2 year developmental update

I kind of dreaded arriving at the terrible twos but now that we are here, I really don't mind it. Sure the tantrums are increasingly bad and it makes you want to scream at the top of your lungs too but if you remove that, raising a two year old is great!

SPEECH

I can't speak for all kids who arrive at two, but Tristan is a thrill to be around most of the time. He can speak in 4-5 word sentences now and has a good understanding of what we say to him in both English and French. He can pronounce a lot of words well and will attempt to pronounce almost anything you throw at him, even if it's not close. For instance, there is a Hawaiian fish called humuhumunukunukuapua'a (hoo-moo-hoo-moo-noo-koo-noo-koo-auhp-oo-ah-ah) but when he tries to copy, it's "hoo-moo-ah-ah." He understands basic concepts like hot/cold, big/small, happy/sad etc. He is learning how to be polite by saying please, thank-you, and excuse me. We find ourselves having to be what I consider overly polite, just to set a good example for him :) Most of the words he speaks are 1-2 syllables long.

Example of phrases he will say:

• Papa clean hands
• After eat, brush teeth (or take bath)
• Papa come home, hurry
• More please water
• Papa ride choo choo train
• Go up bus
• Dune (aka Tristan) take off Papa vest

CLOTHING

He is wearing anything from 18 months to 2 year old clothes. His ski outfit is 18 months and it fits perfectly, although the sleeves could even be an inch longer. Most of his clothes are 23 months to 2 years. He is starting to receive 3 year old clothes as gifts and they probably aren't overly big on him either. His shoe size is 6 or 7. We just bought him snow boots that are size 8 though.

FOOD & EATING

Tristan is not as picky as he was a few months ago. He is at the age where we can bribe him to eat his dinner before he will get any fruit for dessert. If we tell him one or two more spoons of food and then we can move on, he usually agrees and does it within a few minutes. He may not be happy about it but he does obey. He some times surprises us by eating a vegetable in his dish like watercress before eating the fish or chicken chunks, which are some of his favorites. Some times he eats everything we serve him and asks for more. He is definitely eating more these days than what he did last month. Maybe he is going through a growth spurt?

We allow Tristan some sweets, such as homemade sugar cookies (without icing), and he had a few bites of his birthday cake. When he ate it, he didn't ask for more than what we gave him. The taro cake also wasn't as sweet as your conventional birthday cake and there were real fruit on top as well. He hasn't tasted candy or chocolate yet. He is well fed so I don't think he feels like he is missing out on a lot :)

Tristan is only getting one bottle of milk a day now. We give him 220ml first thing in the morning. I think that sounds right for now since he also gets cheese and yogurt with some of his meals. We do paninis a lot, which always have cheese, and we have kefir pancakes twice a week or more. The oatmeal I make in the morning for him also has milk in it.

He doesn't make a big mess! We are thrilled about this progress :) We used to line the carpet with a garbage bag so that any food that landed on it wouldn't stain the carpet and it would be easier to clean up. We threw away that garbage bag over a month ago! Hooray! Tristan still drops food every now and then but most of the mess is in his lap or on the highchair. There have even been times where there were no mess at all!

BEHAVIOR

Tristan is very good at listening. Some times we have to train him a bit and then he catches on pretty quickly. We know he is trying to test us a lot so we are careful in what we allow or don't allow him to do. He tends to order us around but I think it's also because we tell him to do stuff all the time. We want him to be helpful and we need him to know that we are "the bosses." When he wouldn't get out of his chair to bring his finished milk bottle to the sink and wanted me to come and get it, I kept explaining to him that he could help by dropping it in the sink so that I could wash it for him. He didn't like that much and protested for a good 5-10 minutes. After a couple of days of this, he now automatically brings his bottle to the sink each time. He is teachable but some times it does take work and patience.

Tristan is very playful. He loves playing chase and he loves playing rough. He runs fast, climbs and jumps from almost anything. He does know his boundaries though and so far he hasn't hurt himself badly. It's nice that he is teachable :) We thought putting up the Christmas yesterday with all the glass ornaments on it would be a disaster but so far, Tristan has stayed away from it. If he does touch it, he knows to be gentle. Phew.

And then there are tantrums. They sometimes come from nowhere. Maybe we didn't let him do something he wanted to like jump off the counter. He knows he shouldn't but he just needs to pick a fight out of silly things so he can release his anger at us. Once the kicking, screaming, and tears are over, everything is forgotten and forgiven. Just like that. We get bad tantrums from him maybe 2 times a week. He protests a lot when we put a full bib on him (the ones with arms) before his meal, force brush his teeth after he has done it, and put him in the stroller when he wants to walk. It's just like that.

He makes funny faces all the time. I think he gets that one from me :) He also loves making funny noises. Some times making these noises hurts his throat and then he coughs. What a nut!



Making funny noises inside cup from Mommying Around on Vimeo.

POTTY TRAINING

We have been more relaxed in the potty training department because we don't want him to feel pressured. We also can't do it alone since daycare trains him differently. He seems more aware of his bladder now. He will tell us when he is peeing, but not before he pees. He tends to pee more often when I put him on the potty first thing in the morning now. Poos are still hit and miss. He usually tells us after he does it.

Here's a quick rundown of some of the good and bad right now.

GOOD:

• Sings/dances with you and then claps when it is done
• Eats well and is not as picky as before
• Is old enough to go play in the snow
• Can take to a selected number of family-friendly events and have a good time
• Has good understanding when we explain some things to him
• Has a much improved understanding of language overall and it's getting to be a joy to talk with him
• Likes to clean himself and doesn't like to have dirty hands
• Is very playful and has a wonderful laugh

BAD:

• He insists on doing everything on his own
• He throw tantrums out of frustration
• He's acquired this bad habit of letting saliva out of his mouth part way and then sucking it back up
• He protests when we brush his teeth
• Some times he clings to my legs when I am washing dishes, usually when he is sick of playing alone
• Doesn't listen to us as much as we would like