The Leon Thesaurus

The biggest advances Leon has made lately are in expressing his thoughts and commenting on everything he sees. He has quite a complex system of using only a few words with different intonations to describe a wide range of phenomena. For example:

"Peeh" means what you think it would but also "push" (whether a stroller or a button) and also fork (from the Slovak word "pich," which means poke)

"Amaa" is his name for Grandma but he generously applies it to Grandpa also :). Oddly, that is also his word for helicopter. Actually, it is not that odd, considering that Dari points out the government helicopters we frequently see overhead as having Obama in them, sometimes multiple Obamas, depending on how many helicopters there are. So I think that's where Leon got it. DC baby, what can I say.

"baby" means baby but Leon also refers to all yogurts with that word because the brand he usually gets has a picture of a yogurt-eating baby on it. This results in some interesting statements on my end, such as "Leon, I'm sorry, you can't have a baby, you ate them all already and we have to go to the store to get some more."

"Daah" is what he says for Dari (and Daddy, but that is understandable). Everything was Daah, however, when Dari left for a week in Kentucky and Leon was really missing him. Dari's chair, cup, toys, shoes, everything. He even insisted that the little boy we saw at the airport wearing jammies like Dari's WAS Dari, and he made me walk over there and say hi. Too cute. This is how happy he was to see his big brother again (blurry because Dari was excited too and was rocking him on his knees)!

He also has one word for all opposites. So he says "open" when he wants something both open, and closed. This was a bit of an issue when we were on the plane to Vienna and he wailed about wanting his seatbelt open and open and open, no matter its actual status. The key fact to note here, however, is that Leon had his OWN seat belt. I was feeling adventurous when I was making the flight reservations and did NOT get Leon a ticket, taking advantage of likely the last trip where he could be a lap child. I was not completely oblivious to how difficult this might be and so I very strategically selected / paid to reserve seats on the plane that would make this doable (there is some extra space in economy class, if you know where to look for it). However, a check-in employee who thought he was being helpful moved us from those seats, which left me in a slight state of panic as we were about to board and I realized this. The Lufthansa manager was very nice about this though, and Leon either charmed or scared her into upgrading the lady who was seated next to us to 1st class and so the flight was MUCH more comfortable for all involved. Thank you, Austrian. Here is Leon sleeping in his bonus space, all buckled in with a new glowing baby and stuffed bear that he got for early Christmas from Daddy and my friend Sarah, respectively.

This would be practically impossible on any U.S. airline, as we all know. EXCEPT Southwest, who we flew to KY for Thanksgiving (that was a lot of fun for Leon, see video links at the bottom). Their free seating arrangement let us basically grab an extra seat, after getting a permission at check-in, when it was clear the flight would not be completely full. Nice, right? Ok, those are all the airline endorsements I can offer. Besides these satisfied and / or plain shocked looks from our lucky traveler:

We also tried to take advantage of the high density of humans on the flight to finally nail down the difference between man and woman but Leon is still leaning towards referring to most people as ladies. To be fair, there was a man with a pony tail right across the aisle from us... Leon even got his own lecture from Dari about this, who tried to painstakingly convince his little brother that Mr. Rogers is, indeed, a man (Uyo) and not a lady (teta). It was very funny to watch and also kind of awesome because they were totally having a conversation.

http://youtu.be/G1k7vM1ZKAc

http://youtu.be/RXpeVB6HZ00

Halloween

This was Leon's first Halloween when he was a bit aware of what was going on, although thoroughly perplexed by it all. He was not sure why we were putting bat ears on him (for excessive cuteness, of course), why random people were giving him candy, why some of them were wearing masks and crazy outfits, and why the candy he got had to be in these silly (and seemingly edible) wrappers.We had to do a dry / acclimation run for those ears the night before the school parade because Leon was not a big fan of dress-up at first. Sweeping with a big broom proved to be enough of a distraction to overcome that obstacle.

After trick-or-treating, Leon saw Dari getting into all the candy and got the idea very quickly. He grabbed a package of rolos and basically just took a bite, chewing on the paper infused in chocolate, seemingly very satisfied with the taste :). This is also a fun variation on a Halloween video with did with Dari.

http://youtu.be/QOYBfAs3U44

Leon has been enjoying the outdoors - our day at the pumpking patch was gorgeous.

Outside of Halloween, Leon was going for his daily walks with Bimba while she was here and spent a lot of time at the park. Below you can see him making the sign for "more" - as in, stop taking those pictures and swing me already!

We also got to spend a bonus day with Bimba, because upon arriving at the airport she was offered to volunteer getting bumped of her overbooked flight for about half the price of a ticket. The best of both worlds right? The only catch was that we had to wait for her to go to the plane and back (so they could see if they would actually need her seat - they did ;)), so we entertained ourselves for about an hour and a half at the airport. Both boys were really good about it and even humored me for this photo op! My favorite carry-on and personal item :).

Half Birthday :)

Baby Leon just turned 18 months. We could say that he has now reached the "toddler adulthood" and can vote, fight for his country, and drive (in Europe...). He thinks so.

On voting, he has been getting much more vocal in voicing his opinions. Sometimes I offer him some snack or a sippy cup and he will walk up from across the room only to push it aside and say "no!" very decisively. Because, you know, just saying it from where he was might not make the vote count ;). These days he can also be very picky about the books we read, emphasizing any disapproval with a well-practiced "no!" Finally, Leon has some strong preferences about the clothes he likes to wear. Whenever I put a shirt on him, he checks the sleeves right away to examine the pattern, partly to approve and partly to just come up with something he could comment on (like "lions" "cars" or "stripes!"). The other night, he made me pull out the jammies with fire trucks and put them on him, even though officially they are labeled 9-12 months and are more than a tad small - I just did not get around to reorganizing his drawer. In a related story, once we got his winter shoes in the mail and tried them on, he would NOT let me take them off. I even had to put them back over the same footed firetruck pajamas after changing him at bed time. It took some serious maneuvering to avoid having him wear them to bed too. The next morning, the FIRST thing he said when I walked in his room was "shoes, shoes" and I had to put them back on. At that point I had to take these pictures :). In the last one he is asking to check out the camera, which
he calls "cheese" :).

 
On battles, his personality just does is not very combative, which is great for playing with Dari. However, he will fight pretty fiercely for his right to stay awake or sit on the surface of his choice, no matter how high up and potentially dangerous. To be fair, he sees Dari break non-climbing rules periodically and it is just too tempting. Unfortunately, he is also expanding his arsenal of weapons and although we have yet to enter full out tantrum territory, he now takes careful note of all (to him) favorable precedents and will remind everyone of what it is he wants, often quite loudly and persistently.

On driving, Leon has diverse preferences when it comes to vehicles. Last week his daycare organized a fundraiser "Trike-a-thon," where the kids circled around a park riding their bikes. Leon opted for pushing a toy baby stroller (sans baby) that time. However, he is also into pushing our big stroller and Dari is more than happy to switch roles with his baby brother on that. In an entertaining display of some serious resourcefulness, Leon tipped over the office trash can the other day and rode it like a horse (complete with horse sounds)!

Finally, to celebrate his 18-month birthday, we repeated the "Cheerio test" that we did with Dari when he was about this age. Here is the video capturing Leon's effort to get to a cereal puff, the desired cognitive leap resting in turning the bottle over, rather than just shaking it or trying to fish the puff out (amazingly, for Leon this unfolded in precisely the three steps it took Dari to figure it out - see here: http://babydarian.blogspot.sk/2012/02/valentines-and-cheerios.html). Homo Sapiens test passed ;). Happy half birthday to our favorite baby human!

http://youtu.be/i1PfdUJuSNo

Learning

Leon has been making strides in learning about the world. These are very visible and often hilarious. First of all, we are learning a couple of new words every day, and I know that his vocabulary (or rather the ability to pronounce all the language he already understands and processes) is about to explode. So far, we are mostly at one-word observations. For example, Leon has learned to say "WOW!" and it can be pretty funny to see what impresses him. So far, the winner in general impressiveness is breakfast, specifically the Slovak variety of cream of wheat (decorated with a smiley face ;). He'll keep saying wow until he finally can't because he has to start eating it. Leon also has a few key phrases. One such phrase is "no more" which he basically uses to fine tune his use of "all done." He pronounces it as either a toddler or a rapper would: "No mo' " - if that is how you spell it. Leon also uses "no mo' " to inform me that there is no more (breast)milk - which alone is entertaining because he says it kind of matter of factly but with a tone of surprise and expectation. Yes, he can pack a lot of expression into his little voice. The other night he took the no-more-milk thought a step further and when he saw a toy cow, complete with udders, he pointed at her and said "no mo' " - so apparently there is not enough milk anywhere in this world ;).

Leon is doing great at his daycare and really enjoying all the fun the teachers plan for them. We get a biweekly schedule of everything they do and I found the most recent one especially entertaining and even inspiring when I saw the "inclement weather activities." It went like this: Rocking back and forth on the rocking chair - Pretend picnic on carpet area - Glittery sand with big bugs in sensory table - Draw with wet chalk on butcher paper - Walk on bubble wrap (What do you hear?) Sounds pretty awesome to me! Regardless of the weather, Leon is always having a good time there.

He is also getting better at associating situations and routines with actions to be taken. While he is still quite clingy with separation anxiety and prefers my arms to anyone else's, this magically reverses at bedtime, when he is eager to go look up Bimba, only so that she can hold him and so that I don't put him down. In a similar attempt at avoiding the inevitable, yesterday, when we were done reading books and he knew it was almost time to turn off the light, he walked up to his dresser pulled out his swimsuit, sat down, and demanded I put the shorts on him. Time for pool, Mommy... Too funny! It the picture below you see Leon delaying bedtime by sneaking a story with Dari, who graciously tolerates him pointing out every single cat in the Busytown books with a "nau" (and if you haven't seen those, there are a LOT ;).

Nice Boys and Small Spaces

Leon and Dari have been very excited to check out new places to show Bimba during her visit here. Amazingly, we have not made it to the ZOO yet but there are a number of fun things we already checked off the list. We have been trying to spend as much time as we can enjoying the lovely early fall weather outside and took a couple of trips to the mall and the surrounding museums. Often the walks are a bit long for Dari and it is a big help that Leon is just so mellow and basically does not care about having Dari sit directly in his lap (not on top of him, just RIGHT in front). For longer trips, I fold back the seat and put Dari behind Leon. That, thankfully, elicits the same non-reaction. I think it's great, in addition to plain practical. There's a saying in Slovak that you can fit a lot of good people is a small space, and I keep telling the boys that it is doubly true for nice little brothers. Fingers crossed that it sticks...

On another sunny weekend we drove out to the National Arboretum, where we checked out the "dwarf" trees (bonsais). This was definitely a highlight for Bimba but I think Leon enjoyed it also. He later decided to be more "hands on" in exploring the plant specimens they had there and sneaked a (to me) unknown berry in his mouth. I noticed right away and a quick internet query (thanks, Facebook friends) assured me that he was going to be fine. However, the episode forced me to update my calculations of risks facing 18-month-olds - Dari STILL would not even contemplate tasting a berry (including the tame, fridge kind) and it's just something I never had to worry about. Well, lesson learned. Maybe we need to feed Leon more still, or he will go scavenging for potentially dangerous desserts ;)

In case you did not notice, Dari is sharing a ride in the above picture as well. It is kind of funny to imagine Leon's legs being the bigger pair, though. The boys also hitch a shared ride whenever we go to Target - a quick stop at the dollar aisle and some milk from Starbucks easily get us through our monthly shopping list.

All these outings are also logistically easier now that Leon sleeps only once a day. That is the schedule he's been on at school for some time now but I took the plunge and switched him completely. With this, too, he kind of just went with the flow. 

End of Summer Fun

The days after our return from Europe were wonderfully warm and Leon took advantage of the trips to the pool that Bimba took him on. He is not a swimmer yet. In fact, he prefers to only walk around the pool and experiment with the floatation characteristics of various objects ranging from shoes to food containers and only rarely actual pool toys. Leon's always been a cautious observer (rather than enthusiastic adventurer), so we just let him take it all in.

Other activities with Bimba include regular walks around the neighborhood, including a stop at Starbucks where I go work - he now assumes that is what we do, and is not even surprised to see me there. We check in for a little bit and then they are off again to check out the birds and helicopters, both Leon's favorites. Commonly, they end the walk at the nearby playground and just looking through the pictures on Bimba's phone, I thought you could see Leon visibly grow between such visits.

Overall, Leon is doing much better with being away from me and although it is still too much of a cognitive / emotional challenge for him to happily wave bye bye, he will "see me off" (literally) whenever I have to leave. That is a considerable improvement over the first couple of weeks at daycare, for example, when he insisted on getting picked up when he thought I might be leaving and started waving and sending kisses to the teachers to inform them that he is going with me. When that did not work, he got very upset - didn't he make himself clear?? These days, though, he makes a bee line for the snack table or books, usually. There is also a window in the wall to the adjacent classroom, which happens to be Dari's and Leon LOVES to peek in there and look for his big brother, saying :"Duh, Duh" = his word for Dari. And every time at pick-up, he can't wait to go in with me and check out all the big kid toys. Here he is playing with one of my favorites, this super inclusive toy-people set -  I think he might have thought the child in the wheelchair was just fun to push around, but whatever. Their daycare rocks.

Listen up!

Very recently, Leon decided that he has observed enough of the world to begin participating more actively in the verbal communication that he was somewhat indifferent for quite some time. The biggest inspiration and motivation for expressing himself has been communication with Dari. At first they started exchanging playful screams (to the delight of our neighbors, I'm sure) but more recently he has been actively copying all the sounds he hears, including coughs and sneezes, which is kind of funny.

He also understands much much more than you might expect and I cannot say anything about leaving the room in any way because he has all those phrases down pat! Yesterday, I told my Mom that I was going to go pick up Dari from school, to which Leon responded with desperate whimpers and when he kept saying "Da, Da, Da!" (his name for Dari) I asked (not exactly expecting an answer): "Do you want to come with me to get Dari?" Leon did not skip a beat and responded with the sign for "please" so I had no choice than to take him with me.

 

It worked out too, because as it turned out, Dari was working on a superhero cape when we arrived (a sheet of paper with some drawings that gets taped to one's shoulders to serve its intended purpose) and he announced that that one was for Leon, for when he grows up. Is your heart melting yet? Leon thought that Dari was talking a bit too long with that though, walked up, pulled Dari's sleeve and was very adamant about "explaining" why it was we were there :). Too funny. It is really fun to watch them play together although I am cringing half the time, when I look at the combination of a wobble-bobble-climber and an excited runner/kicker.

Speaking of which, Leon had his first slightly more serious bump, when he hit the side of the coffee table this past weekend (completely unassisted - did I say wobble-bobble?). Wounds freak me out, and this one right below his lip looked deep-ish, so I took him to the ER just to make sure it did not need any attention (it did not). There Leon charmed the nurses with his winks and blinks and got a great kick out of getting his pulse measured, which involved attaching a light to his finger (yay, stickers!), effectively converting the measuring device into a pull toy... what else, right? Leon followed that up with pushing a wheeled doctor's chair around while we waited to be seen and walked away with a puppy-shaped balloon sculpture. Hospitals are so fun!

Slovak Summer

Leon had a lot of fun exploring the immediate neighborhood surrounding his Slovak grandparents' house. The top entertainment item on the list: their two cats. He did not call them "meow" or any variation of "kitty" in either language but rather "tah" - of course, right? It makes no sense but I guess that's what it sounds like to him. The cats, on the other hand, were less than enthusiastic about Leon's presence and they barely tolerated his squeaky shoes, running away when he came anywhere closer than two feet. Luckily, Leon did not find this frustrating but rather entertaining and did not mind squeaking on as he chased after them. This was frequently very entertaining.

He also tried to make himself useful, in the typical one-year-old way of mimicking all behaviors he thought looked interesting or important. Picking up apples that fall off the trees early (and threaten the lawn if not collected) and then placing them in a toy dump truck was something Dari was prepared to do the minute we arrived in Dulice. Leon wasted no time in joining the party, promptly picking out a smaller dump truck in Dari's now-shared lineup. Efficiency was hardly the ordering principle and most apples that got collected were dumped a few feet over or thrown, with a splash, into the pond. But Leon thought he was doing something very helpful and, naturally, no one questioned it :). Sometimes, Leon pretended to be a load of apples himself and allowed his big brother to cart him around the garden (under close supervision).

 

  

Leon also got a haircut while in Slovakia but not the view, not the cat, not the rotation of four adults, nothing could keep him still long enough. If you don't look super closely, it looks fine. Conveniently, most people are distracted by how much the haircut brought his appearance closer to Dari. 

Discoveries

Baby Leon has had a great summer. Little by little, he is making the transition from baby to toddler but thanks to his healthy appetite, he may hold on to that cute baby roundness for longer than other kids his age. He had his 15 month checkup in August, which revealed that he is totally well-proportioned but it is something about his cheeks that gives him that continued baby look.
 

Also, until very recently he preferred "just" observing all the happenings around him and absorbing it all like a sponge. This may give the appearance of baby-ness but really it is closer to in-depth theory development. Everywhere he goes, Leon is famous for his side-ward examining glance, with which he welcomes everything and everyone new. You can almost see him thinking: "okay, so what is THIS novelty that I am seeing and how do I make sense of it?" I like to think of it as a budding skeptical attitude of a future scientist. Other, less partial observers just crack up at the innocent curiosity and disarming charm with which it strikes them. It is nearly impossible to capture on camera (because he knows cameras and tries to snatch them) but here are some pictures that come close.

Of course, Leon got to practice this "look" a lot when we traveled to Slovakia, especially while flirting with fellow passengers on the plane. He just loves to communicate with people but he is very particular about only doing this from the safety of Mommy's arms. At the height of his separation anxiety, I literally had to hide so that he could spend some quality time with tetinka, strejda, Bimba, Dedo and starka. To be clear, he warmed up to that very quickly and had a great time but I had to be out of sight not to interfere with those situations. Here, his squeaky shoes (meant to help keep track of the baby) came in very handy - every time I heard him approaching I casually ducked out of the way.

There is one hiding game that Leon enjoys a lot better and that is looking for Dari, who loves to hide in more-or-less plain sight (like under a cover on the sofa, or under a desk, or behind a curtain). Dari gets a great kick out of everyone pretending to not see him, which, of course, Leon does not know how to do. So we would be walking around in a room asking "Where's Dari??" and Leon would simply walk up to him, lift up the cover or the curtain and give us the look that could be summarized as "duh... righ here!" It is therefore not surprising that the first question/sentence he went for was "Kde je Dari?" which means where's Dari? in Slovak :)