getting bigger and bigger), EIGHT (we even opened our mouth in astonishment) NINE...
He looked at us proudly and both my husband and I were at a loss for words for a few seconds, then I managed to say: You're my little prodigy;)) and gave him a big hug and kiss. Daddy commented: You can count to nine in English but only to five in Polish?? Let's learn to count to nine also in Polish;)

I know now that all those situations when I was counting boxes, steps, socks, pegs etc. made Hugo remember numbers in the right order;)

Mommy, be good;)

Picture this:
whenever I leave home, I always tell my son that I'll be back and that he's staying with his daddy, granny or Magda, then I give him a kiss and tell him to be good. Nothing unusual or extraordinary someone will say, maybe not, but last Sunday before leaving for lectures at university I put on my boot and coat, kissed Hugo and said: Bye bye, sonny, I love you! but before I even finished the sentence, he looked at me with his big blue eyes and said with a smile: MOMMY, BE GOOD;))
My husband and I were so astonished and amused that we couldn't help laughing; Hugo made me smile all the way to Poznań and today he said the same to daddy when he was going out: Daddy, be good!

He really gives us so much joy;)

questions

Questions are the key to communication, without them it would be impossible to learn new things or extend our vocabulary. The same is true for children.
Yet, it's not only about asking questions it's about asking the right questions which stimulate a child to think or utter some words.
Let me give you an example: When I want Hugo to drink something I say: Would you like something to drink? then he usually answers: Yes. The next step is the choice of drink; I never ask him: What would you like to drink? because then he could start inventing things so I teach him to make choices and say: Would you like  tea or juice? (Giving a limited choice is still A CHOICE but it saves parents' trouble of satisfying the endless list of kids wishes;)) Now he can say the words tea or juice; yet, before I simply showed him tea and juice and asked: This or this? In this way, I managed to kill two birds with one stone because I taught him to make decisions related to his needs and stimulated him to speak. If I had simply asked him: Would you like tea? he wouldn't have had to think and he would only say Yes or No.

For us the tactic of asking open questions (those beginning with Who?, what?, why?, whose? etc.)  worked prefectly and proved very effective.
P.S. It also works well for all learners of English, it stimulates them to speak, my students always know that there is the magic follow-up question WHY?

snow**************

Winter this year seems to be endless. I get the impression that it's not gonna leave us...
and it's not really about the road services that are always surprised as if winter was in July or August, it's not even about the low temperatures, because today it's not that bad...
maybe, it's just me-I love spring and can't wait for it.

Still my son seems to enjoy this state of affairs, the snow outside and his lovely red jacket;)
He can spend some time with his nose almost glued to the window saying: Mommy, snowing; Mommy snow. Then he runs to the door takes his winter jacket and says: Put on;)

Most of the time, I do give in, put it on and take him out sleighing. If only he didn't get tears in his beautiful blue eyes when we're outside; I guess that's because of wind and white snow glittering in the sun.

Hope that next week we'll enjoy the warm spring sun and we'll have forgotten about winter;)

alphabet

Recently, I've bought for our son a really useful toy-a wooden alphabet board, which despite presenting letters also has objects associated with them. Once he got it, he got down to taking out the elements and carefully looking at the pieces. Without any problems he was able to put the proper piece into the right slot.

Having seen his joy doing this, I decided to accompany him and read the letter to him along with the picture for it; so it was like: A is for an astronaut, B is for a bear, C is for a cow...
He enjoyed it even more and at the end he was able to name a few letters,; now even when he's eating a cooking in the shape of W or M he's examining the cooking carefully and saying: Mommy, this is M. Then, when i put the letter upside down he goes: This is W.

You may think I'm crazy, but I believe only in educational toys and so I try to take an advantage of any situation to teach our Little Prince various things. For sure, it'll be beneficial in the future.

socks

Washing is one of our sonny's favorite activity. He's always liked it because even when he was a few months old I used to take him out to hang out the washing with me-his role was to give me pegs. Now, his role has changed a little bit and he helps me collect dry clothes. This is both a great way to teach him housework-his wife one day will have a real helper at home;)) and a funny way to teach him names of different clothing items and the possessive-because I always ask him: Whose is it? and then he goes: Hugo's socks, Daddy's T-shirt and so on.
Today, as always, he assisted me but what's more he helped me pair socks and I realized how quickly he was able to find the same socks out of maybe 12 different pairs with various patterns. Again involving him was enjoyable for both of us and he learned the notion of: the same and different. I'm so proud of him;)

babysitter;)

A few days ago, Hugo stayed for the first time with his new babysitter. So far my parents had been looking after him, but for some time they won't be able to do it, so we needed to find someone to replace them and so we did.
Magda is a friendly and caring person who agreed to come to our house and be with Hugo. It's very convenient for us since we don't need to take Hugo anywhere. He's in his own house, with his own toys.
At the beginning I was apprehensive about his reaction, but surprisngly it wasn't so bad;))

On the second day, however, he decided to test how much he could manipulate her. When she forbade him something he wrinced his face, but when even this didn't help, he came up with another idea. He took her hand and led her to the front door...;) I was amazed when she told me this after my return. Now I know he can really communicate his needs;)

hard night;(

Last night turned out to be quite hard for all of us. Surprisingly, Hugo woke up at least 10 times and moaned so I needed to get up and go to him, stroke and calm him down. He wasn't crying really, he was just restless and when my stroking didn't help dummy was useful. Yes, the dummy without which he managed to fall asleep last night, so my victory changed into a defeat...

In the morning, however, he woke up as usual a little before 7am, just as if nothing had happened, not even tried, as opposed to me;))

This only goes to show how adaptable children are;) adaptable and brilliant, again when I came back he greeted me with his disarming smile, grabbed my hand and ordered: Mommy take off boots and going.

Without much resistance, I gave in and followed him blindly;)) to his toy land.

Now, he's taking his afternoon snooze and I have some time to tidy...
 

victory;)

Today, first time Hugo managed to fall asleep without the dummy;)
A dummy is the kind of gadget that I didn't want our sonny to use, but I failed. Just after labor, still in hospital, we coped without it, but having returned home I wasn't so determined and at times he used it, but only when he was falling asleep or when we needed to calm him down after he fell over, for instance.

Whenever I saw him with the dummy I didn't enjoy the view, but the rule was that it was only allowed before falling asleep. We even had this saying ' When with mummy, we don't use the dummy'-nice rhyme, isn't it;))

Today, having brushed his teeth, as usual he asked for the dummy or 'dubby doo' as he used to call it;) but I ignored it and continued reading his bedtime story in a very monotonous way; I read one book, then another one and managed to persuade him to lie down on his duvet.

Finally, my monotonous voice made him go to sleep without crying or the dummy. This my victory for today-I wonder what tomorrow will bring;)

By the way, I recently rediscovered this lovely American equivalent for 'a dummy' which is 'a pacifier' what a suggestive name;).

spinning world

I get the feeling that the world is spinning and I'm losing control of what's going on. Days go by so fast that I don't know where a week begins or ends. Unfortunately, because of this, I lack time I could spend on playing with Hugo or going out when it's our part of the day. I do hope that after the weekend it's going to be much better as I'll have sorted out some things.
As for Hugo and his progress, now we're doing lots of puzzles and his favorite is the one with letter of alphabet and some of them he can already recognize. The toy itself is useful as it has letters accompanied by pictures of animals or objects to make it more memorable. I do recommend it ;)

jealous;)

For the first time, Hugo demonstrated how jealous he can be...
Picture this:
During our visit at my parents-in-law, my husband held his 4 months old nephew, Matti in his arms. Nothing special, you could think, but Hugo's reaction to this shocked everybody. He simply burst into tears and continued crying untill my husband handed Matti over to his mum. No explanations helped, no hugging or drawing his attention to something else.
Believe me, I was really taken aback. What's more, after this little incident, Hugo followed his daddy everywhere and unfortunately no one could separate them for almost half an hour.

A similar thing happened to me on Saturday when I came back form studies after having been away for a day and a half. The moment I entered the house, our sonny took my hand and didn't want to let it go, didn't want to let me take off my boots or coat. I know he missed me, just  as I missed him;) ;)

Litlle rebel;)

It's been hard, for over an hour I've been trying to make him snooze without success...
Having completed the usual ritual, I was hoping to have some time to do my homework for studies, yet Hugo has other plans. He's in bed lying, talking to himself, counting and repeating the phrases from books, he's incredible, really, full of beans since 5am.... I can't believe he is only 18 months.