Tristan's favorite books

We have lots of books for Tristan. Among his favorites are Curious George, Thomas the Tank Engine, The Octonauts, his French vehicles books such as La tractopelle d'Axel. A year ago, Tristan loved the Karen Katz books.

We read to Tristan a lot. We basically either play or read for entertainment since we don't allow him to watch many videos, movies or play with the iPhone/iPad too much. Some times we read to him too much or at least it feels that way. When I say too much I mean for 3 hours or more a day. He loves books but when it gets too much for us, we actually have to tell him "no." Mommy needs a break from reading. Sorry babe.

Since Tristan loves reading so much, we some times use it against him if he misbehaves. We normally read to him every evening before he sleeps. If he is very bad, we simply don't read to him at night. We're so cruel, eh? When we tell him no because he was bad, he does get sad but he gets over it. It kind of breaks my heart though:(

Here are some of Tristan's favorite stories:

• Curious George and the Dump Truck
• Thomas the Train: Go Train Go
• Thomas the Train: Stop Train Stop
• Thomas the Train: The Crack in the Track
• Thomas the Train: Blue Train Green Train
• Le bus de Marius
• La tractopelle d'Axel
• Baba Yaga the Flying Witch

I think it's great that Tristan loves to read. He loves being read to but he is starting to copy us and he is trying to read back. For instance, we read so many of the same stories over and over again that he actually knows what is going to happen so he tries to read back from memory. Because some of the pages have just a few words on them, sometimes it does appear that he is reading straight from the page! We're impressed but then again, we have only read everything a gazillion times.

Jean-Louis is somewhat of a bookworm so if Tristan turns into one, we'll know where he got that from. It's cute watching the two guys read together. Jean-Louis would read and Tristan would sometimes repeat what Jean-Louis says line for line until the end of the story. He's going to be a dorky child when he grows up! I love it :)

Baby's 1st year iPhoto books

I love taking pictures. I always have. Now, that I have a baby, I take a lot of pictures. I was actually taking pictures daily until the baby was about 10 months old. Since then, I take pictures about every week. When it came time to putting together a baby book, it was a huge task. I only wanted to do the baby's first year book but I had 1603 good pictures flagged for that. It turns out that iPhoto books can only include 100 pages max so we were in a bit of trouble. It took me hours at night over days and weeks to put Tristan's first year photo book together. I ended up trimming it down to three books: Volume 1, 2, and 3. That's 300 pages and exactly 960 pictures inside. Phew!

When it came time to order them, I was a bit hesitant. I wanted to get two of each, one copy for us and one for my parents-in-law. Then I realized how much they would cost. Each book would cost over $100 so 6 books would be something like $650 with the taxes and shipping costs. I looked into other options such as shutterfly.com and artscow.com but they are expensive too and I trust the quality of iPhoto since we have ordered from them in the past. I just wished Apple would have more printing specials :( So since we were not in a hurry to get our copy, we decided to just order one of each. If we ordered them together we would only save around $18 worth of shipping but considering how much we were already paying, we weren't interested in the savings. By ordering just a copy of each, we were actually able to translate the books into French so that was nice. The three books, 11x8.5 inches hardcover came to a whopping $351.54. Yikes!

A week after ordering, the books all arrived today at the same time in separate packing. Apple really should get a cart system working so that we can include multiple print purchases in the same shipment. It would avoid the separate shipping costs too. Come on Apple!



The books are nice. I wouldn't have expected anything less. Some of the pictures look a bit dim but I suppose it's not fair to compare them to what I see on my bright iMac. I think my parents-in-law are going to love them! Now, that the first year book is done, I have to do the "after" first year books. Oh boy! Time to procrastinate 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.