Long time no see.....

It is already two months since my last post about potty training. 

Well summer was here and time inside was limited to minimum. When outside, kids are much happier and calmer and they sleep better, so whenever we could we went out.

I'm not going to write long stories about what happened to us during these months.

But: Alex is great without nappies and has two new teeth and Jessie is walking, nearly running. No more dirty knees :D

We are still working on building good relationship between Alex and Jessie. Some days are great, some more challenging.

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Potty training 2

So just one day after I published our potty training post here I decided to check with Alex about her night time nappy.

She said straight away that she doesn't want it. 

Even though I was a little bit worried, I left it with her.

I only changed the sheets on her bed to a waterproof ones. Just in case.

And guess what....it's nearly a week and no night accidents.

Alex stays most of the time in her bed during the night and uses potty in the morning.

She got up to use potty at night only twice.

The only thing is that she calls for me during the night, because she wakes up sometimes. The reason might be the potty training, or maybe bad dreams. Who knows, but she won't tell me what woke her up.

I just hope it will sort itself out soon.

Jessie sleeps better now even though he had vaccination yesterday. He woke up last night twice as well, but it looks better today.

So here we go, we have one little lady home without nappies already and one really fast growing boy who climbs everywhere and has to sit at a table on a big chair like the rest of us.

Potty training

So it finally happened. Alex decided to try the potty.

I wanted her to try it before, but she wasn't really interested. 

And I wasn't ready for it either. I was stressed from the constant remarks from people around, that she should be without nappies already and I knew she feels the same. We both didn't like comments about it. 

In my mind I set up the right time. Summer! So she can walk around naked or in really light clothes and won't be home all the time, so there won't be much cleaning in case of accidents.

It's not summer yet, but the weather last week was great and when we stayed home alone I decided to check with her.

I asked her if she wants to wear skirt outside without nappy, so she can pee at the grass. I wasn't pushy and probably not even convincing, but she said yes. 

I took her to the kitchen where the potties are and then outside and showed her how to pee on grass.

She wanted to try to pee on the grass too, but it wasn't her time yet. While in a sand she sat on an ant and it bit her right to one cheek, so I changed the strategy and clothes and gave her underpants. Showed her again and in half an hour she went to that spot and did it. 

We washed 6 pairs of underpants that evening, but she managed to use potty twice.

To my surprise the following morning, she woke up and went to the potty right away. We changed the clothes and Alex didn't even bother to ask me or tell me that she needed to use it again. She went straight there and even cleaned it up with me. And so it continued that day with only two little accidents.

Day 3 was great as well, except a poop which went down on a floor. We even managed a car journey without nappy.

Same was day 4 but without the poop issue. 

It's a week and Alex has nappy at night only, but it's half of the mornings dry. 

I feel much better now knowing she's able to do it all by herself. She tells me most of the times, that she has to go and that's fine. 

When she'll be a pro, I'll try Jessie as well. It would be great if the nappy period will be over after this summer.

I'm one really proud mom. I was so afraid that I messed it up earlier, because Alex didn't want to cooperate, but she just needed to get there at her own pace.

We still have work to do to sort out the pooping, but now I'm positive this will be done soon.

Jessie is walking

Just a few days ago I talked with our grandma about Jessie. We agreed that he's cautious. He loves walking while somebody holds his hands, but he didn't want to let go. Not even standing alone. Just a few seconds next to a bed or chair, but no longer than 5 seconds in a row.

So on Saturday as my sister in law arrived for a visit we spent nearly whole day outside. It was finally lovely weather and when the sun was out it was really hot. Except there were some clouds, so from time to time the cold wind with the clouds created unpleasant temperature change.

My hubby took care of the growing grass in the morning, so we could sit down on a picnic blanket later that day and enjoy the family time. Alex was running up and down the garden, watering flowers and trees and Jessie was crawling around.

I took him on the blanket and asked him to stand in front of me. I just wanted him to let go and stand there for a while. He usually grasps anything around or sits down. 

He didn't do either. He was just standing there, looking around. Jessie was on a walk with granddad, so they didn't see it. I asked Jessie to walk to me and he did two steps by himself. Nobody was holding his hands. So I just tried again. Placed him in front of me and asked him to walk. He repeated two steps again and again until he managed 4 steps in a row before falling at me, I always catched him. 

So here we go....Jessie is walking. I know it's not such a big deal, because he does only a few steps and then sits down or fell, but for him it is definitely big thing. We are now practising every day and he managed even 6 steps once, but two or tree are standard now. In a few weeks he'll be maybe running :D

Alex will be in a trouble then....he will follow her everywhere. Crazy and exciting time begins!

First workout group meeting

So I have first workout group meeting with my local No Excuse Moms.

It was Wednesday afternoon and I drove there only with Alex as I had a little bit of admin work with the NEMs before we could start working out.

The weather day before was gorgeous. Sunny like in summer, warm and even the wind was comfortable, but the Wednesday was a different story. It was much colder, 10 degrees Celsius less and cloudy.

I arrived earlier and went to the playground with Alex. She played a little, but was really shy. When other NEMs arrived, we had to introduce ourselves, sign some paper work and start with the workout.

Alex was sitting in a buggy, I took it in case she will be tired and want to sleep and to carry all my stuff.

Other kids where running around, so some moms had to chase them, that's why we decided to go from the field right into the playground where we could close the gates and keep the kids inside. The only thing there was checking them when they decided to use sled or swings.

We laughed a lot and people were looking at us as we were crazy, but every comment they made I turned back at them and asked them to join us.

After the workout we played there with kids. Alex still didn't want to join the other kids there, but eventually she did and went to a sled. She loved it and didn't want to go home, same as her new friend. Well I call him friend, but she only smiled at him a few times, no talk though.

I know our kids live in a great place, with lot of nature and animals around, but they need other kids to play with.

I'm really happy I can get them meet others this way and shape up a little. Just can't wait for next meeting.

Alex wasn't play for that long there, but when we were nearly home, she fell asleep in a car. Hubby picked her up when we arrived and took her to bed, she was like a puppet. We woke her up, gave her dinner and half an hour later she was in bed again, sleeping like a little baby.

Jessie didn't go with us this time, but will join us next week. That will be even better fun.

New Year 2016

Hello Everyone,

so this is my first post in a year 2016. Our end of the year was calm. We were home alone, just me, hubby and kids. As our kids don't know what does end of a year means, we didn't wake them up at midnight. We just watched a movie  with my hubby to survive the last few hours of 2015 and don't fall asleep and wished each other happy new year. 

I don't even remember when I celebrated the New Years Eve last time. There were no big celebrations in Ireland, fireworks are illegal there, so nothing special and to be honest, with little kids I don't even have the power to stay awake longer than necessary. That means, when kids are in a bed, kitchen is clean and ready for following day, I don't bother with anything else. 

It's difficult to get some rest if you are waking up during the night to attend your babies, but it's getting better now. 

Jessie is crawling now. And he's pretty good at it and starting to be fast as well. He's able to climb over small objects and he's kneeling by footstool or boxes or anything like this. He loves that he can get anywhere now and nothing is safe. 

Alex doesn't take it as good as we do. She started to be jealous of him. It will take time for her to get use to it, that her little brother is not that little anymore and he loves to copy her with everything. So far it's just playing with toys. The fact that she pushes him sometimes doesn't bother him yet. I just hope we can get her behave better before he thinks that it's normal and starts to return these little favours ;)

So Alex was a few times on a naughty step. She didn't like it at all and when it was done by her daddy she didn't get it as he messed up a little. That was actually first time we used it. Today I sat her down there twice and second time it was much smoother, she even got me hugs and kisses after that and kissed her brother too. It might work ;) I'm really glad I remember something from watching SuperNanny those years ago, before our kids arrived.

Jessie has two teeth and another is coming out. He's sleeping much better last two nights, wakes only around 9pm, that's around 1.5 hour after bedtime and another time around 5:30am. He goes back to sleep and wakes again in an hour or two, so it's great, except we are use to sleep longer. We should probably change it a little. 

With me exercising again and eating better now, I have more energy to play with kids. If the good sleeps continues, I'll be super powered mommy in no time :)

That's it for now. I need to finish some presents for kids of my friends. They will have birthday soon ;) 

BTW the winter's here. It's really cold and snowing from time to time. I'm happy that we have full freezer, fridge and storage, just in case we get snowed in.

Christmas traditions

As you all know every country has different Christmas traditions. 

In some presents are delivered by Santa, somewhere else the Three Kings (Wise men) and in our part of the world it's little Jesus. As I already wrote about it last year, I'm not going to white a long story about it. I actually love the ideas that you can get personalised letter or video from Santa and I love to do the Elf on the Shelf too, so we are combining Santa and little Jesus together. For our kids it will be one person or two best friends.

Alex and Jessie already got a video from Santa and Alex absolutely loved it, she watched it three times.

For me the Elf on the Shelf tradition will be something like Hide and Seek game with kids. The Elf won't go away to tell Santa who's good or bad. There is no need for this. I just like to make this little surprise for them every morning.

In our home countries we have one more person who gives presents to kids. It's St. Nicholas.
He comes at the beginning of December with Devil and Angel to check on kids. If they were nice, they will get sweets etc, if naughty they get potatoes, stones etc. 

Some families play this good/naughty game with their kids. They tell them if they are naughty the Devil will take them, a lot of kids get scared of them. I didn't want to traumatised my daughter, but I wanted to show her who they are. Jessie doesn't understand it yet, so there was no need for explanation for him, but Alex had to be told. We took them to the city where there was gathering of people to see this St. Nicholas and his helpers. (Kids here don't visit Santa's house).

I showed Alex a few pictures of people in the costumes, so she could be ready a little bit and I told her not to worry. We won't give her even if the Devil wants her and if she doesn't like him, she should scare him away. I told her to say "bu bu bu". While we were driving to the city she was constantly saying Devil bu bu bu, it was so funny. When we arrived there was a lot of people there. Christmas lights already on and a Christmas tree was standing in the middle of the public square. 

There was a tent were the St. Nicholas was sitting with Devil on his left and Angel on right and a few more kids behind singing songs. The Devil was actually a lovely girl and was smiling at our kids. Both of them got a little bag with sweets etc. It was nice. Alex was constantly saying Devil bu bu bu even if she said she liked him (her). I'm glad we took them there.

Some people continue to get their kids to behave the way they want, because Santa or whoever brings the presents will see them and so if they don't do what the parents ask them to do, they won't get anything under the Christmas tree. I just don't feel it's right and when I hear that someone is saying something like this to Alex because she does this or that I tell her that she's nice enough and she'll definitely get something.

What I feel is just exploring the world around, could look to somebody else like bad behaviour. It's just a different point of view. I don't want to change my daughter or son, I want to support them and help them enjoy the life. I want them to feel loved and understood and I don't want them to feel under pressure just to make me happy. They make me happy every minute of every day even if I get irritated or stressed. It's just a feeling and that will pass, but the love I have for them won't change with it. It grows even more as they do, because they can show me that they love me the way I am and I don't need to be someone else. This is called unconditional love and I have a lot of it for my babies. 

Little update :)

Alex's birthday is nearly here. I picked up a recipe for her cake. I just hope it will be tasty and nice. Well, when it's ready, I'll take a picture and put it up here :)

We moved out of kid's bedroom last week. They sleep by themselves now. It's working good so far. Of course we have a baby monitor, but we could hear them through open door as well. Yesterday we rearranged the furniture there so they both sleep in new location and a little closer to each other. I just hope that they won't wake each other if they cry.

So far so good. Last night was the first night and Jessie slept much better than usual. He woke up only twice between 8pm and 5am, after that he didn't want to fall asleep, so I had to take him with me. When he was sleeping next to me for about 5 minutes he started to talk from his sleep. It was the longest babbling ever :D and so cute.

Jessie is 8th month already, but he's about the size of one year old baby. His clothes are getting smaller too fast. He absolutely loves food. Anything he gets, he eats and milk.... That's a different story. He doesn't take it during the day, only night feed(s). He takes usually one feed a night, but there is the odd night when he wants twice.

This evening it was a first time after about 4 weeks when he took milk after dinner, before he went to sleep.

Alex loves watching fairytales these days. The weather is cold and wet, so we can't go out as much. She loves horses, bunnies, dolphins etc and she's learning English from them and 90% of our movies are in English. She told me tonight Good Night in English. It was a big surprise for me. Her languages improved so much. She's constantly talking, loves reading her princess book and even playing with Jessie.

Jessie on the other hand is trying to crawl. He's moving around all right. Just not on all fours yet. He loves exploring everything especially with his mouth. I'm glad we don't have small toys yet. 

Alex didn't want to eat much lately. After we were sick, she had usually breakfast, a little one, a half of potato with something at lunch time and maybe something for dinner. I started to worry, because she didn't even ate what Jessie was able to finish within a few minutes. It was just a phase. After about 3 weeks of this picky eating she started to eat everything again. She surprised us one evening to finish whole slice of bread (usually she has a half of it), same portion of soup as I gave to her father and today two large chicken wings with rice. It was nearly the same portion I had for lunch.

We had to move her evening routine a little as she was complaining when we put her to the bed before 8pm. Most of the days she goes to sleep around 9pm which is still OK with me. If she has a bad day she would try to stay awake for ages, like yesterday but with the bell at 10pm she was in bed fast asleep. I told her to go the be when she wants, but I expect her to wake up at 8am and be fresh and ready for the day. That's what we agreed on. And even though she went to bed so late last night, she was up by herself at 8am and came to us. All happy and asking for a Litter Mermaid movie :)

Today it was 9 again, I hope tomorrow will be same.

That's about it. There is nothing special happening now, except for the snow outside, but we'll be really busy from this weekend onwards.

Christmas is coming!!!!! I'm really excited about this one, I'll tell you why next time :p

Weaning Jessie

So Jessie is over 6 months old now and we started the real weaning process a few weeks ago. Not just baby rice before bed, but sometimes some breakfast and every day lunch. I prepared some baby food and put it in the freezer. Still have a few portions there, but need to get something new.

When Jessie sees us that we eat, he wants to have the same food. If I am cooking and the food is not spicy or salty, I give him taste. 

So he had his baby bolognese, Shepperd's pay, chicken vegetables and some our food like chicken noodle soup and potato goulash (of course not spicy). He absolutely loves these. I don't even mix everything anymore, but I mash it with fork. I think he will soon be eating what we do without my help.

He grabbed the baby spoon today at lunch and started to feed himself. Of course the food was everywhere, on the table, bib, floor, chair, his hands, spoon but in his mouth too. I was thinking of trying the baby led weaning, but when I tried to give him potato or banana I was too scared he would put it whole to the mouth or it might slip to his throat, so I decided, I'll take it slow and feed him and give him some food when I see he's ready to handle it. 

Tomorrow is another cooking day, so I need to find some more kids friendly recipes. Any suggestions anyone? ;)

Alex is singing

Alex is nearly 2 years old and I thought it was time to teach her some songs. Well nursery rhymes etc. She managed already a name of one song she likes and when I ask her what to sing, she's able to tell me what should be the song about. Like song about bunny, horse or something else. I was singing for her and little Jessie often, but didn't teach her any of the songs properly.

I picked a song I was sure she would know how to say most of the words in it. And I sang it a few times myself.

Then I started to sing and waited at the end of each verse for her to say the word herself. It took her only 3 repeats of the song and she was able to finish each sentence herself. 

I was so happy. So the next day we sang this song at least 5 times and I started with another one. Alex got it within a few minutes. So I thought, she might be listening to me when I sing and I started to sing all the songs for kids I knew and waited a while for her to fill out the gaps or say the words with me.

She helped me sing nearly every song I tried. It's 6 or 8 songs I sing often because these are the baby ones that are easy to remember and follow. 

I'm really proud that she remembers these.

I made a small movie how she sings and send it to my family. 

My mum wasn't able to open the video so I helped her while I was on the phone with her. I was a little bit disappointed with her reaction. She said Alex should be singing these all by herself. I'm not really sure when kids starting to sing alone but I don't care. I think Alex is very bright and she learns really really fast. She picks new words every day, not just one a day. 

She's using 2-3 words sentences sometimes and is able to ask us for anything she wants. She's even saying "please" and if she's in a good humour "thank you" as well. 

Most of the words she's using at the moment are in Czech or Slovak, but I was surprised she came to our bed one morning with her Happy Hippo (hand puppet) and asked me in English: How are you?

I replied to her and she repeated Thank you in English as well, and is using it sometimes too.

I know it's not much, but she understands 3 languages. That's great I think. 

We are practising everyday now and she's getting better, but I think it will take time to get her to sing a whole song and sing it in a correct tune. But nothing will stop us now :D

Growth spurt

Summer is gone. Autumn is coming fast and winter even faster. We already had some snow here. It's wasn't much, but enough to cover the ground. 

Alex and I went out that morning when the snow came. It's was fun, Alex doesn't remember much of the snow from last year, she was too little. I think she'll love it this year. My hubby made a snowball for her and she brought it home and wanted to show it to Jessie. He was really surprised how cold it was. 

I managed to go through her and Jessie's wardrobe just the day before, removed summer clothes and put in some warmer ones and of course remove the small ones and pack them away.

I realised how fast they just grew. Jessie even though he just turned 6 months is wearing 6-9 months size for a month or so and some clothes are even 9-12. It's OK, I have a lot of vests and bodysuits from our ex-neighbour and some neutral after Alex. 

The only problem we have are Alex's shoes. When she started to walk, we took her shoe shopping, she absolutely hated it. I was OK with that, but since then everything changed. Her feet grew like  crazy in past few weeks. One day she had her house shoes and wellies a little bit loose and suddenly they were small. 

We had to go shoe shopping during last week twice. Well she skipped one size completely, but because of the cold weather we had to get some new winter boots and warmer house shoes too. 

This time I wasn't able to get her out of the shop. She wanted nearly every second pair of shoes. I bought her little ballerina shoes with ears and bunny face, because she loves bunnies. Two days later was soooo cold that we bought her another shoes with fur inside. And the boots? We had one from spring that we bought, because she was cold, but the smallest size was too big for her, well now it's perfect. As we were walking through a supermarket, there was a basket with winter boots. She loved them so much that she didn't let go of them, so now she has two pairs of winter boots. That's OK, because if one get wet, she can use another. 

But I need winter boots too. Guess what.....Alex was in the shop with me and was showing me a lot of different shoes saying I should buy them. :D It was really funny as she was nearly running from runners to winter boots, then to dance shoes, high heels, no heels and it was nearly impossible to get her out of the shop. 

So next time I do shoe shopping for myself, I thing I go there by myself :)

Sibling's love

The beginning with our two kids was a little bit difficult. Alex was jealous but she got use to her baby brother in a few months.

Jessie is nearly 6 months and all is different. Alex comes every morning to say good morning to Jessie and is looking for him in our bed, if he's not there, she would go to his cot where she would find him. 

She loves helping to look after him. In the morning she wants to change his nappy and she's getting him ready for it. She undo his pyjamas and takes off his nappy, usually it's only wet, so no mess here. ;)

When he's changed, it's time to change her, which is usually without too much trouble.  

During the day if Jessie is up and I need to do something, she goes to sit next to him and she plays there or reads some books if I ask her to.

Jessie absolutely adores her, he loves watching her while she plays or moves around the room. Any time she looks at him, his face lights up like starry sky. 

One day she played peek a boo with him. He was laughing so much. I couldn't resist, but laugh with him.

The breastfeeding is getting more difficult everyday. Especially because of Alex. Jessie is constantly searching for her in the room, so he's not drinking much. I need to sit down and turn my body towards Alex, so he can see her. 

I feel really happy, that he loves her so much, I hope it will last for many years. Alex loves him too and her jealousy is much smaller if any at the moment.

Alex is getting use to sharing things with Jessie. And she's not stealing his soother anymore. If he cries, she's looking for it to give it to him. 

This evening I gave her two choises. She could stay in bath and play for a little while or goes with me to look after Jessie, because he was crying. She got out of the bath and went with me. 

While I was feeding Jessie baby rice, she kindly brought two blankets, soother and teething toy to him, while he was eating. 

When we were done, both went to bed and today both felt asleep without any problems and even thought they both wake up sometimes during the night. They don't wake each other. Alex wakes up ones in a few days, but Jessie a few times each night. It's not that bad as he feed only after 5:30am.

I can't even say how happy I am about all this. :)  My heart is singing happy songs. 

Summer with two kids

The summer months are over already, school started and the weather is getting colder.

We had lovely summer this year. Alex has a beautiful sun tan even though I covered her with sunscreen UV level 50 every time we went out. She loved every day. Jessie didn't realised that yet, but he was outside most of the time, even sleeping under sun umbrella. 

Alex loves playing with sand and helping in the garden. She can spend hours picking berries or nuts :D We bought a sand box with a lot of sand and a few toys. This was the best investment so far. Alex can play there for hours and sometimes even a few minutes by herself. I can do anything else in the garden as far as she can see me.

She's great, she's walking much faster, even running if she wants, she exercises with me and she repeats every other word we say. She's even using 2 words sentences.

She's very clever and she loves learning new things. The only problem is that she's still not interested in potty training. We tried over the summer, letting her run in the garden without nappy and she managed a few times to go on potty, but it's not regular yet. I don't want to push her to that, so we'll see later. We are asking her every time she'll say it, but usually it's already done...

Jessie is rolling over and trying to move, but he has still work to do. He's trying to talk and that's really funny, sometimes his babbling sounds like words, mum or granny. He's smiling nearly whole day, just in the evening when it's time to go to bed and we have other plans like keeping him awake for longer because his dinner should be later due to previous feeds, he can scream really loud to get what he wants. So his dinner, which is now baby rice and then some milk, is between 8pm and 8:30pm. 

Jessie is teething as well, his hands are constantly in his mouth, but lately he is able to put his dummy in by himself. Today I gave him a rubber massage brush to chew on and he did a great job holding it in his hand, massaging his gums himself. 

He loves his baby rice with banana flavour. I'll wait a few more days and try some vegetables. I already gave him a little taste, but the rest is in a freezer and I didn't managed to get it ready for him during the day as we were really busy lately.

When granny was with us for holidays we managed to slip away for a parents time only. We had nice dinner in a restaurant nearby and a short walk without buggy :) But both of us felt weird without kids and we were back home before the night story time.

The following day we made a trip to horse riding school. Alex was on a horse with me and my hubby was on a second one. Nana was looking after Jessie, so we enjoyed an hour of riding. The owner of these horses went with us, but she was walking next to us, talking to us or her friend. She didn't hold them, we looked after them ourselves. It was really nice. Alex loved it and managed to sit nicely for 45 minutes. The last 15 minutes she wanted to either go down or to go on her daddy's horse. When we arrived back to the field we started from Alex didn't want to get down, she wanted to continue. Amazing! Not even 2 year old girl riding a horse for whole hour. I know, she was there with me, but even so, it's brilliant. And she already asked to go again.

We have to find somebody to look after Jessie for a few hours, so we can do something with Alex again.

Going to Slovakia / Use of public transport

Finally both angels are asleep, so I have a little time to write another post. I just finished my lunch, which I didn't need to shovel into myself as quickly as possible.

It's time to relax a little bit. 

Just before we left for Slovakia we had to use a bus service from my sister's town to my home town.

We chose a bus with easy access and a large space for wheelchair or buggy as we had our little tank. Currently with both sport seats.

The bus arrived with 3 minutes delay. We were first in line, so I went in to check with the driver if it's OK to get in with the buggy. After a short conversation with this arrogant man I was so angry that I nearly told him to go for a very long walk to a very dark place. His attitude was unacceptable for a public service and I wasn't the only one who had to deal with that. In the middle of our 20 minute journey in this bus another mum with two kids, one in buggy came in and had to listen to the drivers angry language as well. I just hopped we will have better experience with the train journey that followed the next day.

In the evening I wanted to book a taxi for following morning. The gentleman on the other side of the phone asked me to call in the morning and so I did. He said they will come in 10-15 minutes. I took kids on the buggy through the city, it took me 20 minutes to reach the train station. It's only 6 minutes in a car max, but I was there 5 minutes before my hubby and bags as the taxi driver had 20 minutes delay. I was glad we left the house 40 minutes before the train departure. 

We went to the train, which had a wheelchair access to every waggon. It was great, plenty of space for buggy, bags and us. The guy who checked our ticket gave Alex a baby ticket with pictures so she could have her own. Pity we had to change to different train after a while. When we were buying the tickets we asked about the buggy and extra luggage as we had a big bag, two small ones and before the change we collected our car seats. The lady at the cashpoint told us to check with the person responsible to check the tickets in the train. 

Sooooo, when the second train, we were supposed to take, arrive, I was looking for this person. A young lady was standing the the front of the train so I run over there with Alex in my arms and pulling the large bag behind to check where should we go. She was standing there, didn't even make one step towards me. I asked her where to go and she looked at me like she saw an alien. With bored and angry voice she told be to run back to the end of the train and get in there. So I did. 

Why was I so lucky to meet such people?

Luckily there was a young boy who helped my hubby with the buggy. BTW there was no wheelchair access and about 4 steep steps to the train, very narrow doors and limited space for everything. We had to fold the buggy, which takes a little time, to get it in and put it next to bicycles and other stuff. 
While we were sitting in the train my hubby had to go to that place at least 5 times to move the buggy for the cyclist etc. Kids fell asleep in the middle of our way to Slovakia. The whole trip took about 4 hours.

I'm really glad it's over and we don't need to repeat that again.

I have to say it's really difficult to travel with two small kids without a car. 

To be honest, I'm happy that my hubby arrived a few days before this big trip to help, I wouldn't be able to manage all the luggage, car seats, buggy and kids alone, maybe when they are bigger, much BIGGER :)

Something about Alex

Alex is 20 months old.

She loves being outside, it's sooo dificult to get her back to house in this lovely weather. She's starting to run around. We took her for a longer walk this morning and she managed really well.

She's able to put wellies on by herself. I'm just waiting for her to start dress herself alone, but she's not interested in it. She loves running out naked, I'm glad we have big garden and nearly no neighbours, so she can do whatever she wants.

Alex loves all animals, she's searching for spiders everyday. Even though a vosp pinched her, she's not afraid of any insect. That's great. She probably won't have same fobia as I use to have.

Our big girl is now also sleeping in her own big bed. The transition was OK due to the fact she had to sleep with me on a double beds while visiting my sisters.

I took her one day horse riding. Well I was sitting on the horse and she was watching me walking around a field and she wanted up as well. She absolutely loved it. She didn't want to get down. Poor girl who owned the horse was walking with us for 10 minutes maybe more. Alex was chearing up, laughing, it was brilliant. So the next time when we discovered horse riding for kids (walking) we paid for a few rounds and daddy walked beside her and held her leg so she wouldn't slip. She cried again when she had to go down.

Alex also loves the summer fruit. She can have whatever she likes from the garden. Strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrent, gooseberries, cherries etc. In this hot weather she doesn't want to eat much but she eats every few minutes a little bit. It is much easier because she has nearly all teeth now and is able to eat everything.

Her hair is getting fair and she has a lovely tan eventhough I put a sunscreen on her everyday and it's factor 50.

Before our holidays she didn't want to go to a bath. Now it's really difficult to get her out of our small swimming pool or evrn baby bath in the evening.

The only problem I have now is her addiction to me. It might be her age or the fact we are together all the time or maybe she wants me for herself after her brother joined our family, but she is constantly calling me while outside.

We must try to get away for a few hours more often or at least I should go to have some me time.

Some news about Jessie

Jessie is 4 months old already. The time flies. 

He loves his tummy time. His neck muscles are really strong. He's even trying to crawl a little. Was able to move on a bed a little bit. He is sometimes turning to his side as well, but wasn't able to roll over yet.

He's such a good boy. If he's not teething he's full of smiles, feeds well and sleeps great.

He's up only once or twice a night, if I give him soother, he goes back to sleep and feeds around 6am. So it's around 9 hours night sleep as we are aiming for bedtime around 8-9pm.

We already tried a bit of baby rice, he didn't spit it out much, so I presume he likes it. I have a plenty of milk for him, so there is no need to push it too much with the solids, but I want him to get use to new textures and possible tastes. 

It's summer time, we'll have a lot of healthy vegetables, home grown, so I would like to use this opportunity.

We went even swimming with him and we are trying to get him use to water in our garden swimming pool. It's a small one, but there is enough water for him and Alex. Even for me ;)

Jessie is growing really fast. He's strong boy. I'm waiting to go for development check up with him. I believe all is well, but it's always nice to hear professional opinion. We need to get his vaccines done as well, but that has time.

He's very alert and loves to look at pictures, toys and books. He's reaching for everything what is close.

After the morning feed he usually wants to talk to me, he's smiling, singing etc, which is not too good as he might wake Alex, so I take him to bed and try to calm him down and get him back to sleep.
Some mornings are luckier than others. It's 50-50 chance he falls asleep after a few minutes.

Funny thing is that if I turn my back to him, he reaches to me and starts poking me with his fist or pulling my hair, but he's always gentle.

I want him to be strong and crawl already as it's difficult to have one baby on a blanket outside and the other running around the house. I hope he will follow us around when he'll be able, but I'm sure he might start running to the other direction to keep me even busier. We'll see ;)

Our journey with two kids

Well, summer is a busy time of the year. We are currently on holidays back home. Nearly two months now. I had very limited access to internet and had a lot of work to do until now. So I'll try to catch up on the important events that happened to us.

The journey was interesting. Going on a plane with two kids under two is not easy. We were lucky to have double buggy, so the waiting time before the flight was easier due to easy transport of luggage and kids. I had to go with my hubby, because our flight tickets were linked together. Every baby under two years must be accompanied with an adult as they should sit on adults lap. 

Even though every other person complains about the company we were flying with, we were happy with the service. As we walked into the plane the flight attendant looked at us and said they will change our seats as we would need to walk to the back and there was a free space at the front, closer to the toilet with baby changing table.

As the door of the plane were closed, she came to us again and said that the seats next to ours, the right hand side of the plane is empty as well and we can go there, so we'll have whole row, 6 seats for 4 of us and after the seat belt sign is switched off we can put our kids to sleep over more seats.

That was great as Jessie wanted to sleep and had plenty of space, so did the rest of us.

Alex was OK, she wanted to explore everything. Unfortunately there was a family with another baby girl, which was crying all the time. She was very laud. Alex didn't mind and didn't even react to it until the end of the flight.

Due to the pressure changes she probably had earache and so she started to cry as well. The more the other girl was crying the more Alex wanted too.

It was only 10 minutes of Alex's crying spell. 

When we left the plane, our buggy wasn't waiting for us there, so we had to wait for a few minutes until the other people left. That wasn't a problem, but most of the people passing us by the gate, looked at us with question in their eyes and some of the even commented on the screaming in the plane. It wasn't our Alex who was screaming all the time, it was the other little girl and she wasn't happy by the bags either. 

I felt angry a little bit, because our Alex was crying 10 minutes from 2.5hr long flight.

We took a car and went to my parents house. Over 3 hours in a car were difficult. Jessie was fine, I fed him and he slept, and when we had a break, I fed him again, changed his nappy and Alex's as well. She wasn't that cooperative. She was bored and she towards the end she wanted to get out of the car. No toy was good enough for her. But we managed it well by the end.

Our holidays started a month earlier, due to unexpected family circumstances. Unfortunately my dad is in a hospital and so we had to come as soon as we heard. We had to cancel our other flight tickets and as for refund. It was a nice surprise when we received an email after 5 weeks saying we'll get our money back.

And so I stayed with our kids with my mum and daddy went back home....

Alex's eating

So Alex is 17 months old and we thought it was already time for her to eat by herself and drink like a big girl from a cup.

Of course she was eating by herself already, but most of the time by her hands. We gave her spoon to try yogurt, cereals etc. 

There was more food on her face than in her stomach, but eventually she managed to eat her full portion without our help. 

We still help her with soups, but mains and snacks she eat alone. I prefer to strip her with certain foods like pasta bolognese, as tomatoes are difficult to wash from the clothes and it's easier to put her in a shower after her lunch ;)

She was using sippy cups for a while now, but when home we give her water from small plastic glass or cup without lid, except for her bedtime drink.

She's improving her skills everyday, but is still spilling drinks while walking. 

Today she held her milk while she bent over for some toys. Half of her drink was on a floor, but it didn't stop her from trying to walk with it again.

I think with Jessie we will start earlier introducing cups without lids and spoon self-feeding as one of our friends told us she gave her daughter spoon and cup when she was 6 months-ish and she was able to feed herself properly by 8 months. I don't think we do it at 6 months, but definitely try before 1st birthday :)

6 weeks here we go

Our Jessie is nearly six weeks, he's due to have Dr. check up.

All is going well. He's growing so fast. Gained 1kg in 3 weeks and grew 6 cm from the birth. He's getting strong. His routine is getting better, usually feeds every 3 hours, sometime 4. The only thing we are struggling with is my milk flow. It's too fast. We have to use only two positions for feeding. One is the rugby ball position and another of me on back, so I'm feeding against the gravitation.
It is working so far. 

Jessie had a few bad days when he was pushing me away. He was hungry, trying to get milk, but after a few seconds he stopped and pushed me and fought with me. It usually happened when he was tired or the flow was really too fast.

He is still struggling with the wind but there is not much we can do. We do baby massage, I watch what I eat and sometimes, when it's really bad we give him two teaspoons of fennel tea (not more than once in 3 days).

He's currently falling asleep in the Moses basket next to me. It's great that we got him use to falling asleep by himself so early. I know people who need to walk with baby, rock it, drive around in a car, but that's not good. 

Yeah, we are using soother now, and that helps with the sleeping as well, but what we found out is that Jessie doesn't want it during the night, only during a day, when he's sleeping.

Alex is a different story, she's still adjusting to our new family situation, it looked great a few weeks ago, but it's getting more difficult now. She's trying to help, but sometimes she's too quick. She wants to give her brother soother, even when he's asleep, which will usually wake him up, and once she manages to give it to him, she will pull it out again, so he's getting more irritated and tired as he doesn't get much sleep. Luckily past few days was better and she just ignored him while he was sleeping.

But she loves him, would love to change his clothes all the time, so I have to stop her from opening her brothers pj's or nappies if it's not necessary. She also wants to hug him, cuddle him, but he's quite heavy for her, so she needs to sit down and I can place him on her lap, but have to hold his head and make sure, she won't push him away when she get bored with him.

Alex is sometimes not sleeping that good, but she's able to tell us when she wants to go for her day time nap and that goes without crying.

To be honest, it's a lot of work at the moment, but I'm really looking forward the summer and autumn when Jessie will be stronger and more interactive, so Alex will enjoy some plays with him.

People around are telling us that we are brave to have to babies with such small age gap. I think we didn't realize it could be difficult some times when I was pregnant. But yes, I think we are brave, not stupid as other thinks. All is settling and I believe it's going to be better every day.

With me it's nearly all back to normal. I had a few moments with some baby blues, and I am more snappy at my hubby at the moment as I need more support from him, but it's not that bad. I thought the body cleaning was faster this time, but I was wrong. The first bit was faster (the heavy bleeding finished sooner), but the other part took ages. My body adjusted to the new me just last week. I hope the first post pregnancy period will come after I stop breastfeeding ;) But great news is that I lost a lot of weight just with breastfeeding. I gained nearly 20kg during this pregnancy and I have only 6 kg left to loose to be in my pre-pregnancy weight. I didn't do any exercises yet, but planning to start from Monday. With the labour I lost about 7kg, so 7 more was the breastfeeding so far, which is not bad. I still need to get my body to shape, as I can't fit to any of my jeans yet, but that doesn't matter.
Well it will matter in a few weeks time when I will go to a party, so I hope, I'll fit in some clothes :D

3 weeks with new baby

The time flies!

It's already 3 weeks since we are home as a family of 4. 

Jessie is growing soooo fast. It's unbelievable and Alex is really a big sister. 

Even though she can be jealous and tries to get my attention when I'm attending to Jessie, she's a great help. She grew up from one day to another. 

If I ask her to help me with something, like to bring me a new nappy for Jessie or something, she usually goes and brings me what I ask for. She loves helping so much, that I had to allow her to help with washing too. 

Of course, I bring all the clothes to washing machine, prepare everything, and I never let her touch the washing powder etc, but she was so interested in pressing the buttons on the machine and turning the settings that I decided to give her the responsibility of turning it on. 

Well she's not strong enough to press the buttons, well the power one for sure, but I showed her which one is the start on and when all is ready, I turn the power on and ask her to come and help me press the start. It's usually me who press it at the end, but she has her finger on the correct button and feels so proud when she hears the water flowing in the machine. We always wait if the water comes. This way she's not trying to press any other buttons during the wash cycle or even when the machine is empty. This was one of the tips we got in our new parenting training we signed up for with my hubby.

It's great and I will tell you all about it later when I get more spare time, but at this moment it's quite busy. One baby needs me, another wants me, so it's an important game to satisfy all our little ones needs.

But I'm one really proud mummy with two beautiful kids. Love them to bits ;)

Still tired from night feeds, but they are getting better now. Breastfeeding is so handy. I'm happy that I can do it again. The only issue I have is that I have a lot of milk and very fast flow, which makes Jessie to swallow air as he's getting his milk so fast.

That wouldn't be a much problem if he would burp after each feed, but he doesn't, so the air goes to the other end ;) that means Jessie has a lot of wind and his tummy hurts because of that. I'm trying to help him with a baby massage and exercises and with trying to burp him every time he lets go of my breast, but that is not enough. 

I know boys have more tummy ache than girls, as a lot of friends told me that, but I also know he will grow out of it soon, so I need to work around it now, it all will be over soon. Alex was had a lot of wind too and she was fine by 12th week, so I'm hoping we will be lucky with Jessie as well and he'll be alright by the end of his 3rd month.

Oh BTW, Alex has 2 new teeth nearly out, and 3rd one is trying to come as well, so she's currently teething with 3 new teeth. This doesn't affect her sleeping, so we are lucky as she sleeps through the night.

Granny is here for a holidays from last Saturday to Monday so at least she has a good night sleep as she stays in Alex's room.

I'm really happy that we got some help here, but this will soon be over and it will be just us in the house. Me, hubby and two kids. Let see how we manage.
I think we did good during the first two weeks, so hope this will be even better as Jessie will be older now. Fingers crossed!