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.

I just received a great offer for BEHAVE parenting course. If you want more details please check this out.

We are following BEHAVE ;) If you want to understand your kids better it's great way to discover what their behaviour is about and how to deal with it in calmer way.

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Why do I study parenting books and taking courses?

I already mentioned a few months, maybe it's a year already, ago that we signed up for a parenting course.

So let me explain why. Simply: I want my children grow up in different environment as I did. Of course they do, because we live somewhere else and our family's different, but what I'm trying to say, I want them to have even completely different experiences as kids, different relationships with parents and be what they want to be.

I as a mother want to be supporting, understanding and loving and I don't want to be afraid to say it to my kids. I want them to know what I feel and what they mean to me. 

It's completely new to me to show my feelings and talk about them and to accept my children's feelings as they are. Nobody showed me while I was growing up. My mum was very strict. I want my kids to come to me when they have a problem and talk to me about it. I want them to feel safe with me. 

All my past experiences led me to search for gentle parenting approaches. So when I joined a free online workshop on parenting I hoped it will be something useful. And it was. The first one I watched was about taking kids to a doctor and how to deal with it, so kids will understand what is happening and won't keep us responsible for any pain they might experience. That means even phobias of going to doctor or dentist. And guess what. We had a perfect chance to test it just a few days after the workshop and it worked. There was another workshop soon after and that one was good as well so we decided to pay for the course and go full 5 weeks with them.

Did it work? I think so. A few people mentioned to me that they like how my kids behave. Even though sometimes I think nothing is working, most of the times I feel like I can communicated with them and sort out any issues without screaming. There are still times when I can't keep my temper down, but I don't think it's too often. It's usually when I'm under pressure from something else or really tired.

The only problem I found out, even though we have a great support from the course, is that sometimes I have no idea what to do. It taught us some great strategies, but they are so open to different ways how to deal with the stuff that I get confuse.

That's why I still look for more answers in books etc. I read a lovely books about kids and how to talk to them. I give you reviews on them on a separate page as I still have more to come and don't want them to just disappear here in the text.

We are still dealing with siblings rivalry and sometimes I really get desperate to do anything to stop it. I know that when I get to that stage, I can't stop myself and I do raise my voice. I'm working on it and I hope it will be better soon.

So click here if you want to read some of my reviews :)

Just a few weeks until Alex's 2nd birthday

Alex's 2nd birthday is coming soon. I already checked some tasty recipes for her 2nd cake. I am really excited to bake it this year. If it will be nice and tasty, I'll share the recipe here with you. But because I didn't make it yet, I'll wait.

She will get another cake from her grandma, also home made. 

We have the gifts already sorted. Including the Santa's ones. We contacted the head elf ;) 

Alex is getting big and more communicative. She's not shy, it takes her 5 minutes to get use to somebody new. And how she talks now, it's amazing. She's making sentences with 3-4 words and they make sense 90% of time. :D

She loves reading books, playing with stuffed animals and exercising. She can recognise some letters, so there is a few presents which should help her learn even more. 

I can't wait to give her those. 

She found one of them by mistake in our wardrobe. I wasn't pleased with that, but it was my fault, I didn't hide it well. She was so excited to see it and wanted to open it, but she couldn't open the plastic bag. So she looked at it for a few minutes, turned it from one side to another and when she went to bed, I put it back to the wardrobe to a higher shelf. The following morning she didn't even remembered she found something new. 

So I hope she'll be excited to get it in a few weeks, but it won't be the only present we have for her. There is one more which should make her happy too.

The time goes by so fast, that it feels like yesterday when Alex was born and now she's nearly two and Jessie is 7,5 months already.

Permanent holidays

As the title says our holidays became permanent.

With all the changes in our family and the crises that happened a few weeks ago with my dad. We decided to stay here, close to our families.

Nearly all our stuff is already with us, but we still need to arrange some things. We are missing a few things that got lost during the transfer, but we hope the moving company will find them.

I can not go back to work, so I need to figure out what to do if I won't get parental leave here in our new place. That's the reason why I want to complete all my courses as soon as possible, so I can choose what to do. I will miss my work though. It was great place with nice people and really good boss. If I would be looking for a job in a big company I wish for something like I just left.

We have mixed feelings about it. Anytime we see pictures from Ireland we are sad, really missing it and I still call it "back home". Even now I want to cry.

I know I should be happy to be close to my mum and sisters and others and I am, but every change that is so big is difficult to digest.

Our kids probably won't remember much from the green island but we'll show them that again.

New adventure is starting. I'll write more about it later.

Something about me

Soooo, it's nearly 6 months since Jessie was born. The time is running too fast.

For the past months I lived in tracksuits and shorts.  I tried my jeans a few time at the beginning of the summer but I didn't like the way they fit.

I was able to put them on but the waist was too tight and my belly was looking worse than a muffin top.

When Jessie was 3 months old I did a squad challenge. And 5 weeks ago I started exercising a little bit.

Last week we had to go shopping and the weather wasn't nice so I grabbed my jeans to try them on.

When I put it on I was surprised. I felt so happy and motivated. The waistband is loose and even though I still have some belly fat it doesn't look that bad.

I'm still breastfeeding and I believe that helped a lot as I am not on any diet and I eat whatever I want. 

When I start watching the food and continue the exercises I should be back in shape by Xmas.

I am getting stronger and I wish to start running as well. I'll have a great personal trainer ;) my hubby's grandma, she's still running and she's already 80 years old. I think I already mentioned it, but I would love to have her body and energy when I'm older, it would be a victory to have that by the time I'm 40 ;)

My motivation is growing stronger when I see some results and my kids see the healthy me.

So lets continue with all that. I still need to finish some online courses, I already started, but I believe I'll do them fast when the weather will be worse and we wouldn't be able to spend whole day outside.

Alex's talking/sign language

Alex is now getting much better with communicating with us.

She uses a few signs like cookie, grapes, nuts, eat, sleep, sometimes milk and she understands when we sign more or enough. She can then repeat which one she prefers. 

Just this morning she asked me for a cookie and she actually tried to say the word as well.

She speaks more word in English than Czech even though we speak Czech home all the time and she has English only in movies or bedtime stories.

Her recent words are: doggy, bye bye, up, cookie and of course mummy, daddy. In Czech she also say voda which means water, pa pa = bye bye, etc

She recognizes animals and is able to tell up what (how) day do. She know dog, cat, pig, horse, crow, sometimes she get right cow, sheep, chicken and rooster too.

It's great to see her outside and starts making these sounds what the animals do when she sees them around. 

Yesterday in a car we were stuck in a traffic next to gate to a church where a big crow sat. She said how the crow do and I looked out of the window and saw it sitting there. I felt so proud. She's one little clever girl. :)

It's a pity I can't get her to tell us when she wants to poop :) that would save so much time and troubles, especially because she hates changing her nappies.