Connections

I have managed unintentionally to find a connection between the origins of my grandfather's ancestors (remember the post about visiting Ukraine) and the partitioning of Poland (that part of Ukraine went to Austrian's and Hungarians in the 19th century).

The connection is called Leon Bilinski and used to be the finance minister of Austrian Hungarian Empire and later on the Director of Polish National Bank...

Check it out - though the Polish version is much more extensive than the English...

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Bili%C5%84ski - Polish version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Bili%C5%84ski - English version

The real real connection is however on the photo below - Leon with his cousins during the October visit to Hungary :)))

The season of Summer

I think I owe this post still to the Summer season. It is actually the last day of Summer today and it would be a shame not to write anything. It just happened that I could not make myself sit down and write anything sensible. I was thinking that actually those posts nowadays would be very important for Leon later on in his life. It is the period which he will not remember but could somehow reconstruct from the posts. At least I have been relatively regularly posting photos to our flickr account.

Actually we were supposed to leave Szczecin by now. Things changed a bit and it seems we will stay for a couple of months more. We have not really had a chance to go for real holidays (what exactly would that be by the way?) - so instead we went with Leon for the first time to his home country of Hungary. He approved it though he did not like the heat :)) It was also the first time he met his grandfather. No - this is not Leon on the picture below - it is his grandfather and I must say they look very much alike even though our Leon cannot sit yet.

Later on in July we flew to London to see his new born cousin Matilde. The whole family enjoyed the colors of London and Leon most of all enjoyed the tube and all the people around him...


Just like his parents love the touch of civilization in London or Berlin, he loves all the hectic around him. From time to time we have thoughts that we will move to Hungary or stay some more time in Poland but just a drive through Berlin makes such silly thoughts fly away :)))


To round up the family tour around your Leon visited his cousin Gyura in the southern part of Sweden. They might make a good match in the future as plants are one of the favorite things of both of them. If you want to see the special relationship which Leon developed with Gyura's dogs check out our flickr.





I intend to improve my posting soon - I might introduce some new ways of doing it. Perhaps twitter is a good way since I do have a relatively short focus span but encounter lots of things which I would be happy to somehow be able to go back someday in the future. I really enjoy posting - somehow though I am not always convinced that I should post what I have in my head...

New friends of Leon

I have been really lousy with the blog. I cannot really understand why since our life with Leon became very interesting. The little monster changes almost everyday. He now clearly sees, smiles to us and decided to be friends with pineapple. Yellow is his favourite color so he either might in the future be the fan of Brazilian National soccer team or perhaps a player of Borussia Dortmund :) Anyway the good thing is that he also recognizes the night and has no problem with sleeping up to 7 hours - moreover he never mixes the day with the night. Though during the day he requires full attention - he is kind of a social animal. The interesting thing about him sleeping is that he puts a pillow on his face once he wants to sleep so you cannot see him. It is a bit scary but seems that he just decided it is the way he wants it to be.

Anyway - lets get back to business - actually I tried getting our Leon a frequent flyer card since he has already been to Finland three times and has a couple of more trips planned for the coming months - seems though that although you always have to pay something for the ticket he cannot get the miles - a bit unfair I would say.

Some weeks ago we also decided to choose the nameday for him. There are some rules for it but we thought that it would be good if he had it in the second part of the year since he was born in February. In this way he would have evenly spread parties...My mum though said that it would be nice if he had it on the 14th of March since it is right after my me, my bro and his great grandma. We did not see it as a good idea until we learned that Rita's cousin's daughter (Matilda to be born in a couple of weeks) would have her nameday also on the 14th of March. The funniest thing is that in the move Leon the professional - the young girl that "accompanies" him is also called Matilda :)))

The traveller

Our son has been the traveler from the day he left the hospital. We managed to travel with him around 10 times through the non-existing Polish-German border and it never crossed our mind that he should get some travel documents e.g. a passport. Rita and Leon got even once stopped on the border but somehow Leon was ignored - only potential cigarettes smuggling was of interested to the guys on the border. Anyway it would have probably continued like that for some time but Leon was to have his first real trip to far north to Oulu in Finland. Therefore we bought the plane tickets and somehow forgot to consider how are we going to check him in since he has no papers. At some point - exactly seven days before the flight and additionally right before Easter I decided to go to the passport office in Warsaw to get him the passport. There I learned that it takes two months before he gets all the papers so that he can apply for the passport and then an additional month before they issue it. Additionally since I showed up with him I almost got arrested since I could not explain how he made it to Poland since he was born in Germany...Things started looking very bad - basically the only way for him to have a Polish passport in time for the flight was to smuggle him back to Germany to get him a temporary  passport from the Polish Embassy there...Fortunately we tried the Hungarian path - those guys did not inquire how he got to Poland - neither wanted any special documents and with kind help of the Embassy staff who took care of the issue outside office hours he got his Hungarian passport just in time for the flight!!! Btw - the Hungarians issue the first passport for free to its new citizens - in Poland after three months it is going to be around 200 EUR altogether.

I should also propose a special award to the Polish authorities for their stupidity since the first step in the process is to get him a Polish birth certificate even though he has European Union which is recognized in whole EU but somehow not in Poland -I kind of though Poland is in EU but perhaps those guys did not notice it yet. All in all takes a month just for this step of the procedure. 

On the picture the result of the very stressful process - Rita with Leon in the sling on the main square in Oulu. Next time we are there he will get a picture with the Santa Claus!!! I must say the little guy enjoyed flying very much. It probably felt like heaven for him because he was fed every 45 minutes...

Last thing - the most interesting picture so far I have found on my bro's blog - the VERVET MONKEY 

or you can also google it as BLUE BALL MONKEY - magnified reason for the name below :)

Leon after a month

Our kid is a month old. He has grown considerably and eats more frequently as well. This makes at least two pit stops every night. With time one can get used to it :)
The good thing is he really behaves well when we go out. It is quite easy to go with him to a restaurant or take him for a longer trip. He sleeps through the whole event. Actually he likes noise very much - whether it is a vaccum cleaner or car engine noise. All sorts of music also help - classical sky radio seems to be his favourite.
He also loves to be warm - either in his tummy tub or under 5 blankets. It does not matter. Last week he actually started his swimming classes:)
I guess after the first semester we will be able to go swimming together. He is already a great partner for me to watch Champions League :) Anyway the guy is definitely making us busy.


Apart for this change in our lives we are looking forward to spring. The snowfall this year has been exceptional. The best since 1979 in this region so I guess the next such winter will come around 2040. The three of us might still go skiing this year and I must say I really look forward to it. Even if I will be spending every other day baby sitting and it is not always that easy with Leon. He clearly so far prefers to listen to Rita but I am trying hard to win him over.

Home again

We made it home and so far we have it all nicely under control. Or that is how we felt until we got home safe and Leon was asleep. And then a chain reaction started: after the first feeding he got hiccups which prevented him from falling asleep until Rita put him in the baby sling. There he passed out in a nanosecond till the next diaper change. Soon came the second faux pas, when Rita managed to put accidentally the nappy rash cream on his ass causing big shouting till washed away :) Thus arrived the second feeding round for another hour with lots of screaming, then expressing milk, which Rita wanted to save for the night. That was the plan - he finished it all right after Rita completed expressing it. And the hiccups started again.... And here I stop listing all the "first night" challenges before you think it is all a nightmare. Actually despite of all these difficulties it is very rewarding to be with him, seeing his fulfilled expression with a half-smile driven by a staffed belly and then an extended yawn with a big stretch. So far not much else makes him so content, but it is good enough for now. Finally he went to sleep at 11 pm and gave us a good 6 hours rest with a good feeding at dawn since when he has been sleeping "like milk".

By now we know the secret to make him sleep -enough food makes him let everyone else rest. I guess the next big challenge will come once he gets sick - we will not have a clue how to handle him. The only thing we have not figured out is why he gets hiccups. 

Lastly on his behalf - thank you for all the wishes from around the world!!! Forgot to mention that right from the beginning our little boy became an illegal crossing the German-Polish border without any papers as we have not managed to get him a birth certificate yet... It will be another funny experiment to get him registered first in Germany, then in Poland and finally in Hungary...

Our kid already with us :)

Good that Rita made the photos last week. She has stopped working on Friday and must have relaxed so much that the birth started already on Sunday night. By Tuesday our little kid Leon was born...
Until now he seems to be a very relaxed guy taking easy the new surrondings - not too much crying and quite easy to figure out :)

Soon to be mum

Rita made me a beautiful birthday surprise. Good timing because we only have around two weeks to go and we will have a new member of our family...

Support in writing the blog

Since I became so bad in writing posts (11 to go if I continue with last year's pace and we will be celebrating year 2011). Therefore I recommend a blog which was started by my brother - he and his girlfriend just started a 6 months trip in Africa. The upper part is in Polish but the lower in English so just scroll down!

Otherwise, tomorrow some very interesting pictures will be posted - and I will write a bit about our Leon moving in Rita's belly and the deals we made with him :)