Neat stuff lately

Tristan is officially able to eat chicken soup by himself.  It’s been a couple of weeks, and the video is up of him doing it.  He’s good enough at doing it that we still let him eat it while on the couch.  All he had to do was quit turning his spoon upside down.  To that end, we’ve had an occupational therapist coming once per week, and although she hasn’t been coming for long or even had too much interaction with Tristan, working with her has solved Tristan’s main problem.

He’s also become the hair police.  Now, with much regret, I admit that I have butchered my hair a bit.  I blame the home chemical-based dye jobs – they break my hair and then I have to cut all of the nice length off, so one of these years I will learn.  Anyway, one of the sentences that we taught Tristan to use was “Mommy, hair down please.”  And now, any time I dare to put my already too-short hair up in a scrunchie, Tristan busts out the full sentence.  How can I refuse that request?  Punkass kid makes me take the hair down in the bathtub, too, when I really don’t want to get it wet.  But that makes two distinct things he asks for verbally – my hair to be down, and his iPad aka “apple” or “p-apple.”

He’s now in the stage where he makes a strong effort to repeat words that he hears and to show off that he knows what things are called.  This was adorable when he noticed a duck-shaped sponge and said “duck” and when he picked up a toy frog and exclaimed “FROG!”  It was hilarious this morning when I was explaining to him that he was eating Peanut Butter Crunch cereal, and since he knows the word “penis” better than “peanut,” that’s what came out.  (He did not try to say “butter” or “crunch” – I don’t think I’d have been able to stop hysterical laughter if he’d actually said “penis butter.”)  I love that he’s talking and making sense of the language.  I realize that when he gets good at it, I will start to wish he’d stop talking from time to time.

I’m also really proud of how cooperative Tristan has gotten with regard to staying within physical boundaries.  By that, I mean that if we’re at a park or in a play area, I expect him to stay within the boundaries, and I don’t have to go chase him to retrieve him very often these days.  He’s also getting better at staying with me and not taking off immediately to explore the very second he has physical freedom.  We’ve been using a push tricycle to get around lately, and Tristan will mount the tricycle when I ask him to – and then he stays put and participates in the ride!  It’s SUCH a weight off my shoulders when I can count on Tristan not to disappear or instantly put his life in peril.

And he’s starting to get better at following verbal instructions without gestures!  Obviously not perfect, but he understands us a lot now.

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