On his second day of swimming (Tuesday), Yannick went in as if nothing had happened the day before. However, as soon as they were supposed to go into the water he wasn't happy any more and cried again. I felt really bad about leaving him down there but the teacher really looked after him so well that I thought Yannick simply has to get over this to learn to be less water shy. I believe that if things really would have been bad the teacher would have called me to collect him anyway. So Yannick was crying for 15 minutes - and then all of a sudden he started to enjoy himself! After swimming I bought him a pair of goggles and he was very happy.

On Wednesday he didn't want to wear the goggles. Argh. My child, typical! But he was happy so all was fine. The only thing he needed was a toilet break. Surprising as he went before we left the house and again before he went into the pool. I guess it was nerves.

On Thursday he finally took the goggles with him and the teacher showed him how to use them. It took a little getting used to. Again a toilet break but nothing else.

On Friday all was fine. The goggles went on and stayed on, no crying, no toilet break. Success!

I hope I can go swimming several times during term time with Yannick, he would definitely enjoy that and he said he would like that. I've heard that there is another Swiminis course during half term so I'll try to sign him up again - there's nothing better than proper tuition!

I've decided that I'd like my boy to learn to swim much earlier than I did. So, I've registered him with a five day Swimini course (swimming for children at beginners level) at our local leisure centre. Of course this won't lead to him swimming but at least it will expose him a little more to water than I managed to do in the last three years. Unfortunately I couldn't get him into the weekly swimming lessons during the upcoming term time any more but there's always another term after that.

I think it's fair to say that both Frank and I are complete couch potatoes. We've only managed to take Yannick once to the pool before the lessons started - and that was last Sunday. Eek. However, he's been to the seaside where he loved the splashing waves and he expressed an interest in learning to swim when he was in a relatively big paddling pool of a friend. When I said to him that he could go to a five day swimming course with an instructor he was all up for it!

So today we had the first 30 minute lesson. I was watching from the gallery. Yannick was so excited that he could hardly sit still and wait for the instructor to 'swim' with him. The first 15 minutes of that went well, Yannick enjoyed himself. Nevertheless, he made sure to be as close as possible to the pool edge most of the time and sitting on the top most step rather than a little further in with the other children. Then the instructor started showing them how to move through the water on their backs. Yannick didn't like that. I don't know if he got too much water into his ears or his face somehow but all of a sudden he was sitting at the edge of the pool and was crying. The crying sounded half way theatrical but he was clearly somewhat upset. The instructor got him again and talked him into trying the next thing and Yannick seemed OK to go on with it. I could see he was a bit fearful as he was putting his legs around the instructor instead of relaxing them. The instructor managed to calm him down a little, still he came back a little bit more upset than before. This was hard to watch but I decided to keep my distance as the instructor was trying to console him and Yannick didn't seem like he needed me badly. In the end I went down a couple of minutes before the end and Yannick noticed me a moment after I sat down behind him. But he didn't come running to me as I half expected. So I'm not quite sure what to make of this. Let's see how this develops over the next four days.

So what's going on you must be wondering. Is he speaking English now? Yes, he is!

Yannick has been growing up in the UK in a German speaking family. The first two and a half years of his life, Frank and I only spoke German to him when we were on our own. I would occasionally say something in English but more by accident when in English speaking company. We have a number of English friends so we were never in short supply of an English language environment with other children. I also took Yannick to Sing and Sign (baby signing) and later Jo Jingles (structured music intro). We started Sing and Sign when he was eight months old and far from speaking any language. He quickly picked up the most important signs to him, 'eat' and 'drink'. Other signs followed (including 'more' and 'bird') but as they weren't quite so important they took some time. At 18 months Yannick all of sudden had a speaking explosion, within a couple of weeks he knew and used loads of words (see here for my notes at the time). At his second birthday he spoke quite well but not complete sentences yet. This all developed over the twelve months and his German is just great. Of course there are some things that are not quite right yet, but mostly I only notice a wrong form of a verb in past perfect tense or similar. Sometimes he struggled to put all of what he wanted to say into one sentence and they got ridiculously long and warped, but it was just great to hear how much he was interested in communicating his thoughts. So far so good.

At two and a half I started to speak to Yannick in English when we were playing and reading as I wanted to increase his confidence. I knew he understood a lot as he often would comment on a situation in German to me after listening in to other people's and children's conversations. But he was just not speaking. Slowly, slowly he started to speak back to me. At age three he started pre-school, prepared with the most important things to say, and off he went. From the first week I noticed changes in the way he was using English and while he's not quite as fluent as in German, he's definitely confident to speak now. Sometimes we get funny translations and you notice that German is his first language. For example he still says 'I know that not' or 'I want that not' which is literally translated from German word order. But at the same time he comes out with English songs and typical phrases that he heard over and over in his books. When I ask him what a word means in English he can almost always tell me in German. It's just incredible. Soon he'll be like a native speaker!

We had a nice word a while ago, it was a fusion of 'mechanic' and 'Mechaniker'. What we got was 'mexicaniker'. There were more funny words but I can't remember a thing right now. Have to activate my memory one of these days…

Gah, lately my child has taken to waking up at the ungodly time of 5:30am again! I thought this was over. We had many, many weeks when he would sleep from 8pm to about 7/7:30am. All of a sudden we are back to 5:30am. That's only 9.5 hours of sleep. That's surely not enough without a nap at midday!

I wouldn't mind him waking up so early if at least he would just go and play. But no, even when in his own bed (that he can climb out of), he calls for me to get up and see to him. When he is in my bed he 'needs' me to lead him to his room (which is just next to mine). Once he's been to the loo and I've dressed him, I go back to bed to rest and he's quite OK to play by himself - but only in little instalments of 15 to 20 minutes each. Then we get 'mummy!' and he wants me to get a book for him, something to eat, or I don't know what. Not my idea of a good morning.

What has changed, what can I change?

• First of all, the young man is out of nappies. Despite still sleeping in one he mostly (in 98% of all cases) wakes up dry and needs the toilet first thing. Understandable that he might wake up earlier than usual as his bladder must be full.
• Secondly, he's managing sleeping in his own bed for a whole night a lot more often than before.

Taken by themselves, these two fact don't t sound too bad, do they?

But which parent likes to be woken at 5:30am, I wonder?

I think I'm going to try this:

• Said young man usually wakes up sometime between 10 and 11pm to drink some water. I might just pop him on the potty there and then.
• As I said, often he's sleeping the whole night in his own bed. The problem with this is that he's looking for his mummy in the early hours to cuddle up to. So I might just carry him over when I go to bed and keep him with me for the rest of his night. In the past he usually slept longer when he was with me. The bad part of this plan is that my sleep probably will still be disturbed as he cuddles up and either kicks me with his legs into my tummy or head butts me at the same place. Sigh.
• I'll try and sneak in a nap for him one of these days. That usually resets his biorhythm a little and he'll sleep later in the morning for a few days. But this might mean that he also goes to bed later - which is not so good.
• Even though it sounds odd, it sometimes helps when then young master goes to bed earlier. Maybe we can get him to sleep by 7pm today. The effect is that all his usual wake up times are slightly earlier. This obviously includes the morning waking time, that one might be shifted to 4:30am. However, this is not bad. At that time it is much easier to get him back to sleep. So there, we'll try this!

Or does anybody have any better ideas?

Here's the complimentary photo for today:

… not sure what to think of them.

My child was so much easier to manage as a two year old. Before he could speak properly. Nowadays he finds new ways to send me over the edge every single day. The power of repetition, he's definitely cracked it. He also seems to cop on to the fact that being nice to people can earn you some brownie points. What did he say to me the other day? 'Mummy, you look pretty!' Then after a little pause: 'I am saying this because I love you!' Hm, what to make of this now? I'm sure the statement came out with the best of intentions but if he was a grown up, I would have smacked him! He also has learned how to charm the ladies at pre-school, he just takes their hands and leads them to the toy he wants to play with and they are chuffed by how sweet he is. But then their JOB is to play with him, so it's OK.

Pre-school and his new found confidence in English have definitely changed him. He can finally make himself understood (most of the time) and if over excitement doesn't get in the way, he's trying really hard to communicate his play ideas to other children. He's actually using German grammar in some English phrases, it sounds funny: 'I know that not' (I don't know). Unfortunately he's also joining in with all stupid loud and annoying games nowadays. He started to push a little for fun. Not so nice. And he ignores my 'NOOOOO's.

The good news is that he's finally properly out of nappies. We had a few bigger accidents in the first weeks but lately they get scarce and even the big toilet is not a show stopper any more. I don't even have to remind him all the time, he's quite a good judge of when to go.

To follow up on my last post, my eBay selling went well, I was happy with the result. However, we still haven't put together the remaining of our new Ikea shelves. I think I'll leave this to Frank for when Yannick and I will be in Germany. We are going there for three weeks and he can have all the fun with about 10,000 screws and other bits!

Oh, finally, here a recent drawing that Yannick did. And don't tell me you can't see what it is!