Tristan puked tonight for what I believe is the first time since he was a spitty little infant.  Hopefully it was just an ick reaction to guacamole chips or overconsumption of teething saliva. [Update several days later: was just that once and he seemed to be just fine.]

In less yucky news, Tristan’s been adding numbers to his list of obsessions and is practicing them often.  He can count to 10, although he doesn’t do it properly yet.  He’s saying 1 as “e” or “uh” and it’s difficult to tell that he’s counting until he continues past 3.  But he counts stairs as he walks up and down them, and he counts objects randomly.. it’s really cute.  He’s quite enthusiastic about numbers, just like he is about letters.

And speaking of letters, he recognizes all of them, uppercase and lowercase as well as some font variations on the lowercase letter a.  He will speak all of them clearly or pretty damn recognizably except for G, J, and W (he quit saying “ub” for W and just won’t try to say anything at all for it) and sometimes he forgets how to say R.  He’s getting pretty fast at singing along to the ABC song and he recognizes (and is ok with) the several different melodies that can be paired with it.  He’s not fast enough to do the “LMNOP” part and tongue-trips a bit, but I bet that in a few weeks he’ll have that sorted right out.

He recognizes and will indicate body parts!  The first one we noticed he’d answer correctly was his bellybutton, the second one was his penis, and then he learned his face for the most part and I believe his arm as well.

When asked, “Who is this?” he will answer with either “mommy” or “baby” depending on whether it’s an adult or child.  The past day or so he’s been just answering “mommy, baby” as well.  He knows how to say “daddy” (he can read it, and is more willing to say it when he sees it in print) but is stumbling over his willingness to say the phonetic D sound, so he won’t say it and just says “mommy” when pointing to daddy.

He’s getting very sure of himself on the stairs unassisted as long as it’s a small staircase.  He can tell I’m still nervous about big staircases or him being unattended by an “oh shit, my baby is falling” catcher, and he either humors my paranoia and is careful, or is affected by it.  Either way, a sense of danger is very useful in that it helps me trust that he knows how to keep himself alive.

We’ve been semi-successfully able to use a “no” command to get Tristan to stay away from stuff he shouldn’t touch or do.  This success is waning as his ability to say and understand the word “no” increases.  Instead of veering away, he turns and gives a big smile and then continues the behavior.  (One particular issue we’ve been having is that Tristan loves to drop toys, especially balls, off the second floor landing to the garage area below – this has resulted in his loss of approximately 50 small plastic balls which come with an inflatable slide that he’s somehow conditioned to immediately deposit off the side of our railing if he sees one.)  A somewhat low-key removal of the offending object(s) helps communicate the “NO.. I MEAN it” that mere words aren’t managing to convey.

Since his knowledge of the word “no” has increased, he also uses the phrase “Oh, no!”  He uses it very properly, too, such as when he crashes a tower of blocks.  He’s also started using “uh-oh!” in situations where he’d normally think to ask for help, forget how to do so, and immediately start screaming.  I REALLY like the word “uh-oh” in Tristan’s vocabulary.

Tristan is beginning to ask me to sing about his Punty Paws by saying “Puh” in this really soft and cute voice.  I can’t resist that little “puh” so I end up singing quite a lot these days.  He will also say “whoooooooo” to prompt me!

Tristan has learned the word “flush” and knows to say “mommy” to request for me to flush the toilet.  However, he’s still REALLY scared of sitting on the toilet and won’t have it unless the insert thingie is present – and THAT will really suck if he learns to use a toilet but only with a very unportable plastic ring present.  He also was able to identify “mommy’s hair” and say it together without being prompted.  (He’s REALLY had a thing for my hair lately, to the point where he actually frolics ON my body in order to roll around in my hair, and he still can be prompted to request for me to take it down from a ponytail.)

I still need to compile a currentish reading list, but suffice to say that any word that Tristan understands and uses/says somewhat clearly is a word he can read.  I think he is very helped by the visual representation of language.  I don’t blame him – I’m the same way.

I am sure there is plenty more, but as this entry has taken three days to write, I will figure it out later!