So tonight’s “Holy $*)@” moment was brought to us by Tristan, who, upon deciding holding onto the couch was no fun, decided to turn around and take a few steps into the middle of the living room.   Not bad for a kid who stood by himself for the first time a couple days ago.

About 10 minutes ago, I brought Tristan downstairs after he woke from his evening nap. When we exit Tristan’s room, the cats are usually waiting because it drives them nuts to be excluded from a room. I often call attention to the two kitties (or however many are or aren’t there). When we closed the door tonight, Tristan very distinctly said “ki” or something resembling kitty. I’ve heard him say it once before but I wasn’t entirely sure. Upon speaking of this with James, he reminds me that we’ve had this discussion before about how he probably knew the word “kitty.” Anyway, I’m convinced that he does know it, since he has used that only when cats have been involved. The weird thing to me is that Tristan seems far more interested in the dog!

At 4:57 PM today, James was holding Tristan in a standing position.. when he let go, Tristan stayed standing for a good five seconds or so. Then he freaked out, made a face of abject terror, and started crying because he realized he was standing and nobody was holding on. He’d have likely stayed up longer if he weren’t too scared of falling! Oh, and as of yesterday he has been insisting that we walk him around constantly while holding onto his hands.

Tristan has been a reliable through-the-night and through-the-nap sleeper since around 5 months old. I don’t remember when specifically, but I’m sure it’s discussed in here. Anyway, I think he’s edging toward some sort of change since it’s been rather difficult to predict naptimes and he’s been waking up pissed off a lot at times he shouldn’t be awake. Thankfully, he’s happy to be climbing around in his crib but I really expected him to sleep a bit longer. In any event, we have some swimming planned for this afternoon!

Oh, and today was the first time he actually ate an entire jar of stage 3 food. It was the sweet potato bisque that was pretty darn smooth and of course containing the main thing that’s easy to get into him in its name. We’re still not having a lot of luck with getting him to put food into his own mouth or us having him eat anything that resembles ‘real’ food, but all we can do is keep trying! And go swimming, of course.

I tried making “real” oatmeal for Tristan and mixing it with fruit puree. James said it tasted good but that Tristan failed at eating it. Damn Virgo child all resistant to change and whatnot. We bought bread, bagels, and whatnot for Tristan to practice munching on (and for us to hopefully NOT munch on). I also put milk in his sippy cup and juice in the bottle to see if that makes a difference in his milk coveting, but I don’t think he took the sippy cup without struggle. At least James and Tristan both sound a bit less frustrated than they did a few moments ago.

We’ve had a lot of company since Tristan turned 9 months old. My mom spent a few days in town right around the time Tristan hit 9 months, and James’s sister Cindy spent the better part of last week with us. Thankfully, baby had a wonderful time with everyone and we got some much needed rest, too. It was great to introduce the baby to the family, for even those who had met him before had no inclination of the creature they were to meet.

It’s so much easier now. It’s not nearly as scary living with a baby, and therefore it’s not nearly as hard for me to leave him under a family member’s care. His routines are a lot less complicated than they were as a newborn, and he seems far less fragile. Plus, he’s sort of entertaining now and he doesn’t sleep the entire day away. The downside is that he requires an astronomical amount of energy to keep entertained and safe, even though he’s pleasant natured and entertains himself. He is that baby that you will find climbing on top of something remarkably unsafe if you turn your back to pee.

During Aunt Cindy’s visit, those of us who lived here came down with a cold, making it officially Tristan’s first. He was quite the little crankypaw while he wasn’t feeling well. He didn’t generally have objections to being passed to her unless he was just miserable. In fact, Tristan may have actually said “mama” discriminately, as I was trying to pass Tristan to Aunt Cindy but he wasn’t having any of it. When she passed him back to me, he very deliberately pronounced the syllables. He’d been babbling it for a while; on again and off again he’s had a tendency to just repeat ma-ma-ma or the like. But that was the first time (and so far, the last) he said it appropriately. As far as the cold, we’re all mostly over it now and Tristan was in a much better mood once he felt better.

Tristan is getting good at climbing stairs, falling on his ass when failing to stand (instead of his head or anywhere else ungraceful), and pushing his walker cart (little grocery cart toy meant to help baby learn to walk) forward while playing with it. He can pull up to stand with ease on just about anything, including dogs and one-year-olds. He can stand for about two seconds without holding anything but isn’t very interested in trying. He likes to walk while holding onto our hands, but would rather just crawl around now that he knows how to when he actually wants to get somewhere. We got some fancy dragon shoes but he’s not very enthused about shoes so far – we do our practicing barefoot and have thusfar reserved shoes for outdoor use. He’ll get more used to them when he actually gets walking, I’m sure. He’s been crawling toward and then climbing up the stairs when it’s been near naptime or bedtime, and then crawling through the cat door in the dog gate upstairs to show the cats he’s badass before going to bed.

It’s also getting more obvious that he understands some words we say and he’s been able to signal his needs at times. We’re interested in teaching him sign language but we’ve been slackers; that being said, I think he knows and uses the sign for milk. He understands “baby up” and raises his arms in anticipation of being picked up or grabbed from another person. So far, he doesn’t really heed the actions in the reading videos but he does try to say “hi” and “hat.” We’re working on waving hi but he hasn’t tried it yet – he makes the “I’m too shy” face and turns away instead. He’s been really easy to amuse, though – he breaks out in the giggles when James says the word “scuttle” to him or wiggles his clawed hand up to Tristan’s head, as well as giggling in anticipation at a few other things.

We’re a little behind on food, I think. He will eat anything that comes in a jar but isn’t too keen on “real” food yet. He also loves his bottle of milk and it’s been difficult to get him to drink less. We’ve tried a few little things such as filling the bottle an ounce less, presenting the solids before/during/after the bottle, presenting milk in a sippy cup (he will use these for anyone but me, apparently), handing him food to eat, handing him a spoon.. it’s been a very gradual process. He drank 8 ounces less of formula today than his normal intake, and he’s been eating and drinking regularly today. Part of the fun of this one is that we don’t really eat as a family; we’re still dieting so most of our meals are not even seen, and those meals we do eat are eaten on the couch. Baby still gets most of his feedings on the couch, which is remarkably clean for as much shit as we have gotten on it. I figure what with us having to concentrate on decreasing the milk intake and increasing the food intake, getting him to like the high chair is probably secondary. He WILL need to be in it when he really starts feeding himself, but we’re also anticipating it being easier to do that once we move in 2 months (assuming everything goes without a hitch!).

Pictures and videos brought current.

Fun changes / new things over the last month:

* Has learned to enjoy the kiddie pool with a floatie

* Has managed to crawl / climb up a full flight of stairs.

* Has become willing to crawl long distances (across the room) to find interesting things such as a window or one of those springy doorstoppers which make a FWINGGGGGGGG noise if you flick them).

* Has learned to pull himself up on various objects, and is getting fairly stable standing with one hand for support.

* Likes to protest being put in his crib by standing instead (note he has not yet mastered sitting back down gracefully)

* Has progressed from vampire-teeth to having his front teeth + vampire teeth on top, and bottom front teeth as well.

* Has figured out how to put a piece of solid food into his mouth.

* Has give or take outgrown his infant carseat and various other low weight limit furniture (20.5 lbs as of a few weeks ago)

* Has discovered that his daddy wears glasses, and wants to inspect them closely after ripping them off of his face.

Added many new videos and photos, bringing both galleries current.

Since Tristan learned very recently to move himself around, he has been a little machine. He wants to stand ALL of the time. This means that he wants to stand while he should be sleeping. Yep, he’s doing that fun thing where he starts standing in his crib and then has no idea how to get back down, so for the first time in a few months we actually must go into his room to deal with his crying when he’s not going to sleep. Poor baby. But I’m really glad that we have the standing thing well underway. I got worried when his crawling paws failed him for a couple of months! In addition to his standing escapades, Tristan can now switch from crawling and sitting at will. Finally, the little baby is rarely found lying down! He even sits up in the bathtub now and we’ve had a few bubble baths.

We also picked up one of Tristan’s new car seats a few weeks back and I think I forgot to mention it. Although he’s over 20 pounds, he’s still under 1 year, so he must face rearward. That meant that whichever seat we got had to accomodate that, and it narrowed our choices greatly. We did find a comfy one that I like using a whole lot better than his infant seat. We still need to get a second seat for the second car, since he’s almost officially too big for the infant seat which has just been kept in the second car since we got this new seat, and we’ll likely have to get another one of the ones that faces rearward as well.