It’s been almost a month since Tristan’s started his ABA therapy assessment and whatnot with Stepping Stones in our home. He’s learning a LOT of neat stuff related to play skills and communication.

If for any reason, you have a kiddo and you suspect a delay in communication or the like, get your ass in touch with your local variant of Early Start for an assessment…!!!

The “more” sign – Tristan picked up on the hand sign for the word “more” the first time it was modeled, but he only used it with regard to “more tickle.” He’s getting a lot better and even spontaneous in his offerings of the sign. James spent a lot of time practicing with Tristan when there was a breakthrough moment involving pepperoni. Tristan LOVES pepperoni. He also has proven that he either just craves spicy food or somehow doesn’t notice it. More on that later. Anyway, the sign. I can’t remember offhand all of the situations he’s generalizing it to, but food is a big one and peekaboo is as well.

Play skills – Tristan can stack EIGHT (8) of those putzy little wooden blocks up. That’s at least “up to speed” in that department. Actually, he has an awesome sense of how to balance things when he wants to. Hmm.. he can now roll cars properly and is somewhat interested in them when paired with a ramp toy. He’s learned how to use a Magna-Doodle toy, and prefers to use the magnetic stamps instead of doodling with the pen. He is learning to sit at his new table for activities for several minutes at a time (the chairs are a hazard when he thinks to carry them as a stepstool!).

It’s been really neat that he has taken to the therapists as complete strangers that came in to play. I feel like this whole experience will somehow give him quite a competitive edge in life, because he will be NO stranger to cute girls completely devoting their attention to him. That will probably give him a social edge should he decide he isn’t interested in girls later on as well. I think both he and I are starting to form preferences, but nobody has worried me or made me think they’d be bad for Tristan. I have also been more civil to my family since I am receiving regular breaks from stimulating Tristan in some way.

In, he’s been fairly pleasant and doing neat and/or crazy things…

* This kid loves the spicy food – that wasn’t news in general… but we all know of these, right? (complete with an array of adult vices and fire safety devices)

Yes. THESE fucking things. Tristan devoured, with NO drink available, half a bag of them. And do you know what happens to a child who devours half a bag of those?

You come upon the child first thing in the morning the next day. You see a bit of.. red stuff.. on the sheet. Then, you smell poo and know that the first thing on the agenda will be a diaper change. You get the toddler onto the table reluctantly and notice that his PANTS are also slightly.. reddish. This looks nothing like blood – it looks distinctly like watered down red food coloring. Can you guess what the inside of the diaper looks like in such a scenario?

Yep. Bright red pudding poo everywhere is what happens when your child eats half a bag of those damn Cheetos.

The good news is that if this ever happens to you and you don’t know how your baby will deal with eating such a noxious food, know that it will probably be ok. Half a ton of capsaicin doesn’t seem to hurt either the insides or the skin in contact with the diaper for however long he went between pooping and being taken out of the crib.

* And the LAST thing I wanted to mention is that Tristan is learning how to do neat stuff with the help of red light cues. By “neat stuff,” I mean playing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on a musical keyboard with the help of a lit key tutorial. I also mean that he’s been playing his age 2+ alphabet musical toy and able to spell words such as “jewelry,” “museum,” “zoo,” and a few others with similar blinking red light cues. It’s really impressive to see, even when you know that Tristan’s just good at following cues.

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.

So far, it’s turning out to be fun for adults and kids alike. We miss the community and how easy it was to walk out the door and see so many babies – but perhaps we will still have the opportunity to visit often. Once I find Tristan’s helmet, we’re off! Somehow I am more encouraged to try biking than driving.

Our first big issue in the new place is that there are four stairs leading down to from the living room to the office that Tristan thinks he’s able to walk down like an adult, but we know better. He went flying down them once, when James was on top and I was at the bottom; between us all, it was more like a butt-slide, thankfully. Now there’s a gate, and for a few days Tristan would gravitate toward that whenever he took off powerwalking. The problem is that if he slipped or slid, he could fall right under the gate. We’re not sure whether we will ultimately need to jury-rig something to physically make that more difficult or whether he will learn to properly respect stairs in some way. For now, we have enough shit in moving boxes strewn about so that we can slide a box in front of the gate to keep him even further from it. For now, he seems to get the idea to stay away from it – the jumping up and pulling him away that we have to do is decreasing.

He is ninja-gobbling dog and cat food, so we have to be on top of that whenever we see any that he can reach. For the most part, it’s ok if he gets a piece of the cat food; it’s tiny and easy to chew. The dog food’s bigger kibble, though, and likely a choking hazard. That being said, cat food is easy to place out of little ones’ (and dogs’) reach, but dog food needs to be policed so that the dog actually gets a chance to eat or drink.

Tristan’s getting good at pushing and pulling things around. He’s still also very much into opening and closing doors – mostly cabinet and closet doors lately.

I am most excited by the fact that Tristan’s getting very good at playing independently. He used to want me there all the time, and since he turned one he’s backing off a bit. Thankfully, he’s not SO independent that he resists being supervised.

He still seems to enjoy being carried in the Ergo, for as much as he can stand not walking on his own. He gets antsy in the stroller after more than one store trip worth of time.

He’s getting better at trying new finger foods, eating finger foods in general quickly, and spoon-feeding himself a few bites. The sippy cup is an on-again, off-again friend. He still wants to drink milk by the gallonful rather than eat a lot of solids.

Our little vampire now has two teeth that just poked their little heads out within these past couple of days. The bottom right, as expected, popped out slowly, but he’s also got the one to the right of where his middle teeth belong. There’s no sign of those yet, but the one on the left hand side of the middle teeth seems to be next.

Of course, we’ve had a very cranky little baby on our hands, but there are things we can do to make him feel better. Either because of the teething or because he’s just growing, he’s becoming somewhat resistant to sleep. We have a sort of guideline schedule – we know when to expect him to be sleepy, hungry, etc. based on the last time he slept, ate, etc. When it’s time for him to be sleepy, he displays his sleepiness with the fists rubbing the eyes and some yawning. But lately, when he tells us he’s sleepy and we put him in his bed, he plays for a bit, fusses for a bit, screams a bit, and then passes out about 45 minutes later. Putting him down for naps now takes 3 hours instead of the pre-teething 2 hours and a little bit of change for him to settle down.

However, he’s becoming better at independent play and entertaining himself. Either in the jumper or on the floor, he can amuse himself for a good hour before he gets sleepy/hungry/etc. It’s fun to come over and hang out with him, as opposed to not being able to go out of his sight. He’s got plenty of little toys and lots of household clutter to play with.

Tristan used to like having his diaper changed, but he screams nearly every time he’s put on the changing table these days. Most of the time he will cheer up by the time we get into it if he’s not hungry. However, teethy babies are cranky babies so we expect this. When he’s not being cranky on the changing table, he’s busy being a punkass. Last night he grabbed my elbow and put it in his mouth while on the table and appeared to keep doing it because I giggled. I’m not sure if I should reinforce the condoned gnawing on my arm, but it was really cute and hopefully a fun game for him.

We’re well into the second half of the first year now! We have the following going on:

Teething – Tristan’s starting to grow that other bottom tooth. He’s a bit crankypawed because of it, but is otherwise in good spirits. It hasn’t popped out yet, but we’re expecting that soon.

Bath time – Tristan learned how to splash yesterday, and that splashing is interesting. I think we might have to start bathing him in the big tub soon. His tub shares a bathroom with kitty litter, and that doesn’t like to be splashed. The kitties usually come visit and watch curiously. He’s also, as of the past couple of baths, realized that bath toys are interesting; that may be our fault that it’s just happening now, as we bathed him in the bathroom sinks until he got too grabby and big. We’ve bathed him in the big tub with me a few times, but that thusfar has required two people. Now that kiddo knows how to have fun, it might require just a person in the tub to have a splash fight with.

Food – We’re continuing to add to Tristan’s food repertoire. We’re still using baby foods instead of the stuff from the table, but we figure that he’ll get a better balanced diet that way (we are dieting). I also like the jars of baby food for the quick and dirty isolation of ingredients. He tried his first meat (beef) on 3/21 and he didn’t seem to care much for it. Then again, it smelled like dog food so it may just not have been pleasant for him. He ate it mixed with vegetables later on just fine. But we were thinking that he might become a hippie like me (I do eat meat, but I eat a lot of fake meat and whine about meat a lot). Anyway, the advice on when to feed baby how much of what is all contradictory so we’re trying to use the wing-it and decent common sense methods of queuing up new foods for him. He still drinks a lot of formula and prefers the bottle before his solids. Also, he technically can hold his bottle but doesn’t choose to until he’s done drinking from it, at which point he matter-of-factly removes it from my hands and acts like he’s going to drink it.

Travel – We’re still using the infant travel set, even though lifting the carrier portion to get it into the car while it contains a baby is damn hard. He still seems excited about being worn in a carrier, and usually wear him facing outward so he can see the world. We’ve been doing at least one walk daily around the park for the past few weeks, since the weather’s been getting nicer. I’m grateful that he doesn’t object to facing backward in the car seat.

Play – He’s first and foremost trying to crawl. He can sort of move backwards now. He’s taken a step forward a time or two. He can roll toward his target, and he can reach toward it, but the crawling is just not ready to happen yet. However, he can lie on the floor and relax now, entertaining himself with whatever’s around. It’s really neat to lie down next to the baby and just sprawl out! Otherwise, he’s been grabbing everything in sight, jumping for long periods of time in his jumper, and sitting with us on the couch. He’s fascinated with Samurai and giggles when the dog is near. He tries to pet all of the critters but he’s sort of inept at it.

And that’s how our baby is doing.