My favorit class mate and I

Her name is Yuzuka, and we spend two hours together every day. Two great hours!
When her parents drop her off in the morning, she's always a bit sad. But then I comfort her, and it's all ok again.A bit off topic: this picture reminds mom of a scene from her favorit movie when growing up: A Love Story, by Roy Andersson.After the morning cuddle, we get on with the daily activities. Sometimes it's art.And the art always follows the same theme as the one we're having for the week. As you may have guessed, this picture was taken during the under-water week.And this, during the week when we learned about the growth of plants.According to my teachers, my favorit time of the day is snack-time. Actually they're right. The food we get at school is so sweet (even if formally not sweetened), so how could I resist going for seconds? And thirds. And sometimes even fourths.After snack-time, it's grooming time. We wash hands.And brush teeth. And sometimes we even do the dishes.By the way, in case you're wondering, I like my other class mates as well. But there is a difference to liking and LIKING. And I LIKE Yuzuka.

When in Rome...

I hear that Swedish kids in daycare sometimes get to take field-trips to outdoorsy places, filled with fresh air and trees and leaves and what have you. Is it forests they call it? And that they get to look for moss and cones and ants. Sounds like fun.

Here we do field-trips as well, but ours are more focused on the world below the surface. Last week, the whole school went to that water world place that I've described to you before. In preparation for that, we had a dive master come and teach us how to dive and snorkle, and which animals we could encounter when out swimming. Now, those are definitely essential knowhows in the world as I know it!

Squid is nothing to worry about. But we should stay away from the big octopuses.Furthermore, safety is key. You have to know how to help your diving or snorkeling partner if they get into trouble with their equipment.And of course you have to know your own equipment very well.I think I got it. The only thing that saddens me is that I hear diving trips are very uncommon in daycare back in Europe.By the way. We're not moving back to Sweden this fall, but instead to Poland. Maybe the playschool there will let me take up plumbing... This is at least something mom and dad hopes for!

The Wonderful Adventures of Babyboyaulin

As you may know, we're heading back to Sweden pretty soon. Thus, I've started the work on assuming a Swedish personality. Now, it's difficult to decide what to go for, but seeing that I'll be likely to lead a life as a nomad AND that I'm half Skånish, I figure Nils Holgersson would make a good source of inspiration. Here, I'm practicing goose-riding on one of the swans by the One Roxas pool. It's actually not all that hard. The only challenge is to get off without falling in. (And to be honest, that's something the parents seem to be quite happy to help out with.)

Fake animals

Last night, mom and I had a combined costume and make-up party. I was aiming for the cat look, she was going for fox. Don't know if either of us managed, but we had a lot of fun.

Posing for the camera

Sometimes I feel like I have papparazzis following me wherever I go. Clic, clic, clic. I have neither asked for it, nor given my permission for most photos. But here is one that I really wanted to have taken of me. It's to show off my cloud shirt that I got from the Funered family last summer. Pretty, huh? I tell each and every one that I have clouds on my belly - in Swedish, to point out that it's Swedish clouds. Cloud in Swedish is MAAA. Or something like that.

Mastering the crocodile and admiring the dog

Some kids have better toys than others. Xavier is one of them. Imagine having a Little Tykes seesaw in your house! Here Anna and I give it a go. She's somewhat heavier than I am, but her yaya Ofie (who I really like!) helps weighing me down.And he seems to have a pretty good taste in literature as well. I found Smelly Bill in his shelf - you know, the book about Bill the dog, who loved smelly things, like muddy ponds and rubbish bins. The first time you read the book, you may think that Bill was outsmarted by Great Aunt Bleach towards the end. But there are other levels to it. In fact, I would argue that he outsmarted HER, when he got her to jump into the very smelly compost bin.

Lending space to mom and dad again

Last weekend, mom and dad took off without me again. And now they want to use my blog to brag about it. You have to agree that I'm a very generous person for doing this! Here goes:

Mom and dad went to Tagaytay with Paula, Dave and Eleri. Their main goal was Antonio's, one of the nicer restaurants in the country. Thus they were all dressed up (mom in a non-stretchy, non-pregnancy dress that she, for all I know, kept unzipped in the car):

And then they stayed in some place next to lake Taal with a veiw of the vulcano. And then they returned back home to me. End of story.

Come-back kid

The camera has (temporarily?) bounced back and is again possible to switch on. This implies that I can show you pics that were taken just before its demise. I hope you will forgive that some are a bit blurry and some a bit... weird. When you don't have much to chose from, you don't have much to chose from.

Here are a few pics from a playdate at Anna's house a few weeks ago:

To get to her apartment, you have to take an elevator. A very fancy one, with a leather-clad bench to sit on.

Once in the apartment, the view of Manila is spectacular. Or rather, it would have been spectacular if Manila would have been spectacular to view.

And downstairs, there's a playground. I like the swings and the slides. But they are nothing, NOTHING, compared with the seesaw!!! Riding that with Imma could count as one of the highlights this year.

If I may get a bit personal, and simultaneously boastful: the playdate at Anna's was my first real outing without a diaper (going to the park doesn't count). And nowadays, I only use the diaper at night and, for the safety sake, at school.

How did this new skill come about? Training pants and rubber boots, of course! Mom and dad, who think they bring me up in a gender neutral way, are quite obviously deceiving themselves, as they regretted the fact that all training pants had pink little butterflies on them. Personally, I don't mind at all. Butterflies are nice. Boring white is just boring white.

In this photo I'm showing off the latest addition to my collection of tricks - one which my parents don't appreciate at all: Whenever I drink something, I make sure to save the last sip. Then I let it out in a good spit afterwards. See mom smiling (showing off her extra pregnancy chin)? It's because she doesn't see what's going on.