Madison

I run upstairs to check what’s up with Maarten. I find him standing up the bathtub with both hands leaning against the window while he screams out again “Maaadisooon”. I’m relieved nothing serious happened.
Or did it?
For several days now there has been someone new in our lives.
Madison wakes up with Maarten, they eat breakfast together and they share his bed in the evening, they pinch and tease each other and comfort themselves afterwards with hugs and kisses...
Madison is even allowed to cuddle his hairy monkey Oušík and she is going to travel with us by plane to visit babi.
She makes Maarten laugh. She is funny but also a bit naughty. She jumps into his dinner plate where she gets dirty and then into his milk glass to wash herself clean again...

I wish Madison would also take Maarten to the potty. But sure he has a reason not to follow her in that way.
Even though Madison is shorter than Maarten, "she is already a big girl while he is still a tiny little baby."


So once his dad got creative and made this colorful chart with smiley stickers.
And, as you see, it works at last!
However Maarten still tends to use the potty-matters to control us and above all to get his own way.

~~~

I’m really happy I finally signed him up for a swim school.
Maarten was never scared of water and also I didn’t really enjoy the outdoor classes in the cool pool last spring so I kept postponing his enrollment.

But now Maarten can attend the classes by himself.
And even though the weather is still pretty chilly this pool is indoors, very warm (too much for me actually) and just around the corner.
As I’ve expected, Maarten didn’t have problems with the water at all. Yet he tried to escape several times from the first class and I understand why.

Last year classes was just playing in the water and here is so much different.
Already during the first class the swim instructor truly had to rinse his brain several times till he understood he shouldn’t breathe beneath the water. I could see Maarten disliked that of course. Once he even yelled at me that he hates it there and will never come back. And since it was really loud and in Czech after all, the young instructor looked pretty confused.

And now a couple of weeks later he does so well, he loves the classes and looks forward to go again.