We haven’t yet done “Christmas” with Tristan yet – we’re waiting for our friend Jason to arrive so we can try to convince him to wield a camera. Besides, we’re hoping Tristan naps his little butt off for a couple of hours. We did give him a couple of his gifts ahead of time – a big felt-plush dragon for babies that we discovered locally and the Imaginarium 5-Way Giant Bead Maze Cube, which has already paid for itself in baby-entertaining time.

Tristan’s been spending much of his time opening and closing doors, cabinets, drawers, and the like. Since we decided to put this potentially annoying behavior on cue, he delights in getting it right when we let him open and close things.

He definitely recognizes words and enjoys the hell out of his language videos. I am not sure if he recognizes basic body parts, but he recognizes the words for them. Whenever he sees or hears a word he knows, he tries to say it – which sounds a lot like gutteral growling – and gets grinny.

We brought him to a local Gymboree yesterday and played with Chun and Marcus. Tristan ADORED the place and we’re definitely going to sign up so we have access to the open playgym times, if nothing else. In fact, we were just about to when Tristan tried to be a bit of a gymnast and flip beyond his means, earning him a headache and us all an earache. After we calmed him down from that, we realized it was getting late enough that he’d likely be a pain in the ass while we tried to sign up for anything, so we put it off for next time.

If you’ve been reading along with us for the past year, you will remember how Tristan always seemed to like the word “vegetables.” I am telling you, this kid craves them. Not only did he suck down two pouches of the spinach, peas, and pear baby food in rapid succession, but he gobbles dried peas like the rest of us gobble up chocolate. In fact, he isn’t even interested in stealing our chocolate! We did let him have a nibble of dulce de leche fudge (no cocoa) and he loved it, but he was also satisfied with the kitty-lick size we gave. He seems to be a smarter eater than the rest of us here at home, so far.

I completely forgot! Last Wednesday we acquired our brand new Toddler Patapum carrier. It’s just a little bit different from the Ergo, but it feels a lot more supportive. Time will tell!

We had a very successful playdate at Thamien Park this morning! We arrived around 10:30 and started playing with some wet sand. Jennifer and Tysen arrived soon after, and then a group containing many of the moms from our group and their babies wandered over. The weather was beautiful – warm, didn’t even need a sweatshirt on Tristan.

Tristan, however, felt it necessary to wander across the park and not look back for even a moment – he got far enough away that if I did not sprint, he could’ve walked very slowly and made it to the opposing street. He did this a few times, too. What he’s doing is chasing the airplanes, since they seem to circle overhead. I describe him as secure; this is the polite word for it. He is the only child that I have ever seen that will just wander calmly away from mom and not even bother looking back. I assume that he trusts me enough to come after him when he’s in danger of being separated and not that he’s just that happy to get away from me. I like that he’s secure and explorative, but I’m scared that reining him back in like that teaches him to be foolishly secure and/or reckless. I need to train him to look for me and return to me, but I’m never in a situation where I don’t have to eventually go after him to keep him out of some sort of trouble. Is this just a feature of his age, or is it a feature of his personality in general, I wonder?

Otherwise, he’s been mostly good but trying us as he grows. We’re having a bit of a struggle over him dropping food from his high chair tray. He really does respond much better to positive reinforcement than the command “no!” but other than reinforcing everything that is not food-dropping (and/or just letting him grow out of it), we’re not having the best of luck. He seems to do it when he does not wish to eat a particular item instead of just pushing it aside, or when he’s done eating in general. He’s pretty good, though. He still eats the chicken rice two out of three meals, and he devours that stuff like nothing else. He seems to be sort of particular about the stuff he will eat, though, and doesn’t eat a lot that kids his age like (sound like mommy at all?). For instance, today I offered him a piece of biscuit and his response was to spit it out after two tries – but the rest of the kids were happily gnawing on their biscuits.

As time passes, it’s apparent that Tristan’s starting to understand a lot more language. He can say “airplane” but it does not in any way resemble the English word “airplane.” It sounds far more like “ehhhh” than “airplane” but it’s completely contextual. He also can recognize the phrase “arms up” in print and say it, but it sounds like “auahauhuahahaaaa” instead of “arms up.” Again, completely nonsensical in sound but predictable and contextual. We have a TV set up in the dining room, so he watches his baby videos while he plays in the dining room and eats in his high chair, and he still watches the reading video daily.

A lot of new pictures and videos added!

We scheduled a park playdate at Thamien Park for this morning, even rescheduling the removal of some very cumbersome tables from our home in order to make the playdate, since I was the one to organize it. Most of the folks cancelled ahead of time on account of the nasty weather – some thought it would be too cold, some saw rain – but I wanted to go just in case somebody showed up. Turned out that we were late as it was, but almost nobody was at the park – friends or strangers. Nobody I knew was there, but it’s possible that someone arrived before us and turned back upon seeing nobody they knew there. The weather was pretty nasty, but at least not bitterly cold – pretty much just Seattle-ish, weepy rain that is enough to keep people indoors. The field at the park was soggy enough to be considering becoming marshland. My shoes are quite soaked and I’m glad Tristan was in the sling, because he’d probably have wanted to play in the muck and I don’t believe I had a towel on hand big enough to deal with that and the fact that they tend to use ‘reclaimed water’ in the maintenance of the landscape as it is.

I brought Tristan to the mall and let him walk around the Carter’s store while I picked out some 24 month lightweight stretchy pants for him – I love those particular pants because they have been pretty age-appropriate for him throughout his pants-wearing days and they come in colors that go well with any outfit. Whenever I see them in whatever size he is or is on the cusp of, I like to snap up a few pairs since they tend to be scarce in whatever size I am looking for. I also got him some mittens for shits and giggles, since he won’t wear them unless it’s frostbite-cold, but I’ll bet if it gets that cold he will appreciate them. I also grabbed another pack of socks since we do share a home with the Sock Eating Monster as many of you have experienced in your own homes.

The worst of the teething seems to have passed for now. The lower molar he’d been working on is finally visible, and there are some teeth poking around up on top of those that are causing him a bit of grief, but it seems paltry compared to the week of diaper nastiness.

But diapers are getting very nasty. We tried very hard to be respectful and understanding when the diapers were painful for him because he was all rashy. He seemed to be grateful and cooperative. Now that he has the energy or is getting old enough to protest more forcefully, he is going back to squirming and refusing to lie back without screaming. I’ve been trying many methods for dealing with this and depending on the time of day or week or whatever toddler whim brings that moment, some work and some do not. I have had to resort to lying him down to remove the diaper and wipe a tiny bit (hopefully enough to avoid shit-prints on the changing table, but not always that lucky) before he squirms out and up. I manage to face him so that I can continue cleaning him as he squirms, and then I’ve had to apply the new diaper standing up. Of course, I already suck at diapering this kid so this makes the new diaper sag oddly on at least one side until I’ve spent five extra minutes straightening it. Anyway, I suspect that lying on his back at some moments is uncomfortable and I plan to get his pillow back out, but I also believe he’s just getting more assertive.

He is definitely making leaps and bounds in the language department, at least as far as understanding it goes. He understands the concept of “no” and after a few tries can be convinced to heed it. For instance, we have a new TV peripheral stand with glass doors, and we have our stair gate that is meant to keep the eager baby from going head-first into trouble. As any good toddler does, he does try a lot to see whether the rules have changed, but we’re all pretty good about not making a game out of it where he does the obnoxious thing over and over while laughing. Except for the last time we were at the playgroup, and I was trying to convince him to bang on wood and not glass.. but that was the only time I can recall. I’m sure that my tone of voice was not the same as when we run into these issues at home, and I realize that I should’ve led him away from the glass to show him something appropriate to bang on instead of trying to show him the windowsill of the window he was banging on.

He’s been napping very well this week, and I hope that continues. He’s preferred to take one nap and a bit earlier than he used to – he was asleep by 1pm today instead of the 2:30pm we had been going for – and these past few days he’s slept until at least 4pm.

Oh! He is able to put things back on command (and on his whim) now. He doesn’t do it very reliably, but we’ve made a game of taking things out of drawers and putting them back in, or taking books off of bookshelves and putting them back on. Also, he is still VERY obsessed with opening and closing doors and drawers – ah, my little OCD Virgo. Whenever we have the refrigerator door open when he’s wandering around, he tries to close it even if you’re standing in the way holding it open. He also wants to close open car doors and the trunk. I’m trying to keep putting these behaviors – open, close, in, out – on cue so that we don’t start fighting over it and/or he doesn’t hurt himself or others and/or he doesn’t lock my keys in the car.

TEETHING. Ow. We’re finally feeling better-ish from the series of mild allergylike but annoying whatever-is-going-around symptoms. But poor Tristan! He’s in the process of cutting three molars. He’s alternating between fussy as hell and his normal self – there was a lot more of normal self today than he’s been showing for a good week or so. For the past three days, he has had a bit of frequent diaper blowout and he’s gotten very sore underneath the diaper, as well. After the last change before the nap he’s taking right now, I had to walk around holding him up against me with a towel between us to let the rash air out for about ten minutes – he loved that, though!

Of course, this means that we’re grumpy because the kid requires a lot of tender loving care and comforting. Thankfully, he’s been sleeping through the night well even still (knocking on that wood), but he’s been dicking up his nap in various ways. We’ve been operating under the One Nap schedule lately, which means a 3 hour nap from 2-5pm (with the current wakeup time of 8:15am-ish and current goodnight time of 10:45pm-ish). With the complication of teething, the One Nap is interrupted at various inopportune times, and my break (half break, half “oh shit, what can I get done that requires the baby not be around?”) goes to hell. And since during these times, he wakes up screaming instead of babbling, he requires lots of snuggles and comfort before he will consent to doing anything at all except drinking a bottle. Considering the fact that I’m a tiny bit disappointed that we’re still using bottles at 15 months – mostly because we continue to rely on them, really – I would rather calm him down without offering one if possible. As it is, when he’s at all unhappy, he will not accept a drink in an alternative container and this is a habit we can’t continue forever.

Other than teething, he’s been talking a lot – up, down, mamama, dadadada, a lot of random stuff that I don’t yet understand as well, possibly chicken or thank you or even Tristan – I could see it being any of those. He also really likes it when we sing about his puntypaws – when we catch him in a good mood in a position to kick his legs, like on the changing table, and start to sing, he will punt at us at the appropriate time in the song, or even when we stop and look at him anticipatingly.. I’m sure there’s a better word for that, but you get my point. Anyway, the kid kicks furiously on command and he has pretty good command of a ball soccer style. I’m thinking ninja and not pirate.

His demeanor and behavior were a lot better at the playgroup today – hell, all of the kids were fairly happy. There’ve been a lot of struggles about sharing with some of the kids lately, and with multiple child families, they need their kids to be able to share on command and not be entirely pissy about it. That being said, all of the kids figured out how to play cooperatively, take turns, and share on their own terms today and it was so much fun that the time whizzed right by.

Pictures and videos current to 11/25/09 – more to come!

.. or the sleepiness, but Tristan was on very poor behavior when we visited with Helena and Bryan today. To be fair, he woke up at 7:30, which to us is like 5:30 is to the rest of you if you’re on a normal schedule. They had a moving snail toy and Tristan had a bit of a meltdown whenever he was encouraged to share or be diverted from it. Since he’s normally not such a shit about such things, I really hope he just wasn’t feeling well. Socially with other babies, he’s a jerk sometimes but also plays nicely alongside them most of the time. By jerk, I mean he steals toys and shoves a little – but I blame the shoving on us letting him climb on us and shove to indicate that he’d like to get by or just to snuggle by sort of sitting up against us. To us, this is nonverbal communication, but socially it’s not exactly endearing since other adults and children have other ways of communicating – shoving others is kind of jerkish, after all. At least he’s not hitting (knock on wood!! I know we will have to be CAREFUL if he starts to avoid it becoming a habit..) But aside from that, he lets go of toys when others steal them as often as he steals them. As long as there are no head or other major injuries or distracting meltdowns, I don’t care if there’s shoving or rudeness or a lack of sharing by either my kid or others’ kids.

Anyway, I will treat this as a momentary and situational thing provided he does not repeat it, and if he does (and is not tired, in pain, or otherwise previously miserable) then we will have some serious discipline work to do. Thankfully, our discipline is fun and positive in most cases (hey, look, people are nicer to you and we get to go more places when you’re agreeable, condensed into baby language), but it’s still hard work.

We have a pretty large standing shower with an adult-height bench. This still is somewhat a novelty to us all, as it’s only been about 3 months since we’ve moved into our new place. Anyway, pretty large means it can fit a family of 3 provided the baby isn’t in the mood to walk around the shower, and it fits either adult and the baby comfortably for a leisurely shower.

That being said, Tristan is one of those children who really delights in things at times, and since he’s so passionate and easy to please, we run with that. Lately he’s been interested in bubbles – soap suds running down the drain, especially. I suppose with a bathtub, there are some tricks to entertaining a baby – bubble bath lasts a while, you can color the water, the fact that you’re chest high in water is also novel. But honestly, I prefer the standing shower (we do also have a regular bathtub in our second bathroom). The tile floor has some traction even with soap, and there’s no body of water for baby’s head to fall down into. He knows how to block the drain and let the water rise a couple of inches, but that takes about three minutes. It feels less dangerous and he’s disciplined enough (read: I have been lucky enough) that he doesn’t mess with the door while we’re mid-shower. All of his bath toys are in there – a turtle scoop to hold the little stuff, a bunch of fist-sized vinyl sea critters, and one of those turtle float-and-roll things. While he is interested in those things, he can be kept happy in the shower for about 40 minutes if additional measures are taken to ensure his entertainment beforehand. Lately, this means providing bubbles frequently. I’ve been going through shampoo and bubble bath like mad, because standing showers sort of explode the soap and then wash it down the drain, leaving baby asking for more. If I’m not fast enough and I leave the soap within reach, he knows how to open it and where to squeeze it, but even if it’s Johnson & Johnson baby stuff, I don’t feel right with him having an open container of soap in hand. We purchased a bathtub battery-operated bubble blower, and he seems somewhat entertained by it so far, but the kid seems to crave more excitement every day.

I’m not exactly complaining here – I’m still amazed and grateful that our showering-together arrangement has continued to work out so far. We’ve made it to almost 15 months without him refusing to bathe and honestly, he’s been excited about every bath we’ve taken to date since we’ve started showering together. (OH! We’ve -also- made it thusfar without him POOPING in the shower or bath – let’s hope that continues to be the case!) I get a full shower every time we bathe – there’s no compromising like there is with a lot of things, such as EATING or resting. For some reason, even when he’s in a crappy mood, tired, hungry, etc., he still loves the “bath” (I call it a bath for him because of the relevant vocabulary factor – they teach the word “bath” to babies, but babies aren’t exactly expected to shower, so that one doesn’t come up as often.)

I am eager for the moment when the realization that certain activities come directly before a bath, so anticipate a bath, kicks in for Tristan. Since he’s still a punkass about his diaper changes (lately, I get a diaper change upon waking up and reluctantly before napping, and any other diaper change, such as a poop after a fresh diaper, is met with Pissed Off Baby Screams.. shouldn’t a Virgo want poop off of him? I’m eager for when he realizes that poopy butts are gross and he should cooperate for a change.. sigh..) anyway, I digress – he still screams because he thinks being put on the changing table for diaper and poop removal are an Evil Diaper Change Out of Turn and screams his little head off. Even after I’ve talked about the bath and given him cues that we’re about to go shower, such as getting out his towel and washcloth and going to turn on the water to warm up. I’m not sure if he doesn’t anticipate more than a couple of seconds or if he’s just so freaked out by diaper changes that are “off-schedule” to him. This doesn’t change whether we bathe daily or manage to fit in one bath that week – yep, gross, but it happens, and the norm is somewhere between those two.

Also, I’m very proud of him for getting good enough to step over the shower door entry that he does it carefully and it’s almost second-nature.