St. Valentine’s day spend in Caracas

Day of lovers and friendship (El Dia del Amor y la Amistad)

The day of Lovers in Venezuela especially in Caracas was very lovely and “tropically hot” day. in general there is nothing new about the celebration, you can see couples around, families and friends who gather together to celebrate this nice and lovely day.

We made very nice time for us as family. First we went to great Italian restaurant where we totally overate ourselves which satisfied our primary needs. And in the afternoon after our darling fell asleep we escaped with Carlos from our home and went to wonderful little bar with wonderful view to whole Caracas. We picked bottle of white semi dry Argentinian vine and enjoyed Valentines delicious menu. I have to confess that I had great time. Calm, fulfilling and the most important loving.

Because saint Valentine is also the day of friendship we went to visit our friend for whom we borrowed (learn stole :)) balloons  in the shape of flowers from some party we passed by to made him surprise.

Motto: To Love and Be loved is the biggest treasure in our life. Appreciate, Love and let the others to love you.


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Posted in Venezuelan Diary

Carnival in Venezuela

Carnival celebration

By simple words I would describe Carnival in Latin America such as the dance and fun  of colors. I remember that in Czech Republic we do have something similar called “Masopust” the time when we get dressed and have fun on the street. In case Of Latin America was the tradition brought by missionaries from Spain and Italy. But the big advantage of local celebration is weather. Here we do not have to think how the weather will be and that”s why which kind of customs we should choose. Here is such grate weather and conditions that you can let your imagination run and create any kind of customs for yourself.

The Carnival is celebrated in the two levels. One is by adults which remained in its pure quality only in Brasil, where people get basically naked and dance on the street their souls out and sweat blood :). In Venezuela and other neighboring countries they stopped to celebrate carnival in such a spectacular way because of robberies and steeling.  Adults usually celebrate with their friends in the beach. Take a drinks and have fun in the sea side. The colorful way of celebrating carnival remained only for the kids. It is big fun to see on the streets and shopping molls different fairy tales characters who interact with kids and make them laugh. Nearly every part of city Caracas prepared carnival celebration with games and performances for kids. We have visited municipality Chacao which always keeps nice and wild celebrations. As you can see Edie was enjoying his time with another kids as we were.

Edie was trapped by Mickey’s

Edie was totally amazed by the amount of masks around him

Edie and his new friends

Carnival advice: Enjoy your life, it is short and there are many things to do and many dreams to achieve. Do not waste the only ultimate and limited gift which was given to us when we were born. So let’s play, dance and make our life colorful!

Take this post also as inspiration for possible masks creation for your child.

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Posted in sport & activities, Venezuelan Diary

Games for infants – musical instrument

Music, rhythm & blues

Music and sounds are surrounding us since we are born and even before. Imagine how are we influenced by the heart beat of our moms, by their voice melody and internal peristaltic. All the internal processes do their sounds and create musical environment for us.
And then we are born and music and other external sounds immediately caught us and we are living our life in certain pace and rhythm.
I love experimenting with different sounds and instruments. Not always it has to be musical instrument as such, most of the time it is enough to have spoon, plastic bag, PET bottle, can filled with rice, two wooden sticks etc. And I am becoming inspired by Edie because kids have the unique gift of not being limitated by our education such as this is This and that is That and it can not be vice versa. They are so exploratory and they are able to create sounds from what ever. That’s why I am letting Edie to play with many things and just keep experimenting.
Look at him how is he enjoying. Our future Mozart 🙂

Experimenting with string instruments such as guitar, castanets and xylophone

Experimenting with electronic piano

Musical advice: For the kids is actually the best game experiment. The most of the kids psychologist said that the development of intellect comes from exposing kids to many different situations and stimulus and letting them to solve it. I love experimenting and I am happy that Edie too. If the baby feels fun with music since early  age than there is high probability that he will enjoy later too.

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Ongoing 11 month

11 months runs for 12

Yeah I do not know where the time goes but one more month passed and Edie entered his last month of his 1st year. For me is so exciting to be near by him and being observing him on his life journey. He has done so many things and he has developed many skills during last 11 month.

But what is particularly new is as follows:

  • his weight 8,9 kg and hight is 74 cm
  • he is nicely waving during greeting time to everybody, everybody is so astonished and keep smiling and waving him back
  • he is clapping his palms and able to do hi5
  • he is still suffering of mamitis, as we called the big need for mom. It is curious but always when he is some time without me, he is calmly playing with somebody else or on his own, but it is enough to see me and he immediately starts to complain and run to me. Sometimes with smile but many times just as a need to be hugged and carrest.
  • his breastfeeding habits: I cut off his supply of mother milk so he is having exclusively only 2 round in a day, in the morning as breakfast cca 6am and before going to bed cca 8pm. I realized that it is not good for his dietary to give him more mother milk because afterwards he was not eating properly the food I prepared and also he was too used to breast. Also he was usually falling asleep while being fed which created him artificial sleeping time and he did not want to sleep at night properly.
  • His sleeping: finally he is sleeping whole night long! How we reached that point. Yes, we LET HIM CRY! I was already so tired, after 10 month of broken nights the past 3 weeks became more and more demanding. He was waking up 1,5-2 hours and was asking for being carried. I already cut of at 9 month to give him breast as calm down pacifier but it brought new issue. His constant waking up. And once I said: “Enough”! He has every needs satisfied now he is only being spoiled by us and our constant carriage. He can not sleep properly on his own and it is not good for him as well for us. So we hold our hand with Carlos and decided to hold on his cry and not to carry him. First night was terrible, he was standing in his crib and yelling and screaming to us. We did not move, we did not talk, we were nearly not breathing just holding our hands . I do not know how long it took but he stopped after a while (cca 10-20 min). He repeated this process 3 more times at night but always calmed down after a while. And in the end he fall asleep on his own. The second night was a bit better, he did not cry that desperately and  was falling asleep faster. Third night already slept through and woke up only once for short time. After the week he is falling a sleep about 8 – 8:30pm and waking up for his drink at 5:30 -6 am. He usually drinks and afterwards he falls a sleep with me again. He is very active whole day, smiling, playing and being happy. He takes 2 naps a day. One in the morning after the breakfast about 10-11 am and than in the afternoon about 3pm, sometimes later.
  • What Edie eats: now basically everything. I try to give him everything what we eat, of course that some things he can not chew so he is spilling it out but at least he is trying its taste.  He started to love papaya, which he did not like before. He loves yogurt with compotas (presnidavka, fruit jars), he likes chicken, creamy soups, melon, bananas, potato pure and brad with ham and cheese. He enjoys to drink mother milk and tap water mostly. He drinks about 400-600ml in a day. He is also eating basic finger food on his own like fruits and I try to give him drink also from glass or plastic bottle to let him learn how it feels and works.
  • He has his third and fourth upper tooth. And it is not comfortable for feeding. I discover it while I was breastfeeding him.
  • He loves to play, I try to show him different instruments and now I am trying to learn to play guitar to be able to teach him in the future. I know first song (3 piggies from Nohavica). He loves to dance also. Always when he hears music he calms down and usually start to move his hips. It is very funny to observe him. He is catching ball and through him back. He loves bottoms on mobile phone and PC in general.
  • He is also more and more manually skillful so he is bale to switch light on and off, able to whisle, clap his hands, wave. He is unfortunately able to open top from toilet and since he loves water he keeps playing in the full tank 🙂
  • He is very happy with other people, he likes to be the center of attention and if he can play with people and other kids he is very happy. But of course mum has to be close by. Than he is smiling, laughing and sending kisses.
  • many people said that he is very beautiful and long. He looks long and he is wearing clothes of 12 month and more, although he is still considered as young.
  • he is very smart and he is already trying us. He was already punished by slapping his hands when putting them into the electricity plugs or touching big frame with painting which could have fallen on him. He knows now and always when he tries to do it again he looks at us with his face like is somebody watching or can I do my sin 🙂 and it is enough to remind him by raising a bit our voice. Not to shout just telling his name and reminding him.
  • He has also developed sense of self protection. He can recognize that he is up the stairs or on the bed. When he reaches the border he start to shout and call for help. He never crawl or jump down on his own. He knows after falling that it is dangerous and he can harm himself.
  • He is very smart and started to abuse out goodness so we needed to show him that there are some limits. He is in time when we need to say also NO and when he need to understand that he can not do everything he wants. He always cries but he starts to get a point. Now is the time of creating the good patterns in his head. We do not want spoiled kid! The theories say that till the age of 1 you can not spoil your baby, but you can create bad habit, and it is very easy. Kids are great manipulators!
  • He is healthy and strong child. Do not suffer from sicknesses now. He is tasting most of the things which he founds on the street or in the park. He probably tried all different leaves from the garden and also bit of soil and other stuff. I will never be fast enough to avoid this. But on the other hand now he is creating his immunity system, so I can only wish him “Enjoy your meal!” 🙂

Edie is in general very lovely, very demanding for attention and that’s why I keep constantly learning new things and creating new activities to keep him busy and not board. It is also important for me that he keeps my brain running! Unfortunately when he wants something he starts to yell out so we try to unlearn him this pattern. Not easy at all, but worth to try.

During his 11 monthary we visited beach side and he had opportunity to dance his first beach samba on the beach so just have a look and dance and celebrate with us 🙂

Picture galerry

Edie was also trying hard to fill his pool with sand, he had two supporters watching him 🙂

Advice of the day: Enjoy the time with your infants, because time flies and they will not be little anymoooooreeee!

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Posted in Baby development

games for toddlers – various indoor, online from other sources

More games and inspiration

My dear parents friends. I have been searching more for more games either online or simple interactive to play and educate our darlings. And since Edie is now 10 month turning this week 11 month I will present games suitable for his age.

I found different webpages wort to be presented here:

I got inspired by the web page of Angela England:

  • Fun Foot Baby Games – This great baby game idea came from Jackie Silberg’s “Games to Play with Babies” and is a fun toe game to play. Sing the following to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and rub or wiggle each toe in turn as you sing through the song.

“Rub, rub, toe, toe, rub, rub, toe.

Rub, rub, toe, toe, rub, rub, toe”

Warning: Your baby may enjoy this game so much you will be sick of the song far before he is!

  • Hand Baby Games – Another bath-time game, this one uses a small washcloth or sponge for your baby to play with. Let him hold one sponge while you hold another and teach him his body parts, washing himself. Ask your baby, “Do you want to wash your belly?” and then help him wash his belly. Either play matching games by washing his belly first and then encourage him to do the same, or later, ask the question and encourage him to respond correctly on his own.
  • Voice Game Fun – Baby word games now take on more importance as your baby becomes an expert at communicating her desires and observations about the world around her. Most babies can learn basic words and baby signs by this age and use them with ease. Explore the idea of playing baby sign language games with your baby – always saying the words and doing the motions at the same time. Remember, the more you respond to your baby’s communication attempts the quicker she will learn new words.
  • Movement Baby Games – Daddy-jungle-gyms are a favorite baby game. Lay on the floor on your back and let your baby come and jump on your chest. Try sitting him on your feet and lifting him up into the air. You can hold his chest or arms and he can grasp your legs to make this game safe.
  • Baby Sounds Games – Babies love to make noises and explore musical instruments so play lots of music games. Musical instruments can be store bought or homemade but place some “drums” on the floor and show your baby how hitting them can create different sounds! What a fun game!
  • Floor Time Baby Games – Blanket games can be fun at this age as your baby is confident enough and physical enough to play safely (Newborns should never be left unsupervised with thick comforters or heavy blankets that can smother them in their sleep). Lay on the floor with your baby and cover yourself completely with the blanket. Let your baby find you and shout “Peek-A-Boo” or “Gotcha!” when they uncover you. Then toss the blanket lightly over her and let her uncover herself (you may need to help her the first few times) and watch how delighted she is at this hide-and-seek game.
  • Singing Baby Games – Another fun bath-time song, this one is to the tune of “Here we Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush” and can be used to clean your baby from head to toe. “This is the way we wash our legs, wash our legs, wash our legs. This is the way we wash our legs to make ourselves so clean.” Repeat the song changing the words with each verse until you’ve cleaned your baby completely! See additional tips for music and babies.

And a bit of poetry for obtaining new English words:

Baby Animal Names
by Stacy Mantle

Baby cats are called kittens
Baby bears are called cubs
Baby dogs are called puppies
A pigeon’s a squab!

A girl horse is a filly
A boy horse is a colt.
A possum’s a joey.
A chicken’s a poult!

A penguin’s a fledgling
A reindeer’s a fawn
A turtle is a chicken
It makes no sense at all!

An ant is an antling
A goat is a kid
A bird is a nestling,
A muskrat, a kit!

A kangaroo’s Joey
A louse is a nit.
A toad is a tadpole,
And a mink is a kit!

An eagle’s an eaglet.
An eel is a fry.
A fly is a maggot.
And a fish is a fry!

And what have we learned
From all these words today?
That if you’re a boy
Then a boy you’ll surely stay

I hope that you enjoyed learning and we will give our kids the best from all what I have found 🙂

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Games for infants – safety of parents and kids

Safety of parents

My dear friends I know that I am writing here about different games more or even more interactive and thats why I want to warn you about safety. Mostly we are speaking about safety of kids but it is on the place to talk about safety of us. Of those who are creating the games and the interactive environment.

I would love to share with you my accident which happened to me. I was half tooth shorter! Yes I was playing like crazy with my son and when I saw that he is laughing I became so excited that I forget to be careful of myself too. So what happened is that I was playing hide and seek with my son and he was on the bad and I try to hide myself under the bed, but i forgot that our bad has much larger frame than the mattress so I hit with open smiling mouth by my tooth the frame and CRACK!………part of my tooth flew out from my mouth like candy.

And now look at me! Few seconds of carelessness!


And I went to the doctor and now you would not recognize that something happened. Only my soul got hurt a bit 🙂 because hands of the doctor were made from gold! Thank you uncle Ceasar.

Look at these torturing tools.

My advice: PLEASE BE CAREFUL! We have only one pair of hands,legs, one head and fortunately  28 teeth 🙂

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Games for infants – Objects of daily use

Things and objects of daily use

Such a great source of toys are simply daily used things such as toothbrush, comb, plastic cup, sponge to bath etc.

I realized that Edie was fascinating by watching me while I was brushing my teeth or combing my hair. I tried to brush his 2 teeth too and comb his hair but he always run away from me. But when I let the things around him he got so interested and started to play with them and imitating me.

Game: Daily object

Surround your baby with the things you used on daily basis, such as toothbrush, comb, sponge for bath top,dummy, pencil, napkins, etc and show him what you used to do with them. He will try it for a while you will see and later he will invent his own way to used them. Edie for example started to brush his knee and his head and he was brushing my teeth. I nearly thrown up because he put the brush very deep to my mouth but we laugh a lot together.

Short video demonstration:

It is curious how many object are surrounding us and what we are supposed to teach our babies to use.

Advice: There is never to late to start introducing tools of daily use to your child. Just be careful which kid of tools you are giving your child. Probably knife and scissors are not the best tool for early childhood!

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Games for infants – Box

Plastic Order Box

Our serial continues. I decided to teach Edie a bit order and keep things on theirs place. I know that now he will probably not understand my guidance, but I just keep telling him nice things  when he puts his toys into the box. One thing is that it is entertaining for him, second it develops his motorical skills and third I am teaching him to make order in what he does. I hope believe that once he will remember from his childhood what should be done to keep his life organized.

Game: Box

1. Orderer: What we need is one simple plastic box or at least box which keeps it shape in case that your baby crawl over it or start to chew it 🙂 and many objects which he can fit there. I used the cubics of different shapes and colours which were part of sets, also puzzle numbers, paper’s balls etc. Basically what I have found around us! Than I put all the things around Edie and throw one of the things insight. He will most probably take it out and immediately after he will throw it insight. Afterwards I used to start to give him another object to his hand and he is puting them insight or if I see that he is playing on his own I let him on his own. He is able to keep taking things out of the box and putting in sometimes even 30 min and it is wow time! Because most of the games last max about 10 min.

Short video demonstration:

2. Drums: If you turn this box upside down you can easily create drum base for it. Than you just need stick or plastic bottle and you can keep hitting it. It makes interesting sound and if you have more different boxes you will create whole drum station for your child.

I like on this game that Edie is able to play on his own for long time and I can do another things just besides him.

Advice: If you want to do something on your own. You need to keep your baby busy otherwise you will not have free hands. And trust me sometimes less means more! Do not make things complicated for yourself. Einstein was also not playing with PC or Barby and he won Nobel prize!

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Games for infants – Stick

Carton stick/tube

And here we go. I decided under the pressure of my son to create for him 100 + 1 games. He is such a curious baby that he does not like to be all the time just with one or two toys and he likes to interact. I am happy about that because I can see how nicely he is developing and reacting to different stimulus but on the other hand my brain is sometimes boiling when I have to create new and new games.

So to help also you others I decided to post one by one any kinds of games I found funny to do and easy to prepare. I will share with you games which are interactive, educative and you as adults will have fun too.

GAME: CARTON STICK
You will need any kind of carton stick. I found at home one from plastic folio, it is long and light. The carton is chew-able and more or less clean 🙂

  1. Objects exploratory: I tight different objects to it by strings, or just circles, daily objects basically different shapes, colors, things. And than let your baby explore one object by another one. Let him enjoy different shapes, materials and sounds.
  2. Binocular: this carton stick can be also used simply also as binocular (or monocular in our case). Just look through to your baby. Edie loves that to see my “one eye” so far and in very funny frame such as this tube is.
  3. Horn, drum, whisperer: carton is good sound transmitor. I used to use it also as a musical instrument. I blow into it and make similar effect like with horn.I also sing which creates my voice very funny. I sound like elephant. It is funny to put the tube closer to the kids year and silently whisper something nice and lovely. Sometimes it seems to me that is tickling him and it is funny for him. Edie used to calm down and keeps listening.  Also if you have big gym ball at home you can use this stick for hitting the ball instead of drums. It makes weird sounds which kids like. And they will keep hitting the ball with you like drum player.

I believe that you will found another smart and funny usages for carton stick friend and that you will have with your kids as I do. I hope that this short advice will help your baby to play and explore.

Advice: Toys does not have to be expensive. They have to be interactive!

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How we made Edie sleep the whole night

Whole night dreaming

You might know that Edie already turned 10 month and soon he will be 11 month old. And the question about his sleeping habit started to be on place because I refused to keep breastfeeding him at night became it was not helping him to be calm and sleeping. I would even say that it was contradictiv to our goal to make him sleep nicely whole night. Edie had 10 month and week and we realized that already some time he is only crying to get attention from me, that he is only chewing and not drinking much and that if he is with his grandma or aunt he is able to sleep nicely. He used to wake up about 5 times at night but they were able to caress him slowly and put him back to bed without bigger noise. But in my case he felt me and was always crying when I tried to put him to his bed. So we simply found out that he is already in the age, when he is just becoming spoiled or that particular pattern has been created. “I cry and I am carried or attended by my parents” and this habit could keep going for ages. So once I said STOP. NO MORE thanks. I would love to have after 10 month of broken nights some rest. My eye backs are not big but my energy start to be low! :)Edie is also not sleeping well and he is tired during the day and more moody, so it is not only my selfish with to sleep well but also it will be good for him.

So back a bit in time. There are two main streams of dealing with kids and unlearning them some particular habit (sleeping problems). In our case constant carriage at night and night breastfeeding. One is from Dr. Sears (” strategy do not let your baby cry, attend him as much as possible”) the other is Dr. Ferber (” strategy to let baby cry for certain period to break his stereotype). So when Edie was about 5 month old and he reached 5 Kg weight we knew that it is time to try Ferber strategy, we tried to make him used to be on his own and fall a sleep on his own. But whole try ended up after one week when he nearly lost his voice and the worst was that he lost his mile and most of the social communication. We said NO. This is not the right time for him to be on his own. He is toooo little and does not understand yet. He need mom!

But now there were already different circumstances, we tried the strategy of Dr. Sears and were attending Edie when he started to cry. I was already not feeding him at night because he was not needing it, but I was carrying him always when he woke up and started to cry. But uppppps!  He was waking up more and more often and he did not let me to put him to his bed. He always started to have very hysteric cry, so well I carried him over and over again. Sometimes even one hour and more and he could not sleep properly. So Sears in this case did not work for us.

So as I wrote we said NO MORE!. This can not be like this. Look at him his cry is just so mean. He is only looking for attention. He is not missing anything and he is ok. So we decided to try Ferber strategy. LET HIM CRY! Easy to say but worst to do. We stayed in bed next to Eides crib. And we were sleeping. Then suddenly he woke up and started to cry. But badly, like if you are killing somebody!  We hold our hands, we did not move, we did not spoke with Carlos and were just thinking that this will once be over and that we are doing it for his good. So yeah after cca 20 min the terrible scream was over. He woke up that night 2 more times, but already did not cry that much. In the morning he woke up with smile at 6am. I took him to our bed and breastfed him. He lived very nice and active day. The second night we did same. We put him to the bed after dinner and bath around 8 pm. No Carriage allowed. And in this case he had one of his crying wake ups alone in our room. But in this case it was already shorter, just about 5-10 min and his cry was not that desperate like before. I know that I can not attend him by going there and touching him otherwise he will expect me to carry him and will cry and wake up. So I let him be on his own. He fall asleep. He was though sensitive when we entered around 11 pm our room and woke up. But we went silently to the bed and did not carry him. After this night he had again nice and active day. The third night was already easy. His new stereotype started to be created. The dinner at 7pm, ,after nice worm bath, I breasfed him and after put into his crib. He was already sleeping calmly and deeply. He woke up only once for about 5 min, he moan a bit and fall asleep again. He woke up at 5:30 am hungry, so I took him to bed and fed him.

And now already after one week. He got used to it, easily. Now I gave him dinner, after bath and around 8 – 8:30 pm he is already sleeping in his bed. He sometimes wake up but just for short time and then he is nicely sleeping whole night till morning. He has happy and active day. He is smiling, communicating and is visible that his psychic is not harmed.

The mission was done.

Good advice to you: You know there are many theories about parenting. But nobody is having your child. The others have their child. And your is unique, Your child is yours so it is only up to you which way you will choose. Because the way will be the best one for your child. You as mom are the only person who knows your child the best. So follow your instinct and you will not do mistake! And do not forget your child needs to cry sometimes to be able to develop his vocals and lungs properly!

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