Photos and videos brought up to date.

I brought Tristan to his friend Bryan’s place Friday, and they played happily for several hours. Tristan drank all of their milk when he got very fussy, so we owe them a drink. I spent a while chatting with Helena about the ups and downs of life while our babies happily walked and played and ate everything they could.

Thursday we stopped by the old apartment’s playgroup and had a wonderful time. Tristan even let Helena put him in Bryan’s stroller while I carried Bryan in the Ergo. Unfortunately, we had to leave quickly to make it home by noon for folks to show up to do some work.

I enjoy being able to leave babies to be entertained by each other and spend some time chatting with an adult or several. I’m grateful that we’ve still had these opportunities and hope we continue to.

*Tristan has been starting to imitate sounds. He’s done very well at cackling: ha ha ha ha ha in sort of descending tones. He picked it up from James. It’s really adorable to hear it first thing in the morning, even if that first thing is too damn early. He’s been pretty talkety lately – he says hi and bye sometimes but it’s usually after the moment has passed, he says up-up-up! and seems to have a fair concept of what ‘up’ means with relation to himself as well as the garage door and noisy airplanes. And, like many babies, he talks about his parents a lot.

*Along with his interest in putting things into other things, he is also starting to give objects to others (at least me).

*He will eat mozzarella cheese shreds, but more of them end up next to him in his high chair than in his mouth.

We have a little red chair for Tristan, sort of a tiny armchair. I can even sit in it without fear of killing the thing. Tristan doesn’t sit still on his own for long unless strapped, so his use of the chair has been sporadic so far. He’s more interested in pushing and pulling it.

This morning and afternoon, he decided he felt comfortable standing in it when normally he’d not interact much with it. What the hell, child? Weren’t you just a pre-walker who needed mommy and daddy around all of the time? 😀

*Tristan’s been in better spirits lately than he was about a month ago. We’d figured he was teething, but if he was/is, he’s going about it quite slowly. That being said, it’s been two and a half weeks since we’ve been in our new place, and he really seems to be enjoying his freedom. Also, his mood tends to be improved when we go places that require him to be in the sling for long enough to be a fun ride.

*He’s started snacking between meals. Borrowing from another mom’s experience, we’ve begun to set out a table with food on it for him to pick up and go. He’s quite a comfortable eater of chunks of food and pieces of cereal, as well as getting familiar with picking up bigger things and chomping from them. That being said, he’s leaving crumbs everywhere he goes and the dog must be jaded because he only licks up the big stuff now. But since Tristan started taking food between meals, he’s been far less pissy if we’re late with his milk.

*Milk. He’s still drinking more of it than I’d assume could be humanly possible. That’s OK because he still refuses foods that aren’t sort of cereal/breadlike in texture. He’s taking his milk in either a bottle or a sippy cup, assuming he’s in a good enough mood – same procedure, different day. He does tend to drink a bit more of a reasonable amount of milk when it’s served from the cup – he sips it through the meal, as opposed to how he still sucks on a bottle until it’s pretty much empty before eating.

*He looks far less drunk when he walks, but he does have a long way to go with coordination. However, he’s being less careful sometimes about things like trying to stand up under a table that is shorter than he is. At least he’s not nearly as frustrated when he bumps himself in the head, so he doesn’t always scream like he used to.

I was lying on Tristan’s floor – we were all in there doing some pre-bed playing. Tristan walked up to me, stood with his butt squarely in my face, and gently stroked me on the arm. Thankfully, no poop in that diaper.. 😛

He has become quite a snuggle baby lately, too. Part of that is that we can get him to snuggle on cue now.

Our new place has very shiny mirrored closet doors (like the ones at North Park, but frameless). Tristan likes to push and pull everything; these doors are usually not a problem. Twice today, he scraped the crap out of toes, including a pretty nasty looking wound near or on the cuticle on the right big toe. So far, everything looks fairly far short of ‘needs medical attention now’ and he hasn’t been in pain since when he injured himself.

So far, it’s turning out to be fun for adults and kids alike. We miss the community and how easy it was to walk out the door and see so many babies – but perhaps we will still have the opportunity to visit often. Once I find Tristan’s helmet, we’re off! Somehow I am more encouraged to try biking than driving.

Our first big issue in the new place is that there are four stairs leading down to from the living room to the office that Tristan thinks he’s able to walk down like an adult, but we know better. He went flying down them once, when James was on top and I was at the bottom; between us all, it was more like a butt-slide, thankfully. Now there’s a gate, and for a few days Tristan would gravitate toward that whenever he took off powerwalking. The problem is that if he slipped or slid, he could fall right under the gate. We’re not sure whether we will ultimately need to jury-rig something to physically make that more difficult or whether he will learn to properly respect stairs in some way. For now, we have enough shit in moving boxes strewn about so that we can slide a box in front of the gate to keep him even further from it. For now, he seems to get the idea to stay away from it – the jumping up and pulling him away that we have to do is decreasing.

He is ninja-gobbling dog and cat food, so we have to be on top of that whenever we see any that he can reach. For the most part, it’s ok if he gets a piece of the cat food; it’s tiny and easy to chew. The dog food’s bigger kibble, though, and likely a choking hazard. That being said, cat food is easy to place out of little ones’ (and dogs’) reach, but dog food needs to be policed so that the dog actually gets a chance to eat or drink.

Tristan’s getting good at pushing and pulling things around. He’s still also very much into opening and closing doors – mostly cabinet and closet doors lately.

I am most excited by the fact that Tristan’s getting very good at playing independently. He used to want me there all the time, and since he turned one he’s backing off a bit. Thankfully, he’s not SO independent that he resists being supervised. 🙂

He still seems to enjoy being carried in the Ergo, for as much as he can stand not walking on his own. He gets antsy in the stroller after more than one store trip worth of time.

He’s getting better at trying new finger foods, eating finger foods in general quickly, and spoon-feeding himself a few bites. The sippy cup is an on-again, off-again friend. He still wants to drink milk by the gallonful rather than eat a lot of solids.

Tristan has continued to refuse any food fed to him. That being said, he’s getting steadily better at feeding himself. These past couple of days, he’s also been mostly uninterested in trying to work a spoon himself, which he has been trying about 3 times per meal previously. I went all out and bought a variety of foods intended for finger-feeding babies: veggie crackers, little corn puffs in various flavors, banana cookies, dried fruit, and whatnot – we have a box full of that sort of thing now. I’ve been offering pieces of chicken, egg, fruit from those fruit cups, and other ‘wet’ foods but it looks like he’s just beginning to handle the egg.

But glory be praised (or whatever nonsensical exclamation!), Tristan’s using his sippy cups! I’m trying to phase them in sloooowly, lest he balk completely again like he had in the past. He usually wakes from his nap in a good mood (yes – nap! because we still can get away with one or two, and one seems to be working better for him) so I’ve decided to try to keep offering it with that meal only until we’ve got that down for sure, and then try the next-least-cranky meal.. or hell, maybe I should just offer it randomly at non-cranky times, as if it’s a reward. 😛 But anyway, I’ve handed him the Born Free cup and he’s embraced it like he does his bottles, instead of eyeing it suspiciously until he either cries and smacks it off the tray or decides to drink it anyway. That’s a good sign. 🙂

Samurai’s not getting quite so much of a treat from all of Tristan’s food that landed in the high-chair seat, but I’m sure that will change as Tristan decides to drop more food when he thinks it’s funny that it keeps the dog nearby.

Tristan also recently learned a new trick – he’s juuuust tall enough to reach the handles of the doors here, and he’s managed to just barely get his bedroom door to open.   Thankfully, it opens inward, so he managed to shut it on himself when he did.  But very very sneaky, he is.

Thankfully, he has not yet figured out how to get out of his crib – otherwise we’d be in trouble 🙂