His first reaction to a suggestion of going out to the swimming pool was a definite no.
- E-e. Bam!
After a while, however, he agreed and happily went back on the horse he fell off last week. And even though he gave a wide berth to the unlucky slide, he fancied having a go on a bigger one instead.
Unfortunately, this was where Leomom had to say a definite no (sadly, though), as this ride ends up under water.
And water inside tracheo is what Leomom fears the most.

Leo, as usual, spent part of his swimming pool time at a slide.
Leomom insured him when he was climbing the ladder, and then went to the other side to catch him at the bottom of the slide – so that he wouldn’t go too deep and have his neck under water, which would cause him to chuckle. Not even a single drop is allowed inside the tracheo!
So she was standing there all happy and smiling waiting with open arms form her son to slide down, when all of the sudden the son, who was still at the top of the slide, slipped and lost his balance.
The world suddenly slowed down as Leo was trying to catch his balance, standing on one leg and waving his arms. Leomom’s head was spinning with thoughts – that tracheo might get wet, that the last time Leo had fallen on his back, he lost his consciousness and turned off his breath for half an hour, that she wasn’t sure how many breathe-ins and presses you should perform in case of resuscitation.
An then Leoleg slipped off the step… and Leo fell down.
On his back.
The water surface opened up, and Leo disappeared under it.
His head, his neck and tracheotomy.
All of him!
This is when everything sped up.
Leomom jumped over the slide, grabbed her baby and rushed to the sucking device.
She couldn’t hear any sounds of choking, just a thin voice repeating:
- Bam, Leo bam. Mommy, Leo bam!!!!
She reached the device. Put her son on the floor. She searched for her bag from under a heap of towels. She opened one pouch and took the sucking device. She opened another and took out the catheter. She removed the protective paper from the catheter. She removed the orator out of tracheotomy, and put the catheter in.
Then, she turned on the sucking device and started sucking the water out.
Nothing.
Not even a drop of water. Nothing leaked in.
Her brain finally processed the voice that demanded her reaction:
- Mommy, bam!!! Bam! Bam!
- Yes, Leo. Bam. You did bam…
fot. Susanna Majuri

The photos from previous posts might have given a wrong impression to Leoblog readers.
They might have suggest that Leo’s sitting at home, because of the autumn, the cold, the rain…
Nothing of that kind!!!
There is a rule in Leofamily: until it really gets freezing cold, Leo is going for a walk!
Everyday!

And if it rains, it’s even better!
Leo is going so wild in the puddles that the water is splashing into his wellies.

What keeps astonishing and bewildering Leparents is Leo’s culinary taste.
It is probably a consequence of their ground setting work, as Leoparents have spared their son the stage of jarred mashes and pulps with no taste whatsoever, sugary juices and coloured desserts, offering instead the food they had themselves. The effects are amazing.
Nowadays, when Leo is to choose between an olive and a candy, he will have the olive; cake and cheese – he will take the cheese; natural and flavoured yoghurt – he will grab the natural one; croissant with Nutella or a plain one – he will eat the plain one… etc.
He will eat anything, provided it’s not too sweet. If he chooses chocolate, it is always the dark one, preferably 80% pure cocoa.
But he doesn’t mind chilli, ginger, masala, curry.
He loves capers, spinach and dill.
All kinds of fruit and vegetables – in the summer he would devour three to four tomatoes for breakfast.
Cheese – the more mouldy and stinky the better.
I to wszystko popija ayranem :P
He is also learning how to cook... pierogi (dumplings)

October is an AAC month.
Augmentative and alternative communication.
Leoparents refused it for a long time.
As it is obvious that Leo is going to speak.
In a short while now! He will start in a few days.
They didn’t introduce baby signs, gestures or pictograms.
To motivate him to speak.
They’ve waited and waited.
Practiced and practiced.
Unfortunately, vocalisation has been evolving very slowly.
A lot more slowly than Leo’s intellectual development.
In the end, Leo began to create his own gestures.
An alternative alternative to an alternative.
Finally, Leoparents gave in to the idea, persuaded by specialists from the Centre for Early Childhood Development.
They bought Leo a binder, made it Leolike (see the photo), and they are starting a new chapter together.
Alternative communication.
They will collect and create pictograms.
There’s no time to wait for words to come.
Let Leo express himself today.
And he has quite a lot to say.

- Hello?
- Good morning. Is it the XXX health centre?
- Yes, it is. How can I help you?
- I would like to make an appointment for my son to be vaccinated against flu.
- Oooh, dear…
- ?!
- Are you sure you really need to?
- Ummm, .… well, yeah.
- And can’t you go to a private clinic?
- Erm… no. But what’s the problem?
- It’s just that we are so busy at the moment.
- And?
- Well, it’s hard to schedule an appointment, I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a date.
- Then why don’t you check?
- Eh (a deep, deep sigh of fatigue)… Oh, all right then…
* * *
After a moment, it turned out there is a date available.
Pretty soon, too – in 4 working days :-))
Eh…
(a deep, deep sigh of fatigue)

Good morning.
What time did our dearest Leoblog readers wake up?
Leofamily got up at 5.15 at night.
A certain someone turned on the lamp and announced that 3 people should start to play.
Right then and there!
Hellen van Meene
P.S. And then, when the night was over, and the Sun finally rose, a new word was pronounced: fog (polish: "mgła").

When Leomom goes to the other side of the river, passing over the Siekierkowski Bridge, and driving through the serpentines of overpasses, something strange starts to happen with her.
Anxiety. Something squuzes in her stomach, she feels sick, her eyes get wet, and the heart is pounding like crazy.
She feels like pulling over and having a cigarette.
33 months ago she took this route for the first time, and then she would take it everyday.
For very long 4,5 months.
And normally she doesn’t remember that time any more.
She doesn’t cherish the memories.
She has risen, shaken it off, and moved on.
She’s in a completely different place now.
But her body has not forgotten.
It takes only a tiny association and each cell of her body is overflowing with atavistic fear that she will be forced to go back there again.
To Międzylesie.

TO CHILDREN’S MEMORIAL, TO ICU

This post was supposed to be about Leoparents’ big success; they finally decided to do IT!
They bribed their son with a new bed for older children and got rid of him from the bedroom.
(Who is a big boy now, Leo? Who will sleep ALONE in his room?! Bravo, bravo!!!)
For themselves, they bought a few meters of extension cable for the pulse oxymeter that they put right next to their bed while Leo, connected to it, went to his very own room.
And we had beautiful two weeks.
When Leo disconnected from the ventilator, Leoparents rushed straight to his room, but then they would go back to their own recovered bed.
Unfortunately this fairy tale is over now. Leo got tired of playing the big boy, and decided to finish with this and come back to his (?!) place.
- 3 people are to be together – He announced in his own language and Leoparents didn’t dare to say no to him.
And so he came back from his exile.
They sleep together, all three of them again, with two tubes and a cable.
So basically this post is not necessary, as nothing has changed…

Today, Leo refused to eat his breakfast.
As he was very busy from early morning (that is 5.30 :-/).
And he couldn’t stop working on his project. He was building a city.
Houses, bridges, railways, tunnels, parks, monuments (like the monument of fish and eye), railway stations were built.
The development is light, finessed, wooden, and friendly for people and the environment.
The landscape was only spoilt by a corporate office building, an ugly skyscraper on the outskirts of the city.
The question is: where did this idea come from? What has inspired him?!