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.