22 months developmental update

Tristan is 22 months old today. I haven't done developmental updates for awhile so I thought I would this time around. In no particular order, here are the updates.

A big boy but still baby-like:

In many ways, Tristan is such a big boy. He is speaking more and more every week and learning to potty. He goes up and down the stairs on his own now. He is a little daredevil and sometimes like to slide or jump down the stairs . He just likes to climb and jump off things, period. In the past several months, he sure has matured a lot. This is why I am sometimes surprised, he can still be so baby-like. Making funny faces or noises still makes him laugh hysterically. Baby entertainment still amuses him. If he gets upset either because one of us won't let him do something and he gets yelled at, he cries for the other parent. He runs around making funny noises. He's a monkey. He's a goof. All these things still remind me that he is still very much a baby.

Music and stories:

He can't make up his mind. What music does he want to hear? He'll first say "Daisy do" (aka Daisy Daisy or Bicycle built for two) and then once you play it, he says "no" and sign and make monkey noises. Now, he wants to listen to "Five little monkeys." Start playing that and he will say "Daisy do" etc. He has been doing this a lot! This week, he seems to be more interested in "Ashes, ashes... down!" (aka Ring around the Rosie).

Speaking of music, he likes to sing and read but since he doesn't know the words, he just mumble jumbles and hums the tune. There was this one hum he was doing for awhile and I had not idea what the music was. He repeatedly did it so I figured it was something he heard at daycare. The end part sounded like "dive jive... nanana." It was sort of driving me crazy trying to figure out what the song was. Then one day, he repeated it after I sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." The verse he was singing was "Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky." The tune was the same, the lyrics - not so much!

He recounts stories or things that happen days or weeks ago. When he hears about it or when he is at the location that it happened in. For example, I sprayed some lemon pedge on a big spider to chase it away by the fireplace. Tristan watched this from the couch and now won't stop recounting the story. Go near the fireplace or mention spider and he will go on and on about how mommy sprayed the spider :)

Speech:

He speaks like us. He would say something that is partly in English, partly in French and partly in Chinese. That's our fault. Instead of just sticking to one language we tend to speak a bit of everything. For myself, I focus on English but will say some things in Chinese. When I know that Tristan only knows how to identify something in French, I may say it in French. I'm not consistent and it may be screwing him up. Jean-Louis sort of does this too. He sneaks in Chinese here and there but he can't even say it properly.

Potty Training:

We're in full swing here with Tristan's potty training. It's a lot harder than I expected and is taking quite some time. Part of the problem I think is that we're not consistent with him because when he is in daycare three days a week, they don't put him on the potty a lot. Some days he will only sit on the potty once while he is there. Often it's 2 or 3 times. When Tristan is home with me, he is on the potty at least 7 times and we sit for 5 to 10 minutes each time. We sit longer if he tells me he needs to poo beforehand.

It's been hit and miss but lately there has been a lot of misses. It's getting to the point where I'm so frustrated some times that I actually get mad and want to go on strike. Maybe we're too hard on him and it's backfiring or maybe he's not ready after all. Sometimes I find myself waiting all day for a poop so I can try to catch it and when I miss and it's the only one of the day, I get so angry. It's terrible! I need to chill out :(

It's crazy how missed potty trips can make me so upset. At the same time, I find myself overjoyed when we have a successful potty trip. Like this morning when Tristan told me he had to "caca" (aka poo), I dropped everything I was doing, rushed him upstairs, and we sat and played with the etch-n-sketch for less than 5 minutes when he had a big poop in the potty. He cheered first and then I cheered. It was awesome! Gross but awesome :)

Sleep:

We are lucky. Tristan is a great sleeper. He had always slept a few hours less than average babies but when he does sleep, he sleeps well. He is sleeping more now than he did when he was less than a year old. We figure it's a growth spurt.

Tristan moved into his own room over a month ago and it was almost as though nothing changed. We also moved right next door to him. We're pretty much the same distance away, except that a wall separates us now. The first few days, he would wake up crying, just like the way he would wake up from an afternoon nap. That was the only difference I noticed. Now, he wakes up calling "mama" or "baba." When we step into the room, he signs and says "all done." Yup, he is all done sleeping!

Food:

Tristan is little Mr. Picky. I already spoke about his little picky attitude when he eats so I won't do that again here. The past few months, we have been more lenient with him about what he gets to eat. I remember when he first started the toddler room at daycare, I gave the staff there a small list of things he could eat from their snack list. I'm sure they all thought I was a high maintenance mom. He wasn't allowed any perogies, pizza, baked fries, sauces etc. They would only give him Shreddies, plain whole wheat toast (no butter - nothing), bagel and plain cream cheese, plain yogurt, veggies, and fruit. Now, he is having whole wheat toast with butter, some perogies, cheese pizza and if they accidently give him something like flavored yogurt, I would not flip out :) See! I'm not so uptight anymore :) This is sort of what I call gradual transition into the world of adult food. In the past month, he has even had bites of homemade bakes!

Teething:

Tristan has 10 teeth, including one molar at the bottom. He's got 3 more on its way. We can clearly see two more molars and another tooth at the top that is partly out already. I think the teething can be blamed for some of his crankiness lately.

Getting smart:

Tristan knows that he is not allowed to bring his big toys into the kitchen. He has a toy vacuum that he likes to push around. We tell him carpet-yes, kitchen floor-no. He repeats this and understands. The other day, Jean-Louis told me that he took the vacuum into the kitchen but he was lifting it above the ground. He told Jean-Louis he was lifting it and he walked into the kitchen. As long as the vacuum didn't touch the floor, it should be allowed, right? Nice try buddy.

He is very teachable now. He seems to know what his boundaries are with me and what they are with his dad. Around me he doesn't climb the chairs in the dining room and yank things off the table. With his dad, he does. Why? Because Jean-Louis let him do it a few times.