Tristan is turning into a little "us"

He started copying us awhile ago.

Besides the obvious which is that Tristan resembles both Jean-Louis and I, he is really starting to behave just like us. Here are a few examples why you would totally be able to tell that he is our son:

• We were at Toys R Us recently and there was a boy nearby holding a Lego toy. Tristan watched and then turned to him and told him "that Lego is not on sale." The boy ignored Tristan but then Tristan followed him around the store and kept telling him "but that Lego is NOT on sale." And we die of laughter.
• These days, a lot of the things I cook is new stuff. Every time I present cooked food or a drink to Jean-Louis, his first response is "is it vegan?" Now Tristan does the same thing when I present him food, "is it vegan?" Even when it clearly isn't like eggs. Ha!
• When Tristan saw me peeling off some fat off of my meat and putting it on the side of my plate for garbage, he told me I had to eat all of it or else I don't get any fruit after my meal. Yeah, but...oops.
• Tristan says he is working all the time. When we ask him who he works for, he says "Pete." I work for a guy named Pete. Tristan is like my office receptionist here. He'll pick up the phone and tell me "it's Pete." Yeah, so I guess he does work for Pete too :)
• Funny faces and noises! Tristan makes them all the time out of the blue. I'm pretty sure he either imitates me or gets it from my genes. I can be quite the goof that way - sorry. *blush*
• Tristan has playmobil toys and Lego toys. Some may be the same size and mixed together but he knows which is which. Now, Jean-Louis is quite anal about storing playmobil and Lego in their dedicated containers. One day, I was picking up some random toys and putting them in the closest container just to get them out of the way. Tristan quickly corrected me that I was packing toys in the wrong box! Oh. My bad.

I've hit the gym!

I went to the gym twice this week. Monday was my first time in probably 10 years. Ever since running a lot outside, I have had no need or interest in the gym at all. The main reason I am going now is that I have a groupon to use up for a gym in my neighborhood. However, I can only go use the machines there since they barely have any fitness classes that fit in my schedule. I hope to try one of their balance classes one day. It's a small club of just 200 members. So far, I have only used their stair master and treadmill. The added bonus to my trip to the gym is that I get to catch up on all my podcasts now. I have actually enjoyed listening to a lot of them and have learned a thing or two along the way :)

I'm also running outside still. Just twice a week. No, I'm not on boot camp. I probably should be though. The exercising has increased but the eating has not changed. I pretty much still eat chocolate or some kind of sweet baked food every day. I keep saying that the diet will start once the junk food is gone. The problem is we have A LOT of junk food at home. Good grief. We still have Halloween treats for crying out loud!

On top of my new gym routine this week, I have also been preoccupied with an idea lately. One minute I was thinking about starting a food blog and the next minute, I found myself brainstorming names and then buying a domain name for it. Shortly after that, I photoshopped a header for the homepage. It's a bit of an obsession really and I haven't even blogged yet! When the first post rolls out, I'll be sure to announce it here.

Work has been a bit busier this week as well and that always makes me happy. Every time I work, I feel so grateful afterwards knowing that I can work part time on such a flexible schedule. I don't work many hours but it's nice to receive even a small pay cheque every month :) Plus, I like what I do and with more success, I'll be able to contribute more hours. I'm counting on doing this long term when Tristan goes to school too. It would be great not to have to rely on before and after school care. I love spending a lot of time with him.

In ending this post, I leave you with a silly picture of Tristan pretending to walk on the moon. The living room is the moon and the cushion on the floor is the moon rock. Jean-Louis and I were preparing dinner last weekend when this happened. For your information, it was all Tristan's idea! :)

Pretend walking on the moon. Like his spacesuit?

Cupcake Math

Tristan singing Jingle Bell

Singing Jingle Bell from Mommying Around on Vimeo.

Daycare society barbecue

Our daycare society barbecue was suppose to take place last Friday but they had to reschedule it because of unpredictable weather. It turned out sunny that afternoon. This week, they decided to hold it regardless of the weather. Smart move! September weather is unpredictable in Vancouver. You have summer-like days and fall-like days and it will definitely include rain here and there. Delay barbecues any further and you will definitely be doing it in the rain.

It was overcast today with a few drizzles here and there. Besides this morning's rain, today was a good weather day. 18C is nice for this time of year.

There were hot dogs, various chips, pop, and juice. For activities, there were games and prizes. Most of the games were too advanced for Tristan but he played what he could. He collected two prizes: a bath toy boat and a little stuffed monkey. That's cool. We got home and accidentally found out that the little monkey was magnetic. The cute little monkey is now one super cool monkey! :)

There were a ton of people at the daycare barbecue. The place was packed with kids of all ages. There were pregnant moms, infants, older siblings, dads and at one point it felt a bit like a fair. There was too much stimulation for Tristan I think. This could partly explain why he was a bit rough with the other kids. He almost stepped on a kids hand on the slide, he tried to push away new kids that went on the slide and he closed the window of the play house outside on a girl's hand. It wasn't hard and no one got hurt but the gesture was just mean. One girl that got pushed, went to her mom and told on Tristan. The girl that got her finger crushed at the window cried a bit. What is up with Tristan tonight? The misbehaving and lousy mood did not end there. When it was milk time after his bath, he threw a fit for no reason at all. He wanted to climb in the chair in a particular way and when he couldn't do it himself, he had a fit. This is probably only about the second time he has ever acted like this.

All bad moods aside, we think that Tristan enjoyed being at the daycare barbecue. He enjoyed playing the games and the toys in the new room. I asked Jean-Louis and he thought it was lame but then again, it's him and he likes to give comments like that :) It was too bad we didn't really see any other kids and parents we knew. The society has over 80 kids but not all of them attend socials. Even most of the staff there was unfamiliar. This was definitely not what I had in mind. I actually thought we could talk to some of the parents in Tristan's toddler room. It was our first daycare social so now we will know what to expect for next time!

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!

Lil' guy dancing to Indian music

Tristan went from play cooking to dancing with his pots and pans when his favorite song from the Devdas soundtrack started to play. After he fell over, he cried so that was a good point to trim the video :)

Cineplex Stars and Strollers Movie

Stars and Strollers is a program for parents to take their babies with them while they watch a movie. Cineplex arranges for a baby friendly environment with dimmed lights and lowered volume and plays a choice of 2 movies a week. Show times and movies vary depending on the theater.

We went to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince today at Silvercity Riverport in Richmond. It was one of the closest theater to us that had the Stars and Strollers program. Harry Potter was playing the week of July 24-30 and at that theater, it was showing at 1PM on Thursday. It was a movie we didn't mind seeing and we had to use our Cineplex admit one vouchers before they expired at the end of the month. Yeah, we just had to wait until the last minute again! Jean-Louis took one of his vacation days and we went to see the movie.

The movie itself was alright. If you are a Harry Potter fan, you would probably enjoy it. If you are familiar with Harry Potter, you are also aware that the movie contain scenes that could be frightening for small children. For this reason, I didn't really think it was an appropriate film to bring Tristan to. But we had to use the tickets we had and I wanted to experience "Stars and Stroller."

So our experience went something like this. Good, ok, bad, embarrassing bad, ok, good. We arrived a little late since we ran out of gas and had to take a detour to fill up. We weren't the only ones late - big surprise. As we approached the room, we saw a change table with diapers, wipes, and creams all laid out outside. Aww, how nice. There were also about a dozen strollers parked outside too. Hmmm. Don't think I would trust leaving my Bugaboo stroller outside unsupervised. In fact, we noticed some people actually pushed their strollers into the room.

So, the first mistake we made was to sit where we always sit when we go to a movie: smack center. When we sat down, everything was rosy. Tristan was curious staring at the big screen. The preview trailers were playing and I noticed right away that the sound was loud. If they lowered the volume, it wasn't by much at all! The other thing we noticed was that the room was very dark still. I brought solid food for Tristan, thinking the room would be a bit brighter. It wasn't as dark as a normal theater because I noticed the lights along the walls were still on. Jean-Louis disagrees and believes there was no change in the lighting.

When the loud noises came from the trailers, Tristan was scared. You know it was the noise since other babies around you were starting to scream and cry at the same time. They played the trailer for Sherlock Holmes. Again, not baby friendly. I tried to shield Tristan's ear. 10 minutes after sitting down, we actually had to use the pacifier on him. It helped but then he wouldn't let go of it and started to play with it. Then it fell on the dirty floor and we couldn't just give it back to him. We decided to feed him his milk from a bottle. I had defrosted some breastmilk for him the night before. That went well but then when the milk was gone, he started to fuss again. When we gave him a toy, he would throw it on the floor, one by one. Tristan has always been a "toy dropper!" I soon realized there is no way you can remain clean in such a public place. I was scared to give him anymore toys after that since he loves to drop and throw things. I had a nasty vision of him chucking a toy at the people sitting below us. I know the theater was filled with mostly parents and babies but you can only be so forgiving, right?

The embarrassing bad moment took place maybe 30 or 45 minutes into the movie. The pacifier didn't work and he was just throwing a fit. And he was the only baby this time throwing a fit so he was loud and clear. Finally, Jean-Louis got up with Tristan and left. Sitting in the center only made us stand out like an even sorer thumb. The two of them ended up hanging out in the hall of the theater and watched the movie there. Jean-Louis said people were laughing at him but I wasn't there. I was still sitting in my seat. After awhile, I left too. We both watched from the side for awhile and then took seats at the very front row where there was no one around. Yeah, the view sucked big time but at least we had some privacy. We sat at the very end of the row this time and it was brighter near the front too. I fed Tristan some solid food. When he started to fuss again, we headed back to the side of the theater. There were 4 or 5 other parents there with their babies too. So, we were not alone :)

Things were already better since we moved to the very front of the theater. I rocked him to sleep on the side and then sat back down in my seat. He sleep for maybe 30 minutes and things were great. When he woke up, the movie was done. Hooray! Now, don't ask me too much about what the movie was about. I was only focused on Tristan and caught bits and pieces of the movie.

To sum up, it was an interesting experience. Babies all around were crying on and off but it wasn't too disturbing and knowing this, we were more relaxed about bringing Tristan along. I think it really helped just knowing this. Would we do it again? Maybe with a very small infant since they sleep well through almost anything. If we had a well behaved baby that was older, maybe we would too but I would only go see an animation or comedy. Tristan is normally well behaved but has been a pain in the butt this week because of the very hot weather and he's lacking so much sleep. Sleep makes such a HUGE difference in his mood.