Last night, Tristan decided that he wanted to give the toilet a shot! He didn’t deposit anything in there, but he sat for a good five minutes.

We were about to serve dinner and I went into the bathroom to use it. Tristan followed me in; this isn’t altogether unusual, although his interest is usually just limited to watching the routine and watching the toilet flush. At that very well-timed moment (dinner about to be served), he began motioning for me to lift the cover, and then the seat, and then put his potty seat on top of the toilet. We pulled his pants and diaper off and I sat him up there. He started to panic, as if he were afraid to fall in, and then James came into the bathroom and handed him a distracting light-up toy. Tristan sat there playing with the toy while seated on the toilet.. I made sure he was pointing downward so that we didn’t get a nasty surprise all over the toy. After a few minutes, he wanted to come down from the seat, but he did a really good job in asking to use the toilet (kind of hard, but he said “off” and pointed to the lid, and then gestured toward the insert, so his intentions were clear) and sitting on it for his first real try.

He repeated some of the process again today and one of his therapists was here to see.. yay! So we might have a new toilet user on our hands whenever the process works itself out. Not looking forward to nighttime training (this child fills up diapers overnight like nobody’s business) but very enthused about the possibility of this important step toward independence!

* Tristan can read at least the following words out loud: baby, eyes, go, hat, cat, kick, happy.

* Tristan’s last day at his school (the center-based program) is this Friday, 10/29. We decided to have him pulled out and have his allocated hours returned to in-home therapy. The gentlest way to say “why” is that the center is relatively useless compared to the in-home therapy. We spent a lot of time thinking about it all and decided this was for the best. I’ll miss my bike rides, but I won’t miss hurrying out the door to bring him somewhere the staff always looked pissed off to have to deal with him (and me).

* Naps are once again evolving – this time, OUT. We’re operating on a no-nap, 12-hour of sleep schedule. This involves some very heavy entertaining in the evening to keep Tristan from crashing at around 7pm for the night. Up until about two weeks ago, he was napping reliably but required a car ride to be lulled to sleep, and then we’d come home and I’d place him in his bed. He started waking up as soon as he hit the bed – and when he wakes up like that, he SCREAMS. I’m quite over the 20 minutes of very loud screaming and quite over the baby who goes to sleep at midnight because there’s just so much to see. This all didn’t work out so well last night, when he woke up and wouldn’t freaking get back to sleep. We don’t need anti-naps. But for the most part, it means we have some time in the evening where we’re not making sure Tristan is happy and not destroying shit.

* Tristan says “thank you” at contextually appropriate times where someone would normally say “thank you” to HIM – such as when he surrenders something I ask for. It’s still really cute that he says it spontaneously.

* Tristan’s been getting to know “stop” and “go” – when we’re at a stoplight, he will hum “ready, set” and say “Go!!” Thankfully, he’s honing the timing so that he’s now doing it when the light turns green and not the entire four minutes we’re waiting at a stoplight.

* Tristan’s been reciting letters in somewhat the correct order, even without actual letters being visible. He skips over the few he doesn’t say (G, J, P, R – I can’t think of any more he does NOT say) but you can even alternate letters and he will fill in the proper ones.

And right now, Tristan is asleep on daddy’s lap and likely about to be placed into bed. Wish us all luck!

Tristan started saying “thank you” yesterday evening! We were in the shower, and I was trying to brush his teeth. He hates the tooth brushing, so I’m trying to use positive reinforcement for successes in getting him to try it – whether by himself or having me use the brush. One thing I say a lot as praise is “thank you!” And he echoed it back to me! It sounds a bit like “eat you!” and it’s SO DAMN CUTE. He’s running around the house saying it now, in fact. 🙂

flower (sounds like “wowh” but used contextually)
wow!
uh-oh
hmmmmm, hmm, GO! (he doesn’t try the “ready” or “set”)
baby (usually when the word “baby” is printed)
kick (when it’s printed and said)
two
eight
hat
heart
“guh” for circle, square, and triangle
.. and most of his letters. He seems to forget how to say certain ones at times, but lately we have:
A C E F I K L M O P Q S T U* V W** X Y***
* he sounds REALLY excited when he says U
** W sounds like “dub” and hard to distinguish from his M sound
*** sounds like I but he always says it with a Y

Tristan likes to go through his Mr. Potato Head set and identify all the hats. He’s SO cute when he says, “Hat!”

Some people may remember that we’ve been using the “Your Baby Can Read” video series with Tristan. He can read or recognize the word “eyes” – twice this week while I was watching, he’s said it while seeing the word in print with no other cues.