Two year olds are easier?

Seriously, Tristan has gotten a LOT easier to deal with this past month or so. Sleeping is evening out a bit (napping again, though), he requires far less supervision to make sure he’s not doing completely dumb shit that is incompatible with life, he plays well with other children and often stays in the proper play area, and he occupies himself at home.

His damn molars are almost finished coming in, so for the most part his demeanor has been more pleasant. When it’s not or he has tantrums about stupid things (not getting his way) we know he’s achy and know how to comfort him. I know a lot of people are anti-Tylenol, but with a proper dose of it after a cranky period, he’s the model child.

He is able to say “no” but is reluctant to actually do so. He has a toy that says “Oh, no!” and he imitates that. It’s really cute. He often says it when crashing the stacking boxes or blocks that are stacked up.

He really prefers juice (which is 50% juice/water) over milk these days. This isn’t really a problem; I’m just surprised considering how much he craved his milk for the first two years. We’re working on both introducing plain water to his drinking repertoire and using straws to deliver drink instead of sippy cups. He can be trusted to independently consume a carton of milk with a straw without making a mess, but by the time he gets close to the bottom he pushes the straw in. I carry an “emergency straw” to deal with this, because the damn straw is pretty close to irretrievable. As far as requesting drinks, we still have to lead him through the process, although if he really wants a drink he will open the refrigerator or try to remove a sippy cup from the rack. He says “e” for juice and a phonetic “k” sound for milk, but he rarely uses that one.

Tristan has gotten the hang of the proper sequence of the alphabet and of counting from at least 1 to 10. He recites the alphabet in order, minus or substituting the letters he doesn’t say properly (which are g, j, r, and w.. which he says (respectively) e, a, uh, and ub when he says them). When he sings the ABC song, he usually leaves out most of the letters if he tries to stay on tune and usually speaks the letters if he tries to get the letters right. The last sentence – “Now I know my ABCs, next time won’t you sing with me” – he sings as “Hmm hmm hmm hmm ABC, hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmmm ME!” As far as counting, he isn’t saying most of the numbers properly yet – so far he says 1 poorly, 2 well, 3 as “e”, 4 poorly, 5 kind of well, 6 poorly, 7 poorly, 8 VERY well, 9 poorly, and 10 as “en.” He will count stairs when he climbs them as well as toys in general, and he focuses on numbers a lot with his toys and when he sees them in life.

Tristan’s reading list is as follows: baby, eyes, kick, hi, mommy, daddy, hat, cat, happy, go, me, shoe, yes, no, flower (pronunciation is improving), circle (still pronounced as “ga”), cow.. we have this feeling as if we’re forgetting some, though.

He’s put on his shoes a few times lately and has taken off his pants, as well as learning to pull them up and down. His fork/spoon usage are improving slowly – he kind of gets that he needs to not turn them over before they get to his mouth, and he’s removing food from them very well.

We’ve been going to different playgroups lately; instead of just the traditional one at the old apartment complex, we’re attending one at a local mall as well that has the same meeting time. I like the one at the mall because it’s public (won’t be locked out), the kids are closer to Tristan’s age, there’s no need to go outdoors for the last half hour, and there’s no need to bring toys. I still like going to the one at North Park because we still know people there and still meet people there very often. I feel like we’ve been partially responsible for keeping that playgroup going at times. Either way, Tristan’s OK with whichever activity I drag him to, or he doesn’t express any sort of preference (or misery/extreme happiness).

Tristan’s scheduled to begin speech therapy and occupational therapy soon. No idea how that’s going to work, but I suppose we’ll need luck.

He’s very attached to me lately. This isn’t to the exclusion of his dad; he’s perfectly comfortable with James. However, Tristan has been climbing on my head to get at my hair which resembles sucking my brains out. More adorably, he likes to snuggle a lot and has been falling asleep on me every day for his nap. Yes, he began taking naps as soon as we thought they were phased out – they were starting close to 5pm and have been creeping back to 4:30ish. I’m happy to see him taking naps again, as it gives me a chance to get some work done (and take a break). But his attachment has been really cute, especially how he wants to be kissed all over his face.

I’m sure there’s more, but I either post this now or get distracted twelve more times and forget to post at all. 🙂

“Me”

We’ve been working with Tristan on who “me” – that is, himself – is lately. At this point, we’re not going much past repeating it, reading it, and trying to identify himself in the mirror and in photographs. He’s starting to get that “you” is a totally different concept than the letter U, but I’m not sure to what extent.

I’ve been showing him pictures of himself and asking him, “Who is this?” The question prompts his attention – yay! He looks at the picture and says, “baby!” if it’s him. However, he also says “baby” for other babies, so I’m not sure if he knows HE is the baby in most of them. He doesn’t yet say his name, though from time to time he sort of whispers something that could possibly sound like “Tristan” when his name is spoken. (I hope he doesn’t turn out to dislike his name, but I will understand if he does.) He also says “baby!” when asked about his own image in the mirror, but doesn’t yet identify (or classify) other people.

I’m also trying to get him to identify me in pictures. He will say the word “mommy” when it’s presented in print to him, but he does not call or label me as “mommy” in person or in pictures. Same for “daddy” although Tristan does occasionally say something that sounds like “daddy?” around the time his dad is supposed to get home from work.

Since he’s interested in the exercises of reading, looking at pictures, and looking at himself in the mirror, I expect he will start to learn this one pretty soon. So long as he stays interested, of course.