* Tristan’s reading list: baby, eyes, kick, hi, mommy, daddy, hat, cat, happy, go, me, shoe, yes. Possibly also read are stop and no, but we’re not sure when he says those words.

* We’ve been having him say the word “yes” in order to gain access to some foods he wants. He won’t say it if he doesn’t mean it, but it does require a lot of prompting to get him to say it at all. It’s really cute, though. And we learned he could read it soon after we got him to say it.

* We had a very low-key Thanksgiving with just us and some KFC and home/microwave-cooked goodies. It came out very well, except that I forgot about the cranberry sauce because I don’t eat that crap, and I didn’t make enough gravy. Tristan mostly had chicken rice instead of any of the Thanksgiving goodies, although I slipped some chicken into the rice.

* Within this week, for the very first time, I was able to tell him verbally only (no gestures) to go get his shoes.. and he did! He’s also starting to seek and retrieve toys that went flying in the wrong direction or out of bounds.

* Tristan can descend stairs without holding on to either side and with no help. He’s been able to ascend them for a while. It makes going anywhere with him a WHOLE BOATLOAD easier, as I can either send him ahead or have him catch up instead of having to hold him and block him in. I don’t trust him alone with a full set of stairs but he’s proven himself with the set of 5 that he’s flown down twice about a year ago.

* Tristan can correctly identify cats but insists on calling Samurai a cat as well. If you say, “No, that’s a dog!” he just says, “Cat!” I think he knows but is aware that it’s funny when he mislabels the dog.

* Tristan is largely cooperative when we ask him to walk along with us while holding his hand. He does get restless quickly if there’s no action (you make him stand still and wait, for instance).

* We’ve been having many, many playgroups these past few weeks. Since his preschool stint ended, we’ve been having peers (of his and mine) over here during some of the sessions. At this point, it’s pretty neat because we can include our friends in Tristan’s world. We’ve been seeing a lot of his friends Ethan, Evan, Allyssa, and Bryan (and their moms Karissa, Danya, and Helena). Every playdate has been wonderful so far; although they’re still work for those of us who aren’t naturally social, they pass the time rapidly and with much enjoyment. The kids play together very well minus Tristan’s frequent lack of interest (rectified by engaging in his preferred activities) and the typical kids’ sharing drama (which even Tristan engages in from time to time).

* His singing of the ABC song is starting to include actual letters in sequence. He gets to the “LMNOP” part and falters. I’m sure this will improve over the next day or two.

* I’m sure I’ve forgotten much more, but that’s what writing future entries is for!

* We discovered recently that Tristan really enjoys the Wii Fit. He’s giggling hysterically and counting down “3, 2, 1” as his dad plays right now. I think we’ll have to create him a profile and try to convince him to play!

* Tristan’s vocabulary is far more versatile now. He can fill in the “go” if I say “time to…” and “ready, set…” Thus, he will follow directions to the best of his ability when they are simple and involve “going” in some fashion. He’s been repeating a lot of what other people say.. no swear words yet, though, but I bet that will change if he continues to watch playing of the Wii Fit. His words for milk and juice are starting to come out recognizably and he’s making a lot of the choice in beverage these past few days (something we’ve been trying to teach him for ages!!).

* He reads the following words out loud: baby, eyes, kick, go, me, mommy, daddy, hat, cat, happy, and possibly stop but he says stop kind of missing a couple of consonants so hard to be sure. I feel like I don’t have them all, either. 🙂

* He put his shoes (Crocs) on BY HIMSELF for the first time TODAY!! And we just noticed that he must’ve taken them off himself, as well, since he’s not wearing them.

* His singing is starting to include the “words.” His rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle” is highly jargonful, but his “ABC” song includes some actual letters. He also will fill in “two” and “shoe” in “This Old Man.” Oh, he knows the word “shoe” contextually as of yesterday, as well! That one violates simple phonics rules so let’s hope he knows his reading words by memory. 😉

* He’s becoming so much more independent. He was able to climb out of the car today when unbuckled from his seat, and we can trust him on stairs for the most part. We can definitely trust him around stairs – specifically, he respects the boundary when we leave the baby gate over the stairs open.

* Mostly, Tristan is a complete ninja and becoming cuter and cuter as his personality is definitely like the rest of us here – a complete wiseass. 🙂

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.

Tristan has busted out with “baby,” “mommy,” and “uh-oh” a few times and even a stranger would’ve understood what he was saying. Woohoo!

And.. he’s interested in counting! He now says “2” in addition to “8” and has been adding numbers/counting to his repertoire of interests.

2 years, 1 month (and 2 days at this point)!

And today my baby said to me, “Mom, up!” He PUT TWO WORDS TOGETHER! Wheeeeeeeeeee! And he did it at school so I wasn’t the only one to see and be proud!

Tristan’s become very interested in the letter “U” and says it gleefully whenever he sees it. He’s also gotten a lot better at recognizing letters in general and naming them correctly, although after some time he will just point to them and say them randomly. James just tested him with letter identification backwards (as to make sure he didn’t just memorize the ABC song) and said he got about 15 of them correct.

His language differences from other children are starting to become more apparent, especially when other children the same age can follow two-step instructions. However, his own language development seems to be chugging right along. What comes to mind is when I drew a heart on his Magnadoodle and asked him, “What is this?” and he said, “HAHT!” He also can identify and say “hat” appropriately, although he’s never worn one for more than seven seconds. His words for “circle” and “square” (sounds like “cuh”) are still very similar, and I think he’s generalizing ovals as circles and rectangles as squares.

He shows greater understanding of the rules now. He knows where he’s not allowed to go in the house – places we’ve kept locked or gated off – and we’ve been experimenting with leaving gates and doors open. He’s been VERY compliant and not even tried to test his limits. Awesome! (Yes, I know limit testing is normal behavior, but he’s already tested the limits enough times that we put locks on the doors and gated off rooms. :))

The sleep process is progressing. He’s used to his toddler bed by now, but he still acts like a cat – that is, if he wants out, you can physically hold him but not much else will convince him. Being in bed is not especially motivating for him, and the only thing I can think of to try next is to withhold a favorite toy until it’s bedtime and let him play with it only in bed. Naps have been hell; they’re still inconsistently taken and only when he passes out in the car.

The teething process is also progressing. The new bottom molars are trying very hard to burst out, and since the middle of last week we’ve been keeping him drugged up on a semi-regular basis. When we see his demeanor go from “can’t deal with life” to “lalalala yay!” in 20 minutes after a dose of Tylenol, we have a reasonable case for him being in pain. He’s still chewing on his shirts, but it seems to be more sucking than destroying lately. It’s been very easy to get him to take an interest in items intended for teething, as well.

He’s doing a very good job with making choices about what he’d like to drink. We place milk and juice in front of him and he’ll either point or touch the one he’d like. Not a big deal to most parents, but we’re talking about a child who doesn’t know how to say “yes” or “no” yet. He tries to say “drink,” “milk,” and “juice” but they are vague approximations that we can’t trust just yet.

Tristan is now a two year old!

We had a lovely party in honor of Tristan’s birthday.. and of course James’s, since they’re fated to share parties forever. A gaggle of family was in town to help us celebrate, and pictures shall eventually appear of the festivities. We decorated the complex’s community room and pretty much had a giant, festive playgroup with snacks.

Tristan has been fascinated with:
Singing – his “This Old Man” and “Clean Up” are fairly recognizable. We can make sense of his “ABC song” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
The alphabet – we still have old favorites A and H, as well as O, E, L, R, F.. and whichever one he decides to try to vocalize. His letters are pretty clear when spoken. He will follow a point if we are talking about seeing specific letters (H! Do you see the H?).
Shapes – he tries very hard to say “circle,” “square,” and “triangle.” It all sounds like the same word and a composite of the 3 words which is usually just one syllable (“ka” maybe?). He will kind of softly mumble “rectangle” with all of the syllables. He still says “star” like “car.” He recognizes most shapes and will attend to whatever you tell him might contain certain ones of them (that window is a rectangle!).
Colors – he seems to get REALLY excited when his videos discuss the colors pink, black, and yellow.. he also tries to say the words “black” and “yellow.”

It’s hard to tell if some of his recent “terrible twos” sorts of tantrums have been due to sickness and change, but there’s been plenty of that.. he seems to be a bit more agreeable for the past day or two than he had been for some time. He’s still working on some stubborn second molars, as well. We’ve had some fun ones where we had to leave him in his room to work out his frustration for a good five minutes because I would not allow him to do something he’s not allowed to do. This kid is SMART about consistency; if you go outside the lines with the rules, he will CALL you on it and be pissed – we’re just now getting him to not run off with cell phones and other small electronics after some generous family members started letting him play with theirs. 😛

He’s been amazingly adaptable as well: last Thursday was Food Poisoning Day at the Long household, and James and I were kind of unable to… move. We woke up puking overnight and were completely sick throughout the day, to the point where we slept every spare moment. But Tristan was a freaking trooper and he let us lock him and us in his room for the entire day. We mostly passed out on his floor and he mostly watched videos.

Yes, we did put a TV in his room. Either it’s a second birthday gift or a baby bribery device. It’s a small one and it’s wall-mounted. It plays his videos nicely from a Slingcatcher. Speaking of second birthday gifts, we also got him a balance bike.

We signed up for another ‘semester’ at The Little Gym. We figured that since he learned how to swing out of his crib, we should encourage further gross motor skill augmentation. He’s really freaking impressive on the balance beam – requires just one hand holding one of his elbows to keep his balance – but he still is having trouble grasping and swinging from the bars. Even still, the environment is very good for us because it’s set up for kids like him who like a LOT of exercise and stimulation but whose parents could use a break from the constant toddler supervision.

And there we go, almost a month late!