What it is like to raise a multilingual toddler

I speak English and a little bit of Chinese and French. I speak mainly English with Tristan. Jean-Louis speaks French and English and speaks only English with me and only French with Tristan. Tristan is 26 months old and is learning more and more language every day. His language consists mainly of English, some French, the odd Chinese and is accompanied by baby sign.

They say only the parents understand what their child is saying when they start to speak. It's not until around age 3 that they can be understood by other people. I can understand Tristan more than Jean-Louis since I am with him more. Some times neither of us can understand him. We would be asking each other "what did he say?" When Tristan speaks, he may be speaking with a mix of languages in his short sentences. We would then wonder if he is speaking English and just pronouncing it wrong or is he speaking French and pronouncing it wrong. Some times when we don't understand, he tries to say it differently and ends up saying the same word in both English and French. Ah ha! For instance, one day I was peeling eggs in the kitchen and Tristan was on the couch saying something like Tristan eat oeuf but he didn't pronounce "oeuf" right so he kept saying it. I asked you want to eat what? When he saw my confusion and I still didn't acknowledge him with an okay, he said "egg."

In fact, we have many examples of confusion over what Tristan is trying to say. The other day when I put Tristan in his stroller, he said big boosette. I repeated big boots? He said no and then kept repeating big boosette. Then it dawned on me that he was saying big poussette, where poussette is French for stroller. There are some sentences he will say which will be composed of English, French, and Chinese. Yeah, if we're having problems some times, an outsider would have no chance!

Tristan knows his construction vehicles in French since the books are in French. He also knows some of his insects in French. I'm learning these myself! He knows some of the English equivalents too but he refers to most of them in French. For everything else, it just depends. He may say it in French one time and then the next time he will say it in English. Or he may say it in French and English at the same time. Also, Tristan now knows how to curse in English (damn it) and French (zut). Watch out!

I would like to take advantage of this language spurt by teaching Tristan more Chinese words. He's interested in learning so why not, right? Sadly, I don't speak much anymore but if he knows some words, he will be able to understand my parents more. Although Tristan speaks mainly English, I would say his understanding of both English and French is probably the same. Here are some of the phrases he would say now:

• Today, prend le skytrain again.
• Papa prend le bus go working.
• Tristan cry. Tristan miss daddy.
  
• Tristan prend un bain. Papa prend un douche. Tristan grand, Tristan prend un douche.
• Mama cook. Papa do dishes.
• Coco at home. Eat du pain. (Coco is Tristan's friend at daycare)
• Tristan eat nouille. Coupe nouille.
  
• Papa carry petit Tristan. Mama owie arm.
  
• Peoples get on, peoples get off chou chou train.
  
• Tristan wear veste. Tristan put on gant.
• Hand main dirty. Mommy clean.
• Maman, what you doing?
• Mama happy Tristan eat all.
• Tristan wait mama downstairs.
  
• Banana muffin no caca.
  
• Caca in potty, not in couche.
  
• Doggie no eat Tristan.
• When Tristan grand, drive to Mexico.
• When Papa small, Tristan put vaseline on Papa.
• When big, Tristan drink coffee, go work, prend le cars.
• Carrot go home eat.
• Tristan wear pajama to sleep.
• Tristan wake up, Tristan play play-dough.
  

Baby sign: "girl, hurt, crying"

Ah! Smart toddlers.

No, we're not bragging about Tristan again. Today, we had a playdate with a toddler who is way more advanced than Tristan. He is only four months older!

Every parent loves to hear that their child is advanced and smart. We're no different. We some times hear that Tristan is smart from the daycare staff and since Tristan seems to be learning 3 languages and does baby sign, we always thought he was smarter than average babies around his age. Until today. Once you meet another child that is way more advanced than your own, you begin to question your own child's intelligence. Ok, so Tristan may just be average now.

So who is this wise child friend of ours? He is definitely smarter than most kids his age. As far as I know, he has always been smart. He was playing the Towers of Hanoi at a young age, for crying out loud. Ok, Tristan started to walk at an earlier age and can sign but this kid started to talk way younger. Now at just 26 months, he can say four syllable words like helicopter and motorcycle perfectly! He speaks two languages and can assemble puzzles designed for 3-6 year olds. Incredible. Tristan can sign airplane and make airplane noises :(

I know. It's silly to compare kids so young because some my appear more advanced than others but it may not mean anything. Although I'm pretty sure my wise friend's child will be brilliant and will have a bright future :) I once read that a child could start speaking before another but then could catch up and start forming sentences before the first child that was initially more advanced. All children are different, even within the same family. As parents, we just can't help but compare our child with others. Today, I found myself doing this a lot more than I would have liked. Now, I understand how parents can be so competitive with their children. If you have watched the Joy Luck Club, you'll know exactly what I mean. Oh boy!

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.

Our toddler loves toy-size vehicles

Tristan may not always look like a boy but he plays like one. Okay to be fair, girls can act like this too. Tristan loves to play with cars and trains. He signs train, car, bus, airplane, and bike. He can say bus but only signs and makes motor noises with the rest. Well, he calls a bike "dooy." Not sure why but he just does :) I know Tristan played with dolls a bit at daycare, which I thought was cool but he definitely has a preference for vehicles and things that involve interaction and music.

Tristan's favorite toy size vehicles are found at the playground and at the mall. He loves being in them so much that it is always a challenge to peel him off when it's time to go. He becomes territorial too and if he sees others approaching it, he gets upset. Toddlers! :)



What is better than playing with miniature toy cars, trains, buses, and airplanes? Actually, riding in a toy size car, train, bus, and airplane! I say toy size because when Tristan is in the real thing, he is not really aware he is in the real thing and because it isn't as colorful as the toy version, he isn't as amused. As an observer, he is always excited to look at and hear the real thing though.

The development stage we have been waiting for

For myself and I think I can speak for Jean-Louis as well, life became more enjoyable with our toddler when he started to recognize and call us mama and dada. This didn't really start to happen until about a month ago. I remember people used to tell us how wonderful it was to have their child call them mama or dada when their child first sees them. Not only does Tristan call us by mama and dada, he also runs to greet us with a hug and some times a kiss. This was one of the moments I have been waiting for.

In the past month or so, it seemed like Tristan's vocabulary and understanding had exploded. As a result, he is such a joy to be around. He tries to repeat what we say, even though he can't pronounce it perfectly. At the same time, we are still learning more new signs and he is picking them up quickly. He would sign and try to say the word at the same time.

Playing with him is more fun. He would draw on his etch-and-sketch and then he would sign squirrel. He shows it to me, then if daddy is around, he would run to show it to daddy and tell him that he just drew a squirrel. Then he would do the same thing again, with fish :) After that, he would go back to squirrel and so forth. Yes, he loves to brag and show off!

Here is his drawing of a squirrel (or squirrels? - you decide!) :)



Tristan has enough language to tell us what he wants most of the time. For instance, if he wants to eat bread because he heard one of us say it, he would sign bread and then say pain (French for bread). If he is hungry, he would sign it. When he had a stomach flu, I didn't feed him much and all day long he would sign hungry to me. It was sad to see really :( This next one I really like. When he is stuck or can't do something, he will sign help and say elp or up because he can't pronounce it properly. He can also understand what we are telling him. For instance, when I am about to take his picture, I point and tell him to go over there so I can take his picture. Some times he will do exactly what I say and turn towards me. Then I tell him to say cheese and he says tease. These are just a few examples.

I imagine it could be very frustrating for the baby and parent if there wasn't any communication. The baby wants to tell the parent something but the parent can't understand and can only make guesses. We were like that until Tristan started to sign back at us at 9 months. That's not to say we still don't wonder what he is trying to tell us some times. He is 19 months now and we are so thankful we learned baby sign. It's fun to do and we even sing and sign to the song, "The Wheels on the Bus." We started singing this song about 2 weeks ago and now Tristan even knows the song. Well, he can't sing it but he knows what the next verse is and kind of prompts us with the sign before it comes on. As a parent, I find it so remarkable!

It's not all red roses though. Is that the saying? Well, he is a toddler and he does throw tantrums and some times he'll do it for no apparent reason. He can also create a huge menace if you let him and he often won't listen to your "no's" anymore. However, I like to think that most of the time he is a sweet and fun toddler :) Throughout the day, we give each other kisses and hugs. Some times when I would put my face near his face, he would lean over and kiss me. Just like that. I think when your child starts to show this sort of affection towards you, it is the most wonderful feeling. It makes parenting all the worth while. It is as though he is finally able to return our love. If it hasn't happened to you yet, wait for it. It's just amazing :)

Thursday and Friday at home with Tristan

This month Tristan started part time daycare. He had been full time up until now. Because of our trip to France, today was actually my first day at home with him. He woke up at the unusual time of 5:45AM and needless to say, my day felt really long. He did nap for a good 1 hour 20 minutes straight though. I used that time to eat lunch, clean up our lunch mess, and finish my last blog post about our trip to France. It was awesome :)

When the weather improved, I took Tristan outside. He needed a change in scenery. We both did. We walked to a nearby park after picking up my niece and we played for awhile in the playground. Then we were back home. The outing killed a couple of hours but it still felt really long.

I think overall it went pretty well. We spent some time going down the stairs for training. Tristan can go down unassisted if you talk to him and remind him to use the wall and basically coach him along the way. He can't be trusted though because a couple of times he just dove head first down. So bad. Tristan also sat on the potty more today and we sang a song together using sign language. I figure if I can't get work done with him here, I mind as well focus my energy on teaching him and spending quality time with him while he is still somewhat of a baby.

The day just felt long and a lot of work because it has been awhile since I have done this. He hasn't been sick at home since the end of March I think. Also, I fed him super messy food today and cleanup was no fun. I will definitely have to go out more because we will definitely drive each other nuts if we stay home all day. With it being summer and all, I no longer have any excuses. Time to get my butt out and get some exercise too!

Tristan is finally talking (sort of)!

At 18 months, Tristan can finally refer to each of us by "mama" or "dada" or "papa." He points to us and he calls us quite often :) Last month, when we were at our Mother's day brunch on Grouse, Jean-Louis mentioned that when I left my seat to get more food, Tristan was calling "mama" after me. I still thought it was random back then since he was never consistent enough to show that he really understood what "mama" was.

I have heard of other babies who started talking earlier than Tristan and the Babycenter newsletters I receive gives me the impression that Tristan is a little late at talking compared to many other babies. I have also heard of late talkers, including Albert Einstein who didn't speak until he was 3 years old. I was never too worried about when Tristan was going to talk because we sign with him and I knew he would be a bit late since we speak two, sometimes three languages to him. Right now, as far as I can tell, he can only say a few words in English. I am not paying attention to the French side and Jean-Louis can't recall any time Tristan spoke French with him. That makes sense since I speak to Tristan mostly in English and so does daycare.

Here is what he can say with full comprehension (however, the pronunciation is not perfect):

• mama
• dada (or papa)
• hi
• bye
• ball
• squirrel
• over there
• done

At the moment, these words are questionable:

• fish
• downstairs
• door
• what's that?

Video of 17 month old signing

We've been meaning to capture a signing video for awhile but either it wasn't a good time or we didn't have a video camera nearby. It would be so awesome for Tristan to look back one day and see how smart he was before he started speaking to us :)

Last night we finally took a video of him signing. It's nothing new since he has been signing since he was 9 months old. Tristan is usually hyper after his dinner and will jump on the couch and play with his toys while we clean up. If you want to capture him being a goof or doing something entertaining, that would be the time to do it. When he grabbed for the Baby Einstein color book and sat down, Jean-Louis turned on his iPhone. And here we have it! Unfortunately, the original resolution is lost since Blogger automatically resizes it down so I had to manually resize it up again :(

Baby loves his Karen Katz collection of books

My sister gave us the Karen Katz collection of books and our little guy loves them. We used to read the books to him when he was a newborn. The graphics are bright and colorful and the pages have easy to lift flaps (well, most are easy to lift). When he was old enough to turn the pages, we gave him one to interact with. We only gave him one because at the time, he would just rip out the flaps. He was at that stage where he just liked to tear things apart for the fun of it :) As he got older and when we felt that it was safe to do so, we gave him more Karen Katz books to read. So far, only one flap has gone missing :)

Now, at 16 months old, he has a much better understanding of what is in the books. Actually, he had a good understanding a few months ago. He would look in the "Toes, Ears, & Nose!" book and start pointing at those things on his own body. His favorite book at the moment is "What does baby say?" Why? Because he likes to imitate the cranky and sad baby! He does the cry sign with one finger. He strokes it down his eye. It's just a sign he learned less than a month ago. Lately, when he hears other babies or kids crying, he signs cry with a sad face. It's cute but also a bit disturbing since that is his favorite page in the book.

Spring time in Vancouver

Sometimes you forget how beautiful Vancouver is until the cherry blossoms take over the city. To me, it's the first sign of Spring. This year, Spring pretty much arrived the beginning of February. It was unusually warm this winter and a bit embarrassing for the city since we were hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics. Vancouver had to haul in snow from hundreds of miles away and then the standing area for spectators was closed on Cypress because it was too dangerous to stand on. Now, that the Olympics are over, I want the rest of the snow to melt so that we can clear the mountains and plan for some hiking trips :)

It's getting warmer and lighter outside each day. Right now the temperature is hovering around a high of 9C. To me, that is still fairly cold so I still dress myself and Tristan in winter coats. I have cold urticaria and I break out in hives quite easily. Tristan already gets sick a lot and I don't want him to be cold. Ok, I know I'm also paranoid.

I love the side streets where all the trees blossom. It's so pretty. Once they blossom, they don't stay lovely very long before the rain and wind washes them on the ground. On our walk to and from daycare every day, we pass by some of these cherry blossom filled streets. We point at the trees and sign flower to Tristan. We take lots of pictures because we always have a camera with us now, thanks to the iPhone :) With a bit of sunshine or overcast skies, Spring time in Vancouver is stunning!

A little chef in the making

The first thing Tristan does in the morning when we enter the living room is go straight to the kitchen to get his wooden spoon. He knows the exact place to find it in the drawer and then he goes and opens the drawer on the opposite side where the pots are. He opens the lids and places them on the carpet and then starts to stir in the pots with his wooden spoon. For the past couple of weeks, this has been his morning routine while I fetch his milk in the kitchen. If you give him enough time, he will then start to collect small toys from the living room so he can throw them in the pot. It was hilarious that he chose the "Egg" alphabet block :)



Prior to being obsessed with play cooking, he was obsessed with cleaning. By the way, cooking and cleaning are two of his most used signs when communicating with us. Anything that resembles a cloth, such as a bib or t-shirt, he will take and squat on the floor and start wiping away. It was funny at first but then it just started to annoy us. We hang wet cloths to dry over our chairs and he would take those and start wiping the carpet. We have a wash cloth for his face and a bigger cloth for cleaning his tray. Now we have to hang those elsewhere so he can't steal them. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of options of where to put them so most of the time it ends up back over the chairs. Needless to say, there has been a lot of yelling "NO" and running after him to snatch away the cloths. Tristan loves to clean the floor, the chairs, the tables - basically anything he has seen us clean before. Luckily, he has a new obsession with cooking so he doesn't have as much time to clean anymore :)

Those who know me, know that I love cooking. Seeing Tristan take an interest in cooking and cleaning makes me happy and excited about the near future. He will be mommy's little kitchen helper! When he is a little more able, I will get him a little chef's hat and apron to match. I can see us baking madelines, chocolate cakes, tarts, truffles, nanaimo bars, brownies etc. I will also teach him how to cook and we will grocery shop together so he will learn about the ingredients and how to choose them. I know, I'm getting ahead of myself :) There is so much to teach since I make all sorts of food. We mostly dine on Asian food like Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian, but I also cook lots of French, Italian, Greek, Hawaiian and everything else in between. My dad was raised to cook and he shares cooking with my mom. They are both great cooks. I want Tristan to be a great cook too :)

Still waiting for that first word

I received a monthly newsletter from Babycenter and it mentioned that at 14 months, my baby may only know a few words such as ball, dog, and bye. It also said that some early talkers may know up to 20 words. 20 words! Wow! Ok, Tristan is definitely behind since he hasn't even spoken his first word yet. Jean-Louis was a late talker and I hear that bilingual children tend to be late talkers as well. Einstein apparently didn't talk until he was 3 years old so I'm not too worried yet. Also, I noticed that most of the babies at daycare who are older than Tristan don't seem to be speaking either. Some of them are 17 or 18 months old and only know a few words too.

Over the past week or so, Tristan has definitely been more vocal. He has been making a lot of sounds, mostly babbles. Some of the babbles are repeated but nothing he is trying to use to communicate with. Seems like he is just experimenting with sounds because they sound neat. Because of this, we feel like his first real word will come any day now! It will be so much fun to talk to him. Luckily, he can sign to us as an alternate way of communication. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be not to be able to communicate with someone?

Baby sign is a must-teach for all parents

Our baby loves to sign to us. He can't stop doing it and I'm thinking when he starts to talk, there will be no stopping him either :) When I stroll him to daycare, he will sign things that he sees. He points at the bus first and then he signs train. Yeah, I can see how the different kinds of vehicles can be hard to distinguish for babies. We'll walk a bit further and then he sees a small boy coming towards us and he'll sign baby. Instead of cradling and rocking, he puts his hands together and rocks. You can see this in the first photo here to the left. He sees the baby in the book so he signs baby :) He loves to sign baby! We arrive at daycare and babies are everywhere so he signs baby all the time.

At home, when he hears water noises outside or on the stereo, he signs rain. We're in Vancouver so most of the time it is rain but some times it's a plane or thunder noises on the stereo. When we read a book with drawings of wolves in it, he will sign dog. There are definitely some confusions but most of the time he is correct when he signs. We just love that he is signing and learning so much! He understands way more than he can sign. Right now, his only way of communicating with us is through sign language. We're still waiting for his first word!

These signs he had already been doing from the last post on baby signing:

• more (also used for "I want it")
  
• milk
• ball
• clean
• bed (sleep is harder so he signs bed when he is tired)

Here are some of the new ones since then:

• baby
• train
• dog
• fish
• bird
• rain
• hat
  
• down, downstairs
  
• eat, food
• book
• cooking
• bath
  

He is learning these and have used them a couple of times:

• danger
• hurt
• banana
• hug
• music
• outside
  
• light
• cold
  
• toothbrush

He can also identify these body parts on his body when we ask where they are:

• nose
• mouth
• ear
• feet
• hand
• head
• (sometimes eye)

The following is a list of ones we're teaching him but he hasn't sign any back yet. Some of them we have been doing since we started, when he was just 6 months old.

• Mommy, Daddy
• Grandma, Grandpa
• friend
  
• diaper
• dirty
• water
• drinking
• home
• hear
• see
• all done
• hot
  
• car
• monkey
• bear
• tiger
• horse
  
• cat
• tree
• wait
• quiet
• come here
• up
  
• sun
• snow
• work
• toy
• hooray
• playing
• red, blue, yellow, green, orange, white
  
• apple
• girl, boy
• kiss
• walking
• spider
• dancing
• bread
• sit
• thank you
• potty

Finally, to end this post, I would like to share a small video of Tristan signing taken a week ago. I would have preferred to place this video above but moving it seems a little hard right now in blogger so I'll just leave it at the bottom. In this video clip, Jean-Louis asks him what is outside, he looks, sees the bird, then signs it. Jean-Louis only speaks French to Tristan so if you don't understand, you will have to take my word for it :) Tristan is bilingual though and can sign bird in English too. Just thought I'd add that :)

Baby can't talk but he can sign some

We are still waiting for Tristan's first true word. He babbles right now and noises such as mama, dada, and a bunch of others come out but he doesn't know what any of them mean. Apparently, Jean-Louis was a late talker but I don't know about myself.

We started to sign to the baby when he turned six months and we still are but two months ago we sort have slowed down. Now that he is 1 year old and beginning to understand more, we're trying to sign more again. A lot of time we just forget to do it. It has been over six months now and I think he is making a lot of progress in the signing department. Here are the signs he has been consistently doing for us with an understanding of what they mean:

• more
• milk
• ball
• clean
• bed (sleep is harder so he signs bed when he is tired)

These are the questionable signs:

• sun
• book
• eat or food

Signs we did not teach him but he is coming up with himself:

• self (he pats himself with his hand)
• diaper change please (he touches or squeezes his diaper from underneath)
• smelly (we all fan away the stinky smell by our nose)

He also sort of understands some of the words we say even though he cannot repeat them himself. Here are some that I have noticed:

• doggie
• train
• water
• pillow
• "give to Mommy"
• music
• no (to some degree)
  

So far so good! It's definitely nice to have him communicate with us even before he can speak. Our favorite is when he can tell us he is tired or when he wants his milk :)

Baby is starting to sign back at us at 9 months

Yes, I think I can say this now. It was questionable about a month ago but now we're seeing repeated hand signs from Tristan during feeding. At this point, he may not fully understand what it means or could simply be imitating us. However, our baby sign book explains that that is how it can all start.

Tristan does the sign "more" by bringing his hands together and tapping all his fingers. Sometimes he appears to do the sign for "milk" too. That one is a little questionable though. It's exciting though because he can't speak much at all right now. We haven't even heard him say "dada" or "mama." If he can sign to us and communicate with us that way, then that would definitely make up for it. I'm imagining the day when he has a poop and then signs to us so that we know he is done and needs to be changed. Yeah right! Now, wouldn't that be nice :)

Development progress at 9 months

This month has been a busy month for Tristan. He crawls and stands up now. His new found skills made it hard for him to fall asleep on his own during nap time. That was certainly stressful for all of us. It's still a bit of an issue now. Sleep is like a roller coaster. There are days where he would just fall asleep within 3-5 minutes and then there are days where he would cat nap.

Now that he can move, he is always on the move. He opens doors if they are left crack open. He can turn pages on books. He loves to rip paper. He hates it when we tried to contain him in the exersaucer or jumperoo or play pen. He will only stay in those for maybe 5 minutes and then he will start fussing. It annoys the hell out of Jean-Louis because he has to watch him constantly. He's like "why don't you just sit still for a change?" If I were a baby, I would be crawling and touching everything too. He is curious and he finally has the ability to explore the world.

We find ourselves using the word and baby sign "NO" a lot these days. We're trying to teach Tristan what is off limits but I read it is bad to use "NO" all the time because babies will not take it seriously. "NO" should be reserved for just the extreme cases. Ah, there are just too many rules. We probably shouldn't yell either but we are beginning to do that too. It's hard not to do these things because it comes natural to us in these circumstances. On a related note, Jean-Louis is starting to swear more and I always tell him not to and that he should get in the habit of avoiding it now. We don't want Tristan's first word to be a "bad" word!

I'm still breastfeeding 3 times a day and Tristan eats 3 times a day. We have introduced finger foods like bread, cheese, and bananas to him and he is getting very good at eating on his own. We no longer introduce new foods for 3 days at a time, unless it is something we believe he may be allergic to. If we already introduced something in the squash family, all other new squashes are probably okay so we don't bother with the 3 day rule. Neither of us have allergies to foods and we eat everything so chances are Tristan should be okay too. Tristan only drinks water and breastmilk. During his meals, we like to cover all the food groups. We try not to feed him too much bread or things which have all sorts of added flavor. Basically, we are trying to make his diet as healthy as possible. We're also feeding him more chunky food so that he learns to eat that instead of relying on us to puree all his food. He has 2 bottom teeth now so maybe he can use them when he eats :)

Tristan can't speak yet. He can't even say "dada" or "mama." He grunts a lot, squeals, and laughs with his mouth open and head arched backwards :) Jean-Louis thinks that Tristan might have signed the word "milk" last night but it is hard to say. It is similar to the action of grabbing food on his tray so maybe he was just trying to do that. Again, hard to say. I'm looking forward to the day he says "mama" :) I was actually worried that he grunted too much but apparently, the grunting is normal.

Finally, I should mention that Tristan cries when most strangers hold him. At least with the people he is not familiar with. We went to Victoria this week and he cried whenever my mom or dad held him. He was still doing it a bit when we left too. He did get a chance to bond with them a little. My mom can finally make Tristan smile so that was nice to see. It was a relief really because she was working very hard at entertaining and then boom! A smile :)

Babies that learn baby sign are smarter

We heard that you can teach babies sign language at 6 months of age. It appears that you can start even earlier. We want to communicate with Tristan better so here we go. He loves it when we move and use body language so this should be fun for him. Since we started, he seems very interested when we sign to him. This is work and learning on our part but we hope that it will pay off and we will be able to understand each other better.

This is now day two of using sign language to Tristan. We bought the baby sign book at Babies R Us but it's also available at Amazon for a better price! It's very easy to use and it's more than enough to keep you learning and teaching for awhile. We are starting with about 10 words which we are constantly using with him. These signs include Mommy, Daddy, milk, eat, toy, sleep, look, boy, red etc. We don't want to teach too much at a time. He has to get used to just a few first. The idea is to sign as often as possible. It feels a bit awkward at first and it certainly takes getting used to. It's a bit challenging too because you need your arms and hands to do it and we are always waiting for him to look at us first.