Spring has Sprung

On the street everyone agrees: it’s officially spring in Puddingtown. My little patch of Woodruff is already in bloom. With the onset of warmer weather, Leo is constantly bringing us his shoes and demanding to go out; even 5 minutes after returning home from a long session at the playground. Understandably, Leo is absolutely nuts about being outdoors and has prompted us to reevaluate the question of having a garden.

I am spending long afternoons at the playground and on the weekend Jan goes on extended walks with Leo around town. One of our favorite places to go these days is the “Heimat-Tierpark Olderdissen”. This local zoo is just a 20 minute walk from our place and has over 430 animals, 100 different species, most of them native to northern Europe.

On the Saturday before Easter we went to Olerdissen with Ilka.

It was a relaxing day for everyone. See more pictures taken at Olerdissen.

Leo has a lot to say these days. While most of his speech is unintelligible, sometimes even sounding like a foreign tongue, we have managed to decipher some of Leo’s current vocabulary. Popular words are: mama, papa, ilka (pronounced ka-ka), bye, tschüss, bus (pronounced busch), three (pronounced tee), mehr, bear, hallo, choo-choo, train (pronounced ain), spongebob (pronounced ponta), ball, nein, pee-pee, heiss, up and down.

Other things are communicated by imitating the sound they make, for example pig, car, dog, bird, horse, cow, sheep, duck, mouse, food processor, juicer and drink (a gulping sound which Leo employs when he is thirsty). Leo will even put two of these together, for example “mama” + “juicer sound” to let Jan know that Mommy made juice today.

Leo also still uses the baby signs for elephant, rain, loud, listen, finished and more or “I want that”. Below Leo is using his “more”-sign to ask Jan for some bread and giving his new bunny “Jimmy” something to drink.

See more Easter weekend pictures.