We’ve been very bad about recording the neat things Tristan’s been doing. Bad us!

* Tristan waves “Hi!” now. It’s still an emerging skill. He started it last week after some practice in the mirror and he’s done it at least once per day since. But YAY! Tristan’s waving!

* The alphabet obsession has been really fun. He still gets quite a kick out of phonics. Also, the label for letters and numbers seems to be changing again. Sometimes he still exclaims “H!” but this week it’s been “L” – which is quite an interesting sound considering his age and general vocalizing ability. Numbers seem to all be “8″ lately. But he’s babbled such lovely letter combinations as “AOL” and “LOL” and probably “HELL.”

* Over this past week, Tristan’s been rather interested in and focused on his “educational” videos. He really finds the Baby Einstein puppet skits to be amusing and he really enjoys seeing the word demonstrations. But he actually wants to watch a few of the videos in a row now, and this sort of frees me up to.. do stuff around the house a little bit. Just a little bit.

* We’ve successfully restructured his sleep schedule so that his nap is only 2 hours long, but it’s likely that this will require further restructuring. He’s going down for a nap at 5pm and starting to protest even that.. but there’s not much further time in the day for a nap! Ideally, he’d be napping from 1-2pm or something, but that’s unlikely with a) the way he protests sleep unless he’s incapacitated and b) the quite booked therapy schedule that would require a lot of work to restructure. Anyway, it’s likely that we’ll need to schedule a lack of nap instead of an appropriate nap. Unless we build the nap out and then need to build one back in.. blah.

* I’m not sure how many words Tristan has, but he’s starting to imitate some words now! He’ll try to say the word “wave” and “oval” and countless others that he now recognizes. Language! Wheeee!

* We’ve switched to a large quantity of stroller rides for both transportation and time-killing. The sling isn’t the most practical mode of baby transport anymore, although it’s still both very useful and very snuggly. Thankfully, Tristan’s stroller behavior has improved to the point where I can even.. (whispers) leave.. the.. stroller.. still.. for JUST a moment (back in normal voice) without risking him trying to overturn the stroller.

* And we have a party to plan for someone’s second birthday, and his dad’s 30th!

Tristan pooped in the bath today. It was the very first time. I was hoping he’d make it to age 2 without pooping in the bath, but today was that day. It’s also really freaky when you see and smell poop, but you didn’t see it happen.. and you KNOW you may have looked away for three seconds.. And if he ate it, thankfully he was REALLY stealthy because I saw no evidence of such.

Also, we’re working on Nap Restructuring again. Tristan decided that he wasn’t taking a nap the day before yesterday. For a kid who normally takes a 3 hour nap, this is significantly odd. However, most of us are of the opinion that since he’s about 2 now, he can really use more sleep overnight and less sleep midday. Following his natural rhythm is not so easy anymore with his full schedule, so we have to artificially shape it a bit. We tried yesterday – I put him down an hour late for nap and we woke him up after 2.5 hours, meaning to put him down half an hour earlier, but we failed at the earlier part.

* We got our schedule for June. It is considerably different but is comprised of just about as much time. I’m trying to get more time tacked onto the end of playgroup because we’ve consistently had to scurry out of there to beat the *insert various expletives* traffic lights on Tasman Drive. Noon is corporate hell lunch time, and we live smack in the middle of the high tech version of corporate hell. Anyway, the important thing about the June schedule (and the “what’s different”) is that Tristan will be attending the Shining Stars center three days per week. This is a preschool of sorts. I will certainly elaborate on it when I get to know it! Also, I think there’s a possibility of seeing a park or other families again outside of the playgroup…

* Sleep is back to normal..ish. It’s much improved and I am Learning Some Shit. We started him on probiotics to help keep his digestive system from giving him so much trouble if that is what it has been. (Remind me that we all need to start fish oil soon!) We’ve also been experimenting with Tristan’s naptime. He does like to go down by about 3:30pm whether he admits it or not, so that’s what I’ll aim for. I also learned between yesterday and today that there is a lot of environmental noise that wakes him up (like people revving motorcycles or honking at the drive-thru next door) that was easy for me to hear as well from the garage, and that he really doesn’t want me hanging around trying to soothe him to sleep because sometimes the crying is part of the process. I knew that about the crying from when he was very young, but somehow I get caught up between the stress of him crying and thinking he will benefit from being soothed.

* We went to Bounce-a-Rama today. Those bastards keep raising the prices. They also keep changing the policies about parental play with their kids, but they didn’t give me any trouble when I joined Tristan this time. I don’t think Tristan is yet ready to play with other children in a bouncer while he doesn’t have a ninja parent, family member, or friend available to either make sure he doesn’t get his back broken by being trampled upon, he doesn’t splatter the shit out of a smaller kid accidentally, or he doesn’t provoke an older kid into a fight with his shoving/touching behavior. Besides, we tend to do the attendants’ jobs of making sure the kids in the structure aren’t being little assholes to each other, so they tend to shut the hell up. Anyway, Tristan really loves the bouncy structure that they toss about 20 balls of different sizes into. This is an “all-ages” bouncer – not that it matters, because the older kids tend to storm the toddler section while toddlers are in it, so what’s the point of having a “safe” place where the babies can go without a clinging parent? Oi. Anyway, Tristan likes hanging out with the older kids and the 20 balls. He also likes the little toddler slide, and he takes turns with other children very nicely on it. However, he also likes to sort of walk off the edge of the slide and tumble down. All in all, both of us got some much needed exercise.

On Monday, we started Tristan’s evaluation/ABA sessions. On Thursday (right now), I finally managed to get around to writing. So far I’ve spent five minutes writing and erasing everything. Not a good start so far!

Anyway, they are going fine. We’ve met all five of the therapists.

I have to interrupt this to mention that I can’t look at the word “therapist” without giggling.

Five ladies, all seeming to be in the mid 20s-early 30s age range. All of them seem nice and all of them are positive and caring with Tristan. Of course, since ABA relies on positive reinforcement, I’m glad to see positivity! A big bin of toys and materials for observation, play, testing, teaching is present in Tristan’s room, which has been designated as the therapy area since it’s about the only place he can be corralled.

I feel very bad for Tristan being stuck in this little bedroom of his for three hours a day of his awake time. He’s taking it well, though. I think. He’s been a bit tantrummy but also a bit sick – that level of having a cold that is just short of calling off work/school. Like many males (sexism!), Tristan likes his snuggles and not a whole lot of conflict when he’s not feeling well.

Tristan’s teachers/therapists come in very quickly, in rapid succession, one relieving the other in many cases. Food has to be sneaked in, because there’s actually no time for him to eat in many cases. He’s not supposed to be idly munching during the sessions – that’s a bit distracting. He hasn’t been taught to eat his meals quickly or with purpose and he might need to learn that out of necessity.

I sat in on the first two days of sessions and James sat in on the first session. The time went very quickly for me; I was watching someone else play in a directed manner with my baby. This is what I’ve wanted for so long – someone ELSE to focus on him, engage him. I’m one of those freaks who likes to see my baby bond with other people so long as he doesn’t decide to replace me or something, so I really enjoyed it when Tristan finally became comfortable enough with his new friends to let me leave the room without screaming. In general, we can sit in on/watch/even record with permission these sessions but it defeats the point if we participate more than requested to, so by Wednesday we were out of Tristan’s “work” area. Actually, we had a meeting with the supervisor of the program on Wednesday so the first day of our nonparticipation was required.

I had something rare happen yesterday during Tristan’s second session – I got housework done! Of course, he came bursting out of his room hungry while I was in the middle of said housework, making me go from idly cleaning stuff up to having to collect a few things frantically.

Tristan himself has been making progress. Since Monday, he has:
* shown that he can make the sign for the word “more” at least with regard to being tickled
* learned to roll toy cars back and forth
* been making more attempts to communicate his choices for desired foods
* been impressing everyone with how much eye contact he does make and how much of a cute little baby ninja he is
* not taking his damn naps! more on that later

(there’s one more thing I’m forgetting, but that is the liability of not writing immediately!)

We went out to Thamien Park yesterday afternoon at around 2:30pm – we’re getting to the point where I slip in park trips that technically cut into his nap time. The park was fairly dead since most normal babies are asleep at that time or something. One other family was there – two little boys, older one was 3 and younger one was 2. The 3 year old wandered around chasing Tristan and being chased by him – they both loved it! It was so sad when the grandma of the 3 year old called him off, but I went to make friends with them later. Turns out that the 2 year old, who spent some time next to Tristan in the swings, is also autistic. I learned this after I complimented the kids’ mom (pushing the 2 year old while 3 year old was off with grandma) because the 3 year old was so good with Tristan. Turns out he has had practice! The family had to leave around then, but I gave them contact information and hope to run into them again.

So.. naps. We’ve been having all of this nap trouble lately. We’ve been racking our brains to figure out What. The. Fuck,. Child? So far, we’ve come up with:
* he probably wakes up because his stomach hurts – when he farts he tends to calm down
* he may just be waking up from an excess of environmental noise
* he may also be waking up screaming because he needs less sleep, though he tends to wake up happy when he’s had enough sleep
* teething again? There are still a set of molars to go and we don’t even HAVE any Tylenol until they figure out that clusterfuck with the recalls

I should note that for the most part, he sleeps through the NIGHT with minimal interruptions. There are times when he wakes up screaming, but he can be calmed down quickly or will actually calm himself down quickly still. He does not calm himself down from the naptime screaming anymore. I don’t know if that’s because he’s in pain or because we taught him that screaming during your nap gets you comfort. He seems to be in true pain of some sort during the naptime awakenings until he lets out a huge fart and then relaxes enough to be held. He actually will push my hands off of him while he’s having the episode, and he wants to be touched any and every other time, ESPECIALLY when he’s just fussy.

We’ve been trying various things, such as:
* putting him down later/earlier for bedtime
* putting him down later for naptime – earlier is no longer an option as his schedule extends until 3
* making extra special sure he’s fed/beveraged enough to last through a nap
* attending to him quickly before he’s exceptionally worked up
* giving him time to settle back down before going to him
* giving appropriate medications to known situations: Tylenol (before recall), Mylicon, and now our new favorite, Benadryl —

WE ARE LUCKY! Our kid does NOT go all hyper and unable to sleep on Benadryl! We started giving it Monday night to help him with the symptoms of this cold. We figured that 20 months isn’t so far off from 24 and we know the proper dosages. Anyway, I believe we have Liquid Airplane Insurance on hand should that ever become an issue. We should discuss whether we should try a dosage prior to his nap today and see if he sleeps through it.

But he won’t go back to the nap after being soothed through these episodes anymore for me as of this week. He’s taking 1.5 hour naps instead of the solid 3 hours he used to take. I also think part of this is that he will need substitution for the exercise he’s missing while indoors for his sessions. I’m sure 20 months is also in the midst of a predictable sleep regression according to the toddler literature, so none of this should even be surprising to us.

Anyway, therapy is going well/fine/good/great etc. and his midday sleep could use some improvement.. in case you didn’t much get through all of that.

This morning, James and I scrambled to get everything cleaned up before Julie with Early Start came to visit to discuss some of what’s going to happen next. I have pretty shitty listening comprehension, so I honestly have no clue other than soon we’re going to be experiencing 3 hours a day of therapy (well, education, as they put it) that’s to start in May or something to that extent. Some of it will be targeted toward Tristan and some toward us. Either James will write about it or I will clarify when I have a copy of the report on hand. Anyway, short form is that our lives are lives are indeed going to CHANGE. I have hopes that we can keep some semblance of normal life with a buddy rather than be stuck in school ALL of the damn time or something.

Anyway, no point in lending anxiety to that now. There will be plenty of time to mull over it.

We went to the Children’s Discovery Museum afterward – it’s another shitty day, all weeping from the sky but too cold to enjoy being out in. I had a lot of fun with Tristan. He’s getting really good at the stairs in the toddler room – he can officially walk up AND down them by himself while holding the rail. This is a major improvement over the last time we went – he very much felt on the verge but not yet ready. That being said, now that he’s mastered the stairs, he didn’t insist on going up and down them twelve thousand times. Even more astounding and possibly useful is that I got him to sit in my lap through a story time. I had to use a snack and the gentle back stroking trick, but he lasted through the entire book and Q&A session afterward. I dare say that I’m ready to try taking him to a reading event of some sort again.

Unfortunately, we’re not having a good track record with napping. He woke up screaming every time I’ve tried to type this entry, as per usual procedure. He’s still sleeping for approximately the same amount of time, but I am beginning to feel like I’m not permitted to type here. Seriously, EVERY TIME I TRY he wakes and starts screaming. So if my entries seem scattered or distracted lately, it is because I am forced to spit it out quickly.

* First of all: all of you fuckers and the “Wear Blue for World Autism Awareness Day” shit:

…we’ve been WELL AWARE of autism EVERY DAY since February 25, 2010. But thanks for suggesting I think about autism today! I was hoping I could forget about it for just a little bit, because I’ve got a long time to be aware of autism..

Sigh.

* Tristan is beginning to be interested in the pushing and pulling of the popcorn popper toy. Actually, he’d prefer we do it for him – he straight out requests help by bringing the item and putting one of our hands onto it. For some reason, he has trouble keeping the thing level enough on the ground to roll it back and forth, but he recognizes how it should go. This reminds me how he also doesn’t roll cars and carlike toys around, also kind of odd for his age. And he has plenty of opportunity and carlike toys.

* He walked up next to Daddy last night while he was washing dishes and very clearly said “up.” It’s no secret that Tristan loves the water and wanted his paws in there. I was so pleased to hear a verbal request in perfect context that I jumped up and lifted him so he could put those paws into the water, even though it’s technically a bad idea to get him used to interrupting dishes.

* We got him a shitload (figuratively; have to touch it to eat it) of Play-Doh. He loves to put the lid onto the canisters and have me help remove it.. but he doesn’t want to touch the clay. By “doesn’t want to touch,” I mean that I put it into his hands many times and he dropped it like a hot potato. We shall see, though. I figured it would be a nice tactile experience for him but it might just weird him out for now. Just remember – this kid used to not particularly notice bubbles, and now he babbles about bubbles in the bath.

* James has been working with Tristan on teaching him new stuff, specifically communication skills and items on the autism questionnaires. We’ve had some success teaching him (or letting him figure out) general problem solving skills.

* Not long ago, I wrote about how Tristan had two modes of diaper change: “cooperative” and “fuck that, you ain’t getting near me with a 10 foot pole.” He has decided to split the middle and start each one by screaming and protesting with the thrashing wet noodle body. However, he tends to calm down and be somewhat playful by the end. I’ve stopped mostly protesting his protests and have just started putting him on the table despite them.

* Tristan has been mostly sleeping well but he’s been going down to sleep poorly. To work with that, I decided to stop entertaining him while he is in his crib. I think what happens is that I tend to put him down, tickle and bounce him for 10 minutes, and then he’s pissed about me deciding to leave. It’s hard to reinforce behavior behind a closed door, especially when the end goal is sleep – can’t go in there and praise him for not screaming. We shall see how this turns out!

* Since two of my closer mommy friends went back to work this past month or so (and one of them is now across the COUNTRY as well), I’ve been feeling out of odds socially. Well, moreso than usual. I’ve been among my usual group of casual mommy acquaintances but I sort of feel “extra” around them now. And irrelevant. I suspect that they have just gotten to know each other better since I don’t communicate well enough to keep on par, so it stings just a little to hear them all making plans where I know we’re not invited. So I will have to decide whether I want to just suck it up and deal with it or find new casual mommy acquaintances. If it were All About Tristan here, well.. it doesn’t matter! Tristan doesn’t seem to even care whether familiar (or any) kids are around as long as we do fun things with him. I don’t especially want to teach that people are expendable but it seems to be the case! Wait.. why fight the notion that if your friends don’t work out, you move on? Sigh. Still looking to get to know geeky parents better, still terribly sucking at dashing out emails or phone calls about small talk and plans.