This month’s big new thing is nursery, of course. Adrian is at nursery 5 days a week. Eric drops him of about a quarter past 8, and I pick him up shortly before 3. He has acclimatized well by now – I wouldn’t say he loves it but he is not unhappy. He has his favourite teacher but now accepts the others as well if she isn’t available. Often he “attaches” for the day to whoever receives him in the morning. And while he goes off and plays on his own, he likes to return frequently to the teacher during the day to confirm that she, his trusted, safe person, is still there.

He takes nice long naps at nursery, often an hour and a half, which is about the same as he does at home. And he now actually eats as well. Most of the time he keeps the same limited diet that he has done for the past two months or so, both at home and at nursery: bread, plus breadlike substances such as pasta or rice or pancakes; bananas, and occasionally other fruit; meatballs.

Oh, and breast milk of course. Most afternoons he starts pulling at my coat buttons as soon as I meet him at nursery, and we nurse a bit before we even go home. Then more nursing throughout the afternoon and evening, once or twice during the night, and then more in the early morning hours when he starts to become really hungry again.

I think of it as his B diet: Bread and Butter, Bananas, meatBalls and Breast milk. I think he’d be perfectly happy as long as he just got those four. Bananas in particular he’s almost obsessed with. We can’t even walk past the bananas at our local supermarket without him shouting to get one – sometimes even when he isn’t hungry. (The supermarket is kind enough to offer a free fruit to each kid, and he knows that drill very well.)

In the last few day’s he’s let himself be inspired by the other kids at nursery and actually tried some of the cooked food they serve. It remains to be seen whether this actually leads to him eating other food. When I put food in front of him or offer him something on a spoon, he either ignores it, or looks at it askance as if he suspected us of trying to poison him. The only time he is interested in tasting new food is when he grabs some ingredient while we’re cooking. And unfortunately neither raw potatoes nor raw garlic is particularly tasty.

Somewhere Adrian has also picked up the idea of dipping. (This may well come from Ingrid, who likes to do the same.) He dips or drops a piece of food in his glass of water and then tries to fish it out again. When the food is a piece of biscuit the result is pretty soggy.

His main area of development right now is language. It is not going fast; I think he is pretty baffled by the whole bilingual issue. He has a handful of sound combinations that are recognizable words, but just in general he is more and more able to vocalize when he wants to communicate something, and better able to understand us when we talk to him.

The range of sounds he uses is rather limited. Of consonants the only really productive ones are B and P. He makes other sounds as well, of course, but he uses those in most words. He also has a funny screechy sound that combines K and L – try saying “clock” but skipping the O in the middle, and then make it really explosive and forceful. He likes the sound it makes, but he’s also used it to actually say kl’a, meaning clock.

Vocabulary (as far as I can remember):
babaa for banana, böö for bread (“bröd” in Swedish), appa/bappa for daddy, aba for navel (“naba”), appe for paper (“papper”) for when he wants something wiped clean, bäpää for dummy/pacifier, bää bää for “Baa baa white sheep” (his favourite book).
mämmä for mommy, ampa for lamp, u’a (“uggla”) for owl, yy’pa (“flygplan”) for airplane, i’-u’ (“tittut”) for peekaboo, ack-ack for thank you (“tack-tack”).
hejaa for good-bye (“hej då”); this also doubles for good night, which he says when he wants to go to bed.
Something like idde for Ingrid if I recall correctly.

As you may have noticed his current vocabulary is clearly veering towards Swedish rather than Estonian.

Favourite activities: like last month, he is still very fond of helping us cook, and the microwave is a particular favourite. If anyone tries to do either of these without him, he will run there and cry and stretch his arms up and generally use all of his being to tell us that he really, really wants to watch and help.

When I cook he inspects all the ingredients of course, and likes to “help” me pour the water or add the flour or salt. (I don’t let him salt the food, of course, since he does it by the handful, but he can salt the pasta water.) Usually most of it ends up beside the pot he aims for.

He now also wants to see what is going on in the pots and pans, and asks me to lift the lid (and lift him closer when needed) so he can see inside. And he likes to watch me stir and whisk and flip pancakes and such, and hands me utensils when he thinks I’m doing too little of that kind of stuff.

He likes drumming and banging on things. Hands on toilet lid, cooking utensils on lamp shade or window, wooden puzzle pieces against each other.

He likes peekaboo: he hides his face in his hands, I ask “where is Adrian?” and then he looks out happily. This can also be played with my woolly hat. He likes woolly hats, and mine is slightly felted and thus a bit stiff, so it is easier for him to put on than his own one.

He likes songs and rhymes, especially those that come with movement. Eensy weensy spider, Põdra maja/I ett hus vid skogens slut… His absolute favourite is Kuts läks karja, a traditional Estonian rhyme, where he lies on his back and I make walking and running movements etc with his legs. He often asks for it (äta-äta) when I’m changing his nappy.

For a while he really liked playing with a book about birds and their sounds. It has a little media player attached, and he pushed the buttons again and again to hear the birds. In the same vein he likes his and Ingrid’s toy phones. And the real thing as well, especially when someone is at the other end, but he doesn’t understand what is going on, he just likes the fact that it makes sound and light.

Favourite things to spot: dogs and air planes. He points out every plane (“yy’pa!”) that flies past, and those are numerous here since Bromma airport is about 3 km away from here. And every time we see a dog he points and stares.

He usually likes going out. He now has no objections to putting on clothes, and tries to put on his woolly hat on his own, and to put his feet in the boots. When he fights clothes, it is not because of the clothes themselves but because he doesn’t want to go out just then.

He has a whole lot of teeth: all 8 front teeth, at least 4 molars, and all 4 canines are out as well.