two more teeth today

Upper left and bottom left just peeked out today.

Here are some photos taken during the day.

Self-taken photo of mommy and son playing on the floor at home:

Nikolas investigating grass quality at the Balboa park:
Mia is trying to hold Nikolas--and he is jumping, as usual:
In the evening we visited Mina where baka stopped by to pick me and Nikolas up:
The two boys are nicely playing together...:
Then out of nowhere, here comes a kiss (or a bite!):
What, why is everyone looking at me and laughing???
Haha, now you are making me laugh too... :)
Especially when I see how shocked Kiki still is :)

pics from the past few days (Venice, Malibu beach)

I forgot to mention:

Last Saturday the grandparents, mommy and Nikolas spent a majority of the day on Venice beach and Santa Monica. We all enjoyed the stroll and the weather couldn't have been better for it.

Yesterday the two of us went with Mina, Emma, Kiki, Enida and her boy Tristan to Malibu beach. We hung out at the Village first where there is a nice little playground for bigger kids (the two little ones could still peek out from their strollers), and then we crossed the street and sat on the beach for a little while. Emma and Tristan were so cute together! Bummer I don't have any pictures of them. I finally put some sunscreen on Nikolas for the first time.

Nikolas and Kiki, with Mina and Emma in the background:

Before we headed home, we stopped for lunch at the fish and chips place right on highway 1 in Malibu that I'd definitely recommend to anyone who likes fish. The little ones were both asleep, which makes any lunch more enjoyable :)

peekaboo

Nikolas knows how to play peekaboo!

I was checking my email in the office this morning while he was playing in the living room. When he spotted me, he crawled to the hallway entrance and stayed a bit hidden behind the wall, then peeked out--I said 'chuuu' (my version of 'peekaboo'), at which he gave me a huge smile and then hid again, then peeked again.... We played for a couple of minutes and it was hilarious and so awesome to see that he really was playing the game!

The other thing he played with today was the spongy puzzle that he entirely took apart and spread all over the living room, it looked like a tractor passed through the room--what a mess! The pieces came handy for chewing--they are just soft enough that they don't hurt his gums but hard enough to massage his gums that will produce more teeth any day now. I think I can already see the other front upper tooth just under a thin layer of skin.

He climbs everything now. The coffee table is a major attraction since it has, up until now, housed a remote control, newspapers, a story book, often a cup... all those things he'd love to put his hands on! Of course, chairs, sofa, etc. are just as good a support for climbing. Check out his right sock :) At least it's on, he hasn't bit if off his foot just yet!

cevapi

Today we had a second installment of our family lunch at our house. We had Mira, Julio and Divna over, as well as Lela and Mico, and Mina and Dragan with the kids.
Tata made cevapcici for an appetizer, which were the favorite as usual. The funny part was that while I was holding Nikolas and eating cevapcici, he leaned towards my face and opened his mouth wide to bite my mouth! He was reeeeally attracted by the smell of cevapcici that I feel bad that he'll have to hold off tasting any meat until a bit later... I don't think I'll wait until he turns one but at least until he has tried more veggies and fruits. So far he's had cereal, squash, avocado, carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli, peas and beats (the last three were not his favorites), and occasionally he's had a bit of melon juice.

More of Santa Barbara

Now that the little one is crawling very fast and climbing anything he can climb, we had to design barricades to keep him confined to one place from time to time. He was surprisingly entertained on his own there even when no one was paying much attention at him (ok, that doesn't happen very often, but he still didn't call for mommy). He played with his toys and practiced climbing and walking along the barricade. He is especially working on sitting down. So far he has realized that he needs to grab something lower and somehow bring his butt down, but he hasn't realized that he needs to bend his knees to do that, so he continually spreads his legs sideways instead and eventually falls back on his butt (sometimes he ends up in split and demands to be rescued, outch!).

This morning he successfully passed from Lela's to deko's arms without losing balance on his feet,

and continued to walk and jump:

Saying bye to aunt Lela before she left for work (can I keep her necklace to play with it?):

Just to add another photo, here is one from last Sunday in a little cafe on State St.:

First tooth (Santa Barbara)

Nikolas' first tooth appeared today! I noticed the outline yesterday on his right-hand upper gums (surprisingly upper rather than lower) that was getting whitish in color, and today the actual tooth showed up.

Can you see the tooth?

Deko, Nikolas and I arrived in Santa Barbara yesterday to visit aunt Lela. While Lela was at work today, the three of us drove to the UCSB beach where we spread a blanket under a tree to keep the baby skin protected from sun. Then I brought Nikolas to touch the sand and the ocean water--he wasn't too thrilled with either the wet sand or the cold water.... but he enjoyed the grass a lot, as seen on the second photo below. From time to time I had to keep him from stuffing the grass in his mouth.

Checking out the beach....

Hello there!

Yummy grass!

Lunch on the beach...

First step taken in Banning

I think we can officially say that Nikolas took his first step today. Last week back in Encino he started practicing getting up against a sofa or someone's leg. On Thursday when we came to visit deka (pradeka) Dusko in Banning he was able to stand up by himself, but his knees were still wobbly and he kept looking down thinking of the best way to come down. He was also not quite sure of the best position of his legs from which he would push up.

Today he was already much more confident. When he stood up against the sofa close to me, he took a few steps sideways to reach my leg. By the end of the day his sideways distance stretched to as long as a meter, and coming down and getting back up became child's play :)

Not to mention his lack of interest in crawling: why crawl when one can walk and reach more things that way?

We had a very full and joyful day overall. Baka and deda came from Encino to take us and the family from Banning/Palm Desert area out for lunch, to mark Nikolas' visit. We were joined by baka Rada and deda Pero, Shawna, Dave and Dillan, teta Maca and cika Craig, teta Ankica and cika Kamenko, teta Radojka and cika Slavko, and of course deka (pradeka) Dusko.

After lunch the five of us went to visit baka (prabaka's) grave in the Weaver Cemetary to water the flowers and take photos with her great-grandson.

I need to add a couple of videos of Nikolas in front of a mirror--it's too funny. I wonder what goes on in his mind when he sees his reflection--but he licks it every time....

(Even though the second video below shows up black in preview, it will play when you click on the play button.)