Yesterday morning Tristan and I went to Thamien Park and had lots of fun. Tristan learned how to descend steps by sitting down and standing up on the next one. He also rode in the baby swing for a bit and walked around the park without putting too much sand in his mouth. Then we walked around the adjacent grass field and spotted airplanes – that place is great, because the planes circle around so a baby can just walk around with his eyes up for quite a while. After airplane watching, we practiced not walking in the street and walking together on the sidewalk.

In the evening, we went to the Alviso library and played there for a bit. It’s a tiny library, but there weren’t many other people there and everyone seemed to be at least tolerant of the toddler. We played peek-a-boo and Tristan played with the big wooden puzzles. At some point he got babbly and was getting loud about it, so I whispered ‘aaaaaa’ to him and it set him off giggling. It continued to set him off giggling for the entire evening – I think it’s losing its charm by now.

Today we went to the mommies’ group and Tristan made it through to the end without major fussing! Most of his friends were absent today, but I think that’s one reason it went well – fairly low concentration of other people in the way.

This afternoon, we had chicken nuggets and rice for lunch. The rice is cooked in chicken broth with garlic and ginger – I eat mine with soy and chili sauce but I serve his plain. The chicken nuggets are mostly for the purpose of having quick chicken, for cooking is still fairly difficult with him around and nobody else to watch him. I’m still so happy he’s been interested in both of those foods.

This evening, he showed some interest in learning how to climb up onto the couch but could not make it. It’s a big reclining couch with the legrests out most of the time, so that gives him a handicap when trying to climb it vs. a normal couch that doesn’t drop under your weight when you get onto it.

Right now, Tristan’s down for his second nap and he finally just fell asleep. The naps have been sort of touchy lately – I seem to have lied about him giving up the second one and taking a long one midday, because that has gone by the wayside. No matter whether I put him down for the first/main nap on time or way late, he has been only taking two hours and has needed more nappage in the evening. However, he doesn’t wake on his own from the second nap – if we don’t wake him up for a couple of hours, he’d sleep through the night but that night would end around 5 or 6 am. That continues to be far from a reasonable hour to be awake, so we’re trying to manipulate the sleep. Thankfully, he’s still good about his sleep habits – he enjoys his crib enough that fussing is usually just situational (protesting occasionally or mostly not feeling his best, in the case of this teething) and he has been falling asleep reliably and waking up slowly and patiently in the mornings. Knock on wood! I am on alert for when he connects climbing with a desire to get out of his crib – it’s coming soon..

Tomorrow I think we’re going to Thamien Park again in the morning but I’m not sure what we should do in the afternoon quite yet. It depends on whether any errands pop up and/or how lazy I feel.