21 months old

It’s been almost a month since Tristan’s started his ABA therapy assessment and whatnot with Stepping Stones in our home. He’s learning a LOT of neat stuff related to play skills and communication.

If for any reason, you have a kiddo and you suspect a delay in communication or the like, get your ass in touch with your local variant of Early Start for an assessment…!!!

The “more” sign – Tristan picked up on the hand sign for the word “more” the first time it was modeled, but he only used it with regard to “more tickle.” He’s getting a lot better and even spontaneous in his offerings of the sign. James spent a lot of time practicing with Tristan when there was a breakthrough moment involving pepperoni. Tristan LOVES pepperoni. He also has proven that he either just craves spicy food or somehow doesn’t notice it. More on that later. Anyway, the sign. I can’t remember offhand all of the situations he’s generalizing it to, but food is a big one and peekaboo is as well.

Play skills – Tristan can stack EIGHT (8) of those putzy little wooden blocks up. That’s at least “up to speed” in that department. Actually, he has an awesome sense of how to balance things when he wants to. Hmm.. he can now roll cars properly and is somewhat interested in them when paired with a ramp toy. He’s learned how to use a Magna-Doodle toy, and prefers to use the magnetic stamps instead of doodling with the pen. He is learning to sit at his new table for activities for several minutes at a time (the chairs are a hazard when he thinks to carry them as a stepstool!).

It’s been really neat that he has taken to the therapists as complete strangers that came in to play. I feel like this whole experience will somehow give him quite a competitive edge in life, because he will be NO stranger to cute girls completely devoting their attention to him. That will probably give him a social edge should he decide he isn’t interested in girls later on as well. I think both he and I are starting to form preferences, but nobody has worried me or made me think they’d be bad for Tristan. I have also been more civil to my family since I am receiving regular breaks from stimulating Tristan in some way.

In, he’s been fairly pleasant and doing neat and/or crazy things…

* This kid loves the spicy food – that wasn’t news in general… but we all know of these, right? (complete with an array of adult vices and fire safety devices)

Yes. THESE fucking things. Tristan devoured, with NO drink available, half a bag of them. And do you know what happens to a child who devours half a bag of those?

You come upon the child first thing in the morning the next day. You see a bit of.. red stuff.. on the sheet. Then, you smell poo and know that the first thing on the agenda will be a diaper change. You get the toddler onto the table reluctantly and notice that his PANTS are also slightly.. reddish. This looks nothing like blood – it looks distinctly like watered down red food coloring. Can you guess what the inside of the diaper looks like in such a scenario?

Yep. Bright red pudding poo everywhere is what happens when your child eats half a bag of those damn Cheetos.

The good news is that if this ever happens to you and you don’t know how your baby will deal with eating such a noxious food, know that it will probably be ok. Half a ton of capsaicin doesn’t seem to hurt either the insides or the skin in contact with the diaper for however long he went between pooping and being taken out of the crib.

* And the LAST thing I wanted to mention is that Tristan is learning how to do neat stuff with the help of red light cues. By “neat stuff,” I mean playing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on a musical keyboard with the help of a lit key tutorial. I also mean that he’s been playing his age 2+ alphabet musical toy and able to spell words such as “jewelry,” “museum,” “zoo,” and a few others with similar blinking red light cues. It’s really impressive to see, even when you know that Tristan’s just good at following cues. 🙂

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