We’re well into the second half of the first year now! We have the following going on:

Teething – Tristan’s starting to grow that other bottom tooth. He’s a bit crankypawed because of it, but is otherwise in good spirits. It hasn’t popped out yet, but we’re expecting that soon.

Bath time – Tristan learned how to splash yesterday, and that splashing is interesting. I think we might have to start bathing him in the big tub soon. His tub shares a bathroom with kitty litter, and that doesn’t like to be splashed. The kitties usually come visit and watch curiously. He’s also, as of the past couple of baths, realized that bath toys are interesting; that may be our fault that it’s just happening now, as we bathed him in the bathroom sinks until he got too grabby and big. We’ve bathed him in the big tub with me a few times, but that thusfar has required two people. Now that kiddo knows how to have fun, it might require just a person in the tub to have a splash fight with.

Food – We’re continuing to add to Tristan’s food repertoire. We’re still using baby foods instead of the stuff from the table, but we figure that he’ll get a better balanced diet that way (we are dieting). I also like the jars of baby food for the quick and dirty isolation of ingredients. He tried his first meat (beef) on 3/21 and he didn’t seem to care much for it. Then again, it smelled like dog food so it may just not have been pleasant for him. He ate it mixed with vegetables later on just fine. But we were thinking that he might become a hippie like me (I do eat meat, but I eat a lot of fake meat and whine about meat a lot). Anyway, the advice on when to feed baby how much of what is all contradictory so we’re trying to use the wing-it and decent common sense methods of queuing up new foods for him. He still drinks a lot of formula and prefers the bottle before his solids. Also, he technically can hold his bottle but doesn’t choose to until he’s done drinking from it, at which point he matter-of-factly removes it from my hands and acts like he’s going to drink it.

Travel – We’re still using the infant travel set, even though lifting the carrier portion to get it into the car while it contains a baby is damn hard. He still seems excited about being worn in a carrier, and usually wear him facing outward so he can see the world. We’ve been doing at least one walk daily around the park for the past few weeks, since the weather’s been getting nicer. I’m grateful that he doesn’t object to facing backward in the car seat.

Play – He’s first and foremost trying to crawl. He can sort of move backwards now. He’s taken a step forward a time or two. He can roll toward his target, and he can reach toward it, but the crawling is just not ready to happen yet. However, he can lie on the floor and relax now, entertaining himself with whatever’s around. It’s really neat to lie down next to the baby and just sprawl out! Otherwise, he’s been grabbing everything in sight, jumping for long periods of time in his jumper, and sitting with us on the couch. He’s fascinated with Samurai and giggles when the dog is near. He tries to pet all of the critters but he’s sort of inept at it.

And that’s how our baby is doing.