I’ve started thinking of Tristan as a 2-year-old rather than a 1-year-old. I figure it’s a lot closer, and he looks it anyway.

So, Tristan has been making leaps and bounds with his development. There’s been enough improvement in his communication and imitation skills that it’s been noticeable to people who last saw him about a month before. He’s learning how to ask for more complex things but is still easily amused – yesterday we were sending one of his stuffed bears down a slide, and it kept him entertained for a good half hour. He’s recognizing a lot of his letters by sight and sound. He’s a considerably better problem solver. It’s easy to set up for joint attention if I am labeling the environment, the alphabet, or anything in between since he’s making enough sense of language that he finds it interesting (and is therefore LEARNING IT!). He’s gone from very little ability or inclination to imitate something like clapping hands to full success in some activities. He tries very hard to vocalize the word “Go” and has a toy that says “GOAL!” that he likes to hear over and over.

We’ve been keeping the weekends fairly action-packed, as we no longer have things like regular park time in our schedule. Tristan enjoys swimming activities but he also tries very hard to drink the pool water, so we have had to be creative — tubes work best for keeping baby bodies but not heads in the water. We go to the water park about twice a month – the last time was not a good visit because Tristan was cranky, and a cranky Tristan doing stuff he usually wants to do but doesn’t that moment is never any fun. We had a weekend playdate over here just this past weekend and I hope we get to have some more.. it was a gently social but rather fun way to entertain ourselves and some kids.

Sleep has been irritating during the day and wonderful during the night. Tristan’s not napping very consistently — he may sleep from 1-4 hours now, depending on when he wakes up screaming. And he tends to wake up screaming even after having had a good, long nap. At this point, an inconsolable waking screaming fit after naptime is part of the day and not just something I hope won’t happen this day. And he also stalls as much as humanly possible to avoid going down for an earlier nap. So, the net effect is that I’ve had lots of time not stimulating him but get hit by the high emotions of the nap. But either way, he’s had a regular wake and sleep time for the longer portion of sleep and hasn’t woken up screaming (more than “a” scream, anyway) for a very long time, and he still wakes up cheerfully in the morning. I am sure that he probably needs a slightly earlier nap. There’s not a whole lot of earlier to go anymore, though.

Tristan has been in the Shining Stars program for about a month. He seems to be doing pretty well, and he’s bringing home knowledge rather often. They switched classrooms midmonth and Tristan doesn’t like the new classroom very well, but he’s managing. He’s no longer the “new kid” in his time slot — always the hallmark of getting used to things. I’ve been using Tristan’s preschool time to do crazy things like bike around and explore the area. Fun for both of us!