Gravel Rain

a favorite activity: taking a handful of gravel and throwing it directly overhead.

Otso's 20th Month

Summary
Otso is friendly and communicating more all the time. His vocabulary is increasing rapidly. The biggest change this month is his interest in books. Now not only will he sit and read with a parent, he requires his own little reading session in his own room before going to sleep.

Events
21.5 parent-teacher meeting at barnehage
22.5 barnehage planning day: hundvåg playgroup
23.5 bbq with neighbors 
24.5 oil museum
30.5 bbq & sleepover at gemma's house with the whole family 
5.6 new tooth! 
6.6 farm in randaberg 
7.6 vitenfabrikken
10.6 sommerfest at barnehage
14.6 traffic playground

20.6 goodbye to diego + gemma + amy + filippo

Development
He seems pretty agile. The most challenging thing for him physically seems to be going down stairs or a steep hill.

Language
Now says both äiti and isä, and speaking more Finnish. His vocabulary is blossoming.
26.5 his teacher said he said a whole sentence in norwegian while asking for water
29.5 "ilmapallo" - his most complex finnish word to date!

Social
He always looks for Lumi and tries to make sure she's in her "place" at meals and teethbrushing and other rituals.  And if she isn't, he will shout "Meeeeeeeeemi!" until she gets there.
The barnehage teacher said he likes to watch what other kids are doing before he does it himself (when painting, etc). 

Toys/Games
favorite toys: the letter O from the alphabet mat, which he throws like a discus, balloons, balls 
At Hundvåg playgroup, we played "popcorn" with the big parachute and all the kids *loved* it.
The barnehage teacher said that all the kids in Otso's group gravitate toward the cars and the dolls. He is definitely more interested in dolls and stuffed animals, and is starting to cuddle the little yellow bear when he goes to sleep. He calls stuffed animals "babies".
He is getting into books. He can pay attention for short board books, like Sandra Boynton. His first book that he sat through and listened to the whole thing was Sandra Boynton's Doggies. Barnyard Dance is another favorite.
He loves the scooter that we borrow from Gemma. He can't kick/push yet but he will stand with both feet on the board while an adult pushes him around.
He enjoys playing a kind of "marco polo" game when he shouts "äiti!" (which sounds more like "äini!" right now) and i yell back "otso!". this can go on for many rounds.
He has started to put a doll's tutti in his mouth while playing. He won't accept a regular tutti for humans but he does like the doll one.

Eating
favorite foods: corn, pancakes, puuro, cheese 
drinks: still doesn't like milk but loves water. still nursing 3 times a day.
11.6 - didn't nurse all day! he requested it in the morning he decided he'd rather have a banana, and in the evening he requested it again but he was playing and quickly forgot about it.
End of the month we are down to usually only nursing 2 times per day.

Sleeping
bedtime is 7:00, wake up at 6:30 (or 5:00 or 5:30, depending on how he's feeling). 
He has started some attachment to a stuffed animal. At night he holds the little yellow bear in one hand when he goes to sleep. He calls stuffed animals "babies", so I often cuddle him (he shows a strong preference for using my left shoulder to snuggle up to and close his eyes) as he gets sleepier and say "let me know when you're ready to lay down with your baby" and when he's ready he points at the crib and i lower him in and he grabs the bear. he prefers to sleep on his belly with his head turned to the left. 
Recently we have added books to the night routine. Current favorites are "Follow That Bee" and "Hippos Go Berserk" and "Topi Pitää Väreistä".

Health
23.5 fell from neighbors ' sofa and landed on his head.
24.5 fell with äiti in the living room and landed on his ear.
26.5 trying cloth diapers again at barnehage
He has been pooping first thing in the morning often. That means that the 5:30 wakeup call is even worse than it normally would be.
11.6 due to nonstop pee leakage, we are going back to disposable diapers at barnehage
13.6 sick with fever and coughing and runny nose
14.6 seems better but not 100%

20.6 toppled down the stairs outside but seemed to fall well.

Stats
Clothes: size 92 (2T) in most things, though with pants he can wear 86.

Teeth: 10 (left upper first molar on 5.6)
Weight: 12.1 kg on 8.5
Height: 83 cm on 27.5 (really imprecisely measured around the house!)

Random
When we talk about flying, he flaps his little arms. Very cute!

He has switched from insisting on the balaclava to insisting on the "toadal chaos" sun hat that Grandpa and Mama Dollie brought him from Bermuda. He loves the hat and wears it whenever he can. We set a rule that he has to take it off when he goes to bed. Otherwise, it pretty much stays on.

Funny Faces

evening yogurt

Lumi: 4 Years and 4 Months

Summary
It has been a good month, with small improvements in general life skills. We had a fun trip to Scotland with Grandpa and Mama Dollie.

The biggest issue has been the barnehage dropoff and we had almost 2 weeks of tantrums where she ended up having to be held in the classroom by a teacher.

Events
7.5 last gymnastics! 
8-15.5 - scotland (shared a room with mama dollie!)
8.5 fly to aberdeen and pick up grandpa and mama Dollie and drive to nethy bridge
9.5 funicular up mountain
10.5 Balmoral castle
11.5 loch ness tour
12.5 stayed with grandpa and mama Dollie while the parents went for a tour
13.5 steam train ride
14.5 more little towns
15.5 Deans of Huntly cookie factory, flight home to Stavanger
16.5 Suomikoulu, Xaden's birthday party
17.5 17 May parade, bbq at Gemma's house
22.5 barnehage planning day: hundvåg playgroup
23.5 last suomi koulu ; bbq with neighbors 
24.5 oil museum with neighbors

30.5 bbq & sleepover at gemma's house with the whole family 

Language
Developments are more subtle these days. She is increasingly comfortable with all 3 languages, and is starting to play with words to get dramatic effect (e.g. announcing "I'm going to the store on something called ... a bike!").

Learning
19.5 with zero prompting, she cleared her own plate at breakfast and brought it to the kitchen

She is also getting better at the little things around the house. Getting dressed has been a difficult thing for a couple years now and she still has some problems and wants attention while doing it, but lately she can do more and then for example when we asked her to show Gemma she did it all very easily and even explained her steps.

Social
The barnehage drop off is still difficult, and we are working on that. The last week in May was especially hard with tears every day. 

Leisure
Grandpa and Mama Dollie brought her a set of Paris - themed reusable stickers. She and grandpa played for hours with them, acting out scenes. Also SAS airlines gave us a reusable sticker book with an airport scene.
She liked watching the little kids channel in Scotland ("CBeebies"). And now we're back and she's on a Doc McStuffins kick.
At Hundvåg playgroup, we played "popcorn" with the big parachute and all the kids *loved* it.

Food
She still isn't great at eating the protein at dinner but some nights she surprises us all. She uses a sippy cup in the morning with juice but is transitioning slowly to using a regular plastic cup.

Lately she enjoys pretending whatever she's drinking (mostly water) is a smoothie.

Health
7.5 last gymnastics! it was marked by a fall off the balance beam onto the one area not padded. She smacked her face on the gym floor.

She escaped a couple bad colds (one from Otso, one from Äiti) this month.

Stats
size: 104 (4T) in most clothes (though some 4T shorts slide off her hips). Any new purchases are in size 110 (5T). 27 shoe (though this varies widely by brand).
height: 103 cm on 20.4
weight: 15.1 kg on 23.3

Random
10.5 she proposed that we call the remote the "TV maker"

15.5 in Aberdeen after we got through security we passed through the duty free shop. we passed a whisky tasting booth and before we even knew what was happening lumi had grabbed a tasting cup. we stopped her before she actually drank it.

16.5 tantrum when she refused to say "i'm sorry"; she also lied and said that Isä threw it.

16.5 [when she was about to try on a pair of äiti's shoes] "i'm going to be a grandmother!" (note: i am getting rid of those shoes.)

23.5 she had a tantrum when äiti went to the grocery store ; it culminated in screaming outside in her pajamas with bare feet.

27.5 while explaining how she would grow, she said "first i'm going to be a bigger sister, then a mommy, then a daddy." it seems she thinks that women keep growing until they become fathers.

sometime in May, while going #2: "äiti, we're going to need to clean the toilet when i'm done." (and she was right)

3.6 after äiti said that isä was "on the ball" when he remembered that she needed to pee before she left for barnehage, she said "and it's a big, big ball!"

Otso at barnehage

Here are a few shots of Otso at barnehage: Karneval, an outing, painting, and at a playground downtown. He looks a bit sad in all of them but I think he does actually enjoy it there.