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.