Nathanh and Mommy's Day Out

Today was really my last full day with Nathanh as I need to go into school tomorrow and the next day and Nathanh has transition days at daycare.  So I wanted to do something special.  Ever since we got home from Vietnam I have been telling Nathanh (and Erwin) that one day we would go visit daddy at work.  Since I am going back to work on Tuesday, I figured it was now or never!  So today we finally headed into the big city to have lunch with daddy. 

Having lunch with daddy at the Old Spaghetti Factory.  (Nathanh is eating a piece of bread).

After lunch we walked daddy back to work and then walked through Gastown and around Canada Place.  With his tummy nice and full, Nathanh fell asleep fairly quickly in his stroller, so I took my time enjoying the sunshine and the always gorgeous views of the North Shore.

When Nathanh woke up I thought he needed a bit of running around (and tire him out again) time.  So we headed back on the SkyTrain to Central Park in Burnaby.  Nathanh had lots of fun running, playing, climbing and exploring!

Don't you wish you could read their minds!

A chair just the right size for Nathanh!

First time going down a roller slide.  He liked it but I think he liked standing at the side of it rolling the rollers best!

Every time the Skytrain went by, Nathanh would stand up and sign train.

A new friend!

Nathanh and his new friend having a staring competition.  Can you see the squirrel?  - white tummy standing on two legs.

Having a snack as we made our way back to the SkyTrain to go home.

It was a wonderful day but I have to say I am very sad to see our full days together come to an end.  I know, we'll still have weekends but it just won't be the same.  I am going to miss being around Nathanh all day, everyday.  I love doing things together and watching him develop and learn.  He is so funny, inquisitive, energetic, silly and makes me laugh all the time...yup, gonna miss the little guy.

Words and Signs

I have been wanting to document Nathanh's words for awhile now, but I have been so busy catching up with older posts...
Nathanh's vocabulary is definitely growing.  We are always amazed by how much he understands and slowly but surely his own expressive communication is coming along as well.

Words he can say:
*Mama
*Dada
*doggy
*kitty
*bubble
*Nana
*yeah (I would prefer him to say yes, but I have to admit he probably gets this from me)

Words he can approximate:
mo = more
ee = bee
ack = snack

Animal sounds:
"meow" - this is really cute to hear.  He uses this little soft voice and it is just so sweet...if I were a cat I'd want to be Nathanh's friend...unfortunately other cats don't think that way and tend to run away from him.
"quack" - now as cute and sweet as his "meow" is, his "quack" is hideous!  It sounds more like a dying duck, no make that a loud dying duck!  But it is his "quack" so I love it...but it "quacks" me up every time!! (sorry, I couldn't resist!)

I have also been teaching Nathanh baby sign language.  I wasn't really sure I wanted to do this at first but I thought if I could ease communication, especially around mealtimes with "more" and "finished" then why not give it a try.  Just so you know, I have read up on some of the research around baby sign and I don't think it makes kids smarter or even has long term benefits.  It is solely to ease communication (and thus frustration) at an earlier age.  But as it turns out, I am loving it.  I find it very interesting to know what Nathnah is hearing or thinking about.  For example, in the car if I have a children's CD on and there is a song about fish, Nathanh will sign "fish".  I like knowing that he is listening to the music and picking up individual words, thus beginning to understand what it is about.  I know he knows what a train sounds like because when he hears a train whistle (you can often hear them from the park behind our house) he will sign "train".  Anyways, I am always fascinated to know what he is seeing, hearing or thinking and love that he has a way to communicate these things to me.  He is just getting to a stage / age that he is able to learn signs fairly quickly so teaching him is fun too.

Here are the signs that Nathanh knows:
*airplane
*train
*bus (he actually does the wheels from "Wheels on the Bus" for bus which is not the correct ASL sign but it is consistent and we understand him so it counts as communication)
*wheels (he does this for bus but he also understands that cars and trucks have wheels too and will point them out to us)
*car (he does the horn or beep beep for car)
*truck
*more
*finished (will use this at the end of a meal, when his bath time is over, or when he wants off a swing)
*water
*milk
*strawberry
*apple
*dog
*fish
*butterfly
*hi
*bye
*star (he knows a picture of a star and that the little dot in the sky is a star - I would not know this if he couldn't sign it to me and that is why I like sign so much)

Nathanh can also point to quite a few body parts and that is often how you sign it too.

Nathanh signing airplane.

butterfly - he can't quite get his thumbs crossed but he does move his fingers like wings.

Interestingly enough, when the IDP consultant visited us last week to do a 14 month screening, she said that sign counted as expressive communication so even though he may not be able to vocalize all of those words he ended up getting the highest possible score under communication.

Back to Vienna

Erwin really only had one full day to do any touring, although he got to the Old Town for dinner and walked around the Bratislava Castle one evening.  So when Saturday rolled around, Erwin said he'd like to visit Vienna too.  This time we took the train there.  It was faster, a bit cheaper and I thought Nathanh would get a kick out of meeting the man who actually says "tickets please."  (He has a toy train that says that!)

I felt like a bit of a pro when we arrived in Vienna this time.  I knew how to work the automated metro ticketing machine and I knew where we were going!  We took mostly pictures of statues and buildings...I won't bore you with those but here are a few you might enjoy!

Erwin at the Australian Pub!

Nathanh is pointing up to daddy, taking his picture!

Okay, so I added in one just "Vienna" picture.  It really was beautiful!

We decided to take a bus tour so that we could see more of the sights and hear about some of the history of Vienna.  I gave Erwin the job of holding onto the baby who can't sit still!

One of the stops of our bus tour.

We found a park while waiting for the train to go back to Bratislava.  I thought Nathanh would love this little kitty that he could ride.  He liked it but it was not the love story that I was expecting!

Back on the train.

Funny story:  Anyone who knows Nathanh, knows that he is very attached to his little cloth and always has one close by.  Anyways, in the morning when we got off of the train Nathanh was holding his cloth but sometime later we noticed it was missing...another one bites the dust we thought - we've gone through a lot of them!  Not to worry though because we always have extra on hand so Nathanh was fine.  When we sat down on the train for our return trip, I looked out the window and what do I see lying on the platform but Nathanh's little fishy cloth!  Erwin rushed out and grabbed it.   What were the chances that we'd find it again??

Our return flight is very early tomorrow morning but with the time change we should be home by 2:00pm.  It has been a quick trip but I am glad that Nathanh and I tagged along.  Erwin thinks he will have to come back every six months or so.  Who knows, we might be back!

Bratislava - Day 4 & 5

Well after our very long day of touring in Vienna and just plain being busy, Nathanh seemed to be getting tired and coming down with a bit of a cold.  One night I was sure he had a fever but we did not bring the thermometer with us...even though I seriously thought about it.  I was very concerned after our whole Australia experience.  I did not want to end up back in the hospital again upon our return.  Airplane air just plain worries me.  Anyways, we took the next couple of days fairly easy and stayed close by the hotel so that I could make sure Nathanh was getting proper naps and eating at regular times. 

We still got out a bit though.  From our hotel window I could see an area with trees and houses so I took a gamble that there would be a park somewhere in amongst it.   And so there was!

Yup, he tries to eat pebbles in Slovakia too!

On Friday morning, since everyone else from Erwin's company had left,  Nathanh and I were able to have breakfast with Erwin and then walk him to work.   The office was very nice, much nicer than Erwin's office here in Vancouver.

The entrance way to the Bratislava office.

Nathanh and I spent some more time at the play areas in the shopping centre and he even got to ride the little train that ran between them - it was quite exciting!

Nathanh giving the wolf a hug...he insisted it was a doggy...I found it pointless to argue!

Crawling through!

This is why we never had a campfire when we were camping...total fear that Nathanh would run straight into it!

Day 3 - Vienna

Nathanh and I got up bright and early this morning to catch a boat to Vienna!  Never in a million years did I imagine that I'd be spending any time in Vienna this summer!

Nathanh quite excited about going on a boat!  He did not sleep the whole way there...but he certainly entertained the other passengers!

When we got off the boat this was our view!  We were four metro stops from the main tourist area in Vienna...it was not so easy at first to find my way around the metro with a stroller (had to find the lifts) and no understanding of the language but with the help of a nice lady I was able to get my bearings.

The view when we finally emerged from the metro!  So European!

I picked up a sandwich for lunch and we sat on a bench in the museum quarter.  The grass was being cut so Nathanh was very interested in the lawn mower and kept pointing and running towards it.

Loving the fountains...if only he could have gotten out of the stroller and jumped in!

Chasing the pigeons...Nathanh still doesn't understand why they kept leaving him...he only wanted to be their friend!

My Nathanh always stops to smell the flowers!  Apparently, the sign said keep off the grass.  I didn't see the picture version until later...oops!

I had to put him in the stroller to get past this fountain.  He would have gone swimming in an instant!  Unfortunately he didn't need to because right after this photo the rain cloud burst and we got quite wet!

With the rain coming down I made the executive decision that we needed to go on a covered horse drawn carriage ride.  I think this is when Nathanh finally learned the difference between dog and horse.  Until then he had been calling horses doggy!

Nathanh inside the carriage.  It wasn't as peaceful as one might imagine rolling down the streets of Vienna could be.  Nathanh was VERY active and wanted to climb everywhere.  He also took quite the shine to the carriage door handles...no not very relaxing at all!  But it was dry!

We had about an hour left before we had to be back at the boat to return to Bratislava.  I was feeling kind of done with the tourist area and wanted to give Nathanh a bit of time to run around before the boat ride back.  So on my Vienna map there was a big ferris wheel at one of the metro stations.  I figured there would be something fun there and I was ready to explore so off we went.  What we found was a huge amusement park.  Nathanh was overwhelmed with all of the music, lights and rides.  He didn't know which way to look and I thought his head might fall off with all of the bopping to the beat it was doing! 

Mommy's sun glasses were still a hit though!

After a stroll through the amusement park and a sketchy diaper change we headed back to the boat.  Nathanh fell asleep about five minutes before we got on the boat and slept almost the whole way back.  When he woke up he was his usual silly self and made quite a few friends.  One lady saw that I was signing to him and ended up communicating with us through sign (due to the language barrier)  It was very cool!

Bratislava - Day 2

On our second day in Bratislava, I decided that I wanted to get a bit of an earlier start to the day and explore a bit more.  So after breakfast Nathanh and I got in a taxi and headed for the Bratislava Castle.  The castle was up on a hill so the taxi driver offered to wait for us for 20 minutes and then drive us down again, back to the old town.  But I wanted to make my way down on my own and take in the sights.  I think he thought I was crazy, walking down with the stroller and kept emphasizing how difficult it would be, but we made it in the end.

This was the castle.  It was being restored, so this part looks very new and clean.  Nathanh fell asleep in the taxi on the way to the castle and was still asleep here!

Once we finished viewing the castle, we started down the hill.  Along the way there was a nice little play area so we stopped so Nathanh could stretch his legs a bit.

Playing in any country is fun!

Wandering near the park.

Walls of the original castle.

Looking back at the bumpy road!

When we got down and back to the Old Town, I had an ice cream cone...this is Nathanh enjoying the cone part!

Nathanh loved all of the fountains!

I liked the monkey on the man's shoulder...it might have reminded me of the little person I was travelling with!!

More sight seeing.  You can see the castle in the background.

This is the "New Bridge" (built in the 1970's) over the Danube River.  From here we walked over the bridge to a park at the other side.

After lunch we found another playground.  This one was right outside of a shopping mall.  The swings were a little bit different than at home but Nathanh didn't seem to mind.

Giddy Up!

Another fountain in the park.  Nathanh was able to see the rainbow and was quite taken by it.  He kept running around the fountain pointing at it and then making his very excited "ummmmm" sound.  Not sure why I didn't teach him the sign for rainbow...

Once again, not all my best pictures but all Nathanh pictures!