New pictures: Leo's 30th week

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This week we had Tea's colleagues from Doing Business come over for dinner, and we had quite the great time! First, Leo was on his best behavior while entertaining, and then like a good boy he went to sleep (almost) without a peep, letting the grown-ups enjoy their dinner.

We also paid a visit to the Washington DC National Zoo. Leo enjoyed watching the people almost as much as the animals, although the gorilla was very interesting indeed! It was a very nice day, all sunny and warm, and Leo even tried his first gelato! (he particularly liked the strawberry one :) Afterwards we went to a cafe and met our friends Vicky, Matteo and their own little man, Martino.

We also went to see our friends Ksenija, Tom and their little ones, Luka and Lulu. And when Ksenija brought out cut up fruit (peaches and apples) for the adults, Leo immediately reached for the peach, and you can see the apetite with which he devoured it below:

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New Video: Leo loves playing with Mama

It think I speak for Tea when I say it's moments like these that make coming home after work such a pleasure and make the problems of your workday just melt away in an instant!

New Video: Leo plays with his food

Usually when Leo gets a bottle he's pretty hungry and all you can hear for the next 10 minutes is a suckling sound. But every now and then the little guy just does not feel like eating, and than this happens :)

New video: Leo loves his Kaczka!

Leo's liked taking a bath ever since we got over that first crying hurdle, but now that he can sit up in the bathtub and play with his toys he really loves it. And of all his toys he loves Kaczka the most, especially when she starts quacking :)

New Video: Leo standing up

Leo's progress in terms of mobility has been rather slow of late - while we thought he might start crawling any moment he's actually been fine just sitting in one place and playing with his toys, thank you very much! That it's because he does not feel like he needs to move around is further proven by this video - when you stand him up he's actually more than happy to keep standing, but the question still remains in his mind - why bother? :)

The first tooth is coming out!

After months of drooling, occasional fussing and constant anticipation it's finally here - the first tooth is about to come out! It's one of the front-most teeth, the bottom left one, and while it's not yet truly visible yet (there is only a thin line cutting through the gums) it's really easy to feel! The whole thing is sure to be bittersweet, though - while it's great Leo is starting to have teeth, his morning and evening feedings may end up being rather more painful for Tea unless the little guy learns how not to nibble :)

New video: Leo decides to take his socks off

Leo the stylish big baby

Our model Leo Woźniak is wearing: stylish dinosaur onesie, t-shirt and matching socks (Baby GAP, courtesy of Sara and Ondrej), rugged blue jeans with a stone wash (ZARA mini, courtesy of godmother-to-be Dasa) and a smile inspired by the "famous Tea Trumbic smile" :)

Happy 7th Monthday Leo!

New Pictures: Leo's 29th Week

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Not a lot of pictures this week, as Tata was away on Saturday and most of Sunday, but we'll make up for that next week :) In the meantime enjoy pictures of our little guy figuring out his fascinating new toy from Wujek (Uncle) Samek, playing with Tata's hair or sliding backwards under the coffee table.

One change that's been happening is that Leo is really starting to pay attention to the books that we read to him. This means that chewing on it is not the only way a book can be enjoyed :) As you can see, each one of us reads to him in our mother tongue, and so Leo learns all about how "Emil je nestao" (Emil the duck goes missing) or about "Koncert Wojskiego" (Wojski's concert from the Polish epic poem "Pan Tadeusz"). Between these two and Cheryl speaking to him in English Leo is (hopefully) well on his way towards being trilingual.

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Leo loves playing with... tags :)

When you have a baby you should be prepared for weird and surprising behavior. Some is harmless, like making funny noises, other not so much, when for example your baby loves eating soap. Leo has surprisingly few such hangups so far, but one of the harmless ones is that whenever he gets a new toy the first thing he looks for is the... tag! And not only on toys - clothes, bibs, pillows, everything is fine as long as it has a black-and-white tag on it!

The other day Tea wanted to see what temperature we need to wash Leo's lion security blanket it, but could not figure it out because Leo had sucked out all the ink from the tag! I guess just like some babies who love playing in boxes rather than the things inside of them, at least Leo's weird habit is cheap to maintain :)

New videos: Leo goes to the pool!

With only some 2-week delay I've finally gotten around to putting together videos from when we took Leo to the Bretton Woods Country Club on an invitation from Tea's colleague, Rita. After a rather lukewarm reaction to the Adriatic Sea we were not sure whether the little guy would like the water outside of his bathtub, but as it turned out we needn't have worried :)

Leo practicing his french "r"

Due to technical delays the video did not work when originally posted, hopefully it works great now!

New Pictures: Leo's 28th Week

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This week Leo was still trying to get on his all fours, so we tried some of the old-fashioned methods of holding him up with a towel and having him "crawl around". Unfortunately, Leo would have nothing of it and was much more comfortable just lying down :) I guess some babies just prefer to do things in their own rhythm, and sure enough Leo is now on all fours, trying hard to figure out how to crawl forward (though, as you've seen from the videos, the result is usually that he ends up crawling backwards!)

This was also the week of the hurricane, which luckily passed without any damage and any major disruptions - Leo did not even wake up! The next day we met up with our friends Amit and Kajal for a Sunday afternoon drink, but we underestimated just how hot the day was now that the winds have cleared all the clouds away! In the end no amount of beer could keep us cool, and Leo spent most of the time huddled in the shade wearing nothing but his underwear, as keeping him in the sun would have turned him into a boiled shrimp! :)

It was also a week of visits, as we had our neighbors Kirstin and Vince over with their 4 and a half month-old son Jack over for brunch. The little ones had a good time on our new baby playmat as you can see! Then, on Monday Samek unexpectedly came for a visit to see Leo for the first time, and the little guy immediately warmed to him! Must be the kindred half-Polish blood :) Samek also got Leo a great new toy, which (once we finally got around to assembling) the little guy loves!

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New Video: Leo under coffee table

With Leo scooting backwards across the floor with the speed of a river crab on Red Bull, sometimes you look away for just half a minute and the little guy has already moved a meter back. And just like a car stuck in reverse, once he was up against the wall Leo ran out of options :)

New Video: Cheryl feeding solids to Leo and Violet

Now that both babies are eating solids we were wandering how Cheryl would manage to feed both of them. Well, on Friday I got to witness baby lunch chez Trumbic-Wozniak, and it makes for fun viewing :)

Leo's new solids diet

It's been a couple of weeks since we started introducing solids to Leo's diet and so far we've been making good progress. These days the little guy eats solids three times a day: once for breakfast ~7:30am (that's Tata's job), later for lunch (Cheryl) and in the evening before going to sleep (usually Tea). So far he's been eating:

1. "Stage 1"mushed foods from jars - we started with vegetables only so that he does not get used to solid foods being sweet (which babies can with fruit); also, we introduced them one-by-one to see if he's allergic to anything (he's not)
2. Baby yoghurt
3. Mama's milk mixed in with rice cereal

From veggies he really likes peas (apparently unusual for babies), squash and carrots, but he does not like sweet potato (maybe, being a good half-polish boy, he wants some butter and dill with his potatoes :). Next stage: avocado, fruit and, if we're adventurous, jars with mixed-in meats!

Big Boy Bathtime

Now that Leo has learned how to sit up we thought we might put him upright in the bathtub, rather than in the usual reclining position. As you can see, he rather liked it :)