Malo's Mini Milestones

Every new month , every new week since Malo came into our life, I tell myself how much I love this particular phase he is going through. Since I have been saying this every week since he was born, I have had over 80 weeks of total bliss. And every week I catch myself thinking this cannot get any better, any more fun, watching him grow. And every week, it does.

And these days, weeks are packed to the ceiling with new discoveries, new things Malo is learning, understanding, doing, experimenting, enjoying.

I keep telling myself I shoudl write them all, because I can picture him, in 20 years, having a lot of fun reading about them, but each time I forget, and I realise I have myself already forgotten so many of the small milestones he has reached, which I thought I would always remember.

So I may as well start now, and maybe it'll motivate me to write others, so that people don't think my son once reached the "saying Mama" stage... and decided it would stop there, for good.

-Martin and I always take off our shoes first thing when we get home. Now, Malo's first move when we get home from day care, or a run at the weekend, is to go and fetch our sleepers wherever we've dropped them before leaving home, and make sure they are on our feet pronto. He does not always give the right pair to the right owner, which means I may be walking around in Martin's size 46 sleepers while Martin barely fits his toes in my size 35s, but still, that's pretty neat. Now I guess we just have to train him bringing us the newspaper and a glass of wine, and we'll save ourselves getting a dog and a maid.

- he wants to do everything we do : brushing teeths, combing hair (not that he has much to comb yet), reading, driving the car (and honking in the building's garage - neighbours must love us), eating our food, sweeping the floor (see, no need for a maid) ,etc, etc, oh, and, running. He just loves running. Well, he's my son after all. And given that I suspect that, in a few years time, he'll rather go climing with his dad that running with his mum, I am making the most of it now, even if that only means, for now, running back and forth in the corridor.

- he has his own language - in his head, as he is not really talking yet - an interesting combination of German and French. He only knows Spagat (a "split" in gymnastics) and Kugelbauch (literally a belly like a ball) in German, and some only in French (altough you will have to take my word for it since I cannot come up with one single word). Food stuff however he seems to understand in both languages... special things justify special efforts. Meanwhile, I am also, thanks to my son, improving my German, although I doubt that knowing how to say "changing nappies" in German justifies changing my German from "basic knowledge" to "fluent" on my CV.

- His first word, apart from Maman, wooah wooah (indifferently any types of animal, plus his doudou), and brroom brroom (cars), was "danke" ("thank you"). His dad was proud beyond belief Malo's first "real" word was German, and I consoled myself by thinking that, if "thank you" was if his first word, I have not completely failed his education yet (although I am fully aware there will be many years to make up for this).

- Although Malo knows perfectly his dad is "Vati", he is Malo and I am Maman when I or somebody else talk about us, he will still refer to the three of us indifferently as "maman". Because I am me, and therefore genetically have to worry about things, I sometimes can't help wandering if, at 18 months, he should not be, by now, making the distinction between the three of us, I am easily convinced when Martin tells me this is just Malo's way of designating our little family, the cell in which, as long as the three of us are here, nothing bad can happen. And truth be told, the fact he does makes me feel that way, too...

- Malo has recently entered a phase where he points at us, him, or his grand parents when he recently saw them, or friends, or friends of friends, and he expects you to tell him This is Malo, This is Vati, This is Maman, and so on. The last week he started going this with everything. So right now, the only hour we have together in the evening between coming back from day care and going to bed is spent saying This is Malo's car, This is a chair, This is Malo's truck, this is Maman's head, this is Malo's arm, and so on, 20 times each. Or 30. Or 40. And I am not even bored (granted, I realise I may be, if, in a month time, he has not moved on).

- I am also just amazed how this little man who cannot even talk understand every single thing I say. I'll ask him to go into my bedroom, slide the wardrobe door open, get the red jumper on the second shelf and get it back to me, and he'll do it. On the other hand, we've been telling him for months not to throw his spoon on the floor when having dinner, and he still does. Maybe that's just too easy an order to be acted on.

- Last week, as we were on holiday, we took him to the play ground, which had a few climbing holds. You should have seen his dad almost crying of joy and pride (ok, I admit, me too) when Malo actually managed to climb up some of them. Granted, he had been reading the right stuff for a while...

PS - you may have noticed most of the photos were 100% unrelated to the theme of this post, but I just happen to love them so wanted to post them. So I may as well indulge... and add a last one...

PSS - You may also have noticed that this is my first post in a very, very, long time. I am under no illusion that anybody missed them, but in case some of you were wondering... My family aside, the rest of my life is a big of a mess these days, and I most of the time feel I am between the rock and a hard place. So, since this blog is supposed to be about fun stuff, or failing this, about not-so-fun-stuff-told-in-a-hopefull-fun-way, I just prefered not posting...