September-October

My project for this period has been to encourage Nikolas's social life, since he's been showing interest in other kids all summer. He is old enough to understand that he should share toys, that he shouldn't feel threatened if I'm paying attention to other kids, or if other kids are playing with his toys. So far we are on the right track! He really enjoys seeing Abby, Aagneya and Kyle, and he calls their names every day. When I drive to the apartment complex where both Abby and Aagneya live, he excitedly calls either or both their names knowing he'd see them in a few moments. We usually let them run around grassy areas or play in the kids' zone of the gym. Nikolas and Aagneya are the most independent ones in the group--they'll find something interesting to play with and won't open the door of the gym crying for mommy. Of course, when we are outside, that just makes it a bit harder on me now since I have to chase him all over the place and in the end carry him back home or to the car because he refuses to go back in. So yeah, 'ouside' is definitely one of his favorite words!
Nikolas and Aagneya:
A few times we went to a kids' gym, Sun Country, which is a place for kids' gymnastics where Fridays are open play days. Last spring Nikolas wouldn't move away from me when I took him there, but now I have to keep him in sight or I'd have to go search for him in several separate play areas that he'll go off to explore on his own. He loves the trampoline, a big bucket filled with plastic balls, and a balance beam on which he'll walk up and down a dozen times. The one thing he is a bit cautious about is the slide. He'll only go down if I stand by and hold his hand at the beginning, never on his own.

The other social location for Nikolas is the kids' club at my gym. I like to leave him there with either April or Bailey who adore him and whom he openly likes best. He calls them Aeba and Bailey. He used to cry for a few minutes when I'd leave him at the gym (he stopped just a few weeks ago), and he first kicked this habit if one of these girls were there to welcome him. They got him hooked on coloring so I bought him colored pencils and markers so he could indulge at home.... or he'd incessantly repeat 'color, color, color...!'

Nikolas, lounging on mommy's belly:
When I ask him, 'Where are the babies?', he points to the belly and now also lifts the shirt and kisses it :) I can't help wondering what he makes out of it.

He has picked up a whole bunch of English words recently--some from daddy and some from the gym (mostly from April, who is impressed by how quickly he learns and how well he pronounces words, so she particularly enjoys teaching him). He caught me by surprise when he said 'apple' instead of 'kabuka', 'bird' instead of 'pitsa', 'truck' instead of 'kamion' (with the real English 'r' when he can't say Serbocroatian rolling 'r' yet), 'book' instead of 'kniga',.... then there is 'keys', 'bottle', 'color', 'milk', 'basketball' (to add to baseball and football), 'train', and so on. Among edible items, his latest favorites are smoothie ('moody'), broccoli ('boccoli'), and to top them all, chocolate ('chokolada'). Robb says he's noticed that Nikolas talks to me and my family in Serbocroatian more and to him and his family in English.

He started singing the 'ABC' song about a month ago, it's hilarious! He often sings it to himself while he is flipping through books or playing with the train set or something, when I'm not right there with him. I'm not sure if he got it from the toys that play it or from the gym, and in the second case, I'm not sure if he is singing 'ABC' or 'Twinkle, twinkle little star' that has the same melody, because among the 'words' he says I thought I first recognized '... how I wonder...' from 'Twinkle, twinkle'.
So I thought, if he is learning the song, maybe he'll learn letters alone too! I showed him a few simple letters in books, and he quickly remembered several of them and was able to recognize them later on: A, O, S, K.

We got him a basketball hoop that we keep inside so he can play with it whenever he wants. This is true: the first time I let him throw the ball into the hoop, he made it in the first or second try!


Another step stone is coordination: I watched him as he disassembled a few pieces of a train track and rearranged them differently, fitting them together perfectly! I was late to catch it on video :(

He loves putting on our shoes. For himself, he'll call 'shoes on!' to go out, and around the house he'll put our shoes on his feet whenever he has a chance.