Jani Penttinen

It's become pretty obvious lately that you need to go to daycare. You are getting really bored at home and you want attention, but you just can't get enough of it.

I need to work, which pretty much means that I am not available to you during the daytime. Sometimes I'm busy nights too, and sometimes even weekends.

Your mom is quite busy with Yuer these days. Actually, she would be able to spend more time with you if you weren't so crazy for your little sister, but no can do.

Since you want to hug her, play with her fingers, try to carry her, etc., all the time you see her, it's a lot of work to have both of you guys around at the same time.

The end result tends to be that you are bored and want attention so you resort to bad behavior. We've tried to keep you home until you're at least 3 years old but now it starts to feel silly - it's not good for you and it's not good for others either. Even if we had all the time in the world for you, it's also quite clear from your behavior with Yuer that you desperately need to play with other kids.

We visited a Montessori school in Zürich last week, and it was really nice. They have a pre-kindergarten group for 0-3 year olds, which is where you will begin and the move over to the 3-6 year olds group either when you turn 3 or after the first full year.

The school year starts at the end of August, so we still have about 3 months to go before that. In the fall I am going to start working in Zürich, instead of the home office, so that I can drop you off and pick you up from the kindergarten.

It will be a big change, but I believe it'll be for the best. You're extremely good at learning new things so you really deserve the opportunity to learn from the teachers and other kids.

So, anyway, the summer is still ahead of us before the kindergarten begins. It's been rainy lately, so we've tried to find things to do inside. A few days ago we decided to visit a place called Planeta Magic, an indoor activity park for toddlers like you.

You were quite shy, with a lot of noise coming from all the kids around you. At first it seemed you will just rather not play at all. After a while though, you started to get interested in the activities. I was not able to get you to try out a trampoline, but you liked the ball pit a lot.

Just as you started to get to full speed, the time ran out and the place closed down. We'll need to try out some other similar place soon, as this one was unfortunately quite far away and not convenient to visit.

And while it's really been a rainy summer so far, this weekend was excellent! Yesterday we went hiking with the whole family. It turned out to be quite a minimal hiking trip, but we had pretty good time.


We ended up at a small island on Lake Zürich called Ufnau. The island was very small indeed, and it didn't take us many minutes to walk around it. Slightly disappointed, we returned to Rapperswil and walked on the west side of the castle, where we don't usually go. This was good fun, especially a nice playground on the lakeside.

Today Rapperswil hosted the annual Ironman 70.3 competition so the town was full of people. It was a really sunny day and very warm. Our local water park would normally be packed in a day like this, but today everyone was watching the Ironman - except for us. We used the chance and want to the park for some water play.


Typically for you, it took a little while to get you started, but once you got to the right mood you just didn't want to get out of the water. We continued way past your normal nap time. When we finally dragged you out of the water, you very happily crashed down on the stroller for a nap.

In the afternoon you and I went out to our yard to play some soccer and - most of all - run up and down the stairs. You were so fast that you almost fell down on the concrete walkways several times. But only almost. I nearly had a heart attack every time, but you just kept getting more and more excited. "Fei is running so fast!" is what you kept saying, and I had to work hard to keep up!


It's the end of the weekend now. The good weather is gone, it's raining and cold again. It was fun!